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About ArmaVirumque ( AHR-mah wih-ROOM-kweh) In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil sang of "arms and a man" (Arma virumque cano). Month in and month out, The New Criterion expounds with great clarity and wit on the art, culture, and political controversies of our times. With postings of reviews, essays, links, recs, and news, Armavirumque seeks to continue this mission in accordance with the timetable of the digital age. Recent posts
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Dec 02, 2003 08:08 AM What’s next, a stamp honoring Julius Rosenberg?
So, the U.S. Postal service has gotten around to honoring Paul Robeson. According to The Washington Post, early in 2004 the 27th stamp in the Black Heritage series will be released depicting Robeson, the black actor, singer, athlete, and, not incidentally, the vocal and unrepentant Stalinist. In 1945, Robeson told The Daily Worker that If the United States and the United Nations truly want peace and security let them fulfill the hopes of the common people everywhere -- let them work together to accomplish on a worldwide scale, precisely the kind of democratic association of free people which characterizes the Soviet Union today."Robeson won the Stalin Peace Prize in 1952, and when Stalin died the following year he delivered a heartfelt eulogy for the wolrld’s greats mass murderer, recalling his first glimpse of "the great Stalin" in Moscow in 1937: Suddenly, everyone stood up, began to applaud, to cheer, to smile. The children waved. In a box to the right --smiling and applauding back to the audience -- stood the great Stalin.(For more of Robeson’s sentimentalities on Stalin, see click here.) As Andrew Sullivan notes, "Robeson was a full-fledged apologist for the Stalinist terror and even refused to condemn Stalin’s pact with Hitler. If he’d been a staunch supporter of Hitler and backed the Fuhrer in the pact, do you think we’d be honoring him today? Or is a Father Coughlin stamp coming out soon?" Maybe not, but how about an Algir Hiss stamp? I wouldn;t be against it. "No wonder," as Sullivan said, that Walter Duranty "kept his Pulitzer."
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