07/25/16

The Trump-Sanders Coalition

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

You know the terms “left” and “right” are losing meaning when left-wing websites are praising the Republican presidential candidate and attacking the Democrat, and Russia seems to be intervening in favor of the GOP.

The Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), which has been pulling for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race, has sent out an advisory entitled, “What Trump is Right About: NATO.” On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton’s pick for her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), has been depicted by the same group as a creature of Wall Street.

The IPA is not alone. Journalism Professor Jeff Cohen, co-founder of RootsAction.org and communications coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, has been quoted as saying that Kaine is a “corporatist,” or stooge of Big Business. Cohen’s colleague, Norman Solomon, calls Kaine a puppet of the “oligarchy.”

At the same time, WikiLeaks has released an email database from the Democratic National Committee, demonstrating that the DNC intervened in the primary contest against Sanders and in favor of Clinton. Since Russian hackers obtained the DNC emails, it means that Moscow wants to cause mischief on the Democratic side just as Hillary is getting the presidential nomination this week in Philadelphia.

An explanation for this interesting series of events may be found in the IPA news release on Trump and NATO, quoting Professor David N. Gibbs as saying that “Trump’s recent criticisms of the NATO alliance are reasonable.” He adds, “Trump is right to question NATO’s value in promoting U.S. security, and also to raise the issue of the enormous financial cost of this alliance to the U.S. taxpayer.” Gibbs has appeared on RT, the Russia Today propaganda channel.

Trump’s pro-Russian outlook has caused great consternation among conservatives who see the Vladimir Putin regime as the aggressor in Europe and interfering in the Middle East. Trump’s allies vetoed tough language in the Republican platform urging heavy weapons for Ukraine to fight Russian aggression. Instead, the Trump forces inserted language about providing “appropriate assistance” to Ukraine.

By contrast, the Democratic platform is tough on Russia and attacks Trump’s position on NATO. It says, “Russia is engaging in destabilizing actions along its borders, violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and attempting to recreate spheres of influence that undermine American interests. It is also propping up the Assad regime in Syria, which is brutally attacking its own citizens. Donald Trump would overturn more than 50 years of American foreign policy by abandoning NATO partners — 44 countries who help us fight terrorism every day — and embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin instead. We believe in strong alliances and will deter Russian aggression, build European resilience, and protect our NATO allies.”

These words sound great, except for the fact that, as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had an opportunity to be tough with the Russians and blew it. Her Russian reset led to the invasion of Ukraine. It also masked the uranium deal highlighted in the movie “Clinton Cash,” based on the book, a deal in which the Russians bought 20 percent of America’s uranium production as millions of dollars flowed to the Clinton Foundation and hundreds of thousands of dollars went to Bill Clinton personally.

Has Hillary Clinton changed her mind on Russia? That’s what the platform would suggest. If so, it would be a big opening for Trump to pounce on her flip-flops. But he hasn’t done so. Instead, he refuses to take on Russian aggression in Europe or the Middle East.

In his speech, however, Trump openly appealed to Sanders supporters, saying they “will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: trade deals that strip our country of its jobs and wealth.”

Trump’s appeal to Sanders supporters is based on trade. But it appears that his pro-Russian foreign policy has some appeal to them as well. If the Sanders supporters perceive Hillary Clinton to be a hawk on foreign policy, as Sanders himself suggested during the campaign, it’s possible they could either sit out the race or vote for the New York billionaire.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

07/18/16

Weekly Featured Profile – Diane Keefauver

KeyWiki.org

Diane Keefauver is a Missoula, Montana labor and community activist.

She is a retired Attorney, formerly with Affordable Legal Services and Montana Legal Services Association.

Diane Keefauver is active with the anarcho-syndicalistMissoula Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies),Democratic Socialists of America and the Communist Party USA.

Also active in the Democratic Party, Keefauver was a huge Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008:

A long line formed outside the airport hangar just before 8 a.m. Sunday, when the doors opened for Clinton’s gathering. Diane Keefauver, 56, of Missoula, had already been there for four hours, sleeping in the car with her two dogs. She wasn’t taking any chances with getting a good seat.

“I was so excited to be here, even my dogs could feel it,” said Keefauver, who was impressed with the work Clinton did as first lady. “The first thing she does is roll up her sleeves and work on health care instead of passing out tea.”

This year she has “feeling the Bern” as a very active leader of Missoula United for Bernie Sanders.

Communist Party USAleader John Bachtell, Diane Keefauver

Diane Keefauver was a Montana delegate to the Communist Party USA National Convention in Chicago in 2015.

She was also active in Occupy Missoula, the anarchist ledFood not Bombs and in protests against GMO foods.

In July 2016, Diane Keefauver took part in a Burns, Oregonevent demanding freedom for long imprisoned convicted murderer of two FBI agents and American Indian Movementactivist Leonard Peltier.

(Diane Keefauver|more…)

06/10/16

Trump Seen as Vehicle to Destroy GOP

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

While showing an image of Donald Trump as a wrecking ball, veteran leftist operative Webster Tarpley told the recent Left Forum in New York City, “If we play this right, he can destroy the Republican Party.” The comments, delivered at the major left-wing gathering of the year, reflect the belief among “progressive” activists that the Donald J. Trump candidacy can be used to destroy the Republican Party and usher in a major period of Democratic Party rule, under the increasing influence of an openly socialist faction.

“This party must be destroyed,” Tarpley said, referring to the Republicans.

Tarpley’s analysis of the political scene takes on additional significance as we see evidence of communists and Mexican nationals protesting outside Trump rallies and assaulting Trump supporters. Tarpley’s audience was the Left Forum, which is described as “the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public.” The theme for this year’s event was “Rage, Rebellion, Revolution: Organizing Our Power.”

Those participating included the Democratic Socialists of America (which supported Barack Obama and now Bernie Sanders), the Southern Poverty Law Center, representatives of the governments of Cuba and Venezuela, the “Exonerate Ethel Rosenberg” campaign, CodePink, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Workers World Party, the Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and the Greek Communist Party.

A former operative in the movement led by Lyndon H. LaRouche, an aging Marxist ideologue who served time in prison on fraud charges, Tarpley is viewed by the left as an expert on the class struggle that defines the evolution of the American political system. He has been a prominent figure in the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement, which blames unnamed U.S. officials for carrying out the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. He is today associated with the Tax Wall Street Party, a group backing the Sanders proposal to raise taxes on financial transactions in order to finance a socialist super state.

Drawing on historical sources and stories about turmoil in the Trump campaign and the GOP, Tarpley predicted that Trump’s candidacy will divide the Republicans and result in one of its factions merely surviving as a regional party based in the Deep South, rural areas, and the intermountain West. However, he said the party itself has become so dependent on “aging white men,” a shrinking percentage of the electorate, that it may be “demographically doomed” in the long term.

Tarpley, who thinks Sanders has not gone far enough to the left, believes opposing Trump and calling him a fascist is a smart organizing tactic by the left. In his talk, “Destroy the GOP—Split the Dems,” Tarpley describes the Sanders campaign and associated groups as “New Deal Democrats,” as opposed to the “Wall Street Democrats” backing Hillary Clinton. Eventually, if everything goes according to plan, the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party will take control in a “progressive realignment,” and a “new progressive coalition” could emerge and dominate American politics for decades.

“Trump is the trigger” for this dramatic series of developments, he told the leftist conference, and it means the Republican Party could go “extinct,” since it is perceived as being hostile to the new immigrants who have flooded into the country. He is predicting a complete political realignment for the period 2016 to 2046.

However, left unsaid in his presentation is whether after Mrs. Clinton is presumably done with her first term as president, she could be challenged for another term by the Sanders wing of the party, possibly represented at that time by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

But the idea that Warren is somehow against the interests of Wall Street and finance capital is, of course, complete nonsense. She ran for the Senate with the support of hedge fund billionaire George Soros and other big money liberals.

While Tarpley is not a supporter of Mrs. Clinton or President Obama, he gives Obama, a skilled Marxist-trained operative, enormous credit for assembling a winning coalition in the presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012. He explained, “2008 was a watershed election, and in retrospect that will become more obvious than it is now.” He said Obama had ushered in “a new phase” of politics that has put tremendous pressure on the Republican Party to generate support from enough of the electorate to survive as a national political entity.

“That future is what you have to keep your eyes on,” he emphasized. “That’s where you have to get. It means a crushing defeat for Trump, if we can do it.”

At the same time, Tarpley acknowledged that Trump supporters have “legitimate economic beefs,” based on the declining standard of living, and the fact that “deindustrialization” has harmed the middle class by destroying millions of factory jobs. But the Republican ideology is “in crisis,” as factions of the party disagree over the benefits of free trade and solutions to other economic problems. Other major Republican donors have libertarian tendencies that threaten the GOP coalition as well, he stated.

While the demise of the Republican Party may seem like wishful thinking, Tarpley outlined a political scenario that is plausible to outside experts and which could mean that the GOP would meet the fate of other political parties in American history—such as the Federalists, Whigs, and Know-Nothings — “by breaking apart” and losing the presidency, the Congress, and the Supreme Court in the process.

Tarpley’s predictions about Trump’s negative impact on the Republican Party came just a few weeks before Trump unleashed a series of attacks on a “Mexican” judge, who was actually born in the United States, prompting more concern from current and former Republican officials that the Trump presidential campaign could jeopardize Republicans prospects in November.

The destruction of the GOP also means the defeat of what Tarpley called the “neocon warmongers,” defined as those who favor U.S. military intervention against radical regimes and terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Continuing the pro-Russian bent that has long characterized the LaRouche movement, Tarpley favors the destruction of NATO. He was a speaker at the “No to War, No to NATO,” conference in Rome, Italy, which also included a representative of the old Soviet front, the U.S. Peace Council. Tarpley then participated in a forum on “good relations with the Russian Federation” held in St. Petersburg, Russia.

While Trump has been critical of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and has questioned the need for NATO, a one-time anti-Soviet alliance, these positions were not of any interest or concern to Tarpley. Instead, Trump was viewed as an opportunity to divide and weaken the Republican Party.

With the Republican Party out of the way, the activists making up the Left Forum would be able to consolidate their power in the Democratic Party and move it even further to the left, in terms of more socialism at home and more accommodation of “anti-imperialist” and “anti-capitalist” forces abroad.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

06/6/16

The Red Guards Are Green

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The media have given the misleading impression that the policies of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-declared socialist, are radically different than those of President Obama or Hillary Clinton. In reality, they all propose to use government power to control the economy by either confiscating the assets of private firms or running them out of business.

Technically, this may be fascism, rather than socialism. But the totalitarian nature of what is taking place is unprecedented in American history. America is becoming a socialist state that not only determines the fate of private industry, but attempts to control what people think and read about important public policy issues.

In Venezuela, which is admittedly ruled by a socialist regime, an iconic firm called Empresas Polar, which provides everything from pasta to beer, is suffering under government price controls and regulations, and has been declared an enemy of the state. The Wall Street Journal has been covering the fate of this firm in detail in a dramatic series of articles.

Here, the problem is actually worse. Rather than targeting just one firm, the Obama administration has been seeking to destroy the entire coal industry, along with the jobs of tens of thousands of workers that the old-style Marxists used to claim to represent. In their latest move, “the Obama Administration is giving the industry its last rites by halting new coal leases on federal lands where mining is still profitable,” the Journal noted.

This is not just Obama’s policy. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if she became president, “we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

The official Democratic Party policy of destroying the coal industry is being done in the name of saving the environment from alleged global warming. Toward that end, Obama signed the Paris Climate Agreement for the purpose of reducing global CO2 emissions. But he refused to submit the agreement for Congressional approval. The Global Warming Policy Foundation has published an academic paper which says the agreement is essentially a fraud, adding that it exempts countries such as China and India from undertaking any reductions.

In order to stifle debate over the job-destroying policies of the Obama regime, a group of Democratic state attorneys general are using legal tactics in an effort to criminalize and prosecute those challenging the global warming theory.

In an interview conducted by Ginni Thomas and carried by The Daily Caller, Dr. Kim Holmes, author of The Closing of the Liberal Mind, says the criminalization of dissent on climate change is “truly Orwellian” and “borderline totalitarian.” It is another sign of the decline of American democracy, documented in another important book, Democracy: And Why It Will Fail in America.

At the same time, the Portland (Oregon) Public School Board has voted to ban textbooks and other materials that do not support the theory of climate change. Patrick Wood, Editor of Technocracy News & Trends, asks, “Will they ban materials from the homes of students? What will be the punishment for being caught with such materials on Portland Public School campuses?”

The left-wing group Rethinking Schools calls this Portland, Oregon, board decision “the country’s most far-reaching policy on teaching climate justice in the schools.” It says the policy commits Portland schools to “abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its roots in human activity,” and requires the school district to develop a comprehensive plan to “address climate change and climate justice in all Portland Public Schools.”

This is, of course, occurring on a local level. But one could easily anticipate the Obama administration adopting this policy on a national basis, in the form of a directive to local districts, similar to the federal dictate on bathroom policy.

This agenda can be called fascism or socialism. But another “ism” also rears its ugly head.

Bill Bigelow, a former teacher and current curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, has referred to Howard Zinn as “the great historian and activist.” Zinn, whose books are force-fed to young people on many college campuses, was not only a member of the Moscow-controlled and Soviet-funded Communist Party USA (CPUSA) but lied about it. Zinn taught in the political science department of Boston University for 24 years, from 1964 to 1988.

Bigelow is the co-editor of a textbook on environmental education, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth. It looks like his campaign is at least partly designed to get his own textbook into the schools. Indeed, the group reports that Portland’s resolution “began in a workshop” led by the book’s co-editors, Bill Bigelow and Tim Swinehart. Swinehart, who teaches at Lincoln High School in Portland, is an alumnus of the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling.

Commenting on the campaign to criminalize dissent on climate change, Dr. Kim Holmes said, “Once you break that barrier and tell scientists they will be punished, this is like the Inquisition in the 16th century or the Red Guard in the Cultural Revolution in China.”

Ironically, the Roman Catholic Church is involved in this modern-day inquisition, since Pope Francis has already issued a papal encyclical on climate change in an “unholy alliance” that includes anti-capitalist and pro-population control advocates.

The Red Guards were groups of students, formed under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, which eliminated remnants of the old order.

How different is that from what is happening in the U.S. today? The group Rethinking Schools says that what happened in Portland could inspire similar efforts around the country, leading to “millions of public school students” who would then become part of a nationwide army of activists recognizing “a climate emergency” that requires “shutting down coal-fired power plants, banning new pipelines and off-shore drilling.”

Swinehart declares, “Now the real work begins: transforming the principles of this resolution into the education of climate literate students across the district who feel empowered to work toward a more just and sustainable future.”

These new Red Guards are coming to a school district near you. Can we rescue America from mysticism and tyranny?

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

06/6/16

BERNIE’S FREE COLLEGE ISN’T FREE

Hat Tip: BB

05/31/16

Iowa Marxists back Democrat Tom Fiegen for US Senate

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

Iowa’s Marxists hope to elect one of their own to the US Senate this year.

Tom Fiegen

Tom Fiegen is one of four Iowa Democrats hoping to win the June 7th primary to become the Democrat nominee contesting this year’s Iowa Senate race against Republican incumbent Chuck Grassley.

Fiegen is the only contender to have endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders‘ Presidential campaign, which has further endeared him to Sanders’ long-time backers Democratic Socialists of America.

Despite their comparatively “moderate” name, Democratic Socialists of America, like Sanders himself, draws inspiration from the “socialism through stealth” tactics of Italian Communist Party theoretician Antonio Gramsci.

gromp

Longtime Iowa City academic, DSA comrade and leading Sanders supporter, Jeff Cox, endorsed Tom Fiegen in a May 20th letter to the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Jeff Cox, Iowa City

Johnson County Democrats have an opportunity to revitalize a moribund Democratic Party by voting in the June primary for three county supervisor candidates who endorsed Bernie Sanders: Rod Sullivan, Kurt Friese and Jason T. Lewis. They represent the future of the Democratic Party, a party that says ‘yes we can’ rather than ‘no we can’t.’

We can also vote in the primary for the only Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate who endorsed Sanders, former state Sen. Tom Fiegen of Cedar County. He has a distinguished record of campaigning against factory farming and corporate agriculture. Unlike his opponents in the Democratic primary, he does not take campaign contributions from corporations, corporate political action committees or other campaign committees that accept corporate funding. Like Sanders, Tom Fiegen is not for sale.

Jeff Cox is a longtime Democratic activist and the point man for a Johnson County steering committee which helped draft Sanders for the 2016 presidential contest.

400px-Isu

At the University of Iowa – Ames, the local Young Democratic Socialists branch, has endorsed Tom Fiegen and are actively training members and supporters to join his campaign.

400px-Fago

Hey everyone, a quick reminder that there will be a surrogate training for Tom Fiegen this Saturday. We strongly endorse Tom, and would love to spread the word about his plans for senate on campus. This training will be the best way to get started!!

This is not the first time Iowan Marxists have supported Tom Fiegen.

In 2004, Democratic Socialists of America targeted local races where control of state houses were up for grabs and where statewide electoral vote outcomes hinged on successful local district turnouts.

In Iowa, Tom Fiegen—who says his politics are in the tradition of the radical lay Catholic Worker Movement,—is attempting a return to the Iowa state Senate (District 40)..”

In Democratic Socialists of America’s Democratic Left Winter 2004/2005, Theresa Alt wrote:

We reported on the candidates that DSAers were supporting in the last issue of Democratic Left. How did they do?Longshot progressive insurgents Al Weed in Virginia, Lin Whitworth in Idaho, Dave Franker and Tom Fiegen all lost.

Let’s hope this attempt is as unsuccessful as the last. Iowa just got rid of long-serving socialist Senator Tom Harkin in 2014.

Does the Hawkeye State really want to send another Marxist to Washington?

*****************************

Trevor Loudon is a New Zealand writer and speaker, currently living in Iowa. Loudon is working on the soon-to-be-released, Iowa-produced documentary The Enemies Within (see trailer here) and is the author of the 2013 book The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the US Congress.

Contact Trevor at [email protected].

05/29/16

Why Trump Chickened Out

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The Washington Post has written about “a grass-roots backlash against secularism, homosexuality and changes introduced” during the time in power of a “Marxist-inspired” political party. But the story was not about the United States. It was about Brazil. The backlash to Marxism has not yet arrived in the United States, and it certainly won’t happen with Donald J. Trump’s candidacy. Trump has just demonstrated that he is scared of debating socialist Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The Post story, “In Brazil’s political crisis, a powerful new force: Evangelical Christians,” is an amazing account from a liberal perspective of how Christian conservatives are taking back their country. One leading critic of the ruling Workers Party in Brazil said, “We saw that communism was in their DNA.” We saw this coming more than a year ago in our story, “Anti-Marxist Counter-Revolution in Brazil.” The obvious question is, Can it happen here? The answer is, Not with Trump.

Andrew Chesnut, a Latin America expert and professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, is quoted as saying, “They think the Workers’ Party put Brazil on a path to moral ruin. It legalized gay marriage. It has given Brazil one of Latin America’s highest per-capita abortion rates, even though the procedure remains illegal. There’s pornography all over the place.”

Continue reading →

05/21/16

Communists Cheer for Hillary and Bernie

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

While the liberal media write about white nationalists supporting Donald J. Trump, theCommunist Party (CPUSA) has been broadcasting its support for the national Democratic Party and both of its candidates. But for some reason, our media have failed to take notice.

Since 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected President, the CPUSA—which was then funded by Moscow—has been organizing what it calls an “all-people’s front” against the “extreme right,” and it usually depends on the Democratic Party as its preferred electoral vehicle. John Bachtell, national chair of the Communist Party USA, explains, “This battle has been waged over 35 years through election cycles, in the legislative arena, and in the battle to sway public opinion.”

The CPUSA endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008 and his reelection in 2012. This year, party members are involved in the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), but are prepared to support former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if she is the eventual nominee.

While Trump is rightly questioned about support for his campaign from such figures as David Duke, the former KKK leader, the open and admitted involvement of communists in the Democratic Party gets completely ignored by the press.

Continue reading →

05/21/16

Impassioned Democrats and Fascist Republicans

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

Not long ago the mainstream media were gleefully considering the prospect of a contested, drawn out Republican convention. Now that the Republican Party has begun to unify behind Donald Trump’s “presumptive nominee” status, however reluctantly, these same reporters continue to try to stoke tensions in the party, hoping that they can weaken the presumptive nominee. Contrast this with the media treatment given Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is being encouraged to quickly concede the Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton and thereby unify the Democrat Party.

Sanders has stated his plans, which are being treated as an inconvenient truth: that the Democrat convention in July will be a “contested contest.”

The media treatment of these two parties couldn’t be further apart. On May 14 The Washington Post published “Inside the GOP effort to draft an independent candidate to derail Trump,” which details the many possible third party candidates and their reluctance to run against Trump, a move that might split the party and hand the election to Hillary Clinton. As of today, even that effort appears to have reached a dead end, with Mitt Romney giving up on finding someone willing to challenge Trump, in what Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called a “suicide mission.”

Continue reading →

05/18/16

Vermont College “Feels the Bern” and Closes

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

The wife of the socialist candidate promising free college is being blamed for closing down a college in Vermont. Burlington College is going out of business, thanks to debt incurred under the leadership of its former president Jane Sanders, also known as “educator” Dr. Jane Sanders.

Alluding to the “Feel the Bern” rallying cry for the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the publication Politico noted that his wife had made a big-ticket purchase during her tenure as head of the small, private college in Vermont “and, in the end, the institution got burned.”

“Anything is Possible,” it says at the top of the Burlington College website. However, the Sanders’ socialist financial magic didn’t work at the college. It ran out of money, as socialists and their institutions usually do.

“Burlington College: Start a Fire” is the gimmicky slogan used to attract students to this unorthodox institution of higher learning. A fire sale would be more appropriate. It’s not clear how long the “Cuba Semester Abroad” program at Burlington College will continue. Officially, the college closes down on May 27.

Continue reading →