Iconic folk singer Pete Seeger turned 90 last week and the occasion was marked by a concert at Madison Square Garden featuring musical luminaries Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp, Joan Baez and Ani DiFranco, and even a letter from President Barack Obama delivered to thousands of adoring fans.
Seeger popularized folk music and used it as a tool to effect political and social change in America. He is credited with writing such famous songs as "Turn, Turn, Turn", "Where Have all the Flowers Gone," and "If I Had a Hammer." Seeger also popularized Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land." In 1994 Bill Clinton awarded Seeger the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center feted him with a tribute for his music and activism. Seeger in many cases was at forefront of the civil rights movement and a dedicated advocate for American labor.
However, there is a dark side to Pete Seeger, one that is airbrushed out of all the effusive hagiography. Seeger was a dedicated Stalinist and has not renounced his devotion to communism, a political ideology, which according to the Black Book of Communism, responsible for the murder of over 94 million people. When you speak out against communism you get booed, when you're a cheerleader for its mass murderers you get a Kennedy Center tribute and presidential praise.
Seeger was a member of the Communist Party from the 1930s through the 1950s. He left the party but never gave up the faith. He told the Washington Post in 1995 "I am still a communist." Like his comrades and fellow travelers Seeger twisted and turned with every pronouncement from Moscow. Seeger supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact, a curious position for a noted "anti-fascist." In 1941 Seeger along with Guthrie was a member of the Almanac Singers, a communist folk group. The group put out the anti-war album Songs from John Doe, containing songs that labeled Franklin Roosevelt a war monger. One of the songs had the following lyrics:
Franklin D, listen to me,
You ain't a-gonna send me 'cross the sea.
You may say it's for defense
That kinda talk ain't got no sense.
Of course when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Seeger and the Almanac Singer's literally changed their tune to get in lockstep with Stalin's new foreign policy. They pulled Songs from John Doe from the market and quickly replaced it with the pro-war, pro-Roosevelt album Dear Mr. President:
Now, Mr. President
You're commander-in-chief of our armed forces
The ships and the planes and the tanks and the horses
I guess you know best just where I can fight ...
So what I want is you to give me a gun
So we can hurry up and get the job done!
Seeger's sycophancy for murderous communist tyrants didn't end with Stalin. During the Cold War he praised Ho Chi Minh and provided a hearty jacket endorsement for Tomas Borges' the brutal Sandinista thug's book.
Seeger was blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but as Steve Chapman notes, "Not all victims of McCarthyism were innocent victims," another fact airbrushed from history.
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