What's a Radical?

I use the terms "radical" and "radical left" quite regularly when discussing the antwar left and multicultural racial victimologists.

But what really is a radical?

I offered a couple of definitions in my earlier post, "No Enemies on the Left? Progressives for Barack Obama." For example, according to Leon Baradat's Political Ideologies:

...a radical may defined as a person who is extremely dissastified with the society as it is and therefore is impatient with less than extreme proposals for changing it. Hence, all radicals favor an immediate and fundamental change in the society. In other words, all radicals favor revolutionary change.

One of the points I've made in the "No Enemies" series is that radicals don't necessarily have to advocate political violence as a means for revolutionary transformation.

Further, I contend that today's "progressive" activists constitute a contemporary radical movement seeking to use the electoral process to achieve a dramatic and fundamental transformation of American political and social institutions. Recall though that the notion of "progressive" has been appropriated by far-left activists in order to make their radical agenda more acceptable):

The term 'progressive' has evolved a great deal over the past 35 years. By the ’70s, many ’60s veterans had concluded that working 'within the system' had become a viable option. As a result, many leftists stopped using rhetoric and slogans that had marginalized them from the political mainstream. Labels like 'radical', 'leftist', and 'revolutionary' sounded stale and gratuitously provocative. And so, gradually, activists began to use the much less threatening 'progressive.' Today, 'progressive' is the term of choice for practically everyone who has a politics that used to be called 'radical.'

Progressives of late prefer electoral mobilization over direct action to bring about radical transformation. For example, the Nation, in writing about the antiwar movement's robust backing of Democratic congressional candidates, indicated an electoral strategy is the most viable option - "barring a draft or a radical turn in public opinion that would once again bring people en masse into the streets" - to bring about a political realignment committed to implementing the left's total surrender agenda in Iraq.

Electoral mobilization to bring about radical left-wing change is also seen in this definition from the folks at Daily Kos themselves:

The term radical, as applied to political theory and ideology, denotes someone who believes in an ideology or theory that doesn't accept the status quo of society as natural, apolitical, or the way things should be simply by virtue of being the way things are. Virtually all radical ideologies and theories seek to challenge the status quo, to question how things came to be as they are, why they came to be this way, and whose interest things being this way serves.

Most, though not all, radical ideologies and theories also argue that the status quo cannot be fixed by piecemeal reforms and that a more fundamental restructuring of society is necessary to achieve their goals. This may include advocating the armed overthrow of the existing social structure, as in Marxist-Leninism, but often also takes other forms such as many modern socialists who advocate for a democratic means of revolution.

So, according to Daily Kos activists and writers, reforms that might bring about a fundamental restructuring of society - a democratic revolution - can be achieved through "other means."

Now, hardcore opposition to Iraq has been the sine quo non among left blogosphere's main spokespeople, like Daily Kos, Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald, and The Impolitic. But radicalism goes beyond opposition to the war to include far left-wing positions on the entire range of major political and social issues facing the country.

Let's lay out the bases of this radicalism. With apologies to Joe Klein, left wing extremism:

* believes the United States is a fundamentally negative force in the world.
* believes that American imperialism is the primary cause of Islamic radicalism.
* believes the Iraq war was a consequence of America's fundamental imperialistic nature.
* believes capitalism is largely a force for social oppression.
* believes American society is fundamentally racist and unfair.
* believes intractable problems like crime and poverty are primarily the fault of society.
* believes that corporations are fundamentally evil.
* believes religious faith is a source of intolerance, for example, against gays.

This is simply a typology of positions, and logically not all self-professed "progressives" would slide neatly into the rubric.

Many would, however. Indeed, some of the "aggressive progressives" of the Democratic Party have aligned themselves with the most implacable foes of the Iraq war currently on the scene.

Recall, of course, that some of these antiwar progressives have formally endorsed Barack Obama's campaign.

See also my introduction to the series, "No Enemies on the Left? Progressives for Barack Obama."

No Enemies on the Left? Progressives for Barack Obama

I've been having a debate with Repsac 3, a far-left partisan who blogs over at Wingnuts & Moonbats, over the degree of radical support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Sure, I no doubt throw out terms like nihilist and Stalinist quite frequently, perhaps imprecisely. But one point I suggest has been that folks like this - however defined - are prominent members of the Obama coalition. In response, Repsac 3 claims that there's no evidence that hardline activists of this sort back Obama (for the debate thread see, "Where's the Revolution? Wait Until November").

I generally know what I'm talking about, so radical support for Obama's presidential bid's really just a matter of common sense to me. But Repsac's one to demand concrete evidence for claims (as are others, no doubt), and that's fine, so in that spirit I'll be documenting the degree of hardline radical support for the Obama campaign in my writing, beginning with this post.

First, let me be specific in what I'm referring to when I say "hardline left-wing radicals." A good definition is found in Leon Baradat's Political Ideologies, where he notes:

...a radical may defined as a person who is extremely dissastified with the society as it is and therefore is impatient with less than extreme proposals for changing it. Hence, all radicals favor an immediate and fundamental change in the society. In other words, all radicals favor revolutionary change.

Baradat also notes that the criteria to distinuish one type of radical from another is by examining the methods they advocate to bring about transformation.

Also, a good brief definition is also available from Wikipedia:

The Radical Left, an umbrella term to describe those who adhere explicitly and openly to revolutionary socialism, communism or anarchism — the "radical" qualifier tends in this case to denote a revolutionary fervor, and is a subset of, but should not be confused with, the far left.

Note Wikipedia's reference to the "far left," which is a term used more commonly with reference to political competition in European parliamentary democracies (with the extreme left being represented by neo-Stalinism), but is still valid in U.S. political discourse when discussing extreme left-wing partisans.

Now, it's frankly not common in mainstream media commentary to note how substantial is radical left influence on today's Democratic Party. Yet there's considerable evidence that after the Clinton years of DLC centrism, a far-left wing version of Democratic Party liberalism has definitely made a comeback (a good case can be made that Ned Lamont's defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman in the 2006 Connecticut Senate primary was based in the radical politics of the online netroots faction).

It's hard to deny the degree of essentially radical mobilization taking place today in American electoral politics, especially in the netroots, which I contend is replacing more traditional street mobilization as the main channel for fundamental change.

In any case, Tom Hayden, a prominent social and political activist and politician, who's still known for radical advocacy, has issued a major statement of far-left political support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, "Progressives for Obama":

This call has been drafted for immediate circulation, discussion, and action.

All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grass-roots participation drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives. We believe that Barack Obama's very biography reflects the positive potential of the globalization process that also contains such grave threats to our democracy when shaped only by the narrow interests of private corporations in an unregulated global marketplace. We should instead be globalizing the values of equality, a living wage and environmental sustainability in the new world order, not hoping our deepest concerns will be protected by trickle down economics or charitable billionaires. By its very existence, the Obama campaign will stimulate a vision of globalization from below.

As progressives we believe this sudden and unexpected new movement is just what America needs. The future has arrived. The alternative would mean a return to the dismal status quo party politics that have failed so far to deliver peace, health care, full employment and effective answers to crises like global warming.

During past progressive peaks in our political history - the late Thirties, the early Sixties - social movements have provided the relentless pressure and innovative ideas that allowed centrist leaders to embrace visionary solutions. We find ourselves in just such a situation today.

We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama's unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined.

Now some might argue that Hayden's mellowed from his prominent 1960-era radicalism - for example, when he was a member of the Chicago Seven - and, well, he may have to some degree.

But he maintains today, on his personal website, the full-text version of "The Port Huron Statement," which is widely considered the most important political document of new left revolutionary socialism of the 1960s era, and Hayden was the statement's primary author.

The document's worth a good read, especially for people wondering what the progressive movement would do today, should they gain power (the term "progressive" has been appropriated by far-left activists in order to make their radical policies appear more mainstream, and hence politically acceptable).

But note this passage, near the conclusion of The Port Huron Statement outlining an agenda for dramatic social transformation:

A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.

We see striking similarities when comparing Hayden's positions in his current essay, "Progressives for Obama," to those in "The Port Huron Statement."

Of course, Hayden's not a spokesman for any major political advocacy group or political party, but his essay is going out as a general call to action among all left-wing progressive forces. Indeed, the language of his essay seeks complete mobilization, which we can infer as including the various left-wing factions that would normally be considered under the notion of the "radical left" as identified by Baradat.

So, whereas while some progressives would abjure revolutionary violence (and I assume Hayden's does), some would not. Indeed, some of the most prominent antiwar progressive organizations today, like World Can't Wait, are indeed revolutionary hard-left organzations, implacably committed to "driving out the Bush regime."

The World Can't Wait list of endorsers includes everyone from prominent left-wing actors like Susan Sarandon and Marin Sheen to neo-Stalinist organizations such as International ANSWER (a review of the listing gives some credence to the notion of "no enemies on the left").

So, while the exact degree and nature of Obama's support among the various hardline organizations is uncertain, we know without a doubt, from Hayden's essay, that many on the contemporary left see the Obama campaign as the electoral vehicle to operationalize their program for radical, revolutionary change.

I'll have more on this in upcoming posts.

**********

Also see the follow-up entries in the "No Enemies on the Left" series," starting with the most recent:

* "Left-Wing Establishment Cheers Wright's "Brilliance."

* "Responsible Plan? Antiwar Groups Endorse Unconditional Iraq Surrender."

* "Ecoterrorism and the Democrats: More on the Radical Left."

* "Democrats Hijacked by Hard-Left Base, Lieberman Says."

* "Muslim Students Association Seeks U.S. Destruction."

* "Imagine, Obama a Liberal: It's Easy If You Try."

* "Barack Obama's Antiwar Coalition."

* "What's a Radical?"

* "Palestinians See Obama as Close Ally."

* "Anti-McCain Mobilization Rooted in Hardline Anti-Iraq Constituencies."

* "Obama's Circle of Friends: The America-Hating Left."

* "Code Pink Bundling Contributions for Obama."

The Dangerous Power of Radical Islam

Some time back, I read Paul Berman's penetrating treatise on the challenge of post-9/11 Islamist extremism, Terror and Liberalism. It's a must read.

Berman, who's intellectually to the left of the spectrum, woke up to the terrorist challenge like many other liberal hawks after the collapse of the Twin Towers.

He's got an essay today at the New York Times, "Why Radical Islam Just Won’t Die." Check it out:

THE big surprise, viewed from my own narrow perspective five years later, has taken place in the mysterious zones of extremist ideology. In the months and weeks before the invasion of Iraq, I wrote quite a lot about ideology in the Middle East, and especially about the revolutionary political doctrine known as radical Islamism.

I tried to show that radical Islamism is a modern philosophy, not just a heap of medieval prejudices. In its sundry versions, it draws on local and religious roots, just as it claims to do. But it also draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe. I wanted my readers to understand that with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined, radical Islamism wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, than naïve observers might suppose.

I declared myself happy in principle with the notion of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, just as I was happy to see the Taliban chased from power. But I wanted everyone to understand that military action, by itself, could never defeat an ideology like radical Islamism — could never contribute more than 10 percent (I invented this statistic, as an illustrative figure) to a larger solution. I hammered away on that point in the days before the war. And today I have to acknowledge that, for all my hammering, radical Islamism, in several of its resilient branches, the ultra-radical and the beyond-ultra-radical, has proved to be stronger even than I suggested....

The entire sequence of events [since the invasino of Iraq] may suggest that America is uniquely destined to do the wrong thing. All too likely! But it may also suggest that America is not the fulcrum of the universe, and extremist ideologies have prospered because of their own ability to adapt and survive — their strength, in a word.

I notice a little gloomily that I may have underestimated the extremist ideologies in still another respect. Five years ago, anyone who took an interest in Middle Eastern affairs would easily have recalled that, over the course of a century, the intellectuals of the region have gone through any number of phases — liberal, Marxist, secularist, pious, traditionalist, nationalist, anti-imperialist and so forth, just like intellectuals everywhere else in the world.

Western intellectuals without any sort of Middle Eastern background would naturally have manifested an ardent solidarity with their Middle Eastern and Muslim counterparts who stand in the liberal vein — the Muslim free spirits of our own time, who argue in favor of human rights, rational thought (as opposed to dogma), tolerance and an open society.

But that was then. In today’s Middle East, the various radical Islamists, basking in their success, paint their liberal rivals and opponents as traitors to Muslim civilization, stooges of crusader or Zionist aggression. And, weirdly enough, all too many intellectuals in the Western countries have lately assented to those preposterous accusations, in a sanitized version suitable for Western consumption.

Even in the Western countries, quite a few Muslim liberals, the outspoken ones, live today under a threat of assassination, not to mention a reality of character assassination. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch legislator and writer, is merely an exceptionally valiant example. But instead of enjoying the unstinting support of their non-Muslim colleagues, the Muslim liberals find themselves routinely berated in the highbrow magazines and the universities as deracinated nonentities, alienated from the Muslim world. Or they find themselves pilloried as stooges of the neoconservative conspiracy — quite as if any writer from a Muslim background who fails to adhere to at least a few anti-imperialist or anti-Zionist tenets of the Islamist doctrine must be incapable of thinking his or her own thoughts.

A dismaying development. One more sign of the power of the extremist ideologies — one more surprising turn of events, on top of all the other dreadful and gut-wrenching surprises.

I'd like to see Berman elaborate his points further, particulary with regard to the United States in Iraq.

You see, Berman took the entire foreign policy establishment to task Terror and Liberalism. National security elites, in his view, have not taken new threats as seriously as they should, and while he suggests here that we've perhaps made mistakes in Iraq - even, let's say, stoked the hornet's nest - he illustrates that it's not essentially U.S. policy that is the danger, but Islamist fundamentalism outright.

That's a point the radical left cannot accept. To them the greatest danger is the U.S. and America's alleged neo-imperialism. Consequently, some activists on the hard-left work to aid the forces of Islamist terror in the destruction of our country.

So in that sense, there remains some of that "ardent solidarity" Berman mentions, a solidarity on working toward the utter annihilation of the world's leading liberal capitalist state.

For more to that effect, see my previous post, "Where's the Revolution? Wait Until November".

Totalitarian Faith

I've noticed lately that radical progressives get particularly pissed when you call them out as nihilist. I discussed this recently in a lengthy essay, "Anti-Intellectualism and the Marxist Idea." At issue there were some of the objections of BJ Keefe from September, and he reissued them just last week, and I responded again, "Navigating Past Nihilism." While BJ claimed I had "twisted" the meaning of nihilism, he never did actually offer his own definition. The issue has popped up again, as Amanda Marcotte has gotten peeved at my descriptions of leftists as nihilist, and she's spouted off her frustration on Twitter and in at least two posts at Pandagon. She has, for example, attempted to smear me as a "moron" who "pretends" to know what nihilism means. It's fair to say that nihilism is deployed with a range of meaning, although it's not fair for leftists to attack me for ignorance while simultaneously refusing to provide a counter exegesis. As noted, my traditional usage focuses on leftist abandonment of historical norms of morality, along with the concomitant campaign of destruction on Judea-Christian ethics.

In recent posts I've focuses more narrowly on Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis of the social obliteration of God. And unbeknownst to poor Amanda, I've provided a dictionary definition at "Navigating Past Nihilism," and the link there goes to Professor Sean Kelly's recent piece at New York Times. So basically, leftist lamebrains cited here and elsewhere can just STFU.

In any case, I'm reminded of David Horowitz's The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future. He writes, at pages 28-29, on a June 1990 forum held by the Organization of American Historians. The prominent author Christopher Lasch announced that the West had "won the Cold War," upon which he was immediately denounced --- with "outrage and scorn" --- by the radical historians in attendance. Horowitz indicates how the episode reveals the left's epistemic closure on the failures of revolutionary socialism:

The refusal to confront the past meant that leftists could resume their attacks on the West without examining the movements and regimes they had supported, and thus without proposing any practical alternative to the societies they continued to reject. The intellectual foundations of this destructive attitude had already been created, in the preceding decades, in a development that Allen Bloom described as the "Nietzcheanization of the Left" --- the transformation of the progressive faith into a nihilistic creed.

Nihilistic humors have always been present in the radical character. The revolutionary will, by its very nature, involves a passion for destruction alongside its hope of redemption. While the hope is vaguely imagined, however, the agenda of destruction is elaborate and concrete. It was Marx who originally defended this vagueness, claiming that any "blueprint" of the socialist future would be merely "utopian" and therefore should be avoided. The attitutude of the post-Marxist left is no different. Since the fall of Communism, radical intellectuals have continued their destructive attacks on capitalism, as though the catastrophes they had recently promoted posed no insurmountable problem to such an agenda. "I continue to believe," wrote a radical academic after the Soviet collapse, "that what you call 'the socialist fantasy' can usefully inform a critque of post-modern capitalism without encouraging its fantasists and dreamers to suppose that a brave new order is imminent or even feasible."

But how could a responsible intellect ignore the destructive implications of such an attitude? The socialist critique is, after all, total. It is aimed at the roots of the existing order. To maintain agnosticism about the futures that might replace the reality you intend to destroy may be intellectually convenient, but it is also morally corrupt ....

To raise the socialist ideal as a critical standard imposes a burden of responsiblity on its advocates that critical theorists refuse to shoulder. If one sets out to destroy a lifeboat because it fails to meet the standards of a luxury yacht, the act of criticism may be perfectly "just," but the passengers will drown all the same. Similarly, if socialist principles can only be realized in a socialist gulag, even the presumed inequalities of the capitalist market are worth the price. If socialist poverty and socialist police states are the practical alternative to capitalist inequality, what justice can there be in destroying capitalist freedoms and the benefits they provide? Without a practical alternative to offer, radical idealism is radical nihilism --- a war of destuction with no objective other than war itself.

And from page 57:

Totalitarianism is the possession of reality by a political Idea --- the Idea of socialist kingdom of heaven on earth; the redemption of humanity by political force. To radical believers this Idea is so beautiful it is like God Himself. It provides the meaning of a radical life. This is the solution that makes everything possible; the noble end that justifies the regrettable means. Belief in the kingdom of socialist heaven is faith that can transform vice into virtue, lies into truth, evil into good. In this revolutionary religion, the Way, the Truth, and the Life of salvation lie not with God above, but with men below --- ruthless, brutal, venal men --- on whom faith confers the power of gods. There is no mystery in the transformation of the socialist paradise into Communist hell: liberation theology is a satanic creed.

Amanda Marcotte has offered no definition nor defense of nihilism. She has however attacked those of faith as insane, citing atheist phenomenon Richard Dawkins as her source of authority: The God Delusion. It's easy to understand why, for by rejecting the eternal goodness of God, she can justify the destructive radical progressivism that drives her ideological program. That program is nihilist. It is, following Nietzsche, the utter abandonment of the social commitment to morality and right. She, like her fellow radicals, rejects morality in favor of hedonism and license, and hence rejects any larger meaning within a body of faith that is God.

The Radical Left's Massive Resistance

The radical left has declared war on the Trump administration, and by extension, all decent Americans.

At FrontPage Magazine, "The 'Resistance' Democrats are a Terrorist Party":

The Democrats have committed to overthrowing our government.

What does #Resistance really mean? It means the overthrow of our government.

In this century, Democrats rejected the outcomes of two presidential elections won by Republicans. After Bush won, they settled for accusing him of being a thief, an idiot, a liar, a draft dodger and a mass murderer. They fantasized about his assassination and there was talk of impeachment. But elected officials gritted their teeth and tried to get things done.

This time around it’s “radically” different.

The official position, from the Senate to the streets, is “Resistance.” Leftist media outlets are feeding the faithful a fantasy that President Trump will be brought down. There is fevered speculation about the 25th Amendment, a coup or impeachment due to whatever scandal has been manufactured last.

This fantasy is part clickbait. Leftist media outlets are feeding the worst impulses of their readers. But there is a bigger and more disturbing radical endgame.

The left can be roughly divided into moderates and radicals. The distinction doesn’t refer to outcome; both want very similar totalitarian societies with very little personal freedom and a great deal of government control. Instead it’s about the tactics that they use to get to that totalitarian system.

 The “moderates” believe in working from within the system to transform the country into a leftist tyranny. The “radicals” believe that the system is so bad that it cannot even be employed for progressive ends. Instead it needs to be discredited and overthrown by radicalizing a revolutionary base.

Radicals radicalize moderates by discrediting the system they want to be a part of. Where moderates seek to impose a false consensus from within the system, radicals attack the system through violent protests and terrorism. Their goal is to set off a chain of confrontations that make it impossible to maintain civil society and polarize the backlash and chaos into consolidating the left for total war.

That is what “Resistance” actually means.

A similar program implemented in Europe, with a covert alliance between Communists and Nazis, led to the deaths of millions, the destruction of much of Europe and the temporary triumph of the left.

The radical left’s efforts in America caused death and destruction but, despite the sympathy of many liberals for terrorist groups such as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers, failed to escalate because the majority of Democrats and even liberals did not accept the premise that our system was illegitimate.

That began to change this century.

64% of Democrats insisted that President Bush had not been legitimately elected. 49% declared that he was not a legitimate president. 22% vowed never to accept him no matter what he might do.

After 9/11, over half of Democrats believed that Bush had known about or been involved in the attacks.

Anywhere from two-thirds to a quarter of the Democrats rejected the results of a presidential election, rejected the president and suspected him of conspiring to murder thousands of Americans.

The left was winning. Much of its natural “moderate” base viewed our government as illegitimate.

The left has declared that President Trump’s victory is illegitimate. The response is “Resistance.” That covers violent anti-government protesters, states declaring that they are no longer bound to follow Federal immigration law and Senators obstructing for the sake of obstruction.

It’s easy to get lost in the partisan turmoil of the moment, but it’s important to understand the implications. If two presidential elections were illegitimate, then our entire system of elections might be illegitimate. And indeed the left made exactly that case with its attack on the Electoral College.

The left pressed Dems to oppose President Trump for the sake of opposition. The goal wasn’t just spite. It was to break the government. When the left forced Senate Dems to filibuster President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the filibuster became the first casualty of the fight. The goal of the radicals was to make bipartisan legislative activity impossible. Senate Democrats adopted the position of the radical left that their mission was wrecking institutions to deny them to Republicans rather than governing.

Once that was done, the radical left could unveil arguments such as, “The United States Senate is a Failed Institution”. Much like our system of elections and every other part of our government.

The radical left’s goal is to convince its natural base that our system of government is illegitimate. It knows that this can’t be limited to the theoretical level of ideology. Instead it must radicalize by demonstrating it. It does not seriously believe that President Trump will be removed from office by the 25th Amendment or any other aspect of the system. Instead it is feeding these fantasies so that when they fall through those on the left who believed in them will be further radicalized by their failure.

And Democrats have become complicit in the radical left’s program to bring down the government.

They have normalized the radical leftist position that our system is illegitimate. They have moved into the second phase of the left’s program of demonstrating that illegitimacy through confrontation. The final phase is to overthrow the system through actions ranging from protests to terrorism.

This is Cloward-Piven institutional sabotage on a whole other scale. The goal is to collapse our entire system of government. And the Democrats have climbed on board with it using President Trump as a pretext. But regardless of which Republican had won, the end result would have been the same.

The left makes its opposition to the Constitution, the election process and the rule of law into a crisis. And then it uses that crisis to demand a new system. It has pursued this approach successfully in local areas and in narrower causes. This is not the first time that it has embarked on such a project on the national level. But this is the first time that it has the full support of a major national political party.

And that is the true crisis that we face.

The left’s endgame is a totalitarian state. Its “moderates” pursue one by peaceful means only so long as they are allowed to hijack the system. When an election fails to go their way, the radicals brandish it as proof that the system has failed and that violent revolution is the only answer.

But what was once the obscure behavior of a deranged political fringe has become the mainstream politics of the Democrats. The Resistance theme shows that the radicals have won. The Democrats haven’t just fallen to the left. They have fallen to the radical left which believes in overthrowing our system of government through conflict and confrontation rather than covertly engineering change.

The Democrats have become a terrorist party. And their commitment to a radical revolution has plunged our political system into chaos. The left is now exactly where it wanted to be.

And a civil war has begun...

Still more.

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism

Boy, it's tough keeping up with all the latest terminology on the SJW left. Sheesh. I feel like an old man, lol.

See, Meghan Murphy, on Twitter:

Congratulations on your important contribution to the movement, @andizeisler #callmeawitch https://t.co/gtN36E5B0P pic.twitter.com/iYJ9s971m3

— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) May 21, 2016

Hold on. There's more, from Penny White, at Feminist Current, "Why I no longer hate ‘TERFs’."

And the other day I came across Deep Green Resistance:

@Not_RSMcCain Have you seen Deep Green Resistance? -->
Radical Feminism Frequently Asked Questions https://t.co/dclol0ZFzA

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 22, 2016

Deep Green Resistance has been accused of transphobia because we have a difference of opinion about the definition of gender.

DGR does not condone dehumanization or violence against anyone, including people who describe themselves as trans. Universal human rights are universal. DGR has a strong code of conduct against violence and abuse. Anyone who violates that code is no longer a member of DGR.

Disagreeing with someone, however, is not a form of violence. And we have a big disagreement.

Radical feminists are critical of gender itself. We are not gender reformists–we are gender abolitionists. Without the socially constructed gender roles that form the basis of patriarchy, all people would be free to dress, behave, and love others in whatever way they wished, no matter what kind of body they had.

Patriarchy is a caste system which takes humans who are born biologically male or female and turns them into the social classes called men and women. Male people are made into men by socialization into masculinity, which is defined by a psychology based on emotional numbness and a dichotomy of self and other. This is also the psychology required by soldiers, which is why we don’t think you can be a peace activist without being a feminist.

Female socialization in patriarchy is a process of psychologically constraining and breaking girls—otherwise known as “grooming”—to create a class of compliant victims. Femininity is a set of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized submission.

We see nothing in the creation of gender to celebrate or embrace. Patriarchy is a corrupt and brutal arrangement of power, and we want to see it dismantled so that the category of gender no longer exists. This is also our position on race and class. The categories are not natural: they only exist because hierarchical systems of power create them (see, for instance, Audrey Smedley’s book Race in North America). We want a world of justice and equality, where the material conditions that currently create race, class, and gender have been forever overcome.

Patriarchy facilitates the mining of female bodies for the benefit of men – for male sexual gratification, for cheap labor, and for reproduction. To take but one example, there are entire villages in India where all the women only have one kidney. Why? Because their husbands have sold the other one. Gender is not a feeling—it’s a human rights abuse against an entire class of people, “people called women.”[1]

We are not “transphobic.” We do, however, have a disagreement about what gender is. Genderists think that gender is natural, a product of biology. Radical feminists think gender is social, a product of male supremacy. Genderists think gender is an identity, an internal set of feelings people might have. Radical feminists think gender is a caste system, a set of material conditions into which one is born. Genderists think gender is a binary. Radical feminists think gender is a hierarchy, with men on top. Some genderists claim that gender is “fluid.” Radical feminists point out that there is nothing fluid about having your husband sell your kidney. So, yes, we have some big disagreements.

Radical feminists also believe that women have the right to define their boundaries and decide who is allowed in their space. We believe all oppressed groups have that right. We have been called transphobic because the women of DGR do not want men—people born male and socialized into masculinity—in women-only spaces. DGR stands with women in that decision.

Postcards from the Oppression Olympics, you might say, heh.

The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement

One of the most interesting political developments over the last few years has been the growing fusion between the Democratic Party and the hardline radical elements of the contemporary antiwar left.

Determining which groups and individuals actually comprise "the left" is difficult, but as I've argued numerous time, the radical left today is increasingly an online advocacy and electoral mobilization movement. From the netroots blogs such as Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and Open Left, to the various iterations of online interest groups, such as MoveOn.org, the movement for a progressive overthrow of the hegemonic, imperialist right-wing establishment (BushCo and the neocons, basically) has been the driving ideological program of today's left.

Note, of course, that with the Barack Obama phenomenon we did see members of the '60s protest generation endorse the Illinois Senator (and Obama himself has long been dogged by his own ties to domestic terrorists and his unorthodox upbringing in Marxist ideology).

I identified the hardline radical support for the Obama campaign with the notion of "no enemies on the left." While Obama's a pragmatic politician who's been known to shift to the center for electoral expediency, on the issue of Iraq he's been a godsend to the left's radical antiwar constituencies. Indeed, Barack Obama provides a near-perfect fit for the left's template of postmodern, anti-military moral relativism seeking to rein in American power and put international interests above those of the American state.

The background on the antiwar movement is told in David Horowitz's recent book, Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America’s War on Terror Before and After 9-11, which is reviewed by Bruce Thornton at City Journal. Here's Thornton on the Democratic Party's antiwar politics:

Party of Defeat opens with the Vietnam War-era hijacking of the Democratic Party by antiwar radicals, whose ultimate purpose wasn’t so much to end the war, but to discredit and weaken the political, social, and economic foundations of America. For the radical Left, then and now, “no longer regards itself as part of the nation ... “This Left sees itself instead as part of an abstract ‘humanity,’ transcending national borders and patriotic allegiances, whose interests coincide with a worldwide radical cause.” As such, it must work against America’s interests and success, disguising its activity as “dissent” or a more general antiwar sentiment.

This stream of today's Democratic Party is either not appreciated by many or flatly denied (for further elaboration of the theme, see also, John Tierney, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?").

With the exception of some mainstream outlets like International Business Daily and National Review (who explicitly identify the Obama phenomena in class-analysis terms), and a few top bloggers like Jim Hoft and Tom Maguire, Obama's mostly discussed in terms of the mainstream social identity of the Democratic Party as a pro-capitalist, center-left catch-all party of enemy-combatant rights, diversity, and organized labor.

I haven't written much lately on the Democrats and the extreme left factions, largely because the Palin phenomenon has completely dominated the news media. But as we move into the remaining weeks of the campaign, it's important for conservatives not to lose sight of this year's epochal battle in American politics between the GOP's vision - embodied best by President Ronald Reagan, and now Sarah Palin - of peace through strength and the embrace of American exceptionalism in foreign policy, and the left's agenda of multicultural liberal internationalism (including Obama's initial call for international diplomacy without preconditions).

What stoked my reflection on the topic was an article I read earlier tonight in the International Socialist Review, while out at Borders with my son.

The piece, "Which Way Forward for the Antiwar Movement?", actually repudiates the electoral mobilization strategies of hard left organizations such as United for Peace and Justice. But the author's agenda for rekindling the currently moribund protest movement (an effort to draw on the lessons of the Vietnam-era antiwar successes) reminded me of the alliance between socialism and radical Islam that's one of the most significant threats to American national security in the current age:

To really understand the kind of mass struggle we must aim to build, we should draw on the lessons of the movement against the war in Vietnam. It was not the president or Congress that ended that war. Instead it was the dynamic interaction of 3 militant mass struggles. The mass civilian antiwar movement staged mass marches, mass civil disobedience, and a wave of campus strikes that shut down the universities and colleges of the United States.

On top of that, the U.S. troops revolted against the war. As David Cortright’s Soldiers in Revolt describes, civilian activists in collaboration with vets and GIs set up coffeehouses where soldiers could organize their antiwar movement and build Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In Vietnam itself, the U.S. troops refused to fight, organizing “search and avoid” missions and even threatening their officers with fragmentation grenades to prevent officers from sending them into combat. This GI rebellion essentially paralyzed the American military in Vietnam.

Finally, and most importantly, the Vietnamese people themselves forged the National Liberation Front that fought for their own emancipation. They proved, especially after the Tet Offensive in 1968, that the United States and its puppet government had no support in Vietnam, and that the people were committed to driving the U.S. out of Southeast Asia. This three-dimensional, militant movement won the liberation of Vietnam.

Okay, pay attention to that last paragraph: The implication there is that the contemporary antiwar movement needs to back indigenous resistance forces against "American imperial agression." Today, such a drive would translate into ideological and material support to al Qaeda in Iraq, Hamas in the West Bank, Hezbollah in Syria, and the Taliban in hills of Tora Bora - and that's not to mention the emerging Iranian-Venezuelan anti-US axis of evil (for more on that, see "Anti-Americans on the March").

There are some in the radical netroots - like the extremist Newshoggers - who have already mounted a campaign of ideological support for America's defeat. Others, like many Barack Obama supporters, simply fail to make the connection between unlimited face-to-face diplomacy with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and threats like the explosively formed penetrators that have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Iraq in the last few years.

Now's the time to return to the issues of Barack Obama's radical ties. While the explicit relationship between the Democratic Party and the contemporary antiwar left is complicated, there's no doubt that many outside the realm of doctrinaire Leninist cadres seek a progressive alliance between the hardline antiwar groups and the top echelons of the Democratic Party's organization.

Carl Davidson, 60s-Era Radical, Denies Obama Endorsement

Why would any left-wing activist - especially a founding executive of the '60s-era radical group, Students for a Democratic Society - go to all the trouble of launching a "Progressives for Obama" movement, and then turn around and declaim any formal endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee?

It doesn't make much sense, but that's exacty what '60s-radical Carl Davidson did yesterday in a comment at Goat's Barnyard, "All That Is Old Is New Again":

Today I run 'Progressives for Obama', a web site completely independent of him. We distance ourselves from him, and he can do likewise. Technically, we don't even endorse him; we simply say he's our 'best option.' So there's no need for him to reject what's not there. We do want people to vote for him, mainly as a way to end this horrible, unjust and stupid war.

Goat's Barnyard had posted on Daniel Flynn's penetrating essay at City Journal, "Obama’s Boys of Summer: A Who’s Who of 1968 Radicals Supports the Candidate."

While Davidson denies endorsing Obama, his website, "Progressives for Obama," prominently displays this statement:

All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grass-roots participation drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives...

There's more at the link (and here and here) - and if that's not an endorsement, maybe I need to go back to school for some postmodern (re)education.

But check out a recent article on Davidson's support for Obama, "Radical from '60s Stoked by Barack: Students for a Democratic Society Leader Now Webmaster for Progressives for Obama":

He didn't bomb the Capitol or rob banks like his contemporaries in the Weather Underground.

But Carl Davidson, a former vice president of the Students for a Democratic Society who traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro and still praises the dictator today, is another proud radical for Barack Obama, serving faithfully as webmaster for "Progressives for Obama."

He joins his old SDS collaborator, Tom Hayden, who traveled with Jane Fonda to meet with Vietnamese communist leaders during the height of the Vietnam war. In fact, Fonda, too, Hayden's ex-wife, is part of Progressives for Obama.

Obama recently came under scrutiny for his relationship with William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, two leaders of the communist revolutionary Weather Underground responsible for bombing the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, police stations and other targets in the 1970s.

Ayers and Dohrn, now married, went underground after she was charged with instigating riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 and after several of their fellow SDS Weatherman associates were killed when bombs they were building blew up in a Greenwich Village townhouse. One of those killed was Ayers girlfriend at the time, Diana Oughton. The group was planning to bomb Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey.

Dohrn publicly celebrated the group's maiming of Chicago prosecutor Richard Elrod in the Chicago riots. In 1970, rich kid Ayers, son of the chairman of Commonwealth Edison, explained what the Weather Underground was all about: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at."

Following the mass murders of actress Sharon Tate and others by disciples of Charles Manson, Dohrn had this to say: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!" Dohrn went on to suggest adopting a "fork" salute might be appropriate for her fellow homicidal maniacs.

Perhaps Davidson's ashamed of his past leadership in an organization pledged to the overthrow of the United States? Perhaps he's realized that his support for Obama might ultimately be a liability for Democratic Party hopes in November?

Indeed, the history of America's domestic enemies on the left llustrates how agressively these radicals have sought an "image makeover." At one time, folks like Davidson proclaimed themselves the "new left," only to discard that label when it became synonymous with bomb-throwing nihilists.

Today's "progressives" are simply unreconstructed revolutionaries who have jettisoned the in-your-face nomenclature of earlier days as too provocative for the mainstream:

By the '70s, many '60s veterans had concluded that working 'within the system' had become a viable option. As a result, many leftists stopped using rhetoric and slogans that had marginalized them from the political mainstream. Labels like 'radical', 'leftist', and 'revolutionary' sounded stale and gratuitously provocative. And so, gradually, activists began to use the much less threatening 'progressive.' Today, 'progressive' is the term of choice for practically everyone who has a politics that used to be called 'radical.'

It's no surprise that leftists are embarrassed by their own history of extremism. They seek not only to divorce themselves from their predecessors, but to cleanse themselves of the slimy ignominy of revolutionary agitation. This cleansing effort is so schizophrenically hypocritical that we see the same types of people who decry the label "radical" turning around simultaneously to demonize the right as "pseudo-fascist."

And in the case of Carl Davidson - who's a perfect specimen of this shameful history - he'll declaim endorsing Barack Obama's presidential campaign while simultaneously championing it.

This is fundamentally dishonest, but that's a key characteristic of a great many on the far-left.

Communist Revolutionaries: 'The Executive Branch of the Democratic Party'

From David Horowitz, "The Manchurian Candidate":

Van Jones is the carefully groomed protégé of a network of radical organizations -- including Moveon.org -- and of Democratic sponsors like billionaire George Soros and John Podesta, former Clinton chief of staff and co-chair of the Obama transition team.

At the time of his appointment as the President’s “Green Jobs” czar – and despite a very recent 10-year history of “revolutionary” activity – Jones was a member of two key organizations at the very heart of what might be called the executive branch of the Democratic Party ....

How did John Podesta and Al Gore and Barack Obama come to be political allies of a far left radical like Van Jones, a 9/11 conspiracy “truther” and a supporter of the Hamas view that the entire state of Israel is “occupied territory?” To answer this question requires an understanding of developments within the political left that have taken place over the last two decades, and in particular the forging of a “popular front” between anti-American radicals and “mainstream liberals” in the Democratic Party.

The collapse of Communism in the early Nineties did not lead to an agonizing reappraisal of its radical agendas among many who had supported it in the West. Instead, its survivors set about creating a new socialist international which would unite “social justice” movements, radical environmental groups, leftwing trade unions, and traditional communist parties – all dedicated to the revival of utopian dreams.

The new political force made its first impression at the end of the decade when it staged global demonstrations against the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. The demonstrations erupted into large-scale violence in Seattle in 2001 when 50,000 Marxists, anarchists and environmental radicals, joined by the giant leftwing unions AFSCME and SEIU, descended on the city, smashed windows and automobiles, and set fire to buildings to protest “globalization” – the world capitalist system.

In the direct aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the anti-globalization forces morphed into what became known as the “anti-war” movement. An already scheduled anti-globalization protest on September 29 was re-redirected (and re-named) to target America’s retaliation against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The new “peace” movement grew to massive proportions in the lead up to the war in Iraq but it never held a single protest against Saddam’s violation of 17 UN arms control resolutions, or his expulsion of the UN arms inspectors. It did, however, mobilize 35 million people in world-wide protests against America’s “imperialist war for oil.” The orchestrators of the demonstrations were the same leaders and the same organizations, the same unions and the same “social justice” groups that had been responsible for the Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization and the international capitalist system.

A second watershed came in the run-up to the 2004 elections when billionaire George Soros decided to integrate the radicals – including their political organization ACORN -- into the structure of Democratic Party politics. Together with a group of like-minded billionaires, Soros created a “Shadow Party” (as Richard Poe and I documented in a book by that name) whose purpose was to shape the outcome of the 2004 presidential race. “America under Bush,” Soros told The Washington Post, “is a danger to the world,…” To achieve his goal, Soros created a galaxy of 527 political organizations headed by leftwing union leaders like SEIU chief Andrew Stern and Clinton operatives like Harold Ickes. As its policy brain he created the Center for American Progress.

Soros failed to achieve his goal in 2004 but he went on working to create new elements of the network, such as the Apollo Alliance. Four years later the Shadow Party was able to elect a candidate who had spent his entire political career in the bowels of this movement. Obama’s electoral success was made possible by the wide latitude he was given by the press and the public, partly because he was the first African-American with a chance to be president and partly because his campaign was deliberately crafted to convey the impression that he was a tax-cutting centrist who intended to bring Americans together to find common solutions to their problems. When confronted with his long-term associations and working partnerships with anti-American racists like Jeremiah Wright and anti-American radicals like William Ayers, he denied the obvious and successfully side-stepped its implications.

Just eight months into his presidency, however, a new Barack Obama has begun to emerge. With unseemly haste Obama has nearly bankrupted the federal government, amassing more debt in eight months than all his predecessors combined. He has appeased America’s enemies abroad and attacked America’s intelligence services at home. He has rushed forward with programs that require sweeping changes in the American economy and is now steamrolling a massive new health-care program that will give the government unprecedented control of its citizens.

Among the hallmarks of this new radical regime the appointment of Van Jones stood out for its blatant departure from political normalcy. In his White House role, the radical Jones would have represented the president in shaping a multi-billion stimulus package, which could easily function as a patronage program of particular interest to his political allies in the “Apollo Alliance,” ACORN and the leftwing unions. In the classic manual for activists on how to achieve their radical goals, Obama’s political mentor Saul Alinsky wrote: “From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.” As the president’s green jobs commissar, Van Jones had entered the trillion-dollar community of the federal government and would soon have been building his radical army. The rest of us should be wondering who his sponsors were within the White House (senior presidential advisor and long-time “progressive” Valerie Jarrett was certainly one). Then we should ask ourselves what they are planning next.

Why We're Losing to Radical Islam

From Newt Gingrich, at the Wall Street Journal, "Fourteen years after 9/11, we still lack a strategy. Congress should lead with hearings on the enemy and how to prevail":

The United States has been at war with radical Islamist terrorism for at least 35 years, starting with the November 1979 Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and taking of 52 American hostages. President Jimmy Carter , in his State of the Union address two months later, declared the American captives “innocent victims of terrorism.”

For the next two decades, radical Islamist terrorism grew more powerful and more sophisticated. On Sept. 11, 2001, a remarkably sophisticated effort by Islamist terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York City, Washington, D.C., and western Pennsylvania.

In response to the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, President George W. Bush told a joint session of Congress: “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

We have clearly failed to meet that goal. After more than 13 years of war, with thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands of Americans wounded, and several trillion dollars spent, the U.S. and its allies are losing the war with radical Islamism. The terrorists of Islamic State are ravaging Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram is widening its bloody swath through Nigeria, al Qaeda and its affiliates are killing with impunity in Somalia, Yemen and beyond, and the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan. The killings in Paris at Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket are only the most recent evidence of the widening menace of radical Islamism.

Confronted with the atrocities in Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told his people on Jan. 10 that they were at war: “It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.”

Yet France, like the U.S. government, doesn’t have a strategy for victory in this war. Ad hoc responses to attacks have failed to stop the growing threat. We remain vulnerable to a catastrophic attack (or series of smaller attacks) that would have dark and profound consequences for the American people and for freedom around the world.

The U.S. and its allies must now design a strategy to match a global movement of radical Islamists who sincerely want to destroy Western civilization...

Okay, additional hearing might be helpful, although it's not like we don't know what to do about global jihad. Personally, I'll take the Ralph Peters method, "Exterminate the Terrorists and 'Leave Behind Smoking Ruins and Crying Widows...' (VIDEO)."

Barack Obama's Authoritarian Socialist Ties

Via Little Green Footballs, Stanley Kurtz has the lowdown on Barack Obama's ties to another nihilist organization of the radical left:

What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama.

This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “motor-voter” bill. In fact, Obama’s Acorn connection is far more extensive. In the few stories where Obama’s role as an Acorn “leadership trainer” is noted, or his seats on the boards of foundations that may have supported Acorn are discussed, there is little follow-up. Even these more extensive reports miss many aspects of Obama’s ties to Acorn.

Kurtz notes that "Acorn’s radical agenda sometimes shifts toward “undisguised authoritarian socialism," and he also highlights this about Acorn's subterranean subversion:

If Acorn is adept at creating a non-partisan, inside-game veneer for what is in fact an intensely radical, leftist, and politically partisan reality, so is Obama himself.

You don't say?

See also, "Barack Obama: The "Perfect Frontman" for the Radical Left."

Barack Obama is Creepy

Rick Moran demonstrates why he's one of the best conservative writers in the blogosphere, with his essay this morning, "Top Ten Things That Creep Me Out About Obama."

This is a must-read piece, but Moran's smart to come right out and say, "I know it is not politically correct to say that Obama 'creeps me out. '"

It's not, and I think that's why many folks on the right are attacked mercilessly, because they see all the way through Obama's pomp and unseriousness.

In any case, I do want to quote a couple of passages, for example:

6. It creeps me out that with the exception of most conservatives, Obama’s radical associations and radical past – including his being on a first name basis with an unreconstructed terrorist – doesn’t seem to bother many people. What am I missing here? When Obama makes an actual political alliance with a radical Maoist organization like The New Party, going so far as to attending their meetings and recruiting their members to work on his state senate campaign, why is there no call for the candidate to explain himself? Nor has there been any effort – save a couple of scattered stories in the National Review and elsewhere that detail Obama’s association with the radical group ACORN.

It’s as if the entire “Obama movement,” made up mostly of good, mainstream Democrats, is so in thrall to the candidate that they can’t see the warning signs of this fellow’s true radicalism. They dismiss his past by simply pointing to the here and now and saying “See? He really is a moderate kind of guy after all.” We don’t know that because no one has ever – ever – asked him to explain why he sought the endorsement of a radical communist group when running for the state senate and why he associated himself with the radical group ACORN.

Beyond creepy. Truly scary…

5. Has there ever been a creepier presidential hopeful’s spouse than Michelle Obama? She actually said this to a political gathering last February: “Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

Rarely has there been a creepier utterance by a major candidate for president or his spouse (Ron Paul has said some very, very creepy things). This one set off alarm bells in my head the moment I heard it. It elicited the question that many of us who oppose this guy have been asking more and more frequently lately.

Just who in the hell does this guy think he is? “Require” us to do what? “Demand” what? Besides coming off sounding like Evita Peron, Michelle Obama has a very weird view of the art of politics which works by persuasion and not by compulsion.

That one registers a 8.5 on the Creepy-O-Meter.

4. It creeps me out that Obama continues to speak as if he is president already and that the election is some mere formality that if he had his druthers, we could do without. His use of the royal “we” is very weird as well. Jack Tapper of ABC News noticed the same thing about Obama and his staff. Just one example of many: During an interview with ABC’s Nightline, he said he “wouldn’t be doing my job as Commander in Chief” if he just did whatever the generals said in Iraq. Obviously, it is not his job. And this is not the only example as Tapper points out in that Newsbusters piece.

A couple of times where the candidate falls into the mental state of what he would do as president and referring to himself as already elected would be understandable. Obama does it all the time and is seemingly unaware of how it makes him appear.

I've long-noted Obama's radical ties, which are so substantial that it's frightening that someone with his background may dramatically influence much of America's future, especially in foreign policy.

But this last part about Obama's creepy tendency toward presumptuousness came home powerfully to me last week. I mean, face it: Obama's Berlin speech was a presidential speech without being president. Obama borrowed liberally from past presidents in making the address, which only made him look more like a "great" presidential wannabe.

But note Moran's top creep:

The number one thing about Obama that creeps me out is the ease and comfort with which he lies. All politicians lie. Presidential candidates lie more than other politicians. But Obama’s lies are brazen and breathtaking.

And just think, this creep might actually win in November!

What Do Radical Islamists and Progressives Have in Common?

From Donald Thornton, at ThyBlackMan, "Radical Islamists and Radical Leftists: The eerie similarities" (via Instapundit):

These events [across the Mulsim world] have shed light on a disturbing parallel that I believe must be examined. The eerie similarities between radical Islamist all over the world and radical Leftist that reside right here in America. Because their ultimate goals are synonymic. A nation; dare I say a world, under submission to their will.

I believe these two ideologies are clear and present dangers to America and the world at large. Because both; at their core seek to suppress any speech or expression that is contrary to their worldview. Free speech has to be the first and most protected foundational pillar of any new nation.  And it must be re-enforced perpetually in any existing nation that has adopted it.

The ideology of radical Islam has no place for dissent, compromise, freedom of expression or speech. It seeks to rule by the sheer force of fear, intimidation, criminalization and tyranny. Terrorism is its dominant mode of operations. It will not tolerate any opposing views or critiques. To say or do anything that it deems insulting of its worldview is worthy of imprisonment or even death. Its influence is so strong that it persuades the emotionally unstable to commit horrific acts terrorism. Its desire is total submission to its will.

Likewise in the same way contemporary liberalism/progressivism uses the same M.O. The ideology of the radical Left has no place for dissent or freedoms that do not comport to their worldview. It seeks to intimidate via boycotts, petitions, protests’ and lawsuits.

Dare to speak ill about or challenge any of its holy doctrines, which include: Abortion on demand, Gay Rights/Marriage, Evolution, Unions/Collective Bargaining Rights, Open-ended Civil Rights, Global Warming, Reducing Social Programs, just to name a few…

And the campaign of policing, isolating and ideologically terror begin with a vengeance, a type of jihad against those who oppose its failed worldview.

Lock up that thought criminal.

Mark Levine, Radical Pro-Islamist History Professor at UC Irvine, Calls David Horowitz a 'Liar' on Sean Hannity's

Here's a follow-up to David Horowitz's recent confrontation with a genocidal MSA activist at UC San Diego. Horowitz appeared on Sean Hannity's last night to dicuss the episode. Also appearing was Mark Levine, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and Islamic Studies in the Department of History at UC Irvine.

Watch the clip. At about 5:00 minutes Horowitz questions Levine's defense of UC San Diego student Jumanah Imad Albahri (who refused to condemn Hamas during her exchange with Horowitz). Horowitz dismisses Levine as a "supporter of the Muslim Students Association," and Levine erupts furiously, calling Horowitz a "liar" and demanding that he "prove that I support them."

Well, if anyone's lying it's Levine. The fact is, Levine's been one of the biggest, most prominent supporters of UCI's MSA, which is considered the most radical Islamist campus cell in the nation. After MSA disrupted Ambassador Michael Oren's speech at UCI in February, Levine published a defense of MSA at the Los Angeles Times, "Unfairly Throwing the Book at the 'Irvine 11'." A longer version of Levine's defense is at the History News Network, "Shouting Down the Israeli Ambassador: Boneheaded? Perhaps... Illegal? Not So Fast."

And Jewlicious has an in-depth report of Professor Levine's support for MSA, "UC Irvine Developments, including a hint of hideous speech from a UC Irvine Professor." And see NewsReal, "Plastic Surgery for the Muslim Brotherhood: Can Mark LeVine Hide the Wrinkle?" That essay links to Levine's piece from January this year, "We Need More Radical Muslims," where he notes:

My radical friends and colleagues are routinely oppressed by their governments, attacked by conservatives, obstructed by the United States and ignored by the media and peace groups who should be highlighting their activities and struggles. This suggests they’re doing something right, and that we should be doing more to help them. Of course, that would be pretty radical; but how else to achieve the radical transformation that is necessary to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, not to mention to America?

Plus, in October 2008, Professor Levine organized a lecture at UCI featuring the Muslim Brotherhood's Ibrahim El Houdaiby. The event program is here, "'Religion and Democracy in the Middle East: A New Generation of the Muslim Brotherhood Takes the Stage', with Ibrahim El Houdaiby, leading young member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Cairo."

And the announcement includes the contact information at bottom: "This event is free and open to the public. For further information, please contact Mark LeVine, 949.824.8304."

According to El Houdaiby's entry at Discover the Networks:

Al-Houdaiby's views are supported by UC Irvine (UCI) professor Mark LeVine, who, along with UCI's History Department and its Center for Research on International and Global Studies, invited al-Houdaiby to be a special guest speaker at an October 2008 campus event.

And the university's El Houdaiby event was co-sponsored by UCI's Middle East Studies Student Initiative (MESSI).

And of course, UCI's Muslim Students Association homepage lists MESSI as one of the co-sponsors of Israeli Apartheid Week. See, "Israeli Apartheid Week: A Call to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel – May 10th – May 13st, 2010."

Co-Sponsored By:

Asian Pacific Students Association (APSA), Black Student Union (BSU), Indian Subcontinental Club (ISC), Kababayan, Middle East Studies Student Initiative (MESSI), Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), Pakistani Student Association (PSA), the Radical Student Union (RSU), Society of Arab Students (SAS), Worker-Student Alliance (WSA).

So, despite Professor Levine's denials to the contrary, it's clear he's not only a supporter of UCI's Muslim Students Association, but that he has in fact a longstanding history of working with MSA-allied organizations in sponsoring events and lectures featuring some of the world's most well-known Islamist radicals.

As Horowitz himself might say, "case closed."