Woody Guthrie – This Machine Kills Fascists! Why have that sign?

Posted on by Opher

woody-guthrie

Woody Guthrie had a sign that he stuck or painted on his guitars. It read:

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.

Woody was an extremely clever man. He knew you didn’t wipe out fascism by bombing, shooting or legislating.

War and violence creates hatred and fear. For every fascist killed two more are spawned. It is self-defeating. It is the cycle we are seeing in the Middle East – in Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan……..

Fascism is born of desperation and ignorance. It is born out of hopelessness. People look for black and white, simple answers, to complex problems. They elect fascists to sort the problems. They turn to fascism to give them hope.

They are mistaken.

Woody recognised this. The answer to fascism, racism, and religious fanaticism in the long term is not violence, it is education – it is through song and intelligence.

I’m all for the death of fascism. I play my music, write my books, write my poems and write my blog. I protest.

 

59 thoughts on “Woody Guthrie – This Machine Kills Fascists! Why have that sign?”

    1. I hope the USA comes through all this and things settle down. I hope things settle down here too. The aggression and hatred is not pleasant. I can’t help thinking that the terrorists are winning. They have created this whole chaotic mess by spawning fear and hatred.

  2. Didn’t you vote for Blair?
    Didn’t that vote go some way towards support for all this?

    1. Yes I did vote for Blair and Blair did a lot of good things. The economy was great, public services were sorted and inner cities were greatly improved.
      Blair was a watered down Tory but he was better than the Tories. I was heartily glad to see the back of the disasters of Thatcher and Major.
      Blair’s big mistake was to go in with Bush and support the war. But I did not support that. The Tories did though and so did the Lib Dems. Parliament was unified if you remember.
      I don’t think war is the answer. War is rarely the answer. So don’t accuse me of supporting what has happened in the Middle East, ISIS and the rest of that shit.

      1. So, by wiping away all the other irrelevant conjecture, therefore, you did vote for the people that caused all this.
        I wouldn’t say parliament was entirely unified, no. It very much wasn’t actually.
        But you still voted for him again for the 2nd term, despite all this and perhaps the 3rd too?

        I’m not too sure if you’re memory is serving you well here.
        We went into a lot of debt – we had a false economy that wiped a lot off your pension of today.
        Our public services changed not a jot.
        Our cities were improved by the Tories. It was they who cleaned all our black with coal smoke buildings.
        It was they who bought new livery for our rail networks – or forced the private companies running some stretches to do so.

      2. Ha ha Andrew you are funny. Don’t you read what I say? If you simplistically think Labour caused this you are joking.
        Go and vote for Cruella and Trump. You seem to hero worship them.

  3. No, it’s your hyper hypocrisy that’s a bit of an issue.
    I don’t indulge myself in hypocrisy.
    You say one thing one minute and different the next without actually realising it.
    You can’t have it both ways or simply chose to ignore extremely important issues for the sake of carrying a party membership card.
    At least without lying to yourself.

    1. No issue with me Andrew. I say what I think and believe – simple. I sometimes change my mind but not that often. Apart from you misinterpreting or twisting things round I’m pretty consistent.
      You just like winding up and being cantankerous and making out that you know everything from superior sources. At the end of the day you have a view and I have a view and it is never black and white.
      Sometimes you talk absolute bollocks.

      1. I think I’ve proved that I know about some stuff that had obviously never occurred to yourself. Perhaps that informs your prejudice towards anybody that proves you to be wrong. You just can’t handle that and are prone to juvenile conjecture about being “cantankerous”. Is somebody automatically “cantankerous” because they won’t/refuse to buy into your blinded bullshit?
        Give us a break.

        As for “twisting things” – why is it when asked to exemplify something, you go off into unrelated tangents with this never ending wish-list conjecture and generally avoiding the question at hand?
        It is extremely seldom where I misinterpret anything.
        That’s actually very much of your own issue.

        Perhaps you should try to change your mind more often as most often the first information we receive is not entirely accurate. Only a fool cannot ever change his mind when new evidence presents itself.
        I keep suggesting you really should look at all angles but it falls on deaf ears. You’re stuck in this rut of how you interpret things, making the same mistake over and over again.
        I could almost write your next sentence for you. It’s so predictably obvious that I already know what’s coming. I can read you like a book.
        You’ve only ONCE ever given me any new information that I didn’t already know. Last week. In all the many posts, just once, last week.

        You really are such a childish man at times. Your last sentence confirms this.
        You always have to have the final ungracious word when all evidence suggests you just maybe on the wrong path to discovery. Another very childish trait.

      2. I’m sure you do know a lot of stuff I don’t. I’m equally sure I know a lot of stuff you don’t.
        I don’t have a prejudice towards anyone that proves me wrong. That is in your head. You keep thinking you’ve proved me wrong on lots of things except you haven’t. You have merely assumed you were right and because you have told me so that I accept what you say as proven fact. Most of the time I don’t.
        I am quite happy for people to lay out an intelligent, reasoned argument to these complex issues. But you never do that. You go off into tirades, personal abuse and selected facts that you present as completely irrefutable truths. I don’t accept them. They are views.
        I simply don’t agree with you on a lot of issues.
        I think Brexit is an unmitigated disaster that will not solve the immigrant problem or the Muslim problem, or the terrorism problem, will be an economic catastrophy and reduce Britain’s power. It will and already has caused a change in attitude for the worse and given licence to racists. It will stop a lot of science, environment and intelligence cooperation that will be detrimental.
        You think it will be great and that you’ve proved me wrong. I disagree.
        You think Donald Trump is the answer to all the USA’s economic problems and would deal with terrorism, immigration, Russia and the Middle East.
        I think he’s a complete loose cannon and a misogynistic, racist populist fascist.
        You think Clinton is a nasty piece of work. I agree. She’s just greatly preferable to Trump in most ways.
        Now I would suggest that instead of coming out with all the personal put-downs, expletives and emotional stuff, instead of trotting out ‘facts’ that you have supposedly gleaned from superior sources, that you present an argument in a coherent, unemotional manner that does not put people’s backs up and in a way that they can weigh up and agree with or not. You might get to change people’s minds then instead of merelt aggravating them.

  4. Well where and how does one start when the protagonist of the very posts themselves doesn’t have all his facts correct? How does one deal with that? How do you react to that? I ask you!

    Let’s just look at 2 of your latest faux pas – you were wrong in your assumption regarding Steinbeck’s book – as I have duly clearly explained to you. But you refuse to take that information (factual as it maybe) on board. A quick scant perusal through the book will tell you.
    I also had to enlighten you on the intent and purpose of the Haus de Cheschichte Museum in Bonn, too, which you made claim to be a dedicated Holocaust Museum, when it isn’t in fact and you had most probably simply been witness to a short term installation outwith its normal remit.

    But you insist on wanting to argue away all the time – at least go check it out for yourself, please!
    And I never convey any such information in a rude manner, I just simply inform you in a “well, actually its like this” kind of style. Hardly anything to get on your high horse about is it?

    May I make a suggestion to you. In future, it may serve you better to do a tad more research at times just to confirm your memory. Your memory is shot. I’m sorry for having to be so brutal as to come out with that, but it is the case at times. I know your intentions are honest and wholesome but you sometimes need to be more accurate. Without accuracy we have no more than tittle-tattle gossip.

    1. No Andrew – you are arrogantly going off on one again – I was not at all wrong in what I said about Woody Guthrie, Steinbeck and what went on in the Dust owl. Neither was I wrong about visiting a Holocaust Museum in Bonn. You are merely being pedantic. As for putting me right – sheer arrogance. You can never be wrong can you? I was not wrong on either count yet you insist that you put me right. Give it a rest.
      Your manner is rude – my faux pas, you enlighten me, that I do not have my facts correct . I need to research more. My memory is shot. Childish man. Its rude, disrespectful and plain wrong.
      Just read through and listen to yourself. Read my original post and see how you pedantically pick out minutiae to try and score points. It’s silly.
      If you don’t agree fine. If you already know it all and you learn nothing – fine. But the rudeness, put-downs, arrogance? Why?

      1. By being correct about the inherent facts of a matter does not constitute arrogance. Not a jot it doesn’t.
        I simply conveyed alternative information to correct your mistaken thesis and as per usual you refuse to take them on board.

        Why don’t you Google up the museum and see all it tells you. It isn’t a Holocaust Museum, no matter how you wish to look at it. Simple as that.

        So if anybody reading this goes to Bonn looking for the “Holocaust Museum”, they’ve been sold a lemon, right?

        Why don’t you Google up the book and read the storyline and refresh your failing memory.

        I can only make light of your memory can’t I? There’s nothing more I could do other than forward correct info.

        It just so happens it’s me and it seems to consistently bug you.
        That really isn’t my problem is it?

      2. But I don’t give a fig whether it is a dedicated, permanent holocaust museum or not. That is utterly incidental. What I was saying was that I went to a holocaust exhibition in a museum in Bonn. That is what is important – not whether it was temporary or in one building or another. That is what I mean by being pedantic. Those details are completely unimportant. By focusing on trivia you miss the entire purpose of the post.

      3. Do you really think anyone is going to go to Bonn looking for a holocaust exhibition because they read my blog? If they were I’m sure they’d look it up first wouldn’t they?
        I know the story-line of Grapes of Wrath – I’ve read it a few times. Once again it is not the trivia about it that is important. It is the thrust of the exploitation and lack of compassion that both Steinbeck and Guthrie were showing up.

  5. You said you went to a Holocaust Museum in Bonn. I explained there isn’t one. You now say you went to a Holocaust Exhibition within a Museum. OK, now we’re getting somewhere.

    You want to make a point about a particular book containing a particular story. When in fact your post is exclusive of the point of fact of the book. And by me saying “hold on?”, that’s me being trivial? So if you write a post about the Ford SE and I say, wait a minute, that’s a Mercedes, you may well turn around and say, stop being trivial, it’s still a car, isn’t it!
    OK, I get it. I’ll get my imagination cap and cape and pretend, too. Abracadabra Shazam!

    1. I haven’t a clue Andrew. I do not notice those sort of things. It could have been anything. It was a big Holocaust exhibition in a museum in Bonn. I assumed it was a holocaust museum. I assumed it was permanent. Nobody told me what it was apart from a holocaust exhibition. The important thing was the nature of the exhibition and the feelings of the German colleagues who took us.
      If you look at the post above it was based on the reason Guthrie put the sign about fascism on his guitar – that you don’t kill hatred with more hatred – wipe out fascism with bombs – you do it with words.
      I think you are referring to the Tom Joad post – if you look at that the thrust was about the song Guthrie produced about Tom Joad and Steinbeck’s novel – which was focussed on the exploitation of the workers. That is the important aspect. The rest is purely incidental.

      1. Tell that to the Italians as Mussolini and wife swung dead upside down from a rope. I assume the only words used were “die ya bas!” Fascism ended that day in Italy.

      2. Seems pretty alive to me in various enclaves in Naples and Sicily and much on the rise throughout Europe. The terrorists seem to be winning. They have successfully destabilised America and Europe, ousted the leaders and paved the way for populist, nationalists who will create just the right conditions for recruitment. Divided they fall. Clever guys.

      3. Put it this way, Italy no longer had a fascist government.
        It’s not fascism running Naples or Sicily, but the Mafia.
        The Mafia rules there with a bullet. The fascists do workers rights stuff, providing the Mafia agree to paying for it!
        Know what I mean?

      5. So far grabbed by Political World, Everything is Broken and Man in the Long Black Coat. Still think Time out of Mind is better though.

      6. I’ll play it through again tomorrow – good to get reacquainted with it. Must be ages since I last played it. I enjoyed it. I’d forgotten most of it. What was it you wanted is great. I’ll see what it sounds like tomorrow.

  6. Dylan’s description of the recording sessions in that old rambling crumbling house was brilliant.
    He described that Lanois had the room so dark that Dylan didn’t realise there were 2 guys poked in a corner with guitars/dobros waiting to play.

    1. I thought Chronicles was superb. I can’t believe the clarity and powers of description. I loved it. It brought it back to life for me and illustrated the background to what was going on. I can’t wait for the next one. He’s working on it now. Very cleverly done to jumble it up like that.

      1. Oh good, we’ve been waiting some time for that.
        On that jumbled style, have you read Neil’s Waging Heavy Peace?

      2. No. I don’t think I’ve got that one. I’ve read a few on Neil but not one I’d go overboard on. Is Heavy Peace the best?

      4. It’s written by Neil himself. His stories, honest, funny, informative. Excellent read.

        No, I didn’t indulge myself with the Dylan box. To be honest I’d never listen to most of it again after one play.
        I have all the best shows already.
        But I’ve had this nagging twinge in the back of my telling me “buy it – buy it”, so I may well succumb to inner pressure!

        Meanwhile, I have my eyes on the Floyd box, at a mere £370 approx.

      5. The Dylan box seems to be unavailable. It’s an indulgence with so much repetition but I do love that period. I’m not sure what it will be going for these days or where to pick it up. Might check it out.
        I’ll check out the Neil. Sounds good and my kind of thing.

    2. The box isn’t released until 18th November.
      Spin.com in Newcastle had pre-orders but have since stated they are now sold out, as they’d probably only be getting a few in. But there will be other sellers too with larger quantities.
      Amazon will be our best bet. Or the independents listed in the back of Mojo.

      2. It should be around £100 – hardly a rip-off.
        I’m sure it will sell like hot-cakes, so get in fast, maybe best to pre-order.

      4. Not half it is. I was paying £20 at a record fair for one 2CD of one show 20 years ago!

      5. I know. But it was much more exciting doing that – hunting down a rare album, hearing a bootleg of a gig for the first time, going home and absorbing it. Just don’t get that excitement anymore. Now you press a button and a ton of it arrives the next day. It loses its importance and is devalued.
        Just think if you had stumbled on this 66 Live twenty years ago. Your head would have exploded with excitement. You’d have mortgaged your house to get it.

      6. I was never away from these fairs. I’d take £200 with me.
        Mental I know thinking about it now.
        There used to be a brilliant quarterly fan-mag – serious quality actually, more like half a book, called The Telegraph, edited by uber-fan John Bauldie (died in a ‘copter crash with his friend, then chairman of Chelsea FC in `96).
        Telegraph would flag up the latest bootlegs.
        One was “Guitars Kissing & The Contemporary Fix”, the complete Manchester `66 gig, in audio quality previously unimaginable. Sounds just as good as the later official version.
        I get to the fair and ask the guy with the most Dylan stuff if he’s got it as I couldn’t see it. Maybe, under there – he motioned, look for yourself, as he was too busy serving.
        So I’m now behind his huge 6 table counter, scrabbling through all these boxes of boots. And there it is – 25 copies in a box. I looked at him like he was mental – “this is what we’re all looking for” – so I held a copy up and said “look what I’ve got” and the place went mental – it was 3 deep with people. I ended up working for the guy on my holidays and used to get loads of crackin’ boots for a couple of quid.

        He ended up getting busted after 2 warnings. He had to pay £300,000 in back taxes and fines, as that’s the quantity of stuff the cops reckoned he was shifting. At first they were after 650k off him, but he negotiated through a lawyer for a deal. The Police confiscated 120,000 CDs to sift through for those that were boots. He never got them back. And he paid that fine in cash! I saw the money in 4 plastic safeway bags, all 50s notes, neat and tidy. He’s still in business selling boots!

        There was a `66 bootleg box that appeared mid-90s, about 15 discs. Very scrappy and very expensive.

      7. I tended to avoid the fairs as the prices were more than I could afford. I had a string of record shops I’d trawl round every Saturday, meet up with mates, show each other the gems we’d picked up and share our likes and dislikes. A great social occasion. I don’t see most of those people now. Nearly all the shops have shut down. The excitement you had going through the boxes and unearthing something special. Can’t beat that.
        I’ve got a 35 CD set – Jewels and Binoculars from 66. That has some great stuff – including weird radio station phone in – plus a lot of muddy bootlegs.

      8. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of this new box is simply copied over from your box – by the sound of things you’ve got it already.

      9. I don’t think so. A lot of this one is very muddy and obvious audience bootleg tapes. The new one is soundboard quality from what I gather. I’ll send you an MP3 via we transfer. You might find it interesting.

      10. I’m afraid not – there’s quite a bit of audience as not all the concerts were taped by CBS or radio stations.

  7. You guys seem to have so much in common – maybe Dylan will have earned that Nobel prize if he can bring warring parties to the table so successfully! Or as John Lennon sang, Come together … over me!

    2. Hi again Dave – sorry for the late reply – but you know what – Opher and I are actually pretty good mates – not only via music tastes but also for the very fact that can engage in matching each others wits! Please don’t receive the written text as anything other than that. I like Opher a great deal! It may not appear to be the case, but trust me, everything I say (and I’m speaking for myself here) is with a smile on my face.
      Please just imagine it to be a conversation at the bar of your local pub. At least that’s how I go about my diatribe. OK?
      And the fact that I hail from Glasgow, which should explain a lot about my deliberate sarcasm.

      1. Aha, this puts a whole new slant on things. Your interchange becomes a kind of Socratic dialogue where truth is the victor. I await future exchanges with interest.

  9. Just found Spins original blurb – it’s better than I remembered.

    7 discs from CBS recordings
    23 discs from soundboards – ie. rough, unmixed
    6 discs from audience

    That makes for at least 30 highly listenable discs.

    1. And there are some good audience ones that might buff up alright.
      I’ve just sent you some samples from JAB. I couldn’t do it by album – only files – so they are all mixed up. I’d have to do them album by album to separate them. But have a listen.

  11. Great post, encouraging to continue the necessary protest. The challenge in fact is to find effective and peaceful means (and resources!) to “kill” violence. That’s why I am here too:-)

    1. Let us hope that we can make a difference. If all the people who care chip in then things have to change for the better.

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