Just when you thought Occupy Wall Street hadn’t a single new idea in its pretty little empty head, the geniuses dust off the old banjo Bolshevik. From The New York Times, “Pete Seeger Leads Protesters, On Foot And In Song“:
Mr. Seeger, whose activist credentials go back at least as far as a benefit concert that he and Woody Guthrie did for California migrant workers in 1940 and who wrote or helped write populist ballads like like “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and “If I Had a Hammer,” …set off south, walking at a brisk pace and accompanied by a crowd of about 600, some of them carrying placards declaring support for the self-declared 99 percent that have been occupying Zuccotti Park for five weeks…
“He’s a symbol of the peace movement,” said one of the marchers, Larry Manzino, a retired research scientist from Piscataway, N.J. “He’s a guy who never caved, a guy who had integrity, a guy who stood up and said no when he had to.”
“A guy who had integrity” is leftie code for “didn’t repudiate Stalin until half-a-century after the old monster had died”, as Seeger belatedly did in 2009. “Activist credentials” is the preferred New York Times euphemism for being reliably wrong on every single issue for the last 70 years, starting with his opposition to the Second World War. (Not to mention he ripped off Solomon Linda, the black South African author of “Wimoweh”, who died penniless. Because, unlike poor Mr Linda, Mr Seeger was shrewd enough to have a – what’s the word? – “corporation” to protect his business interests.)
But good for OWS at finally finding the perfect soundtrack for its fresh youthful idealism. I believe Pete serenaded the Zuccotti Park crowd with his searing protest song, “Where Have All The Showers Gone?”
(Knit-cap tip: Ed Driscoll.)
>>“A guy who had integrity” is leftie code for “didn’t repudiate Stalin until half-a-century after the old monster had died”, as Seeger belatedly did in 2009.
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Seeger may be dead in biological terms, but he is very much alive to my local PBS station that regularly trots out a fawning Seeger documentary during their pledge weeks. Unfortunately, there is no mathematical possibility for me to reduce my contribution to them from the existing level.
But you could reduce your contribution to your local PBS station by getting Congress to cut off its funding.
As for the OWS crowd, their lack a coherent message, marketable skill, and understanding of basic principles of sanitation make them a bigger threat to themselves than to anyone else. Their 'popularity', as with so many other populist movements on the left and right, stems from the fact that almost anyone can look at something they complain about and say, 'Yes, I'm opposed to that, too.'
The real question is whether the handouts they live off of now will dry up before the weather turns bad or plague descends on the camp. Or until we stop giving them the attention they so little deserve.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou could send them a bill.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLol, one has to be amused at the attacks on OWS from the right. A very clear indication, if you ever needed one, of how effective the popular movement has been in changing the dialogue in this country to the disparity of wealth and how the deck is stacked against the middle class. Something that the Republicans are defending. They must be very very scared as even Karl Rove had to recently admit.
Come on, let's have more dirty hippie attacks, this is fun.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCome on, let's have more dirty hippie attacks, this is fun.
I agree, except not for the dumb Marxist reason you gave.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI disagree with your premise, that the deck is "stacked" against the middle class. Times are hard for the middle class, no doubt about it, but that's always been the case to one degree or another.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhatever , Mr. Slide. I think the criticism of OWS is more based on a recognition of the fact that they are bunch of naive dreamers then any fear of their ideas catching on as a political movement. And , just for my edification as to the alleged destruction of the middle class, give me one historical example of any society where a greater percentage of the population were healthier, and better fed, clothed, housed and entertained, than in 21st century America. Perhaps you and your heros should focus more on making something of yourselves as opposed to coveting the success of others and espousing a failed (and historically murderous) economic and political philosophy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSlide, we all know that you're supporting hte OWS folks so you don't have to face the issues you've admitted to having with black people, by your own definition of course.
As Lech Walesa shows, the more people get educated about the communisits and anti-semetic rants in OWS, the faster people get turned off.
Hmm, anti-semetic rants... maybe that's why you support them so much.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYeah, sure is hard to criticize people who defecate on the American flag and rape defenseless women then insist they not report the crime to police.
If by hard you mean "like falling off a log."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmerica's favorite down-home Stalinist.
Lech Walesa repudiated them due to the inevitable Marxist absorption of those idiot kids down there.
Of course, mind you, he can't play the banjo.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePart of me wishes Walesa had gone down there. I would love to see one of those idiots TRY to tell him that what he went through wasn't REAL communism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOh, and Pete Seeger was horribly, dreadfully wrong about Bob Dylan going electric. I wonder what his stance on the Chevy Volt is?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>>Oh, and Pete Seeger was horribly, dreadfully wrong about Bob Dylan going electric...
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LOL. In all the years, that episode was the only time that Seeger ever had anything to say that actually engaged my attention. And I agree with you, John, R.
If he had an axe, he'd axe Chevy in the morning.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt was in that precious axe-wielding moment that Pete Seeger proved he was as much an ultra-conservative reactionary as the most cartoonish version of a right-winger his mind could conceive.
Folksinger, singer/songwriter, rocker, recluse, big band showman, Jesus freak, Diane Warren-wannabe, alterna-rock godfather, grizzled old man: I love Dylan the dynamic individual. But Pete Seeger wanted his artistic growth to stop in 1964 and go no further - and he was willing to enforce this at the heavy end of a sharp axe. Idiot. A violent one, too!
Pete Seeger = Provincial hick folktard.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, indeed. Seeger, a hard-left activist, may have written (or 'borrowed') a couple of pretty good folk songs; but Dylan is, I think, a significant poet and composer who keeps reinventing himself, and will have broad appeal long after his active days are over. The fact that he and his music are so beloved in spite of the fact that his voice makes him sound like the world's most constipated folk singer, to me just proves his talent as a poet.
If you have not seen Dylan's idiosyncratic and very moving "Cross the Green Mountain" ballad and video (provided as an extra on the DVD version of 'Gods and Generals'), do check it out. Perhaps the video is on the Internet as well; I do not know.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere we have a grass-roots movement that garners 60% public approval, and recently generated spontaneous, simultaneous demonstrations in 951 cities in 82 different countries... and the GOP thinks it's safe to mock this movement!
Another indication of a party so out of touch and lacking in vision that it has totally lost its way, its ear and its political sense.
(Capcha... "riff-raff." These things are just UNCANNY, aren't; they? :-)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, according to you, anyway. Throw in some random "-crats" and "-isms".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYes, you keep pooping on cop cars, we'll keep the country running.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor a bunch of guys who insist that the right is slitting its own throat by opposing this global revolution of the people against the fat cats, you, Slide, and the rest of the NRO lefty community sure are touchy when someone mocks them (or observes their behavior and records it, which I guess is the same thing).
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