This land is not your land...

Driving in this morning I was listening to NPR, getting my dose of somewhat liberal radio when a report came in about a fundraising dinner/show of support for Trent Lott in D.C. the night before.

Two things:

1) I wasn't surprised that a dinner was thrown in the honor of this ethically challenged congressman. I wasn't surprise to hear that the conservative coalitions banded together to celebrate the disenfranchisement of gays and lesbians from entering into unions of marriage, continued hacking at Roe v. Wade. I wasn't surprise to hear another joker call Lott "A man who gets things done in Washington. Not the prayers, the hoopla, the cost of the plates nothing surprised me, or the fact that this was done in order to combat his dwindling image in the media. No, what did shock me was the appropriation of the tune "If I had a hammer" to celebrate Trent "The Hammer" Lott's political career. That song, at least in my mind, was always linked to a folk/hippy/counter culture movement. The rendition of it played on the radio angered me.

2) Protestors outside the hall where this red faction played out were conducting a carnival protest. They handed out bars of soap to the guests coming in. Nothing new, liberals and their antics. What was of interest was the carnival concept, for it brought ot mind a joke by Billy Crystal from his standup show in Moscow many moons ago "Midnight Train To Moscow" where he said to the whos who of the Kremlin, pre perestroika, "The Soviet Union & America aren't very different when you think about it. Lets see, you had Borishnikov, we have Borishnikov. You have the moscow circuse, we have congress."