“THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS” – Woody Guthrie’s enduring words…

WOODY’S FAMED ANTI-FASCIST SLOGAN: “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”        Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)        American folk musician and social activist        The legendary words he put on guitars he played        Some sources say Guthrie got his famous slogan from inscriptions painted on the sides of planes used by leftist Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), in their ultimately doomed attempt to prevent General Francisco Franco from imposing a Fascist dictatorship in Spain.        Guthrie was a committed leftist himself (even an avowed Communist at one time), so that claim may be true. However, I was unable to find any authoritative history books or sites about the Spanish Civil War or any historic photos confirming the presence of the slogan on Republican airplanes, either in English or in the Spanish form “ESTA MÁQUINA MATA FASCISTAS.”        Woody owned many acoustic guitars during his musical career. Photographs of him show that he played at least two adorned with the slogan “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.” In the best-known, now-iconic photo, the words are hand-written in large letters on the body of a guitar Guthrie has in front of him, hanging by a strap around his neck. In other photos, the words are on what appears to a hand-lettered sticker at the top of a guitar he is playing.        Guthrie was certainly sypmpatico with the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. But unsurprisingly, in light of his strong pro-union and anti-racist activism, his definition of “Fascists” was broader than the political term applied to 20th Century political regimes in Europe.         The lyrics of his song “All You Fascists” (which Guthrie once performed with the great African-American folk blues musician Sonny Terry on a radio show in 1944) say, in part:           “Race hatred cannot stop us           This one thing we know           Your poll tax and Jim Crow           And greed has got to go...            I’m going into this battle           And take my union gun           We’ll end this world of slavery           Before this battle’s won           You’re bound to lose           You fascists bound to lose!”

PETE’S PEACENIK VERSION: “THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER”        Pete Seeger (1919-2014)        American folk musician        Words written on Seeger’s favorite banjo         Seeger was a close friend of Guthrie. He was also an equally committed social activist. But he was always a strong believer in pursuing change through non-violent means and preferred to avoid even a metaphorical reference to the use of violence to achieve social change in America. In a 2009 CBS News article, Seeger explained: “He [Woody Guthrie] had a sign on his guitar saying, ‘This machine kills fascists.’ I wanted something a little more peaceful.”

AN UPDATED VERSION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: “THIS MACHINE DRIVES NEOCON, HOMOPHOBIC, WAR-MONGERING, CORPORATIST, ANTI-INTELLECTUAL, POLLUTING, IMPERIALISTIC, CRYPTO-FASCIST, HATE-SPEAK, FAUX-POPULIST, THEOCRATIC, CHICKENHAWK PRIVATEERS FROM THE ROOM”         Roy Zimmerman         American musician and humorist        Slogan written in a spiral on Zimmerman’s banjo        One of the witty songs on Zimmerman’s 2010 album Real American is “This Machine,” which ends with this funny final chorus: “This machine drives neocon, jingoistic, war-mongering, theocratic, faux-populist, anti-intellectual, drill-a-holic, social Darwinist, racist, sexist, isolationist, derivative insecurities, tax-cheating, C Street, hard line, strip mine, tea-bag, confederate flag, Birthers, Flat-earthers, hate-speak, crypto-fascists — and Brit Hume — screaming from the room.”

THE ROMNEY APPROPRIATION PLAN VARIATION: “THIS MACHINE KILLS MUPPETS”        A witty photoshopped version I saw on the Democratic Underground site        It’s a satiric poke at the infamous remark Romney made about the Muppet character Big Bird during his first presidential debate with President Barack Obama. Romney claimed to love Big Bird but said he would cut federal funding for PBS, which airs the hugely popular children's show that features the Muppets, Sesame Street.

AN APPROPRIATION OF THE SLOGAN BY THE ANTI-GUN CONTROL SIDE: “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”        Sign held by a protester opposing a renewed ban on assault rifles in the US         The protester and his sign, which juxtaposed the slogan with a drawing of an assault rifle, were featured in a January 2013 story about the gun control debate on Reuters.com.

A COUNTERQUOTE BY THE PRO-GUN CONTROL SIDE: “This machine kills people.”        Caption on a photo of an assault rifle I saw posted on the now defunct “Social Polemics” website

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Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable…

THE LINE THAT LED TO A FAMOUS MISQUOTE: “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us...comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable.”         Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936)         American journalist and humorist         Dunne put this quote in the mouth of “Mr. Dooley,” the witty Irish character who was featured in Dunne’s popular newspaper column relating what Dooley said on various topics in a heavy Irish brogue. The line was first used in a column titled “Mr. Dooley on Newspaper Publicity,” published in many US newspapers on October 5, 1902 and reprinted in the book collecting Dunne’s columns, Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902). Dooley’s remark led to many other quotes about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.         The full quote as Dunne wrote it is:         “Th’ newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, conthrols th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward.”         The plain English “translation” is:         “The newspaper does everything for us. It runs the police force and the banks, commands the militia, controls the legislature, baptizes the young, marries the foolish, comforts the afflicted, afflicts the comfortable, buries the dead and roasts them afterward.”         Dunne’s quote is often misquoted as “The duty [or job] of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Indeed, that version has become a kind of motto for defenders of the free press. Ironically, Dunne’s piece was not meant as praise of the press. It’s actually a negative jab at newspapers who Mr. Dooley thinks print far too much minutiae about almost everything and everyone and pokes into the private lives of citizens far too much.         Mr. Dooley complains that, because newspapers regularly print gossip and photos about local citizens, “There are no such things as private citizens” anymore. Interestingly, many of his criticisms of newspapers sound similar to modern concerns about the internet and social media.

THE NEWSPAPER VERSION: “Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Actor Spencer Tracy, in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind. Tracy, playing defense lawyer Henry Drummond, says the line to Fredric March, playing prosecuting attorney Matthew Harrison Brady.         The film is an adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name, a fictionalized account of the infamous “Scopes Monkey Trial.” Tracy’s famous line is not in the play, which was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The movie script based on the play was written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith. I suspect the famous line was created by Young, who was blacklisted as a Communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era and hired (secretly) by the film’s director Stanley Kramer. Young didn’t coin the saying. As noted in a post on the Quote Investigator site, a filler item in 1914 a newspaper in Danville, Kentucky said: “Mr. Dooley says the duty of the newspapers is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” That was followed by many similar uses of this saying about newspapers that predate the movie Inherit the Wind, which premiered in London on July 7, 1960.

THE FAUX CLARENCE DARROW QUOTE: “The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)         American lawyer and free speech activist         It’s interesting that many internet posts and some books published in recent decades attribute this quote to Darrow, the defense attorney in the real life Scopes Monkey Trial. I couldn’t find any evidence that Darrow ever said or wrote such a line. I think it’s probably a faux quote created after the movie line in Inherit the Wind became famous.

THE FAUX WOODY GUTHRIE QUOTE: “It’s a folk singer’s job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people.”         Woody Guthrie (1912-1967)         American folk musician and liberal political activist         This line is widely attributed to Guthrie in internet posts, but never with any specific source. As far as I can tell, he never actually said it.

THE CHRISTIAN VERSION: “The business of the ministry is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”         Frederick W. Burnham (1871-1960)         Pastor in Richmond, Virginia         In a March 1944 editorial in a Latrobe, Pennsylvania newspaper, Burnham attributed this saying to an unnamed “young minister.” It’s an early version of many quotes that have applied the “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” concept to Christianity and Christian ministries.

THE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT APPLICATION: “No woman has ever so comforted the distressed – or distressed the comfortable.”         Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987)         American author, Conservative Republican politician and US Ambassador              Luce used this line speech in which she praised Eleanor Roosevelt at a May 1950 event, during which the left-leaning, Democratic widow of President Franklin D. Roosevelt received an award for her service to the poor and “underprivileged.” Back then, political opponents actually said some nice things about each other.

J.K. GALBRAITH’S VARIATION: “In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.”         John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)         Canadian-born economist, public official, and liberal activist         From his 1989 commencement speech at Smith College, Massachusetts, titled “In Pursuit of the Simple Truth.” (Because London’s Guardian newspaper reprinted the speech on July 28, 1989, that is the usual citation for the source, rather than the commencement speech.)

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