SuperWeed

So, I understand that Obama-palooza culminated with two white guys singing “this land was made for you and me.”

Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen

That reminded me of a night, several years ago, in Ann Arbor. The organizers of the annual womens’s Take Back the Night march against rape had worked out a deal with the so-called progressive men who — evidently not understanding that not taking “no” for an answer is a key component of rape — couldn’t understand why they weren’t allowed to march along. The deal was that the men could attend the rally and then would hold their own “allies against rape” rally while the women marched. What was supposed to happen during that rally was men taking responsibility for ending rape since, for the most part, it’s men who rape. All I know is that, when the women’s march got back to the men, they were singing “this land is your land, this land is my land” — to each other.

I personally found that ironic.

Now, I love me some Woody Guthrie (one of the dogs here is named after his son Arlo) and I understand that “This Land Is Your Land” was originally written as a rejoinder to the loathsome “God Bless America.” And, of course, the anarchist in me appreciates the transgressive nature of this rarely sung verse:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

But the ecofeminist in me, while recognizing the love of land implicit in many of the lyrics, is troubled by the repeated assertion that the land was (a) made (b) for people. Even as a child, I felt squeamish about the refrain, “this land was made for you and me.”

For the record, then: Nobody made the land. It’s not “for” anybody. All of us inhabiting the biosphere — human and nonhuman alike — participate in and share in it. It’s “ours” in that sense but only in that sense. I know it’s hard — It feels so good to sing along with Bruce and Pete — but we’ve got to get rid of the notion that collective ownership is anything other than a step-wise improvement over private ownership. We’ve got to get over ourselves and let go of the notion of ownership altogether.

January 19th, 2009 | Tags: culture, ecofeminism, ownership, property | Category: Anarchism, Flower Power | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL