40 Years After Woodstock - The Woodstock Festival and Its Devastating Wake

The Ignorant Fishermen Blog ^ | 8/17/09 | DJP I.F.

[foreverfree]

“Country Joe” was an affectionate nickname for Stalin among American commies,

I thought Stalin's nickname was "Uncle Joe"?

ff

[hellbender]

"Uncle Joe" is perhaps more widely known, but "Country Joe" was also used.

Instead, they used "Country Joe" as a reference to McDonald, who was their singer and, as much as there was any organization to it at all, the organizer of the group, and also a reference to Joseph Stalin -- "Country Joe" was a nickname for the Soviet dictator.

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/country-joe-and-the-fish

The term "fish" was also an allusion to Mao Tse-tung. Just think: this group was named for the two biggest mass murderers in history. Shows you how dangerous the domestic Left really is.

[foreverfree]

Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/country-joe-and-the-fish

That article doesn't explain why Stalin was nicknamed "Country Joe". An unlikely nickname for Stalin IMO. Got theories as to how Stalin became "Uncle Joe", hellbender?

Also, is answers.com user-editable like wikipedia? If so, answers.com is like wiki: deserving of taking with a grain of salt, especially if the user-editor has an "agenda".

I think I'll stick with "Uncle Joe" when it comes to nicknaming FDR and HST's friend Stalin.

ff

[hellbender]

If you read the whole article, you can see that Country Joe the singer was a red-diaper baby, like Obama. American Reds actually idolized Stalin, and both "Uncle Joe" and "Country Joe" were sort of folksy terms of affection. What little info came through the MSM about the horrors of Soviet Russia were completely dismissed as capitalist lies by the deluded American commies.

Sure, everything on the web should be treated with skepticism, but not dismissed because it doesn't jibe with your conceptions. I can't see any agenda in the article, esp. since it is consistent with the truth about the American Left. Are you actually a fan of Country Joe?

[hellbender]

Just google "Country Joe" Stalin and lots of links come up (yes, many are repeats of others). One link is to a bio written by a close friend of McDonald, who mentions the Stalin aspect.

Country Joe And Me (Paperback) by Ron Cabral (Author), Joe McDonald (Afterword) "Joe was named after Joseph Stalin in the days before everyone realized that Stalin was an insane maniac..."

http://www.amazon.com/Country-Joe-Me-Ron-Cabral/dp/1410765377

Here's another quote:

The origin of the name appears to have come from the band's manager, ED Denson, who coined the phrase drawing from Mao's saying about "the fish who swim in the sea of the people;" the Country Joe part has numerous variants, the most oft-told refers to Joe's parents having named Joe for Joseph Stalin, whose nickname during World War II was "Country Joe."

http://www.countryjoe.com/cjmbio.htm

[foreverfree]

Are you actually a fan of Country Joe?

No, thank God. And you still owe unknowing FReepers an answer as to how Stalin got that nickname. Then again I've never seen a real explanation as to how Stalin got to be "Uncle Joe".

ff

[hellbender]

I'm one of those unknowing FReepers myself. You would have to ask someone who was once part of the creepy world of pre-WW2 Soviet sympathizers. That generation is mostly gone. All I know is that even close associates of Country Joe (the American red-diaper baby) agree that it was a nickname for Stalin. Barack 0bama may know the story from his grandparents and Frank Marshall Davis, but he will never reveal anything about his true past.

Incidentally, C.J. of the Fish now says "we lefties just didn't know Stalin was an insane maniac." B.S. Stalin was neither insane nor a maniac. He was a psychopathic mass murderer, supported by a totalitarian Party machine. And C.J. of the Fish continued to act as an "antiwar" activist for decades, effectively serving an agenda laid out by the KGB, who funded much of the antiwar movement.

[editor-surveyor]

"And C.J. of the Fish continued to act as an "antiwar" activist for decades, effectively serving an agenda laid out by the KGB, who funded much of the antiwar movement."

But Joe McDonald was no mastermind; he was (and to a measureable extent still is) a useful idiot.

[editor-surveyor]

That article doesn't explain why Stalin was nicknamed "Country Joe".

Joe McDonald got nicknamed "Country Joe" because he lived in an 'illegal' house in Canyon, that had no electric connection because the PG&E wouldn't hook it up without permission from the county. The gang that hung out at "The Garage" in Berkeley gave him the nickname.

[thecodont]

Joe McDonald got nicknamed "Country Joe" because he lived in an 'illegal' house in Canyon, that had no electric connection because the PG&E wouldn't hook it up without permission from the county.

This Canyon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canyon,_California

(Contra Costa County, California.)

As John van der Zee wrote in his book about the town, Canyon (1972):
A small assemblage of mostly unconventional dwellings, mostly built by the nonconformists who live in them, it is a consciously ecological community that recycles everything it can. In Canyon, the mutual respect and the cohesion of neighbors revive the vital satisfactions once intrinsic in human communities, and its 'civil agencies' are functions of the inhabitants.

John van der Zee, Canyon: The Story of the Last Rustic Community in Metropolitan America (ISBN 0151154007)

_____________

I knew a couple of people from Canyon. It's an interesting little place.

[editor-surveyor]

More or less.

As is typical of Wikipedophiles, they got only part of their info correct, but yes that is it.

Actually the railroad didn’t go through Canyon; it ran along the projection of Moraga road, about a mile away. The tunnel is still there, although the entrances are blocked.