About the Washington Post Hit Piece on Free Republic Today

The Washington Post published an article today in the Style section about researcher Danielle Allen's efforts to track down who is behind allegations that presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (Illinois) is a Muslim. Allen is an Obama supporter who works for the Institute for Advanced Study.

The article was written by Matthew Mosk. A curious choice for The Post considering Mosk's involvement in the nefarious MD4Bush scandal in which Mosk claimed to have been given access to a Free Republic poster's account to expose a Maryland GOP government appointee who was alleged to have commented on rumors that a Maryland Democratic mayor was an adulterer.

Mosk displayed the same talent for exposing Freepers' identities in today's article that he did in the MD4Bush scandal. However, the only person he exposed then was the Republican. The person (or persons) behind the MD4Bush screen name was not reported by Mosk.

The article Mosk wrote today purports to be about efforts to track down where the 'Obama is a Muslim' allegations began. However, it is actually a warning shot across the bow to opponents of Obama that they will be tracked down and exposed for speaking ill of the Obamessiah.

Mosk even makes sure to let Obamaniacs know who is behind Free Republic and where he can be found:

Of the file folders that are spread in neat rows across Allen's desk, only one is bulging. It holds printouts of the reams of conversations about Obama's religion appearing on Free Republic. Since its start in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, Calif....

The effort by The Post to protect Obama from rumors is in stark contrast to how they promoted potentially candidacy-damaging rumors eight-years ago.

When George W. Bush ran for president in 1999, The Washington Post led the way in rumor-mongering about whether he used cocaine in his youth. Bush refused to deny cocaine use saying that denying rumors just leads to having to deny more and more rumors. No one ever came forward with allegatons that they had first-hand knowledge of Bush using cocaine, but that didn't stop The Post and the mainstream media as painting Bush as a cokehead. No reporter ever asked Bill Clinton about cocaine use, even though several people known to Clinton claimed to have first-hand knowledge of Clinton using the drug while in public office.

While Mosk ignores The Post's own rumor-mongering, he leaves the impression of Free Republic as the rumor mill of the right. A fair reporter would have noted that Freepers exposed the fraudulent Texas Air National Guard documents that CBS News used in its attempt to derail President Bush's reelection bid in 2004. Buckhead, the Freeper who called foul on the documents, was tracked down by the Los Angeles Times even though he did not post his name on Free Republic.

Mosk's article closes with Allen complaining that the Internet has become as influential as unions and political action committees (PACs) in elections. Unstated is that the political activities of unions and PACs are heavily regulated by the federal government.

Allen seriously misunderstands the right to anonymous political speech--equating political speech with the right of a citizen to face his accuser when charged with a crime by the government:

..."This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

While Mosk and The Post are furiously protecting Obama from the Obama is a Muslim allegation, they steadfstly refuse to report on Obama's well-documented connection to the terrorist supporter and Osama bin Laden sympathizer, Jodie Evans, co-founder of the anti-American group Code Pink.

The Post article claims that the Internet's danger to politics is the ability to spread rumors anonymously. The real danger is the left's willingness to use the Internet to track down and destroy its perceived enemies. Allen and Mosk's teamwork exposing Freepers is one more example of that.

For some reason, my links won’t take you to their site. However, this will give you an idea about what they’re talking about:

The enlargement of the distribution of our communist press and the expansion and entrenchment of our communist vision amongst all sections of society and most certainly recruitment into our ranks. In my opinion this is the only content worthy of our communist efforts. Believe it or not, communism - economic communism is a beautiful thing. Let’ s be clear. Socially necessary means of life are to be extended to all, without exception, without a demand for labor as a qualifying act to receive such sustenance. This is possible because the world in which we live faces a glut - not shortage, of labor. (End) As it was written: >> The ruling class, faced with all its contradictions, want change. So does the working class and people. That is where the question lies, and who is going to answer it and lead it? Perhaps the Democratic Party may split, but how does that change the question on the content of the change that will be ushered in as a result? The question should be who currently occupies the space for change and who is needed to occupy the space for change? I think the stand of the comrades in the United States should be to build the resistance against U.S. imperialism and reaction. This boils down to taking a stand against wars of aggression and imperialism, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and to withdraw all the troops and to recognize and respect the rights and sovereignty of peoples and nations. << Josh Comment Waistline: Again the content of change for communists is measured by a material quantitative increase in our forces. Building resistance against US imperialism is a noble idea I most certainly do not oppose, although I advocate something different: immediacy and insurgency against the fascist danger that is linked to and expressed as the historic break up of the Slave Oligarchy and the Southern political establishment, incorrectly called the “ultra-right” by the ideologist of the CPUSA. My open advocacy for supporting Obama in the Democratic primary, which is now over, in based in the real political life of our country and addresses the 35 million people that took time to take party in the primaries. It should be recalled that my suggestion to those taking part in the Republican primary was to vote for Ron Paul under the general banner of opposing the war against the people of Iraq and against the fascist policies of the Bush W. administration. Those not familiar with the history of Senator Ron Paul - a libertarian and advocate of “sound money,” which means species rather than fiat currency should consult his web site. His material on the encroachment of the police state is extremely revealing. Comrade, it is a rule of life that people can only be led where they are already going. Where people are going in real time is always the result of the spontaneous impulses of the economic system - and the property relations within, and our task as communists in the epoch of bourgeois property relations is to throw our efforts into making the proletariat and its mission a conscious movement. I believe fighting our bourgeois power, rather than a general US imperialism, means advocacy for communism in real terms, which boils down to fighting for our children to have government sponsored pens and paper and computer in public schools; universal health care administered by government and paid from our built up labor and its value during the course of the past 300 years. I most certainly oppose imperial wars by my government, but I am not an anti-war activists. I cannot oppose wars in the epoch of the bourgeoisie without opposing the property relations that make war the spontaneous outcome of the striving for maximum profits. I am mad as hell because nothing in American life justifies us having to pay for tap water. I am campaigning against the money economy and what it means for human life in the here and now. I am still campaigning against the Taft Hartley Act and section 14B, which created the non-union “right to work states” for the Southern reactionaries who bailed out of the Democratic Party with the Goldwater candidacy and solidly swung to the Republican Party. There is a real America that should not be glossed over by our ideological commitment to Leninism. I will most certainly get into trouble on this list by stating that the sovereign rights of the people of Iraq is not my reason for opposing the American government’s war against the people of Iraqi. I oppose this war because it is wrong, criminal and an attempt to establish a modern beachhead against the proletariat revolution in the so-called Middle East. This assault by my imperialist masters operates on the basis of the striving of two distinct ideological currents in American history, to reconstitute the world on the new no-banking financial instructions. Bush W. brand is historic Southern reaction. I strongly suggest that one reads the “bourgeois book” . . .”Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Take Over of American Politics” by Michael Lind. Mr. kind is a bourgeois ideologists, but lets establish a real basis to talk about political America other than ideological axioms. Comrade, I respect sovereignty and state (multinational) structures but both have a limit with me. Freedom is no longer higher than communist revolution and this was not true in the last period. If needed I ill expound on this issue. Comrade, we have a communist history that needs to be taken serious. In another period of our history bourgeois political democracy as opposed to the fascism of European led German imperialism and defense of the Soviet Union was the salient feature of the political environment. This is not the case today. What is the salient feature of the political and ideological struggle unfolding in American today in real time? (End) As it was written >> Throughout the primaries and caucuses that were taking place, there were a number of anti-war candidates that were fighting to get on the ballot so as to help change the situation and the direction of the US. The anti-war movement among the military and soldiers is also key in building the resistance. Building the space and discussion so people are aware of these movements, candidates and their stands is what is important to build the resistance and where communists should agitate. Supporting these candidates, supporting their struggle to have political space so they are able to bring their program in contradistinction with that of fascism and war that is constantly being put out there by the parties of the rich, such as the Democrats and the Republicans. << Josh Comment Waistline: I consult this list regularly and have read very little about the various groups - on this list, or any suggestions that communist and readers of this list should become active in such groups. I believe there is a divergence of views about the anti-war movement, its class content and its basis in our politician history. I vehemently resist advocacy that communist should throw their meager forces into the anti-war movement as a strategy. The American peoples as a whole already oppose the war against the people of Iraq. All the opinion polls testify to this. What is missing is communist advocacy and dammit . . . I am advocating economic communism in the here and now. Comrade, I swear to you this is what I tell people on the street. “Sir or Miss, what we need is revolution . . . The “Third Edition of the American revolution’ which is the revolution of labor.” This is what I say in real time as a protagonists. “I am tired of debating about how we are going to pay for things when 100 million,. 200 million and three to 400 million is spent on war every fucking day. And your child cannot get a fucking pencil and piece of paper in school. See . . . here is the problem in America. When someone says help me a bunch of people scream we ain’t helping no nigga. But those who need help and a different government are people who make the working class the working class. “You don’t need a new low rate mortgage mutherfucker, what your need is a decent place to live with decent schools and good public transportation and an energy allotment for your home. If we raise the bottom of society then the top takes care of its damn self.” Sorry Comrade, but I am not an anti-war activist. I am a hardcore communist and the thread in all my writings are about economic communism and the war against the American proletariat being waged by the American bourgeois imperialist. On another note I had the opportunity to read an interesting book by Ronald D. Gollata titled “THE ROAD TO HELL IS NOT PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.” 2007. (ISBN # 978-o-9705721-8-9 Library of Congress Control Number 2007928269) WWw.glottaassociates.com Mr. Glotta gives a stunning amylases of the Democratic and Republican Party and his role in organizing the 5,000 people that showed up in Washington D.C, in December 200) to protest the Bush W. election. More than that Mr. Glotta examines the social and political basis of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and then offers why various Third Party Movement have failed in recent and past history. In other words he talks about the actual social basis of the Green Party and why there exist a disconnect with the proletarian masses. (End) As it was written >> In the present elections, I think that supporting anti-war candidates is important in assisting the working class and people in occupying the space for change. That this space can be utilised in which the working class and people can actually discuss what kind of change should be in place and where facts of the conditions of real life can be examined and investigated and conclusions can be warranted and drawn. That occupying this space by the working class and people is essential to building the resistance against fascism and war>> Yours,Josh Comment Waistline: I am not against building resistance, but I have been resisting a long time. If my paycheck has been larger than the next man’s and my circumstances not as harsh, then lets call this the roll of the dice, since I did work in heavy industry - auto, for 30 years and currently work as a ground-keeper in an upscale apartment complex. In America every single individual has a “right” to know everything about the individual and this makes our politics a certain way. I vote and take part in voting. I work and have worked - sold my labor ability within the value producing system - capitalism, for the last 43 years of my 55 year old life. I turn 56 in September. There are no politics in America that does not become personal. Get use to it. I do not agree with the above as my approach - at all. Consider this: if gas rises another one dollar a gallon a huge section of the working class losses it’s ability to go to work and the economy becomes further dislocated, although the non-banking sector of capital - the speculator, makes money no matter which way the knife cuts. We never talk about real things in America and I cannot understand this because the proletarian masses are talking about real things. 30% of the working class are temporary workers and we must at least have the strength of conviction to look at what this means in wages and yearly employment. Things are worse than what the communist are writing about on various Marxist list. 50 million people have no health care and millions are going belly up and cannot pay their monthly housing bill and we are to talk about the anti-war movement as the most fertile ground for communism? I do not get this at all. What about economic communism, which is scary as hell in America, but hey . . . This is what I was born for.. Communism, I said it again and have a vision for the solution to our political, economic and social problems. Poverty is the breeding ground for ignorance, crime and 90% of our social ills. Today the American people will listen to this and some communist are still stuck in a previous era, arguing about the ideological vision of the Leninist revolution. Communism. Is this not scary to those inflicted with the ideology of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois hanger on’ers to the proletarian revolution. Take communism to the people as they exist and not as we fancy them. How is this delivering the proletariat into the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie? Waistline. **************Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch “Cooking with Tyler Florence” on AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4?&NCID=aolfod00030000000002) _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list

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