You really can’t put anything by the FBI.
4 Likes
I don’t blame a young idealistic Pete Seeger for supporting Stalin’s communist regime in the 1930’s and that’s because he was lied to. And the lies were told to him by the likes of the esteemed, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times, Walter Duranty. And others like him. Of course I’m glad Seeger rejected Stalin eventually. But the problem is that in the history of communist governments, Stalin is not unique.
3 Likes
The utility of homosexuals as an enemy to direct the anger of working-class Americans against has declined. In reality, it doesn’t matter what you do with your junk as long as you submit to a proportion of your labour being expropriated by an investing class.
3 Likes
I wish that it wasn’t so easy for them to just swap a different group into their formula. 
They can’t use homosexuals as a target anymore? Well now it is immigrants. I’m sure they have their hate queue filled with at least a generation of potential groups to single out unfortunately.
2 Likes
Are you saying he wasn’t?
Yes but he wasn’t a true Scotsman communist.
1 Like
That would be the State Capitalism argument.
3 Likes
It’s been a while (early in 1989), but I seem to recall being asked some version of “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party” for my clearance.
Ah, the original meaning of Political Correctness: self-censorship to not be interpreted as a Red. Pete was great at not caring to be PC in those days.
3 Likes
Hey, they also investigated Groucho Marx for supposedly being a communist. That’s funny for a guy who’d never belong to any club that would have someone like him as a member.
On the other hand…
6 Likes
investigated Groucho Marx
They were right; it says so right on the t-shirt!
5 Likes
10 Likes
And why would the FBI care? Why would they spend our money and resources tracking political affiliation in a democratic republic? Why do they continue to do so? Isn’t it time we end this sort of harassment?
6 Likes
Lots of people felt that way.
A better key to what Seeger felt is that at one time he was a complete pacifist, opposed US entry into the war every bit as much as Charles Lindbergh, was perfectly willing to let Europe suffer under the Nazis.
Until June 22, 1941.
Then he did an instantaneous 180 and became a relentless advocate of war.
He supported the Soviet Union at least as much as he did “jobs” or “fairness”.
I guess none of them had access to the 1930’s writings of that well known Wall Street mouthpiece, Leon Trotsky.
“Optimistic communists” chose to self censor what they read and said (perhaps what they thought as well) and have no excuse.
It depends on the communists.
Council Communists like Antonie Pannekoek were critics of the Bolsheviks from very early on, as were the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Anarcho-communists were against them from the very start, leading to the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion and Nestor Makhno’s Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine.
I’d say that the “optimistic communists” were crap at research, which the Marxist-Leninists were very happy to maintain.
2 Likes
Yes, it should end, but it won’t, because a large part of what every bureaucracy does is act self-protectively. If something unexpected happens, the government does not want to be accused of having ignored a threat and allowing it to happen, so they reflexively overreach to defend against the possibility of the accusation.
It is a part of human nature to guard against possible mistakes, and the only thing that can contain the abuse of governmental intrusion like this is transparency. And this is also the reason why the government works so hard to operate in the shadows, free of scrutiny by critics.
1 Like
Why do you think that Leninist communists have been able to successfully crush other socialist and communist factions in so many countries? Do the latter simply lack the necessary ruthlessness?
Then the headline should be different. Instead of “FBI thought Seeger was a commie” it should have been “Seeger was a commie, and that’s OK”.
If fact that wasn’t ok. Seeger followed the Communist party line after Stalin allied with Hitler and carved up Poland. Seeger publicly denounced Roosevelt for trying to mobilize to prepare for war and help Great Britain, famously releasing the anti-Roosevelt tune “Plow Every Fourth American Boy Under.” Seeger’s pro-Hitler-Stalin activity was the principal reason his Almanac Singers were not allowed to perform for the armed services and ultimately had to disband. The Left, which has never forgiven rightwing America Firsters, has done a pretty good job covering up this episode in Seeger’s life.
