"Multiple people—including police—tell me a man walked up with a guitar case and pulled out the pick axe. Then, it’s believed, he called police himself to report it, but left the scene before they got here. Now, he’s nowhere to be found."Guitar case, eh? Reminds me of gentler times, when Woody Guthrie had a sign on his guitar, "This Machine Kills Fascists."
No, it wasn't really gentler times! It was 1941, and Woody was doing "Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues."
"This Machine Kills Fascists" has its own Wikipedia page. There, we learn that in later years, Pete Seeger had "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces it to Surrender" on his banjo — as he sang "Waist Deep in Big Muddy," protesting the Vietnam War.
And Donovan had "This machine kills" on his guitar — and explained that "fascism was already dead" and his "machine would kill greed and delusion." Delusion!? Yes, Donovan can help with delusions — Get together/Work it out/Simplicity/Is what it's about...
But today's news is of a pickaxe in a guitar case. The destruction is direct — smashing with a tool — not indirect like music that has to enter the human mind and motivate the action of others.
By the way, a submachine gun in a violin case is a TV Trope: "This has been done so much that nowadays when some people see a violin case, they assume it contains firearms." Jinx in "League of Legends" says, "What's in my violin case? Violence!"
Now, that guy with the pickaxe used his tool to destroy, but he didn't destroy a man. He didn't "kill fascists." He destroyed an inanimate thing. And that's iconoclasm:
Iconoclasm is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons....UPDATE: An arrest has been made in the star-pickaxing case.
In the Bronze Age, the most significant episode of iconoclasm occurred in Egypt during the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten, based in his new capital of Akhetaten, instituted a significant shift in Egyptian artistic styles alongside a campaign of indifference/ intolerance towards the traditional gods and a new emphasis on a state monolatristic tradition focused on the god Aten, the Sun disk— many temples and monuments were destroyed as a result....
In contrast to the Lutherans who favoured sacred art in their churches and homes, the Reformed (Calvinist) leaders... encouraged the removal of religious images by invoking the Decalogue's prohibition of idolatry and the manufacture of graven (sculpted) images of God. As a result, individuals attacked statues and images....
During the English Civil War, Bishop Joseph Hall of Norwich described the events of 1643 when troops and citizens, encouraged by a Parliamentary ordinance against superstition and idolatry, behaved thus:
Lord what work was here! What clattering of glasses! What beating down of walls! What tearing up of monuments! What pulling down of seats! What wresting out of irons and brass from the windows! What defacing of arms! What demolishing of curious stonework! What tooting and piping upon organ pipes! And what a hideous triumph in the market-place before all the country, when all the mangled organ pipes, vestments, both copes and surplices, together with the leaden cross which had newly been sawn down from the Green-yard pulpit and the service-books and singing books that could be carried to the fire in the public market-place were heaped together....The first act of Muslim iconoclasm dates to the beginning of Islam, in 630, when the various statues of Arabian deities housed in the Kaaba in Mecca were destroyed. There is a tradition that Muhammad spared a fresco of Mary and Jesus. This act was intended to bring an end to the idolatry which, in the Muslim view, characterized Jahiliyya....
The missing nose on the Great Sphinx of Giza is attributed to iconoclasm by a Sufi Muslim fanatic in the mid-1300s....
Revolutions and changes of regime, whether through uprising of the local population, foreign invasion, or a combination of both, are often accompanied by the public destruction of statues and monuments identified with the previous regime. This may also be known as damnatio memoriae, the ancient Roman practice of official obliteration of the memory of a specific individual....
Throughout the radical phase of the French Revolution... [n]umerous monuments, religious works, and other historically significant pieces were destroyed in an attempt to eradicate any memory of the Old Regime....
There have been a number of anti-Buddhist campaigns in Chinese history that led to the destruction of Buddhist temples and images... During the Northern Expedition in Guangxi in 1926, Kuomintang General Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing Buddhist images.... The three goals of the movement were anti-foreignism, anti-imperialism and anti-religion...
Many religious and secular images were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976...
During and after the October Revolution, widespread destruction of religious and secular imagery took place, as well as the destruction of imagery related to the Imperial family. The Revolution was accompanied by destruction of monuments of past tsars, as well as the destruction of imperial eagles at various locations throughout Russia. According to Christopher Wharton, "In front of a Moscow cathedral, crowds cheered as the enormous statue of Tsar Alexander III was bound with ropes and gradually beaten to the ground. After a considerable amount of time, the statue was decapitated and its remaining parts were broken into rubble"
The Soviet Union actively destroyed religious sites, including Russian Orthodox churches and Jewish cemeteries, in order to discourage religious practice and curb the activities of religious groups....
During the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty pulled down and destroyed the gilded lead statue of George III of the United Kingdom on Bowling Green (New York City), melting it down to be recast as ammunition. Similar acts have accompanied the independence of most ex-colonial territories. Sometimes relatively intact monuments are moved to a collected display in a less prominent place, as in India and also post-Communist countries....
The Taliban destroyed two ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan in Bamyan, Afghanistan in March 2001.
The Battle of Baghdad symbolically ended with the Firdos Square statue destruction, a US military-staged event in April 2003 where a prominent statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down.
In 2016, paintings from the University of Cape Town were burned in student protests as symbols of colonialism.
In August 2017 a statue of a Confederate soldier dedicated to "the boys who wore the gray" was pulled off of its pedestal in front of Durham County Courthouse in North Carolina by protesters.
Posts
107 comments:
If you click on any of my Wikipedia links, you might get a request to make a donation to Wikipedia. I just donated. I think Wikipedia is the greatest thing on the Internet and one of the greatest creations of humanity. I didn't give a donation that's proportionate to my love, but I did give something!
Notice that Guthrie said "fascists" - not Hitler or Nazis.
That's because he was a peacenik, until June 22, 1941.
I've given money to wikipedia. Although, many of their historical articles are left-wing crap and/or just plain wrong.
However, they provide a valuable service.
I tried to find when exactly in 1941 the 'machine' started to kill fascists but could find a date. My guess is it would be after June 22 1941.
Btw, from the wiki article:
'Guthrie did celebrate the killing of fascists by Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko in his song "Miss Pavlichenko" which includes the lines, "You lift up your sight and down comes a hun, and more than three hundred nazidogs fell by your gun.'
So like every progressive hypocrite he seem to have liked his kind of 'fascists' as long as they were of the correct political colour (Red).
George Lopez took a photo of himself "pissing" on Trumps star.
So edgy, these lefties. Deranged.
Presumably, Leon Trotsky was the kind of fascist Guthrie had in mind, not Hitler who was allied with the USSR. I don't remember if the pickaxe used in that case was concealed in a case.
In this land and era of heretofor unimaginable wealth and plenty, where people live in relative opulence warm and dry with full bellies and have never known the fear of having their heads caved in by barbarians or being sold into slavery, it amazing that people can still apparently get this upset. But ignorance is bliss.
When Ann’s post says the man “did kill fascists” what do you suppose that means?
I suppose she might claim she meant “didn’t”, but that’s preposterous - like someone speaking extemporaneously claiming that when they said “would” they meant “wouldn’t”.
Thanks for your riff on the guitar case messages and make me wonder who is our Woody now? Calling Woody a hypocrite when the free world was calling for the killing of the fascists by anybody and thankful that Russia had been pulled into the war seems a bit over the top.
Sure, r/v, we can criticize the biggest mass murderers in history at a future time.
When would you like to schedule our discussion of communists and other Leftist Collectivists?
I give Wikipedia $20 every year. Money well spent.
Woody Guthrie was a Stalin fanboi? I'm disappointed.
Did Woody Guthrie celebrate the Red Army massacre of Polish POWs at Katyn? The invasion of Finland? The expulsion of the Crimean Tatars to Sov. Central Asia?
So was Einstein. Brilliant in science, retarded in politics, seems to be a thing.
"When Ann’s post says the man “did kill fascists” what do you suppose that means? I suppose she might claim she meant “didn’t”, but that’s preposterous - like someone speaking extemporaneously claiming that when they said “would” they meant “wouldn’t”."
LOL.
I've corrected it.
Thanks for connecting my mistake to Trump's mistake.
In fact, I've learned from many experiences speaking to groups (as a lawprof) that it is extremely easy to misspeak exactly the opposite of what you are trying to say — to leave out the not. Such a small word.
The Fascists Woody's guitar would kill were probably those fighting for Franco.
Re: roesch/voltaire:
Calling Woody a hypocrite when the free world was calling for the killing of the fascists by anybody and thankful that Russia had been pulled into the war seems a bit over the top.
I don't think the point is that he was a hypocrite, it's that he was apparently aligned with one of the three original aggressor powers of WW2 (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Empire of Japan). Soviet Russia wasn't "pulled" into the war -- they invaded Poland in 1939 in concert with the Nazis, and followed it up with an invasion of Finland a couple months later, and the occupation and subsequent anschluss of the Baltic republics in 1940. We weren't thankful that the Soviets were "pulled into the war," since they'd been active participants from the very start. We were thankful that the Nazis and Soviets had fallen into fighting amongst themselves.
By the way, a submachine gun in a violin case is a TV Trope: "This has been done so much that nowadays when some people see a violin case, they assume it contains firearms."
There’s a company named Auto Ordnance that makes semiautomatic replicas of the Thompson submachine gun, including variants that have the circular magazine with 100 round capacity. It’s not an exact replica because,first, semiautomatic instead of fully automatic, and, second because the barrel is roughly six inches longer than the original due to federal firearms laws about minimum rifle barrel lengths. Anyway, Auto Ordnance will also sell you a carrying case for it that (loosely!) resembles a violin case. Kind of cute.
I guess this means Trump gets a brand-new star! MHGA!
"I think Wikipedia is the greatest thing on the Internet and one of the greatest creations of humanity."
I didn't stop to think of what else was in the category "greatest creations of humanity," but what do I think? Without thinking too hard, I'd say: language, music, law, medicine... But those are big generalities. I need things on the specificity level of Wikipedia. But that's hard to do because Wikipedia is so big.
This is just the latest.
How did Trump ever get a star in the first place? Did he have to pay cash?
Grubby little effer. Look at his fingernails.
Reminds me of gentler times, when Woody Guthrie had a sign on his guitar, "This Machine Kills Fascists."
As others have pointed out, Woody's guitar didn't kill Fascists until after June 22,1941 the day that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Woody Guthrie was one of the Almanac Singers. Woody and Pete Seeger were the most prominent members. The Almanac Singers were very much anti-war before June 22,1941. After that date, no longer anti-war.
The Almanacs' first record release, an album of three 78s called Songs for John Doe, written to protest the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, the first peacetime draft in U.S. history. Recorded in February or March 1941 and issued in May, it comprised four songs written by Millard Lampell and two by Seeger and Hays (including "Plow Under") that followed the Communist Party line (after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact), urging non-intervention in World War II.[9] It was produced by the founder of Keynote Records, Eric Bernay. Bernay, who owned a small record store, was the former business manager of the magazine New Masses, which in 1938 and 39 had sponsored John H. Hammond's landmark From Spirituals to Swing Concert.[10] ...
The album also criticized President Roosevelt's unprecedented peacetime draft, insinuating that he was going to war for J.P. Morgan. Seeger later said that he believed the Communist argument at that time that the war was "phony" and that big business merely wanted to use Hitler as a proxy to attack Soviet Russia...
On June 22, 1941, Hitler broke the non-aggression pact and attacked Communist Russia, and Keynote promptly destroyed all its inventory of Songs for John Doe.
Like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie was a summertime pacifist.
Bronze, The wheel. Domesticated animals. Sandwiches.
During the period of 1939- 1941, I guess Fascists were kinda cool, since Hitler & Stalin (Von Ribbentrap/Molotov) signed a non-aggression treaty which lead to their joint invasion of Poland, which most people believe was the start of World War II.
Since this post brought up "This Machine Kills Fascists," this post-modern Woody Guthrie take might be appreciated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6hXEy0Cf-A
"This here machine it kills time...."
RichardJohnson is correct Woody and Pete Seeger always followed the Communist International party line to the tee.
I tend to agree that Wikipedia is one of the greatest achievements of our modern age. As flawed as it may be, I believe it does far more good than bad.
If they caught him, would he be punished or would the Supreme Court rule that it was just symbolic speech?
I played guitar without a pick. Classical. Tuned like a lute though, G string down to F#.
well the german army couldn't have been more effective, if not for training in the interwar period, the Abwehr returned the favor, by suggesting those soviet officers involved in training were planning a coup, hence the purge of the cream of the officer corps,
OK, so progs smash windows, progs relish decapitation, progs fire at Congressmen, progs destroy "icons," but we deplorables are the ones raging?
The color of a banner Red is an Army's Icon. The uniform colors Blues, Greens, Reds and Whites were the 4 chariot racing teams that rioted to kill Justinian and Theodora in 532. That was a year of big changes.
Reds and Whites fought for rule over Russia. When the Reds won they had to face the German Nazi invasion. The Germans conquered under a Red flag with a Swaztica Rune icon that represented Nordic Blood.
After Stalin got nukes, the hysteria created Joe McCarthy's shtick to defend the US from hidden Reds, although Tail Gunner Joe liked his Johnny Walker Red.
Now Trump is friends with Reds Putin, Xi and Kim, and he wants a new Red Airforce One to replace the Blue 747. While some say the War Trump is fighting is against the 200 year old Red Shields.
No wonder the Quakers and Amish only want to see plain black clothes.
Except Russia's standards are the old czarist ones, this is why Putin has made alliance with the orthodox church that is the real reason for the agita.
Who destroys the iconic iconoclasts?
For another view of the Almanac Singers' about face after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, read Original Zinn.
Having passed that embarrassing moment, Howard [Zinn} moved on to the subject of how the Left in America has always stood for pacifism and resistance to imperialist America's foreign adventures. He cited one of his mentors, Eugene V. Debs and his sojourn in federal prison for refusing to register for the draft during World War I.
At that point, I raised my hand and asked him the following question: "Professor Zinn, in May of 1941 your friend, Pete Seeger, produced an album called Songs for John Doe which was a collection of blue collar songs that included one called The Ballad of October 16th. [At the time, Pete Seeger had formed his first commercial band called the Almanac Singers.] That song demonstrated yours and Pete's pacifist philosophy by excoriating Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt for urging United States entry into World War II to fight Hitler. Shortly after the album's release, you and Pete were desperately trying to retrieve all the copies to take them out of circulation. Exactly what happened between May and June of 1941 to turn you from devoted anti-war activists into sabre-rattling patriots, resulting in your enlisting in the Army Air Force as a bombardier?"
An angry, bemused pall fell over the room. Someone next to me growled, "Who are you?"
A lengthy silence from Professor Zinn finally ended in a muted response: "Well, we've all made mistakes in our lives." He was referring, of course, to his oft-stated repudiation of his role in World War II as a "death dealer" from on high.
I decided to fill in the rest for the stunned audience. "What you mean is that on June 22, 1941, your country was invaded. And by that, I mean the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. On that date over a million German soldiers poured across the border in what was to prove the largest military aggression in history. Suddenly, Roosevelt became your hero because he was now Stalin's ally. It seems that pacifism has its limits, even for you. And that's how you went from orthodox pacifist to imperialist war monger."
Silence from the Professor. Shouts and threats from the audience. I began to move to the exit. I escaped.
"This Machine Kills Fascists" said the Singin' Commie. Aww.
Hendrix's "Machine Gun".
Shorter Communist Party Line:
"We were for the Fascists, before we were against them."
In that long list of iconoclastic occurrences, Let's not forget Jewish iconoclasm, best exemplified by the removal of the statue of Zeus/Antiochus IV from the Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabeean victory in 167 BCE over the Seleucid Empire occupiers of Judea.
No list of violent iconoclasts is complete without Mahmud of Ghazni, a.k.a. "Mahmud the Idol Breaker."
None of their guitars even injured anything, except an eardrum, possibly.
What's awesome about Trump's star being broken is that Kevin Spacey's star remains right next to it, completely unmolested (pun intended).
I blame the patriarchy.
Perhaps the first product recall in history?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_for_John_Doe
"The album was released in May 1941, at a time when World War II was raging but the United States remained neutral. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were still at peace, as provided by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. American Communists and "fellow travelers", including the Almanacs, followed the anti-interventionist stance dictated by the Soviet Union through the Comintern, which accounts for the appearance of anti-war songs on the album. However, on June 22, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The Almanacs changed direction and began agitating for U.S. intervention in Europe. Songs for John Doe was quickly pulled from distribution, and those who had already purchased copies were asked to return them. After the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, in February 1942 the Almanacs went into the studio to record a set of songs supporting the American war effort."
"Now Trump is friends with Reds Putin...."
Putin isn't a Red, if by "Red" you mean "communist."
Here is Woody Guthrie's song of protest against Trump.
Wiki is a marvel. Not without negatives, but what of human hand can be? Politics can seep into everything, so you learn to compartmentalize that part as the need arises.
As to what are humanity's other excellent creations - the old British show "connections" or "the day the universe changed" might highlight some of the other greatest human -oriented inventions / applications we've had over the years.
How we steadily advanced the retention of information for future generations should get high marks. Inventing paper, for which books of knowledge used to sit on, seems sorta important. The first monkey to say "hey, let's write this down on .... on .... on...." deserves some credit.
Would recreational sex be considered a human creation? That seemed like a good idea at the time.
Who knew that Woody lived so long?
Thanks, Cookie.
No, I didn't click your link.
Neither Seeger or Guthrie were anti-fascist in the forties: they were pro-Stalinist. When the Nazi-Soviet pact was announced Guthrie and Seeger both turned from begin pro-war against Hitler - and demanding that FDR enter the war - to calling FDR a fascist for opposing Hitler. As the Marxists used to say, this was no accident.
When Hitler invaded the USSR, like good Stalinists they then again became anti-fascists. But as long as fascism served the interests of the USSR, they - just as the CPUSA - weren't opposed to it.
"No, I didn't click your link."
Then you won't understand the point.
The university
""Now Trump is friends with Reds Putin...."
Putin isn't a Red, if by "Red" you mean "communist." "
He probably was a "Red" though, though also probably not a very enthusiastic one.
For certain he said all the right words to get himself certified as a Red at a high level as he was in a responsible position in the KGB.
There are lots of not-so-ex Reds about. Duterte for instance was a Maoist, a student of JoMa Sison (founder of the New Peoples Army, very serious revolutionary Maoists). He has played footsie with the remnant of these people for decades.
If nothing else both Putin and Duterte have expressed a nostalgia for the good old days.
June 22, 1941 is also the date on which the Nazis (National Socialist German Workers' Party) became "right wing."
Neither Seeger or Guthrie were anti-fascist in the forties
I should have written they were "selective" anti-fascists; which means, to me, they weren't really against fascism. When fascism - Hitler - was seen as an ally to Moscow, they stopped attacking it and argued for peace between the US and Germany. When it was viewed as an enemy of Moscow - after Hitler invaded the USSR - they attacked it.
Their views on fascism all depended on whether it was seen as an ally to the USSR or not. Their service, their art, was to Stalin and not to fighting fascism.
Cookie, I clicked your link and found to no surprise it was about yhe father and how Woody did not like landlords. Sort of like Mao.
I also read this:
Trump became a carpenter and took classes in reading blueprints.[11] Two years after his graduation, he finished his first house, and since he was still under age, his mother formed Elizabeth Trump & Son and officially headed it until he was 21. In 1926, he had already built 20 homes in Queens.[12] By the mid-1930s in the middle of the Great Depression, he helped pioneer the concept of supermarkets with the Trump Market in Woodhaven, which advertised "Serve Yourself and Save!", becoming an instant hit. After only a year Trump sold it to the King Kullen supermarket chain.
Yeah, those damn capitalists. Kill em all !
Imagine starting in business as a teenager. Terrible ! Stir up those commies, Cookie !
Guys like Putin and Duterte aren't ideologues, they're opportunists. Their ideology is to themselves and, to a lesser extent, their immediate circle. The nature of crimelords, warlords, and (most) autocrats is very easy to understand yet strangely often misunderstood. It's misunderstood because, obviously, these figures lie and dissemble. But it's also misunderstood because people don't want to admit what is so blatantly obvious since they like the lies.
In the Antonio Banderas movie, Desperado, he plays a musician who comes into town seeking revenge against the man who killed his love and shot him in the hand. (Which meant that he couldn't play the guitar anymore.) He carries a guitar case filled with guns and gets into over-the-top gun fights with any bad guy that confronts him. When he needs some back up, he calls two of his friends to come to town and help him. He tells them, "Bring your guitars." And, of course, the guitar cased are filled with guns, grenades and missiles.
We also get to see Quentin Tarantino, Steve Buscemi, Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin all killed off in this film. It's one of those films where everybody gets killed except for the hero and heroine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperado_(film)
Poets and lyricists are honest people. Everything they rhyme together is honest words and visions.
The trouble comes when you realize their honesty doesn't support military imperialism and the nuclear weapon as the ultimate phallic.
In this way, they challenge our countries righteous quest for world domination, and the subjugation of fertile women with our bathrobes and silk pajamas.
All the while collecting lawyers, royalties, and copyrights.
"Trump became a carpenter and took classes in reading blueprints.[11] Two years after his graduation, he finished his first house, and since he was still under age, his mother formed Elizabeth Trump & Son and officially headed it until he was 21. In 1926, he had already built 20 homes in Queens.[12] By the mid-1930s in the middle of the Great Depression, he helped pioneer the concept of supermarkets with the Trump Market in Woodhaven, which advertised "Serve Yourself and Save!", becoming an instant hit. After only a year Trump sold it to the King Kullen supermarket chain."
Impressive. It shows that at least one Trump was actually a self-made man.
That said, Ol' Fred being a self-made man doesn't mean he was a virtuous man.
Does anyone require more proof? Liberals are assholes.
Leftists decrying fascism while acting like? Fascists.
"Trump’s Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Destroyed With Pickaxe"
Now that's breaking news!
Does anyone require more proof? Liberals are assholes.
They're not liberals. There is nothing liberal about them.
They are leftists. Totalitarian leftists.
The vandals apparently didn't see the "civility" segment on this weekend's "CBS Sunday Morning." The segment was emceed by the program resident out-of-the-closet leftwinger Martha Teichner, so you can guess whcih way it was slanted.
Trump's NSA McMaster, now retired, was known as "The Iconoclast General." Although I believe that was meant more metaphorically than literally. Anyone know where he was at the time?
Seeger and Guthrie, like Robert Cook, were anti-fascists because they opposed a big government that ruled over the private sector.
Oh, wait a minute . . .
I tend to agree that Wikipedia is one of the greatest achievements of our modern age. As flawed as it may be, I believe it does far more good than bad.
Indeed. Especially when it comes to music, bands, band members, albums ... etc.
If Socialism ever comes to California, I want to see how the media and tech moguls cope with the Workers seizing the Means of Production.
Just to indulge a little whataboutism regarding what assholes liberals are:
ALEX JONES (HOST): That's the thing, is like, once it's [special counsel Robert] Mueller, everyone's so scared of Mueller, they'd let Mueller rape kids in front of people, which he did. I mean, Mueller covered up for a decade for [Jeffrey] Epstein kidnapping kids, flying them on sex planes, some kids as young as seven years old reportedly, with big perverts raping them to frame people. I mean, Mueller is a monster, man. God, imagine -- he's even above the pedophiles, though. The word is he doesn't have sex with kids, he just controls it all. Can you imagine being a monster like that? God.
People say, "Well, God, aren't you scared of him?" I'm scared of not manning up. I'm constantly in fear that I'm not being a real man, and I'm not doing what it takes, and I'm not telling the truth. And so, call it whatever you want, I look at that guy, and he's a sack of crap. That's a demon I will take down, or I'll die trying. So that's it. It's going to happen, we're going to walk out in the square, politically, at high noon, and he's going to find out whether he makes a move man, make the move first, and then it's going to happen. It's not a joke. It's not a game. It's the real world. Politically. You're going to get it, or I'm going to die trying, bitch.
Not that any of Ann's readers pay attention to Alex Jones. Oh, wait.
What, no Dylan reference?
That said, Ol' Fred being a self-made man doesn't mean he was a virtuous man.
And neither is his son but that is not why he was elected. The left simply does not get it.
This is the end of an era. It began in 1929 but maybe well before that. Maybe in 1913.
Federal Reserve.
Direct Election of Senators,
The Income Tax.
The whole Progressive agenda was enacted in 1913.
Hey Pickering,
Who s Alex Jones?
Is he some obscure right wing bogeyman?
Is he the right wing version of Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Adam Schiff, Eric Swallwell, Keith Ellison and the other usual suspects?
Not that any of Ann's readers pay attention to Alex Jones. Oh, wait.
Only the lefties like you.
John Pickering:
I doubt anyone here does listen to Alex Jones as much as you do.
That doesn't mean Pedophile Island isnt real. Plenty of sources for that one. Lots of folks I'm sure you count among your favorite people had fun fun fun vacations there. I hadn't heard that Mueller helped cover those up, but given the clientele (Bill Clinton among them), and given how invested the Left is in assuring us that he's beyond reproach, wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.
I haven't seen a link to Alex Jones since Obama was elected the first time. Rachel Maddow reminds me of him.
My guess is that Alex Jones is probably payed attention to by far more on the left than the right. From what I know of him, he's not even really a conservative. His actual influence on mainstream conservative thinking is probably less significant than Louis Farrakhan's is to mainstream liberal thinking.
But whatever. People seem to choose to believe these myths absence of evidence since it fits their worldview of conservatives being these extremist nuts who'll believe anything they're told by a cartoonish character like Alex Jones. I suspect you won't convince them otherwise no matter what you say.
Anyone know if Chuck was in LA this past weekend with a pickaxe? He certainly would be suspect number one, based on motive alone.
"n the Antonio Banderas movie, Desperado, he plays a musician who comes into town seeking revenge against the man who killed his love and shot him in the hand. (Which meant that he couldn't play the guitar anymore.) He carries a guitar case filled with guns and gets into over-the-top gun fights with any bad guy that confronts him. When he needs some back up, he calls two of his friends to come to town and help him. He tells them, "Bring your guitars." And, of course, the guitar cased are filled with guns, grenades and missiles."
You mean El Mariachi,the brilliant original low-budget independent film that spawned the less brilliant sequel Desperado?
I would say that Shazam is one of the greatest inventions on the internet. Being able to identify practically any song ever recorded still blows my mind.
"Trump’s Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Destroyed With Pickaxe"
The last guy was charged with felony vandalism in the 2016 incident, for which he was sentenced to three years probation, 20 days of community service, and paid $4,400 for the damage.
My guess is that this guy that turned himself in this morning will get the same.
Alex Jones is Don Quixote. A man not afraid to be absurd.
To put on the armor of a questing knight, no matter how tattered and underfunded, to claim that his vision of a fantastic world is true and the boring reality is not, and to insist on a quest that justifies his death, a trivial matter in service of greater and truer things.
And still he manages to illuminate the truth, or some of it, however strange the light he sheds on it.
Pickering, study Cervantes.
"Seeger and Guthrie, like Robert Cook, were anti-fascists because they opposed a big government that ruled over the private sector.
"Oh, wait a minute . . . ." (There should be a period to end the three dot ellipsis.)
You've got it backwards...the big government works hand-in-hand with and/or in subservience to and for the benefit of the private sector...at least, that part of the private sector made up of corporate behemoths who shit money into the waiting mouths of the quivering Washington creatures.
Thanks for the party line, Cookie. The Daily Worker lives! And I'm guessing that your brilliant solution to ending the marriage of Big Government and Big Business is to make the former even bigger and more powerful!
[It] wasn't really gentler times! It was 1941, and Woody was doing "Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues.
1941. More precisely sometime after the 22nd of June of that year, the date of Hilter's invasion of the Soviet Union.
Calling Woody a hypocrite when the free world was calling for the killing of the fascists by anybody and thankful that Russia had been pulled into the war seems a bit over the top.
No, it's dead-on accurate. Guthrie and all members of CPUSA had their heads willingly spun round by Stalin. First Hilter was a villain to be opposed. Then he became an ally in the savage conquest and partition of Poland. From September 1939 to late June 1941 the Party Line was "peace at any price" and absolute opposition to Roosevelt's policy of Lend-Lease in support of Great Britain and her Empire against Germany. Then another reversal. Gutherie wasn't an anti-fascist. He was a communist and Stalin's boot-licking stooge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mariachi
Guthrie and American Leftists were definitely anti-fascist during the Spanish Civil War, a proxy war between Hitler and Stalin.
Gutherie wasn't an anti-fascist. He was a communist and Stalin's boot-licking stooge.
Both Guthrie and Seeger - as members in good standing of the CPUSA - slavishly followed Moscow's line. Moscow meaning Stalin.
When Moscow told the CPUSA to support Hitler - and oppose intervention by the US - they saluted and stopped their anti-fascist rhetoric. Because the USSR and Germany were allies. And attacking Germany meant attacking an ally of Moscow. That was not allowed.
After Hitler invaded the USSR they suddenly became critics of Germany.
They weren't anti-fascists; they were pro-Stalinists.
The communists were quite skilled at that time in preaching universal brotherhood and justice and peace and dignity for the working man. A lot of people fell for their lines (this was the middle of the Great Depression) not realizing that those were slogans used by the communists to attain power.
Guthrie might be forgiven since his illness greatly affected his thinking and life after the war. But Seeger knew quite well about Stalin's crimes but continued to defend him. That was shameful.
And Pete Seeger was a communist and so was Woody Guthrie, at least according to Pete Seeger. On the other hand, Donovan Leitch was a Hurdy-Gurdy Man.
When I was in my teens (say starting around 1956) I got into folk music, and that included the Weavers, Pete Seegar, Woody Guthrie, etc. Nobody told me that they were Reds. That was in the McCarthy Era, the Red Scare, etc. I liked "The Good Rueben James", which was a patriotic song. Nobody told me these folk singers were patriots of the USSR not the USA (except when the USA was helping the USSR). Looking back on it, I wonder why the "Black List" didn't include the lefty-folkies. Was it that they weren't as important as the lefty screen-writers? And if so, why?
"Trump’s Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame Destroyed With Pickaxe"
As cogent an argument as the left has presented in the past two years.
"You've got it backwards...the big government works hand-in-hand with and/or in subservience to and for the benefit of the private sector...at least, that part of the private sector made up of corporate behemoths who shit money into the waiting mouths of the quivering Washington creatures."
This is Schumpeter in a paragraph.
In my lifetime, the greatest invention was the remote control for the television. What a boon to mankind! I admire the spirit and inventiveness that went into the invention of the adjustable bed, but I don't put it in the same class as the remote control.
I just finished the Chernow biography of Washington. Washington and the Federalists were accused of being monarchists. At that time, the term monarchist had some of the sting associated with being called fascist today. The Federalists in turn referred to Jefferson, Madison and the nascent Democratic Party Jacobins. The Jacobins were the Commie bastards of their day.......I'm not familiar with the music of the period, but my guess is that the Jacobin sympathizers had all the top forty hits.
" but my guess is that the Jacobin sympathizers had all the top forty hits."
Yep. The Marseillaise, the Ca Ira, etc. International pop hits for the next century.
French royalist tunes were pedestrian.
Three French Royalist Songs
Note the first is "God Save the King", French version, which was originally composed for Louis XIV, the British stole it later. The second is the Marseillaise, ripped off. The last is sung by, of all people, Jean Marie Le Pen.
That with both Mozart and Haydn being active at the time, but they weren't at the French court.
the big government works hand-in-hand with and/or in subservience to and for the benefit of the private sector...at least, that part of the private sector made up of corporate behemoths who shit money into the waiting mouths of the quivering Washington creatures.
Why do you think Hollywood and Silicon Vally support Democrats ?
Come on, Cookie. you are usually not this slow.
Manufacturing had some influence but that was 100 years ago.
Now, it's all the vaporware makers.
You know what killed fascists?
The U.S. cal. 30 M1 clip fed, semi automatic gas fed , garand rifle with a soldier behind it. Not some turbercular poseur with a guitar.
That said, Ol' Fred being a self-made man doesn't mean he was a virtuous man.
Which would you be, Cook?
I'm amazed you had a reference to a cool on-line game, LoL - League of Legends. One of the current most popular, and my kids play it a lot (I play some, too).
Jinx in "League of Legends" says, "What's in my violin case? Violence!"
Great quote.
Spain under Franco was fascist. Living in post WWII fascist Spain was better for most folks than living in any of the post WWII Socialist Republics, of the USSR or Warsaw Pact like Poland or Slovakia.
Hitler's "Fascism" didn't really do fascism right -- real Fascism has never been tried...
"Why do you think Hollywood and Silicon Vally support Democrats?"
I don't know. Tell me why you think that's so. What does that have to do with big government working with, for, and in subservience to the plutocrats who own and run this country?
"Looking back on it, I wonder why the "Black List" didn't include the lefty-folkies. Was it that they weren't as important as the lefty screen-writers? And if so, why?"
Because the whole thing was for show, a propaganda stunt to arouse fear and draw political support, (just as our war of terror is, just as the "immigration crisis" is). The folksingers were too insignificant to bother with.
"Manufacturing had some influence but that was 100 years ago."
Why do think I'm referring to "manufacturing" entities when I speak of "corporate behemoths?"
"Which would you be, Cook?"
That's not for me to say.
Seeger had to hurry back from his guided tour of the USSR to sing "Waist Deep In The Big Muddy." When asked later if he had asked them about the GULAG, he said it hadn't occurred to him.
Post a Comment