HARRY BELAFONTE INFO PACK - ALL THE DIRT ON OUR FAVORITE SINGING STALINIST

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Belafonte Croons for Fidel

By Mario Ramirez, 3-18-01

Being a life long New Yorker I can very confidently tell
you that I have seen and heard almost everything. If
it's not Hillary Clinton carpet bagging New York, or the
latest charade by Al Sharpton, it has to be the urban
legends about alligators roaming Manhattan sewers.

It's no surprise that very few things shock or disturb
me.

So I wasn't the least startled when on March 11, 2001 I
had the pleasure of spending a "lovely" Sunday afternoon
listening to that consummate performer and ambassador
of "goodwill" Harry Belafonte harangue endlessly on the
wonders of revolutionary Cuba. As a matter of fact,
being a life long New Yorker who has seen and heard
almost everything, I kind of expected to hear what I did
from Mr. Day-O himself.

Even my wife Michele who is not Cuban American could
tell that he was just gabbing for the sake of hearing
himself talk.

This act of blatant self promotion was shown on the
local ABC affiliate, channel seven, during an African
American public affairs program called "Like It Is"
hosted by veteran newsman Gil Noble. As you can imagine
Belafonte pompously did most of the talking, and in the
spirit of his mentor Fidel Castro, he basically said
nothing of any value while unfairly alluding to, and
making a mockery of human rights concepts the Cuban
people have never experienced under the revolution. In
addition to using the interview to paint himself as Mr.
Social Justice, he steadily attacked the United States,
and didn't even dwell on Cuba's massive record of human
rights abuses.

Any mention that the revolution might have failed due to
the utter lack of individual freedoms, or bad business
sense, was taboo and non-existent in Belafonte's book.
However, this is anticipated from a shady character like
Belafonte who while keeping a facade of nice guy and
UNICEF representative, has cavorted with dictators
numerous times, honored American spies, the Rosenbergs
in Havana, and has acted as an apologist for the former
East German regime.

As always the very tired cliches of free education and
health care were used throughout his "speech" to
justify, and to give a patina of respectability to what
only amounts to a continuing dictatorship. Let's not
forget, a dictatorship where Cubans of all racial
categories are still living below the poverty level, and
the make up of the island's prison industrial complex is
overwhelmingly Afro Cuban. For example, Dr. Oscar Elias
Biscet who is Afro Cuban and a pro democracy dissident,
is languishing away in one of Castro's jails for daring
the dictatorship to respect human rights. If Belafonte
is such a "human rights" crusader as the left paints him
to be, then why doesn't he champion the cause of a
fellow brother like Biscet the next time he frolics in
Cuba?

Let's be realistic, revolutions don't last for four
decades, and even if they did, don't you think the
people you tried to empower economically would've seen
the Promised Land by now?

At one point during the interview, Belafonte actually
had the temerity to praise none other then Ho Chi Min
himself! Talk about role models!

After hearing Belafonte speak for almost forty-five
minutes it just became too unbearable, and I noticed how
effortlessly he defended Havana in lieu of the worst
repression that Cuba had seen in years. I sadly
reflected on how the affairs of my parent's former
homeland had been stolen, passed on, and relegated to
the likes of delusional non Cubans, who in their self
righteousness dared to tell us what they thought was
best for the island now that the revolution had come.
After awhile it became excruciating to hear this man lie
about a culture that wasn't even his.

So I could never understand why anyone in a supposedly
normal state of mind would actually ever think of
supporting the longest running dictator in the world.
For God's sake, the year is 2001, not 1968, and even
organizations like Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, (who are more left then right), have
painstakingly denoted extensive cases relating to the
abusive nature of revolutionary Cuba.

Although you might want to believe that Belafonte was
just talking to exercise his narcissism, he was actually
gearing up for a moneymaking scam he is to partake in at
Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall on March 26, 2001.
The all star event which is to be hosted by actor Danny
Glover, and features a hosting committee comprised of
notable leftist millionaires like Whoopi Goldberg,
Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, Jack Lemmon, Tony Randall,
and musico Carlos Santana, bills itself as a "Special
Benefit for the Center for Cuban Studies."

If you don't already know about the Center for Cuban
Studies (i.e., CCS), it's an organization that favors
ending the embargo against Cuba while promoting
relations between the United States and the dictatorship
of Fidel Castro. It also conducts trips to the island
and it acts as a clearinghouse for Cuban art to be sold
in the United States. The CCS also goes to Cuba looking
for art that it then sells at a healthy markup in its
downtown New York gallery. This last part is odd being
that in Cuba people are not allowed to own private
property or make money off products. Since the
dictatorship in Cuba controls all the means of
production, does the CCS buys art at dirt cheap prices
from starving artists, makes a profit from the art and
keeps the cash, or does it give the artist or the Cuban
government a share? One never knows, does one?

The CCS states that the United States government
has "created a de facto embargo on information about
Cuba". This is also very odd for the CCS to say because
any piece of information on Cuba can easily and freely
be attained at any American library or over the
Internet. The only difference is unlike Cuba, the United
States doesn't put restrictions on what its citizens are
allowed to read.

Although the CCS calls itself an "non-profit, tax-exempt
educational institution" many allege it to be another
front for the Cuban government in New York City. Whether
this is true or not, I am not the one to say, but during
the whole Elian debacle, its leader Sandy Levinson was
seen on TV news shows vehemently defending the Cuban
government's intransigence that the boy should be
returned at once. The Center even sported a gigantic
Cuban flag on its loft like windows, along with the very
same propaganda "Liberate Elian!" posters that were seen
throughout the mass "voluntary" rallies that seemed to
pop up all around Cuba.

Here is one of Levinson's quotes on Cuba:

"I think there are a lot of young people who simply
cannot appreciate... what the revolution has given them.
They take for granted free health care, free education."

The above quote can give you a hint on Levinson, similar
to what the late great Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas
wrote in chapter ten of his book "The Doorman". In the
book, Arenas humorously alludes to a character many have
associated with Levinson herself. You decide if you read
the book.

The outrageousness of the whole thing surfaces when
leftists like Levinson actually justify repressive
systems such as Cuba because they allegedly give out
free education and health care. I have been hearing this
tired and old argument forever, and I do wish they would
come up with something more original then what the
architect of Castro's Peace prize nomination said in a
recent statement:

"Even if one can ask oneself about the democratic
character of Cuba, the question of democracy is
perceived differently in a Third World country,"
Langeland said. "What do people prefer? The right to
vote or free access to schools, health care, housing and
food, as is the case in Cuba,"

Not only are the attitudes listed above wrong and
unfair, they show the double standard and racism of the
left by stereotyping Cubans into third class citizens
who are not capable of governing themselves. Lets not
forget that Hitler and Stalin also provided free
medicine and education to their serfs too!

A Cuba solidarity junkie like Levinson or Belonfante is
very smug in saying what they preach because none of
them will ever live like real Cubans with a ration book
or internal passport. Sure, Sandy and Harry might spend
extended periods of time on the island, but in the end,
the Castro left always has the option of returning to
their prestigious lives where they don't have to worry
about being sent to jail if you speak ill of Fidel.

Sadly, Cubans living on the island don't have that same
luxury.

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A friend of mine received the following e-mail written by
an Old Left contact (e mail from Cuba can be read at
bottom of this article) of his who had been in Cuba last
month on the anniversary of the execution of the
Rosenbergs. There he witnessed a eulogy by Harry
Belafonte who spoke at Castro's
annual tribute to the executed Soviet espionage agents in
front of the only statue erected to their memory anywhere
in the
world:

Most American admirers of Harry Belafonte probably don't
realize that the popular singer and actor is an
unreconstructed
Stalinist. Look anywhere at the never-ending tributes and
accolades given to Belafont as the grand old man of the
Civil
Rights movement; the supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr.
in the Movement's heyday; the man who broke the color
line in
film, theatre, television and recording, becoming
America's first most popular black artist. Much of this
is, of course, true.
Some of us can even remember the culture shock when
Belafonte spontaneously took the hand of white pop singer
Petula
Clark during a duet on national TV --- an unprecedented
moment. Like Bill Cosby at a slightly later date,
Belafonte's
persona, charm and charisma, not to speak of his looks
and his singing talent, managed to reach the hearts of
white America
and ? even while segregation was still alive in the South
-- made him a major celebrity, millionaire and cultural
icon in the rest
of the country.

To date, Belafonte has been honored
by The American Jewish Congress, the U.S. Department of
State, the Peace Corps, and virtually every major black organization in
the United States. He has received the Albert Einstein Award, UNICEF's
Danny Kaye award, the Martin Luther King Peace Prize and the Kennedy
Center Honors. In addition, he was the first recipient of the Nelson
Mandela Courage award. No wonder few have pointed to his unrepentant
Communist politics. But for those who look, his allegiances are not hard
to find.

In April 1997, Belafonte was the
featured speaker at the 60th Anniversary celebration of the Veterans of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, where he honored the efforts of these
self-proclaimed "premature anti-fascists" who in reality served as Stalin's
brigade in Spain, the enforcers of Soviet policy. Of course, to Belafonte
that evening nothing had changed since the 1930s. In his eyes they
represented "a truth that engulfed the universe?that fascism anywhere is a
threat to people everywhere." As expected, Belafonte didn't say a
word about the use to which the Soviets put the Brigade, the fact that half
of the young men who went were killed uselessly in a war whose aims they
did not begin to fathom, and how the anti-fascist views of the Brigade
members disappeared overnight after announcement of the Nazi-Soviet
Pact in 1939.

Belafonte also paid tribute to his
mentor and friend, Paul Robeson. "It was from Paul," he told the Lincoln
vets, that he learned that, "the purpose of art is not just to show
life as it is, but to show life as it should be." As they used to say in the
days before the Popular Front, "art is a weapon." What Belafonte did not
add, as expected, was that in Robeson's eyes, the purpose of art
was to serve the agendas of the Soviet gulag state. Visiting
Robeson at his sister's home shortly before the singer's death, Belafonte said
Robeson told him how although they hadn't "achieved all the victories
we set for ourselves," the journey made the effort worthwhile. It was
Robeson, he noted, who at the height of the Spanish Civil War, "stood, in
Spain, with the Lincoln Brigade, and sang in Madrid." And so Belafonte tied
his current efforts of behalf of "resisting oppression" to the
"banner waved by the predecessors who fought in the International
Brigade." His predecessors, if one takes away his code words of fighters against
oppression, were the members of Stalin's army.

In Cuba, last month, Belafonte once
again evoked the memory of his friend and mentor, the late
Communist black singer, Paul Robeson. Evidently, before Communist
audiences, Belafonte is drawn to this association as the acme of his
political and artistic life. The report does not, unfortunately, say whatever it
is that Belafonte had to say about the Rosenbergs. But the occasion at
which he appeared is clear---a testimonial to the couple that is
of course portrayed as innocent victims of American fascism, whom the
unknown reporter from Cuba portrays as two who lost their lives because
they would not "renounce their beliefs." And, both of their sons, Robert and
Michael Meeropol, sent a solidarity message making a supposed
connection between their parents and Elian Gonzalez---who already is a
martyr for Communism who unlike the Rosenbergs, was able to return in
one piece to his Marxist homeland.

Belafonte's speech in Havana,
however, pales in comparison with that which he delivered shortly before
the final collapse of Communism, in Erich Honecker's East Germany, the
Soviet satellite where the STASI ruled by waging a perpetual,
never-ending witch-hunt against the entire population, enlisting the
compulsory support for their spy network from a heavy part of their own population.
But for this police state, Harry Belafonte had, evidently, only love
and good wishes. Evidently the need for a continual fight against
"oppression" did not extend itself to those oppressed by the still existing
world Communist states.

Back in 1983, when Ronald Reagan
was President and the Soviet Union
was placing SS-20 nuclear missiles
in the Communist states, Reagan
and Jimmy Carter before him had
responded to the Soviet threat with
the so-called "zero option" nuclear
deterrent, based on the placing of
Pershing 2 missiles in West
Germany. An international Soviet
sponsored "peace" campaign pushed
unilateral Western disarmament
while remaining silent about the
Soviet missiles, which it naturally saw as
defensive in character. It was in
the context of these events that Harry
Belafonte appeared in October of
1983 at a World Peace Concert run
by East Germany's Communist youth
organization. He began his
contribution by singing one of his
early hits, "Island in the Sun" and
dedicating it to the hope that "the
people of Grenada," whom Reaga had just liberated from the yoke of
a Marxist dictatorship "will one day be free" (from America).

Singing at a concert dedicated to
"peace in the world," officially
sponsored by the Communist Party
and government of East Germany,
and meant to unify European protest
against American nuclear policy,
Belafonte intended to give aid and
comfort to the Soviet bloc in its Cold
War with the United States. As The
New York Times reported, Belafonte "attacked the American
invasion of Grenada and also criticized the scheduled NATO
weapons deployment," and also "thanked the East Germans for making him a
member of their National Academy of Arts." "Mr. Belafonte was given
flowers and thunderous standing ovations" by what the Times'
reporter called the "hand-picked crowd of 4000." A West German youth rock and
roll singer was also allowed to appear, because he had recently
become a strong opponent of the Pershing missiles. But he still
opposed the Soviet SS-20's. Unlike Mr. Belafonte, Udo Linenberg "was only
tepidly applauded."

And now we are in a new millennium,
far removed from the once
cherished dream shared by Harry
Belafonte and Paul Robeson that
humanity would somehow build a
model for the future based on the
Soviet model. And what a strange
figure he cuts --without the attention of
the Western press ? as he continues
to travel to the last survivor of the old Soviet bloc, Castro's Cuba, to
demonstrate his continuing dedication
to the old dream, which even most
of the faithful have been forced to
acknowledge was really a nightmare.
In an interview he gave in 1995,
Belafonte claimed that "racism has
sucked up my entire life," and that as
a result, he decided never to
accept "an indignity where I might find one."
Some might view genuflecting before
Castro in the year 2000 as an ultimate indignity---but to Harry
Belafonte, the illusion dies hard. What will be left, I wonder, when the Cuban
people finally are free of the longest surviving dictator in the world and
his grotesque socialist prison? The banana boat is coming, Harry, and
it won't be long.

Ronald Radosh is a regular
columnist and book reviewer for
FrontPageMagazine.com. A former
leftist and currently Professor
Emeritus of History at City
University of New York, Radosh has written
many books, including The Rosenberg
File (with Joyce Milton). His
soon-to-be-published memoir is
entitled Commies: A Journey Through
the Old Left, the New Left and the
Leftover Left.
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Liste d' Merde

Africa, Pam - coordinator of International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Africa, Romona - leader of International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Affleck, Ben - actor, socialist hypocrite

Alexander, Shana - author, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Altman, Robert - director, socialist hypocrite

Ammapore, Christianne - irresponsible, biased journalist, terrorist sympathiser

Anderson, Laurie - artist, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Aniston, Jennifer - actor, socialist hypocrite

Asner, Edward - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, unionist

Baldwin, Alec - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite, raving idiot

Begalla, Paul "The Forehead" - Clinton apologist, socialist hypocrite

Belafonte, Harry - singer/actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Bernhard, Sandra - comedian, socialist hypocrite, raving idiot

Black, Karen (real name: Karen Blanche Ziegler)- actor -- Scientologist

Bolton, Michael - singer, socialist hypocrite

Bon Jovi, Jon - singer, socialist hypocrite

Bono "Boner" (real name Paul Hewson) - hygienically deficient singer, socialist hypocrite

Boxer, Barbara - politician, feminazi, activist, communist sympathizer

Brenner, David - comedian, socialist hypocrite

Brokaw, Tom - News twinkie, irresponsible journalist

Browne, Jackson - musician, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Byrne, David - musician, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Campbell, Naomi - model, actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Carlson, Margarite - irresponsible, biased journalist

Carville, James "Serpent Head" - former Minister of Propaganda, Clinton apologist, socialist hypocrite

Chase, Chevy - actor, socialist hypocrite

Cher (real name Cherilyn Sarkasian LaPier) -- singer, actor, socialist hypocrite

Chomsky, Noam - professor, mindless communist mouthpiece, anti-American activist

Clift, Ellenor - irresponsible journalist

Clinton, Bill - politician, rapist, socialist hypocrite, self-serving jerk, communist sympathizer

Clooney, George - actor, socialist hypocrite

Cochran, Jr., Johnnie L. - lawyer, race-baiter, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Cohen, Ben - Ben & Jerry's founder, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Coyote, Peter - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Crosby, David - singer, sperm donor to the stars, socialist hypocrite

Cruise, Tom - actor, socialist hypocrite, Scientologist

Cusack, John - actor, socialist hypocrite

Damon, Matt - actor, socialist hypocrite

Dansen, Ted - actor, socialist hypocrite

Davis, Angela Y. - activist, communist, Black Panther, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Davis, Ossie - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Degeneris, Ellen - actor, comedian, socialist hypocrite, transvestite

Dern, Laura - actor, socialist hypocrite, raving idiot

Dinkins, David - former mayor, City of New York, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Ebert, Roger - film critic, fat slob, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Etheridge, Melissa - folk singer, socialist hypocrite, transvestite

Farakan, Louis -- activist, racist, race-baiter

Farrell, Mike - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Feinstein, Diane - politician, feminazi, activist, communist sympathizer

Fonda, Jane - stiff actor, anti-American activist, socialist hypocrite

Ford, Harrison - stiff, robotic actor, socialist hypocrite

Friedan, Betty - author, feminazi, socialist hypocrite

Geffen, David - producer, socialist hypocrite

Geere, Richard - actor, anti-American activist, rectal rat crammer

Gilliam, Terry - director, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Glover, Danny - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Goldberg, Whoopi (real name Caryn Johnson) - actor, comedian, socialist hypocrite

Harrelson, Woody - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Hayak, Salma - actor, socialist hypocrite

Hayes, Isaac - musician, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal – Scientologist

Henley, Don - singer, socialist hypocrite

Jackson, Rev. Jesse - activist, race-baiter, racketeer, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, poverty pimp

Jackson, Samuel L. - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Jennings, Peter - Canadian news twinkie, irresponsible journalist, communist sympathizer

John, Elton - gay singer, socialist hypocrite, raving idiot

Kravitz, Lenny - singer, socialist hypocrite

Lange, Jessica - actor, socialist hypocrite, raving idiot

Lee, Barbara - politician, feminazi, activist, communist sympathizer

Lee, Spike - director, producer, actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Maclaine, Shirley - actor -- Scientologist, socialist hypocrite

Madonna (real name Madonna Ciccone) - singer, socialist hypocrite, queen of sluts

Mandella, Nelson - politician -- socialist hypocrite

McFerrin, Bobby - vocalist, conductor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Mfume, Quaze (real name Frazell Gray) - NAACP chairman, race-baiter

Michaels, George - gay singer, socialist hypocrite

Midler, Bette -- singer, actor, socialist hypocrite

Miscavige, David - Führer of Scientology

Moore, Michael - TV Nation, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, anti-American activist

Mumia Abu Jamal - murderer, race-baiter

Nash, Graham - singer, socialist hypocrite

Newman, Paul - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Nicholson, Jack - actor, socialist hypocrite

Odonnel, Rosie - actor, comedian, socialist hypocrite

Parker, Sarah Jessica - horse-faced actor (possibly former man), socialist hypocrite

Penn, Sean - actor, socialist hypocrite

Pitt, Brad - actor, socialist hypocrite

Presley, Lisa Marie - daughter of rich, dead guy, Scientologist, enabler for child molester

Raines, Howell - Editor of NY Times (Democrat House Organ)

Rather, Dan - News twinkie - socialist hypocrite, democrat sycophant, biased spin-man

Reiner, Rob "Meathead" - actor, socialist hypocrite

Rivera, Geraldo - news distorter, socialist hypocrite, democrat sycophant, biased spin-man

Robbins, Tim - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

ROBERTS, ERIC - actor, socialist hypocrite

Roberts, Julia - extremely large mouthed actor, socialist hypocrite, blithering idiot

Rodham (Clinton), Hillary - politician, socialist hypocrite, self-serving bitch

Ross, Diana - singer, actor, - socialist hypocrite, ultra bitch

Rushdie, Salman - author, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Ryder, Winona (real name W. A. Horowitz) - actor, socialist hypocrite, thief

Sarandon, Susan - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, socialist hypocrite

Sharpton, Rev. Al - race-baiter, racist, poverty pimp

Shepard, Sam - actor, socialist hypocrite, irresponsible idiot

Sheen, Martin - actor, socialist hypocrite, irresponsible idiot

Simon, Paul - singer, socialist hypocrite

Simpson, O.J. - athlete, actor, murderer

Spielberg, Steven - producer/director, socialist hypocrite

Steinem, Gloria - feminazi, activist, writer, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Stills, Stephen - singer, socialist hypocrite

Sting (real name Gordon Sumner) - singer, socialist hypocrite

Stone, Oliver - director, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Streisand, Barbara - singer, actor, socialist hypocrite, Clinton mistress, raving idiot, ultra bitch

Travolta, John actor -- Scientologist, socialist hypocrite

Tutu, Archbishop Desmond - Nobel Laureate, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

Vandross, Luther - singer, socialist hypocrite

Waters, Maxine - politician, feminazi, activist, race-baiter

Winfrey, Oprah - actor, socialist hypocrite, racist, egotistical bitch

Winter, Edgar - musician -- Scientologist

Woodruff, Judy - irresponsible journalist

Woodward, Joanne - actor, Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal

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