Why I’m Not Wild About Harry—Belafonte, that Is. The Truth About Him You Won’t Hear in the Chorus of Accolades!
Once again it seems to be Harry Belafonte time. The MSM, shameless in its continual adoration for all celebrities who devote a good portion of their lives to defending left-wing tyrannies, is this week reminding us incessantly that the 1950s Calypso star is not only a great artist who has contributed to America’s musical heritage, but an activist whose life must be celebrated as if his singing makes him a man whose pronouncements we should heed.
This Monday night, HBO will premiere the new documentary about his life, Sing Your Song. The station, not to be outdone by the film, also prints its own exclusive interview which ironically reveals a lot about Belafonte’s complete fanatical leftism. The interviewer asks him the rhetorical question, to which we already know the answer: “Do you see any parallels between the McCarthy era and our own political climate today?” To this loaded question, Belafonte tells his audience:
I not only see America headed in the direction of great similarities to the McCarthy period and what went on in America during those crucifying days, but I see America headed to places that can go well beyond. Today we have something that is most horrific written under the banner of “homeland security.” The extremes of those laws allow any citizen to be whisked away without anyone’s knowledge, without charging the individual, and hiding them for an indefinite period of time….That is the basis of a totalitarian state.
The artist who regularly sings the praises of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and who appeared at rallies in the old Stasi state of East Germany in its heyday somehow sees those regimes as liberationist and the United States in which he lives, whose media awards him and in which he regularly speaks out about everything… is supposedly on the verge of becoming a totalitarian state.
This week also saw many TV interviews by the singer, in conjunction with his new memoir, My Song, destined for the best-seller lists. At The Daily Beast, Richard Porton presents his own lengthy interview with Belafonte. Porton thinks that it is “rather astonishing that Belafonte has been speaking his mind and courting controversy for nearly sixty years.” Noting the attacks on the singer for calling Hermain Cain a “bad apple” who “knows little about race in America,” Porton calls these untoward comments simply “pungent sound bites,” and then explains that Belafonte is really “a thoughtful man whose barbs are often tempered by nuanced observations on art, politics and race.”
Yes, like those from 2002, when Belafonte told Larry King that Secretary of State Colin Powell was the equivalent of a slave “who lived in the house” in slavery days and who “served the master,” and that Condoleezza Rice is like a Jew “doing things that were anti-Semitic and against the best interests of her people.”
Porton prefers not to challenge Belafonte, only to allow his column to serve as more publicity for the singer’s leftist views. “I developed my own DNA for social justice,” the singer explains. Elaborating on his old views about Powell and Rice, he explains: “ I think that the people who have most benefited from cheap wages for workers and segregation are those that tend to espouse, from a racial perspective, the kind of sentiments expressed by people like Cain and Colin Powell. And it’s no small wonder that most of them gravitate to the right-wing philosophy of the Republican Party. They are who they are. Besides making an unpleasant noise, they won’t amount to much. Suffice to say that anyone with influence in the Republican Party will, like Clarence Thomas, Herman Cain, and Condoleezza Rice, claim that black people are deluded when they talk about oppression and argue that people can magically ‘overcome’ their plight.”
As we expect, Porton does not let his readers know what Thomas, Cain and Rice have had to say in many eloquent statements about race in America. Indeed, Rice wrote her own memoir about her experiences growing up in the era of segregation, as did Clarence Thomas. But let us not fear: Belafonte also does not like Barack Obama, who, he says, has no “moral compass.” Why? Because Belafonte and other radicals thought he would enact their far left agenda instead of try to move it to center state via the path of American politics. And so Belafonte gives the president a “failing grade.” What bothers the singer is that the president thinks laws have to be passed by Congress. As he puts it: “He doesn’t need the Congress all the time.” And this from a man who sees America going totalitarian and wants leftist programs put into effect without laws passed by the people’s house.
With celebrity a**holes as with ordinary a**holes, one is best served by ignoring what they say and watching what they do. Do we see Belafonte leaving this country he so despises and moving to Cuba, Venezuela or even East Germany before it became a footnote in history? Do we Sean Penn, Oliver Stone or any of the others foresake their mansions in Malibu or wherever for the collective farms to work for Fidel or Hugo? Is Ted Turner picking up and moving to North Korea? No? I rest my case.
I don’t think they move to Cuba or Venezuela because they’re waiting – actually working – for the day that the United States becomes just like Cuba or Venezuela.
Do you think it’s too late to wake Harry up?
Day light no come.
There ain’t that much coffee in the world, holmes.
Yeah, you see them everywhere airing their leftist opinions, those more than well off celebrities and academics. Socialists, and the like, are the most eager to collect material goods for themselves.
Fascinating article, Ron, full of telling details. The notion that McCarthy and his fellow right-wing extremists were the only red hunters is hilarious. The left-liberal (social democratic) allies to the Roosevelt administration were just as eager in their search for present radicals and future radicals as my research has constantly demonstrated. Here is one example involving the Carnegie Corporation and its directive to Ralph Bunche (then Gunnar Myrdal’s chief collaborator), asking him to sift through the Negro Betterment Organizations to identify future troublemakers: http://clarespark.com/2011/08/04/carnegie-corp-and-the-negro-problem/. This is not the only instance where Bunche was ordered to ferret out Reds.
History has proven Joe McCarthy correct. He lost his fight because the lefty media was against him, and there was no blogosphere to tell his side of the story more artfully than he could have done.
Had we taken Joe McCarthy seriously, there would have been no Barack Hussein Obama.
“But let us not fear, Belafonte also does not like Barack Obama, whom he says, has no “moral compass.”
Harry Belafonte may not be totally thrilled with Barack Obama’s performance—but he may also want to help the president win reelection. A shrewd liberal activist realizes a Republican victory is even worse for their side. Belafonte’s complaints assist in moderating Obama’s image. Many people may wrongly conclude he is politically a middle of the roader. Obama will be portrayed as a man standing between the two extremes of American politics.
The reason the mediocrity that is Harry Belafonte is dissatisfied with Obambi is not that he is too left wing it is because he is not left wing enough for this Communist. As is the case with many others on the moonbat left.
If Mr. Belafonte thinks the USA is so terrible, he can vote with his feet and leave. Let me suggest a home in Pyonyang sans electricity, water, cooking gas, and food.
According to Wikipedia, Belafonte ‘remarked that while his comments [about Bush] may have been “hasty,” nevertheless he felt the Bush administration suffered from “arrogance wedded to ignorance” and its policies around the world were “morally bankrupt”’ – a perfect characterization of W’s administration and, on a national level, of the Red Channels wannabe for which RR blogs.
Okay, let jump into the way back machine. Let’s go back to those days of yore when conditions were so bad for blacks in the US, that we looked upon the the Soviet Union and other Communist states as refuges where we supposedly would be treated better. When we didn’t know what we now know – that those places were just giant prison camps. No different that the segregated South, they just had different criteria about who was abused. Now freeze your thoughts in that time period – and you are looking into the brain of Belafonte. He’s still living in the past. In those days when he was periodically invited to those police states and treated like royalty. He liked that treatment – and that’s all he knows or remembers about the experience. We should ignore him, as we would ignore any old man with a tendency to romanticize the past. He just getting older an probably a little bit senile, and he can’t figure out why all those “youngsters” don’t see the past as, and those places, as “romantically” as he does. Reminds me of this elderly cople that used to come around to sell the “Daily Worker” – after the fall of the Soviet Union. They were just sad, still holding on to a tattered dream.
Right on the money, and well said.
If you didn’t know that the Soviet Union, Communist China, Cuba…were ‘just gian prison camps,’ it was not because no one told you; you CHOSE not to listen. That is why people like you, Belafonte, and much of the Left were called ‘useful idiots’
Artist? You are far too kind, Mr. Radosh.
– dung and expire.
“we should just ignore him…”.
i would agree, except that his ugly mug is constantly showing up on the covers of liberal (progressive) rags. heck didn’t he do back to back covers for AARP?
i don’t believe many elderly Americans realize just what this mag. represents. when i kept seeing him on the cover it just confirmed what many were starting to realize. if and when the truth of their lefty progressive bent becomes common knowledge, i predict they will see even more of a dropoff in circulation. just like so many socialists in our society, they try to hide what they really represent.
The article does open up some things to me, . . . and am I wrong in thinking how that, over the course of the decades of what has been called, “the American experiment”, in study, work, thrift and just plain blessing, this people have realized a political and productive Society such that, as dependent on no one, you’re free to believe, subscribe, and do about anything ya’ like?
But then, what astounds me is that, so many addled there be who seem to have maybe fallen off a merry-go-round, and hit their heads so hard as to not cease to exclaim over people such H. Belafonte, B. Clinton, Rep. Rangel, BHO, etc. (And, I know, you’re not supposed to refer to humans as mere “et cetera”, but, can I find at least some justification in that line of the 1st Psalm, where it speaks of those who are of that special category of people who are like the trash which the wind blows to the side of the freeway?).
But to think then again about why so very many, that sage of old time says: “The heart of man is so desperately wicked—who can even fathom it?”; so, . . . maybe, . . . we all began as little heathens, and by my way of thinking, some, just never got beyond that and by the looks of it, that’s about how they wish to remain, . . .
And, how many, with me, look forward to when we can get to a decent place and there will be no YouTube trolls, and “Those of evil will no more be called ‘Liberal’.”?
Just stop writing about the “SOB”
Ssssshhh….. Harry needs a nap while he’s being interviewed.
Maybe Harry was sleeping a statement.
The biggest racists in the world are people of colour.
The looney left decided that people of colour were too good, pure and nobel to be pestered with getting rid of it. So the only people they hellishly nagged were the whites.
Actually, a moderate amount of racism is a very good thing. Nothing can replace it for protecting an identity or a culture. Now with the white people on the brink of an extinction, we could use a little more racism in ourselves and start protecting our own culture.
We are the only people on earth not allowed to have a country or culture of our own. It must be invaded by all others…..and for our own good? Nuts.
waterwillows, thank yoy for saying what you did. I have often felt the same way. Heck, I even get solicited by the NAACP, UNCF, and receive magazines for black women. I think my last name confuses some people. The NAACP even sent me aform where I could list grievences about discrimination. I wish I had sent it back and when I showed up they could see it works both ways, more so now. I am not a bigot or racist, but this admin is wanting us to be, and from obum and the wife’s remarks they are the ones all Americans should fight against.
You seem to have forgotten this: http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/11/211201.shtml
Entertainer/activist Harry Belafonte has retracted some of the controversial comments he made at a civil rights march in Atlanta regarding Jews working for Hitler, but his retraction may have created even more controversy for the singer.
Anybody got Harry’s address? Just what the hell has he done for the last century to have the “good life”? All that income from Day-O? Or the other favs of the fifties? I think it’s high time the man put his money where his pie hole is. Spread it around. What do you think he would say if hordes of “youth” showed up at his doorstep and demanded he start handing over his possessions? Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?
Let us not forget that Day-O, or Banana Boat Song, was co-written by Alan Arkin and the Tarriers a year before Harry sang it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il2bIT2gk10
I remember Harry’s album well. My grandmother had a copy and proudly displayed the album on her sideboard. Someone remarked that what she REALLY liked was Harry’s outfit–a loose green silk shirt with plenty of visual chest hair and very tight black pants. For all that leftist commitment, he was not above a little stereotyped soft core to make lots of dollars.
Belafonte and Danny Glover love everything about black folks except actually living among them. If their rhetoric ever met their feet, they’d be living in Africa.
Naturally, being utter racist, hypocrites, that is in fact the one thing they and their ilk will never do.
Generally speaking, black Americans toe the old line about men and women: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. To them, the Tea Party, an org not created around race, is racist but the Congressional Black Congress, specifically created around race, is not. That is the nuanced world view of Belafonte and his moronic cronies.
One wonders why Harry doesn’t just move his place of residence to Cuba or Venezuela. It’s obvious that he hates the US, and his anger and hatred seem to grow as he ages. Maybe he could take Sean Penn with him when he re-locates. Ya think?
Funny, a lapse in this artist’s memory seems rather outrageous.
For example, didn’t WWII cause massive xenophobia by creating and banishing american citizens, by the thousands, to internment camps? Gee, wonder what President that happened under? And the list of injustices against americans is long, lenghty and sad. This done by so-called well meaning american “progressive,” politicos.
Oh! By the way, that famous Calyso song of the 50′s (yes, that one- “Day-O”) it’s an anti-colonial rant. So, ever since Harry B. was a young artist, he’s been a follower of those writers railing against unjust colonial occupation of underdeveloped nations…you know, the “occupier vs. occupied” conundrum he likes to voice.
Not too much Philosophical difference between Harry B’s rant (Day-O) and Mr. “O’s.” Mostly “anti-colonial.” By George! Both seem to be “anti-capitalists,” too. What a coincidence, strange bedfellows these fellow travelers.
Vote massively this 2012 because massive fraud is already unfolding with DOJ blockage of Alabama’s SB 56…more is yet to unfold. God Bless America.
Your intelligence is burning up my computer screen. Imagine! A black man singing a an “anti-colonialist rant” – the nerve of the guy. Most definitely one of those uppity types. Anyway, let’s wait and see if this fraud pans out for this election. Hopefully it won’t work as well as it did in Florida when George W. Bush (bless his soul) was stole all those votes and beat Gore… I think sometimes you need to cheat to do the right thing. It’s counterintuitive, but I think W had a vision, knew he should use family connections to dodge the draft (The man deserted! Now that took some big cojones!), so that he could serve his country and later preside over over the biggest attacks seen on US soil and send US military men and women to fight Iraq which had nothing to do with 9-11. It takes a certain sort of vision, a certain sort of integrity and manliness to do these things, to blow all those trillions of dollars on useless wars – and I think that this is something Harry Belafonte will never understand. I pity him.
A million years ago, the guy had a hit song about bananas. why do people still pay attention to him?
> To Belafonte, [Chavez] is a humane leader who “cut the ranks of his country’s
> unemployed in half” …
Cut them in half?!? Most tinpot despots just use a firing squad, or send undesirables to slave labour camps.
I’ve not yout finished reading “My Song:, but I had to come and check to see whether or not anyone articulated my growing unease with the feeling I was getting about Harry Belafonte. Apart from the politics and social issues, a lot of which I was not well versed in, and viewing Mr. Belafonte simply as a man, I have never read of anyone so intent on pumping up his own self-worth by belittling others. I have learned a lot about the Civil Rights Movement I had not delved into before, but it also seems that Mr. Belafonte played a pivotal role in almost everything that resulted in a better political and social atmosphere for African-Americans. I must say I’ve also begun to mistrust his motives in bringing forth that rich tapestry of the famous names for the period, in both jazz and screen. (In my view, Sidney Poitier’s star as one of the truly outstanding actors os his time cannot be tarnished; with a friend like Harry, he needed no enemies). Finally, as a West Indian, I should say that, as far as I’ve heard of them, Mr. Belafonte’s “calypsos” were American calypsos, not West Indian.