Watching the relentless bandwagon of cultural cleansing of all things Southern has started me thinking about all the music that will have to be condemned if those who have vilified the Rebel Flag continue their bullying revisionism.

One song that comes to mind is "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."  And one of my favorite versions of the song, besides the original by The Band (the song was written by The Band's guitar player, Robbie Robertson, with assistance from The Band's vocalist and drummer, Levon Helm), is Joan Baez's version.

(By the way, in most of her performances, her lyrics are not quite faithful to the original; e.g., instead of the historical reference to "Stoneman's Cavalry," she renders it as "so much cavalry.")

Baez has always been an "activist" for the whole laundry list of typical liberal causes: nonviolence, gay rights, environmentalism, opposition to the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and opposition to the death penalty.  She has supported Amnesty International and Occupy Wall Street

To her credit, despite her opposition to the Vietnam War, in 1979 she condemned the Communist government of Vietnam in a full-page ad in the New York Times; she also condemned the Communist government of China after the Tiananmen Square massacre.  But aside from that, she's been, and continues to be, a poster girl for all the left's politically correct pet causes.

So I wonder if Joan will join the chorus of those now seeking to once more "drive old Dixie down."  I wonder if she will now repudiate and disown her recordings and performances of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," on the grounds that it is sympathetic to the defeated Confederacy, and such sympathy is now unforgivably politically incorrect.

That would really be too bad, because it's still a great song, and I still love to listen to her sing it.