Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Is It Possible to Love the Artist, but Hate His Politics? The culture clash over Pete Seeger's legacy.

This is a good reprimand to those of us who only know of Seeger as a communist sympathizer and look no deeper into the man than that. These thoughts could have also applied to Springsteen had he practiced his art in the early to mid-twentieth century instead of today. I disagreed with Seeger, but knew he was for real; I cannot help but see Springsteen's music - excellent as it is - as shtick  .  TD
Heller cartoon: Pete Seeger
By Rick Moran at PJ Media  "Communist activist and troubadour Pete Seeger is dead. The outpouring of vitriol on the right and hagiography on the left is entirely predictable and, with few exceptions, entirely banal. Turning Seeger’s death into another clash in the culture wars somehow seems tiresome, like two old boxers coming out of their corners for the 12th round. Battered, beaten, bloody, all they have left is the instinct to try to destroy each other. Whatever art and artifice they possessed disappeared long before the bell clanged for the last round.

"Must we reduce everything in America to a right vs. left Armageddon? One longs for a more complicated, less knee-jerk combative analysis of people like Pete Seeger. Actually, there has been no one like Pete Seeger, and future historians will brush aside most of the shallow, venomous assaults on his memory — as well as the one-dimensional paeans that whitewash his execrable politics — and look at the totality of his life and judge his monumental contributions to American society."

Clinton supporter to CSPAN: Ben Carson 'trying out for Uncle Tom’s Cabin'

Examiner.com  "On Monday, a supporter of Hillary Clinton went on a racially-charged rant during a call to CSPAN's "Washington Journal," attacking Dr. Ben Carson, Allen West and men in general, the Washington Free Beacon reported:

 
" 'Good morning. I am a black woman from Fort Washington, Maryland. And yes, Hillary Clinton will run for office and she will win," the caller began, before launching into a racist tirade against conservative blacks who dare to not stay on the Democratic Party plantation.

" 'Mr. Carson, the only thing he’s going to be doing is trying out for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, because it’s kind of full right now with Allen West and the crew," she said.

"The caller then went on a rant against men in general." ...

This is all the natural result of Today's Democrat Party and the leftist demagoguery that is woven into their character, smothering all traces of tolerance and compassion. TD

These were NOT Pete Seeger's finest moments

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.
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.
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."
...
"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”:" ...

Governing by Pen and Phone; Obama used to sigh that he was not a dictator who could act unilaterally. No more.

Victor Davis Hanson  "There are lots of creepy things about such dictatorial statements of moving morally backward in order to go politically “forward.” Concerning issues dear to the president’s heart — climate change, more gun control, de facto amnesty, more massive borrowing supposedly to jump-start the anemic, jobless recovery — Obama not long ago had a Democratic supermajority in the Senate and a strong majority in the House. With such rare political clout, he supposedly was going to pass his new American agenda.

"Instead, all he got from his Democratic colleagues was more borrowing and Obamacare. In the case of the latter, the bill passed only through the sort of pork-barrel kickbacks and exemptions to woo fence-sitting Democratic legislators that we hadn’t seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. And for what? Obamacare (be careful what you wish for) is proving to be the greatest boondoggle in American political history since Prohibition. If Obama sincerely
wished to work in bipartisan fashion with Congress, he probably could easily get a majority vote to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, or a backup sanction plan against Iran in case his own initiatives fail." ...

Bridenstine Bringing Ty Woods' Dad to SOTU

Father of SEAL Killed in Benghazi to Attend Presidents Big Address Tuesday
Charles Woods
Big Government  "Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is determined to counter the Obama Administration’s efforts to sweep the massacre at the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya under the rug. Bridenstine announced Monday that his personal guest at Tuesday’s State of the Union address will be Charles Woods, the father of Navy SEAL Ty Woods, who was murdered in the 2012 terrorist attack that the Obama Administration initially insisted was the result of an anti-Islam video."
Mr. Woods testified,
When I was approached by Hillary Clinton at the coming-home ceremony of the bodies at Andrews Air Force Base, and she said, “We’re going to go out and we’re going to prosecute that person that made the video,” I knew that she wasn’t telling the truth, and I think the whole world knows that now.
 More on this here.

A GOP Congressman Is Bringing Father of SEAL Killed in Benghazi to Obama’s State of the Union Address
“ 'Republican leaders were urging their members to bring people who have been hurt by Obamacare. Some Democrats plan to bring illegal immigrant children who were granted a temporary stay of deportation by Mr. Obama, hoping their presence will spur a push for a broader immigration bill to pass Congress this year,” the report notes."


The nauseating spectacle the State of the Union has become

Pinocchio
 
Republicans, beware The SOTU Curse  "Why responding to the president can be hazardous to your political career."

Jonah Goldberg; The Pull of the SOTU    ... "But I really do resent the demand on my time and attention to listen to a fairly pathetic wish list of focus-grouped programs and the rhetorical placating of various constituencies. As a fan of civic rituals myself, I understand why some people have a soft spot for the pageantry of this thing. But I find it all canned, tacky and vaguely monarchical. If you find that too mealy-mouthed, I strongly recommend you read Kevin Williamson’s piece today. He’s less equivocal. "...


OK, we will. Here:

On the nauseating spectacle that is the State of the Union address
"The State of the Union is only one example of the deepening, terrifying cult of the state that has taken root here. Many heads of state — and some royals, for that matter — fly on commercial aircraft. ... but are known to use mass transit — just like the people they are elected to represent. An American president stages a Roman triumph every time he heads out for a round of golf. ...Washington has become ...a Renaissance court with armored sedans and hundred-million-dollar paydays.