News Note: Country music fan group to join protest against the Hamilton War Show

Air show planned for Father's Day under attack for glorification of war

  May 17/00 - Country Music Fans Against the Cuts - an anti-poverty action group of Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash fans formed after the 1995 Ontario provincial election - this week announced its opposition to the Hamilton War Show.
  "This war show is a symbol of our country's misplaced priorities," says group founder "Mad Matt" Behrens, who will be rallying his members to attend protests at the Hamilton International Air Show this Fathers Day Weekend, June 17-18. "We spend $11.2 billion on the military in Canada, and over 200,000 people are homeless in one of the richest nations on the planet. Dang, as people opposed to poverty, we can't be silent in the face of a celebration of one of the biggest obstacles to overcoming poverty, and that's war."
 

Events at the show include dressing up children in war clothes for Kiddie Commando, where real soldiers shoot water pistols at 2- and 3-year-olds

  The Air Show - known as the Hamilton War Show to opponents - is an annual celebration of war featuring air and ground displays of the deadliest military warplanes, from B-52s to Warthog bombers, which spray thousands of tonnes of depleted-uranium-coated munitions. Events include dressing up children in war clothes for Kiddie Commando, where real soldiers shoot water pistols at two- and three-year-olds; re-enactments of infantry and air assaults; and tributes to past slaughters from Iraq and Vietnam to Yugoslavia.
 

"If you go back to country's roots, it's a grass roots tradition. To hear the Carter Family sing is to hear of folks dealing with intense poverty and violence, of overcoming prejudice, of trying to stick together." - Mad Matt Behrens

  Behrens argues that it makes sense for country music fans to oppose the show: "If you go back to country's roots, it's a grass roots tradition. To hear the Carter Family sing is to hear of folks dealing with intense poverty and violence, of overcoming prejudice, of trying to stick together." Behrens takes issue with the common perception that what is now called "classic" or "pre-New Country" music is all about drinking, truck drivers, drinking, farm equipment, drinking, rain, drinking, trains, drinking, prison, and, of course, momma.
  "Many of us trying to figure out a path forward in a world of war and poverty often find not only solace but inspiration in the words, music and emotions of songs by the likes of Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Nanci Griffith and Lucinda Williams. Much in their songs - as well as the work of artists ranging from Martina McBride and Kathy Mattea to Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris, to name only a few - speaks directly to the heart of some of today's most pressing social issues.
  "You take any song, from Henson Cargill's "Skip a Rope" (a biting look at racism, hypocrisy, and the effects of violence on children) or Johnny Cash's "Man in Black" (which lists all the social ills Cash protests, from war and poverty to discrimination) to modern classics like "Independence Day" (Martina McBride's devastating song about wife abuse) and Kathy Mattea's "Beautiful Fool" (a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.) and you see the social justice tradition of country music that inspires us," says Behrens.
 

The show will feature Warthog bombers, which spray thousands of tonnes of depleted-uranium coated munitions

  Country Music Fans Against the Cuts will be among the hundreds of nonviolent protesters at the War Show. "Ain't Gonna Study War No More" will likely be one of their oft-repeated songs, as well as "Amazing Grace".
  "We hear the war show organizers are threatening some of the protesters with being arrested, but hell, if they try that, they'll have to deal with a bunch of us in their jail cells belting out 'Folsom Prison Blues' and "San Quentin, San Quentin, I Hate Every Inch of You,' and they don't want that now, do they? After all, just because we're loyal fans don't mean we can carry a tune in anything other than a bucket, eh?"

Get More/Do More
When not listening to American Country Countdown on 820 CHAM, Country Music Fans Against the Cuts can be reached at (416) 651-5800.

Read more about the protests in Straight Goods article, Local organization moves to end tax-funded Hamilton Father's Day military show.

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