The end of something
Most young people watching the Obama inaugural concert today on HBO probably didn't pick up on the significance of that last, aged, grey-haired performer who came out with Bruce Springsteen to sing the Woody Guthrie anthem, "This Land Is Your Land."
I saw Pete Seeger walk out with his banjo and said to myself that finally, the McCarthy Era in American politics is over. Seeger, a renowned American folk singer, was a Communist Party member in his youth, and was blacklisted from television and radio for years beginning in the 1950s. Like many American Communist Party members, he later abandoned his support of the Soviet Union while still advocating socialist programs to help common folks.
And there he was at age 89, leading the huge crowd in that left wing song, even the two verses about private property and people on relief that are usually omitted to make it more palatable to people who worry about that sort of thing. I'm afraid Seeger is going to die tomorrow, finally redeemed after all these years in the eyes of the country he loves.
So no, it's not just the execrable George W. Bush who exits the scene this week. It is also the final curtain call for the red baiters who have polluted American life for the last 75 years. It all seems so silly now.