A new exhibition and study center dedicated to Woody Guthrie is being built in Oklahoma, by a billionaire. Ron Radosh reflects on this news and on the record regarding Woody Guthrie’s political beliefs in a very interesting piece indeed: Hey, Hey Woody Guthrie — We Celebrate Your Music, But We Do Not Celebrate Your Politics.
Pete Seeger was wrong on Adolf Hitler, wrong on Joseph Stalin (for over 60 years) and — yes! — wrong on Bob Dylan going electric at Newport. Yet, he gets cut a great deal of slack even by those who don’t share his ideology. He mentored a lot of individuals who later grew out of his party-playbook worldview (and you know what party I’m talking about). (Lest I be accused of innuendo: the Communist party.) He is given so much slack, and, in his old age, so many salutes and tributes even from those who have disagreed with him on substantive issues because he is seen to project a deep-seated concern for his fellow-man, even if that has sometimes led him to certain errors; errors along the lines of persistently shilling for a dictator responsible for the deaths of millions. Pete Seeger also has the ability to put over a folk song in a way that many find endearing. Continue reading Pete Seeger merits sanction for anti-Israel BDS campaign
Currently a raging bestseller in France, and spreading around the world, is a short book by Stéphane Hessel called Indignez-Vous, or A Time for Outrage. As taken apart by Ron Radosh, the screed begins by trying to make the case for reinvigorating the selfish old socialism which has brought Europe to the point of insolvency, and moves logically onward to identify the greatest danger in the world: Israel, of-course.
The fact that something like this has caught on in such a big way (and now has been published in the U.S. by The Nation) is as disturbing as it is nauseatingly unsurprising. The vapors from Fukushima are not the only source of an expanding and lethal stink in the world today.