Pete Seegar

[poledark]

R I P Pete, wonderful voice,

 

Den

[Newt]

Indeed it was a voice to remember.

[Andrew]

Sorry, never heard of the chap.

[Dave H]

I had mixed feelings about him.

His songs were controversial and in my view were beneficial in the early days with the civil rights but not in Vietnam. I remember my uncle saying (who served in Vietnam) he turned the public against us by whipping up the anti’s too much...

But he was a classic singer for sure but very controversial

RIP

 

I would be offended if i was the son or the family of the 'Big fool'! which again showed me later in vietnam he was anti war but anti soldier too.

 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2014 by Dave H

[Newt]

Considering that the "big fool" was a reference to President Lyndon Johnson, I pretty much gotta agree with the singer.

 

would be offended if i was the son or the family of the 'Big fool'! which again showed me later in vietnam he was anti war but anti soldier too.

 

Anti war - absolutely. Anti soldier - I don't think so. He was pretty much anti big government making bad choices for whatever reason.

[Dave H]

You have to learn when to back off, make your point and move away and i think he thought more of his own views without considering the consequences of them and i thought he didn’t with hatred being whipped up against the troops who came home

 

Also calling a soldier a fool after he has drowned is a bitter pill to swallow for his family. Imagine a song being made about your son being a fool after he had died

 

Great artist though and you can still like a person’s music even if you disagreed with his beliefs

[Newt]

I repeat - the "big fool" in that song was the US President at the time rather than a soldier. LBJ put us into that mess and structured our involvement to make it impossible for us to have a chance of winning. He wasn't a stupid man so I suspect an agenda of some sort rather than a foolish president.

 

That said, any leader foolish enough to march his troops wearing full battle gear into a river deep enough to drown himself and them wouldn't be someone it made sense to follow. Since the "Big Muddy" is a name for the Mississippi River which is much too wide (over a mile) & deep (several hundred feet) to wade across that far south, the song was obviously not meant to be taken literally.

 

Pete Seegar was a lot of things but anti-soldier wasn't among them.

[Dave H]

To whip up so much anti war slogans during the Vietnam War while the very existence of troops who hang on to the thread that they will live to come home is foolish. The anti movement lost many a girlfriend and wife as they turned against their very own who fought out there. Indeed this happened to my uncle who lost my auntie to the peace movement when she started sticking daffodils in the guard’s muzzles at the Whitehouse. Every soldier needs to know he is supported at home and he is doing the 'Right thing'. I say again, he went too far to a point he harmed his own troops. My uncle hated him and many other troops did. And that makes him anti-soldier in my view

The muddy water incident as it was named was not a deliberate act by the commanding officer just like the thousands and thousands of incidences that went wrong in many exercises or wars.He just picked out one incident and the poor guy certainly knew he did wrong as the rest of the world did How about two tanks busting American pilots who killed a group of British soldiers and they even had their union jack flying at the time. Perhaps he should have written a song then of two trigger happy fools who killed innocent troops?. What did they say was it something like 'We might be in trouble here'

And why choose an incident to sing about during the Vietnam conflict why not sooner he had 25 years to do so when it happened?

 

Then although sitting on the fence to suit his beliefs to please the people of being anti war and adamant the Americans should not help the British in WW2 while holding onto his beliefs, the Japs all of a sudden bombed pearl harbour. All of a sudden there were no fence sitting anymore but then when American body bags started coming back, up on the fence he popped again.

He even admitted he was in favour of communism in Russia. Now there is an odd thing or maybe not as he protests and says bring the troops home when they were fighting a communist invasion.So its OK then for civilians to be murdered outside of war but not in it? Now this was said after Vietnam but it’s a bit fishy don’t you think?

Anyway we all have our beliefs but i think there was a darker side to him as well as a lighter side but then that could be said for all of us...

Edited February 2, 2014 by Dave H