{"id":1232,"date":"2009-12-30T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-30T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/30\/repost-dont-gels-best-of-2009-pete-bruce-beyonce-and-obama-the-changing-of-the-guard\/"},"modified":"2014-03-24T01:38:46","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T01:38:46","slug":"repost-dont-gels-best-of-2009-pete-bruce-beyonce-and-obama-the-changing-of-the-guard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/30\/repost-dont-gels-best-of-2009-pete-bruce-beyonce-and-obama-the-changing-of-the-guard\/","title":{"rendered":"RePost – Don’t Gel’s Best of 2009: Pete, Bruce, Beyonce and Obama: the Changing of the Guard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brucespringsteen_l\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There they are: two of the cultural icons of my political life.\u00a0\u00a0Pete Seeger<\/a>, close to 90, peer and colleague of\u00a0Woody Guthrie<\/a>, creator of\u00a0We Shall Overcome<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Turn Turn Turn<\/a>, of\u00a0Abiyoyo\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Sam the Whaler<\/a>, leader of\u00a0The Almanac Singers<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Weavers<\/a>.\u00a0 If there was a civil rights rally or a labor rally or an anti-war rally, he was there.<\/p>\n

\n

Beside him,\u00a0Bruce Springsteen<\/a>, a modern troubadour whose songs speak for many Americans whose opinions are never sought, whose voices are seldom heard.<\/p>\n

\n

As they stood together at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of the Inauguration of Barack Obama, they represented, to me, all that I had believed and tried to help bring into being.\u00a0 To many, though, they were “the ultimate in subtly old-left populism.<\/a>” Speaking about the concert early Sunday before it began, I kept talking about Bruce.\u00a0 A younger friend gently suggested that he was probably not the day’s headliner.\u00a0 That would be\u00a0Beyonce Knowles<\/a>, she said.\u00a0 I’m sure she’s right.<\/p>\n

\n

As one who was\u00a0present the last time<\/a> “the torch was passed to a new generation;” as a strongly defined Baby
\nBoomer, it’s painful to hear anchormen celebrate the fact that “there will never be another Baby Boom President.”\u00a0 It’ s not that I mind the fact of that; it’s just painful that it seems to be something to celebrate.\u00a0 So many of us have tried so to be productive agents of change, have spent our lives working either full or part of the time to see that our country offers more to the least powerful, demands quality education, justice and maybe, even peace.\u00a0 So to hear Joe Scarborough revel in the fact that “16 horrible years of baby boomer presidents is over” really hurts.\u00a0 All my adult life we’ve been tarred by the brush of the least attractive of us while the work of the rest of us went unnoticed.\u00a0 For most campaigns, as\u00a0I’ve<\/a>\u00a0written before<\/a>, we were the secret weapon of the right.<\/p>\n

\n

So as exciting as all this is, especially for one who has supported Obama for so long, it’s also bittersweet because I feel the shadow of the disdain in which so many of us are held.\u00a0 I really don’t know how to respond.\u00a0 If I were to try, it might be by offering some of the words to\u00a0Si Kahn<\/a>‘s\u00a0They All Sang Bread and Roses<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s better with the music, but it does the job.<\/p>\n

\n

They All Sang “Bread and Roses (Si Kahn, 1989,
\n1991)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The more I
\nstudy history,<\/p>\n

The more I
\nseem to find<\/p>\n

That in
\nevery generation<\/p>\n

There are
\ntimes just like that time<\/p>\n

When folks
\nlike you and me who thought<\/p>\n

That they
\nwere all alone<\/p>\n

Within this
\nhonored movement<\/p>\n

Found a
\nhome.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And ‘though
\neach generation fears<\/p>\n

That it
\nwill be the last,<\/p>\n

Our
\npresence here is witness<\/p>\n

To the
\npower of the past.<\/p>\n

And just as
\nwe have drawn our strength<\/p>\n

From those
\nwho now are gone,<\/p>\n

Younger
\nhands will take our work<\/p>\n

And carry
\non.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There they are: two of the cultural icons of my political life.\u00a0\u00a0Pete Seeger, close to 90, peer and colleague of\u00a0Woody Guthrie, creator of\u00a0We Shall Overcome\u00a0and\u00a0Turn Turn Turn, of\u00a0Abiyoyo\u00a0and\u00a0Sam the Whaler, leader of\u00a0The Almanac Singers\u00a0and the\u00a0Weavers.\u00a0 If there was a civil rights rally or a labor rally or an anti-war rally, he was there. Beside him,\u00a0Bruce … Continue reading RePost – Don’t Gel’s Best of 2009: Pete, Bruce, Beyonce and Obama: the Changing of the Guard<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,4,6,8,9,51,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2","category-baby-boom","category-culture","category-music","category-politics","category-webtech","category-weblogs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-jS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1993,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions\/1993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}