Pete Seeger

[Chris Grieb]

Powerline has a link to an excellent article by Ronald Radosh about Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger was one of the most famous folk singer in America. There is a new documentary which the article shows is a whitewashing of Seeger's political affiliation.

As a monument of the victims of Communism is being dedicated Objectivists should remember not only the victims but Objectivists also not allow apologist like Pete Seeger to get away with his past.

Finally all of us should give a silent thanks to the United States for having a place Ayn Rand was able to escape to.

[Michael Russell]

Chris, there is an update to the Radosh article you are referring to; Pete Seeger has denounced Stalin. It only took him 54 years after Stalin's death. Too little too late.

To quote Mark Steyn in the September 24, 2007 issue of Natonal Review:

Would it kill the icons of the Left for once to be on the right side at the time? America has no "best-loved Nazi" or "best-loved Fascist" or even "best -loved Republican," but its best-loved Stalinist stooge is hailed in his dotage as a secular saint who's spent his life "singing for peace."

He sang for "peace" when he opposed the fascistic armaments stooge Roosevelt and Imperialist Britain, and he sang for "peace" when he attacked the Cold War paranoiac Truman, and he kept on singing for "peace" no matter how many millions died and millions more had to live in bondage, and, while that may seem agreeably peaceful when you're singing "If I Had a Hammer" in Ann Arbor, it's not if you're on the sharp end of the deal thousands of miles away.

Yes Chris, we should be thankful that Ayn Rand escaped to the United States and was able to add her voice to the cause of individualism and liberty.

Mick

[BaalChatzaf]

Powerline has a link to an excellent article by Ronald Radosh about Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger was one of the most famous folk singer in America. There is a new documentary which the article shows is a whitewashing of Seeger's political affiliation.

As a monument of the victims of Communism is being dedicated Objectivists should remember not only the victims but Objectivists also not allow apologist like Pete Seeger to get away with his past.

Finally all of us should give a silent thanks to the United States for having a place Ayn Rand was able to escape to.

Do you know if Seeger ever made excuses for Stalin's excesses. I don't recall any, but what do I know?

A lot of people advocated collective ownership and control of the means of production. That made them unwise and even silly. Given the poor performance of the economy during the time of the Great Depression one can understand how some people might give up on capitalism based on private ownership and private investment. The government's role in the Depression was not all that obvious, and the business leaders ended up looking very bad.

Besides which the U.S. had been effectively a semi-socialist economy from the time anti-trust legislation was passed during the late 19th century and certainly after the income tax was made constitutional. During Woodrow Wilson's administration the railroads were nationalized because of the Great War and were not returned to private ownership and operation until 1920. Theodore Roosevelt was a frank advocate of socialist policy and favored government sponsored health care. This is -Theodore- not -Franklin-. Wilson himself expected there would be a time when the government owned and operated the major industries, not unlike the way it turned out in Great Britain.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Russell]

Do you know if Seeger ever made excuses for Stalin's excesses. I don't recall any, but what do I know?

Bob, Seeger's songs in the late 1930's and early 1940's tended to toe the Stalinist line.

Mick

[Brant Gaede]

My Mother took me to see a Pete Seeger concert in 1963. It was outdoors just south of San Francisco. It was a pleasant, enjoyable summer evening. Seeger sung a bunch of songs strumming the banjo talking about this and that, the only thing I particularly remember was his announcement that he was off to India to study something or other.

In 1959 she had dragged me off to see the Bolshoi Ballet in Oakland or Berkeley, CA, which I hated since I hated Soviet communists. They looked vaguely humanoid to me.

--Brant

Edited September 17, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Chris Grieb]

Bob; Pete Seeger toed the Communist Party line during the Hitler-Stalin Pact period. He turned on a dime when Hitler invaded his socialist paradise. Articles in the Daily Worker opposing the war where ripped out and replaced with articles calling for US entry.

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob; Pete Seeger toed the Communist Party line during the Hitler-Stalin Pact period. He turned on a dime when Hitler invaded his socialist paradise. Articles in the Daily Worker opposing the war where ripped out and replaced with articles calling for US entry.

Not so good for Seeger. That makes him either an ideologue or a useful idiot.

I note that ripping out of articles is something straight from Orwell's 1984. Apparently Orwell was not exaggerating.

Does this mean I have to get rid of all of my recordings of Pete playing some nifty hot licks on his banjo?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited September 17, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Reidy]

He wasn't the only one. Back when Bella Abzug was in congress, National Review did some digging in the archives of the Hunter College student newspaper ca. 1939, and there was Bella (Savitsky in those days) telling the capitalist nations to keep their hands off Germany as she follows her own path to socialism. In Hollywood Party Lloyd Billingsley documents Dalton Trumbo's gushiness over the Nazis under similar circumstances.

[Chris Grieb]

Bella Abzug was one of attorneys who regularly represented unfriendly witnesses before HUAC. I don't know she toed the party line during the Hitler=Stalin Pact.

[ebelisha]

A lot of people advocated collective ownership and control of the means of production.

I've always wondered how that is different from a corporation.

[Alfonso Jones]

Chris, there is an update to the Radosh article you are referring to; Pete Seeger has denounced Stalin. It only took him 54 years after Stalin's death. Too little too late.

To quote Mark Steyn in the September 24, 2007 issue of Natonal Review:

Would it kill the icons of the Left for once to be on the right side at the time? America has no "best-loved Nazi" or "best-loved Fascist" or even "best -loved Republican," but its best-loved Stalinist stooge is hailed in his dotage as a secular saint who's spent his life "singing for peace."

He sang for "peace" when he opposed the fascistic armaments stooge Roosevelt and Imperialist Britain, and he sang for "peace" when he attacked the Cold War paranoiac Truman, and he kept on singing for "peace" no matter how many millions died and millions more had to live in bondage, and, while that may seem agreeably peaceful when you're singing "If I Had a Hammer" in Ann Arbor, it's not if you're on the sharp end of the deal thousands of miles away.

Yes Chris, we should be thankful that Ayn Rand escaped to the United States and was able to add her voice to the cause of individualism and liberty.

Mick

Breaking news: Stalin was a bad guy!!!

The naivete! The naivete! (Spoken in the tone of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, when he said "The horror! The horror!")

Alfonso

[Chris Grieb]

This is a shameless advertisement.

On my OL blog I am going to look at the Hollywood blacklist question. Ayn Rand testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 on the influence of Communism in Hollywood but I am going to look at the whole question.

Pete Seeger went before this committee.

Edited September 21, 2007 by Chris Grieb