Glenn Beck Part 5

The final part of Glenn Beck's excellent series on socialism Obama style.

While much is yet to be revealed Beck deserves great kudos for giving millions of American viewrs some insight into the real Barack Obama and his statist agenda.

Obama and 'Redistributive Change'

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

He wrote this excellent analysi of Obama's plans for America for National Review Online.

Obama and 'Redistributive Change'

Forget the recession and the "uninsured." Obama has bigger fish to fry.

The first seven months of the Obama administration seemingly make no sense. Why squander public approval by running up astronomical deficits in a time of pre-existing staggering national debt?

Why polarize opponents after promising bipartisan transcendence?

Why create vast new programs when the efficacy of big government is already seen as dubious?

But that is exactly the wrong way to look at these first seven months of Obamist policy-making.

Take increased federal spending and the growing government absorption of GDP. Given the resiliency of the U.S. economy, it would have been easy to ride out the recession. In that case we would still have had to deal with a burgeoning and unsustainable annual federal deficit that would have approached $1 trillion.

Instead, Obama may nearly double that amount of annual indebtedness with more federal stimuli and bailouts, newly envisioned cap-and-trade legislation, and a variety of fresh entitlements. Was that fiscally irresponsible? Yes, of course.

But I think the key was not so much the spending excess or new entitlements. The point instead was the consequence of the resulting deficits, which will require radically new taxation for generations. If on April 15 the federal and state governments, local entities, the Social Security system, and the new health-care programs can claim 70 percent of the income of the top 5 percent of taxpayers, then that is considered a public good - every bit as valuable as funding new programs, and one worth risking insolvency.

Individual compensation is now seen as arbitrary and, by extension, inherently unfair. A high income is now rationalized as having less to do with market-driven needs, acquired skills, a higher level of education, innate intelligence, inheritance, hard work, or accepting risk. Rather income is seen more as luck-driven, cruelly capricious, unfair - even immoral, in that some are rewarded arbitrarily on the basis of race, class, and gender advantages, others for their overweening greed and ambition, and still more for their quasi-criminality.

"Patriotic" federal healers must then step in to "spread the wealth." Through redistributive tax rates, they can "treat" the illness that the private sector has caused. After all, there is no intrinsic reason why an auto fabricator makes $60 in hourly wages and benefits, while a young investment banker finagles $500.

Or, in the president's own language, the government must equalize the circumstances of the "waitress" with those of the "lucky." It is thus a fitting and proper role of the new federal government to rectify imbalances of compensation - at least for those outside the anointed Guardian class. In a 2001 interview Obama in fact outlined the desirable political circumstances that would lead government to enforce equality of results when he elaborated on what he called an "actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."

Still, why would intelligent politicians try to ram through, in mere weeks, a thousand pages of health-care gibberish - its details outsourced to far-left elements in the Congress (and their staffers) - that few in the cabinet had ever read or even knew much about?

Once again, I don't think health care per se was ever really the issue. When pressed, no one in the administration seemed to know whether illegal aliens were covered. Few cared why young people do not divert some of their entertainment expenditures to a modest investment in private catastrophic coverage.

Warnings that Canadians already have their health care rationed, wait in long lines, and are denied timely and critical procedures also did not seem to matter. And no attention was paid to statistics suggesting that, if we exclude homicides and auto accidents, Americans live as long on average as anyone in the industrial world, and have better chances of surviving longer with heart disease and cancer. That the average American did not wish to radically alter his existing plan, and that he understood that the uninsured really did have access to health care, albeit in a wasteful manner at the emergency room, was likewise of no concern.

The issue again was larger, and involved a vast reinterpretation of how America receives health care. Whether more or fewer Americans would get better or worse access and cheaper or more expensive care, or whether the government can or cannot afford such new entitlements, oddly seemed largely secondary to the crux of the debate.

Instead, the notion that the state will assume control, in Canada-like fashion, and level the health-care playing field was the real concern. "They" (the few) will now have the same care as "we" (the many). Whether the result is worse or better for everyone involved is extraneous, since sameness is the overarching principle.

We can discern this same mandated egalitarianism beneath many of the administration's recent policy initiatives. Obama is not a pragmatist, as he insisted, nor even a liberal, as charged.

Rather, he is a statist. The president believes that a select group of affluent, highly educated technocrats - cosmopolitan, noble-minded, and properly progressive - supported by a phalanx of whiz-kids fresh out of blue-chip universities with little or no experience in the marketplace, can direct our lives far better than we can ourselves. By "better" I do not mean in a fashion that, measured by disinterested criteria, makes us necessarily wealthier, happier, more productive, or freer.

Instead, "better" means "fairer," or more "equal." We may "make" different amounts of money, but we will end up with more or less similar net incomes. We may know friendly doctors, be aware of the latest procedures, and have the capital to buy blue-chip health insurance, but no matter. Now we will all alike queue up with our government-issued insurance cards to wait our turn at the ubiquitous corner clinic.

None of this equality-of-results thinking is new.

When radical leaders over the last 2,500 years have sought to enforce equality of results, their prescriptions were usually predictable: redistribution of property; cancellation of debts; incentives to bring out the vote and increase political participation among the poor; stigmatizing of the wealthy, whether through the extreme measure of ostracism or the more mundane forced liturgies; use of the court system to even the playing field by targeting the more prominent citizens; radical growth in government and government employment; the use of state employees as defenders of the egalitarian faith; bread-and-circus entitlements; inflation of the currency and greater national debt to lessen the power of accumulated capital; and radical sloganeering about reactionary enemies of the new state.

The modern versions of much of the above already seem to be guiding the Obama administration - evident each time we hear of another proposal to make it easier to renounce personal debt; federal action to curtail property or water rights; efforts to make voter registration and vote casting easier; radically higher taxes on the top 5 percent; takeover of private business; expansion of the federal government and an increase in government employees; or massive inflationary borrowing. The current class-warfare "them/us" rhetoric was predictable.

Usually such ideologies do not take hold in America, given its tradition of liberty, frontier self-reliance, and emphasis on personal freedom rather than mandated fraternity and egalitarianism. At times, however, the stars line up, when a national catastrophe, like war or depression, coincides with the appearance of an unusually gifted, highly polished, and eloquent populist. But the anointed one must be savvy enough to run first as a centrist in order later to govern as a statist.

Given the September 2008 financial meltdown, the unhappiness over the war, the ongoing recession, and Barack Obama's postracial claims and singular hope-and-change rhetoric, we found ourselves in just such a situation. For one of the rare times in American history, statism could take hold, and the country could be pushed far to the left.

That goal is the touchstone that explains the seemingly inexplicable - and explains also why, when Obama is losing independents, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans, his anxious base nevertheless keeps pushing him to become even more partisan, more left-wing, angrier, and more in a hurry to rush things through. They understand the unpopularity of the agenda and the brief shelf life of the president's charm. One term may be enough to establish lasting institutional change.

Obama and his supporters at times are quite candid about such a radical spread-the-wealth agenda, voiced best by Rahm Emanuel - "You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste; it's an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid" - or more casually by Obama himself - "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."


So we move at breakneck speed in order not to miss this rare opportunity when the radical leadership of the Congress and the White House for a brief moment clinch the reins of power. By the time a shell-shocked public wakes up and realizes that the prescribed chemotherapy is far worse than the existing illness, it should be too late to revive the old-style American patient.

And if America doesn't recover...what happens to the rest of us?

Good Luck for 2010 America!

Thanks Graeme.

Glenn Beck Day 4

Gleen Beck Day 3

Glenn Beck-Must Watch.

Here's Day 1 of Glenn Beck's excellent 5 part series on the Obama/socialist program for America.

This is a must watch.

Great info on Van Jones and other subversives.

Day 2 is here












Will post days 3 to 5 tomorrow.

Obama File 83 Obama's Man Van Jones-Many Roads Lead to Cuba, Communism

Obama file 82 here

Two big questions hang over President Obama's radical "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones.

Is he still a communist?

Is he a security threat?


Many have assumed that Van Jones' committment to communism ended when the organization he helped to lead STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) dissolved in 2002.


Yet a 2004 treatise Reclaiming Revolution: History, Summation, and Lessons from the Work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement written and endorsed by a majority of former STORM members makes it clear that most ex STORMers are still committed to the revolutionary movement;

From page 49.

When the last sixteen STORM members decided to dissolve, each committed as an individual revolutionary to helping this emerging trend continue to consolidate.

Some are building organizations in working class communities of color...Some are promoting revolutionary ideas. Some are developing revolutionary cadre...

Some are finding other ways to serve the people.

Most former STORM members are still active in San Francisco or New York. The STORM created or staffed organisations Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, POWER, SOUL, FIERCE, War Times and Women of Color Resource Center all all going strong and are still receiving mega-bucks from multiple left wing foundations.

All these organizations are still networked with former STORM associates such as Harmony Goldberg, Raquel Lavina, Maria Poblet, Adam Gold, Cindy Wiesner, Jason Negron-Gonzales, Mei-ying Williams or Steve Williams active in one group while serving on the board of another.

Most former Bay Area STORMers are working closely with cadre from the Communist Party USA offshoot Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).

Van Jones himself has long worked with people from the CCDS orbit including Betita Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, Felicia Gustin and Bob Wing.

In February 2006, just over three years after STORM folded and just over three years before being appointed to his White House position, Van Jones was keynote speaker at a Committees of Correspondence fundraiser in Berkeley.

The second annual CCDS and Kendra Alexander Foundation Banquet will take place on Sunday, February 19 at the Redwood Gardens community room in Berkeley with Van Jones, a pioneering human rights activist known as a steadfast opponent of police brutality and mass incarceration, as keynote speaker.

Jones is now working to create environmentally friendly, "green-collar" jobs for formerly incarcerated persons.

The banquet is titled "Towards Building a Progressive Majority" and benefits the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Kendra Alexander Foundation. The Foundation was named in honor of the visionary leader of the Committees of Correspondence.

Maybe Jones didn't realise he was addressing a Marxist-Leninist function? Maybe he thought it was a Rotary or PTA group?

Of even more concern are the close ties between STORM , the Bay Area CCDS, foreign communists and Cuba.


Venceremos Brigadistas entering US from Canada

According to "Reclaiming Revolution" page 37 several STORM members traveled to Cuba in 1999 as part of the notorious Venceremos Brigades.

One of the most formative "political education sessions" of this period was a group trip to Cuba in the summer of 1999.

Several STORM members participated in the Venceremos Brigade to see and support one of the world's few surviving socialist states.

Members came back with a heightened understanding of both socialism and capitalism and a stronger commitment to red politics.

As STORM seldom exceeded 20 members, it is very likely that Van Jones, as a leader of the organisation was on that, or another, Cuba trip.

Surely a good question for some enterprising journalist?

Three STORM leaders also travelled to South Africa in 1998 for the South African Communist Party conference.

It is woth remembering that the Venceremos Brigades were founded in 1969 by Students for a Democratic Society radicals Carl Davidson and Tom Hayden.

Davidson and Tom Hayden take credit for having launched in 1969 the "Venceremos Brigades," which covertly transported hundreds of young Americans to Cuba to help harvest sugar cane and interact with Havana's communist revolutionary leadership. (The Brigades were organized by Fidel Castro's Cuban intelligence agency, which trained "brigadistas" in guerrilla warfare techniques, including the use of arms and explosives.)

Incidentally Hayden and Davidson were two of the five founders of a new organization in 2008-Progressives for Obama. Davidson has a personal history with Obama when they worked together in the Chicago New Party and in anti Iraq War activism.

STORM associate Mei-ying Ho traveled to Cuba with the 2004 Venceremos Brigade. Now married to another STORM associate Steve Williams, Mei-ying Williams is involved with the Women of Color Resource Center where she works with Linda Burnham and well known radical and CCDS leader Angela Davis.


Steve Williams, who has been to South Africa, Cuba and Venezuela, now runs POWER-People Organized to Win Employment Rights. He worked on the organizing committee of anti Iraq War magazine War Times with Van Jones, Betita Martinez, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, Felicia Gustin, Bob Wing and Adam Gold in the early 2000s.

In July 2009 Steve Williams represented POWER at the CCDS National Convention in San Francisco.

According to Carl Davidson-elected as one of CCDS's four new co-leaders at the conference;

The panel featured responses to the "Democracy Charter" by Bill Fletcher, Jr., editor of Black Commentator, Michael Eisenscher of US Labor Against the War, Jacqueline Cabasso from Western States Legal Foundation, Frank del Campo from the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Steve Williams of People Organized to Win Employment Rights. Bill Fletcher, Jr. cast the Charter as a political and social guide for mass struggle."

Jacqueline Cabasso is a Communist Party USA supporter, Bill Fletcher Jr is with Democratic Socialists of America and was with Davidson and Tom Hayden one of the five key founders of Progressives for Obama.

The conference attracted several international guests;


Helmut Scholz of Die Linke, Germany; Chris Matlhako of the Communist Party of South Africa, and Angela Davis of CCDS.

International guests included Chris Matlhako from the South African Communist Party and Marcos Garcia from the Venezuelan Embassy in DC gave a picture of protracted battles against neo-liberalism and their efforts to build and maintain unity on the left in their countries.

Helmut Scholz, a leader of Die Linke (The Left Party) of Germany, described the unity efforts between groups in East and West Germany that brought together its forerunner, the Party of Democratic Socialism, made up of the former East German Communists, and groupings of Left Social Democrats from the West. Their common task now, he explained, was making sure the burden of the capitalist crisis was not placed on the working class.

Jackeline Rivera, an FMLN deputy to the legislature of El Salvador, was warmly received. She revealed how, in their recent electoral victory, the FMLN saw two left groups break away, and the national unity efforts that followed.

Solidarity messages to CCDS were read ot from Cuba and Vietnam and "The Internationale" was sung.

Carl Davidson is of course also a big fan and promoter of Van Jones' work.

Van Jones associates Linda Burnham, Bob Wing ,Betita Martinez, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Linda Burnham, Max Elbaum, and Bob Wing are all veterans of the Venceremos Brigades or multiple trips to former East Bloc countries.

Jones' friend and ally Betita Martinez was an early Cuban visitor;

In 1959, three months after the Cuban Revolution claimed victory, Martinez went to Cuba to witness a successful anti-colonial, socialist struggle. This trip to Cuba had a profound impact on her.''

In addition to Cuba, Martinez later traveled to the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Vietnam (during the war) and China to witness and observe how people were implementing socialism.

Another close ally, Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz , worked in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigades and with other revolutionaries including the Students for a Democratic Society and its terrorist offshoot the Weather Underground. She also worked in London in the 1960s with the South African Communist Party controlled African National Congress.

Not to mention over a hundred trips to Nicaragua, mainly in Sandinista times.

There is also another Cuban connection that is possibly even more concerning.

When Van Jones ran the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the organization was very close to another Bay Area institution-DataCenter.


Founded by Jon Frappier, a former supporter of the Weather Underground Organization, Datacenter is essentially the intelligence hub of the US left.

The Oakland California based organisation provides strategic information & research training to communities advocating for dignity, justice & civil rights."

According to a history published on DataCenter's website;

1977
DataCenter—an activist library and publication center—is founded in affiliation with the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) by Jon Frappier, Fred Goff, Loretta & Harry Strharsky and 40 dedicated volunteers.

Further DataCenter activities included;

1979
Establish Corporate Profile Project for clients such as United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations & customized research service for immigration attorneys representing Central Americans seeking political asylum.

1980
Publish press profiles, The Reagan File, on Ronald Reagan and his policies on labor, El Salvador, foreign policy, and military policy in Asia.

1983
Expand Search Service to include corporate accountability research to support community, labor, and corporate campaigns and political asylees from all over the world.

Incredibly DataCenter also admits to being an "information" gatherer for Cuban "institutions".

1991
Launch the Cuba Project/Conexiones to respond to information needs of institutions in Cuba & facilitates information exchange between U.S. and Cuban colleagues for the next ten years

DataCenter's ties to Jones' Ella Baker Center are close. Diana Frappier who helped Jones establish and run the Center is believed to be a relative of Jon Frappier.

Celina Ramirez worked as a Policy Director at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, 2006 and in 2006-2007 served on the DataCenter board.

In 2002 DataCenter celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a gala celebration honoring;

Youth United for Community Action, Southwest Organizing Project, and Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Youth Force Coalition for their Books Not Bars campaign

This is the environment Van Jones sprang from. These are his "roots".

Has Jones abandoned the values he held and the people he worked with up until a few months ago just because he now has more power, money and influence?

Working in the White House is (or should be) a high security job.

Van Jones now has access to all sorts of high level information and gossip.

He has President Obama's ear on economic and social matters that could dramatically effect the US economy and eventually US military power and security.

Let's just hope Van Jones has abandoned his core convictions and past associations in last 6 months shall we?

After all the Obama White House claims to have extensively vetted all appointments-so he must be OK.

Obama file 84 here

More Kudos for New Zeal

Glenn Beck's show has been threatened with an advertising boycott-organised by Color of Change-an organisation Van Jones helped to found.

The strategy has backfired and now Beck's ratings are soaring.

Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media has written an excellent column on the Beck/Jones "war" and has thrown some kudos New Zeal's way.

Not coincidentally, Beck has repeatedly singled out Van Jones for criticism, citing evidence of his communist past. The source of this evidence is New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon, the same researcher who originally unearthed the fact that Obama's mysterious mentor "Frank" in Obama's book Dreams from My Father was Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.
.
We confirmed that identification with a separate source and ran with the story last year, even obtaining the 600-page FBI file on Davis. It also came out that Davis was a sex pervert, doper, and pornographer.
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The Obama campaign eventually confirmed Frank's identity but tried to play down his relationship with Obama. Most media gave the scandal a ho-hum.
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Trevor Loudon, who deserves far more credit than he gets for smoking out the communists in and around the Obama Administration, broke the Van Jones story back on April 6 and has run several follow-ups. Among other things, he revealed that Jones was a leading member of a Marxist organization known by the acronym STORM, which means Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. A 96-page history of the organization mentions how several STORM members had traveled to Cuba in the summer of 1999 as part of the Venceremos Brigade. This is the group that was originally sponsored by the Castro regime and the Weather Underground.
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To add to the mystery, it turns out that "Van" Jones is not even his real name. His real first name is Anthony; he says he changed it because "Van" sounded cool. Various accounts say that he has been arrested twice.
.
Aaron Klein of World Net Daily then wrote a story on Jones, citing Loudon's work. Since then, Beck and others have seized on it. Now, some more of this fascinating story can be told. I have been engaged for months in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the Obama Administration for information about Jones and how he was hired.
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It seems clear that Jones has undergone, with powerful sponsors and benefactors, an extreme makeover. Beck, to his credit, is trying to peel away the protective cover. He needs our support to remain on the air and pursue this story. The trail will most certainly lead beyond Jones himself.

Thanks Cliff-nice to do the US a favor after all you guys have done for us.

Beck Tells Truth About Obama Admin-Uses New Zeal Info

Glenn Beck of Fox News has been doing a fantastic job of exposing the socialism of the Obama administration.

Here's a brand new Beck series that really lays it it on the line.

And guess what-he is using a lot of New Zeal derived information.

Here's Beck talking about Obama's communist Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones and former Weather Underground terrorist Jeff Jones.

New Zeal first broke the Van Jones/communist story here and the Jeff Jones story here.



Here Beck talks about Carl Davidson, Movement for a Democratic Society and the New Party.

New Zeal broke those stories here, here and here.









Well done Mr Beck.

Sing Along Now!

Some musical mockery of Obama's socialised health schemes.

"Single Payer" means government run health-like we have in new Zealand-which is why our system is in a state of near permanent crisis.



Sing along now!

Thanks to Maria.

Have You Made "The Pledge" Yet?

With National Party Prime Minister John Key wimping out big time over re-legalising smacking, I'm making a personal commitment.

87.6% of those who voted in the recent (non binding) referendum wanted to restore the right of parents to smack their children as part of their disciplinary responsibilities.

John Key has ignored the wishes of his employers and plans nothing but some bullshit "consultations".

So here's my pledge;

"

I Trevor Loudon will never vote for the New Zealand National Party, or any National Party candidate, in any future General Election in my lifetime, until the right of parents to responsibly smack their children is legally restored

."

Just like the referendum question, its pretty clear isn't it?

More From Kiwi Former Islamic Militant

More from Kiwi former Islamic militant Charles Wardle on his conversion to Islam in Pakistan. Part 1 here

Haven't heard from Charles in a while-hope he's not in jail.

Charles' story is unique. How many Kiwi former Islamic militants do you know who have the guts to tell their story?

T.E.A Party Ad

This is tres cool.

An Alabama mother asked her teenage son to design an ad for her local "Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party"



Thanks Jim.

Police Search Charles Wardle's Home

The police have executed a search warrant on the Auckland home of former Islamic radical Charles Wardle.



Charles is no threat these days-he's one of the good guys now-but a few years ago he could have been a problem.

Charles wants to build bridges between Kiwis and our moderate Islamic fellow countrymen.

Only that way, according to Charles, can the militant strand of Islam in this country be neutralized.

With You All the Way Rodney...

John Key has another big choice to make.


ACT Party leader and Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide, has theatened to resign his post should National allow three Maori Apartheid seats on the new Auckland SuperCouncil.

What's it to be John?

Are you with the right or are you with the left?

Will you accept more Apartheid in New Zealand to appease the Maori Party and a tiny but noisy left?

Or will you stand for what is right and kick the racists into touch?

Good on you Rodney for putting your principles before position.

You could achieve a huge amount in your job-the leftie Councils are rightly terrified of you-but this issue is bigger.

Let's see if John's are as big as yours.

Heather Roy Tells Polis "Listen to the People"

From the ACT Party website

ACT New Zealand Deputy Leader Heather Roy today welcomed news that 87.6 percent of the 1,622,150 New Zealanders who voted in the Anti-Smacking Referendum have exercised their right to democracy and voted ‘NO’.

“New Zealand has spoken, and now it is time for the politicians to listen,” Mrs Roy said.

“Kiwis throughout the country have spent the past two years telling politicians that they don’t want good parents criminalised for using a light smack as part of good parental correction.

“Tonight they have made their views clear once again and it is time for politicians to listen, acknowledge the message that an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders are sending and, act on it.

“Prime Minister John Key and the National Party can't ignore over 1,4 million people. He must now send an equally clear signal that Government has no right to tell parents how to raise their children and introduce my
colleague John Boscawen's Crimes (Reasonable Parental Control and Correction) Amendment Bill as soon as possible.

“To date ACT is the only Party that opposed the original legislation, and the only Party prepared to listen to Kiwis. ACT urges the National Party to do the right thing,” Mrs Roy said.

Sue Bradford Caned!!!!!! 87.6% Vote For Smacking

The results are in.

Sue Bradford's evil anti-smacking law has been caned by the voting public.

These are the figures for the smacking referendum from KiwiBlog.

The interim results are:

1,622,150 votes cast which I think is a 54% response rate. That is higher than most local body elections and pretty good for a referendum not held with a general election.

87.6% voted no and 11.8% vote yes.

A massive victory for common sense.

As a proportion of total enrolled adults, 47% voted no, 46% did not vote and only 7% voted yes.

This gives Prime Minister John Key an interesting choice-and an incredibly easy one.

A Do nothing-let down hundreds of thousands of families all over the country and lose huge numbers of votes.

B Change the law to re-legalise smacking and earn the undying gratitude of hundreds of thousands of Kiwis and guarantee National the treasury Benches for a decade.

Your call John.

Bad luck Sue.

Student Union Racket Nearing End?

Good on you Sir Roger!

Is the left's main training ground about to be dealt to?

From the ACT Party website.

VSM Bill Will Set Students Free

The drawing of my Education (Freedom of Association) Members Bill is the first step in liberating students from the flawed and out-dated law that forces them to join their local student association and steals their right to make their own decisions, ACT New Zealand MP Sir Roger Douglas said today.

"Student associations are one of only a few organisations in New Zealand that can compel membership and it is students who have paid the price," Sir Roger said.

"For instance, forcing students to join and pay its fees provides associations with a guaranteed stream of income – resulting in a seeming lack of accountability to properly manage the pool of money this income creates. This has been seen in the numerous cases of mis-management that has occurred at student associations around the country.

"Further, student associations purport to represent the views and desires of the wider student body – yet most are dominated by a small minority of student politicians who prefer to push their own agenda and promote their own views rather than those of the majority."

ACT has long campaigned to right this wrong, with my Bill having previously been in the ballot under the name of my colleague Hon Heather Roy in the last Parliamentary term.

"We allow students to choose what university or polytechnic they attend, and what papers to take; it’s time we gave them the freedom to choose whether or not to join their local student association rather than forcing them to pay a union fee if they want to study," Sir Roger said.

Hear, hear!

"Communism in the Classroom" Pass it On!

Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival is holding an important event in Washington DC August 20th.

“Back to School” Conference on “Communism in the Classroom” to be held August 20 at National Press Club. New disclosures about Barack Obama terror associate Bill Ayers.

America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) is holding a news conference on Thursday to release the results of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into the activities and foreign travel of University of Illinois Professor Bill Ayers, a former leader of the communist terrorist group, the Weather Underground. Bill Ayers and President Barack Obama were political associates and worked on educational issues together when Obama was an Illinois state senator.

In his best-selling book, Dreams from My Father, Obama said that when he went to college he picked Marxist professors and others as friends in order to avoid being perceived as a “sellout.”

“It is time to examine the influence of Marxist professors, not only on our president, but on students across the nation,” declared ASI President and veteran journalist Cliff Kincaid.

The University of Illinois has been embroiled in a scandal over hundreds of poorly qualified students getting admission through high level political and financial connections. The August 20 “Communism in the Classroom” conference will ask the questions: Who hired Bill Ayers and why?

For the first time, ASI will release and analyze the course descriptions or syllabi of Ayers’ “education” courses at the University of Illinois.

ASI will also report on a controversial trip Ayers made to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela in 2006, to speak at a “World Educational Forum.”

The event will be held on August 20 at 12:30 p.m. in the First Amendment Lounge of the National Press Club (529 14th St., NW) in Washington, D.C.

Speakers include noted author and Professor Paul Kengor of Grove City College on “Anti-Anti-Communism in the Academy;” Professor Mary Grabar on what Ayers is “teaching” in the classroom and whether he got his job “the Chicago Way;” and America’s Survival President Cliff Kincaid on journalism “educator” Curtis MacDougall’s 319-page FBI file.

The “Communism in the Classroom” conference is free of charge and open to the press and the public. But reservations are requested at 443-964-8208 or Kincaid@comcast.net

New Zeal

Anybody interested in the future of US education should be at this conference. I urge my friends in the US blogging community to circulate this notice as widely as possible.

Thanks

Trevor Loudon

It's That Time Again

People appreciate the information on this site enough to regularly donate through the PayPal button on the right.

It won't make me rich but it certainly helps cover the research costs I keep racking up.

New Zeal has broken several stories that have ended up in the on Fox News, World Net Daily, Human Events, Accuracy in Media, Melanie Philips' Spectator blog, Frontpage News, Atlas Shrugged, KiwiBlog, Not PC, Powerline and hundreds of other blogs and websites.

Frank Marshall Davis' ties to Barack Obama, Obama's membership of the radical New Party, Obama's communist "Green Jobs Czar'' Van Jones-are now widely cited facts in the US and further afield..

They all started at New Zeal.

If you want to keep the info rolling please send some hard earned... my way through the PayPal button on the right.

Your Grandchildren will thank you for it-as will I.

Obama File 82 Exclusive! Obama, the Communist Van Jones and the Demos Connection.

Obama file 81 here

Why did President Obama choose a communist-Van Jones to be his "Green Jobs Czar"?

Why did Obama risk controversy by appointing a well known street radical to a senior position in the White House?















I have explored Jones' links to former Weather Underground supporters, '60s Maoists and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism here-connections both men have in common.

There is another connection however-one as yet untouched by either the mainstream media or the blogosphere.

In a September 26 2008 article, posted on the website of the radical Institute for Policy Studies, two IPS staffers Phyllis Bennis and Chuck Collins posited 22 names they thought would make suitable appointments for an Obama administration.

Take note that this was several weeks before Obama was even elected.

Collins recommended;

Van Jones, of the Ella Baker Center, to direct the Commerce Department’s new “green jobs initiative,”

Nearly six months later, on March 10 2009 Van Jones was appointed "Green Jobs Czar" -or more officially Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

So what's the connection here?

One organization unites Barack Obama, Van Jones and Chuck Collins-Demos a Fifth Avenue New York based think tank.


A little known, but highly influential organization, Demos is a key component of the "progressive" machine that brought Obama and the Democrats to power in 2008.


Besides being Director, Program on Inequality and the Common Good, at the Institute for Policy Studies, Chuck Collins works for Demos as Director of the Tax Program -Business for Shared Prosperity.


Incidentally in the mid 1990s, Collins was one of several IPS people who helped organise the New Party-which Obama joined in 1995 in Chicago.

Van Jones serves om the Demos Board of Trustees.

So where does Obama fit in?

According to the Demos website;

Demos began as a vision of Charles Halpern--then the president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and a veteran non-profit entrepreneur. He was troubled by the narrow conversation about America's future. On the eve of the 21st century, it seemed that America no longer had the imagination to tackle its largest problems and build a more just society.

Halpern set out to challenge the status quo with a new institution. He envisioned a dynamic hub for creative scholars and cutting-edge practitioners--an organization that combined ideas and action to chart a new set of priorities for America.

By 1999, Halpern had assembled a talented working group to develop Demos. Among them were David Callahan, a fellow at the Century Foundation; Rob Fersh, a long-time policy advocate; Stephen Heintz, Vice-President of the East-West Institute; Sara Horowitz, founder of Working Today; Arnie Miller, a leading executive recruiter; Barack Obama, then a state senator from Illinois; David Skaggs, a congressman from Colorado; and Linda Tarr-Whelan, an internationally recognized expert on women and economic development. This working group would eventually form the core of Demos' staff and Board of Trustees.

The question here is obvious. Why would an obscure Illinois State Senator with a funny name be "cherry picked" to help set up a new "think tank" in New York?

All the others had track records: Heintz was even a member of the "prestigious" Council on Foreign Relations.

Why humble Barack Obama?

One possible connection was Obama's work in the early 1990s leading Illinois Project Vote and his strong connections to the radical community group ACORN.

Demos worked extremely closely with ACORN and its voter registration wing Project Vote on several projects.

In fact the three organizations could be said to be almost "partners."


2005 report on Demos/ACORN/Project Vote motor registration project

Demos Fellow Lorraine Minnite serves on the Project Vote board.

Demos President Miles Rapoport was one of ACORN's most ardent defenders when the organization was accused of widespread voter registration fraud during the 2008 election.



Another possible connection is through the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)itself.

The IPS website proudly lists Demos as a "partner" organization.


Several Demos personnel have IPS connections including founder "father of public interest law" Charles Halpern.

In the 1960s Halpern became corporate secretary to IPS. He began to attend IPS seminars and parties at the Institute and at the home of founder Marcus Raskin, where he mixed with radicals such as Paul Goodman and Ivan Ilich.

When Raskin and several other activists were arrested for conspiring to obstruct the military draft during the vietnam War, Halpern helped with their defence. Halpern even flew with Raskin to a meeting with the other defendants and their lawyers at the Greenwich Village home of radical lawyer and secret Communist Party USA member Leonard Boudin-father of future Weather Underground terrorist Cathy Boudin.

Halpern later served as as president of the left leaning Nathan Cummings Fund which was a significant IPS donor.

Several people around Obama have IPS connections including his Chicago mentor, former Congressman Abner Mikva.

In 1979 Don Rose, a mentor to Obama's right hand man David Axelrod served in the leadership of the IPS spinoff Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies, with Miles Rapoport.

The four founders of Progressives for Obama-Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher Jr, Danny Glover and Tom Hayden all have IPS ties.

Ehrenreich is an IPS Trustee, Bill Fletcher Jr is an IPS Scholar, both are members of Democratic Socialists of America and both helped found the New Party.

Danny Glover chairs the board of IPS "partner organization" TransAfrica Forum and Tom Hayden is a long term IPS associate, going back to Conference on Alternative State and Local Policies days.

Even Saul Alinsky, the Chicago radical who's methods Obama learnt in his "community organizing" days was an occasional IPS lecturer back in the 1960s.

Seven years ago Van Jones was a San Francisco hardcore Alinskyite street communist. After hooking up with the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Democratic Socialists of America, former '60s Maoists, Weather Underground supporters and Demos he managed to land a job in the White House.

Twenty two years ago Barack Obama was a Chicago Alinskyite "community organiser". After hooking up with the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Democratic Socialists of America, former '60s Maoists, Weather Underground supporters and Demos he managed to land a job in the White House.

Could there be a connection?

Obama file 83 here

Red Paranoia On the Rise

The US left is getting pretty upset about the amount of opposition they're getting to their plans to socialize the US health system, legalise union coercion and extend affirmative action.

Check out this over-the-top letter to the Peoples Weekly World from Communist Party USA supporter John Pietaro.

Red-baiting in the media

Since the presidential election, the frightened Right has been rabidly attacking all things even remotely progressive (and as of today, at times physically attacking, too). In addition to doing all they can to destroy the Obama presidency, this same fascistic group is trying to kill off the proposal for health care reform, stop the Employee Free Choice Act in its path, turn back the clock on civil rights and raise the specter of Ronald Reagan as a means to call for a renewed ultra-conservative movement. And Reagan’s history shows that he was a Cold War opportunist who reported on the members of the Screen Actors Guild to HUAC — while he was a sitting president of that union. Reagan, working in concert with McCarthy and the rest of the witch-hunters, also helped to establish the use of red-baiting to silence political enemies.

Red-baiting is back, as a means to stop the even moderately progressive agenda of Obama. They red-baited Obama during the election and are doing so again — just as sure as they race-bait him and even attack him with xenophobia. Health care reform is “socialism” we heard in November, but nowadays they are even using the “c” word. It’s part of his “communist plan.” Consistently, we hear the lambasting of socialism, Marxism and as a result — anything liberal. It’s a combined attack from the monopoly capitalists, the religious Right, the America Firsters, the conservative lunatic fringe, racists and anti-communists, and the Republican Party itself.

This assault on all things progressive is serious business and we need to bring it to the media’s attention. Here is a link to a petition called “Stop the Hate Speech and Red-Baiting in the Media” petition at iPetitions.com website:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/commiesrpeople?e

I signed it and I encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes less than a minute. We cannot lie back while the neo-fascists break down our ideals and vision for the future.

John Pietaro

New York NY

The stakes couldn't be more clear could they?

Some Good News From Cuba

From Prensa Latina.

Washington, Aug 14 (Prensa Latina) For the first time since assuming the presidency Barack Obama confronts criticisms of the majority of US citizens over his management of government, revealed a survey.

A survey by Rasmussen company reveals that 52 percent of those interviewed questioned the work of the president while 47 percent support him.

Continuation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the economic crisis and his proposal to reform the system of national health are some points against Obama, according to several press media.

Green Reveals Red Heart

John Bellamy Foster: `The transition to socialism and the transition to an ecological society are one’

"The ecological revolution is a social revolution"...

Watch this and weep.

Ecology, Capitalism, and Socialism from mrzine on Vimeo.

Virtually all leading Greens are 'watermelons"-Green on the outside-red in the middle.

Socialist Tyranny Nears in Venezuela

Madness descends on Venezuela. This is heavy stuff. Socialist thugs are now going to try to snuff out the last traces of freedom from that unfortunate country.



From Links

August 8, 2009 -- On August 1, United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) members across the country participated in 1556 local assemblies to discuss the reorganisation of the party’s base into local ``patrols''.

This push to strengthen revolutionary organising comes at a time when attacks on Venezuela’s revolutionary process revolution “from outside and within have intensified”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, also president of the PSUV, said on August 4.

“Each time that the revolution advances and accelerates its march, the attacks intensify. I will continue to put my foot down on the accelerator of the Bolivarian revolution. That is my role, that is my task and there is no time to lose. Today, in Venezuela, we are creating a true socialist democracy.”

After his re-election in the December 2006 presidential elections, Chavez issued a call to build a “new party… from the base” and at the service “of the people and the revolution, at the service of socialism”.

As an expression of a deeply felt need for greater revolutionary unity, almost 6 million people enrolled as aspiring PSUV members between April and June, 2007. Organised into 300-strong local battalions, several hundred thousand aspiring members embarked on the task of building the PSUV, which held its founding congress in early 2008.

However, a national leadership handout distributed at the assemblies said the process of forming battalions had generated “a number of logistical difficulties [that meant] grassroots participation in the battalion meetings profoundly diminished, and in doing so debilitated [their] functioning and political performance”.

Drawing on the lessons of previously successful election campaign structures, the leadership announced a re-organisation of the bases, where activists who know each other and live in the same street, block or local community were to unite into patrols comprising 20 to 30 members.

The smaller size and self-selecting nature of the process aims to facilitate greater organisational capacity and cohesion.

It is expected between 100,000 to 200,000 patrols will be formed in the lead up to the PSUV’s second national congress, scheduled to begin on October 10.

Despite announcements by Jorge Rodriguez, head of the PSUV’s national organisation commission, that patrols would only be organised on a territorial basis, representatives of the PSUV’s Socialist Workers Front told Green Left Weekly that Chavez proposed they move ahead with forming factory- and workplace-based patrols.

PSUV Youth members have also said they plan to form university and high school patrols. Despite more than 60% of the 1.5 million new members who signed up this year being below the age of 29, youth participation in the assemblies was extremely low.

On the political front, activism in local communities and ideological formation was emphasised. The PSUV leadership document (see below), circulated for discussion at the assemblies, said this was crucial for “accelerating the transition to socialism”.

The document said this transition involved “the transformation of the bourgeois state into a revolutionary and democratic state ... the creation of socialist property relations over the means of production ... [and] the creation of revolutionary consciousness in working people [through] a profound ideological and cultural revolution”.

Hitler Rants About US "Rightwingers"

This is funny as...

Keep out if you don't like bad language.

Do Islamic Militants Pose a Threat to New Zealand?

Former Kiwi Islamic militant Charles Wardle was sent to recieve explosives training in the United Arab Emirates.

He was then to return to New Zealand to await further instructions...

Obama File 81 Former Weather Underground Terrorists and '60s Maoists Nurtured Obama's "Green Jobs" Czar

Obama File 80 here


Fox News has been focusing much attention lately on president Obama's "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones' hard core communist background and his ties to the influential Apollo Alliance.

A grouping of Green, labor union and social "justice organisations", the Apollo Alliance has had huge influence on the Obama administration and has succeeded in getting Apollo founder and longtime board member Van Jones a job in the White House.

Van Jones helped found Apollo and served on its board until recently-alongside Gerry Hudson of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) supporter Carl Pope and Joel Rogers-founder of the radical New Party-which Barack Obama joined in Chicago in 1995.

Despite its power Appollo is a relatively small organization on the ground with only fourteen affiliates nationwide-one of them being Van Jones' tiny Oakland California based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

The New York state Apollo Alliance Director is Jeff Jones.

According to Apollo's website,

Jeff Jones campaigned to remove PCBs from the Hudson River, clean up toxic pollution in inner-city and rural neighborhoods and reverse global warming. From 1995-2005, he was the Communications Director of Environmental Advocates of New York. Previously, he was a reporter covering state politics and policy for a variety of news organizations.

Mr. Jones has devoted much of his time to researching and confronting federal and state energy policies that contribute to global warming and catastrophic climate change. In 2006, he represented the state Apollo Alliance on the governor’s Energy and Environmental Transition Task Force. He serves on the boards of directors of several organizations, including the Healthy Schools Network, the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy and West Harlem Environmental Action (WeAct for Environmental Justice).

Here is Jeff Jones talking about his commitment to environmental activism and "green jobs".



If the name Jeff Jones rings a few bells-this may be why.


That's right Jeff Jones is a former member of the 1970s terrorist organization, the Weather Underground. More than that Jones was a founder and one of four key leaders of the organization with Mark Rudd, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Remember those names.

The Weatherman connection to Apollo is hardly surprising. I revealed here that Van Jones had links in San Francisco to two other former Weathermen supporters Jon and Nancy Frappier.

Jon Frappier's organization DataCenter worked closely with Jones' Ella Baker Center. Coincidentally Nancy Frappier attended a Weather Underground organized Hard Times conference in 1976, with the late Ella J Baker herself.

Jon and Nancy Frappier have both donated to Jones' later creation, Green for All.

Diana Frappier, believed to be a relative of Jon and Nancy has worked with Van Jones in Copwatch and helped Jones found and run both Ella Baker and Green for All.

Jon Frappier has links to the Rag Blog, which lists among its contributors former Weather Underground leader Mark Rudd.

Van Jones was a leader of Bay Area Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM).

Mainly composed of young activists "of colour", STORM worked extremely closely with a grouping of older Maoists-mainly veterans of Line of March and the Venceremos Brigades to Cuba, most of whom in the early 1990's joined the Communist Party USA offshoot Committees of Correspondence (CoC).


Betita Martinez

Jones was very close to CoC activist Betita Martinez and her friend of thirty years Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Martinez and Dunbar-Ortiz have worked together on countless projects in the Bay Area including supporting Van Jones' War Times-anti Iraq War publication in 2002. the pair are now both advisors to the Catalyst Project, a Bay Area radical organization.

:Our advisory board brings together long-time mentors and comrades who have supported our political and organizational development over the years.

Van Jones and Martinez were both involved in a Catalyst Project "Challenging White Supremacy "workshop.

:"To solve the new century's mounting social and environmental problems, people of color activists and white activists need to be able to join forces. But all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration. The Challenging White Supremacy workshop is the most powerful tool that I have seen for removing the barriers to true partnerships between people of color and white folks. If the CWS trainings were mandatory for all white activists, the progressive movement in the United States would be unstoppable."

:-Van Jones, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

When former SDS and Line of March leader and Committees of Correspondence member Max Elbaum released his book "Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che" in 2002-Dunbar-Ortiz, Martinez and Van Jones contributed these comments;

:"In the many contentious interpretations of the volatile 1960s and their aftermath, one key element is virtually excluded: the independent Marxists who tried to develop a new collective revolutionary project...Finally, here is a book that tells their story, and mine.
:Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz


:Here is the first in-depth account of the New Communist Movement of the 1970s, from its roots to its demise, and finally we can understand why it inspired thousands of Americans at the time."
:Betita Martinez

:By unearthing a hidden history of radical US politics, Max Elbaum has erected an invaluable bridge between the generations. Finally, we have one book that can successfully connect the dots between the battles of the 1960s and the emerging challenges and struggles of the new century."
:Van Jones

A book also reveals some connection between Dunbar-Ortiz, Martinez and Jon Frappier. Susanne Jonas the author of The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, and US Power (Westview Press, 1991) thanks Elizabeth Martinez...Jon Frappier, who first introduced me to Guatemala in 1967... Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Richard Adams, Jorge Castafieda, Barbara Epstein.... for their help with the book.


Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals on her website;

:Dunbar-Ortiz was also a dedicated anti-war activist and organizer throughout the 1960s and 1970s. During the war years she was a fiery, indefatigable public speaker on issues of patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, and racism. She worked in Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade and formed associations with other revolutionaries across the spectrum of radical and underground politics, including the SDS, the Weather Underground, the Revolutionary Union....

As a footnote to the same piece former SDS and Weather Underground leader Mark Rudd adds;

:Roxanne Dunbar gives the lie to the myth that all New Left activists of the '60s and '70s were spoiled children of the suburban middle classes.

In 2006 a group of activists from Democratic Socialists of America, Committees of Correspondence, Communist Party USA and former members of SDS and the Weathermen joined forces to create a new organization Movement for A Democratic Society (MDS).

Key figures in MDS included all four of the key SDS/Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dorhn, Jeff Jones and Mark Rudd, plus several former SDS comrades who had rejected the Weathermen in the late 1960s to take the Maoist road to Revolution.

Dorhn, Jones and Rudd were all MDS board members as were former SDS leaders turned Maoist Carl Davidson and Mike Klonsky and unsurprisingly Betita Martinez and Roxanne-Dunbar Ortiz.

Several MDS leaders have known or worked with Obama in Chicago-including Ayers, Dorhn, Carl Davidson, Mike Klonsky and Rashid Khalidi. MDS chairman and Commmittees of Coorrespondence leader Manning Marable has written;

What makes Obama different is that he has also been a community organiser. He has read left literature, including my works, and he understands what socialism is.


Mark Rudd, far left, Marable centre, black shirt, Jeff Jones second from right MDS conference New York January 2007.

In early 2008 MDS board members Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher Jr(both Democratic Socialists of America members), Tom Hayden (former leader of SDS) and Carl Davidson established Progressives for Obama to rally far left support behind the Obama campaign. Mark Rudd has endorsed the organization.

MDS/Progressives for Obama has taken a strong interest in who gets appointed to the Obama administration.


Shortly after the November 2008 election, Mark Rudd wrote a column in The Rag Blog, to re-assure leftists alarmed at some of Obama's appointments.

:If you're anything like me, your inbox fills up daily with the cries and complaints of lefties. Just the mere mention of the names Hillary Clinton and Lawrence Summers alone conjure up a litany of horrendous right-wingers appointed to top level positions.

:Betrayal is the name of the game.

:But wait a second. Let's talk about a few things:

:Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn't blow it...But he also knew that what he said had to basically play to the center to not be run over by the press, the Republicans, scare centrist and cross-over voters away. He made it.

:Obama plays basketball. I'm not much of an athlete, barely know the game, but one thing I do know is that you have to be able to look like you're doing one thing but do another. That's why all these conservative appointments are important: the strategy is feint to the right, move left. Any other strategy invites sure defeat. It would be stupid to do otherwise in this environment.

:Look to the second level appointments. There's a whole govt. in waiting that Podesta has at the Center for American Progress. They're mostly progressives, I'm told (except in military and foreign policy). Cheney was extremely effective at controlling policy by putting his people in at second-level positions....

It will be no surprise to learn that Van Jones was a Fellow at the Center for American Progess.


Carl Davidson has been a huge fan of Van Jones and has pushed his barrow at every opportunity-just as he pushed Obama's in the 90s and early 00s.

In a March 2009 The Rag Blog review of Van Jones' book 'Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems' Carl Davidson wrote;

:It's time to link the newly insurgent U.S. Green Jobs movement with the worldwide efforts for the solidarity economy. Both are answering the call to fight the deepening global recession, and both face common adversaries in the failed "race to the bottom," environment-be-damned policies of global neoliberalism.

:That's the imperative facing left-progressive organizers with connections to these two important grassroots movements. It's even more important in the wake of the appointment of a key leader of one of these movements, Van Jones of "Green For All," to a top environmental and urban policy post in the Obama administration.

:"Green Collar Economy" was instantly a powerful voice in policy circles. It gained a wider and deeper significance in light of the financial crises that hit the fan soon after it reached the bookstores. Just as the voter revolt against Wall Street helped lift Obama to the Oval Office, so too was Van Jones's urban policy monograph raised into a "What Is To Be Done" manifesto for deep structural reforms capable of busting the onset of a major depression.

:Where Van Jones' approach to both the green and solidarity economies most compels our attention is that he starts where the need is greatest, the millions of unemployed and underemployed inner city youth. The structural crises of neoliberal capitalism has long ravaged this sector of our society through deindustrialization, environmental racism and a wrecking ball approach to schools in favor of more prisons. To borrow from Marx, these young people are bound with radical chains, and when they break them with the tools suggested in Green Collar Economy, they free not only themselves, but the rest of us are set in a positive direction as well.

:But Green Collar Economy's core mass base remains a united Black and Latino community in close alliance with organized labor, the same engine of change that put Obama in the White House. And by asserting the interests and needs of that base, the green jobs and infrastructure proposals in Obama's stimulus package serve to drive the entire recovery effort in a progressive direction.

Davidson also promoted Van Jones' vision at the Democratic Socialists of America runApril 2009 Left Forum at Pace University in New York.

:I had to quickly get to the next panel, since I was on it, and there was only about five minutes between sessions. "Building a Progressive Majority and Advancing a Vision of Socialism" was the title, and it was pulled together by my group, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and chaired by Pat Fry, an SEIU staffer.

:I led off by presenting Van Jones's program for Green Jobs for inner city youth, but framing it as a larger structural reform project that could, if done right, unite a progressive majority and help get us out of the current crisis. At the same time, we had to unite a militant minority around socialist tasks, so I offered the solidarity economy movement and its projects as practical examples of cooperative forms that could, within the capitalist present, point to a socialist future.

There you have it-sextegenarian Maoists, unforfilled Weathermen, socialists and communists are pushing their agenda in the White House through a mouthpiece they have promoted and nurtured over many years.


"Green Jobs" is a cover for increased socialization of the US economy-driven by a man who only seven years ago was an ultra militant San Francisco street communist.


Now hopefully, you have more understanding as to why Van Jones (and Barack Obama) hold the positions they do today.

Obama file 82 here