Happy Birthday to Woody Guthrie, the original folk hero, born July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma, who through the 30s and 40s rode the rails and blasted the bosses and spoke his radical, eloquent mind. He left behind three wives, eight children and perhaps a thousand timeless songs, like "This Land Is Your Land". He was a major influence on other music legends including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Like me, he was a socialist Okie from Oklahoma.
The Inauguration ceremonies got off to a great start today with the "We Are One" concert celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The Gay Rev. Gene Robinson gave the invocation. The concert featured performances by Bruce Springsteen, U2 and a bunch of others, but the highlight, for me, was when Peter Seeger and Bruce Springsteen led the 400,000 crowd in Woody Guthrie's THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, the working class national anthem, including the rarely performed verses about the poor people at the "relief office" and the sign that said "private property, but on the other side it didn't say nothin', guess that side was made for you and me.."
Yes, a (former?) Communist (Pete Seeger) performed a song written by a Communist (Woody Guthrie) at the Obama Inauguration ceremony!
Many people on the gay blogs are angry over Robinson's invocation not being shown on HBO (or any other network apparently), and some are blaming Obama. Folks, Obama had NOTHING to do with this. Do you really think he has the time to be micro-managing this event?? It may not be HBO's fault either, since they were to begin broadcasting at a set time, and for some reason, Robinson's invocation was scheduled about 10 minutes BEFORE the event officially started.. I don't know, but please. The LGBT community must STOP getting angry over things like this... I think we have more important issues to get worked up about!
This was a screw-up by whoever was putting this event together, but I doubt that it was a plot by Obama or HBO against gay people!
Here's a video of Rev. Gene Robinson's Invocation at (before?) the We Are One concert:
I'm an atheist, and prefer that religion be kept OUT of public civil events, but I find nothing offensive in Robinson's prayer, it is a very inclusive "humanist" invocation, one which should be given on Tuesday in place of Rick Warren's Inaugural invocation. Too bad few people heard or saw it, not even Obama!
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