“Those who stand for nothing, will fall for anything” – Alexander Hamilton
We start this week’s podcast with the song This Land is Your Land, performed by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
“This Land Is Your Land” is a famous American folk song written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 as a message of equality, inclusion, and a critique of extreme wealth disparity. The song argues that the beauty and resources of the United States belong to everyone, not just the wealthy elite. The recurring phrase “This land was made for you and me” asserts that ordinary working people, immigrants, and the poor have an equal claim to the country. I don’t think Woody ever thought we would be dealing with authoritarian rule in the US in the year 2026, or on second thought, maybe he did know… We need Woody Guthrie and his compatriot, Pete Seeger, today more than ever. In the Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings version of the song, they used the minor-key soul rendition to address enduring themes of racial inequality, economic disparity, and broken national promises.
This Land is Your Land has the lyric in the chorus: this land was made for you and me. My question is, was this land ever made for you and me? I used to naively think it was, and that our democratic republic was the shining example of freedom and equality, and that if you worked hard you could live a good life. The Declaration of Independence highlights that governments are formed to protect the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and if a government fails to protect these freedoms, the people have the right to alter or abolish it. Men and women fought in wars and gave their lives to protect our rights, but it seems that they have fought for naught. Our rights are currently not protected and we are seeing corruption in government at levels not seen during the worst times in our history. We are heading into crucial midterm elections, and the majority of the populous within the US believes that the current regime is already putting in the fix. No one is minding the store, and if Americans don’t wake up, the nightmare we are all living through will get even worse. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero stated during an interview on The New Yorker Radio Hour that mass public mobilization—including potentially “shutting down the country”—would be a necessary final resort if the current administration openly defied court orders. My gut feeling is that there is going to be a massive Blue Wave, but the Speaker of the House Mike “little” Johnson, will not swear in the newly elected officials. What is the plan should this happen? What do we have to do to maintain free and fair elections? Joining us on this episode of TMSOG to talk about how we can fight back and resist are Phineas and Mitch Anderson. In 2025 they co-founded Democracy Unites Us or DUU, organizing the first No Kings rally in the summer of 2025 and gathered 13,000 people in cars and in the streets. They have collaborated and co-organized several other regional protests, and are currently planning Tucson’s involvement with No Work, No School, No Shopping nationwide protests should the midterm elections be tampered with. We must have free and fair Midterm elections!
Mitchell Anderson has been married to Phineas Anderson for 57 years. They have two sons, three grandchildren, all living in Tucson. Mitch was a textile designer in Manhattan and a garden designer and bookseller in Ohio. Phineas was a Supt. of British Schools in the UAE, a high school principal in Manhattan, and helped produce the film “Nuclear Tipping Point” that President Obama showed to the Joint Chief of Staff in the White House. Also joining us is George Polisner, founder of Civ.Works, who is our political analyst, environmental activist, Executive Producer and curmudgeon in chief. For more information go to https://democracyunitesus.org/ and https://civ.works/defend and https://866ourvote.org/
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A big shout out to Neil for all his engineering wizardry!