It’s midday in the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison, and that means it’s time for a Solidarity Singalong. A circle of protesters have filled the central rotunda of the venerable building and are singing lustily to the tune of I’ll Fly Away, their voices spiralling up into the dome overhead.I read this out loud to Meade and say "I don't even know the song 'I'll Fly Away," and Meade immediately — putting the Meade into immediately — launches into a few verses of the song, with the original words about dying and going to heaven. Meade sounds a little like this:
We’re not going away, oh Scotty!The singers aren’t here just for the harmonies – they really mean it. They aren’t going away. Though their numbers are down to a meagre 15 from the thousands that overran the capitol at the height of Wisconsin’s union battles almost four years ago, they have stuck it out. Every weekday since 11 March 2011, without a break – 1,006 days and counting – they have turned out to sing songs of defiance against the man they call “Scotty.”
Until the day when justice holds sway.
You might think our mighty cause is lost, but
We’re not going away.
When I heard it sung like that, I remembered the old gospel song. Wikipedia says it may be the most-recorded gospel song. It was written in 1929 by Albert E. Brumley, who said he thought of it as he was working on the farm and "humming the old ballad that went like this: 'If I had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly,' and suddenly it dawned on me that I could use this plot for a gospel-type song."
That is, he took a secular song — "The Prisoner's Song" — and saw how it could be made into a religious song. The dream of flying out of prison became the vision of flying as an angel away from earthly life. That takes some of the edge off my criticism of the Solidarity Singers' appropriation of the religious song for a secular purpose. "I'll Fly Away" originated in the heartfelt but secular wish to escape from prison, and they've got their heartfelt desire to be free of Scott Walker. I guess that feels like prison to them.
Meade says "The Solidarity Singers are a little bit mental — I think that's what the British press is politely trying to say."
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The old saying is that "The Guardian is editorly opposed to sexism, racism and good journalism"
It really is amazing how uninformed about America the Guardian writers are.Although writers for the Daily Telegraph also tend to be fairly clueless.
Do their reporters in America ever leave their houses? I honestly think that they just get their information from the internet
It seems Walker is now the sniper candidate hiding in the Wisconsin outback to take out any vote buying Democrat Pol with a single shot. He just doesn't feel their pain as he runs up kill after kill.
Beware of a Scott with a smile.
It should be noted that the Guardian also once ran an editorial by a writer that complained that the western media was being unfair in its portrayal of North Korea.And the writer sincerely wanted to know why more western reporters didn't go to North Korea to see what a great place it was
A good bit of the editorials and even articles in the Guardian, could easily be confused with articles in The Onion
I think that the Guardian's main problem is that they have decided to become a British version of the Huffington Post.And have madea deliberate choice to appeal to American liberals. Ive nothing against biased journalismAll journalism is biased to a point.But the Guardian often goes out into fantasy land
" because Meade and I have followed the Scott Walker story from here in Wisconsin, from the beginning."
Have you considered which ambassadorship you'd like? I suggest New Zealand. Remember, down under South is North.
I know one of the singers. He's a faculty member.
My fantasies are way cooler than the Guardians. I fantasize about Walker being president and ending half the federal bureaucracy and putting the other half on a pay schedule that more resembles the rest of the country like he did in Wisconsin.
It might be too much to ask the over 60 crowd to stop sucking the life out of the under 60 crowd though.
Joke: How many hammer dulcimer players does it take to play "I'll Fly Away?"
Answer: "Apparently, all of them."
There is no secret. We democrats and supporters (volunteers for the party) have to destroy each and every GOP candidate.
This is vital, so that our chosen dear leader, HRC, can accent to the White House.
This is her time, she deserves it, and no one but HRC has the rightful claim to the WH. No One but HRC.
@Jason
Love the joke.
You know, Meade has a dulcimer. There's a history to that.
Has a liberal politician ever been described as "polarizing" or "controversial"? Even on time?
My fantasies are way cooler than the Guardians. I fantasize about Walker being president and ending half the federal bureaucracy and putting the other half on a pay schedule that more resembles the rest of the country like he did in Wisconsin.
this
Wisconsin, a "polarizing" state? Did the Guardian mention that Wisconsin also sent to the Senate one of its most liberal members, Tammy Baldwin?
I think the right word rather than "polarizing" might be "schizophrenic". But it's the Guardian, people. For the Guardian to get something right about the US is a "man bites dog" newsworthy moment.
For the record, my favorite version of I'll fly away, a tune that was introduced into modern popular culture by its inclusion in the movie "Oh, Brother, where art thou".
The Guardian has been a lefty, if not Socialist, source since it was "The Manchester Guardian"
Everybody needs their comfort zone. In the 1930s, the British upper class were Nazi sympathizers. Now they are communist sympathizers. Oddly symmetrical.
Does "polarising" mean there what "polarized" means here, or are there really furious arguments going on between Wisconsin-lovers and Wisconsin-haters?
"You know, Meade has a dulcimer. There's a history to that."
Well off course there's a history to it. How couldn't there be?
It's really part of the vetting process the media is supposed to do for every presidential candidate, and now that US presidential elections are internationalized, we even get it from the UK papers: Spread around information, mixed in with some murky information, or even some misinformation about the candidate, let other media members attempt to correct the record, or even the candidate or his handlers make that attempt, and it all thereby enters the public debate. The way it's supposed to work. But not anymore. Only one side gets the full treatment by the MSM.
"Starting in midsummer he had trapped himself in a male hoax of the far upper Midwest, the Great North, in which the attitude is, 'I can handle anything.'"
Jim Harrison, "The Great Leader"
If Scott Walker runs, it will shove deranged Democrat ugly attitudes on to the national stage for all to see. That has to be good for Republicans.
Maybe Scott Walker will be Marco Rubio's Sarah Palin.
Even in the comments threads on the cookery and gardening articles, the ardent Guardianistas don't set aside their righteous indignation at colonialism, climate change denial, racism, gender bias, ageism etc etc. It is quite funny, often, because there are just enough sane readers to poke at their illusions and set 'em off in squawks of dudgeon.
The tune is used in the United Methodist Hymnal, but with different words.
Remember when Walker bullied a kid out of a regents position?
That's the kind of snakey, polarizing crap that's going to do him in. Nobody wants more of that crap. Though everyone on this site (Althouse + commenters) tries to float this image of him as humble public servant, he probably has the nastiest reputation of any republican candidate, aside from maybe Cruz. Nasty will work in the primaries, but it's not an image that's going to work later on. The "republican as bully of the little guy" meme kills GOP candidacies.
Well I am so grateful for progressives who offer Republicans helpful advice.
"Then he will travel over the weekend to Palm Springs, California, for that other essential preparation for a Republican presidential candidate: a meeting with wealthy donors – in this case a network assembled by the right-wing billionaire magnates, the Koch brothers."
The Guardian shows its leftist bona fides by denying there are libertarians. Never heard of them.
Heh Heh. You said "The North".
Heh Heh
@Michael K,
in this case a network assembled by the right-wing billionaire magnates, the Koch brothers.
Don't you know that ALL conservative political organizations are organized by the Koch Brothers? God, even after all this time, how can you still be so ig'nert? Doncha know everyone on the right, other than the Koch Brothers, are poor, dumb hicks who don't have two nickels to rub together?
I love the way the article glides over Walker's election victories and his recall victory and acts as if he has no real support.
And I love the way the Guardian of the left snivels about how Walker "decimated" the unions instead of how Walker showed that half or more of the people in the unions would leave unless they were compelled to stay and pay dues.
But the best of all was the part where the lying liberals lips said that Walker will have to face questioning on the national stage - something that supposedly hasn't happened in Wisconsin. Oh no, only recalls, secret investigations, e-mail dumps, egregious lawlessness by partisan prosecutors and election agencies. All coming up empty.
And Wisconsin polarizing the nation? Few know the tortured story of Brett Farve and none are polarized around how to respond to it. No one outside Wisconsin is wears a cheesehead. One of my relatives mentioned how sad we of Wisconsin must all be that Chicago didn't become part of Wisconsin as was planned way back when the states organized. Another won't visit because it might snow. So I don't think the bi-coastie are really aware of Wisconsin at all. I don't think they look down as they fly over Wisconsin and see a polarizing vortex reaching up to disappear them like the Bermuda triangle.
No they aren't worried ... but ... neither was the teachers union in 2007.
I recommend the version of "I'll Fly Away" by Roy Scuff and His Smoky Mountain Boys.
Like every candidate, Walker must carefully attempt to not let himself be too unfairly defined by the media.
Good luck, Governor Walker. You'll need it.
That is Acuff,
Damn computer
Heh. Just today a uillieann piper and concertina-playing Irish traditional music friend of mine posted a photo of himself at this weekend's NAMM show (National Association of Music Merchants) trying out one of those session-wrecking glorified egg slicers. A giant one.
My comment on his photo: "Pull back 1000 meters and take cover. I'm calling in an air strike."
What's the definition of a "chord?"
A: Three fiddlers trying to play a "B."
@YoungHegelian: "I'll Fly Away" had previously appeared in modern popular culture by being sampled in Puff Daddy's hit record "I'll Be Missing You."
I'm also right partial to this Loretta Lynn performance of "I'll Fly Away" from the Grand Ol' Opry.
Remember the media's rules:
1) If a lot of liberals hate a conservative, it's the conservative's fault for being "divisive" or "polarizing".
2) If a lot of conservatives hate a liberal, it's the conservatives' fault for being haters.
Here in Texas in my small town I have been surprised at how many funerals I've been to when the whole audience sings this song. I am elderly so I've been to quite a few of them in the past few years. I used to think of it as a more fundamentalist type song but it is in the mainstream churches now.
Songs are "fundamentalist?"
I was surprised to learn that Wisconsin is "polarising" (in America we would spell it "polarizing", wouldn't we?). I've never thought of Wisconsin as other than bland. I've never been in Wisconsin so far as I know, but I spent a couple of days in Minnesota; isn't that pretty much the same thing?
The only thing weirder than a Republican presidential candidate coming from Wisconsin is one coming from New Jersey or Massachusetts. That would never happen.
On the other Walker thread I mentioned that Walker will have to learn to respond to off-the-wall accusations of misconduct. I see that a commenter here called Troubled Voter is already helping Walker imagine what such accusations might be like. Keep up the good work, Troubled! If things work out, you could get a third row seat at President Walker's first inauguration.
I am not a Wisconsin robot.
----Remember when Walker bullied a kid out of a regents position?
Remember when he sold those bio-energy plants to the Koch brothers!!! Damn him!!!!
The British upper classes before and during WWII were for the most part Socialist and Communist. Read about the Philby conspiracy, all those boys were from the upper classes. There were only one or two upper class Brits who supported the Nazis the one exception being the deposed King Edward who was political vacuum who only dallied w/ the Nazis as an avenue to gaining power again. Britain's homegrown fascist, Oswald, got most of his power from the lower middle classes. Again, the Brit upper class if anything has skewed left for a century or more.
Lol. It's funny when outsiders miss the point. At The Guardian they neglect to observe that for most Americans the charisma that Walker utterly lacks matters.
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