« You're Lying | Main | Neo Posts for Me »
February 2, 2014
'If I Had A Hammer'? Well, what's stopping you?
The legacy of this period is less musical than political: half-a-century back, the self-consciously childlike "folk song" met the civil rights movement and helped permanently infantilize the left.I caught an "anti-war" protest in Vermont a few years ago and the entire repertoire was from the Sixties, starting with "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?", which as a poignant comment on soldiering was relevant in the Great War but has no useful contribution to make in a discussion on Iraq. And, as I observed of Pete Seeger's visit to the "mass" protest movement of our own time, the more pertinent question with the Occupy Wall Street crowd is "Where have all the showers gone?" - - A Mighty Wind :: SteynOnline
Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 2, 2014 11:17 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Infantilization of the left via song. I'm reminded of this every time I hear Lennon's insipid "imagine".
Posted by: Dathi at February 2, 2014 1:21 PM
"Imagine" was not written by a starry eyed believer in world peace. It was written to "look the part" and to get acclaim from an adoring left and right on cue the adoring left fell all over it. I assume Lennon couldn't help but snicker when it all went so well.
As for "when I had a hammer we used to sing along with it and the second line was "if I had a sickle". Old Pete was a red diaper who was brainwashed from birth. Interesting he never had the ability to rise above it and become a recovering communist. But make no mistake part of the reason he couldn't was because of the acclaim poured onto him by the adoring left. It is amazing what our ego and the need for attention will allow us to do.
Posted by: GoneWithTheWind at February 2, 2014 4:23 PM
Check out this bit about Pete Seeger's love of dictators at PJ Media. A pull quote:
"In the “John Doe” album, Mr. Seeger accused FDR of being a warmongering fascist working for J.P. Morgan. He sang, “I hate war, and so does Eleanor, and we won’t be safe till everybody’s dead.” Another song, to the tune of “Cripple Creek” and the sound of Mr. Seeger’s galloping banjo, said, “Franklin D., Franklin D., You ain’t a-gonna send us across the sea,” and “Wendell Willkie and Franklin D., both agree on killing me.”
The film does not tell us what happened in 1941, when — two months after “John Doe” was released — Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. As good communists, Mr. Seeger and his Almanac comrades withdrew the album from circulation, and asked those who had bought copies to return them. A little later, the Almanacs released a new album, with Mr. Seeger singing “Dear Mr. President,” in which he acknowledges they didn’t always agree in the past, but now says he is going to “turn in his banjo for something that makes more noise,” i.e., a machine gun. As he says in the film, we had to put aside causes like unionism and civil rights to unite against Hitler."
http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2014/01/28/pete-seegers-totalitarian-trifecta/
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 2, 2014 7:59 PM
After the Soviet money and direction ran out, those peace movements and national liberation fronts had to get jobs.
Never quite been the same since....
Posted by: Mikey NTH at February 2, 2014 8:58 PM
Oh they're getting money still, they just worked out ways to have the federal government send them funds instead of the Soviets. You figure the people running and working at Planned Parenthood and OFA and all those other organizations got real jobs?
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 3, 2014 11:28 AM