Saturday, July 23, 2005

Worst Use of Woody Guthrie

The Smithsonian is gearing up a exhibit on fences in American history. According to my inside sources, the exhibit is going to be pretty rah-rah- mostly about how fences have made America the great nation it is, and little on the long debate over fencing, illustrated in old folk songs like "Don't Fence Me In".

Perhaps the most egregious part of the exhibit though is a section that uses a recording of Woody Guthrie singing "This Land is My Land" to extoll the virtues of private property. According to one of the display builders, the song is edited so that we only hear the chorus, and are supposed to assume that Guthrie was supporting private property, in spite of the fact that the song has exactly the opposite meaning of the one suggested. It's a song against making land into private property.

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