In July of this year, Woody Guthrie would have been a 100. I didn’t know that until I read this early tribute by Jim Hightower.
“Guthrie unabashedly celebrated America's working class, seeing in it the commitment to the common good that lifts America up. He drove The Powers That Be crazy (a pretty short ride for many of them back then, just as it is today). So they branded him a unionist, socialist, communist and all sorts of other "ists" — but he withered them with humor that got people laughing at them: "I ain't a communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life." Going down those "ribbons of highway" that he extolled in "This Land Is Your Land," Guthrie found that the only real hope of fairness and justice was in the people themselves: "When you bum around for a year or two and look at all the folks that's down and out, busted, disgusted (but can still be trusted), you wish that somehow or other they could ... pitch in and build this country back up again." He concluded, "There is just one way to save yourself, and that's to get together and work and fight for everybody." And, indeed, that's exactly what grassroots people are doing all across our country today. From Occupy Wall Street to the ongoing Wisconsin uprising, from battles against the Keystone XL Pipeline to the successful local and state campaigns to repeal the Supreme Court's atrocious Citizens United edict, people are adding their own verses to Woody's musical refrain: "I ain't a-gonna be treated this a-way." Where's Woody when we need him? He's right there, inside each of us.” (Clickhere for more)
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The secret word is Highway
