Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - Foundation

As we have covered before in this space, the far left does anything possible to avoid having a straight-up, honest debate over ideas. Much like the old Communists and Fascists on the streets of Weimar-era Berlin, they'd rather use muscle than ideas to get a victory.

As we're all aware, one of the current targets is Glenn Beck. In particular, Free Press wants to make him out as a paranoid McCarthyite.

Supposedly he's seeing socialists, Marxists, and communists everywhere. Even though Senator McCarthy was right, and Communists had infiltrated our government all the way up to Alger Hiss, we're supposed to think badly of Red hunting. But let's look at the people themselves at Free Press, leading special interest promoter of the Fairness Doctrine, ownership diversity rules, and of course Net Neturality. Are they as socialist as Beck thinks?

Let's start with Free Press Staff shocked at the Socialist menace alleged by Beck. Any socialists hiding under the rocks there?

• Megan Tady has a track record of working for places like In These Times, which billed itself as "The Independent Socialist Newspaper". Are we to believe she was the contrarian influence there, and not another good Socialist?
• Or how about Lindsy Embree? She was, I'm told, a volunteer for The Catholic Worker, an expressly anti-"capitalist" organization that counted as its ally the Industrial Workers of the World. Surely they're not Communist, he asked sarcastically?
• Finally there's Alex Kahn, whose CV includes the dynamite claim of a BA in "Social Thought and Political Economy" from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a degree would have had taken him through a course list with entries like "Black Marxism" and "Marxian Economics." Did he suffer though all that while disagreeing with the Marxist agenda he was studying? Not likely.

Perhaps these buffoons should have looked in the mirror to find the socialists Beck speaks of? Or maybe they could have talked to the top brass in the office:

• Robert McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, is on the board of Monthly Review, which says of itself that "From the first Monthly Review spoke for socialism and against U.S. imperialism, and is still doing so today."
• Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, who voluntarily worked as a staffer for Bernie Sanders, the self-described Independent Socialist in Congress.
• Of course Van Jones was a board member of Free Press; funny how Free Press fails to mention in their hagiographical video about him, that he has a tie with that group. And in 2008 he was quite open about his plans to use "green" economics as a first step towards ending all "capitalism." He also compared himself with Rosa Parks, saying her first step against Jim Crow was just like his first step against capitalism.

So tell us, again, why we shoudln't think socialists are all over Free Press, when Free Press sends a trio of Socialists to mock the claim, and has socialists all the way to the top?

I don't how else to describe this. I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm not criticizing her just because I've endorsed her opponent, and I'm not hyperventilating. I just read this article and those are the words that came to my mind.

Just read what she told VentureBeat:

Asked what she thought about regulation of the web, she said it was inevitable that there would be more regulation of it. Why, for instance, is there no protection of women and children on the Internet, when there is plenty in real life. She said this duality — where anything goes on the wild wild west of the Internet — would have to end.

We cannot ever seriously entertain the possibility that this woman would ever represent the Republican party in any official capacity, ever. This kind of reflexive anti-Constitutional nanny-statism cannot be tolerated. If we wanted that, we'd vote Democrat.

It's not just state Governors who oppose Net Neutrality. Democrats of all stripes are jumping on against it, finds Ben Smith at Politico.

If you haven't been watching this one, here's the summary. The FCC meets on Oct. 22 to propose rules for keeping the Internet open and non-discriminatory as it should be. AT&T and Verizon have been pulling out everything they have to make sure the proposed rules are as weak as possible. They rounded up House GOP leadership, House Republicans. Senate Republicans. The ever-turncoat Communications Workers of America. Minority Groups. You name it, things are bombing into the FCC like nothing I've seen ever, and I've been watching this a long time.

We're winning. Let's keep shooting.

You fought well and had a real shot. It was fun. Better luck next year, despite Ned getting re-upped.