By Jim Simpson

Last night I read the draft of the speech Obama intends to deliver in a nationwide broadcast to our schoolchildren from Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA today, September 8, 2009. It is actually a good puff piece – a lot of stuff about personal responsibility, a lot of exhortations to be the best you can, fully develop your potential, etc., etc.

The speech starts by talking about how teachers, parents and government have a responsibility to provide a good education, however it turns on the following statement:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

These are perilous times. Last November’s election of Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats in both houses allowed a virulent criminal cabal to capture our nation’s seat of power. As with the Democrat takeover of Congress in 2006, it was a disaster of epic proportions. With one shocking, enormous, blatantly partisan, self-serving and destructive proposal following on the heels of another, the sheer enormity of their power grab defies description. But as each new proposal moves forward, the hand of the Crisis Strategy becomes clear.

If there was ever any doubt that Barack Obama personifies the Crisis Strategy, it should long since have been removed for anyone with a mind. Since so many Americans seem to have lost theirs, I address this to the rest of you. For with God’s help, it is you and I, not our gutless, hapless, corrupt politicians, nor our sleeping populace that will save this country or allow it to fall.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Crisis Strategy was the brainchild of two radical socialist college professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The idea was to overwhelm government with demands for services to the point where the system would collapse and provide an opening for the socialists to take over.

Their strategy was behind creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the 1960s and 1970s which dramatically increased the welfare roles and caused the near bankruptcy of New York City in 1975; creation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), prime instigators of the mortgage meltdown; the national Motor Voter law signed by President Clinton in 1993, which opened the floodgates to vote fraud by ACORN and similar groups; and the illegal immigrant amnesty movement. As we all should know by now, Barack Obama worked with and trained ACORN workers for many years, and is known and supported by all the major players in this movement.

Healthcare nationalization is a major component of this strategy. As Lenin said, “Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.” The Left has agitated almost since the turn of the last century for some kind of socialized healthcare system. In fact, from 1939 forward, practically every Congressional session proposed national healthcare legislation. As aptly described in an incisive analysis of Medicare by the Cato Institute:

For more than 50 years before the 1965 enactment of Medicare, the American people repeatedly rejected the idea of government-mandated health insurance. Yet advocates of such federal power inside and outside of government did not take no for an answer. Year after year they kept coming back--pursuing incremental strategies, misrepresenting their proposals, even distributing propaganda paid for with government money in apparent violation of existing law.

·                    Approximately $124 billion dollars is spent annually by the health care
profession to avoid medical liability.

·                    About $30 billion more is spent on direct liability lawsuit costs.

·                    Malpractice liability cost is 1 percent of GDP and increases the cost of healthcare by approximately 7 percent. 

·                    These added costs deny health insurance coverage to between 2.4 and 4.3 million people, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The increasing costs of medical care resulting from Medicare, Medicaid and the dramatic growth of malpractice lawsuits have provided activists with the rationale they need to agitate for socialized medicine. But this has been their strategy all along. Medicare and Medicaid were designed to undermine private healthcare, making it ever more expensive and unmanageable, until enough interest could be generated for systemic change. Similarly, changes in tort law aimed at turning our courts into vehicles for income redistribution have overburdened our legal system with massive caseloads and the highest liability costs in the world.

While doubtless many thought they were doing good, the ultimate goal, as elucidated by the Left, has everywhere and always been Socialism.

Furthermore, they grossly overstate the problem. We hear constantly about the “47 million uninsured.” These figures include 10 to 25 million illegal immigrants, 14 million people who are already eligible for medical benefits but haven’t availed themselves, and 10 million people earning $75,000 or more who could presumably afford their own insurance if they chose to. Even assuming the lowest estimate for illegal immigrants, the true number of uninsured would be only 13 million. Yet the Democrats want to nationalize the entire industry, currently 17 percent of GDP, to provide benefits to 4 percent of the U.S. population.

And while medical costs increase due largely to government manufactured problems, shrinking returns in the healthcare industry put doctors and hospitals out of business. Meanwhile, the astronomical cost of medical school plus this increasingly hostile atmosphere toward the private medical market is turning more and more qualified people away from the medical field entirely. Costs increase while supply decreases, the classic consequence of government intervention.

Yet Obama and the brain-dead Democrat Congress want to give us a government-run system that will guarantee magnitudes more of the same.

Can you see the Left laughing at you?

However, their true motives have finally been exposed. For seniors Obamacare essentially advocates euthanasia. Benefits will be drastically cut, and in some cases will become completely unavailable. As Obama said publicly: “Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” In other words, if you think you are going to die anyway, why don’t you just save us the money and go ahead…

For others it will mean a dramatic reduction in both the availability and quality of care. Obama’s health policy advisor Ezekiel Emmanuel (brother of Rahm Emmanuel) admits as much. He even wants doctors to reconsider the Hippocratic Oath:

Amazingly, Dr. Emanuel criticizes the Hippocratic Oath as partly to blame for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he wrote. Physicians take the "Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others." (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008.) Of course that is what patients hope their doctors will do. But Dr. Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their own patient and consider "social justice" (emphasis mine.) They should think about whether the money being spent on their patient could be better spent elsewhere.

Who in God’s green earth are these people?

The Left has relentlessly insisted for decades that we pay every penny for care of indigents, the poor, illegals and elderly to the point where hospitals are closing their doors because they can no longer afford it. But once given the opportunity to transfer this responsibility to the government, their message to the elderly and the rest of us is essentially: drop dead!

Let me put this as bluntly as possible. The Left has never cared about the elderly or the poor, but ruthlessly uses them as part of their long-term strategy to overburden private healthcare until it ultimately collapses. The same Leftists who so passionately demanded free healthcare for all now want euthanasia for seniors and dramatically lower services for the rest of us. It is a power grab, pure and simple. There is nothing more to it.

The Dems won’t cut benefits to the poor just yet though, because they still need their votes. Later on they will need them as hired muscle. But once they secure unchallengeable power, do you think they’ll care? They have willfully worked to destroy every beneficial thing in our society. These are vicious, selfish, utterly corrupt parasites. They have spent a lifetime abandoned to a philosophy that makes excuses for everything and anything in the service of one ultimate goal: absolute power.

These people have to be stopped. NOW.

I went to Senator Ben Cardin’s town hall meeting last Monday and came across a woman who had worked as a nurse in Britain’s public health system. She provided a personal anecdote which is little peek into what we can expect should we adopt the Democrats’ plan. Catherine Midkiff, RN RSN, has been a nurse since 1979 and lived in the UK in 1991 and 1992. She earned $10 per hour there, compared to the $22 per hour then being earned by nurses in the US. As an agency nurse she earned more than staff nurses. Those women had to live in a dormitory on site as their pay would not afford them private residences.

She said at St. George’s Hospital she worked on a seniors ward where 23 elderly men and women shared the same room. When she asked where the code cart was, her British counterparts laughed, saying, “Oh you must be from America…” For non-seniors, most British hospitals put six people in a room. Wait lists are extremely long. An elderly British citizen she knew came to the US to get heart surgery after waiting a full year in the UK system. Others weren’t so lucky. For many years, British hospitals had no trauma centers. Thousands died as a result.

For his part, Cardin simply perpetuated the smear against Obamacare protesters, claiming they were Republican stooges spreading disinformation. However, there were over 2,000 of us and only a handful of ACORN, union and party thugs. That we are no longer being fooled is becoming more and more apparent. The Dems control both houses of Congress so this remains an uphill battle, but if enough get the message that their careers are on the line, these utterly self-serving urchins may actually come around to our point of view, simply for sheer survival purposes.

We cannot let up. Not for a minute.

By Jim Simpson

Note: I am indebted to the incredible efforts of many bloggers, who did the yeoman’s work of ferreting out many of the hard-to-find facts in this article. I particularly want to thank David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks team, Trevor Loudon of New Zeal blog, Cliff Kincaid, Herb Romerstein, Max Friedman, and others too numerous to mention. Links to all their work is provided where appropriate.

Introduction

The United States of America is the world’s marketplace. Without the worldwide trade generated by American demand, the international marketplace will fail. Today we are witnessing an undeniable demonstration of this fact as world markets reel in response to our domestic financial crisis. This lesson must be burnt into our collective conscience. Our nation is the last repository of free market economic principles, and a fundamental change in our government toward socialism will spell worldwide economic disaster from which we may never recover.

Yet this is exactly the endgame of the American radical Left – increasingly indistinguishable from today’s Democrat Party – and offers the only internally consistent explanation for their historic obsession with divisive policy. From their early support of Hitler to their central role in the current financial crisis, the Left’s contribution to domestic and foreign policy at federal, state and local levels can only be described as wantonly destructive. Their takeover of schools and popular culture has been equally toxic. Their environmental radicalism has spawned the energy crisis, while offering no viable alternatives. It defies logic.

But there is logic, a deadly logic, and in the '60’s, two radicals gave it a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. As explained in my prior article, the goal was to create a groundswell of demands for public services to overwhelm government, create crisis and usher in a widespread call for fundamental economic reform at the federal level, with socialism the ultimate goal.

Democrats embrace the rhetoric of “compassion,” but look past the rhetoric to the results. This country is polarized as never before because of their relentless agitation for extremist positions on every issue, and the outrageous tactics they use to promote them. But while Radical Saul Alinsky’s tactics guide today’s Democrat electoral game plan, the Cloward-Piven Strategy describes the overarching goal of almost every leftwing organization/movement/ideal today.

How do they Survive?

These organizations rarely produce anything of value, yet are extremely adept at not only surviving but flourishing. Many receive their financial backbone from prominent philanthropies. They also receive subsidies and tax breaks with the help of friends in federal, state and local government. This fact is unknown to most voters, who would be outraged if they fully understood how their tax dollars were being spent. For example, the radical group, ACORN, responsible for widespread voter fraud this year, gets about 40 percent of its revenues from federal, state and local government.

Our mass media is mostly to blame for the current state of affairs. The Left’s strategies could not survive the light of day. Radicals require a sympathetic media to deliver their message in an acceptable fashion and actively suppress inconvenient facts that reveal these organizations’ true character and agenda. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is perhaps the most poignant current example of this. Without mass media’s shamelessly biased support, he would still be community organizing, or perhaps in jail.

It is a tangled web of radical interconnections with the ultimate goal being an end to our Constitutional framework, the fall of our Republic and its replacement with a radical vision of socialist utopia – finally removing the last major roadblock to world socialism.

These radical individuals are highly motivated, in many cases intelligent and talented, and sometimes even driven by what they would describe as altruistic motives. Yet the impacts of socialist central planning are inarguably destructive.

Marx may have had some interesting insights on history, but despite his ponderous three volume “Das Kapital” he was no economist. Instead, Kapital provided the intellectual excuse for Marx’s anarchistic Communist Manifesto.

And the severe verdict of history on his perverted vision is without equal: over 100 million people murdered by their own governments in times of peace, more than all the wars of history combined. The rest face abject poverty, mass starvation, economic and environmental ruin, all overseen by smothering, indescribably brutal governments – a grey, barren existence for all but the apparatchiks.

So why are so many Westerners infatuated with this demented vision?

Entrepreneurial Parasites

The high-minded types are driven by a galling sense of superiority. They are addicted to their own egos. They know better and can defy the verdict of history because people as smart as they are weren’t around when Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, Ethiopia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, etc., went Red.

Living well in affluent, capitalist America, it is all theoretical, so they can indulge their fantasies while promoting this destructive agenda with impunity. For these people ignorance is literally a blessing, for if they soberly analyzed their ego-driven beliefs, they would be embarrassed.

If you examine their pasts closely, you learn that most of these people also came from upper class backgrounds. PhD Chemistry Professor George Wiley, the black radical who led Cloward and Piven’s National Welfare Rights Organization, was a well-to-do son of a Rhode Island family.

Wade Rathke, the NWRO veteran who started ACORN, was from a similarly well-to-do background, although he dropped out of Williams College.

Obama’s radical friend Bill Ayers’ family was very wealthy. Looking at his arrest photos, and listening to his smug self-righteousness, you really get the impression that he was little more than an arrogant, spoiled brat, with a titanic sense of entitlement that allowed him to rationalize mass murder.

This is a familiar story throughout the American left and indeed with many of the most infamous communist leaders around the world. For example, Communist China’s first leader, Mao Zedong, the inspiration for Ayers and many other radicals, was son of the wealthiest man in his home town.

According to the incredible biography, Mao: the Unknown Story, he was lazy, arrogant, and refused to work, despite his father’s repeated attempts to find him suitable employment. He finally saw an opportunity for real advancement working for the Soviets. During the Long March he was carried by porters.

As young idealists, many of these people are initially snared into this ideology by the exaggerated sense of self-importance that is often a characteristic of youth. But we all have to live, and as they grow up they discover that the radical profession can be a pretty lucrative racket. Despite their high-minded rhetoric about saving the poor and oppressed, communists and socialists are what I call entrepreneurial parasites.

Consider what they demand of us: sacrifice of all worldly goods to the state, penurious, barren lifstyles, slavish observance of their dictates and full-time commitment to the well-being of the state, while our jobs, careers, industries, the environment, even our lives are threatened. But how do they live?

Obama’s pal Ayers, who describes himself as a “small ‘c’ communist,” lives in a lavish home, in the upscale Hyde Park neighborhood, with a six-figure (or more) income. It is easy to see how, given the open spigot of money his organizations receive from the various non-profit funds he’s ingratiated himself to. Bill Ayers father, Tom, had been CEO of Commonwealth Edison, so he’s used to money, and later developments in his career point to a hand up from Daddy.

Barack lives in Hyde Park too. It is difficult to find anyone in the American Marxist elite who doesn’t fully enjoy the fruits of capitalism in his or her personal life. In fact, Obama’s early career seems to have been centered on dispensing foundation money as a means to secure his career in politics. Here and here are perfect examples. But more about this later.

Marxist austerity is only meant for the rest of us.

This taste for wealth is not limited to American socialists. Every socialist dictator from Stalin to Saddam has lived in opulent surroundings with multiple estates, scores of servants and every kind of luxury and indulgence available to them.

See for example, Gorbachev’s dacha in Foros, Crimea; a testament to communist modesty if ever there was one. Same with all the leaders of communist countries. Indeed, Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was murdered for his extensive reporting on the opulent, decadent lifestyles of Bulgarian Communist leaders. It’s a good racket, if you don’t mind blood.

While socialist leaders live in lavish style, in every country where socialist policies are imposed, they measurably worsen the lives of everyday citizens in direct proportion to their scope. Even countries with vast natural resources, like Russia, founder because their economies are constructed on the fatally flawed economic principles of socialism.

Despite this, they still manage to live on, in many cases hanging by mere threads for years.

How?

The dirty little secret of socialism is that it cannot survive without capitalism – capitalist countries provide the resources necessary for these socialist governments to continue. In addition to providing a market for their goods, Western nations keep socialist countries afloat through grants and loans from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other governmental institutions, as well as huge investments by private companies.

Even China, widely misunderstood as the next “free market,” only practices market economics one-way in international trade while maintaining iron fisted central planning internally, and could not maintain its current level of economic growth without the markets provided by the United States and other Western countries.

Finally, there is a vast network of American enterprises, owned covertly by foreign dictators, whose true purpose is to provide underground income for these leaders and their socialist governments, while offering convenient cover for industrial and military spies. This fact is rarely mentioned and largely unknown.

At its core, socialism can only be parasitic. It cannot survive without its capitalist host. Therefore, if the United States becomes a socialist country, worldwide capital will soon dry up. Remaining market economies around the world will succumb either to their own internal socialist movements or direct military threat from abroad. Without the protective umbrella of American military might, they will have no other choice.

Without the markets and resources capitalist economies provide, the many socialist countries that have survived on our largesse until now will find their income stream shut off. The world will plunge into an unprecedented, cataclysmic depression. This depression will be of indeterminate length because the wherewithal for recovery – a large capitalist economy – will no longer exist. With a world controlled by parasites, the host will die.

At this point even the parasites will be in danger. The socialists’ internationalist agenda truly is a Conspiracy of the Lemmings. It is not merely a criminal conspiracy, it is criminally insane.

Barack Hussein Obama has been chosen as standard bearer to bring this agenda to fruition here. If he is elected we can expect a sea change in Washington. But it will not be for the better. The socialist economic agenda he has publicly articulated is enough in the current financial crisis to plunge our economy into deep recession. The disarmament agenda he has publicly articulated is enough to strip us of the meager defenses we currently have against a rogue missile attack, and Iran has already telegraphed plans to launch such an attack.

What is even more frightening is the agenda he has not shared, but is implicit in his radical upbringing, his radical connections, and his limited but demonstrative experience.

Obama’s Radical Roots

Are we beating this subject to death? Sorry, we have to. And there’s much more, if you still need convincing. Obama hates being “associated” with radical individuals and organizations. But the truth is he hasn’t been associated with them at all, he has been immersed in them. He is one of them. And it goes back to his youth.

There is no doubt that “Frank” in Obama’s Dreams from My Father is longtime communist Frank Marshall Davis. It is probable that Davis convinced Obama to initiate his career in radical-friendly Chicago – birthplace of the American Communist Party – where Davis was a very active communist party member before moving to Hawaii.

Obama was inspired by Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, even writing for a job in his administration. Washington’s successful campaign relied on a coalition of the American Communist Party, Democratic Socialists of America and other radicals. Washington may have been a secret communist party member himself.

Finally, given his unwillingness to release his birth certificate, some are conjecturing that Davismay be Obama’s father. If so, it explains a lot about Obama’s very radical political orientation. But it is not necessary in order to make the connections.

From Obama’s earliest days as a community organizer and throughout his political career, he has been involved with and supported by a broad network of radical groups. It is likely that he was similarly influenced in college, but since he won’t release any information about classes, grades, teachers, clubs or affiliations – no information whatsoever – we don’t have a complete picture.

Who Sent You?

There is an old story about getting into Chicago politics that ends with the quote: “We don't want nobody that nobody sent.” According to this article, the person who “sent” Obama was former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers. The reasons are many and compelling.

Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) – Ayers chaired the Chicago School Reform Collaborative which was responsible for recruiting Barack Obama to chair the board of CAC in 1995. Barack remained chairman until 1999 and stayed with the board until CAC folded in 2001. Obama and Ayers shared the same 50 X 50 3^rd floor office for three years when Obama chaired the CAC. How is it they didn’t know each other? By the way, the CAC was not endowed with $49.2 million, as initially reported. Matching grants and tax dollars brought the total to three times that amount.

In addition to his work on CAC, Ayers ran the Small Schools Workshop out of the same address. Another former SDSer, Mike Klonsky co-chaired the Workshop and shared that office as well. Remember that name. Despite Chicago’s failing schools, this project was intended to create charter schools focused not on basic skills, but developing young anti-capitalist partisans.

As chairman of CAC, working from the same office, Obama gave over $1 million to the Small Schools Workshop run by Ayers and Klonsky. Oh yes, Klonksy’s wife, Susan worked there too. She was also a former SDS member. Just one big happy family. Obama apparently also managed to show his appreciation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s causes with CAC largesse.

But Obama’s relationship with Ayers may go back much further than that. According to NationMaster.com encyclopedia:

The [Chicago School Reform] Collaborative was the operative on the ground body of the Challenge. It was made up of representatives of various constituencies in the Chicago school reform movement. That reform movement had begun in 1987in the wake of an unpopular strike by Chicago teachers. Bill Ayers was active in that reform effort through a group called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. ABCs was an alliance of various activists and reform groups that included the Developing Communities Project which Barack Obama headed up at the time as well as Chicago United, a business sector group, that was headed up by Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers. (Emphases mine.)

Thomas Ayers was the liberal former CEO of the Consolidated Edison (ConEd) power utility and was very active in Chicago education issues. ConEd was a client of Sidley & Austin, a prestigious Chicago law firm, and senior partner Howard Trienens was chief counsel to ConEd. Trienens also worked with Tom Ayers on the Board of Northwestern University. Bernardine Dohrn worked at Sidley until 1988, despite no law license or experience and was hired, according to Trienens, as a favor to “friends.” She subsequently got a teaching job at Northwestern. Another favor?

Obama left for Harvard in 1988 but returned the next summer to intern with Sidley. How did he get that job? Michelle Robinson (Obama) also worked for Sidley at the time and was Obama’s supervisor. They were married in 1992. Given the time they spent at the same firm, Michelle probably knew Bernardine as well.

Barack later became chairman of the board of the Woods Fund (1999-2002). In this position he funneled millions to ACORN and other radical groups. The Woods family ran the fund until 1990, when it was taken over by George Kelm, who moved it politically to the left. Frank Woods Jr., the Fund administrator until 1980 also headed an Illinois coal company, Sahara Coal, which supplied ConEd, so it is likely the Ayers family was already familiar with the Fund and its principals.

Obama also served on the Board of the Joyce Foundation from 1994-2001. This organization funds a large number of gun control groups and did so during Obama’s tenure. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was also one of Joyce’s grant recipients. Obama worked for them too. During Obama’s time at Woods and Joyce, those funds gave another $900 thousand to Small Schools. They also funded Bill Ayers’ brother John’s organization, Leadership for Quality Education, to the tune of $761,000. Obama worked on that board too! One very happy family.

Despite receiving almost $2 million in funding, the Small Schools Workshop and all of the other CAC initiatives were failures. Now, you could argue that Obama was only one Board member. But on the Woods board at least he was one of six. Bill Ayers was another. To suggest he didn’t know about Ayers ideology and aspirations for the grants he was making would be to accuse him of abandoning his fiduciary responsibility. Would you expect that kind of incompetence from a Presidential candidate?

The way many radicals stay in business is by insinuating themselves onto various philanthropic boards, then dispensing grant monies to friends and fellow travelers, who in turn show their gratitude later. The organizations become a revolving door for these people, who move back and forth between them, or create new ones that they run with grants from their friends. Most American philanthropic organizations have been thusly captured by radicals, often perverting the organization’s mission in a way that would horrify the founders if they knew. But most are dead.

In the case of Ayers, it appears he was dispensing a lot of philanthropy money, through Barack Obama, right back to himself in organizations he created and ran for the purpose – the perfect entrepreneurial parasite. Note that little has come from all his efforts, other than to “mainstream” his lunatic fringe, destructive vision.

This method is also a perfect vehicle to groom someone for public office. Friends use their influence to help the aspiring politician secure a position of influence in a wealthy philanthropy. Using philanthropy money, the aspirant dispenses grants and aid back to those friends and others who later use their influence and connections to smooth the skids for the official candidacy. Once in office, the successful candidate uses his newfound influence to turn around and help his friends again. I believe this is the model Obama used to promote his political career.

But there’s still more. When the CAC folded in 2001, they set up a follow-on organization called the Chicago Public Education Fund. Barack stayed on that board too, in an advisory role. One of the twelve board members was Penny Pritzker, currently the national finance chair of Obama’s presidential campaign. Penny is notorious as the former chairman of the failed Superior Bank. She led the bank into substantial subprime mortgage investments, then cooked its books so she and her family, already one of the wealthiest in the country, could take record profits while the bank slowly failed. Wait a minute. That sounds just like Frank Raines, Obama’s economics advisor, who did the same thing at Fannie Mae! Birds of a feather?

Pritzker was named in a class-action RICO lawsuit, and her family settled with the FDIC for a record $450 million in order to avoid another lawsuit. But the way it was structured, her family may yet come out ahead. Many depositors lost their life savings. These are the “champions of the middle class” Obama likes to work with.

As if all this weren’t enough, it now appears that Ayers may have ghostwritten or at least heavily edited Obama’s “Dreams From My Father.” Obama got an astounding $125,000 advance in 1990 from Simon & Schuster for this first book. They dropped him because he was taking too long. He got a second advance for $40,000 from Random House. The book was finally published in 1995, the same time Ayers got him on the CAC board and helped launch his political career. Passages in his and Ayers’ book use many similar unusual metaphors and phraseology, and the writing is of distinctly higher quality than Obama’s scant and sophomoric efforts of earlier days. Obama, meanwhile, wrote a glowing review of one of Ayers books, here.

The media could easily reveal that Obama is more than just casual friends with Bill Ayers and that he’s a radical to boot. The Los Angeles Times has a video tape of a farewell party given to departing University of Chicago professor Rashid Khalidi, a former advisor to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. (Yes, he’s a “professor too!”) This video shows Obama lavishing praise on the former terrorist. Next up is Obama’s “neighbor” Bill Ayers. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Just for perspective, watch and hear what a former FBI assistant director has to say about Ayers. Or watch this hilarious video where Ayers calls the police to avoid an O’Reilly Factor reporter. As Bill O’Reilly observed, given that Ayers tried to bomb the police years ago, that is indeed ironic.

But the most chilling of all is the testimony given by FBI informant Larry Grathwohl. See it here in this clip from a 1982 documentary. The Weather Underground planned to build re-education camps in the American Southwest. Those who wouldn’t submit to the program would be murdered. The Underground estimated they would have to kill about 25 million Americans. Grathwohl was assigned to Bill Ayers. Following is a summary of his impressions:

Grathwohl found Ayers hard to love; he seemed self-important, a controller of subordinates, the type who loved to give orders. Ayers was a key leader. Grathwohl, a government informant, wrote that Ayers had helped direct a pair of attempted police building bombings in Detroit in February 1970. After doing his assigned job in reconnaissance, Grathwohl disagreed with Mr. Ayers over the placement of one bomb, which could easily kill black patrons who favored an adjacent restaurant, but that Ayers dismissed such sentimentality as unrevolutionary. The informant was glad to be dismissed from the operation by Ayers. Forty-four sticks of dynamite were then formed into two bombs and put into place, before Grathwohl’s information allowed police to dismantle both. Ayers’ memoir — which freely admits to incompleteness — says nothing of this episode, or Detroit, or the month of February 1970.

A big question about Obama’s early life is who paid for it? Who paid for his Columbia and Harvard educations? Who were his patrons? One was Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour. Mansour, who’s name in an earlier life was Don Warden, is a virulently racist black nationalist with ties to the Saudi royal family, specifically Prince Alaweed. After 9-11 Alaweed offered $10 million to New York City but was turned down by Mayor Giuliani when Alaweed suggested we were to blame for 9-11. See a video about Mansour here. For someone who never heard Rev. Wright’s hateful speeches, Obama sure knows how to pick ‘em. Newsmax has a good backgrounder, here.

Another patron is Tony Rezko. His relationship with Obama seems to have been a fairly straight forward you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours scenario. Obama’s law firm worked on Rezko projects and Obama helped Rezko businesses with legislation and Woods Fund grants. There’s more to this story, but I’d have to write a book.

Obama’s Radical Support Network

Obama has been groomed and supported by such a large number of radical groups it is difficult to chart it all. But the following list represents the best known and significant groups that have provided the intellectual grounding for his ideology and the material support for his political campaigns:

Democratic Socialists of America – The DSA describes itself as “the largest socialist organization in the U.S. and principle U.S. affiliate of the socialist international” which traces its roots to Marx’s first organization. DSA has endorsed Obama and provided an army of on-the-ground campaign workers. Their members are even boasting credit for the success of his ground game. This organization is probably the largest base of Obama’s support. The DSA endorsed Obama as far back as 1996, when he first launched his political career.

Here is what the DSA has to say in their endorsement of Obama for President:

While recognizing the critical limitations of the Obama candidacy and the American political system, DSA believes that the possible election of Senator Obama to the presidency in November represents a potential opening for social and labor movements to generate the political momentum necessary to implement a progressive political agenda. (Emphasis added.)

WorldNetDaily did an expose on the DSA in 1999, revealing their direct link with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, of which Nancy Pelosi was a prominent member. Following this revelation, DSA edited its website, removing the links between the two organizations and some other damaging information. As WND relates:

Prior to the cleanup of its website in 1999, the DSA included a song list featuring "The Internationale," the worldwide anthem of communism and socialism. Another song on the site was "Red Revolution" sung to the tune of "Red Robin." The lyrics went: "When the Red Revolution brings its solution along, along, there'll be no more lootin' when we start shootin' that Wall Street throng. ..." Another song removed after WorldNetDaily's expose was "Are You Sleeping, Bourgeoisie?" The lyrics went: "Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie. And when the revolution comes, We'll kill you all with knives and guns, Bourgeoisie, Bourgeoisie.” (Emph. mine.)

Newsflash to you “middle class” families Obama trying to woo with tax cut promises, you are the bourgeoisie!

Communist Party USA (CPUSA) – Started in Chicago in 1919, the American Communist Party was under the control of the Soviet KGB until 1989, and may still be under the guidance of KGB successor SVR. While the CPUSA provides fertile recruiting ground for espionage agents in government and business, its main purpose was to provide the Soviets or “Russians” if you prefer, a back door entrance into our political system. The Communist Party supports a political platform virtually identical to Obama’s in many aspects. See the chart below. There is, of course, no doubt about who they support, and their endorsement largely parrots what DSA has to say.

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) – Another CPUSA splinter group with many Communist Party members and a hodgepodge of others. Early Obama patron Carl Davidson serves on the CCDS National Council. He was prominent in the New Party, which Obama joined.

New Party – A political party that promoted electoral fusion, formed of DSA, ACORN, CCDS and CPUSA members. Barack joined the New Party early in his political career and according to the DSA “encouraged NPers to join his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.” So not only was he a member of an avowedly socialist organization, he encouraged its members to work with him. Cloward Piven Strategy co-author Frances Fox Piven was also a New Party member. Carl Davidson was also a prominent member. The New Party folded when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling making electoral fusion more problematic – though it is still practiced in a few states, notably New York. But many New Party members were instrumental in creating the umbrella group, Progressives for Obama.

Students for a Democratic Society (recently revived) – This newly reformed SDS has 130 or more chapters in the U.S. as of this writing and was designed to attract young radicals into the fold. This SDS was behind much of the violence at the Republican Party convention in Minnesota this year.

Movement for a Democratic Society – Yet another new party, this time created for the SDS old-timers. MDS and SDS are mutually supportive, with MDS supplying the brains and SDS supplying the brawn. This organization includes the old SDS members we are getting to know: Ayers, Dohrn, Davidson, Klonsky, and many others. Most of the radicals closely associated with Obama have an SDS past. This group founded Progressives for Obama.

Black Radical Congress – Founded in 1998 in Chicago by some New Party leaders and other black radicals. Endorsed by prominent CPUSA members and has many ties to that group. Member Bill Fletcher was a co-founder of Progressives for Obama.

Progressives for Obama – Founded by Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich and Danny Glover. Carl Davidson is webmaster. All but Glover are MDS members. Glover is considered a socialist although he is not a listed DSA member.

New Black Panther Party – A friendly bunch as you can see from their website. All you need to do is watch this video. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Interestingly, the endorsement formerly posted on Obama’s website, visible in the video and here, has been removed. The Panthers explain this embarrassment here. These people are real losers.

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) – this group needs no introduction. In addition to being at the heart of the mortgage meltdown, ACORN is being cited once again for widespread voter fraud in 15 states. Given ACORN’s boast of registering 1.5 million new voters this year, it is possible this election could be decided by fraudulent votes. In the meantime, it has been revealed that the Obama Campaign has paid at least $800,000 to an ACORN subsidiary for get-out-the-vote efforts. That the media has overlooked this glaring conflict of interest is astounding. Meanwhile, Obama has lied through his teeth about his longstanding ties to the group.

ACORN gets a sizeable share of its revenues from federal, state and local government subsidies. House Republican leader John Boehner’s office estimated ACORN received at least $31 million from the feds since 1998. Despite government largesse, ACORN owes almost $4 million in back taxes, going back almost 20 years. A full report on this, along with funding sources and a good history of its activities and principals can be seen here. Boehner and others are calling on Congress to “defund ACORN.”

But this isn’t the whole story.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 passed in July puts about $500 million per year into the National Housing Trust Fund. This is separate from the huge amount the Democrats wanted to add in the October bailout bill, and there’s probably some in that too, though I haven’t checked.

The Trust Fund objects to Republican calling it a “slush fund for ACORN.” They claim that “ACORN is ineligible to apply for or receive any dollars from the National Housing Trust Fund.” But this is a deception. Another component of the Bill gives $100 million to the “Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation” for 2008. A list of grantees is here. ACORN Housing is 4^th on the list, receiving $7.9 million. Similarly, if ACORN cannot receive grants directly from the Trust Fund, I am sure they are adept at getting handouts from grantees.

When the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006, I called it an electoral disaster of epic proportions. It gets worse by the day.

Radical Individuals Who Shaped Obama’s Agenda

Frank Marshall Davis – Communist Party member who was investigated by the FBI for 19 years. Had perhaps the most profound effect on Obama and probably pointed him toward Chicago.

Carl Davidson – SDS, MDS, CPUSA, CCDS, leadership position in New Party, supported Obama early on. Davidson’s recently declassified FBI file reveals that he traveled to Cuba and worked with the Cubans during the Vietnam War to sabotage our war effort. He was a traitor.

Mike Klonsky – SDS, led the Maoist Communist Party - Marxist.Leninist (CPML). Although he never joined the Weathermen, Klonsky’s FBI file shows the same activity as Davidson. Davidson was also a member of Mike’s CPML.

Tom Hayden – SDS, MDS, Founder, Progressives for Obama. Also the subject of FBI surveillance.

Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn – Need we say more about him? Read about their treasonous interaction with Cuban intelligence here. Dohrn is, if anything, an even bigger whack job than Ayers. Watch her in a 1998 interview with ABC’s Connie Chung, here, and another short gem here.

A report has come out summarizing everything these people did. You can read it here. The FBI file, some 400 plus pages, is available here.

Frances Fox Piven, longtime DSA member, who also served on the boards of the ACLU and the DSA, was the co-author of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. She was one of the original signatories of Progressives for Obama. She was also a New Party member. Her husband, Richard Cloward, died in 2001, so fortunately can do no more damage than he already has.

Last January Piven also signed a separate letter opposing Hillary and endorsing Obama’s Presidency from an organization called “New York Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama.” You can hear her defend Karl Marx in an NPR interview, May 1, 1996, here.

Finally, we have George Soros, his Open Society Institute and other “philanthropies.” Soros has publicly stated his belief that “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States,” and it is necessary to “puncture the bubble of American supremacy. From a FrontPage Magazine interview with author Richard Poe:

Most Americans do not realize that the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 was a Trojan Horse.  Its stated purpose was to reform campaign finance law. Its actual effect is to regulate political speech. McCain-Feingold was a Shadow Party initiative. Soros and a group of leftwing foundations spent over $140 million to get it passed. 

As part of the plan, before the legislation even passed, Soros’ group intended to set up previously unheard of “527” organizations to get around the legislation they helped author. Republicans were, as usual, in the dark. Now the 527’s like MoveOn.org, heavily funded with Soros money, do his bidding. Soros also managed to get himself and others like him exempted from donation caps in the campaign finance reform law. Finally, it is difficult to know if Soros has had any influence in our current financial crisis, but he certainly has had a hand in others.

As mentioned in my earlier Crisis article, one of SDS’s orginal founders, Aryeh Neier now runs Soros’ Open Society Institute. One VERY BIG happy family.

But it gets better still! Director of the Open Society Policy Center is Morton Halperin, who has spent a lifetime working against the interests of the United States. According to a prominent former State Department official: “Halperin has been known on embassy [briefing] cards as a Soviet or communist agent.” Bill Clinton tried to get him an appointment to the Department of Defense, but Republicans successfully fought the nomination, citing security concerns.

Halperin’s son, Mark, has been the Political Director of ABC News since 1997. He penned the infamous memo in 2004, telling journalists to ignore John Kerry misstatements while magnifying Bush’s. From Discover The Networks:

We have a responsibility," Halperin's memo continued, "to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable…”

Now we begin to understand where the media bias comes from. Similar partisans are highly placed in almost every other television news show, with the possible exception of Fox.

Obama’s Policy Positions Indistinguishable from Communists and Socialists

Obama’s website offers a much more “nuanced” explanation of his policies, but on the critical issues listed below, there is remarkable similarity to the Communist and Socialist positions on almost every issue. In fact, one might easily conclude he was inspired by them, since they were there first and their positions almost never change.

Obama has openly admitted that he wants to raise top marginal tax rates back to “Reagan Era” levels, although his most recent campaign literature says “Clinton Era” levels. His website tax issue page also states: “Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the tax cuts they have received over the past eight years.” This means retroactive tax increases to 2001!

In a 2001 radio interview, Obama considers Supreme Court’s failure to consider “redistribution of income” as a shortcoming that needs to be remedied.

As this video makes startlingly clear, Obama promises to make deep cuts in defense spending and gut our defense posture, regardless of the more “nuanced” tone of his website. Obama is unequivocal in his call for universal health insurance, although once again, his website muddies this fact with promises of tax credits for private insurance. His preference for the UN and other international bodies not particularly friendly to the U.S. is well known.

Obama fully supports the very deceptively named “Employee Free Choice Act,” which abolishes the secret ballot and forces employees to reveal how they vote on union issues. A setup for union intimidation, this unprecedented legislation is truly Orwellian. If you want some shocking perspective, even Nixon-era, far left former presidential candidate George McGovern has gone on the warpath against this very anti-democratic legislation, with an article, a commercial and multiple TV interviews.

Radical Help Waiting in the Wings

There is a ready pool of radicals waiting to push Obama’s agenda in Congress.

Congressional Progressive Caucus – Largest partisan caucus in the House of Representatives – with 71 members comprises about 1/3 of all House Democrats. Avowed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) retains his membership. The Caucus maintained a formal relationship with the DSA until 1999, when an article by WorldNetDaily exposed the links between the two.

Congressional Black Caucus – at the center of the mortgage crisis, the congressional black caucus welcomed the newly minted Senator Obama in 2005 with a sickeningly toadying speech by the CEO of Fannie Mae. As we all know by now, Obama received more money from Fannie Mae in his three short years as Senator than anyone other than Finance Chairman Chris Dodd. Why? No one has asked!

Some have conjectured that Obama may not really be all that radical himself. Maybe somehow he has just played along with these groups to get their support. I doubt it, but even were it true, so what? It should be painfully apparent to anyone reading this that Obama has committed himself too deeply and owes too much to too many to abandon the radical path he has taken. Isn’t that why they supported him in the first place?

What did Biden Mean?

Earlier this week, Joe Biden made some astounding comments on the campaign trail, not once, but on two different occasions. Following are Biden’s words, as quoted by Amanda Carpenter. There were two separate statements, of equal import as far as I am concerned, and I will try to interpret each in turn:

1.                  "Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," Biden said. "I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

2.                  "Gird your loins," Biden warned. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Regarding the first statement, moronic as it was of him to say so, Biden is right. Our enemies will certainly see vulnerability with Obama as President. Now, as to his remark that “…it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right,” I believe that what he means is that Obama will back down from any confrontation. Here’s why.

Both Barack and Biden are anti-war. But to truly understand the anti-war movement you have to go back to the beginning and get correct working definitions.

If you recall during the Vietnam War, America’s peace activists never had a problem with North Vietnamese flagrant violations of peace agreements, their double-dealing in negotiations, their torture of U.S. POWs, their mass murder of South Vietnamese after we pulled out, or their genocidal holocaust against the indigenous tribes that is ongoing to this day. The silence is deafening.

Our enemies seemingly can do no wrong. Even when al Zarkawi began beheading Americans in Iraq, who did the “peace activists” blame? They certainly weren’t calling for his head!

It seems inconsistent that a “peace” movement’s “anti-war” stance would be so overtly pro-war when it comes to our enemies. But there is a rational, logical explanation, believe it or not.

From their earliest days, Soviet communists always professed an ardent desire for “peace.” They have been relentless in making that claim. However, they have a unique definition of peace:

Lenin said: “As long as capitalism and Socialism exist, we cannot live in peace… In the end, one or the other will triumph.” William E. Odom explains: “The Soviet definition of Peace is unique and incompatible with Western definitions. Defense, in this peculiar Soviet sense, means offense. Peace means the destruction of all non-socialist states… peaceful coexistence was a strategy for irreconcilable struggle, political and military, with capitalism. Peaceful coexistence remains Soviet strategy today.”

To the Soviets, “peace” is defined as that point in history when all Soviet enemies, real or potential, are utterly destroyed. This definition does not only refer to external enemies. It includes all enemies. Thus, while maintaining an offensive posture to the world, in Soviet Russia, Lenin and Stalin murdered 40 million of their own. In China, Mao and his monsters murdered 70 million; Vietnam, 2 million; Cambodia, 2 million, Soviet-controlled Afghanistan, 1 million, Saddam’s Iraq, at least 300,000, and so on. All other communist countries do the same. It is communist doctrine to obliterate any and all enemies, real, potential or imagined – within and when possible, without.

Western “peace” activists fully understand the Soviet definition, and therefore believe that “world peace” can only be achieved when all the enemies of socialism are destroyed – in other words, when the entire world becomes socialist. Since peace activists are almost all socialists themselves, by working for socialism, they believe they are automatically working for world “peace.”

Finally, many of the so-called “peace” activists were overtly pro-war. Bill Ayers’ 1974 diatribe “Prairie Fire” specifically stated that they were not anti-war at all, but in favor of Communist victory in the Vietnam War.

But even if you take the most benign view of “peace activism,” properly understood, it means that peace activists will seek capitulation to the communist juggernaut, if only to avoid the war that is otherwise certain to come.

Now, I know what you are saying, that communism is supposedly dead. The Soviet Union was defeated by Reagan, SDI, etc. Ignoring for a moment the Chinese Communist elephant in the tent, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and all the other unrepentant communist countries, or the fact that communism has been enjoying a worldwide resurgence lately and themounting fear that Russia never really abandoned it, regardless, socialists in this country and elsewhere remain determined to see capitalism fall – it is their raison d’etre – and America is the last bastion of capitalism.

Remember, this is the ultimate goal of the Cloward Piven Strategy, and it matters little how they get there.

So Socialist Obama, believing as he does that the answer to everything is socialism, will do everything possible to undermine our defense posture, as he has already promised. And because he is interested in replacing our capitalist society with a socialist one, if we are attacked he will not fight. As he has promised, he will prefer to “negotiate without preconditions.” Hence Biden’s statement that “… it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right.”

If the aggressor is one of the large communist countries, he will capitulate. North Korea? He will do nothing. After all, their aggression is our fault – sorry, Bush’s fault. But what happens if the aggressor is Iran? For some reason he is unafraid of a Muslim Caliphate. Perhaps that is because he knows, like some of the rest of us, that the Muslims and Leftists are working together to destroy this country.

Biden’s second comment, ending with the line: “This is a systemic problem (emphasis mine) we have with this economy,” is also chilling. It suggests he believes the capitalist system is the problem – not a big surprise if you accept my argument that this is a socialist ticket. And you cannot conclude differently if you acknowledge the fact that Obama’s economic policies are socialist to the core. It reaffirms what we have been predicting for a while now: a President Obama will quickly begin moving this country into the socialist camp with his socialist economic policies.

Both statements reinforce the impression that we are in for bad times if Obama is elected – bad times most Americans cannot begin to imagine. Thanks for the heads up, Joe.

This election may well be the most important in our nation’s history. An Obama presidency could not come at a worse time. The world economy stand on the edge of an abyss. If enacted, Obama’s socialist class warfare economic policies will push it right over the edge and we could see the nightmare scenario outlined earlier come to fruition. As it stands now, the market is already reacting to fears of Obama’s socialist economic policies.

Perhaps this is the place to also note that Hillary backers are claiming widespread vote fraud and intimidation from the Obama camp during the primaries. They have produced a video, here. Read a summary, here and an exhaustive study, here. Now comes the October surprise. A letter from Hillary’s campaign sent to the Nevada Democrat State Party Chair alleges:

“…a premeditated and predesigned plan by the Obama campaign to engage in systematic corruption of the Party’s caucus procedures. Compounding this blatant distortion of the caucus rules was an egregious effort by the Obama campaign to manipulate the voter registration process in its own favor, thereby disenfranchising countless voters. Finally, the committee has received a vast number of reliable reports of voter suppression and intimidation by the Obama campaign or its allies.” (Emphasis mine.)

The media silence on this story that surfaced on October 23 is DEAFENING!

When Obama said: “We are the ones We have been waiting for” he was talking about “we the communists.”

I can only hope and pray that it is not too late for our great country. John McCain is the only viable option.

Do not vote for Barack Obama!

Dear God:

I pray for the fallen, those brave souls who gave their all for this country, never flinching from their duty, whatever they were called to do, and whether the leadership decisions that brought them to their last mission were well considered or not. They have given all they had, without question.

But God, I pray also for the rest of us, for we lose too. We lose what could have been, from among the most selfless, principled, promising souls of our living generations. I would gladly exchange any ten Harvard graduates for one serviceman who willingly walks at the knifepoint. He has more guts, more integrity, more fortitude and likely more resourcefulness than the lot of them combined.

So, God, please let not their ultimate sacrifice be in vain. See to it that the objectives they were deployed to obtain are achieved. See to it that we have the satisfaction of realizing their mission successfully concluded. God, preserve this country for which they gave their lives, and give us all the wisdom, humility, and virtue to fully comprehend and gratefully acknowledge their sacrifices for what they are; for "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13).

Amen

By Jim Simpson 

If the word “change” was a female, today she would be hiding in a shelter for battered women. Everywhere we hear the trumpet call for change. Change in Iraq, change in healthcare, change in our economy, change in Washington – change, change, change. We are being beaten over the head with it! Change has become Barack Obama’s campaign slogan, while Hillary Clinton contrasts herself by claiming she’s for Real change. These candidates repeat the word like lurid catcalls from street whores. It is mind numbing.

But what “Change” are they talking about? Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Since the beginning of this election season Barack and Hillary have basically been in a shouting match to see who can out “Left” the other. Among Democrats, what is new about that?

Both candidates claim to want troops out of Iraq. Here, change is nothing more than the decades old, tired, hackneyed and beaten to death phrase “America out of … (name your country, in this case obviously, Iraq),” although, the way they say it is, in Nancy Pelosi’s words: “smart.” This is not a compliment, only recognition that Democrats have managed to develop some marketing skills with age.

And if you are so ignorant as to miss the unmistakable replay of Vietnam War era protests in this idiotic shouting match, then you must at least acknowledge that this “new plan” for “change” has been in effect since the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As you recall, mere weeks after voting for the war, Congressional Democrats jumped back on the anti-war bandwagon with shouts of “Quagmire!” “Wrong War, Wrong Time,” etc. As I said, “America out of Iraq.”

So the Democrats’ calls for change in Iraq are only new if you think a four-year-old concerted policy aimed at thwarting our efforts in this war at every turn is new. But they don’t even mean it. Unless they are as mindless as their campaign slogans, they must recognize that leaving Iraq now would be disastrous. Indeed, both have admitted as much. So much for change.

Hillary’s website personifies that old saw: “if you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle ‘em with BS.” Under the heading “Strengthening the Middle Class,” middle class tax cuts are the first bullet. Sounds good! But a read of the pages-long fine print finds only one vague reference near the end about “extending middle class tax relief.” What on earth does that mean? If you believe the Democrats, the middle class has gotten no tax relief for the past eight years – Bush only cut taxes for the wealthy. If that’s true, how can you extend what you never got?!? And the word “extend” itself does not suggest new cuts after all, just a continuation of what was before.

She does, however, promise to “return to the income tax rates for upper-income Americans that we had in the 1990s.” Well if your tax rates are “extended” while everyone else’s go up I suppose it could look like a tax cut if you were one of the lucky saps to avoid the increase she is talking about here. Another proposal included in this tome was to introduce earmark reform by developing “a set of budget rules similar to those we had in the 90s which required us to fund new expenditures with new revenues or cuts in other areas.” She is referring here to PAY-AS-YOU-GO spending restrictions, called PAYGO for short. Only trouble is, it has already been done. The Dems restored that mindless administrative fig leaf in 2004, and as I have thoroughly explained elsewhere, it is a complete sham.

Seems like Déjà vu all over again!

But seriously, I ask you, please, I am scratching my eyes out, what is new here? Where is the Change? What policy is being described that has not been repeatedly flogging and fleecing We The Exhausted Taxpayers for the past thirty years? Please tell me! Change? Gawd! If this is change, please, please keep it! We’ve had way too much of it already! We’re drowning in change.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both cut from the same ultra-leftist cloth. Either one would offer the standard menu of ultra-liberal approaches to government – which is to say they would both be walking disasters. But new? Different? Hardly. They are no different – just more extreme. 

However they are right in one regard. If either one is elected, they will make those changes, and this country will go in a radically different direction than it has been for the past eight years. It will be the accelerated path to ruin socialism always guarantees, and this time, it may well be permanent. Whatever John McCain’s failings, they pale by comparison to the train wreck we can expect from either Hillary or Barack. Their election could spell the end for our constitutional republic. This may well be the most important election in our nation’s history. Vote well.

But, as we all now know, Time was either careless or knowingly complicit in provoking this controversy, for it was quickly discovered that the basis for their story was “massacre” pictures provided by an al Qaeda front group. Insurgents captured subsequently told interrogators that the whole thing was a set up – that al Qaeda deliberately planned the ambush to create this propaganda nightmare.

Nonetheless, anytime our vaunted Fourth Estate levels an accusation against the U.S. military, especially those damned, bloodthirsty Marines, it must be investigated to the last speck. And even if their case is based on the thinnest of evidence, the legal scum issuing forth from the bowels of our military bureaucracy must find a fall guy to cover their inept asses, if only to prove they weren’t total idiots in prosecuting the case in the first place. Sorry, that ship already sailed. I wish they could switch places on the front lines with these honorable men they are scapegoating! They might get a whole new perspective, or at least do us all a favor and self-select themselves out of the gene pool in the first firefight.

On May 17, 2006, the unspeakably vile Congressman John Murtha of Pennsylvania joined the fray and gained new infamy with these inflammatory comments:

It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.

He made the statement without a shred of evidence, and having been proved wrong on all points, still refuses to apologize.

In any event, having conducted repeated investigations which found nothing and having exonerated four of the eight Marines originally charged, and despite the recommendations of the investigating officer that the whole case be dropped, the Marine Corps nonetheless is relentlessly moving forward with Courts Martial for the other four: SSgt. Frank Wuterich, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, 1^st Lt. Andrew Grayson and LCpl. Steve Tatum.

This is probably all old news to you. One thing you may not know however, is that SSgt. Wuterich attempted to sue Congressman Murtha for his public statement. According to Wikipedia:

On August 2, 2006, Marine Corps staff sergeant Frank D. Wuterich, who led the accused squad, filed suit for libel and invasion of privacy. The filing states Murtha "tarnished the Marine's reputation by telling news organizations in May that the Marine unit cracked after a roadside bomb killed one of its members and that the troops "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha also said repeatedly that the incident was "covered up." Wuterich was charged with 13 counts of murder on December 21, 2006.

And while all the murder charges have been dismissed against Wuterich, he still faces a laundry list of other charges – including nine charges of voluntary manslaughter – which provide penalties of up to twenty-nine years in prison. This is by far the most among any of the four Marines still facing charges, Do I detect a whiff of revenge coming from the Congressman’s office? I wouldn’t put anything past that despicable cretin, but it also may explain why he refuses to apologize. To do so might work in favor of SSgt. Wuterich’s suit.

In any event, the prosecution keeps losing. A court recently denied prosecution efforts to subpoena edited comments from a CBS 60 minutes interview of SSgt. Wuterich. According to press reports, the prosecutor, Marine Capt. Nicholas L. Gannon, claimed Wuterich admitted on these edited pieces of tape “that he did in fact order his men to ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’”

Is this the prosecution’s rationale for continuing this inane trial? Here are the facts: The Marines were IED blasted and ambushed with one dead and two wounded. The enemy took shelter in a house of unknown occupancy, which the Marines were ordered to clear. The enemy regularly rigs bombs to civilians, including women and children, uses them as shields while shooting at us, dresses in civilian clothes, and regularly tortures, mutilates and murders civilians. One insurgent came out of a house carrying a baby with the family around him. What were the Marines supposed to do, let him shoot at them with impunity? If SSgt. Wuterich directed his squad to “shoot first and ask questions later,” I call that good counsel!

What planet is that prosecutor on? Is this supposed to be what passes for evidence?!? I asked USMC spokesman LtCol. Sean Gibson this exact question. His response was typically high-minded evasiveness:

Our Marines are disciplined and well trained. We adhere to the Law of Armed Conflict and the Rules of Engagement in order to successfully execute our mission while minimizing harm to non-combatants.

 I know all that! But does the Law of Armed Conflict provide guidelines as to behavior against enemies that dress as civilians while using real civilians as human shields and children as walking bombs? What about the Geneva Convention? Its guidelines are surprisingly clear. Terrorists have NO legal standing, and even were they signatories to the Convention, which they aren’t, would lose the benefit of its legal protections the minute they start behaving this way. They can legally be shot on sight, as soldiers out of uniform from both sides routinely were during WW II.

By Jim Simpson

President George W. Bush has been the recipient of the most concerted, hate-filled, propaganda campaign ever launched against a sitting President. Washington’s bureaucracy has aided and abetted this outrageous Democrat offensive by conducting a deliberate intelligence misinformation and sabotage war. The mantras have been repeated so many times, they have insinuated themselves into our daily jargon. “There were no WMD,” Bush’s “misadventure in Iraq,” or “The President’s failed Iraq policy.” Or as someone recently said to me: “I just think he’s so stupid.” Mention the name “Bush” and people bow and shake their heads. It is as though no one even wants to acknowledge we have a President by that name. Bumper stickers declare: “I Can’t Wait for 2008.” Many conservative pundits have participated in this pile on. That the Bush presidency is an unmitigated disaster is a given even among conservatives who should know better.

There is nothing new in the pattern, except for its nonstop intensity. All recent Republican Presidents have faced overt hostility from the press and popular culture. And as their time got short, the vitriol always intensified. Reagan capitulated early, handing up sacrificial lambs during Iran/Contra and offering little support for one of the most qualified Judicial Nominees in our nation’s history, Robert Bork, who was forced to face an unprecedented wave of personal attacks without the support of the President who nominated him. In recalling the Reagan years, this is often overlooked.

In typical fashion, the Republican establishment has once again capitulated and completely surrendered the argument to its enemies. Many Republican Washington insiders see this as an act of self preservation. The cacophony of negative press stories drowns out any voice that does not follow their script. One becomes self-conscious and intimidated. Why say anything if to do so risks the mass media turning their merciless invective on you?

Also, Washington insiders live in Washington. They are trying to live dual lives: supporting a Party that stands for American values in a city that doesn’t want them, while simultaneously attending cocktail parties, joining clubs and sending their children to school with these same people. But what do they expect? Republicans, whether they earn it or not, represent the Party of principle, and are thus a threat to Washington’s deeply embedded culture of corruption. They will never have an easy time of it.

Recall the experience of liberal Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR). He was hailed by feminists for supporting their causes – until he made the mistake of groping one or two of them. Then the harpy brigade descended. For all the invective one would have thought he murdered babies. But lecherous Teddy keeps on groping while Bill Clinton gets a pass on rape. Packwood’s real error: he became a vulnerable Republican, and Democrats will always use the opportunity to rid themselves even of Republicans who vote their way - much better to have an always reliable fellow Democrat. That is how Democrats reward “maverick” Republicans.

Every President has had his failings, and President Bush is no different, from his incomprehensible defense of illegal immigrants, the Medicare prescription drug program and his frustratingly suicidal habit of neither articulating nor defending his positions. But despite it all, I suggest to you that he deserves much more credit than he has been getting, even from his staunchest supporters.

We also discount the huge effect of his appointments to the federal bench. Supreme Court judges Samuel Alito and John Roberts will be with us for a while. A Newsmax article recently reported that, according to the Court’s Federal Judicial Center, Republican judicial appointments now outnumber Democrats’ 463 to 350. Bush has appointed 258 appellate judges, and unlike some Republican appointments in the past, most of his are solid conservatives. Seven of ten sitting judges on the crucial DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which recently overturned DC’s onerous handgun ban, are Republican appointments, three of those by G.W. Bush.

He regularly sidetracks harmful legislation, despite his supposed “lame duck” status. He vetoed the Democrats “SCHIP” bill, (State Children’s Health Insurance Program) which would have granted free health inusrance to “children” over 21 years of age and increased coverage for people earning three times the poverty level. It was correctly identified as “back-door socialized medicine.” He got the worst parts of an ill-conceived Democrat energy bill removed by threatening a veto. And there are countless other similar actions that we either don’t notice or take for granted.

George W. Bush and the current crop of Congressional Republicans have been branded as “big spenders.”  While they sadly have earned this label, don’t pin any hopes on Democrats for reversing the trend. For a good laugh, read my earlier article on Democrats much-ballyhooed and completely disingenuous restoration of PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) spending restrictions. Moreover, while Democrats’ disingenuously harp on Bush deficits, by historical standards the deficit is small and declining. At $163 billion, the deficit now absorbs a mere 1.2 percent of GDP, significantly lower than the historical average. Even if you add in the recently passed, paltry, $150 billion "stimulus package," the deficit only rises to 2.3 percent of GDP. But even at its 2004 high water mark, the deficit absorbed only 3.6 percent of GDP – less than the highest deficit of the Clinton presidency, 1993, which consumed 3.9 percent of GDP.

This is because, thanks in large part to his tax cuts, we have had a robust economy for most of G.W. Bush’s two terms, despite the enormously recessionary impacts of the 9-11 attacks and the Dot-Com-driven stock market bust. You wouldn’t know this to listen to the gloom and doom economic reporting by the mass media, however.

But Bush’s greatest failure, according to the partisan naysayers and a few hapless Republican fools, is his record on Iraq. I submit to you that his leadership as Commander in Chief, while imperfect, has been head and shoulders over any other President in recent history. Think back.

Lyndon Johnson’s disgracefully timid and incompetent micromanaging of the Vietnam War needlessly cost tens of thousands of young American lives. Rather than admit it and change, Johnson took his marbles and went home, resigning in disgrace. It was much more than he deserved. Following the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, Reagan impotently withdrew all U.S. forces, rather than face off the terrorist supporting states responsible: Syria and Iran. George H.W. Bush’s unwillingness to finish the job in Iraq further encouraged the world’s thugs to believe that they had nothing to fear from the United States.

Clinton’s ignoble blundering in Somalia and impotent gestures toward Iraq further cemented the reputation of American political leaders as feckless cowards. It was discovered in after action analysis that Clinton’s much ballyhooed air campaign against Yugoslavia, where a 30,000 ft. altitude insured pilot safety, destroyed only about 5 or 6 tanks, not the hundreds initially reported. (The rest were decoys.) Was Clinton really concerned about pilot safety, or did he just want to spare his communist friends any serious damage? Given his publicized contempt for the military and his many communist connections, I suspect the latter. In either case, his much vaunted air campaign was in fact an abject failure. And now with the recent attacks on the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, it appears the policies he put in place aren’t exactly getting a warm welcome.

While George W. Bush has clearly made mistakes in his prosecution of the War in Iraq, he has, unlike other leaders, had the courage to admit and correct many of those mistakes. Halting the attack on Fallujah in the spring of 2004 was a mistake – corrected. Allowing the Madhi Army free rein was a mistake – corrected. The pre-Petraeus conventional approach, a mistake – corrected. Few political leaders in recent times have been willing to do this in any circumstance, let alone during a shooting war. And Bush’s unflinching determination to prosecute this war in the face of a relentless, overwhelmingly hostile, even seditious Western media campaign to discredit the entire effort, and treacherous, underhanded political and bureaucratic sabotage, may yet see this conflict to a successful conclusion.

We must stop and recognize that this tidal wave of negativity is manufactured relentlessly by our almost uniformly leftist, anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-American mass media (with a few notable exceptions), in collusion with the leftist Washington political establishment. Nothing any Republican does will ever satisfy them. Like the Iranians or North Koreans, they welcome Republican attempts at conciliation as a ripe opportunity to take further advantage. They will never like or agree with them. They want to destroy them. And they may well succeed in the upcoming election cycle if we don’t come to our senses.

Either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would be unmitigated disasters for this country if elected. As a diehard, committed Bolshevik however, Hillary is the more dangerous of the two, and also the more electable. Yes that’s right. I have said since the beginning, as far as her electability is concerned, she is not even thinking about getting a majority of voters. Like her husband before her, she is counting on the entrance of a third party candidate to split the republican vote. As I suggested early on, this could well be New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Despite yet more denials that he intends to pursue an independent candidacy, I continue to think Bloomberg "doth protest too much." If Hillary pulls out in Texas or Ohio, this scenario remains a distinct possibility.

Get it through your head and get over it! The next election cycle is critical to the survival of our Constitutional Republic. Whatever failings you see in our government and leaders, Republicans must come together and reassert the values they stand for: a strong America, lower taxes, limited government, individual rights, individual responsibility and a healthy, mature, decent culture – American values. With all its failings the Republican Party is yet America’s last hope. We American citizens may not be able to rescue America from the un-Americans, but we should at least stop assisting them in our own defeat.  We can start by acknowledging and defending the record of this American President and reaffirm our support for the Republican Party – no matter who the candidate is.

By Jim Simpson

It’s official. The war in Iraq is now a “Civil War,” according to our vaunted Fourth Estate. In the Sunni Triangle especially, things have not been going well. Every day, dozens of Iraqis (yesterday it was over 100) are killed in bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and drive-by shootings. Every day U.S. casualties mount.

If you believe the media, this is not and never was a “central front in the ‘Global War on Terror.’” It only provoked Islamic terrorists to take up arms in a country that was stable, if not exactly democratic. Saddam died ignominiously and probably should have been spared. Iraq is descending rapidly into a chaos we can’t prevent in a conflict in which we will never prevail.

Despite these unassailable facts, and the equally unassailable recommendations of the venerable Infirm Seniors, whoops, Iraq Study Group, knuckle-dragger George W. Bush has ignored everyone and willfully proceeded with his plan to “surge” 20,000 plus troops into Baghdad.

Not enough! Won’t help! Too many! Lost cause! Blah, blah, blah…

Meanwhile, the new Democrat led Congress has reliably reaffirmed its status as the Treason Party with a demoralizing resolution of no confidence in the troops’ ability to finish the job. Predictably however, they have also shown their inveterate cowardice by being unwilling to make it a resolution with any teeth. It only serves to demoralize without offering solutions.

Okay, okay, enough already! Instead of drawing battle lines and calling names, let’s really ask the question: Why should we stay?

Finishing the job in Iraq is absolutely critical to our future national survival, but not for the reasons generally cited.

Yes, “Bush Lied” nutcases, Saddam did have WMD, and his connections to al Qaeda were beyond doubt. If Bill Clinton’s 1998 statements don’t convince you, then the many documents since seized in Iraq proving the same thing probably won’t either. But then, why should they? You are nutcases after all. Anyone else interested in revisiting this issue is directed here for an exhaustive treatise on the subject.

Sure, Iraq is a rallying point for terrorists. It was before we invaded, so why not now, when they can practice on real, live targets? Sure, it’s better to kill them over there than over here. Of course, an Iraq left to the terrorists will descend into a horrible bloodbath (as though it wasn’t one now.) Indisputably, an abandoned Iraq will become a new outpost for Iranian aggression. Undeniably, the entire region, including our key ally, Israel, will come under immediate threat.

Absolutely. Without a doubt.

Well, if those aren’t good enough reasons, then why should we stay? Actually, they are good enough reasons. But they are not the critical reason.

The critical reason we must stay is that we are not so much fighting one particular enemy as we are a strategy. This strategy has defeated us multiple times over the years, and we have yet to effectively confront it. No matter the enemy, no matter the circumstance, it has always been the same. It finds succinct voice in the words of Moscow trained North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap, who first articulated it in 1950 as the strategy the communists would use to defeat the French (as quoted in Bernard Fall’s prophetic book, Street Without Joy):

The enemy will pass slowly from the offensive to the defensive. The blitzkrieg will transform itself into a war of long duration. Thus, the enemy will be caught in a dilemma: he has to drag out the war in order to win it and does not possess, on the other hand, the psychological and political means to fight a long drawn-out war.

As every American should know, almost every enemy we have faced since Hitler has adopted this strategy in one form or another. Indeed, we would have faced the same thing during WW II as well, had Hitler not made the fatal error of invading the Soviet Union. In doing so, he turned the vocal and widespread American communist movement –- even then disproportionately represented within our media, entertainment and political establishments –- against him. Overnight, prominent American isolationists (read communist sympathizers) miraculously converted into strident patriots clamoring for war. For a full treatment of this untold story, read my article, The Great Unpatriotic War. You won’t find it in many history books, but it is essential to a complete understanding of the problem we face.

What we must realize is our greatest enemy has been ourselves. At critical times, against a myriad of adversaries, we have fallen victim to self-doubt. What we have lacked in all these conflicts is the will to do what is necessary to win. And if we are ever going to successfully defend ourselves against a growing list of deadly foes, we must overcome this chronic failing.

The first time was Korea. Despite their bluster, neither the Soviets nor the Chinese had the wherewithal to defeat us in Korea had we chosen to win. We made plenty of mistakes, but the issue was never really in doubt. We demonstrated our ability first against the North Korean army then against the communist Chinese. But instead of deciding to win, we decided to merely stop and hold. We lost resolve. This critical loss of will against communist aggression set the stage for the many more that were to follow.

We had our next big opportunity in Vietnam, but we blew that too. As in Iraq today, we were winning. The Phoenix Program and other efforts had effectively pacified large portions of South Vietnam. The Communists lost the Tet Offensive. We obliterated the Viet Cong infrastructure, something Walter Cronkite apparently forgot to mention in his defeatist broadcast often cited as the turning point for public opinion against the War. From then on the North Vietnamese had to use mostly conventional forces against us –- forces we almost always defeated in battle.

Realizing that about 80 percent of North Vietnam’s war materiel came by boat, Nixon’s decision to mine Haiphong Harbor brought North Vietnam’s critical military resupply operations to a standstill. Shortly after, the communists came back to the Paris Peace Talks. They had no choice. The instruments of war had been denied them. This idea, like many other good ones, was posed early on, but Johnson, cowardly Democrat, ignored them.

We could have succeeded in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Angola, Somalia and countless other places as well, but in each circumstance we were defeated by our own self-doubt. We can refight those intellectual battles too, if you like, and I will win, because the facts are on my side. But these are irrelevant, because the truth is, we lost. We left, often after some particularly harrowing event, such as the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, or “Blackhawk Down” in Somalia. Or we gave up after some perceived loss, like 1968’s Tet Offensive. We compounded these “losses” into humiliating defeats by walking out. In each case, our decision sprang from national self-doubt.

Like most problems of the twentieth century, the root causes can be traced to the Left. It has been said elsewhere, but cannot be repeated enough: the American Left wants the United States to fail. They are a genuine fifth column, and their stiletto-tongued liars have killed as many American warriors as enemy bullets. Their propaganda machine has enlisted countless millions of our gullible youth, and their subversive tactics undermine the effectiveness of churches, schools, institutions and government, while they divert funds to favored projects and leaders. The Left is a blood-sucking parasite on the body politic, and we are losing a lot of blood.

As American Thinker contributor J.R. Dunn explains:

The Iraq War was a godsend for the American left, something they’d have had to invent if it hadn’t happened on its own. It allowed the entire War on Terror to be chopped and fit into the already existing intellectual template, enabled all the old slogans to be revived, all the dusty concepts to be trotted out anew. It has turned the overall war, one of the most justified conflicts in this country’s history, a belated defensive response against an ugly and murderous enemy, into the traditional shadow play of murderous military officers, bloody-handed CIA operatives, and cackling businessmen, all overseen by a bulging-browed Karl Rove, operating from some Goldfingeresque headquarters buried far beneath the Crawford ranch. The result is a nation slowly edging toward the same paralysis that afflicted it during the 1970s.

It is a familiar refrain, easy to recognize and widely understood by practically every one of us. When things begin to look a bit messy; our stridently Leftist media takes up the mantle for the enemy and pounds home our losses. My Lai, Abu Graib, Guantanamo Bay become slogans for an opposition determined to vilify our efforts while calling demonic enemies “Minutemen.”

Their hyper-criticism fans the flames of division within Congress, the administration, the military and the country at large. Patriotic politicians begin to quail. Liberal politicians, those self-serving mouthpieces for the treasonous movements who feed them, protest, demand, accuse, hold hearings, press conferences, etc., as they are doing right now, for the sole purpose of reinforcing our self-doubt. Before the war, many of these same critics spoke the popular mantra of “getting behind the president,” but then lunged at the political opportunity created when inevitable and often tragic mistakes of a shooting war started to occur.

This is one of the most revolting demonstrations of the political Left’s utterly self-serving nature. The public’s acquiescence in this behavior also reflects on a broader scale the long-term impact these repeated assaults on our national conscience have had. We should all be out there calling for their heads! Instead we just throw up our hands in a futile gesture of exhausted disgust. People like this should not have a forum, much less a grand place of honor within the fourth estate.

The point is, this problem is entirely of our own making. Quoting J.R. Dunn again:

As we have seen, this is no natural turn of events. There is nothing inevitable or unavoidable about it. It is entirely synthetic, the byproduct of an effort by our intellectual elite to serve an ideology now long dead. Our belief in ourselves as a nation, in our role and mission on the international stage, has been undermined for fifty years and more. There is not a level of society, from day laborer to corporate CEO, who has not been touched by this dogma. Not a single institution (with the professional military perhaps excepted) has been unaffected.

Now it has become a well-oiled machine, the victorious champion of many a campaign. The terrorists expect CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Time, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, and virtually all other major dailies to grossly exaggerate the problems in Iraq while completely overlooking positive developments. They expect Democrats to criticize the President when some operation goes awry. They expect shills like Chris “Softballs” Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and William “The Mercenary” Arkin to ridicule the war effort. They expect Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and the like to take every opportunity to castigate the president when terrorist bombs start going off. In fact, they rely on it. They plan on it. This political equation is the guiding principle behind all their actions.

This strategy must be defeated. It is a strategy that will be used again and again until we have no more places to retreat. It is a strategy that will ultimately bring our enemies finally, irrevocably to our shores, and with it will come the anarchy, mass murder, torture and collapse we have thus far largely avoided. It will signal the end of the world as we know it. For our grand experiment, the only stable counterbalance in an increasingly unstable world, is the last hope for all others, friend and foe alike.

In order to defeat this strategy, we must acknowledge and confront the enemy here at home. Knowingly or otherwise, the president’s critics are aiding and abetting the terrorists by hammering away at our national resolve to see this action through. They are aiding and abetting the terrorists by belittling the hard work and blood sacrifices of our men in uniform.

But they support the troops, really they do.

No they don’t!

They are the voice of a movement that has sought to destroy this country from within ever since their first odious agents crawled out from under some Bolshevik rock in the early part of the twentieth century. Today the Democrat party is the repository of that dogma and Hillary Rodham Clinton its personification. You must be convinced by now that these people are serious.

They are sowing doubt, once again, into the minds of those on active duty, who now have to confront the possibility, as happened in Vietnam, of making all those sacrifices in vain. Families who lost sons in Vietnam and everywhere else also have to confront that bitter pain again as once more, their elected leaders miserably let them down.

It’s bad enough when those in uniform die for a good cause. But now families of those currently in Iraq have to confront the thought that their sons and daughters too might die for nothing.

One former Army intelligence officer recently told me that “we never have won and cannot win a guerilla war.” This statement has to be the most idiotic statement I have recently heard and it has had an awful lot of competition. If we can never win why do we even fight? Why do we even bother with a military? Iraq is a nation of 26 million people. If we cannot win there, where can we win? If any enemy who adopts this strategy can win everywhere and always, why don’t we just get it over with and appoint Osama Bin Laden (or his running mate, Hillary) President for Life?

We must recognize the enemy for what it is and move forward in spite of it. This is what George W. Bush is attempting to do with his troop “surge.” Is it enough? With this gallery of traitors occupying Congress I am not optimistic. We nonetheless would be wise to recognize an ages-old problem that has confronted open societies throughout history. To quote Cicero:

A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. … He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

Our entire nation is down with this virus. Radical surgery appears to be the only recourse. During the Civil War, Lincoln imposed martial law and ruled by decree. (Read a good summary of the issue by Rhode Island Supreme Court Chief Judge Frank Williams, here.) Will that be necessary now? Or will those members of our political class not already given to our enemies finally step up to the plate and pass legislation that effectively deals with agents of influence, agitators, and other traitors? The danger from these people is just as real as any battlefield. More so, for it threatens the very survival of our nation. And as our nation goes, so goes the world.

God save us.

Freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.

By now it should be news all over America that the New York Times aired on its website, footage of a U.S. Soldier being shot in the head. They did this in direct violation of their agreement with the military and never bothered to ask the unfortunate family - who had not yet been notified of their son’s death - before airing it. Read about it here. And even after issuing a quasi-apology, they continued showing the video! What kind of apology is that??

In another outrage, CBS reporter Lara Logan recently filed a video report from Iraq, showing recently killed Iraqi soldiers, which looks like footage she actually took. She did not mention anything about the video’s source, which makes a point of lambasting U.S. troops. Turns out much of it is an al Qaeda propaganda film aired a few weeks ago. Where did she get it? How did she get it? Most importantly, Why did she work it into her story as though it were her own? Why didn’t she tell us it was an al Qaeda video? See Michelle Malkins’ report on it here.

This week, CNN’s parent, Turner Broadcasting, revealed yet again its blatant contempt for our national security in a TV promotional stunt which closed down highways, bridges and even part of the Charles River in Boston, MA. The gag used blinking electronic devices lit in the shapes of cartoon characters, one of which was reportedly giving the finger. They were placed on bridges, highways and a subway station. What were police bomb squads supposed to do, ignore these devices and laugh it off? Is it all just a joke to Turner?

Boston’s mayor was not amused and is planning to press charges. It’s about time. District Attorney Daniel Conley was quoted as saying:

"Apparently however, Boston was not the only victim. Turner later admitted having placed similar devices in 9 other cities over the past few weeks: New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; Austin; Philadelphia; and San Francisco."

One must ask: are they insane? Or are they so engorged with heedless arrogance that they feel they can do whatever they want? Either way, concern for the American people has to be at the bottom of their list.

Yet another demonstration of media contempt can be found in the following insulting screed by Washington Post columnist William Arkin “The Troops Also Need to Support the American People.” He wrote it in reaction to an NBC imbed’s report citing soldiers’ frequent complaints that the media misreports their efforts in Iraq and damages morale. He calls them “naïve,” and answers their complaints with the following rebuke:

"These soldiers should be grateful that the American public, which by all polls overwhelmingly disapproves of the Iraq war and the President’s handling of it, do still offer their support to them, and their respect."

As though that weren’t enough, he offers this cynical observation about the true character of our fighting forces:

"…the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work."

The final paragraph is especially repugnant:

"America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform. I don’t believe America needs a draft though I imagine we’d be having a different discussion if we had one."

Can you believe that? “America needs to ponder what it is we really owe those in uniform.” No. Mr. Arkin, you need to ponder what you owe those in uniform. I think Mr. Arkin might feel far differently if he found himself staring at the cutting of an al Qaeda butcher’s knife a la Daniel Pearl or Nick Berg – a very distinct possibility if they succeed in getting a foothold here, rather than being eliminated in Iraq as they are now by our “naïve,” “ungrateful” troops.

Words cannot express what kind of despicable character his “journalist” must be. What towering arrogance! Words cannot express the contemptible depths to which the Washington Post must have sunk to hire such scum and willingly publish such tripe.

The mass media has gone beyond decency in this conflict. If anyone had any doubt before that the news media is actively against us, this evidence should settle it once and for all.

At this point I can’t even imagine what kind of restitution the leftist media could pay to restore their credibility in the eyes of the public. They are not only giving aid and comfort to our enemies, they are our enemies. It’s time to take matters into our own hands and boycott these organizations into bankruptcy. As far as I’m concerned, giving them a cent of our time or money is tantamount to aiding and abetting treason.

Freelance writer Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst (1987-1993). His writings have been published in the Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.