VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE –
FOREVER – For many years this song was taught as an anthem in American schools as a patriotic song, ‘this land was made for you and me’.
I believe it was actually written as a patriotic song because Woody Guthrie genuinely loved his country.
He just didn’t like the greed of the billionaires, the social inequality in the towns, cities and abject poverty of the farmsteads of America in the 1930’s and 40’s and the exploitation of people who happened to be alive during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era.
Woody became the voice of the exploited and oppressed human beings of the day and actively fought against segregation and ‘Jim Crow’ laws which were being enacted, to varying degrees, across the USA at the time.
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Rest in peace. A true American hero and an inspiration to us all. I hope. Love and peace.
