Woody Guthrie wrote this song on February 23, 1940. The next year we would finally enter a war against fascism - after a period of “America First”. We ignored the plight of our European brothers and sisters for years. Nations fell. Millions were exterminated. But we finally joined the fight when WE were attacked.
We had to be attacked by the Japanese. We had to feel the pain ourselves. And here we go. Embracing an “America First” agenda again - that will lead to the suffering and deaths of thousands if not millions of people. We have already cut off aid to starving children and people dependant on HIV drugs for survival. Cut them off. Sentenced them to death.
MAGA ain’t “Christian”. It ain’t putting America first. It IS abandoning our friends and embracing our enemies. It IS cruelty to average Americans.
MAGA IS HATE. MAGA IS FASCISM.
How much pain will we have to suffer this time before we defeat the Fascists?
On September 11. 2001 we were attacked. Almost all of the world’s leaders, most countries came to our aid. Europe was there for us. She was there for us even as we began foolish wars. And now, at a time when Europe needs the US more than any time since WWII, we are embracing her enemy. We are traitors to our ancestors. We are traitors to my parents who fought to liberate a continent from monsters. We are now about to give the brutal monsters a big hug. WTF?
MAGA is the betrayal of our centuries long friends. MAGA is embracing a nation that KILLS its political opponents. Speak out against Putin and prepare to rot to death in Siberia, be thrown out an apartment window, or be poisoned. If you were a real threat to Putin - like Navalny, if poisoning didn't work, THEN you would be killed in a far away Siberian death camp. Sounds like a leader we should be chummy with…right?
MAGA is the antithesis of the Founders goals and guiding principles.
There is legitimate criticism that Guthrie’s song is “often recognized as a patriotic anthem, Native Americans argue that the song plays into America's continual erasure of Indigenous peoples in culture”.
I get that. The European invasion of the Americas and the slaughter and extermination that followed is real. If I were a descendant of the “Indigenous people” of America, why wouldn’t I have resentment built into my DNA? It was a genocide.
But very sadly, that’s what humans have done since we climbed out of the trees. Every nation is a creation. Geography carved up and assigned new names by the most powerful. Humans have been doing it in the Middle East, Poland and Ukraine for centuries. Eons.
But for all its faults, all its awful mistakes, “this land” - America has been the best country to have ever existed. Until January 20, 2025.
For historical perspective, Woody Guthrie’s song was born just after the Great Depression. This film about it was also born in 1940. This very short clip leapt into my mind when I thought about that era.
MAGA is a warped by hate and vomit inducing insanity. There must be a brain worm epidemic. Or something in the water. More lead than we thought? Microplastics? What would explain why so many otherwise “nice” people are applauding the destruction of a democracy and the embrace of one of the most evil leaders in human history? What?
MAGA is NOT for this land… or for you and me. They are not patriots or “Christians”. They are for themselves - only. MAGA is for selfish haters. And MAGA is TREASON.
Bonus experience if you are into Dylan:
Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (Live at Town Hall, New York, NY - April 1963 - Official Audio).
Bill, as always you speak truth and really tell it like it is.
I couldn't agree more, Bill: MAGA is all about hate, revenge, and cruelty. It's about racism and xenophobia. How so-called Christians can support these policies... I will never understand.