Historian Schama Makes Newsweek Debut Bashing Tea Partiers Over Respect for Founding Fathers

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2011/06/27/historian-simon-schama-makes-newsweek-debut-bashing-tea-partiers-over- ^

[chessplayer]

Columbia University professor Simon Schama made his Newsweek debut yesterday with a blog post that indirectly attacked Tea Party activists and conservatives for what Schama considers a historically illiterate ancestor worship of the Founding Fathers.

"The Constitution’s framers were flawed like today’s politicians, so it’s high time we stop embalming them in infallibility," snarked the subheading for Schama's June 26 post.

[chessplayer]

The all-out war against and hatred of our Founding Fathers is more out in the open than ever before. So James Madison is no better than Barney Frank. Thomas Jefferson is no better than Botox Pelosi, etc.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Yeah, but for God’s sake: it is NEWSWEEK. The toilet paper of news magazines.

[DemforBush]

“The Constitution’s framers were flawed like today’s politicians...”

Yes, yes they were. Which is why they knew well enough to frame a document that entrusted power in the citizenry, and not a handful of elites.

[DoughtyOne]

You’ve really got to be dead asleep on the railroad tracks, not to hear this Leftist freight train approaching.

This verges on sedition IMO. You destroy the founders, and nothing they did is deemed worthy of remaining in tact.

This is an attack on the United States, that is more dangerous than any other since our founding.

[Lets Roll NOW]

Love it or leave it. I think we should bring back a Founding Father tradition - duels. “Yeah, I’m questioning your patriotism pinko. Meet me out back”. Won’t need a recall for that one.

[combat_boots]

Oh yum. Aaron Burr on Maragansett Island Redux.

[Norm Lenhart]

Hmmmm...
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

Congressional Record—Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:
[From “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture—education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [”]united force[”] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

[Dogbert41]

Except they were able to come up with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, wereas today’s politicians come up with Obama Care and gun control, the IRS and EPA, the FDA and then give the FDA SWAT teams!

[ken21]

shama’s not a u.s. citizen?

[cashless]

Infallible? No, dear Professor, not infallible. But unlike you, a better understanding of the fallen nature of man and his fallen desire to rule over other men despotically. A concept you evidently overlooked early in your academic pursuit of snobbish arrogance. You over educated pri*ck.

[EGPWS]

The toilet paper of news magazines

Is it proper to say what Time magazine is in public without concern for prosecution?

[FlingWingFlyer]

It’s tough to boycott Newsweak because people really don’t have to go to the dentist that often.

[cripplecreek]

"The Constitution’s framers were flawed like today’s politicians, so it’s high time we stop embalming them in infallibility,"

Nobody says they were perfect or infallible, just that they got it right the from the beginning. I doubt Schama would care much for who I give credit to for our founders getting it right though.

[matt04]

I don’t remember that last time a saw a Newsweek. I keep forgetting they are still around somehow.

[bunkerhill7]

This is an Anti-American public act of betrayal:

Each president recites the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

[chessplayer]

“You’ve really got to be dead asleep on the railroad tracks, not to hear this Leftist freight train approaching.

This verges on sedition IMO. You destroy the founders, and nothing they did is deemed worthy of remaining in tact.

This is an attack on the United States, that is more dangerous than any other since our founding.”

Exactly. Destroy them and it makes the job of dismantling everything they did much easier. And the bots (children) are being taught exactly that,,,from the 1st grade through college.

[MCF]

Hell, todays Senate can’t even come up with a budget and has not for 2 years running.

[cripplecreek]

They know what they're doing, their plan goes back decades.

29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man".

Communist Goals (1963)

[MizSterious]

Yes, but all too typical. We’ve heard the same theme from leftist politicians and pundits for awhile now. Stunning, though, from someone who claims to be a historian.

[SuziQ]

Which is why they knew well enough to frame a document that entrusted power in the citizenry, and not a handful of elites.

Well said!