how much do you know about Robeson’s life and wickedness? There is at least one of those things that you don’t know much about if you think Robeson was wicked.

Taylor: Yes it is. Some people mistake the attempt at rational analysis of a historical event for a celebration of it. My book attempts to be distanced and rational and where possible I try to separate the myths and legends from the realities. I personally find the attack on Dresden horrific. It was overdone, it was excessive and is to be regretted enormously. But there is no reason to pretend that it was completely irrational on the part of the Allies. Dresden had war industries and was a major transportation hub. As soon as you start explaining the reasons for the attack, though, people think you are justifying it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was it a war crime?

Taylor: I really don’t know. From a practical point of view, rules of war are something of a gray area.”
…I suggest to read the rest, too.

Of course it’s entirely possible that the impressions and conclusions one can draw from his book are different, e.g. that the idea it could have been a warcrime (whatever that exactly is supposed to be) is totally absurd or whatever.

Note: the actual explanation of why The Right hates Jimmy Carter so would be “liberal sanctimony.”

Nor should we lose perspective about it. It’s worth noting that despite his credulity about the USSR, Robeson had some genuine good to show for his activism and supported causes that are morally unimpeachable today, such as the battles against lynching and South African apartheid. Your average Hitler-apologist on the right can’t say the same.

(In the larger sense, I’ve always found it ironic that C20 history found anti-communists on the wrong side of so many major cultural and political issues despite their having been substantially right about the Soviets. I can see why this drives the right wing so batty, but it’s probably time to let it go.)

I think a dose of reality is needed here. Chamberlain had already handed back the Treaty Ports before the outbreak of WWII: if we – as a supposed neutral – had voluntarily given the British war facilities, then that would’ve been quite reasonably taken as a belligerent act against the Axis, bringing us into the war.

This also leaves the extreme sensitivity of allowing British troops back onto the territory of the South. This is a taboo subject even now: barely a generation after the War of Independence, it would’ve been tinder for renewed civil war.

(note: with the benefit of historical hindsight, I think we should’ve voluntarily joined the war against Nazi Germany. But we chose to remain neutral unless/until attacked, just like so many other democracies such as the US.)

Brett, Brett, Brett. Do you actually think that the worst, most depraved people are in the prison system? Many, I’m sure, but Bush and Cheney have killed more people than anybody in the US prison system, possibly more than all prisoners put together. They did it for power, and are totally unrepentant.

What I object to most vehemently, is any suggestion that being a Stalinist wasn’t wicked. Robeson remained an unrepentant Stalinist long after even the most committed sort of willful blindness could have left him ignorant of Stalin’s evil. Like the guy who remained an admirer of Hitler right through the liberation of the death camps, Robeson had to KNOW what he defended.

And we shouldn’t whitewash that, just because he sang well.

Robeson was, indeed, a Stalinist. So were many tens of thousands of Americans. And many tens of thousands were fascists. And lots were serial killers. And, over the years, lots of truly wicked people who actually did wicked things because they had money and power. And Robeson, what exactly did he do that would put him even in the frame for a top ten? He was a great black singer, who also happened to be a Stalinist. His life was also, in fact, tragic, partly (though only partly) because he was hounded by wicked people who had real power not because he had done anything wrong or bad but simply because he was a Stalinist; well, because he was a great black singer who was a Stalinist. He just doesn’t get anywhere near the list. People who think he does are either ignorant or wicked. I’m sure you don’t, do you? (this is a bit of an echo of anna’s comment (117)—the worst Americans, like the best Americans, are for the most part people none of us have ever heard of.

Also, I don’t see anybody to represent imperialism. Sam Houston is the best I can come up with, but maybe William Walker, freelance invader of Nicaragua?

Finally, what about Woodrow Wilson, a vicious racist, who got us into a pointless war, and botched the peace treaty. Not to mention invading various countries in Latin America and intervening in the Russian Civil War. He set the stage for pretty much evey horror of the 20th century.

1. Walt Disney
2. Ray Kroc
3. Ronald Reagan
4. Rupert Murdoch
5. Milton Friedman
6. Sam Walton
7. Norman Vincent Peale
8. Hugh Hefner
9. Martha Stewart
10. Robin Williams