We were so naive.
Peter Seeger wrote one of the most famous anti-war songs of all time, "Where have all the flowers gone." Peter, Paul, and Mary made it a big hit—and so did others. Here's Pete Seeger singing with them for the last time. This should be the anthem that marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.
When will we ever learn?
We will be in Greenwich Village this weekend and I'll be thinking of Pete Seeger. Seeger also wrote "Turn! Turn! Turn!" Here's the best version by the Byrds: "A time for peace, I swear it's not too late."
Hat Tip: Jerry Coyne
He will be missed. A huge influence on lots of people.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw him in concert it was 1964, so I guess he was 44 years old then!
I always tell anyone who asks that I got my folk songs in direct oral transmission from my mother. And that she, in turn, got them off Pete Seeger records.
Peter, Paul, and Mary made it a big hit—and so did others. [not to mention Marlene]
ReplyDeleteIt was translated into Polish almost at once (sung then by Sława Przybylska, now in her eighties) so I was very familiar with it as a child and didn't even think of it as something American. It's like everyone's global folk song.
I love his music...
ReplyDeleteAccording to http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Music/2006/08/Pete-Seegers-Session.aspx
......Pete was a believer....that is why I found it amusing why you mentioned him on your blog... One day, we all have to face the inevitable.... and we don't know how we are going to react... I may become an unreasonable atheist.... or a reasonable creationist....I just don't know....
Pete: "I feel most spiritual when I’m out in the woods. I feel part of nature. Or looking up at the stars. [I used to say] I was an atheist. Now I say, it’s all according to your definition of God. According to my definition of God, I’m not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes I’m looking at God. Whenever I’m listening to something I’m listening to God."
Apparently, Seeger was a communicant in a Unitarian/Universalist church. Clearly his concept of god bears no relationship to the concept of god in Christianity.
DeleteThats sad. I saw a good biography on him on PBS a while back. I didn't the whole story.
ReplyDeleteHe came from intelligent and privileged circles.
yet he seemed to be a communist or socialist or something that was contrary to americas fight against the soviet union
He was on the wrong side of everything.
yet the point here was the use of music to reach large numbers of people and persuade them. its not really democratic discussion and why he failed to have a influence.
TURN, TURN, TURN is from the bible by the way.
it was a rock song, electric guitars, even though Seeger was hostile to Bob Dillon for doing that and tried to unplug him some say.
War is only wrong if its wrong.
i saw Peter, Paul, and mary supporting marxists fighters in el Salavador.
Suggesting they just didn't want war to beat back the bad guys.
if there was a right wing Seeger i doubt he would be celebrated.
The left wing controls the media and Seeger is inflated out of proportion.
He had a few good songs.
Its a funny thing they complaim about being blacklisted in the '50's based on the idea they were a marxist threat and then these days they celebrate him as a great influence.
This justifying the blacklist principal that he was a threat.
In fact all were wrong. Persuasion doesn't come from songs.
the people are intelligent and weigh issues.
tHis is why evolution fails in intelligent and free nations.
Like Canada and America.
According to the obituaries, Seeger left the Communist Party in 1949, long before he was blacklisted, denouncing Stalin as a criminal. The real reason he was blacklisted was because he refused to fink on his friends before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was conducting witch hunts in the mid 1950s. Unlike scum like Edward Dmytryk, and Elia Kazan.
DeleteJust for your information Booby, I went to junior high school with the son of one of the Hollywood screenwriters who was blacklisted for refusing to fink on his friends. The man's name was Paul Jarrico, who had been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s but, like most of the Hollywood parlor pinks left the party in 1938 because of the Molotov/von Ribbentrop treaty between Nazi Germany and the Former Soviet Union.
As for the situation in El Salvador, the so-called government there, which was a wholly owned subsidiarity of the United Fruit Company, was being supported by the CIA so the Marxist fighters there were rebelling against oppression.
I find it quite unsurprising that science denier Booby is also a supporter of right wing neo-fascism. Most science deniers are.
i saw Peter, Paul, and mary supporting marxists fighters in el Salavador.
DeletePiotr: does "el Salavador" mean "the Salivator"?
That would be "el Salivador". "Salavador" is possibly a saliva-inducing salty ensalada from the region of Salamanca.
Delete[According to the obituaries, Seeger left the Communist Party in 1949, long before he was blacklisted, denouncing Stalin as a criminal.]
DeleteStalin's favorite songbird left the Party, but not communism, in 1949. His "denunciation" of Stalin came 19 years after the Ukrainian Famine, 13 years after the Show Trials, 10 years after the Hitler-Stalin Pact. It's like a Nazi denouncing Hitler in 1946, which was quite a fad if I'm not mistaken.
[The real reason he was blacklisted was because he refused to fink on his friends before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was conducting witch hunts in the mid 1950s. Unlike scum like Edward Dmytryk, and Elia Kazan.]
Kazan told the truth, which to a communist makes him "scum". Seeger was blacklisted because he was a f**king communist.
[Just for your information Booby, I went to junior high school with the son of one of the Hollywood screenwriters who was blacklisted for refusing to fink on his friends.]
"Refusing to tell the truth about one of his friends" you mean.
[The man's name was Paul Jarrico, who had been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s but, like most of the Hollywood parlor pinks left the party in 1938 because of the Molotov/von Ribbentrop treaty between Nazi Germany and the Former Soviet Union.]
A lot of 'em left because of the Show Trials, when they realized that the same totalitarian sh*t that they used against others could be used against them. The outrage!
[As for the situation in El Salvador, the so-called government there, which was a wholly owned subsidiarity of the United Fruit Company, was being supported by the CIA so the Marxist fighters there were rebelling against oppression.]
"Marxist fighters rebelling against oppression" is an oxymoron, like "Nazi's rebelling against anti-Semitism".
Marxist fighters always and everywhere they succeed cause repression.
[I find it quite unsurprising that science denier Booby is also a supporter of right wing neo-fascism. Most science deniers are.]
What exactly would "right-wing neofascism" be, pray tell?
What exactly would "right-wing neofascism" be, pray tell?
DeleteA Nazi bastard like you.
Smegnor: What exactly would "right-wing neofascism" be, pray tell?
DeleteA redundant expression?
Or how about this...
...or maybe this...
Or how about this:
"Ann Coulter came to Loyola on March 23, 2006
Loyola Student Activity Fund paid for her to come
Loyola College Republicans and YAF petitioned for her to appear and the Loyola SAF distributed the funds
The cost was $24,000 of student money...
I went to my seat and prepared myself mentally to take in Ms. Coulter objectively…. As I chuckled sarcastically at her [Coulter’s] remark, a girl turned around and gave me a dirty look. I sort of gave her a dirty look back and before I knew it, she told me to "Shut the fuck up." I was so taken aback by her comments, I said, "uhh, not you shut the fuck up." Then she turned more towards me and said, "I'll fucking kick your ass." I was so SHOCKED that this girl had the actual nerve to say this to me let alone on a college campus lecture, all I could say was well, "that's typical." I'm looking around me at the chaos and I see peaceful protestors getting yanked from the crowd, that I find security and tell them that a girl had just threatened me! He went to confront the girl and all of a sudden all of her friends were like "No, she threatened her!". You can only begin to imagine my shock and indignation about this girl's lack of principle and ethics. It really was the definition of mob action and what people will do when they lack the any sort of backbone...The protesting from the balcony only increased with time with shouts of "ANN IS A RACIST" to even an immature, yet mildly amusing, call for "Show us your tits." Ann addressed her supporters in the crowd with this statement. "You're men. You're heterosexuals. Take 'em out." She chided them further when they did not rise. Before you knew it there was about 25 students marching to the balcony to supposedly "take out" the protestors above. I saw a priest holding students back and deans and security warning the students to go back to their seats. Chaos erupted." [archived]
To be fair to Smegnor, he doesn't see many neofascists, he prefers paleofascists.
"Nazi bastard"?
DeleteI really don't like Nazis (socialists of any stripe leave me cold), and I, unlike Seeger's hero Stalin, never signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler. Unlike Seeger, I've never carried water for any Nazi (Seeger changed his anti-Nazi tune in Aug 1939 when Stalin signed the pact with Hitler, and then Seeger demanded American non-intervention against Hitler until Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, when Seeger turned on a dime and demanded American intervention against Hitler.)
You, colnago80, shill for Seeger, who shilled for Hitler from Aug 1939 to June 1941. Doesn't that make you a lot more of a "Nazi" than I ever was?
Re Egnor
DeleteHey, ole Frankenberger killed more Communists then everybody else put together.
He was the definition of how a true american patriot might act, before it became defined by proud and aggressive ultra-nationalistic, christian right-wing ignorance.
ReplyDeleteA very touching tribute – thank you for sharing! Bravo!
ReplyDeletePete Seeger – a voice of a lonely prophet that crieth in the wilderness!
The death of Pete Seeger did not mark the end of American hope and idealism!
That distinction belongs to Phil Ochs.
ITMT the world is in thrall to another whore of Babylon, because we failed to heed the voices of our prophets.
Instead, we heed the voices of our profits.
DeleteOops
Deletehttp://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celeb/singer/pete-seeger-net-worth/
TURN, TURN, TURN is from the bible by the way.
ReplyDeletePete said so in an interview, along with information about the Hebrew name of the person who was given the Greek title of Ecclesiastes, and what that Hebrew name meant. (He was a pretty smart guy who knew the Bible well, Robert.) The only changes he made were to make the lines rhyme better, and to add "I swear it's not too late."
He also talked about how, after he'd given up any Communist affiliation, and after he'd come back from the service after World War II (putting one's life on the line for one's country was something HUAC conveniently ignored in its witch hunt), police who were members of the local KKK assisted locals in burning down a venue (in Peekskill, NY) where Seeger was to perform with Paul Robeson. Thus they bravely stood up for the American democratic way of life.
Pete said so in an interview, along with information about the Hebrew name of the person who was given the Greek title of Ecclesiastes
DeleteThat would be Mr Qoheleth (literally 'collector', but it was used with reference to people entitled to act as public speakers). The biblical original is here.
[He also talked about how, after he'd given up any Communist affiliation]
DeleteHe was a commie on his deathbed.
[and after he'd come back from the service after World War II (putting one's life on the line for one's country was something HUAC conveniently ignored in its witch hunt)]
His opposition/support/opposition for Hitler in lockstep with Stalin's policy suggests that he went to war for his country-- the Soviet Union.
[police who were members of the local KKK assisted locals in burning down a venue (in Peekskill, NY)]
Democrats (ie the KKK) could be nasty folks.
[where Seeger was to perform with Paul Robeson.]
Right. After "giving up communism", Seeger seeks out the nation's second most notorious Stalinist bootlicker. He's a reformed man!
[Thus they bravely stood up for the American democratic way of life.]
*vomiting on keyboard...*
Smegnor: His opposition/support/opposition for Hitler in lockstep with Stalin's policy suggests that he went to war for his country-- the Soviet Union.
DeleteUh, more made up bullshit from Smegnor's imagination. Seeger never supported Hitler-- unlike the creationist founders of American fundamentalism, like William Bell Riley, Gerald Burton Winrod [founder of the World's Fundamentals Association], Gerald L. K. Smith, Arno C. Gaebelein, William Cameron [author of The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, a favorite of Hitler's], Elizabeth Dilling, and many other American right-wingers and creationists in the 1930's.
In William Cameron's The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, he writes that the Jews are to blame for the popularity of Marxism and Darwinism, which he got from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. William Bell Riley and a bunch of other creationists picked that up, fighting against what they called the "Jewish-Bolshevik-Darwinist conspiracy."
Democrats (ie the KKK) could be nasty folks.
DeleteMartin Luther King Jr. voted democrat, as you were informed at your blog where you claimed liberal MLK was a "Christian conservative" and were smacked down by a link you did not bother to read.
The Hitler supporting creationists I listed above were all Republicans, so far as I know. Gerald Burton Winrod was a Republican candidate for US Senator from Kansas in 1938. Gerald L. K. Smith ran for the United States Senate as a Republican in 1944 but he lost in the primary.
Of course, the Republicans under Sen. Robert "Mr. Republican" Taft fought fiercely to keep the US from ever fighting Hitler. The GOP in the 1930's said the real dictator was FDR, the man who destroyed Hitler. Lucky thing they lost. A lot of Republican senators in the 1930's got their information pamphlets about Germany straight from the Nazi propaganda office.
Racist Bob Jones University, founded by Bob Jones who supported the KKK creed, was initially all-white and kept some racist policies into the 21st century. It was a Republican powerhouse where all GOP candidates went to speak.
Chuck Colson, the engineer of Nixon's racist Southern Strategy and an Intelligent Design convicted felon/wannabe terrorist bomber, hero, was a Republican.
Nazi creationist Republicans! Oh my...
DeleteRe diogenes
DeleteOne thing that Egnor has in common with Stalin and Frankenberger, all three of them are/were creationists. Frankenberger rejected common descent in Mein Kampf and Stalin rejected natural selection in favor of Lysenkoism. Birds of a feather flock together.
The bizarre thing about Seeger's encomium isn't that Seeger was a communist a**hole-- that's actually rather common and there's no doubt that the ol' commie was a clever songwriter and performer and played an important role in American (and Soviet?) music.
ReplyDeleteThe genuinely bizarre thing is why so many people revere a man whose political advocacy was on a par with active Nazis in the US. Nazi stooges and Communist stooges are morally on a par.
Why do we praise these people?
mregnor - I thought you were a little too harsh by half!
DeleteI did some google-whacking and I am chagrined to concede your contention has merit!
http://www.nysun.com/arts/time-for-pete-seeger-to-repent/56379/
sigh... as a young naïf of the 60s... I was too taken in by Seeger's duplicity.
I guess it just goes to prove: "If you are not a Socialist by age 20 - you have no heart... if you are not a conservative by age 30, you have no brain!"
Seeger may have had a backbone ofg steel and and heart of gold... but he seems ot have had mush for brains!
Another great read by a favorite blooger who knows whereof he speaks (at least this time):
http://www.steynonline.com/6052/changing-his-tune
Smegnor: The genuinely bizarre thing is why so many people revere a man whose political advocacy was on a par with active Nazis in the US. Nazi stooges and Communist stooges are morally on a par.
DeleteOn what basis could Egnor object to "active Nazis in the US"? Where do you think Republican Senators, under Sen. Robert Taft, in the 1930's-1941 got their information about Nazi Germany? Straight from the Nazi propaganda office.
What other weapons could they use against the Main Enemy-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Beggars can't be choosers. Republicans then didn't hesitate to copy wires from the Nazi propaganda office. Why squeamish now?
colanago80
ReplyDeleteReality Check:
OK – McCarthy was an evil idiot that did much harm… no argument!
Just the same, it's worth pointing out that McCarthy was right. The Rosenbergs were in fact, traitors and Russian agents and deserved the death penalty. The planet is most fortunate that the Rosenberg treason did not result in the nuclear annihilation of countless innocents.
OK, sure, maybe some of the Hollywood comies were harmless and needlessly persecuted, but the fact remains that many were working for real, actual Russian spies and fifth columnists. McCarthy has come to be a synonym for witch-hunt persecutions of the innocent, but at the same time he was hunting real witches!
After a little research - it appears that Seeger was no less a "useful idiot" than Walter Duranty.
sigh... how sad - I remain most disapointed and disillusioned!
Shay:
DeleteMcCarthy wasn't evil. He was not as politically astute as he might have been, but he did the right thing and he told the truth.
It is the communists and fellow-travelers who sold their souls to Stalin and the most pernicious totalitarian ideology of the 20th century (along with Nazism) who were evil.
And here we see the paleo-fascism, not neo-fascism, from Smegnor: He was not as politically astute as he might have been, but he did the right thing and he told the truth.
DeleteAbout what, pray tell, did he tell the truth about? Where was his list of communists in the US government that he said he had? He said he had a list. Where was it? On what evidence was it based.
He was a bullshitter, but thanks to him, he did help to make the US take up where Hitler left off-- take up the whole Christian crusade against communism-- we just took over where Adolf left off, supporting one genocide and/or coup in one country after another for decades. Had to kill those communist women, children, and babies in Indonesia, Cambodia, and everywhere else.
Hey Smegnor, ya wanna see some more current creationist racism?
DeleteThe Accelerated Christian Education [ACE] books are used in US schools funded by taxpayer vouchers. We pay for this.
As pointed out by Johnny Scaramanga [who was taught with ACE when he was a kid], even their cartoons are racially segregated.
And here's ACE creationist textbooks supporting the fascist system of Apartheid:
Delete"For many years, the four racial groups were separated politically and socially by law. This policy of racial separation is called `apartheid'. South Africa's apartheid policy encouraged whites, Blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to develop their own independent ways of life. Separate living area and schools made it possible for each group to maintain and pass on their culture and heritage to their children."
‘Although apartheid appears to allow the unfair treatment of blacks, the system has worked well in South Africa… Although white businessmen and developers are guilty of some unfair treatment of blacks, they turned South Africa into a modern industrialized nation, which the poor, uneducated blacks couldn’t have accomplished in several more decades. If more blacks were suddenly given control of the nation, its economy and business, as Mandela wished, they could have destroyed what they have waited and worked so hard for.’ [http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19930414&id=xaMtAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QnMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5821,2892705]
If you're American, your taxpayer dollars fund that.
Re Egnor
DeleteJoe McCarthy was a drunk and probably a closeted homosexual, like J. Edgar Hoover, (based on his close association with known homosexuals Roy Cohn and David Shine). According to historian and former Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, who wrote a book about Soviet espionage in the US, based on the Verona papers, all the Communists in the government had been uncovered and exposed before McCarthy was even elected to the Senate. McCarthy claimed to have a list of Communists in the State Department, although the number varied from speech to speech, as documented by Richard Rovere in his 1959 book about the senator. Somehow he never revealed the names of those individuals.
Re Shkay
DeleteContrary to the ravings of Egnor, most of the Hollywood parlor pinks left the Communist Party in 1938 after the von Ribbentrop/Molotov pact. Not surprising considering that their motive for joining the party in the first place was based on the delusion that Stalin and the former Soviet Union were bulwarks against Nazi Germany. They came in for a rude awakening.
Contrary to the ravings of Egnor, most of the Hollywood parlor pinks left the Communist Party in 1938 after the von Ribbentrop/Molotov pact.
DeleteYou can't really mean 1938, can you? That can't have been that prescient. The pact was signed on 23 August 1939, only a week before Hitler's invasion of Poland (and less than a month before Stalin did the same from the east).
Typo: That > They
DeleteRe Gasiorowski
DeleteCorrect, the point was that the von Ribbentrop/Molotov pact was what caused the exodus by the parlor pinks.
Egnor is offended that when Seeger was 21, he opposed FDR's war against Hilter by listening to the Communist Party, when he should've opposed FDR's war against Hitler by listening directly to the Nazi Party, like Republicans did.
DeleteFrom historian Glen Jeansonne: "A few Americans were employed to collaborate with the German propaganda program, most notably George Sylvester Viereck, a poet, novelist, and journalist who had been a paid propagandist for Germany in World War I. Through diplomat Hans Thomsen, Germany gave Viereck more than five hundred thousand dollars to influence Congress and distribute propaganda. He edited a magazine published by the German Library of Information in New York, contributed articles to Coughlin’s monthly, Social Justice, wrote pro-German, anti-Semitic books, and bought a small publishing company that he converted into a propaganda mill.
....
Further, he [Viereck] recruited allies in the House and Senate and paid federal officials to deliver speeches and write books. The books were distributed via a network of Axis collaborators, including [creationist pastor Gerald L. K. ] Smith and [anti-Semitic creationist Elizabeth] Dilling.10
...Viereck had another friend in [Republican] Congressman Hamilton Fish [Fish III, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Fish_III] of New York. Fish introduced Viereck to George Hill, Fish’s assistant secretary, who was put on the Nazi payroll. Viereck wrote isolationist speeches that were delivered by sympathetic members of Congress and inserted in the Congressional Record. Hill ordered reprints and mailed them under congressional franks. When the scheme was discovered, Hill and Viereck were convicted of serving as unregistered agents of a foreign government and sentenced to prison.11
After 1938 the Nazi government relied less on paid agents and more on American sympathizers to promote its cause. By 1939 there were more than eight hundred organizations that were pro-fascist or pro-Nazi. Most were small and local in focus, but cumulatively their impact was significant." [Glen Jeansonne, Women of the Far Right, p. 30-1]
And, as Jeansonne documents in this and his other books, they were overwhelmingly Republican and conservative Christian.
@Shay
DeleteI did some google-whacking and I am chagrined to concede your contention has merit!
sigh... how sad - I remain most disapointed and disillusioned
Ever notice that it is possible to determine the political leanings of a person by their tendency to hide their convictions beneath a cloak of dishonesty? And no I am not referring to Seeger, I am referring to you, Shay.
Re Gaetz vis the Rosenbergs
DeleteActually, information from the Verona files seems to indicate that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent and was framed by J. Edgar Hoover for the purpose of trying to force husband Julius to tell all relative to his spying activities, particularly who his contacts were. The gambit failed as Julius went to his grave refusing to cop out. Doesn't say much for either Julius or J. Edgar.
colnago80
Deletere: "Actually, information from the Verona files seems to indicate that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent ..."
Now that is interesting!
Bottom line still remains - when all is said and done - treason resulted in Stalin obtaining the bomb gratis bona fide spies in high places.
colnago80
Deletere: “… the point was that the von Ribbentrop/Molotov pact was what caused the exodus by the parlor pinks.”
Actually that is not entirely accurate:
Naïve socialist journalists such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones lost their enthusiasm for the grand Soviet experiment after risking their lives to report on the Ukrainian Famine engineered by Stalin. Meanwhile, Walter Duranty managed to garner a Pulitzer for persistent loyalty with his emphatic denial of the existence of any famine.
There always remained (and still remains) a large enough cohort of hypocrites willing to sacrifice the lives of innocents on the altar of the "greater good".
It would appear that Stalin’s show trials and extirpation of true-blue Bolsheviks (eg. the assasination of Trotsky) but primarily these courageous reports exposing Stalin’s Ukrainian Holocaust turned erstwhile naïve parlour-pink enthusiasts for the new order away from Stalinism if not Communism. That was before the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact.
Until perusing Seeger’s more recent obits, I had always presumed that Seeger was more like Muggeridge and Jones than Duranty.
One of my closest friends was a German engineer. He belonged to Spartacus and needed to flee to Russia when Hitler came to power. I enjoyed long walks with him and greatly appreciated his insights. He actually had Stalin ride along with him on a tractor of his own design through Russian farm fields. I won’t go into details, suffice it to say his family perished and he was “traded” back to Germany as a “valuable engineer” in exchange for 3 Russian pilots the Nazis still had in prison from the Spanish Civil war.
During one particularly long stroll, I asked him (Stalin aside) whether Communism with a “human face” was possible – even conceivable. It took long time for him to respond. He sadly had to concede his naïve youthful enthusiasm had been misplaced.
I discussed my friend’s case with the chairman of Slavic Studies at my university – (I studied Russian as an undergrad). I remarked, “… if everyone had been like my friend – the revolution would have succeeded!” The Department head snorted: “If everyone had been like my friend, the revolution would have been superfluous and unnecessary!”
FTR – my father also belonged to the German Spartacus League… when he was still young and naïve that is.
he did the right thing and he told the truth.
ReplyDeleteI know, he kept that evil Charlie Chaplin from overthrowing the US and making it Communist! Thank God we never allowed any two-bit Hollywood actor to run our country - oh, wait....
By the way: The US Communist Party was so heavily infiltrated by the FBI by the mid-1950s that if they'd all quit, they'd have caused the Party to collapse into bankruptcy.
Smegnor
ReplyDeleteJoe McCarthy not evil?!
Are you kidding me?! How is it possible a self-avowed Christian could be unfamiliar with the Ninth Commandment (aka the Eighth according to the Catholic and Lutheran)
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"
Communist infiltration into the highest levels of government was a real threat. Look no further than the so-called “Cambridge Five”!!! McCarthy managed to single-handedly turn reality upside down and on its head by having the public associate anti-communism (a worthy cause IMO) with demagoguery and witch-hunting.
You are a most despicable troll! Worse – you too are yet another “Useful Idiot” providing too easy a StrawMan target for those that would readily attack religious conviction in any form!
ITMT - you remind me of the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Right Wing Good – Left Wing Bad”. Excuse me- you really believe that Hitler belonged to the Left and was a “socialist”?!
This is my last word to you ever – please refrain from ever responding to me again!
There are six things that the LORD strongly dislikes, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
—Proverbs 6:16–19
the only arbiter of who can and cannot reply to a post here is the host of this site...enough with the faux drama.
DeleteShay:
Delete[Joe McCarthy not evil?!]
He basically told the truth. If anything, he understated the situation, as the Venona files have made very clear. He was not a bad guy, and he was doing his job (he was the head of the Senate committee charged with doing the investigations he was doing!) The bad guys are the scum who worked for Stalin and the fools who protected them.
[Are you kidding me?! How is it possible a self-avowed Christian could be unfamiliar with the Ninth Commandment (aka the Eighth according to the Catholic and Lutheran) "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"]
McCarthy's witness wasn't false, for the most part. It was the people he identified who were lying.
[Communist infiltration into the highest levels of government was a real threat.]
Duh.
[Look no further than the so-called “Cambridge Five”!!! McCarthy managed to single-handedly turn reality upside down and on its head by having the public associate anti-communism (a worthy cause IMO) with demagoguery and witch-hunting.]
His enemies turned reality upside down. You're continuing the lie. McCarthy basically told the truth about high level communist activity in the government (he was misguided on a few things-- his attack on Marshall was unreasonably harsh, although Marshall made some horrendously fatal errors on China).
[You are a most despicable troll!]
... despite my efforts to curry favor here...
[Worse – you too are yet another “Useful Idiot” providing too easy a StrawMan target for those that would readily attack religious conviction in any form!]
Right. We Christians should bend the truth to appease those who hate us. A strategy sure to bring success.
[ITMT - you remind me of the sheep in George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “Right Wing Good – Left Wing Bad”. Excuse me- you really believe that Hitler belonged to the Left and was a “socialist”?!]
Hitler was a socialist to the bone-- he was Fuhrer of the National SOCIALIST party, for goodness sake! He called himself a socialist. Totalitarian government is inherently socialist.
The left-right trope is nonsense. The original meaning of left-right was from the French Revolution, in which the Right supported the traditional Catholic monarchy and the Left was a mass movement to disrupt and seek power from the traditionalist. Nazism was obviously a Leftist movement-- a mass movement that overthrew a traditionalist system tracing back through Weimar to the Kaiser.
The communist Left worked feverishly to obscure the close similarities between communist leftism and Nazi leftism. Communists and Nazis were rivals, not opposites. Both were socialists.
[This is my last word to you ever – please refrain from ever responding to me again!]
No such luck.
[There are six things that the LORD strongly dislikes, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
—Proverbs 6:16–19]
Beware of false witness, Shay. Smearing McCarthy, making excuses for the commies he properly shed light on, and denying that National Socialists were socialists is a lie.
SMR – it appears you and I are cross-posting
DeleteYou responded to my Shay GaetzFriday, January 31, 2014 4:27:00 PM
With your SRMSaturday, February 01, 2014 9:56:00 AM
“Ever notice that it is possible to determine the political leanings of a person by their tendency to hide their convictions beneath a cloak of dishonesty? And no I am not referring to Seeger, I am referring to you, Shay.”
It would appear you must have missed my other post Shay GaetzSaturday, February 01, 2014 9:10:00 AM which preceded that remark of yours.
(note the timeline) Otherwise I am at a loss to explain your misplaced reaction.
Regarding your attempt at recovery: SRM Saturday, February 01, 2014 10:32:00 AM
”...enough with the faux drama.”
“faux drama”? Explain that one for me por favor. I lost both family and friends to both Nazism and Communism. That would explain my passion for the subject. I am now curious how you will react to that.
You do raise one interesting point:
“…the only arbiter of who can and cannot reply to a post here is the host of this site…”
Our moderator, on an earlier occasion, raised an interesting point about the cowardice of anonymity. I am prepared to have our moderator reveal my identity if he can confirm and reveal yours. Agreed?
ITMT – consider yourself the second participant on my “ignore” list. I for one would be eager to have an automatic “ignore” feature on this forum so I could save precious time by filtering out “les trolls nuisibles”!
Re Egnor
DeleteAs usual, Egnor lies. McCarthy claimed that there were over a hundred Soviet agents in the State Department, the number varying from speech to speech. McCarthy identified not a single such person during his hearings. He couldn't as Allan Weinstein has pointed out, based on the Verona files, all of the alleged Communists, along with a number of innocent persons, had been purged from the department long before the hearings began. As for Frankenberger being a Socialist, that's utter rubbish. Name one industry that he nationalized. Socialism, at least the variety practiced in the former Soviet Union, which Marx and Engels would not have recognized as it was really state capitalism, involves the state owning the means of production. In Nazi Germany, enterprises like Thyssen, Krupp, Messerschmidt, Heinkel, etc. remained in private hands and were not nationalized. They were about as state owned as Exxon and Boeing. And no, Volkswagen was not a nationalized company. It was set up as a state owned enterprise from the get go.
Egnor's knowledge of economic theories is as empty as his knowledge of evolution and global climate change. Anyone who subjects himself to Egnor's knife does so at his/her own risk.
Egnor is like his fellow creationist David Berlinski, who used to claim to be a mathematician until I outed him on Jason Rosenhouse's blog. Berlinski's PhD is in philosophy and he has never published a paper in a peer reviewed mathematics journal. Both of them are loud mouth pompous windbags.
Incidentally, I find is amazing that Egnor who claims to be a Conservative Christian, defends Joe McCarthy, almost certainly a closeted homosexual, like his pal J. Edgar Hoover.
Deletecolonago80
DeleteI've always wondered what disease of the soul would lead someone to slander a doctor based on his political views.
Speaking of slander, your gay-baiting of McCarthy is disgusting. Aside from the absence of real evidence, what would his personal life have to do with the issue we're discussing?
You really are a sorry piece of shit.
Re egnor
DeleteThe evidence is his association with Roy Cohn and David Shine, both closeted homosexuals.
As for gay baiting, as someone who supports same sex marriage, IMHO, closeted gays like McCarthy, Matt Drudge, and Hoover who gay bash and/or pal around with gay bashers deserve nothing but contempt and have no right to privacy.
You really are a sorry piece of shit
And you are the slime off the bottom of the cess pool.
colnago80
DeleteI see. Supporting same sex marriage excuses gay baiting. Would supporting mixed marriage excuse racism?
Smegnor:
Delete"I've always wondered what disease of the soul would lead someone to slander a doctor based on his political views."
Oh yeah, slandering a doctor is something Smegnor himself would never do!
Hey, isn't this the Smegnor who just wrote at his blog that Jerry Coyne -- Dr. Jerry Coyne-- wanted to dig up John Scopes and kiss him, because John Scopes taught eugenics, an accusation based on no evidence? What's the legal word for that, Smeggie?
When it was pointed out by a real historian that there is zero evidence Scopes taught eugenics, Smegnor dismissed said professional historian as a "self-styled expert", not a real expert like the sawbones Smegnor.
And on top of that, no evidence that said non-event, "Scopes teaching eugenics", caused Jerry Coyne to do anything, or that other things that didn't happen may have causative power. As I said before, it's like believing the Civil War was caused by Lincoln being a vampire hunter.
Would supporting mixed marriage excuse racism?
Another bad Smegnor analogy. Put it in SAT terms:
outing closeted gays : support same sex marriage :: ?? : support mixed race marriage
Logically, ?? should be replaced by "outing closeted blacks". Smegnor wants us to believe that ?? should be replaced by "racism."
One wonders how he can object to racism and eugenics anyway, considering that his conservative creationist heroes were pro-racism and pro-eugenics.
Re Egnor
DeleteSpeaking of disrespecting persons with doctorates, how about you stop disrespecting me. I have a PhD in elementary particle physics.
My first attempt to post a google doc:
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/18wQvuHzntbvOciQ-RxMFChLKV04O4M5W_F7WxbI0ezg/edit?usp=drive_web
colnago80
ReplyDeleteNo serious scholar of history disputes the fact that Italian Fascism and German Nazism borrowed themes from existing socialist movements. Hitler even called his movement National "Socialism"... but, names and labels mean nothing. North Korea calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and it is anything but democratic just as Hitler’s Germany was anything but Socialist.
Many on the “Right” have been misled by Hayek’s book The Road to Serfdom. Hayek’s analysis was flawed (as was von Mises') because both conflated ‘totalitarianism” with “socialism”. Ayn Rand wallowed in the the same category of Glen Beckian error.
The totalitarianism shared by Hitler and Stalin created similarities in terms of ruthless government repression; but the similarities end there!
Hitler confused the issue with his big lies that demonized the enemy. He demonized the left side of the political spectrum aka Communism as a Jewish abomination. He also demonized the right side of the political spectrum aka the Anglo-Saxon version of Capitalism as another Jewish abomination.
So what was Nazism if Hitler argued it was neither Left nor Right?
Let us examine what Communism was in Russia. It was an idealistic internationalist movement (their anthem was the Internationale) and collectivist. All means of production were forcibly taken from capitalist owners – industrialists were the enemy and the wealthy needed to flee to save their lives!
Let’s do a thought experiment. We have described what happens when the left becomes extremist and totalitarian. Now let us imagine what an extremist totalitarian and right-wing political movement would look like as diametrically opposed to Communism. (I always chuckle when attempting this with right-wing friends – who cannot imagine any version of right wing politics ever being too extreme)
- First of all, the extreme Right would be nationalist and opposed to internationalist
- Next it would be supported by the capitalist industrialists and the wealthy.
- Finally it would be totalitarian and undemocratic but vehemently opposed to the Left, especially Communism.
Put a check mark with exclamation marks next to each item on this check list regarding German Nazism.
At the behest of Goering, approximately 25 of the leading industrialists of Germany, together with finance minister Schacht, attended a meeting in Berlin on 20 February 1933 shortly before the German election of 5 March 1933. At this meeting Hitler announced the conspirators' aim to seize totalitarian control over Germany, to destroy the parliamentary system, to crush leftist opposition (i.e. the ruling socialist part aka the Social Democrats) by force, and to restore the power of the military. The 25 industrialists present at that meeting included Gustav Krupp, four leading officials of the I. G. Farben, and Albert Vogler, head of United Steel Works of Germany.
No serious student of history can deny that Nazism was a desperate invention of the right-wing Conservatives fearful of Left-wing revolution. History proves the Catholic Church was a co-conspirator in the Nazi/Fascist rise to power. I refer any and all to Mussolini's Lateran treaties with the Catholic Church and the 1929 Concordat. I also refer any and all to Franco and the Spanish Civil war and its sequellae. I presume even some trolls present would hesitate to label the pope and the Catholic Church as either Socialist or Communist.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/nca/nca-01/nca-01-08-economic-mobilization-02.html
Consider North America’s brief flirtation with Nazism – here in Canada as a Catholic phenomenon in Quebec as well as in the USA.
Let's cut to the chase: Hitler had a framed & signed picture of Henry Ford on his desk and Henry Ford had a framed & signed picture of Hitler on his desk.
I presume nobody present would deign to label the Henry Ford either a Socialist or Communist supporter.
Hitler was obviously a socialist, self-identified. Nazism was understood as socialism by Germans themselves.
DeleteHistorian Paul Johnson:
"[Hitler] regarded himself as a socialist, and the essence of his socialism was that every individual or group in the state should unhesitatingly work for national policy. So it did not matter who owned the actual factory as long as those managing it did what they were told. German socialism, he told Hermann Rauschning, was not about nationalization: 'Our socialism reaches much deeper. It does not change the external order of things, it orders soley the relationship of man to the state...Then what does property and income count for? We are socializing the people.' Presenting his Four Year Plan, he said that it was the job of the Ministry of Economics merely to 'present the tasks of the national economy' and then 'the private economy will have to fulfil them'. If it shrank trom them 'then the National Socialist state will know how to solve these tasks'.
Hitler was a race socialist, not a class socialist.
But Nazis-- The National Socialist Workers Party-- was socialist through and through.
Hitler was a socialist and Joe McCarthy told the truth - Dr. Egnor's world *is* full of miracles!
DeleteNational Socialism was socialism.
DeleteThere was extensive communist infiltration in the US government from 1930's-1950's, confirmed by a mountain of evidence.
No miracle.
Smegnor: Hitler was obviously a socialist, self-identified. Nazism was understood as socialism by Germans themselves.
DeleteYet Smegnor, as usual for him, presents no evidence to back up this claim, or any claim he makes. Egnor presents no quotes from anyone in Germany at the time saying Hitler was a true socialist, or expecting the imminent nationalization of industry. A nationalization of industry that never happened, of course-- big firms like Krupp and Deutsche Bank and Deutsche Asiatische Bank survived the war, and IG Farben would have if the Allies hadn't broken it up.
Constructing Auschwitz was a capitalist affair, funded by Deutsche Bank run by capitalist Hermann J. Abs, "Hitler's Banker." At war's end, Abs was richer than before, wound up in control of Krupp Industries, and then "Hitler's Banker" joined the Family, the American fundamentalist organization that runs the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, and which after the war welcomed many ex-Nazis because they were capitalist and Christian.
In reality, conservative Christian Germans saw the Nazi takeover not as "socialism", but as a rebirth of Christian faith. Even Hermann Rauschning, the unreliable source from whom Egnor's quote originates, portrayed Hitler as inspired by Catholicism.
You will note that when the Radical Right attempts to portray Hitler as a socialist, the only "evidence" they ever present consists either of word games ("Socialist is right in the name of the party! Like the way 'tin' is right in the name of 'tin foil'"!) but on the rare occasions that they present a quote, they usually don't cite it, and if they cite it, the citation is usually wrong, and if the citation is right, it's usually Rauschning. That's how desperate the Radical Right is.
Again: Egnor's quote originates from Rauschning, author of Voice of Destruction which was an alleged description of conversations with Hitler. However, historians contest the authenticity of Rauschning's quotes, because his quotes sound fake, and he was run out of the country in '34 and was never a high-ranking Nazi. He may have hung with Nazis but only met Hitler a few times and may never have had a private conversation with him.
Again, most historians don't consider Rauschning a reliable source, but if Egnor wants to play that game, OK. Let's pretend Rauschning is a reliable source.
Hey Rauschning, where did Hitler say he got his ideas for Nazi ideology and methods?
“I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.” [Adolf Hitler, quoted by Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pp. 239-40].
Re Diogenes
DeleteNote that I challenged Egnor to name one enterprise that Frankenberger nationalized. Thus far, he has not named one. To repeat, socialism, at least as it existed in the former Soviet Union, consists of the state ownership of industries. It is obvious that Schmucknor is just using the term Socialism as a name calling device. By the way, Frankenberger also called himself a devout Catholic. In fact, it is doubtful that he was anything of the sort, as evidenced by the material in Table Talk and the reference by Albert Speer in his memoir that Frankenberger once remarked to him that Shintoism would have been a better choice for a religion for the Germans and that he considered Christianity to be effete.
colnago 80
ReplyDeleteI thank you for referring me to the Verona Project. I shall pursue this line of inquiry further.
For what it's worth - here is an interesting snippit from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#Legacy
best regards
I think there's a typo. The Venona intercepts refer to a set of communications delivered by Soviet cipher clerk Gouzenko back in the Forties, if I remember correctly. These intercepts are claimed by some to prove all sorts of allegations. But if I understood correctly, the decrypts still use code names. The arguments that the interpretations are not as reliable as assumed seems plausible to me. Even more important, the decrypts do not distinguish sources, assets, agents and officers.
ReplyDeleteAlmost all claims to any shred of reality to the Red Scare rest largely upon the Venona decrypts.
Venona is correct. As I understand it, Weinstein's co-author was a former KGB officer who supplied the information allowing identification of the individuals involved. Both Hiss and Julius Rosenberg are prominently identified. In fact, Khrushchev said in his memoirs, smuggled out of the former Soviet Union, that Julius was given an award by the Soviet Government for his contributions to the Soviet nuclear program.
DeleteS Johnson:
DeleteScores of individuals in the Venona files can and have been identified. There was massive documented Soviet infiltration of the United States government-- McCarthy generally underestimated the numbers.
The attack on McCarthy is merely the attack on the messenger.
Smegnor doesn't even try to defend McCarthy' and his non-existent list. He doesn't link to McCarthy's list of "commies" because it didn't exist. Smegnor knows that. He defends McCarthy because he knows McCarthy was lying-- that's why he's Egnor's hero.
DeleteEgnor's heroes are all liars. At ENV Egnor promoted Eben Alexander, sawbones and author of Proof of Heaven, a Near Death Experience hoax, as proof that God exists, heaven is real, blah blah. However, when Esquire magazine published and expose showing that every verifiable fact in his "coma" story was fake, and he had altered medical documents, Egnor still thinks the document-falsifying sawbones is a hero.
So we shouldn't be surprised he makes a hero out of lying Joe McCarthy, who said he had a list of ~100 communists in the State Department-- a list that didn't exist, like the commies at State didn't exist. Their may have been some commies in government, but long gone by the time McCarthy was waving his list around.
The Radical Right's defense of lying Joe McCarthy is a political and epistemological statement-- it goes beyond just trying to rehabilitate the con man, it's a political statement saying, "The Far Right gets to make up any old shit without evidence; that is our privilege."
America's Radical Right are like a faded European nobility who insist on their hereditary privilege to wear a special purple epaulet or feathered helmet no one else can wear. Only the helmet is bullshit, and we're laughing behind our hands.
And speaking of purple helmet...
DeleteSmegnor: "Scores of individuals in the Venona files can and have been identified."
Not true and not relevant. If there were "scores", then where's the list?
And not relevant. Joe McCarthy had no access to Venona, no access to any list, and no evidence upon which to compile a list.
Asshole Egnor is defending McCarthy's list without even knowing:
1. If it existed-- Egnor doesn't know
2. Who was on it-- Egnor doesn't know
3. What evidence was used to put them on it-- Egnor doesn't know
We see a right winger who said he had a list. Egnor sees a fellow member of the Radical Right wearing the Purple Helmet of Bullshit that only Right Wingers are permitted to wear. The Purple Helmet of Bullshit must be guarded and defended jealously.
Hey Smegnor-- I've got a list of Radical Right surgeons who molest baby seals. It's as real as McCarthy's!
Re Gaetz
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough, Ford's nemesis, Walter Reuther, who organized the United Auto Worker's Union, actually worked in an automobile plant during the 1930s in the former Soviet Union that was built with the cooperation of, none other then Henry Ford (apparently, ole Henry like to play both sides of the fence on occasion). Reuther, who was a socialist at that time, soon grew disillusioned with the system in the former Soviet Union and later became a strong anti-Communist, ridding the UAW of it's Communist influences after his return to the US. American labor unions tended to be rather more conservative then their European counterparts.
By the way, you might consider reading a book on Soviet espionage authored by Allen Weinstein, (see link below) who at one time was dubious about whether Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent but changed his mind after reading the Verona papers where it was clear that Hiss was not innocent. Weinstein makes it clear that McCarthy was very much a Johnny come lately to the anti-Communist cause.
By the way, Paul Jarrico, who I mentioned earlier on, came to an unfortunate end. The Screen Actors Guild held a dinner in his honor in 1997. On his way home, his car ran off the road on Mulholland Dr. in LA and he was killed. Mulholland Dr., which follows the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains is no place to be driving a car at night while under the influence of booze.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Haunted_Wood:_Soviet_Espionage_in_America%E2%80%94The_Stalin_Era&action=edit&redlink=1
Intelligence is habitually manipulated in pursuit of domestic agendas. This would be just as true of past intelligence as well. My familiarity with the Venona decrypts was never very extensive and I must admit to relying on memory of my best judgment rather than having details close to hand. But I don't think it was ever a matter of fact that these papers justified a conclusion that the Red Scare was justified by a genuine massive conspiracy.
ReplyDeleteIt is not at all clear that Venona confirmed Chambers and Bentley, since Chambers and Bentley were the main sources of conjectures about who the code names represented. But claiming the Venona decrypts proved those dubious characters to be reliable had political value then and now.
Conspiracies attract fabulists. Compare the careers of James Jesus Angleton and his relations with Anatoly Golitsyn with the American career of Yuri Nosenko for a glimpse of the difiiculties that can arise. Ex-KGB agents looking for a book deal have a vested interest in exaggerations or outright falsehoods. Documents smuggled from the USSR have been forged. One very well known example was the Penkovsky Papers. Without close study, who can authoritatively say that Khrushchev's smuggled memoirs were wholly genuine?
Sometimes it is best to just look at the big picture. Compare the number of countries invaded or bombed or governments subverted and overthrown by the US and the USSR. (If you want to include the central European countries conquered in the war against Hitler against the USSR, OK, if you count France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece and European colonies like Algeria and Malaya for the "West" too. The ghost of Admiral Darlan agrees with me.) Then ask yourself, would the patriotic supporters have reason to believe (sincerely or not) that their enemy posed a threat in order to justify the decades long crusade that cost so much money and blood?
I just came back from a gathering at a community center here in Seattle, which was a musical celebration of the life of Pete Seeger. The turnout was remarkable -- the main auditorium filled instantly and two overflow rooms were opened. Joan and I were in one of them. We saw old friends from folk music activities and from sixties/seventies era political groups. People with instruments improvised a program in the overflow room, with the audience suggesting songs to sing that were by Pete, songs associated with Pete, with Woody Guthrie. We started with Where Have All The Flowers Gone and ended with We Shall Overcome and then So Long, It's Been Good to Know You.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of the reaction to the death of John Lennon, when young people gathered spontaneously (here in Seattle, on the grounds of Seattle Center near the Space Needle) and simply sang Lennon's songs, without any music corporation making a penny from the event.
This was an older crowd, people who were young in the '60s. As I left I saw three older women walking away, One was saying "It's just good to see all those people, and remember that we're all still out there."
Oh, and as for the commenter here who thinks that Pete was a Terrible Person, I didn't see him there. Just as well. Wouldn't have been good for his blood pressure.
The music must have been great-- I always loved the Soviets' national anthem. I wonder if they played that. It was Seeger's favorite.
DeleteHave you been to any musical celebrations of Nazi sympathizers? The guy who wrote the Horst Wessel Song passed away a few years back.
Joe Felenstein
DeleteI would love to have been present! Seattle is probably my favorite American city! (I used to live a little up north in Vancouver)
Back to Larry Moran: "It was a time when opposition to war was so strong and so powerful that we thought it might bring an end to all wars. We were so naive."
Wait a minute - Stop and think… youth in the 60s did manage to accomplish the unthinkable.
United in song, they did indeed shut down an unholy war! Consider – every major battle of the Vietnam War was a victory for the Americans when calculating collateral damage and lives lost.
Were it not for civilian political interference, the war would have been easily won in very little time!
Why the civilian political interference?
Youthful “naiveté” as manifested in student demonstrations across the nation forced politicians to bow to moral suasion – patriotism no longer could be played as a trump card in war.
And let us not forget the success of the Civil Rights Movement. Frankly that social revolution happened in a blink of an eye, accelerated by the lubricant of song.
That is what I teach my students in class… I compare Credence Clearwater’s Senator’s Son and Pete Seeger’s We Shall Overcome - to Beethoven’s 3rd & 9th Symphonies when citing Pete Seeger’s dictum on the power of dangerous songs that can topple dynasties.
I don’t think we were all that naïve in the 60’s - definitely not gullible; explaining why so much good was accomplished. Still those days are behind us! As mentioned earlier, the suicide of Phil Ochs marked the end of that era.
Ah yes John Lennon… I remember that day. Our university completely shut down that day! Wow- tripping down memory lane. Thanks for the memories.
http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2011/12/suppose-they-gave-war-and-nobody-came.html
Hey guys, help me out here. Michael Egnor has been trumpeting his American Hero, Joe McCarthy, because he lied about having a non-existent list of ~100 commies in the State Department.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping you guys will describe the lists you've compiled, that are 100% as real as McCarthy's.
I'll start:
I've got a list of conservative surgeons who say germ theory is "controversial", and who beat baby seals to death with frozen orphans.
Now you go.
I've go a list of 100 eminent contemporary biologists, 23 of them Nobel Prize winners, who declare that Aquinas's treatises remain the cornerstone of modern science, that evolutionary theory is an ideologically motivated pseudoscience based on zero evidence and possibly inspired by Satan, and that life was designed and personally created by a certain supernatural intelligence (probably triunite) at some time between 6,000 and 4,000,000,000 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI also have a petition addressed to the Pope, signed by 100,000 people who insist that Joe McCarthy was a great American and a fine Roman Catholic who lived in a holy and exemplary way, died a martyr and entered into Heaven, so that nothing stands in the way of his speedy beatification, followed by canonisation after a suitable period during which miracles shall occur as a result of his intercessions. As Saint Joe, he would be recognised as the official patron saint of the USA, and also of alcoholics, cirrhotic patients, witch hunters, and conservative neurosurgeons.
Larry said:
ReplyDelete"a time when opposition to war was so strong and so powerful that we thought it might bring an end to all wars"
In what way was Seeger opposed to war, rather than opposed to American defense of non-communist countries from communist aggression.
Could you point me to his songs or statements that demanded the the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong cease waging war against South Vietnam? Where was his protest against North Korea and China (and Soviet instigation) in the Korean War? Until Aug 1939 he demanded war against Hitler. When Hitler became his ally, he renounced war (he didn't renounce Hitler's invasions of Europe or Stalin's invasion of eastern Poland and the Baltics), and then in June 1941 he was pro-war (against Hitler) again.
I guess I missed the "anti-wr" part of his his life. He was merely pro-communist, and selectively opposed war against communism.
He consistently supported war waged by communists.
Sounds like a non catholic version of Pius XII, that well known Nazi collaborator and Jew hater.
DeleteSteve:
DeleteYou just can't get that anti-Catholic hate out of your system, huh?
Just like anti-Semites, only a slightly different target.
And you didn't respond to any of my points.
DeleteCould you point me to the songs and statements by Seeger in which Seeger denounced war waged by communists?
That would seem a minimal criterion for the label "anti-war".
After by your criterion, Hitler was anti-war too, in that he opposed war against his own side.
Or that kiddy fucking enabler Benedict. Looks like he slipped out of the vatican hot seat just in time to avoid a trip to the International Court of Justice.
DeleteOr how about the current head capo of the catlick conspiracy, what's he gonna do now that he can't push commie catholic priests out of low flying aircraft ?
Re steve oberski
DeleteSo ole Schmucknor belongs to the Raping Children Church, the biggest criminal conspiracy on earth. What a surprise.
@colnago80
DeleteYeah, the smregnortrix is pretty sensitive about that, and who can blame him.
I know I'd be embarrassed to mention that fact in polite company. Sort of like smokers, the new lepers of modern civilization. I'd say he should be forced to wear a cloak, ring a bell and chant "unclean, unclean" when out in public but in a sense he already does that, doesn't he ?
Of all the goat herder religions out there, nobody does vile and nasty quite like the kiddy fucking cartel, and lord knows they have lots of competition, and the smegnorator is the poster child for religiously inspired sociopathic behaviour.
that demanded the the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong cease waging war against South Vietnam
DeleteFor a more informed view of Vietnamese history leading to and through the US military presence in Vietnam, read Frances Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake, winner of the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.
Steve Oberski
ReplyDeleteAll Europe, Catholic Protestant or Orthodox (with the valiant exception of Denmark) failed the victims of the Holocaust. Winston Churchill in particular is most contemptible by his disdain for the plight of European Jewry!
I once had a conversation with the late great historian Raoul Hilberg and asked him if it would be correct to assert that the German Resistance eclipsed the French Resistance.
His spontaneous guffaw spoke volumes… he had a very low opinion of the French Resistance but did admire the various German Resistance movements (emphasis on the plural) and the many attempts to assassinate Hitler which somehow do not make mention in current history books. How about the civil disobedience of nondescript housewives during the Rosen Strasse Protest who had the courage to stare down Goebbels, even after the German defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad!
Historians can dither whether or not either Pope Pius XI or XII did enough to oppose the Nazis … That said, neither were silent; as evidenced by the Papal encyclicals “Mit Brennender Sorge”and “Summi Pontificatus”!
Focusing on Germany alone: German Catholic heroes were exemplary in opposing Nazism: Catholic heroes including such as luminaries such as Cardinal von Galen or the young students of the White Rose Circle all who courageously deferred to their faith when courageously opposing the evil of Nazism.
... jsut saying
OK - Before I am accused of chauvinism - Protestants can also claim pride in faith-based opposition to Hitler. eb Bekennende Kirche and Pastor Martin Niemöller. I was merely reacting to Steve Oberski's misrepresentation of history!
Deleteצדק צדק תרדוף
http://www.dieterwunderlich.de/widerstand_nationalsozialismus.htm