Woody Guthrie, Deportee, Fascism

 Guthrie saw the battle against fascism as the ultimate battle of good versus evil. 

Deportee

The crops are all in
And the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled up
In their creosote dumps
You're flying 'em back
To the Mexican border

To spend all their money
To wade back again

Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won't have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be "deportees"

Some of us are illegal
And others not wanted
Our work contract's up
And we have to move on
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border
They chase us like outlaws
Like rustlers, like thieves

Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won't have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you
Will be "deportees"

The skyplane caught fire
Over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of lightning
Shook all our hills
Who are all these friends
Who are scattered like dried leaves
The radio said 
They were just "deportees"

Good bye to my Juan
Goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus why Maria
You won't have a name
When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you

Will be "deportees"



In Guthrie's opposition to fascism, he conceptualized the ideology "as a form of economic exploitation similar to slavery," straightforwardly denouncing the fascists - particularly their leaders - as a group of gangsters who set out to 'rob the world'."

_________

"Portland is a place where rich ones run away to settle down and grow flowers and shrubbery to hide them from the massacres they've caused.

 Portland is the rose garden town where the red, brown, blackshirt cops ride up and down to show you their finest horses and saddles and gunmetal. 

Mentally Portland is the deadest spot you ever walked through. She's a good 30 years behind Seattle" 

http://www.oregonlive.com/history/2016/05/woody_guthries_tiny_portland_a.html

"With guitar slung over his shoulder, the folk singer walked out of 6111 S.E. 92nd Ave. alone and started hitchhiking east.

 Portland lawyer Gus Solomon, namesake of Portland's federal courthouse, picked up the hitchhiker and drove Guthrie as far as The Dalles."