Know Your Enemy

This year, for the first time, I'm teaching AP Comparative Government. I have a smidgen of background on the topics, but I'm basically diving into the true depths of this issue as we go along.

I thought I would throw out some thoughts and, optimistically, insights into this fall's electoral craziness through the medium of the course I'm teaching. I also request that if you know more than me, please correct my misinterpretations.

:: :: • The book we use is Patrick O'Neil's Essential of Comparative Politics, and the basic tack used is to examine a country's political institutions. An institution being "an organization or activity that is self-perpetuating and valued for its own sake." In other words, marriage, baseball or voting would be institutions.

Edmund Burke, the father of conservatism, basically said that institutions that have evolved over time are more important and represent more wisdom than any intentional tinkering with society. This is why he paradoxically supported the American Revolution, because he saw the Americans as defending their institutions against a monarch who sought to undermine them. It's also why he opposed the French Revolution, because that revolution destroyed many of the institutions in France. Which leads me, of course, to Election '08 (though mercifully not to Sarah Palin).

We have seen the Rove-McCain playbook in the past few days in full throated glory. Nonsensical attacks bouncing around the media echo chamber. Someone (I think at TPM) suggested satirically that Obama start calling himself a conservative just to fuck with the right. Perhaps he should. Seriously.

From a political science POV, Bush is less a conservative than a reactionary. The modern GOP in general is a reactionary body, trying to reinsert religion into the public square, restart the Cold War (more on that tomorrow), destroy Social Security and un-do collective security arrangements in place since 1945.

I think Obama could make a plausible case that he is going to preserve the institutions that American's care about: Social Security, equality (in the form of equal pay for equal work), our role as a beacon of liberty in the world, the freedom to practice religion (or not) as YOU please, not the theocrats.

This would not be a "shift right" on any substantive issue. But it would appeal to the tempermental conservativism that most Americans embrace.

By arguing that the GOP (and McCain) want to destroy American institutions and only by "changing Washington" can we preserve what we hold deal, he can both win the "change vote" and not appear too "scary" and Blackazoid! It also has the additional pleasure of driving the right nuts. I think Sarah Palin (SHIT! I wasn't going to mention her.) has knocked the entire Democratic/Left off it's moorings. We spend hours obsessing over her knowledge of Georgia's relationship to NATO and lose the initiative. Institutions matter to people, otherwise they wouldn't be institutions. By appealing to the people as a protector of institutions, Obama could accomplish three things.

1. Appeal to voters who want "change" but not "change!" Those who want a different direction, but worry about what that might look like. Think about "preserving the Clinton Tax Code". Or run an ad with Susan Eisenhower comparing her grampas Interstate System to Obama's Energy Plan.

2. Drive the wingnutus crazy. "How dare Obama say he's a conservative!" Watch Limbaugh's head explode!

3. Cast the entire GOP and McCain and Bush together as a failed ideology that want's to un-do progress and destroy things that we take for granted like Social Security and government competence.

I think part of the GOP's electoral success has been that Americans tend to be tempermentally conservative when it comes to change. We only make a major course correction when we have to. Now is clearly a time to change course, but Obama can reassure people by casting his language of change as a preservation of American Institutions that are being threatened by a GOP that wants to destroy them.

Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [Maoist]
Revolution #63, October 1, 2006

Interview with Bill Ayers:
"On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times"
http://rwor.org/a/063/ayers-en.html

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From Investor's Business Daily (IBD), August 27, 2008:

"Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called 'Improving Learning Environments' says prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.'..."

Article: Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304729375940845

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"The Small Schools Workshop was founded in 1991 at the University of Illinois at Chicago to provide support for teachers who were trying to create new smaller learning environments. Its director is Michael Klonsky, a former professor of education at UIC."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Schools_Workshop

________________________________________________________

Some background on Bill Ayers' SDS comrade, Michael Klonsky
(Chicago Annenberg Challenge-related)

"One of Bill Ayers’ and Bernardine Dohrn’s comrades in the late 60s Students for a Democratic Society was Mike Klonsky. When Dohrn and Ayers moved in one direction toward the violent tactics of the Weather Underground, Klonsky, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, dropped the pro-Russian communist politics of his parents and became a committed Maoist. As leader of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) in 1977 [not to be confused with Communist Party USA. CPML no longer exists, CPUSA formed decades earlier and is still around-ETL], he travelled to Beijing and was toasted by the senior Beijing leadership.

When the crazy left of the 70s died in the 80s, Klonsky went to graduate school in education in Florida and then moved to Chicago.

While driving a cab there he [Michael Klonsky] was recruited by his old friend Bill Ayers to head up a new project called the Small Schools Workshop in 1991. It’s offices were in the Department of Education building at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus where Ayers taught.

In 1995 the newly formed Chicago Annenberg Challenge headed by Ayers and Obama gave the Workshop a grant of $175,000.

The Annenberg Challenge also had its office space in the same building as Ayers Department and the Workshop, rent free courtesy of the University.

In 2008 Klonsky ran a blog on the official Obama campaign website on education policy and “social justice” teaching. When discussion of the Klonsky blog emerged in the blogosphere, it was promptly shut down by the campaign and all of the posts made by Klonsky were removed from the site."

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/12/the-obama-ayers-top-ten-highlights-of-the-20-year-obama-ayers-connection/

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In 1977, the October League was reorganized as the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) [again, not Communist Party USA (CPUSA) -ETL] and former SDS activist Michael Klonsky became party chairman. Also in 1977, Klonsky traveled to China and the CPML was recognized by the Chinese Communist Party as its official sister party in America.

(snip)

In January 1981, Michael Klonsky resigned as party chairman, and the CPML disbanded that same year.

The previous Red Encyclopedia description of the CPML was incorrectly combined with that of the Communist Party USA (Marxist-Leninist).

http://reds.linefeed.org/past.html

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Much more on the ObamaRat-commie connections at my FR Profile/Home page. Everything there is linked directly to its source. I've now added within-page links and a clickable "table of contents' which makes it easy to hop around to the various sections:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl

The Center for Public Intellectuals & The University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC)
April 19th-20th, 2002, Conference
[Participants include: William/Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Sen Barack Obama]

April 19th-20th, 2002
Chicago Illini Union
828 S. Wolcott

This conference is part of the Center's mission of helping to create a more engaged civil society, working towards social change, fostering coalitions between theorists and activists, and combating anti-intellectualism in contemporary culture. It will be both a celebration of ideas and a rigorous examination of the roles and responsibilities that intellectuals play in society.

I. Why Do Ideas Matter? (a keynote panel)

We introduce the “meta” theme of the conference by hearing “success stories” from diverse voices discussing their experiences intervening intellectually.

Timuel Black, Chicago activist; Prof. Emeritus, City Colleges of Chicago
Lonnie Bunch, President, Chicago Historical Society
Bernardine Dohrn, Northwestern University Law School, Children and Family Justice Center
Gerald Graff, UIC, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Richard Rorty, Stanford University, Philosophy

III. Lunch and Public Encounters

Alternative breakout tours led by Chicago activists. Tours of Bronzeville and other communities, and visits to organizations that are working on partnering theorists with activists.

IV. Intellectuals in Times of Crisis
Experiences and applications of intellectual work in urgent situations.

William Ayers, UIC, College of Education; author of Fugitive Days
Douglass Cassel, Northwestern University, Center for International Human Rights
Cathy Cohen, University of Chicago, Political Science
Salim Muwakkil, Chicago Tribune; In These Times
Barack Obama, Illinois State Senator
Barbara Ransby, UIC, African-American Studies (moderator)

The Center for Public Intellectuals
University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC):
http://www.uic.edu/classes/las/las400/conferencealt.htm

From Sept 11, 2001, New York Times article/interview with Obama associate and friend, William/Bill Ayers.
Article title: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"

"During his fugitive years, Mr. Ayers said, he lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes the typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom; fermented Vietnamese fish sauce in the refrigerator, and live sourdough starter donated by a Native American that was reputed to have passed from hand to hand over a century."

(snip)

"Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as:

'Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

New York Times, September 11, 2001:
"No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

Allies in War
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001:

ON THE MORNING OF THE ATTACKS on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, along with a million other readers of the New York Times including many who would never be able to read the paper again, I opened its pages to be confronted by a color photo showing a middle-aged couple holding hands and affecting a defiant look at the camera. The article was headlined in an irony that could not have been more poignant, "No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives."

The couple pictured were Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, former leaders of the 1960s’ Weather Underground, America’s first terrorist cult. One of their bombing targets, as it happened, was the Pentagon.

"I don’t regret setting bombs," Ayers was quoted in the opening line of the Times profile; "I feel we didn’t do enough."

In 1969, Ayers and his wife convened a "War Council" in Flint Michigan, whose purpose was to launch a military front inside the United States with the purpose of helping Third World revolutionaries conquer and destroy it.

Taking charge of the podium, dressed in high-heeled boots and a leather mini-skirt – her signature uniform – Dorhn incited the assembled radicals to join the war against "Amerikkka" and create chaos and destruction in the "belly of the beast."

Her voice rising to a fevered pitch, Dohrn raised three fingers in a "fork salute" to mass murderer Charles Manson whom she proposed as a symbol to her troops. Referring to the helpless victims of the Manson Family as the "Tate Eight" (the most famous was actress Sharon Tate) Dohrn shouted:

"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"

(big snip)

Today William Ayers is not merely an author favored by the New York Times, but a Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Illinois, Chicago.

His Lady Macbeth [Bernardine Dohrn] is not merely a lawyer, but a member of the American Bar Association’s governing elite, as well as the director of Northwestern University’s Children and Family Justice Center.
[it's true! see: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/BernardineDohrn/]

Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09

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Confession (Manson Family)

When they got in the house, Susan [Atkins] said that in the living room there was a man on the couch and a woman on the chair reading. Then some of Susan's group stayed in the living room, while Susan went into the bedroom where Sharon was sitting on the bed talking to Jay Sebring. They quickly put nooses over Sharon and Jay's heads so that if they moved they would choke.

Frykowski ran for the door. "He was full of blood," she said and claimed that she had stabbed him three or four times. "He was bleeding and he ran to the front part, and would you believe that he was there hollering 'Help, help, somebody please help me,' and nobody came? Then we finished him off."

"Sharon was the last to die," Susan said with a laugh as she described how Sharon was begging her, " Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. I don't want to die. I want to live. I want to have my baby. I want to have my baby."

Susan said she just looked at Sharon straight in the eye and said, "Look, bitch, I don't care about you. I don't care if you're going to have a baby. You had better be ready. You're going to die and I don't feel anything about it...In a few minutes I killed her."

Susan said she saw that there was Sharon's blood on her hand and she tasted it. "Wow, what a trip! To taste death, and yet give life."

Source: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/manson/confess_4.html

"Dig It. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
-Weather Underground leader and wife of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn

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