Nelson Mandela 'Kept Portraits of Lenin and Stalin Above His Desk at Home...'

Black supremacist Ta-Nehisi Coates is leading the chorus of attacks on "racist" Cold War conservatives who questioned the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s. See, "Apartheid's Useful Idiots."

You have to read the whole thing, but literally the bottom line is that to raise any questions about Mandela's legacy, regardless of the historical context, and most importantly, regardless of Mandela's terrorism and Communism, and you're a racist. Coates argues that "the overall failure of American conservatives to forthrightly deal with South Africa's white-supremacist regime, coming so soon after their failure to deal with the white-supremacist regime in their own country, is part of their heritage, and thus part of our heritage." He then links to this Wall Street editorial as racist data-point for the right, "Nelson Mandela (at Google)":

The bulk of his adult life, Nelson Mandela was a failed Marxist revolutionary and leftist icon, the Che Guevara of Africa. Then in his seventies he had the chance to govern. He chose national reconciliation over reprisal, and he thus made himself an historic and all too rare example of a wise revolutionary leader.

Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95, had a patrician upbringing and a Methodist education. But his coming of age coincided with the rise of apartheid. Winning whites-only elections in 1948, the National Party lavished its Afrikaner base of European descendants with state jobs and privileges. Black, mixed-race and Indian South Africans were disfranchised.

Trained as a lawyer, Mandela was drawn to the African National Congress, which was founded by professional, educated blacks in 1912. He was not a born communist, but as he rose in its ranks the ANC moved toward Marxism and an alliance with the Soviets. Mandela kept portraits of Lenin and Stalin above his desk at home. Frustrated with the ANC's ineffective peaceful resistance, he embraced armed struggle in the early 1960s and trained to become a guerrilla leader. He was arrested for plotting sabotage.

His 1964 trial gave Mandela a platform. In his famous closing argument, he said: "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

This speech was the last the world saw of him for 26 years. He started his life sentence at Robben Island prison near Cape Town a would-be Lenin. He walked out of jail on February 11, 1990—at age 71—an African Havel.

Age mellowed him. Times changed. The apartheid leadership had opened secret talks with the ANC in the mid-1980s. While still in prison, Mandela became "president in training" under F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid leader. In early 1990, Mr. de Klerk lifted the ban on the ANC.

Mandela ditched the ANC's Marxism and reached out to business. Somehow—another miracle—the illiberal ANC and the illiberal National Party together negotiated a liberal new constitution with strong protections for minorities and an independent judiciary. "You do not compromise with a friend," Mandela often said, "you compromise with an enemy."

He won the country's first free presidential elections in 1994 and worked to unite a scarred and anxious nation. He opened up the economy to the world, and a black middle class came to life. After a single term, he voluntarily left power at the height of his popularity. Most African rulers didn't do that, but Mandela said, "I don't want a country like ours to be led by an octogenarian. I must step down while there are one or two people who admire me."

Look, these are just facts, but for the morally-stunted left, facts are "racist."

There's going to be lots more leftist hissy-fits over the weekend. Rightfully call Mandela a Communist and you'll be branded a reactionary and racist.

More at the Other McCain, "1987: Thatcher Responds to ‘Further Intensification of the Armed Struggle’."

And see Saberpoint, "Nelson Mandela: Some Sour Notes Amid The Chorus of Praise."

PREVIOUSLY: "Nelson Mandela: Terrorist and Communist."

Che-Loving Kshama Sawant Exhorts Workers to Seize Boeing

Fits News has the report, "Seattle Socialist: Boeing Workers Should Rise Up."

Also at WND, "Socialist lawmaker urges workers to 'take over' Boeing."

She's a freakin' murder-loving communist, it turns out. At her election-night party headquarters, Che Guevara posters adorned the walls.



Che was a remorseless mass murderer. It's pretty sick he's held up as a icon by a top official in one of America's biggest cities, but it's no surprise. (See my previous Che blogging at the link.)

She Miscarried When Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Assassinated, and More Horrible Racism Inflicted on Alice Walker!

This woman is truly pathological. She writes:

I write this, remembering that when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968, the shock to my system was so severe I lost the child I was carrying. This shock, this assault on the psyche and body, is what is intended.

A sick, sick woman.

Alice Walker likens Che Guevara to Martin Luther King, likens death of Trayvon Martin to a political assassination http://t.co/rliALAFpIV

— TakingHayekSeriously (@FriedrichHayek) July 16, 2013

Guardian and Observer Runs Front-Page Story on Secret European-U.S. Surveiliance Deal Sourced to Jew-Hating Conspiracy Theorist Wayne Madsen

Here's the cover image on Twitter:

OBSERVER FRONT PAGE: "Revealed: secret European deals to hand over private data to America" #skypapers pic.twitter.com/MTRmz9qrZq
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 29, 2013

Here's Michael Moynihan:

Holy shit. Guardian just did an NSA story sourced to insane crackpot Wayne Madsen. Is their Google broken? http://t.co/Mcb3vd0OdE
— Michael C Moynihan (@mcmoynihan) June 29, 2013

And Louise Mensch calls out Madsen:

Guardian and Observer Weakend - run front page NSA story based on word of conspiracy theorist crackpot (Obama's gay, Israel caused 911)
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) June 29, 2013

And checking the Guardian's homepage, here's the headline at the link for the article, "Taken down: deals to hand over private data to America."

The piece is still available, however, at Democratic Underground (with a Che Guevara avatar adding a nice touch there), "GUARDIAN: Revealed: secret European deals to hand over private data to America":

At least six European Union countries in addition to Britain have been colluding with the US over the mass harvesting of personal communications data, according to a former contractor to America's National Security Agency, who said the public should not be "kept in the dark".

Wayne Madsen, a former US navy lieutenant who first worked for the NSA in 1985 and over the next 12 years held several sensitive positions within the agency, names Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy as having secret deals with the US.

Madsen said the countries had "formal second and third party status" under signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compels them to hand over data, including mobile phone and internet information to the NSA if requested.

Under international intelligence agreements, confirmed by declassified documents, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is first party while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy second party relationships. Germany and France have third party relationships.

And it's clear the Guardian's editors knew of Madsen's reputation as a conspiracy theorist, as the article makes mention of their source's controversial background:

In an interview published last night on the PrivacySurgeon.org blog, Madsen, who has been attacked for holding controversial views on espionage issues, said he had decided to speak out after becoming concerned about the "half story" told by EU politicians regarding the extent of the NSA's activities in Europe.

He said that under the agreements, which were drawn up after the second world war, the "NSA gets the lion's share" of the Sigint "take". In return, the third parties to the NSA agreements received "highly sanitised intelligence".

Madsen said he was alarmed at the "sanctimonious outcry" of political leaders who were "feigning shock" about the spying operations while staying silent about their own arrangements with the US, and was particularly concerned that senior German politicians had accused the UK of spying when their country had a similar third party deal with the NSA.

Although the level of co-operation provided by other European countries to the NSA is not on the same scale as that provided by the UK, the allegations are potentially embarrassing.

"I can't understand how Angela Merkel can keep a straight face, demanding assurances from Obama and the UK while Germany has entered into those exact relationships," Madsen said.

Read the whole thing at Southport - UK Front Pages.

And it turns out this Madsen dude's a regular on 9/11 truth central's Prison Planet with Alex Jones.

And according this pro-Israel website, the dude's a raving anti-Semite, "Wayne Madsen Promotes Classic Anti-Semitism on Iran’s PressTV," and "So Typical of Wayne Madsen’s Paranoia, Da Joos “Control” Obama and Romney." (Follow the links at those entries.)

I'll update with developments, but it's pretty telling that the far-left Guardian went ahead with a front-page story, with the hard copy print runs already rolling, while sourcing a hardcore 9/11 truther and Jew-hating conspiracy theorist. Well, come to think of it, that's not too different from Glenn Greenwald's ideological program, so there you go.

PREVIOUSLY: "Glenn Greenwald Speaks on NSA Surveillance at Socialism 2013 Conference."

The Amnesty Mob vs. America

From Michelle Malkin:

You can try to put “conservative” lipstick on the lawless amnesty mob. In the end, however, it’s still a lawless mob. The big government/big business alliance to protect illegal immigration got a lot of mileage using foolish Republicans Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan as front men. But the true colors of the open-borders grievance-mongers always show through.

After America said no to a pork-filled security-undermining amnesty bill in 2007, the No Illegal Alien Left Behind lobbyists changed their overtly thuggish tactics. They put down their upside-down American flags, stopped wearing their commie Che Guevara T-shirts and cloaked their radical reconquista aspirations in the less divisive rhetoric of “reform” and “opportunity.”

It was all just an act, of course. Inevitably, the mask has slipped. Over the weekend, illegal alien protesters descended on the private residence of Kansas Secretary of State and immigration enforcement lawyer Kris Kobach. As Twitchy.com reported on Saturday, 300 amnesty activists marched into Kobach’s neighborhood and barged up his driveway and right onto his doorstep. It’s how the Alinskyite “community organizers” roll.

Shouting into a bullhorn and waving their fists from his front porch, the property rights-invaders dubbed Kobach “King of Hate” for his work representing border security activists and federal customs enforcement agents who are fighting the systemic sabotage of immigration law. Thankfully, Kobach, his wife and their four young daughters were not home at the time. (See The Right Scoop for interview with Kobach on Hannity.)

But the aggrieved amnesty demanders are not done yet. And Kobach is not the only one in their crosshairs.

After tea party activist turned Kansas state representative Amanda Grosserode condemned the mob action publicly on Facebook, racist insults and threats littered her page. Roberto Medina Ramirez wrote: “I’ll give her something to be disgusted about!” Doris Lynn Crouse Gent chimed in: “OMG! Maybe her drive should be next.” Matt S. Bashaw echoed the call: “Maybe her house should be next.” Facebook user Jude Robinson also ranted on Grosserode’s page: “Since Kobach steals taxpayer money spreading hate around the country, he deserves what he gets.”

Dennis Paul Romero left this message for Grosserode: “(N)azi kkk and she is proud of it.” A user writing as “Paul-says Fckmarkzuck” left death threats under Romero’s comment: “Gotta start killing all the Nazis. Politicans (sic), bankers, and priests. Cops, lawyers, and Judges. ASAP.” The same user added: “Just another b*tch that needs to die off already.” (Note: Many of these comments have now been deleted. Trying to cover their tracks.)

Continue reading.

They're freaks.

Schools for Subversion: How Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism

I'll be heading up to Los Angeles after classes today for an education panel, "Schools for Subversion." I'm meeting Professor Mary Grabar for coffee before the event, held at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset Boulevard. Mary's announcement is here.

And at the Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, "Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination: Symposium Debates Public School Indoctrination":

CJHS Hosts Expert Panel to Dissect Controversial Topic, May 6, in Los Angeles
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, CA
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, a Los Angeles based non-profit activist group, is sponsoring a symposium and expert panel discussion, Schools for Subversion: How the Public Education Lays the Foundation for University Radicalism, on Monday, May 6, at the Luxe Hotel Sunset in Los Angeles.  It has become common knowledge that universities are bastions of political correctness, but that waterfall is spilling down through public education institutions all the way to the elementary level.  Even a cursory look at headlines reveals that innocent children are being subjected to an all too often vicious form of political indoctrination designed to create a liberal mindset as early as possible.Doris Wise Montrose, president and founder of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors said, “The Nazi model for outcome based education was to transform the world by changing the children. Hans Schemm, leader of the Nazi Teacher’s League, clearly stated:  ‘Those who have the youth on their side control the future.’  We know how that ended and we must connect the dots. We have been asleep at the wheel with respect to public education.  America must wake up and act before it is too late.”It begins early in elementary school, when children are inculcated with lessons steeped in “social justice,” which is essentially radical egalitarian, social engineering. Although parents may not be aware of it, social justice creeps into just about every subject: social studies, language arts, science, even math.  It’s weaved into state curriculum standards. It is the focus of colleges of education. It is promoted by curriculum companies (sometimes tax-supported and tax-exempt) to teachers, cloaked in innocuous titles and feel-good text.The roots and real goals of this radical pedagogy will be examined by this panel. Among the topics for discussion:

• The latest Pew poll shows that 49 percent of young adults believe that socialism is a viable economic system. Only 43 percent say they have a negative view. The poll also found that just 46 percent of people age 18-29 have positive views of capitalism, and 47 percent have negative views.

• Even “global warming,” ostensibly a scientific issue, is really about the expansion of government. According to the alarmists, the alleged climate change has been the product of unbridled corporate America, so the government must rein them in.

• Is Islam really a “religion of peace?”

• Does Che Guevara deserve to be idolized?

• Does “The Three Little Pigs” really have a Eurocentric message?

• Is teaching anti-racist math really necessary?

• Why is it okay to teach young kids about the joys of collective bargaining but not about why capitalism is the best system on earth?

Larry Sand, retired teacher and one of the panelists said, “This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is essential that the public become fully aware of this troubling phenomenon and get more involved in their local schools with the goal of returning them to centers of learning rather than hubs of indoctrination.”

The expert panel includes:

Kyle Olson – Author of Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ Are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism and publisher of EAGnews.org, a news service dedicated to education reform and school spending research, reporting, analysis and commentary.

Larry Sand – Retired teacher, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network, blogger and regular contributor to City Journal. Having taught for over 28 years, he has seen firsthand what Olson has written about.

Mary Grabar – Professor who’s forever battling the “re-educators,” and not coincidentally, forever battling for her continued employment in Georgia. She has written extensively about influence of radicals in our colleges, most notably chronicling the legacy of the late Howard Zinn whose politically charged and factually challenged “textbook,” A People’s History of the United States, is in wide usage in schools across the country. She is organizing the Resistance to the Re-Education of America at DissidentProf.com.

Bruce Thornton – Professor of classics and humanities at Fresno State University and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of eight books, a regular contributor to FrontPageMag.com and perhaps the most articulate and prolific conservative college professor working today.

Ben Boychuk, moderator  – Currently an associate editor of City Journal, and a columnist for the Sacramento Bee and ScrippsHoward News Service, where he writes eloquently on a wide variety of topics. He has long been involved with education issues, including a recent stint at Heartland Institute where he was managing editor of School Reform News and remains a policy advisor on education issues.

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors (CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization dedicated to educating the public in the United States and abroad about the intellectual and cultural climate that led to the Holocaust, and the ideas and philosophy that bring about a totalitarian dictatorship. CJHS seeks to protect freedom by raising awareness of the aggression and scapegoating that inevitably follow the abandonment of individual rights and the embrace of collectivism. CJHS advances these goals by hosting educational events concentrated in four areas: (1) examining U.S. diplomacy toward Israel and the Middle East, with a focus on the right of the State of Israel to exist and be recognized as a Jewish State; (2) restoring the teaching of and respect for Western values in K-12 education; (3) documenting anti-Semitism and promoting human rights; (4) exposing the existential threat posed by Islam to the liberties and freedoms of western society.  We know how it ends


Brad Butler
UniGlobal.Com Public Relations
Los Angeles, CA
323-410-7511

I'll be on Twitter throughout the night, and will be back to blogging ASAP.

Hope to see you there!

The Left's Culture of Death

An essential commentary, from Bob Belvedere, "The Naked Face of Leftism: Death Mongers."

Genuine progressive ideology --- and by that I mean Marxist-infused social justice redistributionism and nihilist anti-morality --- is the contemporary evil of the modern political world. Make no mistake, Councillor Collin Brewer's comments, discussed at the post above, we're frankly depraved. But considering the left's abortion holocaust alone, as just one example, they were quite tame.

I'm personally horrified by much of what counts as "progressive" politics. It's taken me a long time to truly understand how deeply corrupted society is by the disease of leftism. I don't know how we turn things around, how we help young people realize that their interests are harmed by the Kool-Aid of radicalism, but whatever the answer, it's a program of civic renewal that should be the cause of any real conservative activist.

Folks should read Neo-Neocon's outstanding piece at PJ Media from a week or so back, "Why Do Some Liberals Become Conservatives?" Unlike other accounts of political transformation (change) from left to right --- and recall that Cinnamon Stillwell's, "The Making of a 9/11 Republican," remains the best --- Neo-Neocon (a.k.a. Jean Kaufman) offers an explanation based on cognitive consistency theory:

Rarely, if ever, are prospective changers actually seeking change. In fact their previous political positions on the left may be quite firmly and strongly held, and they would probably consider anyone quite mad who had the audacity to inform them of the transformation about to take place.

But although they may not be interested in change, change is interested in them. It usually begins with something external, some new information encountered seemingly by accident, something that starts to bug the person because it contradicts or doesn’t fit easily into his or her pre-existing framework. It’s like a buzzing fly that won’t quit and can’t be ignored. It causes discomfort, a sense of unease, and the disequilibrium that comes from the dilemma known as cognitive dissonance.

It’s such an unpleasant experience that people are usually eager to resolve it. How they do that is one point at which changers split off from non-changers. The latter group, if faced with that very same information, might just swat that fly — that is, in their discomfort at the knowledge that seems incongruous with their previous beliefs, they would either discredit the new information, minimize it, rationalize it, or shut it out entirely, thus ending the discomfort and the dilemma.

But those who ultimately end up as changers can’t seem to put it away that easily. For them, something once seen cannot be unseen. Perhaps they have a different habit of mind to begin with, one more accustomed to challenging its own beliefs and assumptions, one more uncomfortable with contradictions.

Keep reading.

That model theorizes something of an abrupt shift in ideology triggered by an event that jars an individual's sense of consistency. But that's not always how people change ideological positions. In contrast, for example, gradual change is consistent with the idea of politics as a life-long learning process. People become set in their ways. And hence, people become conservative in terms of doing things a "right" way. People might think they're "liberal" in their youth, but they realize they're quite traditional in a number of respects, especially regarding thrift, morality and personal enterprise. In my case, I thought I was "liberal" into my 30's. My dad especially was a New Deal Democrat and a black American who instilled the values of the civil rights movement in me and my sisters. But the Democrat Party of today bears little resemblance to the party of the middle 20th century. The notion of centrism here might apply, for while Democrats have always been concerned about using government to shift resources to those with less, the left today is an explicitly statist, far-left anti-capitalist tendency bereft of the moral epistemology of America's founding. The left today is at the least a movement toward (European-style) socialist democracy and more likely a movement toward a (Utopian) proletarian revolution through a re-engineering of society (i.e., popular entertainment and the mass media) and the corruption of the cultural institutions of the state (i.e., public education). I was always conservative in terms of personal responsibility, honesty, and hard work. When I realized that most people on the left didn't share those values I knew that I was no longer a Democrat. Most of all, the left's stab-in-the-back on the Iraq war sealed the deal and I became an activist for truth. Throw in becoming a parent and basically experiencing a religious awakening (in the personal sense of objective truth), I found out once and for all that everything I'd come to believe about "leftist morality" and being a "liberal" was stupid.

Progressives are evil. (Remember, "liberals" aren't liberal.) Nothing brought the truth home on that count more than blogging over this last 7 years. People know my battles with leftist ghouls and their program to destroy decent people on the right. The culture of death Bob writes about is seen in all of the manifestations of collectivist harassment, stalking, and lies. As I've said many times, leftists would actually murder their conservative opponents if they could get away with it. One of the main reasons conservatives should never cave on gun rights is some day they might need firearms to guard against the tyranny of a progressive majority that's captured the state. (It's not just state power that's a threat, but progressive majoritarian redistributionist state power.) Seriously. Patriots need to bear arms against socialists who want to deprive them of life, liberty and property through the corrupted power of the collectivist state. Nothing can stand in the way of this, from the left's ideological perspective, because it's truly totalitarian in its goal to eradicate all sources of resistance. Death then becomes part of the progressive agenda, as we've seen from Stalin to Pol Pot to Che Guevara. Liberals have no values --- they must make gods of men --- because their ungodly campaign of death and destruction demands it. There can be no other way for collectivists.

In any case, don't miss the all the good stuff over at TCOTs.

"Forty five years ago this week, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine..."

From Humberto Fontova, at Towhnall, "'Don’t Shoot!—I’m Che!' (A Glorious Anniversary)" (via Fausta).

The Che Guevara Democrat Party

From Peter Ferrara, at American Spectator:

Those who contribute to, vote for, or otherwise support today's Democrat party need to catch up to the curve. These are not your father's Democrats. George McGovern would be a moderate in this party.

This is the party that rejected Hillary Clinton because she was not left enough. Instead it literally took a Marxist street agitator from the Chicago political machine and put him in the White House. Barack Obama was actually teaching the social manipulation methods of openly communist revolutionary Saul Alinsky to other Marxist revolutionaries for the radical communist front group ACORN. His weird name reflects his personal rejection of American culture. This is the person today's Democrat party wanted for President.

But it is not just him. The leader of the House Democrats is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ultraleft San Francisco Democrat totem. She is virtually as far left as Obama, and her public statements make Sarah Palin seem like a Ph.D. in economics. She keeps telling us that unemployment insurance payments are the best way to restore booming economic growth and prosperity.

When the American people rebuked Pelosi's ultraleft leadership as House Speaker, turning to the Republicans for the greatest House turnover since the New Deal, House Democrats responded with their own rebuke of the people. They voted Pelosi right back in as their leader, effectively saying to the American people that they were too stupid to know what they are doing, and that Pelosi's ultraleft San Francisco values best represent the Democrat party's ideals.

The Democrats also elected as DNC Chairman the unreasoned and far left screamer and name caller Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who also makes Sarah Palin look like a rocket scientist. She touts as her achievements in the Florida legislature the Florida Residential Swimming Pools Safety Act, and state regulation of dry cleaning prices. She compiled during her career there the widely noted most liberal-left voting record of any state legislator. The Democrat party considered that the perfect qualification for party chairman.

If you think that increased government spending, deficits, and debt are the key to economic growth and prosperity, then this is the party for you. That is explicitly its economic policy, as crazy as that sounds. Democrats call it Keynesian economics. If you don't agree that increased government spending, deficits, and debt promote economic growth, then you shouldn't be voting for, contributing to, and supporting Democrats, and you shouldn't let your friends do so either.

Continue reading.

Mercedes-Benz Apologizes for Graphic of Marxist Murderer Che Guevara

At USA Today, "Mercedes-Benz apologizes for image of Marxist Che Guevara."

Also at The Blaze, "Cuban-Americans Infuriated After Mercedes-Benz Uses Che Guevara to Promote Cars."

Background at American Digest, "Mercedes: Smart Cars. Stupid Executives."

'Carlos the Jackal' Goes On Trial in France

I remember reading Robert Ludlum novels back when I was a teenager, and "Carlos the Jackal" was one of the mysterious terrorists in the background. There was almost a romanticism about it. Well, he's obviously not so mysterious or romantic.

At LAT:

The man known as Carlos the Jackal, once one of the world's most feared and hunted terrorism suspects, went on trial in a Paris court Monday for a series of bombings nearly 30 years ago.

Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez was smiling and defiant as he was accused of being the mastermind behind four attacks in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 people and injured nearly 200.

Asked to state his occupation, Ramirez, 62, replied that he was a "professional revolutionary," adding, "of the Leninist tradition."

He then insisted that although he had been born in Venezuela he had been given Palestinian nationality by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, whose cause he espoused.

With his gray hair, beard and reading glasses and needing a chair for his "bad back," Ramirez bore little resemblance to the photographs of him with dark hair, Che Guevara beret and sunglasses when he was at the height of his notoriety in the 1970s. While on the run from police in his heyday, he was reported to have had plastic surgery to change his appearance.

However, he had clearly lost none of his ability to provoke, giving a clenched-fist salute to a supporter on the public benches and leaping up to rage, in heavily accented French, about the "racist, Zionist state of Israel."

The outburst drew a round of applause from a group of young men at the back of the courtroom, prompting a warning against disorder from the president of the court, Olivier Leurent.

Occupy Wall Street: The Enemy Within

See Discover the Networks, "Occupy Wall Street":

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a movement whose activism is planned and coordinated via a free, open-source social-networking website that is maintained by an independent group of organizers who describe themselves as “committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements.” Strongly anti-capitalist, OWS characterizes America as a “ruthless,” materialistic society where the chief objective is to “always minimize costs and maximize profits”; where “lives are commodities to be bought and sold on the open market”; and where “the economic transaction has become the dominant way of relating to the culture and artifacts of human civilization.” The “deep spiritual sickness” that necessarily results from this repugnant philosophy of perpetual economic "growth for the sake of growth," says OWS, has caused “vast deprivation, oppression and despoliation ... to cover the world.” OWS's prescribed remedy is to replace the foregoing arrangement “with a society of cooperation and community” – i.e., a socialist economy....

Front groups of the community organization ACORN played a major role in organizing the OWS protests nationwide. For instance, the Working Families Party (WFP), a longtime ACORN front, helped mobilize the demonstrations in New York City. "[We are] actually trying to change the capitalist system that we have today because it’s not working for any of us," WFP organizer Nelini Stamp told Laura Flanders of Free Speech TV in an interview.

Meanwhile, ACORN’s newer front groups were likewise deeply involved in launching and expanding the OWS movement throughout the fall of 2011. For instance, New York Communities for Change -- led by longtime ACORN lobbyist Jon Kest -- helped WFP organize the demonstrations in lower Manhattan. In Pennsylvania, Action United participated in the "Occupy Pittsburgh" rallies. In Florida, Organize Now took part in "Occupy Orlando." The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment led the "Occupy L.A." protests. And New England United for Justice, headed by former ACORN national president Maude Hurd, participated in the related “Take Back Boston” rallies in Massachusetts.

The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was also heavily involved in OWS's formation and early growth. At the heart of "Occupy Los Angeles," for instance, were two Southern California communists -- veteran Party leader Arturo Cambron and his comrade Mario Brito. In early October 2011, Brito declared that OWS's chief objective was to achieve “economic justice,” and added: “This is an international movement ... The vast majority of Americans actually believe income inequality is a major problem. The only reason they haven’t acted upon it is because there hasn’t been a mass movement.” In an October 15, 2011 address to the nearly 3,000 attendees at an "Occupy Chicago" rally, John Bachtell, a spokesman from the CPUSA's national board, claimed to “bring greetings and solidarity from the Communist Party”; he received a number of loud ovations from the crowd.

The early OWS demonstrations imposed considerable monetary costs on the cities in which they were staged. By mid-October 2011, for example, the protesters' then-month-long siege of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan had already cost New York taxpayers some $3.2 million for overtime police pay. Meanwhile, Boston City Council president Stephen Murphy reported that the costs resulting from the protests in his city were approaching $2 million.

Quite popular at OWS demonstrations across the United States are T-shirts and speeches glorifying such renowned Marxists as Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata and Mao Zedong; lionizing convicted cop-killer Troy Davis and WikiLeaks collaborator Bradley Manning; promoting the DREAM Act and 9/11 Trutherism; and denouncing Fox News, the American Legislative Exchange Council, Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker, the Koch family, the New York Police Department, and "Nazi Bankers" and Jews.

Indeed, anti-Semitism is clearly in evidence at many “Occupy” events nationwide, where placards and chanted slogans denouncing the alleged conspiracies of “Jewish bankers” (and "Zionist Jews") square neatly with OWS's relentless condemnations of “greedy Wall Street bankers” and thus go unchallenged by the protesting throngs. According to the American Nazi Party, which supports OWS, the movement strikes a welcome blow against an obscenely corrupt "Judeo-Capitalism."

Check the link for the full entry.

IMAGE CREDIT: Communist Lalo Alcaraz.

Scott Lemieux Backs Anti-Semitic Tony Kushner at Lawyers, Guns and Money

So now Lawyers, Guns and Money is a Jew-bashing, BDS-backing, anti-Semitic hate-site? Well, of course we know that Robert Farley worships Che Guevara, so fanatical Israel-hatred is the logical next step for LGM. The confirmation is in Scott Lemieux's jihad against Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a Member of the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York, who has spoken out against the the university's plan to give an honorary degree to gay socialist playwright Tony Kushner. Here's the screencap of Lemieux's attack on Wiesenfeld this morning, "The CUNY Disgrace."

I commented at the post:

I’m calling you out right now as an Israel-basher, Scott. And a hypocrite. You’re for free-speech for Israel’s critics but you want to punish Israel’s defenders. Seriously. You’re a sick fucker.

And here's the hypocrisy, from an earlier post where Lemieux decried "political correctness":

If there was a contest among the trustees to see who could commit the most egregious breach of CUNY’s mission and traditions, I think we have a winner! Well, at least we know that Roger Kimball has a point about “political correctness” running amok on campuses ...

Actually, the issue here isn't political correctness. It's whether some forms of speech, while protected, are unworthy of the legitimacy and recognition that's conferred with an honorary degree. Frankly, Kushner's attacks on Israel are anti-Semitic, as Wiesenfeld wrote in an essay at The Algemeiner:

When you hold the State of Israel – a nation in a struggle for its survival from the beginning, a target for the misogynist, racist, anti-western, dictatorial regimes which surround it – to a standard you would hold no other nation under normal circumstances, let alone under such exigencies – and when you spew libel against our sole regional democratic ally for “crimes” concocted by delegitimizers, you are an anti-Semite.

See also, "Transcript of CUNY Trustee’s Speech on Kushner Award."

And Bruce Kesler's been all over this at Maggie's Farm, for example, "CUNY Chairman: Kushner 'made the trains run on time'."

And from Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "The New York Times Piles on Kushner’s Critic":

A New York arts world that considers a hard-core leftist theatrical polemicist like Tony Kushner to be “compassionate” and fair-minded must find it hard to accept the fact that there are people in the world who deem his anti-Zionism so hard to stomach they refuse to remain silent when asked to honor him. The belief that Kushner is a “writer of rare intellectual scope” with an “extraordinary, active empathy that pervades every one of his plays” is clearly the dominant viewpoint among the city’s chattering classes, and it is hardly surprising that dissenters like Wiesenfeld will be treated harshly as a consequence. The drumbeat of incitement against Wiesenfeld, in which Kushner is falsely portrayed as a victim, will accelerate in the days to come. By the time this nonsense is played out, Kushner may be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize.

That is the way the cultural elites play hardball. Wiesenfeld must understand that he will not be forgiven for his act of lese majeste against a leading cultural liberal. But in standing up against a man whose opposition to Israel has always brought him honor rather than the shame it deserved, Wiesenfeld has restored a little bit of balance to New York’s cockeyed world of high culture.

Also, from Phyllis Chesler, "Communist University of NY (CUNY) Denies Honor to Israel-Bashing Playwright Tony Kushner":

I once labored at the City University of New York (CUNY). I am amazed but thrilled that enough (five) members on their twelve member Board of Trustees actually viewed Kushner’s views on Israel as “racist.”

I once taught a graduate course at the very branch of CUNY which proposed Kushner. Once, I was friendly with some of the professorial union thugs who literally occupy positions to the left of Stalin.

Yes, many are gay, many are feminists. Some are also homophobic and sexist. Life is complicated over there at Communist U because I am describing the same people as well as their opponents.

God bless CUNY Trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, who was the first to speak against Kushner. He said that Kushner had tied the founding of the state of Israel to a policy of “ethnic cleansing.” He was surprised that he got the votes necessary to knock Kushner’s honorary degree off the table.

RELATED: From David Horowitz, "Andrew Sullivan’s Misguided Defense of the Regrettable Mr. Kushner":

Andrew Sullivan has posted an attack on CUNY trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld for blocking a politically motivated honorary degree that was to be given to the over-rated, crypto-communist and Israel-demonizing playwright Tony Kushner. Andrew’s intelligence is on display in the opening paragraph of his piece where he reiterates his clear-headed views of Kushner’s inflated literary reputation. Kushner’s Pulitzer-winning agitprop, Angels in America, is a puerile embarrassment and in recognizing this Andrew shows that he is capable of breaking out of the bubble of liberal derangement when it suits him. All the more reason that Andrew’s attack on Wiesenfeld is an instructive illustration of the unhinged attitudes of current “critics” of Israel, who are apologists for Hamas and their Gaza supporter.

More at the link.

Also, on the front page of today's New York Times, "Tony Kushner Is Now Likely to Get CUNY Honor."

Figures.

Front page treatment at New York Times too. Another nail in the coffin.

Patterson School of Diplomacy, University of Kentucky, Screens Steven Soderbergh's Che to Commemorate Fiftieth Anniversary of Bay of Pigs

According to Robert Farley, who is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Patterson School, University of Kentucky.

See his entry at Lawyers, Guns and Murder: "Happy Bay of Pigs Day!"

Seriously. This is not a joke.

Farley indicates that watching the Che movie is "In support of my COIN seminar this semester..." Farley's seminar spends a week reading books on "the other side," including two on Che Guevara. I'm looking over the assigned readings, and it's "assumed" that students will read David Petraeus', U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which is arguably the most important work on counter-insurgency published in the post-Vietnam period. Hopefully they'll have read it in time for its "deconstruction" in Week 4: Time for the Deconstruction of Field Manual 3-24. But better to "assume," since Farley wouldn't want to overload the students. In Week 12 they have to wade through "The Runaway General," at Rolling Stone, the article that helped bring the early retirement of General Stanley McChrystal, former Commander of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Some former uniformed personnel had only the warmest thanks for McChrystal's service, and no doubt McChrystal wasn't thrilled that President Obama was handing out medals to troops who did not kill the enemy. Now that's important! So I'm sure Professor Farley has students spend extra time studying the administration's debilitating Rules of Engagement (ROE) that have placed American lives at risk. And that's not all! Farley features Firedoglake's Spencer Ackerman as a guest speaker during that same week. Ackerman, who's also a military affairs writer at Wired, infamously quipped on Christmas 2009 that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempted airline bombing was "a joke" about how some guy was trying to "set off firecrackers" on a plane in a "failed bid for relevance." Boy, that's one crack seminar!

But hey, rejoice! Our future diplomats are in the best of hands! As I note at Farley's post:

The Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is a propaganda outlet for the Cuban Revolution? Hey, way to train America’s next generation of diplomats! No doubt students get target practice as well, so they’ll be prepared to put the bullet in the next generation of counter-revolutionaries — just like Che!!

Whooo heee!!!!

RELATED: Some alternative readings for Farley's next "counter-insurgency" seminar. See Adam Hassner, "Why The 50th Anniversary of The Bay of Pigs Should Matter To All Who Cherish Freedom." And Babalú Blog, "April 17, 1961."

BONUS: From Ron Radosh, "Marx in the American Academy: When Will its High Priests Ever Learn?"

EXTRA: At ABC News, "Cubans Mark 50th Anniversary of Failed Bay of Pigs Invasion: Country Celebrates 50 Years of Staying Power and Standing up to America."

Leftist Hypocrisy All the Way Down

The great bulk of recent blogging has covered the virtually unlimited examples of radical left-wing hypocrisy.

Last week's "One Nation" showcased not only the widespread radicalism at the base of the Democrat Party, but also the longstanding official party ties between top Democrat Party organizers and key left-wing movement activists who put together the October 2nd event. But of course neo-commies continue to whine: "But there's no such thing as the monolithic 'left'." We've also had the news of Barack Obama's gangsta rap playlist, which shows how the president has endorsed the racial stereotypes and "pathologies that still haunt and cripple far too many in the black underclass." Where's the outrage against President Obama's racist iPod? We've also had yet another round of classic leftist misogyny with Jerry Brown's "whore" slur of Meg Whitman, but not only has the response been muted (or even buried, in the case of MSNBC), but a purported "women's rights" umbrella group came out to endorse the Democrat candidate within 24 hours of alienating any woman who resents being called a whore. And as I reported today, we saw that Ted Rall, the well-known and award-winning leftist editorial cartoonist, openly proclaimed his call for a revolution against the United States and the installment of a communist dictatorship of the proletariat in its place. On top of that we've got the New York Times and its leftist minions once again distorting the record on Pamela Geller and the opposition to the Ground Zero Cordoba Center. Of course, the great majority of Americans see the mosque project as an affront to the families of the fallen, but the leftists have pushed a false "anti-Muslim" meme that has done nothing except further polarize that nation. (And the left's endorsement of the "Muslim backlash" myth is understandable, since from the academy to the mainstream press and beyond, there's been an open embrace of romanticism and self-denial surrounding radical jihad).

It's all of a piece, as I've said many times. Another one of the hypocrisies of modern times is the deification of Che Guevara to communist sainthood. Humberto Fontova has more on that, "Che Guevara: Guerrilla Doofus and Murdering Coward":

Forty three years ago this week, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. If the saying "What goes around comes around" ever fit, it's here.

"When you saw the beaming look on Che's face as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Martin-Perez, to your humble servant here, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." As commander of the La Cabana execution yard, Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man (or boy) by firing the coup de grace himself. When other duties tore him away from his beloved execution yard, he consoled himself by viewing the slaughter. Che's second-story office in Havana’s La Cabana prison had a section of wall torn out so he could watch his darling firing-squads at work.

Even as a youth, Ernesto Guevara's writings revealed a serious mental illness. "My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any vencido that falls in my hands!” This passage is from Ernesto Guevara's famous Motorcycle Diaries, though Robert Redford somehow overlooked it while directing his heart-warming movie.

More at the link.

I'll have more on all of this later. No doubt much of the electorate's repudiation of the Democrats lies in the party's rank dishonesty and hypocrisy, from the president all the way down to the lowest neo-commie netroots bloggers. Meanwhile, previously at American Power: "Progressives Are Communists (If You Didn't Know)."

Mario Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

At NYT (this link is updated from Memeorandum).

And from the writer's Wikipedia entry:

Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. He studied Marxism in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that Cuban socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called Padilla Affair, when Fidel Castro imprisoned the poet Herberto Padilla. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting against the Cuban political system and the imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.

And I cited this from [Alvaro] Vargas Llosa previously, a great piece: "The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand."

Update: The piece on Che is from Vargas Llosa's son, notes TBogg in the comments. I never claimed I had read Mario.

Dilma Rousseff, Former Marxist Guerrilla, Set to Become Brazil's President

Yeah, because there are no communists anymore, well, not the "bad" ones, at least.

From London's Telegraph, (via Theo Spark):

She is a former Marxist guerrilla whose organisation once stole $2.5 million from the safe of the governor of São Paulo.

Locked up and tortured by the dictatorship which ran Brazil during the 1970s, she was once branded by a prosecutor as the "Joan of Arc of subversion".

Yet in less than a month's time Dilma Rousseff is on course to become Brazil's first woman president, entrusted with running the largest and fastest-growing economy in Latin America ....

For someone who was once an active member of an armed Marxist group, fighting to overthrow the dictatorship, it is quite a change.

The daughter of a middle class Bulgarian immigrant and a schoolteacher in Belo Horizonte, southeastern Brazil, she realised upon leaving a privileged school that the world was "not a place for debutantes".

She was 16 when Brazil fell prey to a military coup in 1964 and like many was soon drawn into the world of underground opposition.

Introduced to Marxist politics by the man who became her first husband, Claudio Galeno, she helped build up one of the guerrilla organisations trying to overthrow the government - at one point spending three years in prison.

After democracy was restored she had a daughter, Paula, now a 33-year-old lawyer, with her second husband Carlos Araújo, a revolutionary leader who had met Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. She trained as an economist she entered conventional left-wing politics and professional public service.

In 2001, by now divorced again, she joined Lula's Workers' Party and her experience in the country's energy ministry quickly impressed the new president. A cabinet job as energy minister followed before she was appointed his chief of staff in 2005.

But many have questioned how she can be running for the presidency.

Critics say she was simply the last senior Lula crony standing since one aide after another was forced to quit in scandals over alleged slush funds, bribery or blackmail - including, last week, her own former aide who had followed in her footsteps as Lula's chief of staff.

Her lumbering speaking style and lack of personal charisma do not make her an obvious candidate and - in what was seen as a thinly-veiled attempt to protect Ms Rousseff - the government made it illegal for television and radio broadcasters to make fun of the candidates.

Jose Lara, Los Angeles Social Studies Teacher, Took Students on Revolutionary 'Freedom Ride' to Protest Arizona's SB 1070

You know, I actually found this viddy a couple of weeks ago, while I was doing my reporting on the Phoenix anti-immigration march. It's taken a little time, but the viral distribution's now made it to Fox News. See, "With Revolutionaries 'Looking On,' Teachers Take Kids on a Protest Trip to Arizona."

Standing in front of a wall-to-wall mural featuring a who's who of revolutionaries, including Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, and boldly displaying the motto Patria o Muerte, Venceremos!!! (Fatherland or Death, We Shall Overcome!!!), a group of teachers, students, parents and community activists in the Los Angeles Unified School District gathered last month for an unusual field trip — to Arizona, to protest that state's controversial immigration law.

A video posted on YouTube shows LA social studies teacher Jose Lara interviewing teachers and students on May 28 at the headquarters of an organization calling for a Mexican revolution on U.S. soil. Soon after he shot the video, many in the group left for an overnight "freedom ride" to Phoenix to protest what Lara tells the camera is a "racist and outrageous" law.

Four days later, the school board president implored the superintendent of schools to ensure that students in the district be taught that Arizona's law is "un-American" and Jim Crow-like. The law, passed in April, empowers law enforcement officials to question the immigration status of people they think may be in the country illegally.

Lara, who made the video, teaches at the Unified School District's Santee Education Complex with Ron Gochez, another social studies teacher who came under fire last month after he was identified making incendiary remarks in a widely circulated YouTube video that shows him speaking at a 2007 rally for La Raza, a revolutionary group calling for Mexican revolt inside the United States ....

More at the link.

Not sure if I bumped into Jose Lara, but here's another shot of Ron Gochez, holding his Che Guevara standard:

Both Lara and Gochez are active in numerous revolutionary groups, including Union Del Barrio, a La Raza organization that Gochez helped establish across the street from Santee High School.

In the video shot before the trip to Arizona, students, teachers and others are seen gathered at the Union Del Barrio meeting hall and cultural center in Los Angeles, called Centro Cultural Francisco Villa — a nod to one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution — where wall murals picture revolutionary leaders — including Ho Chi Minh — holding machine guns.

Beside portraits of the revolutionaries is a hand-painted rendering of the famous and long-living revolutionary motto: Patrio o Muerte, Venceremos!!! Popularized by Fidel Castro during the Cuban Revolution, it’s been used by Latin American leaders including Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, who declared it the official motto of his nation's army three months ago.

Gochez confirmed to FoxNews.com that he participated in the caravan to Arizona, though he does not appear in Lara’s video blog entry. Gochez did, however, give numerous on-camera interviews to local news outlets from Centro Cultural Francisco Villa that same night.

Tucson Unified School District Under Fire for Ethnic Studies Program

Give it up, once again, for Arizona.

At KGUN9-TV Tucson, "Does TUSD's ethnic studies program violate Arizona's new law?":

Tucson Unified School District has insisted repeatedly that its ethnic studies program does not violate the terms of Arizona's new law placing restrictions on such courses. Are those statements true? A closer look at TUSD's teaching materials casts doubt on some of TUSD's denials. But even so, that does not answer the larger question of whether students have a right to study the material or whether Arizona has a right to stop them ....

What are the facts?

9 on Your Side took a closer look. One of the textbooks that TUSD uses in its ethnic studies program is Chicano!, by F. Arturo Rosales. The book teaches the history of racism and oppression in the United States directed against the Mexican, Mexican-American, and Hispanic populations. As the name implies, a large portion of the textbook is devoted to the Chicano movement that sprang up to fight social injustice and to push for civil rights. There are some similarities between the Chicano movement tactics that the book documents and the tactics some TUSD students have practicing recently.

The cover of the book features graphic art of protesters with their fists in the air. Pages 248, 249 and 253 feature photographs of Chicano movement members with raised fists. The photograph on page 253 shows a student with a raised fist sitting in a classroom with other students; the text on that page makes the point that Chicano studies programs in the Southwest are "the most visible vestige" of the Chicano movement. A review of KGUN9 News footage over the past week shows many TUSD students raising their fists in the same fashion as those shown in the textbook.

Page 185 shows a picture of students walking out of school as part of a protest. Such student walkouts have been a major component of recent protests in Tucson against the ethnic studies restrictions and against Arizona's controversial immigration crackdown.

And then there is the brown beret issue. Pages 193 and 199 of the textbook show pictures of demonstrators wearing brown berets. The book acknowledges a link to Che Guevara as an inspiration for the berets. Interestingly, the textbook does not explain who Guevara was. Guevara was a Marxist revolutionary leader and a major figure in the Cuba's communist revolution, revered by some as an inspiration to the downtrodden, but reviled by others as a ruthless killer who bragged about personally shooting defectors.

More at the link (via Memeorandum).

Obama's Socialism in America: UPDATED!!

For socialist commenter Tim Gaskill, here's Dr. Sanity, "THE POLITICAL LEFT: UNITED IN HATE WITH AMERICA'S FOES":

If the left understands anything, it is that in order for their ideology and its promised utopia to be born, they must thoroughly destroy America and undermine everything America stands for in the world. Once that has been accomplished, then their way is clear. Of course, they truly believe they will be able to control the Islamist genie they have encouraged, appeased and enabled along the way. That's why they are so nonchalant about terrorism and the threat of Islamic jihad. First, they see themselves on the same side politically; and second, they believe they won't have any trouble stopping the Jihad once they are in power. What's the big deal? They also intend to roll back the rising seas, stop global warming, and heal the planet, after all.

Cited there is Jamie Glazov's United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

Fidel Castro agrees, and the results are witnessed below at Che Guevara's revolutionary firing squads:

Recall that Fidel has repeatedly endorsed Barack Obama, most recently in praising Democratic-socialist ObamaCare:

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform “a miracle” and a major victory for Obama’s presidency, but couldn’t help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

See also, "Obama's Socialism in America" (images from the Oceanside tea party).

RELATED: Ronald Kessler, "Obama Espoused Radical Views in College."