Thanks for informing me more of Robeson (and Belafonte) and reminding me of how fascist our North American ruling class has been. Also how musical performers/artists were at one time more engaged with politics/activism or maybe they were less engaged with it solely as a capitalist venture to grow/maintain their brand.
It seems like history is rhyming (as opposed to repeating) and the remnant of the former USSR empire is now a white supremacist Russian empire with expansionist aspirations with future FF dominance. Meanwhile the USA is a collapsing capitalist empire with a civil war brewing between armed white supremacist that want to conserve FF dominance, reject democracy and exterminate/neutralize the brown/non-binary hordes versus a population of humans that have been impoverished (their wealth “redistributed”) by FF domination and surveillance capitalism. What I see is a century of white empires (communists/capitalists) fighting against each other only to destroy, or reach the capacity, to completely destroy the planet.
Are there any charismatic performers/artists now of Belafonte/Robeson stature to represent humans anymore? Has the digital era and mass communications destroyed cultural hegemony or our means to organize against it?
I just finished a zoom meeting of my food co-op and saw your substack news. Harry Belafonte has been a presence in my life since childhood and so has Paul Robeson.
I grew up listening to Paul Robeson (and Harry Belafonte) and to my dad singing me Paul Robeson songs. I still have some of the records. The music and the voice and the convictions are inseparable in my mind, anyway.
The testimony of Robeson is simply awesome. Thank you for partaking it with us.
Thanks for informing me more of Robeson (and Belafonte) and reminding me of how fascist our North American ruling class has been. Also how musical performers/artists were at one time more engaged with politics/activism or maybe they were less engaged with it solely as a capitalist venture to grow/maintain their brand.
It seems like history is rhyming (as opposed to repeating) and the remnant of the former USSR empire is now a white supremacist Russian empire with expansionist aspirations with future FF dominance. Meanwhile the USA is a collapsing capitalist empire with a civil war brewing between armed white supremacist that want to conserve FF dominance, reject democracy and exterminate/neutralize the brown/non-binary hordes versus a population of humans that have been impoverished (their wealth “redistributed”) by FF domination and surveillance capitalism. What I see is a century of white empires (communists/capitalists) fighting against each other only to destroy, or reach the capacity, to completely destroy the planet.
Are there any charismatic performers/artists now of Belafonte/Robeson stature to represent humans anymore? Has the digital era and mass communications destroyed cultural hegemony or our means to organize against it?
I just finished a zoom meeting of my food co-op and saw your substack news. Harry Belafonte has been a presence in my life since childhood and so has Paul Robeson.
I grew up listening to Paul Robeson (and Harry Belafonte) and to my dad singing me Paul Robeson songs. I still have some of the records. The music and the voice and the convictions are inseparable in my mind, anyway.