Obama is 'failing' to keep us safe

Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans


By Toby Harnden


There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the marshalling of  “every element of our national power” – the phrase Obama himself used on Monday – to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).

Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a “B+” for his 2009 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants.  He said today that a “systemic failure has occurred”. Well, he’s in charge of that system.

The picture we’re getting is more and more alarming by the hour. Here are some key elements to consider:

1. Abdulmutallab’s father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen. According to CNN, the CIA officer wrote up a report, which then sat in the CIA headquarters at Langley for several weeks without being disseminated to the rest of the intelligence community.  This was not just a casual encounter. Again according to CNN, there were at least two face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and written correspondence with the father. If it’s true that the CIA sat on this then it beggars belief.

2. After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to “connect the dots”. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA – CIA spokesman George Little says here that “key biographical information” and information about “possible extremist connections in Yemen” was passed to NCTC. If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House? There’s a huge blame game beginning so we’ll no doubt know soon enough.

3. It wasn’t just the meeting with the father. According to CBS, “as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed ‘The Nigerian’ suspected of meeting with ‘terrorist elements’ in Yemen”. So there were other parts of the jigsaw that were not put together.

4. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body” – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.

5. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month.  In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We’ll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it’s called the war on terror or not, it’s clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists.

6. Guantanamo Bay. It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay. How many other enemies of America and the West are going to be released back to the battlefield? As Mike Goldfarb asks: “Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?”

7. Janet Napolitano, Obama’s Homeland Security Chief, has been a disaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. On Sunday, she told CNN that “one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked” and ABC News that “once the incident occurred, the system worked”. A day later, she grumbled that quoted “out of context” before reversing herself, telling NBC: “Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.” The “system worked” comment was a “heckuva job, Brownie” moment. Is she up to the job?

8. Will Obama hold individuals accountable? Briefing the press today behind a cloak of anonymity as a “Senior Administration Official”, Denis McDonough, NSC chief of staff (he gave the game away by saying he was from Minnesota), said that Obama “intends to demand accountability at the highest levels” before adding: ” It remains to be seen what that means exactly.” If heads don’t roll – and soon – then Obama’s words will seem hollow. It’s an opportunity for him to show some real steel.

9. There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: “On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda.  We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.” Why pat yourself on the back for “winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us” when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: “I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.”

10.  Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It’s safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as “officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda” that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player.



Click here to view the article

Toby Harnden is the (United Kingdom's) Daily Telegraph's US Editor, based in Washington DC.

Unbelievable Arrogance and Hypocrisy in Copenhagen

Why is it that the ones crying so loud about a global disaster are the ones contributing so much to that 'disaster'. What hypocrites!

Prince Charles commandeered a jet belonging to the Queen's Flight, generating an estimated 6.4tons of carbon dioxide, 5.2 tons more than if he had used a commercial flight. . He informed his audience that 'the world has only seven years before we lose the levers of control'.

Gordon Brown, was making his own way to Copenhagen the same day. He proclaimed in October that we had '50 days to save the world'. He conjured up on a television programme the certainty of 'floods and droughts' with 'climate change evacuees and refugees' if agreement is not reached in Copenhagen. Mr Brown chartered a 185-seat Airbus to take him and 20 aides to Denmark.

Al Gore attributed to Dr Wieslaw Maslowski, an eminent climate change scientist, the belief 'that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years'. Dr Maslowski promptly denied that he would ever 'try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as that'.



So according to Prime Minister Gordon Brown we only had '50 days to save the world' in October, what was the point in flying to Copenhagen and dumping all that carbon dioxide into the air in December? It was already too late.


And Al Gore says that in five to seven years the entire north polar ice cap will be gone during the summer months. Well duh! Prince Charles told us that 'the world has only seven years before we lose the levers of control'. So who cares about the North Pole? By then it's already too late.


These people are not stupid, but they are certainly arrogant and hypocritical.

AMNESTY FOR MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS?

The short version:

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) introduced The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (H.R. 4321) today that offers amnesty to the nation's estimated 11-18 million illegal aliens.

H.R. 4321 would offer amnesty to all illegal aliens living in the United States at the time of the bill's passage.

The bill would also discontinue E-Verify.

H.R. 4321 also grants amnesty to illegal farm workers who can prove they've worked consistently in the United States over a set period of time, and grants amnesty to illegal aliens who graduated from U.S. high schools and wish to attend college.

____________________________________________

The long version:

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) introduced legislation today that offers amnesty to the nation's estimated 11-18 million illegal aliens. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (H.R. 4321) would increase annual immigration numbers while putting an end to many of the enforcement mechanisms currently put into place by federal, state and local governments.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas) is the bill's official sponsor. The bill was introduced with 91 original cosponsors including Rep. Gutierrez.

H.R. 4321 would offer amnesty to all illegal aliens living in the United States at the time of the bill's passage as long as they meet a short list of requirements, including a criminal and security background check and a fine of $500 which will be waved for children and individuals who entered the country before the age of 16. Illegal aliens can then become citizenship by meeting requirements over a six-year period.

The bill would also discontinue E-Verify in lieu of a new employment authorization system. The initial outline of the bill provided by the American Immigration Lawyers Association does not offer details of the new system, but Rep. Gutierrez championed a biometrics verification system during a Senate Immigration Subcommittee hearing earlier this year.

The bill would create an independent commission that would make recomendation towards the future flow of workers based on the needs of the market place. The bill would also establish a work match system that allows employers who have historically relied on illegal workers to find workers through an internet-based system.

The bill would attempt to close up some of the loopholes in current visa classes, more specifically the H-1B visas for high-skilled workers, but the bill would not reduce the number of these visas currently issued.

The bill also includes the AgJOBS amnesty, which grants amnesty to illegal farm workers who can prove they've worked consistently in the United States over a set period of time, and the DREAM Act, which grants amnesty to illegal aliens who graduated from U.S. high schools and wish to attend college.

To read more click here.

Al Gore was Gored by an Inconvenient Truth

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up

From The Times (of London) online
December 15, 2009

There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

The embarrassing error cast another shadow over the conference after the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, which appeared to suggest that scientists had manipulated data to strengthen their argument that human activities were causing global warming.

Mr Gore is not the only titan of the world stage finding Copenhagen to be a tricky deal.

World leaders — with Gordon Brown arriving tonight in the vanguard — are facing the humiliating prospect of having little of substance to sign on Friday, when they are supposed to be clinching an historic deal.

Meanwhile, five hours of negotiating time were lost yesterday when developing countries walked out in protest over the lack of progress on their demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations. The move underlined the distrust between rich and poor countries over the proposed legal framework for the deal.

Last night key elements of the proposed deal were unravelling. British officials said they were no longer confident that it would contain specific commitments from individual countries on payments to a global fund to help poor nations to adapt to climate change while the draft text on protecting rainforests has also been weakened.

Even the long-term target of ending net deforestation by 2030 has been placed in square brackets, meaning that the date could be deferred. An international monitoring system to identify illegal logging is now described in the text as optional, where before it was compulsory. Negotiators are also unable to agree on a date for a global peak in greenhouse emissions.

Perhaps Mr Gore had felt the need to gild the lily to buttress resolve. But his speech was roundly criticised by members of the climate science community. “This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski’s six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

“Maslowski’s work is very well respected, but he’s a bit out on a limb,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

Dr Maslowki, who works at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.

He added: “I was very explicit that we were talking about near-ice-free conditions and not completely ice-free conditions in the northern ocean. I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this,” he said. “It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at, based on the information I provided to Al Gore’s office.”

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist at the Massachusets Institute of Technology who does not believe that global warming is largely caused by man, said: “He’s just extrapolated from 2007, when there was a big retreat, and got zero.”

Ten Facts & Ten Myths On Climate Change

Ten Facts & Ten Myths On Climate Change
from www.rense.com


The following 10 Facts and 10 Myths on climate change were written by By Prof. Robert M. Carter, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, Global Research.ca
(Robert M. Carter is a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience.)


The 10 FACTS:

1. Climate has always changed, and it always will. The assumption that prior to the industrial revolution the Earth had a "stable" climate is simply wrong. The only sensible thing to do about climate change is to prepare for it.

2. Accurate temperature measurements made from weather balloons and satellites since the late 1950s show no atmospheric warmingsince 1958. In contrast, averaged ground-based thermometers record a warming of about 0.40 C over the same time period. Many scientists believe that the thermometer record is biased by the Urban Heat Island effect and other artefacts.

3. Despite the expenditure of more than US$50 billion dollars looking for it since 1990, no unambiguous anthropogenic (human) signal has been identified in the global temperature pattern.

4. Without the greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature on Earth would be -180 C rather than the equable +15 C that has nurtured the development of life.

Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas, responsible for ~26% (80 C) of the total greenhouse effect (330C), of which in turn at most 25% (~20C) can be attributed to carbon dioxide contributed by human activity. Water vapour, contributing at least 70% of the effect, is by far the most important atmospheric greenhouse gas.

5. On both annual (1 year) and geological (up to 100,000 year) time scales, changes in atmospheric temperature PRECEDE changes in CO2. Carbon dioxide therefore cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature increase (though increasing CO2 does cause a diminishingly mild positive temperature feedback).

6. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acted as the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby that led to the Kyoto Protocol. Fatally, the IPCC is a political, not scientific, body.

Hendrik Tennekes, a retired Director of Research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, says that "the IPCC review process is fatally flawed" and that "the IPCC wilfully ignores the paradigm shift created by the foremost meteorologist of the twentieth century, Edward Lorenz".

7. The Kyoto Protocol will cost many trillions of dollars and exercises a significant impost those countries that signed it, but will deliver no significant cooling (less than .020 C by 2050, assuming that all commitments are met).

The Russian Academy of Sciences says that Kyoto has no scientific basis; Andre Illarianov, senior advisor to Russian president Putin, calls Kyoto-ism "one of the most agressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism". If Kyoto was a "first step" then it was in the same wrong direction as the later "Bali roadmap".

8. Climate change is a non-linear (chaotic) process, some parts of which are only dimly or not at all understood. No deterministic computer model will ever be able to make an accurate prediction of climate 100 years into the future.

9. Not surprisingly, therefore, experts in computer modelling agree also that no current (or likely near-future) climate model is able to make accurate predictions of regional climate change.

10. The biggest untruth about human global warming is the assertion that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring, and at a dangerous rate.

The reality is that almost every aspect of climate science is the subject of vigorous debate. Further, thousands of qualified scientists worldwide have signed declarations which (i) query the evidence for hypothetical human-caused warming and (ii) support a rational scientific (not emotional) approach to its study within the context of known natural climate change.



The 10 Myths:

Myth 1 Average global temperature (AGT) has increased over the last few years.

Fact 1 Within error bounds, AGT has not increased since 1995 and has declined since 2002, despite an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 8% since 1995.

Myth 2 During the late 20th Century, AGT increased at a dangerously fast rate and reached an unprecedented magnitude.

Facts 2 The late 20th Century AGT rise was at a rate of 1-20 C/century, which lies well within natural rates of climate change for the last 10,000 yr. AGT has been several degrees warmer than today many times in the recent geological past.

Myth 3 AGT was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times, has sky-rocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years (the Mann, Bradley & Hughes "hockey stick" curve and its computer extrapolation).

Facts 3 The Mann et al. curve has been exposed as a statistical contrivance. There is no convincing evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th century changes in AGT were unusual, nor that dangerous human warming is underway.

Myth 4 Computer models predict that AGT will increase by up to 60 C over the next 100 years.

Facts 4 Deterministic computer models do. Other equally valid (empirical) computer models predict cooling.

Myth 5 Warming of more than 20 C will have catastrophic effects on ecosystems and mankind alike.

Facts 5 A 20 C change would be well within previous natural bounds. Ecosystems have been adapting to such changes since time immemorial. The result is the process that we call evolution. Mankind can and does adapt to all climate extremes.

Myth 6 Further human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will cause dangerous warming, and is generally harmful.

Facts 6 No human-caused warming can yet be detected that is distinct from natural system variation and noise. Any additional human-caused warming which occurs will probably amount to less than 10 C. Atmospheric CO2 is a beneficial fertilizer for plants, including especially cereal crops, and also aids efficient evapo-transpiration.

Myth 7 Changes in solar activity cannot explain recent changes in AGT.

Facts 7 The sun's output varies in several ways on many time scales (including the 11-, 22 and 80-year solar cycles), with concomitant effects on Earth's climate. While changes in visible radiation are small, changes in particle flux and magnetic field are known to exercise a strong climatic effect. More than 50% of the 0.80 C rise in AGT observed during the 20th century can be attributed to solar change.

Myth 8 Unprecedented melting of ice is taking place in both the north and south polar regions.

Facts 8 Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are growing in thickness and cooling at their summit. Sea ice around Antarctica attained a record area in 2007. Temperatures in the Arctic region are just now achieving the levels of natural warmth experienced during the early 1940s, and the region was warmer still (sea-ice free) during earlier times.

Myth 9 Human-caused global warming is causing dangerous global sea-level (SL) rise.

Facts 9 SL change differs from time to time and place to place; between 1955 and 1996, for example, SL at Tuvalu fell by 105 mm (2.5 mm/yr). Global average SL is a statistical measure of no value for environmental planning purposes. A global average SL rise of 1-2 mm/yr occurred naturally over the last 150 years, and shows no sign of human-influenced increase.

Myth 10 The late 20th Century increase in AGT caused an increase in the number of severe storms (cyclones), or in storm intensity.

Facts 10 Meteorological experts are agreed that no increase in storms has occurred beyond that associated with natural variation of the climate system.

Hollywood Promotes the Socialist Agenda

Do not underestimate the Progressive/Socialist agenda.  

 

Kids to Meet Marx in School – Care of 
Hollywood and The History Channel
 
by Patrick Courrielche

Children are uniquely malleable beings, readily convinced of magically colorful tales – Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are the first that come to mind. This innocence is beautiful, but it is a quality that can easily fall victim to radically foreign ideas if taught consistently and pervasively at an early age. One need only look at the birth of fascism or socialism to see a recipe for how radical ideas become ubiquitous among a nation’s youth.

Enter Howard Zinn – an author, professor and American historian – who, with the help of Hollywood and the History Channel, intends to change the way our pre-K through high school children learn American history. His current curriculum suggestions, like introducing three-year-olds to the lynching of African-Americans, or quizzing seven-year-olds on which Presidents owned slaves, should be a red flag to parents.

Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students. His controversial 1980-book The People’s History of the United States paints traditional American history as a façade – one that has grotesquely immortalized flawed leaders and is based on principles that victimize the common man. In 2004, Zinn wrote a companion book entitled Voices Of A People’s History Of The United States, which includes speeches and writings from many of the people featured in The People’s History.

These two books have now become the basis for a new documentary, entitled The People Speak, to be aired December 13th at 8pm on the History Channel. The trailer portrays the documentary as a collage of compelling one-person readings, told through the words of “ordinary” people who have struggled throughout American history against oppression. Produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Chris Moore, the documentary appears to be cloaked, ironically (given Zinn’s admitted socialist agenda), in many of the traditional ideas that were behind our founding. The verdict is still out on the doc, but it is not for the books that inspired the film as well as the educational initiative associated with it.

Perhaps due to their one-sided perspective of America’s past, Zinn’s history books have largely been limited to colleges and universities, until now. In the press release announcing the broadcast, HISTORY introduced a partnership with VOICES Of A People’s History Of The United States, a nonprofit led by Zinn that bares the same name as his companion book, to help get his special brand of history into classrooms.

Delving into Zinn’s nonprofit is where this story gets interesting, and the organization’s grade school educational ambitions concerning.

VOICES’ function is to provide live performances of readings from the book Voices of a People’s History as well as educational materials to schoolteachers. The nonprofit’s site provides teachers with resources, including a teaching guide that explains how to get students excited about Zinn’s history books. Their educational materials also includes the Zinn Education Project, a resource for teaching Zinn’s perspective of American history to – drum roll please – pre-Kindergarten through high school students! Included in the curriculum for pre-K students (that’s three and four year-olds) is “Rethinking Columbus,” which counters “the myth of Columbus.” In Zinn’s view, our pre-K children “need to hear from those whose lands and rights were taken away by those who ‘discovered’ them.”

Another teaching lesson for our three-year-old students is “One Country! One Language! One Flag!” that includes teaching ideas for “examining the history of the Pledge of Allegiance and the political milieu in which it was written.” The teaching plan suggests introducing our pre-K-ers to the lynching of African-Americans in the 1880s, and introducing the history of violence and discrimination against minority groups. It also proposes a discussion on an old “One Language!” chant allegedly used in classrooms up until 1942, and poses teachers with the question, “Why not lead kids in the original Pledge to the Flag, including the ‘One Language!’ chant and the Nazi-like salute, and then lead a discussion about the politics of the Pledge?”

This discussion is proposed for kids age three to seven?

Zinn also includes a youngster version of his influential book entitled A Young People’s History of the United States as an introduction to his untold American History. The publisher of the book highlights a review by the magazine Socialist Review, who proclaimed “Howard Zinn has adapted his People’s History of the United States for younger readers, but in no way do these books pull their punches. Zinn feels the younger reader is entitled to look at US history honestly.”

The background of the board of directors and advisers of VOICES’ can only be described as jaw dropping and begins to show a clear motive behind teaching this predominantly anti-American history at such a young age.

Made up of several notables including Zinn, Kerry Washington, and Marisa Tomei, all of whom make appearances in the documentary, the VOICES board also includes radicals who play a role in our public schools. Brian Jones, a New York teacher and actor, is a board member of VOICES and has also played the lead in Zinn’s play Marx in SoHo. You can see Jones speaking about Zinn and the play below, recorded for a performance in Greece, where he extols the benefits of this one man play as a tool to introduce people to Marx’s ideas:
Click here

Jones is also a regular contributor to Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and speaks regularly on the beneficial principles of Marxism, including this year at the 2009 Socialism Conference. He recently gave a speech on the failure of capitalism, proclaiming that “Marx is back.”

Sarah Knopp, a Los Angeles high school teacher, is also on Zinn’s Teacher Advisory Board. Like Jones, Knopp is also a regular contributor to International Socialist Review, Socialist Worker, is an active member in The International Socialist Organization, and was also a speaker at the 2009 Socialist Conference. Here is Knopp speaking about the benefits of socialism, how capitalism destroys lives, and how she advocates workers taking over their factories:
Click here

Is it becoming clearer why this group might want to teach children to think poorly of the American system?

Then there is Jesse Sharkey, a schoolteacher in Chicago. Sharkey is another of Zinn’s Teacher Advisory Board Members and, completely uncharacteristic of this group, is a contributor to… Socialist Worker.

This is the group that the History Channel is working with “to develop enhanced, co-branded curriculums for a countrywide educational initiative.” If readers choose to watch The People Speak, which we at BigHollywood encourage, keep in mind the context of the documentary’s creator and the pre-K to high school curriculum that the History Channel and VOICES could possibly create given the makeup of the board members.

I am not advocating that we spare our kids the harsh truths of American history, but I am suggesting, given Zinn’s far-left political affiliation, this project is designed to breakdown our vulnerable children’s views of American principles so that they can be built back up in a socialist vision.

Zinn’s one-man play Marx in SoHo provides an example of his attempt to reestablish the socialist ideology. The play, created in 1999, places Marx in New York after bargaining with the authorities of the after-life for a chance to come back to earth to clear his name. At the end of the cold war, Zinn felt that Marxism was unfairly discredited through being anchored to the fall of the Soviet Union. Through the play, Zinn wanted “the audience to see Marx defending his ideas against attack.” Those associated with the play have described it as an attempt to reestablish Marx’s philosophic and economic outlook – a philosophy that views capitalism as corrosive to the human condition. It doesn’t take a great leap to surmise that instilling in children a pessimistic view of the American experience could make his ideas more palatable.

Zinn’s socialist philosophy has definitely made its way into the documentary, including a speech by prominent socialist Eugene Debs. In his speech, which is a prose to the ills of the capitalist system, he speaks to a court that convicted him of sedition:

    “I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man, who does absolutely nothing…to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”

To view the promotional videos click here.

It is not surprising to me that there are groups sympathetic to Marx’s ideas throughout our country. What is surprising is that the most powerful persuasion machine in the world (Hollywood) and the History Channel would provide Zinn such a prominent soapbox to stealthily build a case for a destructive ideology to our children, and as a result mainstream his ideas with the magic of cool music, graphics, and celebrity. Groups that push Marx’s philosophy are like a virtual organism that will not die off even when stung by the undeniable historical evidence showing human behavior makes such a system unsustainable. If we let this virtual organism into our grade schools, it will take decades for our kids to unlearn the ideology.

And if there are any doubts of the intentions of Howard Zinn’s movement, I provide a quote of his in closing. When a reporter asked Zinn, “In writing A People’s History, what were you calling for? A quiet revolution?” Zinn responded:  “A quiet revolution is a good way of putting it. From the bottom up. Not a revolution in the classical sense of a seizure of power, but rather from people beginning to take power from within the institutions. In the workplace, the workers would take power to control the conditions of their lives. It would be a democratic socialism.”

It appears that Zinn’s ilk have started the institutional phase of their agenda.

This is the link to the article: 

Hollywood and the Socialist Agenda




Below is a comment posted on the above page:


Here's the letter I sent to the school board of my high school about Zinn. Nothing happened, of course. But I did a lot of research to write this letter. (And my son is now a college Republican who despises Marxism with every fiber of his being. So there, you filthy evil Zinn.)

Dear School Board:
I object to one of the texts being used in the U.S. History Course. This book is called “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn. Howard Zinn has a PhD in History and is about eighty years old. He is also a self-described Marxist and radical who despises America. Let me quote him in his own words, after he took part in a Communist Party march in New York when he was a young man: “From that moment on I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong with this country. Something rotten at the root.”

Howard Zinn’s history book is, as he declared himself in the 1995 edition: “A biased account.” In the 2000 edition, he declares “there is no such thing as pure fact.” Read the book and do some research and you will find this out for yourself. Howard Zinn’s omissions and errors are too many to go into here, but here is one example. Zinn declares that George Washington was the richest man in America. That’s a simple fact. And it’s not true. Do we want to be teaching our high school kids incorrect information? His book is full of errors like this one. It’s hard to tell how many errors there are, because Zinn’s book contains not a single source citation – not one. He never tells us where he gets his historical sources. A little fact checking and we find out where – from the mind of Howard Zinn, not from history.

The lack of scholarly research alone should disqualify this inaccurate text from our school. Worse, though, is Zinn’s ideology, which attempts to present America as a greedy, evil country. Zinn presents this because – again, I’m quoting his own words – he is a “Marxist, socialist, anarchist, radical, anticapitalist.” Remember his words – “America is rotten at the root.” He is a great writer, though! His text flows, his words resonate, and if you don’t read carefully you might think this is a terrific antidote to the dry history texts that we all had to suffer through in school. But looks can be deceiving. This book is exactly that – deceptive, incorrect and unacceptable. Even if a teacher wanted to give an “alternate” view of history, shouldn’t we at least make sure that view of history is historically accurate?

We need to get rid of this book. I hope the school board can correct this mistake. I have two problems with this text: First, it is full of factual errors and contains no scholarly research to back up any of the claims. Second, the bias in the book is deliberately anti-American. Perhaps we can graduate dumb students, who think George Washington was the richest man in America, but should we graduate children who have been taught to despise America? I’d like to close with the following quote. This is from a 24-year-old man on a website that discusses the topics of the day. This is what he had to say:

“I almost welcome the next terrorist attack. I feel nothing for my fellow Americans and neither should anyone else. Screw this entire country and everyone that goes down when it finally and beautifully falls.”

Howard Zinn didn’t say that. But once you’ve read “A Peoples History of the United States”, you’ll know that he would applaud.

Sincerely,
Bonnie 


A couple more links regarding Howard Zinn:
Wikipedia link 


If you care to read A People's History Of The United States by Howard Zinn

Another great article from HumanEvents.com
This is an update on the Navy SEALs who are on trial for doing the job they were sent to do.

 

Rep. Dan Burton Fights to Help
Navy SEALs with Petition
by  Michelle Oddis
12/09/2009


Petitions have begun to circulate around Congress and across America asking that the Pentagon dismiss any charges against the three Navy SEALs who captured Ahmed Hashim Abed. Abed is the mastermind behind the brutal mutilation and murder of four American civilians in Fallujah in 2004 who now claims he got a bloody lip (or was punched in the stomach) while being detained by the SEALs.

“What kind of a signal does this send to every military person in the field if, when they capture a major al-Qaeda terrorist, or anyone, if they say they have a bloody lip, you’re going to court martial them?” said Rep. Dan Burton (R.-Ind.) who was the first to start a petition to help the SEALs.

Burton told HUMAN EVENTS that Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a committee meeting that this was part of a military judicial process and that he couldn’t interfere. “That’s baloney,” said Burton.

“I think that if we put as much pressure as possible on the Pentagon the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the president, I’d like to think there will be enough pressure exerted that they will be vindicated and they will get back to their jobs as military personnel defending the country,” said Burton.
   
Burton believes that this story certainly reflects the current administrations priorities. “I’m confident that Reagan wouldn’t have let this happen, Ronald Reagan was very patriotic and served in WWII. He wasn’t in combat but he saw what military combat went though…to take combat people especially Navy SEALs and military personnel who have risked their lives to capture these people like in this Operation Amber and to try to penalize them or court martial them for capturing a terrorist who did those terrible things… it just makes no sense.”

As HUMAN EVENTS Editor Jed Babbin and columnist Rowan Scarborough have reported according to information from al-Qaeda training manuals captured terrorists are told to claim they have been injured by their detainees. “If you claim that you are tortured or mistreated, that will usually resonate with the hard left in America and around the world and they know it will have an impact,” said Burton.

Until recently, the story of these three Navy SEALs has been under reported and ignored for reports on Tiger Woods' extramarital affairs and White House party crashers. Burton believes this is because “the Obama administration has an agenda and it does not include defending the American personnel as they should.”

Burton has also been circulating a “dear colleague” congressional letter, co signed by Reps. Rohrabacher (R.-Calif), Calvert (R.-Calif.), McCotter (R,-Mich.) Posey (R.-Fla.), and Diaz-Balart (R.-Fla.) to push for more members of Congress to exert pressure on the administration as well.

“Our military Personnel should never have to go into combat with a lawyer by their side….If this court-martial goes forward it could have a chilling effect upon our Armed Forces and their ability to go after the terrorists,” reads the letter.
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Miss Oddis is Assistant Managing Editor at HUMAN EVENTS. Before working with Human Events she was a researcher for syndicated columnist and author Robert Novak. Ms. Oddis has appeared on FOX News Hannity and Colmes, and The O'Reilly Factor. She has a bachelor's degree in English from Eastern Connecticut State University. E-mail her at moddis@eaglepub.com. You can also request to follow her on Twitter.