You can, too, because we're taking this life-size image of Woody Guthrie and his original fascist-killing machine to the Great Taste of the Midwest. Look for it and us if you're attending.
Showing posts with label these machines kill fascists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label these machines kill fascists. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Bryce poses with Woody.
You can, too, because we're taking this life-size image of Woody Guthrie and his original fascist-killing machine to the Great Taste of the Midwest. Look for it and us if you're attending.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Wednesday Weekly: Especially now, "These Machines Kill Fascists."
“‘God Bless America’ rings a false note now, as it did when the song was first written (by Irving Berlin, 1939). Woody Guthrie, wrote the song ‘This Land is Your Land’ in 1940 after hearing Kate Smith sing ‘God Bless America’ one too many times. A man of the people, who spoke directly to them, Guthrie acknowledged the reality of their lives, and offered them hope by reminding them of their strength together. This sounds a lot better – and more American in spirit.” --Democratic Wings web site
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I’m often asked to explain the meaning of NABC’s t-shirts, which for several years have borne the slogan, “These Machines Kill Fascists,” alongside a graphic of brewing vessels.
The simplest answer is that the phrase, and our t-shirts, pay tribute to Woody Guthrie. The deeper meaning provides an excellent excuse for me to write about it.
The iconic American folksinger Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), was born in Oklahoma and came of age during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, economic and environmental catastrophes that preceded the destruction of the Second World War.
Musically inclined from childhood, Guthrie drifted westward, eventually landing in California along with numerous other Okies. By doing so, Guthrie played a living, breathing bit part in real life, one that paralleled Steinbeck’s fictional “Grapes of Wrath.” As a direct result of what the singer saw and experienced during these troubled times in America, his political views evolved in progressive, leftist directions.
Many of Guthrie’s songs – he wrote more than 3,000 in all – chronicled the hardships of ordinary people, expressing empathy for their hardships, and support for liberal causes that he viewed as correctives. Among these were worker rights, unionization, and racial and gender equality.
Guthrie’s music spoke to the experience of actually living day to day in this country, with words chosen from a grassroots, realistic perspective. He eschewed the feel-good, flag-waving propaganda that so often is deployed by the powers that be to mask injustice. His annoyance with “God Bless America” was one manifestation of this feeling.
Importantly, for all his leftist tendencies, and contrasting with the way that right-wingers typically malign them, Guthrie remained a patriot and a firm believer in the potential of America, albeit a more idealistic and hopeful vision of the American experiment, one not defined entirely by wealth and privilege.
Consider, then, that during World War II, the United States (a democracy -- of sorts), aligned with the British hereditary monarchy and the USSR’s Communist dictatorship against the military aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan. Such was the threat posed by fascism. Guthrie viewed his music as an integral part of the war effort against fascism, and wrote, “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his acoustic guitar.
He meant that anti-fascist songs and ideas are as much a weapon against fascism as guns and bullets. Guthrie eventually joined the Merchant Marine, but whenever he sang, in or out of the service, he believed that he was using a machine that helped kill fascists.
The same phrase was written on machinery in factories throughout the United States, as those millions of people not in active military service, but comprising our industrial workforce, made a similar point: The person operating the machine that makes the supplies used to defeat fascism are helping to kill fascists, too.
NABC’s slogan reiterates this point.
“These Machines Kill Fascists” honors Guthrie. Also, brew kettles, mash tuns, fermenters and the equipment associated with them being the “machines” that we use to make craft beer, they’re our weapon against fascism in the beer world. We are making our own firm, principled statement about the beer market, within which there are quasi-political and social groupings, primarily the aggressive multi-national industrial players like Anheuser-Busch, and smaller entities like us.
In essence, we see NABC is part of the solution to the aggression posed by multi-national, corporate brewing fascism.
Thus, the NABC t-shirt, the slogan and the illustration.
If you wish for it to mean even more than that, interpretation is your privilege, just as it is when listening to song lyrics. Speaking personally, my leftist proclivities are fairly well documented. At the same time, while historical accuracy in the context of Guthrie’s legacy demands that we use the phrase as originally proposed, I’d prefer killing “fascism” rather than “fascists.”
Other than that, I believe that daily craft beer production kills fascists. Drinking some of it doesn’t hurt, either.
---
I’m often asked to explain the meaning of NABC’s t-shirts, which for several years have borne the slogan, “These Machines Kill Fascists,” alongside a graphic of brewing vessels.
The simplest answer is that the phrase, and our t-shirts, pay tribute to Woody Guthrie. The deeper meaning provides an excellent excuse for me to write about it.
The iconic American folksinger Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), was born in Oklahoma and came of age during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, economic and environmental catastrophes that preceded the destruction of the Second World War.
Musically inclined from childhood, Guthrie drifted westward, eventually landing in California along with numerous other Okies. By doing so, Guthrie played a living, breathing bit part in real life, one that paralleled Steinbeck’s fictional “Grapes of Wrath.” As a direct result of what the singer saw and experienced during these troubled times in America, his political views evolved in progressive, leftist directions.
Many of Guthrie’s songs – he wrote more than 3,000 in all – chronicled the hardships of ordinary people, expressing empathy for their hardships, and support for liberal causes that he viewed as correctives. Among these were worker rights, unionization, and racial and gender equality.
Guthrie’s music spoke to the experience of actually living day to day in this country, with words chosen from a grassroots, realistic perspective. He eschewed the feel-good, flag-waving propaganda that so often is deployed by the powers that be to mask injustice. His annoyance with “God Bless America” was one manifestation of this feeling.
Importantly, for all his leftist tendencies, and contrasting with the way that right-wingers typically malign them, Guthrie remained a patriot and a firm believer in the potential of America, albeit a more idealistic and hopeful vision of the American experiment, one not defined entirely by wealth and privilege.
Consider, then, that during World War II, the United States (a democracy -- of sorts), aligned with the British hereditary monarchy and the USSR’s Communist dictatorship against the military aggression of Germany, Italy and Japan. Such was the threat posed by fascism. Guthrie viewed his music as an integral part of the war effort against fascism, and wrote, “This Machine Kills Fascists” on his acoustic guitar.
He meant that anti-fascist songs and ideas are as much a weapon against fascism as guns and bullets. Guthrie eventually joined the Merchant Marine, but whenever he sang, in or out of the service, he believed that he was using a machine that helped kill fascists.
The same phrase was written on machinery in factories throughout the United States, as those millions of people not in active military service, but comprising our industrial workforce, made a similar point: The person operating the machine that makes the supplies used to defeat fascism are helping to kill fascists, too.
NABC’s slogan reiterates this point.
“These Machines Kill Fascists” honors Guthrie. Also, brew kettles, mash tuns, fermenters and the equipment associated with them being the “machines” that we use to make craft beer, they’re our weapon against fascism in the beer world. We are making our own firm, principled statement about the beer market, within which there are quasi-political and social groupings, primarily the aggressive multi-national industrial players like Anheuser-Busch, and smaller entities like us.
In essence, we see NABC is part of the solution to the aggression posed by multi-national, corporate brewing fascism.
Thus, the NABC t-shirt, the slogan and the illustration.
If you wish for it to mean even more than that, interpretation is your privilege, just as it is when listening to song lyrics. Speaking personally, my leftist proclivities are fairly well documented. At the same time, while historical accuracy in the context of Guthrie’s legacy demands that we use the phrase as originally proposed, I’d prefer killing “fascism” rather than “fascists.”
Other than that, I believe that daily craft beer production kills fascists. Drinking some of it doesn’t hurt, either.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Wednesday Weekly: Off again to the gentle embrace of a bluer state.
I’ve updated this previously published essay from 2009 to incorporate recent events. Otherwise, what was true last year remains valid this year, and the Great Taste beckons.
---
We’re packing tonight for the annual NABC company jaunt to Madison, Wisconsin, and another educational and entertaining immersion in the city’s unequaled craft beer celebration, the Great Taste of the Midwest.
As oft times before, the Great Taste takes place on a single Saturday afternoon at a pleasant wooded park alongside Lake Olin, affording a gorgeous view of downtown Madison in what I fervently hope will be reduced humidity, compared to this dastardly Louisville summer of 2010.
There is no equal to the Great Taste, at least in our region. It is a savory, savvy, well behaved, open air forum for enjoying the liquid benefits of America’s craft beer revolution. Each year, hundreds of ales and lagers are available for sampling, many rarely seen, because for the Great Taste, participating breweries bring their “A” teams. Few seasonal beer festivals inspire such good-natured competition among breweries. Lucky ticketholders cherish the liquid rewards.
And “lucky” these ticketholders surely are, because if they’re inside the fence, they’ve beaten the odds. The Great Taste sells out months in advance, and last-minute road trips are discouraged unless you have an “in.” One possibility for those without advance ducats is a thriving “resale” market near the entrance, because what better way to espouse good ol’ capitalistic values than negotiating with a scalper, who probably voted for Glenn Beck’s favorite backdoor socialist, Barack Obama?
---
That’s right: There’s a leftist tinge to Madison. Apart from the wonders of its one-day craft beer fete, the city’s fair-minded, intrinsic liberalism never fails to impress this unrepentant Social Democrat.
When one considers the strong likelihood that frothy right-wing politicians like Kentucky’s mercifully departing Jim Bunning habitually refer to Wisconsin’s state capital as “The People’s Republic of Madison”, it’s a reminder for people of my persuasion to go there whenever possible, investing early and often in the local beer-making economy, and recalling that in political terms, Kentucky remains apparently forever (and lamentably) “in the Red.”
2009 was my visit Madison since the Hoosier state finally turned a pale shade of blue, albeit it tenuously, thanks to Obama’s ascent to the White House. In the tumultuous months following my most recent trip north, Southern Indiana has seemed possessed by a steady crescendo of loony tea baggers, unapologetic Nativists, freaky fundamentalists and intolerant cretins of all shapes and sizes – unhappy with their own irrelevance, and determined to make someone pay.
It's the sort of phenomenon that makes me scoff, and also thirsty.
---
I recall the time when a Bank Street Brewhouse customer asked one of our servers to explain my political beliefs in light of the red stars on the shiny new brewing equipment.
Our man on the floor made a game effort to interpret these complex threads of geopolitics, economics and the art of brewing, and to phrase them in a snappy sentence that is reproducible on a bumper sticker for a Lexus, and yet the customer remained unimpressed, writing this on his charge card receipt:
“Tell your Commie boss to share the wealth.”
Harrumph! I share the wealth of beer knowledge every day, and just in case this man wasn’t joking (right wingers are so lacking in a sense of humor that Vulcans seem positively Bavarian by comparison), I circulated this memorandum to staff on the topic of what to say when someone asks such a question.
The proper answer is: “We don’t care what sort of ‘ist’ he is, just as long as he keeps signing the paychecks.”
As always, I’ll drink a beer for everyone while in Wisconsin. Readers, don’t forget to support your local breweries. Their machines kill fascists, and they’re your chief bulwark against creeping swillism.
---
We’re packing tonight for the annual NABC company jaunt to Madison, Wisconsin, and another educational and entertaining immersion in the city’s unequaled craft beer celebration, the Great Taste of the Midwest.
As oft times before, the Great Taste takes place on a single Saturday afternoon at a pleasant wooded park alongside Lake Olin, affording a gorgeous view of downtown Madison in what I fervently hope will be reduced humidity, compared to this dastardly Louisville summer of 2010.
There is no equal to the Great Taste, at least in our region. It is a savory, savvy, well behaved, open air forum for enjoying the liquid benefits of America’s craft beer revolution. Each year, hundreds of ales and lagers are available for sampling, many rarely seen, because for the Great Taste, participating breweries bring their “A” teams. Few seasonal beer festivals inspire such good-natured competition among breweries. Lucky ticketholders cherish the liquid rewards.
And “lucky” these ticketholders surely are, because if they’re inside the fence, they’ve beaten the odds. The Great Taste sells out months in advance, and last-minute road trips are discouraged unless you have an “in.” One possibility for those without advance ducats is a thriving “resale” market near the entrance, because what better way to espouse good ol’ capitalistic values than negotiating with a scalper, who probably voted for Glenn Beck’s favorite backdoor socialist, Barack Obama?
---
That’s right: There’s a leftist tinge to Madison. Apart from the wonders of its one-day craft beer fete, the city’s fair-minded, intrinsic liberalism never fails to impress this unrepentant Social Democrat.
When one considers the strong likelihood that frothy right-wing politicians like Kentucky’s mercifully departing Jim Bunning habitually refer to Wisconsin’s state capital as “The People’s Republic of Madison”, it’s a reminder for people of my persuasion to go there whenever possible, investing early and often in the local beer-making economy, and recalling that in political terms, Kentucky remains apparently forever (and lamentably) “in the Red.”
2009 was my visit Madison since the Hoosier state finally turned a pale shade of blue, albeit it tenuously, thanks to Obama’s ascent to the White House. In the tumultuous months following my most recent trip north, Southern Indiana has seemed possessed by a steady crescendo of loony tea baggers, unapologetic Nativists, freaky fundamentalists and intolerant cretins of all shapes and sizes – unhappy with their own irrelevance, and determined to make someone pay.
It's the sort of phenomenon that makes me scoff, and also thirsty.
---
I recall the time when a Bank Street Brewhouse customer asked one of our servers to explain my political beliefs in light of the red stars on the shiny new brewing equipment.
Our man on the floor made a game effort to interpret these complex threads of geopolitics, economics and the art of brewing, and to phrase them in a snappy sentence that is reproducible on a bumper sticker for a Lexus, and yet the customer remained unimpressed, writing this on his charge card receipt:
“Tell your Commie boss to share the wealth.”
Harrumph! I share the wealth of beer knowledge every day, and just in case this man wasn’t joking (right wingers are so lacking in a sense of humor that Vulcans seem positively Bavarian by comparison), I circulated this memorandum to staff on the topic of what to say when someone asks such a question.
The proper answer is: “We don’t care what sort of ‘ist’ he is, just as long as he keeps signing the paychecks.”
As always, I’ll drink a beer for everyone while in Wisconsin. Readers, don’t forget to support your local breweries. Their machines kill fascists, and they’re your chief bulwark against creeping swillism.
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