Calling Seeger a “Stalinist” makes no more sense than calling GWB voters “pro-jihadist.” Seeger no more knew of Stalin’s atrocities than GWB voters knew that Bush’s policies would strengthen Islamist terrorism.
Perfhaps these Stalinist-callers derive comfort knowing the 90-year old Pete Seeger led the song “This Land is your Land” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the Inauguration of the 44th President.
Look, he fell for the communist propaganda lines. He wasn’t alone, he wouldn’t have supported Stalin if he’d known the truth. But he did make a mistake there. On balance that mistake is outweighed by the good he did for this country. It took courage for him to keep standing up for the right principle even after making that mistake. If our elected leaders could show that much courage his wouldn’t have been needed so much.
This is a good set of covers also:
Pete was great. I signed the petition recommending him to the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
He had a special quality to his character–a lot of times when a performer asks you to sing along, you think “Well, maybe…if the guy next to me sings…no, I really can’t sing…”
But when Pete told you to sing along, you just did. Because he wanted you to, from the bottom of his heart. Not for show biz reasons. He wanted us to get along and to love one another and to care for each other and our planet.
I miss him.
I’m going to back off this claim somewhat. He quit the Communist Party in 1949, and I tend to think that had something to do with disenchantment about Soviet communism, but I’ve seen stuff saying that he didn’t make any formal anti-Stalin statement until much later. I do maintain, though, that his core principle was populism, and it was that principle which led inevitably to his renunciation of Stalinism.
So does Communist = Stalinist in your world?
Do you think he was aware in any way of what Stalin was doing?
Yep, had lunch with him and Arlo Guthie in the 70s. Saw them in concert the night before.
Yeah, that’s the point, it doesn’t make sense that he meant Jews, since at least three of the countries did provide significant Jewish immigrants. So maybe SpyOne is right, only “Asia” isn’t a country.
Those are disconcerting sequential posts.
I knew he was a singer, but that’s about it.
I had to look him up to make sure it wasn’t a trick question. He was who I thought he was. Wouldn’t have known if not for the PBS special on him. Not my musical cup of tea but certainly recognized his songs.
Africa isn’t a country either, but is on the list of places Seeger mentioned.
According to Wikipedia, New York City is about 8% Jewish, so I doubt that’s it. 11.85 Asian, so that’s not it.
25% are black or African-American, 27.5% are Hispanic of Latino. But Puerto Rico was specifically mentioned, so it doesn’t seem like he was excluding them.
In fact, the only way I can build to a possible 25% he didn’t mention would be people who identify as “White”, but don’t come from any of the places he named.
And now I notice Eastern Europe is similarly not on the list.
But I don’t know of any reason that mentioning the Slavs might offend a black audience.
No clue. Though I admit rarely remember the names of singers unless they are just really famous right now. There are a ton of older songs that I have no idea who sings them.
As a sort of American communist(?)/folk music/protest guy, vaguely.
I think I confused him with Woody Guthrie. Which one had the guitar with, “This machine kills fascists,” scrawled on it? That sounds like Pete Seeger to me.
That one was Guthrie. Seeger’s had a less violent sounding message, “This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender”.
OK. I knew I was conflating the two.
When Stalin is the head of the USSR, and you speak out to defend one of the greatest mass murderers in human history, yes.
Regards,
Shodan
I taught a class/module on the history of rock and roll for seven years, two sections a semester, anywhere from one to three sections over the summer short course sessions. I’d damned well better know who he is! 
I’m a 54 year old banjo player, so I voted yes.
In his book How to Play the 5 String Banjo he told a story that I’ve used a lot. An old-timer was asked what notes he was playing on the banjo, and the old-timer replied “there ain’t no notes on a banjo, you just play it!”
Cite perhaps?
Point taken about Africa and Asia, I missed that.