Friday, January 31, 2014

SEEGER, COMMUNISM AND EARLY POST-WAR CONSERVATISM

This section of an interesting article about Pete Seeger by David A. Graham has a connection to the beginnings of post-war conservatism in America:
As Seeger notes in this video, he had friends who died fighting with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, as part of the Communist and republican opposition to Francisco Franco, who was backed by Hitler.
L. Brent Bozell Jr., the father of today's MRC bozo, moved with his family to Spain in 1960 and "was impressed by the Catholic domination of society enforced by the dictator Francisco Franco. ... Bozell returned to the United States inspired to use government power to inhibit citizens' freedom and enforce their virtue.... [Bozell believed that] the Founding Fathers' writings contained 'not a hint of the ideology of freedom...not a word suggesting that freedom is the goal of the commonwealth.' " (Source: Kabaservice, p. 82)

The inner quotes are from Bozell's important article, "Freedom or Virtue", in National Review, Sept. 1, 1962.

2 comments:

Ken Hoop said...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/30/pete-seeger-a-dissenting-view/

So Pete Seeger was ultimately embarrassed by the excesses of Stalinism?
This does not excuse his "wow, the left has won--it's kewl we got a hip (Clinton) then black President now" attitude, as if Clinton-Obama have been any kind of anti-capitalist leftists. At least that's the impression I get from his hard core fans and any statements he might have made of which I am aware about American politics since the Clinton era.

Steve J. said...

At least that's the impression I get from his hard core fans and any statements he might have made of which I am aware about American politics since the Clinton era.

My impression of Seeger comes from the late 60s & early 70s. The point I was trying to make is that Bozell and Seeger took very different paths, kind of like Ayn Rand and Isaiah Berlin.