Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Obama's Communists

By Alan Caruba

“Tailgunner” Joe McCarthy, a 1950s U.S. Senator who lent his name to any effort to expose America’s enemies, was right. At the height of his fame, he said the U.S. government was shot through with communists, many of whom were participating in a vast espionage effort orchestrated by the Soviets.

Though McCarthy was singularly unsuccessful in uncovering communists within the government during Eisenhower’s first term, the “Army-McCarthy” hearings, April 22 to June 17, 1954, were televised for all to see and he became one of the best known anti-communists of his day. Were there Communists and spies for the Soviet Union? Yes, but we would not learn more until a young Senator from California, Richard M. Nixon identified Alger Hiss, a high-ranking State Department official as one.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the records that became available to historians and other scholars confirmed McCarthy’s worst fears.

During the 1930s and 1940s, communism appealed to many Americans. Some had soured on capitalism because of the Great Depression. Others saw communism at work in the Soviet Union and, believing the propaganda, concluded it was a viable alternative to capitalism. It would take a speech by Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Krushchev to draw back the curtain and reveal the horrors of living under Stalin.

Then, as now, communists found a home in the American labor movement and among the liberal elites of the Democrat Party who saw in the New Deal the way to transform America into a socialist nation, as well as among America’s intellectuals on its college campuses. Not much has changed.

One of the founders of the “Weathermen” group that conducted a number of bombings in the 1960s is now a “distinguished professor” at the University of Illinois—Chicago. Bill Ayers is also a longtime, close friend of Barack Obama.

Sen. McCarthy was quite possibly the worst person of his era to lead the investigation of communist infiltration and Soviet espionage. He was a bombast and a boozer. In August 1954, a Senate committee released a report censuring him for having abused his power as a committee chairman. He would remain in the Senate, but his days of glory were over. His drinking increased and in May 1957 he died from acute hepatitis.

The sad irony of McCarthy’s story is that the government was, indeed, filled with communist sympathizers, known as “fellow travelers”, and with Soviet-run spies. The story can be found in “The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors” by Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel. “Venona” was the U.S. code word given to secret Soviet spy communications.

Venona revealed the full extent of the spying that was occurring. Venona documented that Harry Hopkins, a close friend and advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt was also a spy. Both the FDR and Truman administrations were chockablock with communists. The Venona program of interception and analysis ran from February 1943 to 1980.

In the post-war years, the U.S. created the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency to discover and monitor not just the Soviets, but many other enemies of the nation.

A significant example is the way the Soviets were able to build their own atomic bomb long before their own scientists ever could thanks to their espionage program. There were many others who were known in spy craft as “agents of influence”. One of them was I.F. Stone who wrote a widely read newsletter that provided cover for the actual spies and their activities. Stone continues to be hailed in journalism circles as an outstanding investigative reporter.

Among the Soviet spies were the Rosenbergs who were found guilty of passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets. The most famous spy of that era was Alger Hiss who at one point served as the director of the Office of Special Political Affairs in the State Department. He would go on to serve as the secretary general of the founding conference of the United Nations and later become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The current attacks on the CIA, include a statement by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who said “They lie to us all the time.” The Obama Justice Department has re-opened an investigation into interrogation techniques of the CIA as a further effort to discredit the Agency. If you don’t believe this is at the direction of President Obama, you’re being naïve.

In “The Venona Secrets”, the authors note that a classic Stalinist tactic was “demonizing an opponent and then using his vilified name in a broad-brush smear against anyone who challenged Communist views or activities.” This is why the term “McCarthyism” has entered our political vocabulary. This is also what is occurring right now as former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Governor Sarah Palin, get the treatment.

How can you spot a communist sympathizer in the U.S. Congress? You can visit the website of the “Progressive Caucus” where, as of February 2009, more than 80 members of the House, including two from the Senate, self-identify themselves as progressives. “Progressive” was the term communists used after the McCarthy era. It is still in use today.

Some of the progressive caucus members are Ed Markey and Henry Waxman, co-authors of the “Cap-and-Trade bill that would impose a huge tax on all energy use in America. You will find Charles Rangel, currently under ethics investigation for having hidden hundreds of thousands of dollars from authorities. Barney Frank, the “brains” behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s purchase of millions in worthless mortgage loans, is a member. He is the godfather of a meltdown on Wall Street that remains a threat to our capitalist economy.

A significant number of the caucus are Afro-Americans. They include Jesse Jackson, Jr., John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Donald Payne, and Bobby Rush to name just a few.

With the collapse of the former Soviet Union, many former communists became “environmentalists”, often playing major roles in the many organizations serving that cause.

Among President Obama’s ever-expanding circle of “czars” is Carol Browner, the former Clinton-era director of the Environmental Protection Agency (1993-2000) whose latest appointment also revealed that she served on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which is part of Socialist International. Her association with the group has since been scrubbed from their website.

Most obvious and notorious is Van Jones who has never made a secret of his political preference for communism and who is Obama’s new “Green Jobs” czar. The links between the environmental movement and communist goals are numerous, nor should it surprise anyone that the “global warming” hoax was birthed in the bowels of the United Nations.

Today, thanks to the way history is taught in America’s government schools, the threat to freedom that communism posed then and still does pose, is barely a subject for discussion. When he was still an adolescent in Hawaii, President Obama came under the influence of Frank Marshall Davis, a widely known communist in the 1950s.

Obama is completely at home with communists, but is ironically being attacked by the nation’s far Left for not fulfilling their dream of the complete transformation of the nation from capitalism to socialism fast enough.

The destruction of the nation’s economy is necessary to complete the transformation and it is only the outrage and protests of Americans that will save us from a fate that has been and remains the goal of the nation’s communist enemies.

13 comments:

Ayrdale said...

Trevor Loudon blogging at New Zeal is well worth a look. He is a hard working exposer of communists and fellow traveller hypocrites...

http://newzeal.blogspot.com/

Dave's Daily Day Dream said...

Thank you Alan, for putting this most important information out to the hundreds, perhaps thousands who read your blog and (hopefully) post it around the internet.

Whether we called them communist, progressive, socialist or whatever new term may come up, the group is real, they are working together, and they are making progress. There are some who adhere to the Fabian doctrine - slow and steady; some working out Alinsky's views - infiltrate and weaken from within (Obama and his ilk are here). All of them seem to have more passion than our patriots do (Teddy K. a perfect example). The education system is theirs as is the print and TV media. We have the internet and most radio programming.

Until the truth is a sought after commodity and those who preach a Biblical world view on Sundays have lost their fear of the IRS, there will be little resistance. I have not given up, however. I suspect there are tens of thousands just like me.

For those who've fought, freedom has a flavor the protected never taste.

Alan Caruba said...

Thank you, gentlemen. Have you noticed how rare it is to read someone who actually uses the word "communist" anymore?

This post is already up on CanadaFreePress.com!

Louise W said...

Alan,

Thanks for a better understanding of what communism has and is doing in our nation.

Unfortunately, we are learning more day-by-day from our communist president.

How dare this man invade our schools and attempt to prey on our children! How dare he bankrupt and malign our country! How dare he install other communists to high level positions in our government without the will of the people!

I've been told that anger motivates. Trust me, I am very motivated.

Mark LaRochelle said...

Alan, if you have not read M. Stanton Evans' Blacklisted by History, I highly recommend it. It may not change your opinion of McCarthy, but it will surely help you avoid posts like this that repeat conventional wisdom about him that is contradicted by the now-available historical evidence.
Regards, Mark

Buzzg said...

I am constantly amazed at the level of surprise or amazement that all of this could be happening 'before our very eyes'. Did no one pay attention during the last election campaign?
I remain amazed, but not bewildered.

Anonymous said...

Welcome back Alan ... even a day or two of your absense leaves a hole in my world. I read you every day.

Alan Caruba said...

Thank you. My lower back is healing and I am functioning with the help of a pain killer and muscle relaxant. It makes one appreciate good health all the more!

Guy said...

My liberal sister out in Portland, Oregon was visiting this weekend, and she told me that all this fear of Socialism and Communism is unwarranted....

She said, and I quote ..."I know there is a lot of fear that this country is turning into some kind of communistic/socialistic state, where our freedom is gradually being eroded without our knowledge. This is a legitimate concern, but I don’t see any objective evidence of this - and I have been looking...."

Well, I don't know exactly where she's been looking, but I'm seeing our freedoms being attacked at every turn. I asked her if our statewide smoking ban wasn't just such an attack, and she gave me the typical "well, smoking is so bad for everyone's health" line. So, then I asked her how she was going to feel when they ban her daily glass of wine, or tax it to death, to keep HER from becoming a burden to the health care system. She replied with "Oh, they'd never do that ...."

A few days ago, after she went back home, I sent her a link to the story that's been in the news lately about the push by some radicals who want to ban ice cream trucks because they "unfairly market harmful food to our children". She didn't seem to see anything wrong with that either ... after all, ice cream isn't really good for kids is it?

After this latest exchange with her, I've concluded that the Liberal mentality that's invaded our society can only be described as an illness ... a mental illness. How else can we explain how a person who, when confronted with indisputable facts and real-world examples, refuses to see the truth? And, on the rare occasion when she does see the truth, she rationalizes it away with whatever excuse she can come up with so she doesn't have to deal with the uncomfortable facts....

She thinks I'm the nutcase because I don't want to pay excessive taxes, I don't want the government interfering in our daily lives, I believe in our Constitution, and I own a gun and know how to use it. Hummmmm .... I wonder who she'd come running to if things ever got out of hand in this country though?

My wife, who witnessed this whole exchange between us, is dumbfounded. So am I ....

Rich Kozlovich said...

If anyone would like to begin researching the VENONA intercepts story, just do a Google search by typing in VENONA and that will take you to the NSA website where there is a large amount of information, including the story of the Rosenbergs and how they caught them.

It might be noted that only about 10% of these messages were decoded. Even with that small amount of intelligence they had evidence that "at least 350 Americans had secret relationships with Soviet intelligence.” Many, if not most, of the code named people remain unidentified to this day.

I would also like to make one more point. The Hollywood crowd constantly harp about McCarthyism as if it was he who investigated Hollywood. McCarthy’s Senate committee investigated government people only. It was the House Committee on Un-American Activities who investigated Hollywood...which was set up by the Democrats during WWII to catch Nazi sympathizers and supporters.

Just thought I would mention that because it irritates me when the media fails to tell the story right....forever.

Jose Reyes said...

Tell it like it is Alan! The many naive Americans still cannot see it right before their eyes. I guess you have to have some kind of experience to understand. There has always been a Communist sympathy movement present in America and now it is so obvious. Now, the Obama administration is actually telling you. Being Cuban-American, I have my commie radar on all the times. Great job and thank you.

My Website:http://cubanology.com/

And Blog: http://cubanology.com/cubareport/

And I feel every American should read this and view the videos so they could understand further:
http://cubanology.com/cubareport/?p=1155

Alan Caruba said...

It is one the great mysteries that the US has tolerated a communist nation 90 miles from the tip of Florida.

The media has turned Fidel into some kind of hero, but he was and is a despot.

Cobra said...

Alan,
You are doing a great job.
Keep up the good work.

A political refugee from Eastern Europe.