Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has sponsored a bill that would prohibit members of the Chinese Communist Party owning farmland in America.
The Kansas City Star reported Monday, that Nora Guthrie does not mind politicians using the song as long as it is in line with its values. And Josh Hawley, who wants to stop Woody’s Communists buying American farmland, decidedly doesn’t align with those values. Nora Guthrie blasted, “The co-opting or parodying the lyrics by those not aligned. Misrepresentation by autocrats and racists, white nationists, anti labor, insurrectionists etc. — is not to be condoned. We don’t consider Josh Hawley to be representative of Woody’s values, therefore we wouldn’t endorse or approve his references to Woody’s lyrics.”
This is just virtue-signaling. Titles can’t be copiedrighted so Nora cannot stop Hawley using it. However, she can now show her fellow Leftists she is not happy, at all times and under all circumstances.
It is useful to remember what the “values” of “This Land Is Your Land?” really are. Although the lyrics of the most popular version can be misinterpreted as a declaration to love for this country (which it often is), Hawley likely chose a name that was familiar with the song. It’s also a pleading for atheism, communism, and other ideas. NPR published a story about the song in 2012 to commemorate the centenary of Guthrie’s birth. It noted that some people considered it a Marxist response “God Bless America”
Woody Guthrie once stated that signing up for the Communist Party was the best thing he did in 1936. NPR claims that Guthrie was also “irritated” by Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”, sung by Kate Smith. This song was a constant radio hit in the 1930s. He was so annoyed that he wrote this song to retort. At first, he called it “God Blessed America For Me”, before changing it to “This Land Is Your Land.” Guthrie’s original lyrics are open Marxist agitprop.
I was stopped by a high wall.
The sign, which was painted with the words “Private Property,” said it.
It didn’t even say anything on the back.
This land was created for you and I.
A bright, sunny morning under the steeple.
I was able to see my family through the relief office.
They stood starving.
I stood there, wondering if God had blessed America for my sake.
Nora Guthrie claims that Woody didn’t record the lyrics because of evil anti-Communists. “This is in the early ’50s and McCarthy’s out there and it was considered dangerous to record such material. Yet, she has now become as censorious and savage as the people she hates.
The Kansas City Star reached out to Hawley’s office inquiring about Nora Guthrie’s fury and received a wonderful reply from Abigail Marone, Hawley’s spokeswoman: “The Kansas City Star has become the epicenter of journalism. Josh’s bill protects America’s food chain, farmers and national security — that’s what The Star should cover.” However, protecting America is not a top priority for Marxists and their propaganda arm, the establishment media. Therefore it’s understandable that The Star would rather focus on Woody Guthrie’s daughter than the substance of Hawley’s bill.
The irony is just too good to be true. Woody Guthrie was so pro Soviet that, when Stalin’s Soviet Union signed a pact to National Socialist Germany in Aug 1939, Woody followed the party line and began writing antiwar songs about how terrible it would be for the United States of America to go to war against Hitler. He didn’t want America to use its military might against a state with which the Workers’ Paradise had a nonaggression agreement. What was Nora Guthrie saying about “insurrectionists?” She might hope that we have forgotten her father’s fanatical Stalinism. We have all at least tried.
