Barack Obama is completely at home with "progressives", 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.
"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.
Senator 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 censoring 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 from 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 naive.
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 is Obama's new "Green Jobs" czar. The links between the environmental movement and communist goals are numerous; it should not 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 "progressives", 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.
While I agree that Barrack Obama, AKA Barry Soetoro, has placed several progressives in positions of power in his administration; they are not "Obama's Progressives". They are not his dogs; rather he is theirs: And they are about to send him to obedience school!
While I don’t find it the least bit difficult to believe that the progressives are incensed because they believe that the Soetoro Administration is moving too slowly in the transformation of America; my personal opinion is that he is moving much too quickly. He's in danger of over-reaching, and once again snatching progressive defeat from the jaws of victory. The American people aren't buying his incremental approach, and neither is the progressive movement. To continue the 'dog' analogy: The progressives are completely dissatisfied with his mere piddling within the corners of the room, when they gleefully expected him to pinch a prodigious diarrhea-like crap in the center of the rug!
I'm not going to cover in depth the myriad of blatantly unconstitutional seizures of power this administration has executed. Anyone paying attention can choose their personal favorite from a 'fielder's choice' of options;
Seizing the mortgage industry, seizing manufacturing companies, deliberately creating unsustainable deficits, firing private company CEO's, investigating current government employees for not upholding current administration policy during past administrations, planning the nationalization of the nations' health care system, hiring legions of unaccountable and unvetted czars who are actually running cabinet level posts behind the scenes, determining private industry compensation; the list is almost endless. However; for the committed progressive, this list has failed to even begin to scratch the surface of the alteration they envisioned in November.
The 'community organizer' in Barry Soetoro causes him to believe that he can achieve consensus, incrementally dragging the entire population over to his viewpoint if given enough time. On the other hand; the progressives see this as a jewel beyond price. With their 'ends-justifies-the-means' attitude, they don't particularly care if it IS political suicide to utilize the current House and Senate majorities to shove the entire progressive agenda down the throats of the American People. They also care little for how high we may have to stack the bodies in order to reach the goal. Progressives have never wrung their hands over the victims of any purge. In their minds "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the One." (Apologies to Caiaphas, Roddenberry, and 'The One'.)
This is what Barry Soetoro is finding out. The progressives aren't particularly enamored of him. They were intelligent enough to read between the lines and grasp the fullness of his 'spread the wealth' vernacular. It is the system he promised that caused them to pursue his election. It was the Trifecta of Republican discontent, the MSM's anointing of the most beatable conservative possible, and the securing of large sections of all demographics due to the lofty, ephemeral rhetoric he employed during the campaign that has led us to this point.
Soetoro knew what he was attempting as well as the progressives did. The disconnect comes from Soetoro believing the progressives wanted HIM to actually lead after the election. This is not the case. The progressives don't give a fig for who holds the office. Their fervent desire was for a Lenin, a Stalin, a Mao, or a Chavez. They wanted someone who would immediately move to consolidate power. Once they found out poor Barry didn't have the 'cojones' to pull the trigger on the loaded gun they had handed him, the progressives saw him as weak and already in need of replacement. In their eyes he has already, due to his percieved inaction on several fronts, to have been judged 'Ideologically Impure'!
In their mind, Soetoro should have ORDERED both the House and the Senate to produce national health care legislation in accordance with the progressive blueprint: And to produce that legislation within the first thirty days of his administration, Republicans be damned! He should not have waited for Chrysler and GM to go into bankruptcy. He should have seized both companies and turned them over to the UAW immediately! Once he guaranteed Fannie and Freddie's debt; he should have, without delay, announced that anyone occupying a home backed by one of these two mortgage giants not only would remain in those homes; but that Fannie and Freddie would, within the next sixty days, issue clear titles and deeds of ownership to the people in those homes! Since making all these moves would literally cause conservative talk radio to go apoplectic; that alone would be reason enough to begin shuttering radio stations. In their eyes, the mere voicing of dissenting opinion should have been enough to declare the RNC a 'domestic terrorist' organization and begin prosecution under the RICO statutes. Conservative thinking should be declared 'thought crime' and treated with 'medical confinement' inside a 'sanatorium' facility. Corporate CEO's should be forced, in Congressional Committee Chambers, to publically renounce capitalism as an unconscionable evil infecting society, before surrendering their positions and accumulated wealth to appointed administration bureaucrats.
Instead of publically destroying the Constitution; Barry Soetoro is working around the edges of that document. This is not satisfactory behavior as far as progressives are concerned. I expect them to become even more vocal as they begin to sense this opportunity slipping further through their 'collective' fingers (if you'll pardon the pun).
Their 'win-at-all-cost' philosophy, I believe, will soon give way to calls for more direct action. Their viewpoint is much more in synch with a Nancy Pelosi than it is with the incremental style of the current President. Progressives are historically well known for the ousting of the leaders they judge to be to feeble to continue the struggle. For instance, during next Wednesday's address to the House and Senate, if Barry Soetoro's commitment to the 'public' option in health care legislation is not utterly and irrevokably re-affirmed, and damn the cost, I fully expect there to be a audible cacophony from the progressives.
Knowing their propensity for direct action, coupled with the intolerance they hold for all who don't share full commitment to their vision; I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find a 'coup d'état' to begin brewing in the near future.
One could easily imagine the most radical factions of the progressive left, even now, fantasizing over a situation that would require Congressman Pelosi to assume control of the nation, declare martial law, and to begin, in earnest, the remaking of the US into the Socialist Utopia that is its destiny! As opposed to Soetoro, they're much more certain of her commitment to the cause. In their view; you would only have to 'break' a pair of 'eggs' to begin cooking this omelet!