MfD OpenForum : Anne Feeney, The Newest MFD Member But back to the point of this thread; Ann is a true real life working person's hero. She has traveled North America writing and singing songs about and for workers. She is the grandaughter of a Union organizer who worked in the steel mills of Pennsylvania. The struggles and values she learned early in life have stayed with her, and she has carried that message wherever she has performed.

I like to think of Ann as slightly irreverent. We were returning from the rally in Jefferson WI in April, and it was a long tiring drive. I had bought her CD Have You Been To Jail For Justice, and it was playing in the background din of a car full of people. I heard a tune that i absolutely love (the Woody Guthrie ballad Deportee), being played. Parodied is a better definition, given the change in lyrics. It was entitled CEO's (The Plane Wreck At Tuzla). In it, she lampoons the death of Ron Brown, and the fact the CEO's were over shopping for cheap labor. While it is sharp and controversial, it is also the kind of music Ann has the courage to sing.

The battle for worker justice is never easily fought, nor won. Singing songs, motivating and inspiring workers thru music is an old and proven meathod of creating activism. Ann is a master at it. If you doubt my word, take in one of Ann's performances, and you will quickly see why her appearance on MFD is such a breakthrough.

[ 08-07-2003, 07:43 AM: edited by: Bill Pearson ]