Famed Folk Singer, Songwriter And Political Activist Dies At 94
"His musical career was always braided tightly with his political activism, in which he advocated for causes ranging from civil rights to the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River. Seeger said he left the Communist Party around 1950 and later renounced it. But the association dogged him for years."
Seeger was apparently a sucker for liberal causes and apparently not wise enough to judge the worth of them. He supported the Occupy movement -including, in my mind- their deplorable excesses (I've never heard of Seeger condemning them) and, most amazingly, Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley.
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"Though Seeger didn’t formally join the Communist Party until 1942, the Almanacs’ lyrics marched in lockstep with the party’s views well before then. In keeping with the line adopted after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (which caused many U.S. party members to quit in disgust), for example, the Almanacs warbled against American entry into World War II, foreshadowing the preference for peace at any price that later characterized the McGovernite Left. “Franklin D., listen to me,/You ain’t a-gonna send me ’cross the sea.” The group continued in this vein into the late 1940s. Campaigning for Progressive Party anti–cold war candidate Henry Wallace in 1948, they regularly performed a send-up of Harry Truman, to the tune of “Oh, Susannah”:" ...
"His musical career was always braided tightly with his political activism, in which he advocated for causes ranging from civil rights to the cleanup of his beloved Hudson River. Seeger said he left the Communist Party around 1950 and later renounced it. But the association dogged him for years."
Seeger was apparently a sucker for liberal causes and apparently not wise enough to judge the worth of them. He supported the Occupy movement -including, in my mind- their deplorable excesses (I've never heard of Seeger condemning them) and, most amazingly, Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley.
America’s Most Successful Communist ... ... "Given his decisive influence on the political direction of popular music, Seeger may have been the most effective American communist ever."He got himself jailed for five days for blocking traffic in Albany in 1988 in support of Tawana Brawley, a black teenager whose claim of having been raped by white men was later discredited. He continued to take part in peace protests during the war in Iraq, and he continued to lend his name to causes.
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"Though Seeger didn’t formally join the Communist Party until 1942, the Almanacs’ lyrics marched in lockstep with the party’s views well before then. In keeping with the line adopted after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (which caused many U.S. party members to quit in disgust), for example, the Almanacs warbled against American entry into World War II, foreshadowing the preference for peace at any price that later characterized the McGovernite Left. “Franklin D., listen to me,/You ain’t a-gonna send me ’cross the sea.” The group continued in this vein into the late 1940s. Campaigning for Progressive Party anti–cold war candidate Henry Wallace in 1948, they regularly performed a send-up of Harry Truman, to the tune of “Oh, Susannah”:" ...
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