May 3, 2004
Paul Robeson
Ryan asks, regarding Paul Robeson, "What on earth do you have against that guy?"
Well, start with this and if you still think highly of a man who had everything in life (education, sports career, law career, music career, acting career) and traded it in to nurse his own bitterness, who made a lot of money from cynically singing spirituals (in a minstrel style that was as hammy as that of any blackfaced vaudevillean of old) as a practicing Marxist, then read this or this, from which I have taken this passage:
"As a member of the CPUSA, Robeson enthusiastically supported the 1940 Smith Act which made it an offence under which members of organizations that advocated the violent overthrow of the government could be prosecuted. The Party saw the Act as a means of using WWII as an excuse to legally persecute Trotskyists. While addressing a convention of the Civil Rights Conference Robeson rejected an appeal by a Trotskyist who feared he would lose his government pension, saying that 'Trotskyists are no better than fascists and Klansmen ....... and not deserving of any rights'.
His unconditional support of Communism bordered with betrayal of humanity, as the story of Itzik Feffer shows. "
Bordered on?!? Somewhere you can read the whole story as related by his son, Paul Jr. In its details it is ghastly, even with the whitewash offered by sonny boy.
In typical Commie fashion, Robeson loyally did what he could to smash Trotskyite dissidents, even in the United States. That is why these people (Thank God) lost Spain - they were too busy killing each other to successfully wage war against Franco. I am no lover of Trotsky, but the hatred the mainstream Commies had for him bordered on the psychopathic. Have you read about how Trotsky met his end? This is the sort of brutality that Robeson stood for.
If you want a portrait of what is wrong with the Liberal establishment, then look no farther than this creep. He has been honored with a postage stamp (who next, Goebbels?), building names (the administration building for the discredited Oakland School District), festivals, tributes from the grinning morons of the Film and Recording industries, and so forth and so on. Elias Kazan, who was a brilliant director and took the truly courageous position of turning in vicious colleagues who were members of the Communist Party, was faced with loads of scorn when he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. What happened to those who were on his list? Gulag? Death? No, they simply had to use pseudonyms to draw outrageous salaries as screenwriters and actors.
On the other hand, what happened to Pfeffer?
Posted by erik at May 3, 2004 2:58 PM | TrackBackLook, Anonymous Coward, at Paul Robeson's delightful eulogy of Stalin. To say he wasn't a Marxist is preposterous. Comparing Paul Robeson to Pope St. Peter is absurd. He is more like Judas (or are you ignorant of the affair with his Jewish poet friend who he betrayed to death under Stalin?).
You are the one who needs to do some basic research. Paul Robeson was a bastard, and a hammy, shitty singer/actor of a bastard as well. Sacrificing his career is a joke. His era was over. If anything, blacklisting ratbastards like him and Pete Seeger gave them immortality among the gutless leftists. Seeger was just a little smarter in capitalizing on his blacklisting.
Posted by: Erik Keilholtz at July 1, 2006 12:35 AMIt's refreshing to see ignorance is still pashionately embraced by those who are intimidated by something they don't understand. A man who is willing to sacrifice his career for what he believes can be misrepresented by so many and the ignorant take some fools word on who someone is and what they represent instead of actually looking up some facts about the man. Fact number one. He was not a marxist. He said in the Soviet Union they were trying to create a society where everyone was equal. Stalin ruined it and had Trotsky killed for it. Fact number two: Paul Robeson stood up for Human Rights way before it was popular. He did this in a country where we are supposed to be free to exercise that right. He stood up against fasist again when our government was to busy kissing industrialist asses who had invested heavely in the third reich( Hitler) He stood up for his rights when most of the cowards of his time turned tail and ran or denied to know him or sold him out as a communist. Kind of like Peter denying Jesus three times.
Posted by: at June 28, 2006 10:18 AMMark, I like the words on the poster, but please, don't compare me to that horrible pro-abortion Liberal Ron Reagan again. He was an imposter Californian who originally came from Illinois or Ohio or West Virginia, or one of those states that one finds on the other side of the Sierra Nevada. He was a charlatan and a fraud and quite possibly the worst American president since his (self-proclaimed) hero FDR.
I never could figure out why conservatives liked him other than some vague warm fuzzies they got in the wake of the awful Carter administration.
Posted by: Erik Keilholtz at May 5, 2004 9:28 AMI think that Robeson was also an advocate for matching cheese with fish.
SC
They should print up one of these with your likeness!
Posted by: Mark C. N. Sullivan at May 4, 2004 10:10 AM
One good thing to say about Robeson: at least one could understand him when he talked.
Posted by: Mark R at May 4, 2004 9:33 AMI knew it wouldn't take much to get you going.
Posted by: Ryan Muskar at May 3, 2004 3:19 PM