America’s Most Successful Communist [Pete Seeger]

City Journal ^ | Summer 2005 | Howard Husock

[Eye On The Left]

The Popular Front sought to enlist Western artists and intellectuals, some of them not party members but "fellow travelers," to use art, literature, and music to insinuate the Marxist worldview into the broader culture. The murals of Diego Rivera, the poetry of Langston Hughes, the novels of Howard Fast—all exemplified this approach. It’s an irony that communists should seek to change the culture, of course, since Marxism holds that culture is merely a reflection of underlying economic structures, whose transformation will bring about capitalism’s inevitable collapse.

[Eye On The Left]

It's a long, but excellent article. Loads of info on the pro-communist movement's historical influence on arts and culture in our society. Pete 'where have all the flowers gone' Seeger, btw, was the D.C. keynote speaker for the very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin.

....but speaking of "arts and culture" in our society, take a quick look at the following and see if it all begins to make a little more sense to you.

Louis Farrakhan, at the annual Saviours' Day celebration in Chicago, Feb. 25, 2008: "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better"..."If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4337417

Louis Farrakhan, at the Millions More Movement rally in DC, Oct 15, 2005: "Mao Tse Tung...had a billion people whose lives he had to transform. ...what Mao Tse Tung did was, he went to the cultural community, and they [Farrakhan spreads his arms beneficently] accepted his idea.
...And then through song, through dance, through poetry, through drama, through documentaries, through movies, through books that are written, the idea of Mao Tse Tung became the idea of a billion people, and China became a world power on the base of the culture and the arts community. If we had a ministry of art and culture in every city we'd create this movement [in the U.S.]"
Source: http://thedrunkablog.blogspot.com/2005/10/communist-plot-noted.html

Louis Farrakhan, Santiago de Cuba, February, 1998: "There is not a member of the black masses in the United States who is not proud of the example set by Cuba and its revolution, with Comandante Fidel at its head"
Source: http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/farakhan21898.html#says

Obama's Church: Gospel of Hate
Kathy Shaidle
FrontPageMag.com
Monday, April 07, 2008

In March of 2007, FOX News host Sean Hannity had engaged Obama’s pastor in a heated interview about his Church’s teachings. For many viewers, the ensuing shouting match was their first exposure to "Black Liberation Theology"...

Like the pro-communist Liberation Theology that swept Central America in the 1980s and was repeatedly condemned by Pope John Paul II, Black Liberation Theology combines warmed-over 1960s vintage Marxism with carefully distorted biblical passages. However, in contrast to traditional Marxism, it emphasizes race rather than class. The Christian notion of "salvation" in the afterlife is superseded by "liberation" on earth, courtesy of the establishment of a socialist utopia.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30CD9E14-B0C9-4F8C-A0A6-A896F0F44F02

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Obama's "spirtual advisor" and pastor of more than 20 years, honors "Honorable" Minister Louis Farrakhan with the "Jeremiah A. Wright Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer Award" at the 2007 Trumpet Gala held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
[it appears the original video was removed, but this one is identical to it]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW2OhkZ0RSg

[VR-21]

bump for later read.

[PzLdr]

Several points:

First, the author fails to note that AFTER Hitler attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Seeger became quite pro-intervention [and quite hypocritical]. His song “The Good Ship Ruben James” [a U.S destroyer sunk by a German U- boat] comes to mind.

Second, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” was covered not only by the Kingston Trio, but in England by one of Liverpool’s founding groups, the Searchers. In effect Seeger’s song was the first ‘folk rock’ song.

Third, Malvina Reynolds, cited in the article, wrote “What Have They Done To The Rain”, also done by the Searchers, and a top 20 song for them. Tight little ideological group of songwriters.

[secretagent]

Interesting Farakhan quotes from your reply post, and interesting article on Seeger.

Seeger, rather late in the game, has renounced the Party and Stalin:

After 1950, Seeger continued strong support of the labor movement in the U.S., and became an anti-Stalinist socialist, rejecting the policies of Stalin and the Stalinist form of Communism practiced in the Soviet Union. In his PBS biography, Seeger said he "drifted away" from the CPUSA in 1949, remained friends with some who did not leave it, but argued with them.[11][16] Seeger said of his renouncement of Stalinist communism: "I realized I could sing the same songs I sang whether I belonged to the Communist Party or not, and I never liked the idea anyway of belonging to a secret organization."

Seeger has made his rejection of Stalin publicly explicit several times. Among these are his 1993 book Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, and a 1995 interview with The New York Times Magazine. In 2007, he wrote a song condemning Stalin, "Big Joe Blues", and also a letter to historian Ron Radosh, an anticommunist critic of Seeger, apologizing for being blind to Stalin's failings. "I think you’re right," wrote Seeger, "I should have asked to see the gulags when I was in U.S.S.R."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger

So I guess I have to stop calling him an unrepentant Stalinist and "card carrying member", but that's about it.

[Eye On The Left]

So I guess I have to stop calling him an unrepentant Stalinist and "card carrying member", but that's about it.

From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetwork.org:
Profile: PETE SEEGER

*Musician, folksinger, songwriter, and political activist

*Joined the Communist Party in 1942

*"I'm still a Communist" -- Pete Seeger, 2004

"Ideologically, Seeger has remained consistent throughout his life. 'I am still a Communist,' he said in 2000. In an interview with Mother Jones magazine four years later, he elaborated: 'I’m still a communist, in the sense that I don’t believe the world will survive with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.'

In the months prior to the 2003 war in Iraq, Seeger appeared as a guest speaker and performer at numerous peace rallies across the United States. He supported the activities of such anti-war leaders as Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and Leslie Cagan of United For Peace and Justice."

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1619

Isn't it amazing, Earth and Lenin were both born on April 22.

Vladimir Lenin
Владимир Ильич Ленин
Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars
In office: November 8, 1917 – January 21, 1924

Born April 22, 1870
Died January 21, 1924
Political party Bolshevik Party
Profession Politician, revolutionary

". . . on April 22, 1970, Earth Day was held, one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy. . . "
--American Heritage Magazine, October 1993

Founded on Lenin's 100th birthday? --yeah, it's a "coincidence". LOL.

Earth Day 1970 (the very first Earth Day):
"The nationwide event included opposition to the Vietnam War on the agenda, but this was thought to detract for the environmental message.
Pete Seeger was a keynote speaker and performer at the event held in Washington DC."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#Earth_Day_1970

[secretagent]

Lenin's 100th birthday? No coincidence, I think!

Here's Seeger vaguely criticizing Lenin for censorship...

And, I rather suspect myself that Marx would have said amen to Rosa Luxemburg when she wrote to Lenin in January 1919 saying, “Comrade Lenin, I hear that you have censorship of the press and restrict the right of people to freely assemble. Don’t you realize that in a few years a new elite will make all the decisions in your country and the masses will only be called in to dutifully applaud your decisions?”

... without mentioning the serious numbers of Lenin's political killings. Continuing, Pete just loves Ho Chi Minh:

Of course, that’s exactly what happened. I think people with a sense of humor do better. I think of the possibilities if Ho Chi Minh had lived—he had a wonderful sense of humor. He was always cracking jokes. He once came to an army camp, and he was supposed to give a speech, but he looked through the tent, and there were the officers in front and the noncoms next and in the back were the privates. He didn’t enter the tent from that end. He walked around to the other end of the tent and there he hollered, “About face!” and gave a short speech to the effect that the rank-and-file were the most important part of the army, the most important part of the country, and the most important part of the world. And he showed by his own example that the best leaders are those that can inspire the rank-and-file to do their best. He was really a genius. His father was a school teacher. When he was young, he managed to get a job on a ship and go to Paris, and he attended a socialist convention and chided the French proletariat for not giving freedom to their colonies. They weren’t thinking of it. They wanted France to be strong and in charge. When Ho Chi Minh took over the government, there was a big palace that he was supposed to live in. He said, “You have other people take care of that big building. I’m going to live in that little building.” There was a little shack in the back of the palace. A workshop—he had it set up with a bedroom and a study. If there was going to be a conference, he was willing to go to the palace. He lived in that little shack with his office.

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0105seeger.htm

[Eye On The Left]

Thanks. Looks good. I’ll read it more thoroughly tommorrow. Gotta get to sleep now.