this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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I never liked “this machine kills fascists” on a guitar because it’s not a machine it’s a fucking guitar. It’s an instrument “this guitar kills fascists” or “this instrument kills fascists” is better than a machine.
When I was grabbing the image I saw an article that explained the backstory and Guthrie first saw the phrase painted on a lathe in a weapons factory in NY during WW2.
The article posited that the point was that the folk revival was something that came out of and was shaped by modern, industrial society, rather than being a traditionalist movement that longed for some idealist vision of an agrarian past. Not a rejection of modernity but a fusing of modernity with more human centric values. I dunno, I think it's cool even if it doesn't make literal sense.
It has also given us "This machine makes folk music" written on guns which is just a stellar bit
Hi, I think its used to refer to a guitar, because it is a machine (the tuning pegs are called Machine Heads, like the band name), that is it uses mechanical action (vibration of strings) to achieve a result, same as a piano is a machine. I guess you mean, its not a modern electrical, fossil fuel, or steam related machine, but it is still definately a machine! Whether it kills fascists is another question entirely of course.
Oddly enough it does tick all the boxes as per both the cambridge definition and the merriam-webster one