Harry Belafonte tells it like it is
The following clip is from a 2005 Town Hall. Included in the guests were Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Belafonte gave an impassioned speech about the ills of the country, and he covers a lot of issues. He is very clear in his message that addresses many of the things we are again (or still) talking about in this primary and election season...11 years later, time enough for some of these issues to have been at least started on.
Absolutely nothing been done about things that were so clearly spelled out and that the audience overwhelmingly showed they were in agreement with. This town hall occurred during a non-presidential year, two years before the two aforementioned guests would run against each other. In 2007-2008, they gently touched on a few of these problems, but with neither obviously having any intention of fixing anything.
In 2005, our current president and a presidential candidate sat and listened to this speech and then, apparently, put it out of their minds. It is a great example of what Belafonte was talking about in that politicians only show up when they want something.
He has plenty to say about the Democratic Party also.
[video:https://youtu.be/rKLz0mhGvKQ]
The following clip is a wonderful interview with Belafonte from 2012. Toward the end, he discusses Barack Obama as president. I think, if asked he would put HRC in the same category.
[video:https://youtu.be/t6Rq5zRn39M]
Two of my favorites:
[video:https://youtu.be/QU_yu076k_Y]
[video: https://youtu.be/FFjGsYvB8oc]
Comments
Harry Belafonte's songs were my son's first
inspiration as a child and apparently the origin of his hidden love for "Islands in the Sun".
He could sing that on and on
[video:https://youtu.be/PMigXnXMhQ4]
I wonder if Sidney Poitier is still healthy enough to engage in some political support statements these days. Both of them were my teenage favorites back in the days.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I am listening to Belafonte now = )
Have you ever seen him in Carmen Jones?
I have not heard anything about how Poitier is doing other than him not being well in February. A bit of nostalgia:
[video:https://youtu.be/rn6w255CGkk]
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
oh well, these were the times one still could have hope
...they seem to be all over today.
No, I haven't seen Carmen Jones, I think I was only six years when that came out and I lived in a German village, no exposure at all. But I have now seen the clip on youtube. Lovely. Thanks.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I have it on DVD
and just recently watched it again, so it was on my mind. I generally do not like remakes or re-casts and Carmen is one of my favorites, but Carmen Jones was exceptionally well done (IMO).
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
In That 1st Video Clip...
Right at 9:00 Hillary laughs at Harry Belafonte talking about getting the firetruck, the hose, and figuring out how to turn it on so they can put the burning house they integrated into out...
I heard her laugh again at the end, saying "Filibuster" at the end of him speaking...
For me that laugh is a very irritating sound, like chalk squeaking on a blackboard, or that terrible grinding sound you hear when you should have had your front brakes replaced 10,000 miles ago because the steel brake pad backing is now gouging the hell out of your brake rotor...
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Yes, I noticed that laugh
and agree with your assessment of it. When the camera catches her, she is nodding like a Kewpie doll which indicates to me that she really is not listening. It is too bad as what Belafonte is saying is exactly what she ended up running against in 2008 to a certain degree and to a much higher degree in 2016.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Hillary had continuously over the years started
to have a certain type of body language, which included constant nodding in agreement when someone talked to her or asked questions in townhall-like meetings. She was very focused and then answered always with long string of what I would call "fairy tale" weasel answers, which were of the sort to overwhelm the people with a professional show-off answer. (that may be too harsh, but it became much more obvious in this campaign. Yet it was there before).
But this constant nodding had increased over the years and her methods of not being taken over by her own emotional resistance to her critics have included more and more, calculated laugh offs, "evil" eye contact and when she is very tired of it all, she can explode into finger pointing and angry shouting.
If she should lose the primary, I think one day I might have even a little bit of a pity with her. She has been completely taken over by her own power-pushy ambitions to become President. Old videos of her show that her political ambitions were always stronger than her humanity as a person and with it her moral conscience, I believe. And more and more it becomes obvious that she involved in a lot of shit.
Well, it could be much worse. And I hope she gets over it.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I do not think I can ever bring myself
to pity her. She has done too much damage.
At the beginning of the primary season, I suggested that much of the support for her was a "pity vote" for her getting passed over in 2008. I think a lot of it still is.
Her answers remind me of this:
[video:https://youtu.be/YW3MIixEps4]
...without the entertainment (her surrogates tend to provide the "excitement"), but it still reflects the cynicism with which she treats others.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
Harry Belafonte is a non-person for some
too critical of the "best President in history". I get a chuckle when those people dismiss Belafonte, Cornel West, Glenn Greenwald, Shaun King, BLM (!), the Pope (!!).
I cannot say that I chuckle
but it certainly makes me question the integrity and intellect of many. I have recently been wondering if the US is suffering the same sort of denials that we see in abused spouses.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass