A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. ~ Ariel Durant 1898-1981

He’s baaaack!

Controversial New Video of Obama’s Pastor AIM

A new video of Jeremiah Wright has surfaced, showing Barack Obama’s pastor of 20 years praising Marxism and discussing his ties to communists in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Libyan government. Equally important, Wright is being introduced in the video by Robert W. McChesney, co-founder of Free Press, an organization which has come under scrutiny for its links to the Obama Administration and dedication to the transformation and control of the private media in the U.S.

In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, “Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle,” McChesney declared, “Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.”

In the video, which captures Wright’s appearance at a September 17, 2009, anniversary celebration of Monthly Review, Wright said that while the “corporate media” provide a “binary lens” of the world, in such terms as “communist versus Christian,” Monthly Review offers what it calls “no-nonsense Marxism.”

He added: “You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism.”

He called America “land of the greed and home of the slave.”

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The McChesney introduction of Wright provides more insight into the political network, based largely in Chicago, that launched Obama’s political career and still influences him.

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Fox News’ Glenn Beck, who has focused critical public attention on McChesney’s influence in the “media reform” movement and on the Obama Administration, has noted that McChesney co-authored another piece for Monthly Review, “A New New Deal Under Obama?,” in which he said, “In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”

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Dropping any pretense of objectivity and non-partisanship, the 2008 “National Conference for Media Reform” turned into a Barack Obama-for-President rally, as left-wing media figure Arianna Huffington denounced John McCain as a “Trojan horse for the right” who had “sold his soul” to become president. Several speakers, including Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, used the Obama campaign slogan, “Yes, we can,” as they urged the thousands of “progressives” in the audience to bring “change” to Washington, D.C.

The change can now be seen in the main agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with jurisdiction over the media as well as the Internet. A major figure in Free Press conferences, Mark Lloyd, is now the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC. But he has gotten critical attention from Glenn Beck and others for praising the Marxist revolution in Venezuela, where the regime has attempted to control or even eliminate private media sources. Lloyd also has defended Paul Robeson, the famous singer and actor who tried to conceal his involvement in Communist Party activities from congressional investigators.

A former Free Press official, Jen Howard, is now the press secretary for the Federal Communications Commission.

As for Wright, he received some unwanted attention for saying earlier this year that he blamed “them Jews” for keeping him away from President Obama.

At the Monthly Review celebration, however, he went into more detail about his own personal and political philosophy. He said that “My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and with the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the social realities of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economics undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit.”

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In a recap of the celebration, the Monthly Review editors declared, “We would like to thank all those who participated in this extraordinary event. Dr. Wright captured the tone of the evening, declaring that: ‘Militarism, capitalism and racism, domestic oppression, foreign military aggression, victims of neo-colonialism, victims of community and national racism, and the Cold War days in its infancy to the needless war in Vietnam in its [MR's] second decade, through wars of greed in Afghanistan and Iraq in [its] sixth decade’ were all incisively covered by the magazine. He spoke of Monthly Review’s indefatigable insistence on the need to put ‘people before profits,’ and its unflinching criticisms of inequality, injustice, and the realities of capitalism.”

It is not clear what kind of personal relationship that McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has with Obama. But his influence on the Obama Administration, as reflected in the FCC appointments, seems to be significant.

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Rev Jeremiah Wright (introduced by Robert McChesney) speaking at the 60th anniversary celebration of the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review. The event was held on September 17th, 2009, at the New York Society for Ethical Culture in New York City.

Partial transcript:

This magazine unflinchingly has tackled the tough issues from McCarthyism to militarism, from the Chinese revolution through the Canadian revolution to the Cuban revolution, from the lies told by United States presidents to the lies told by the United States media. We celebrate tonight six decades of dedicated service.

You stayed up front. Your starting point is, quote, no nonsense Marxism, unquote. But you dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word “Socialism” or “Marxism.”

Grateful for the opportunity to bring you a word of Thanksgiving from those who don’t ordinarily get a hearing unless they go along with the program, sing in tune with whatever is the popular tune and stay in lockstep with the political pundits who tell us what is politically correct, what is permissible and what will be tolerated from a person of color in this land, the land of the greed and the home of the brave excuse me, the land of the greed and home of the slave. (Applause).

For the people. My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and what the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the sociologies of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economies undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit. My exposure to the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and my presence at the 15th Jamahiriya in Libya taught me what I have read in the pages of the Monthly Review which is as Joshua Stanton says, though we need not always agree with one another, we must do the work necessary to at least understand one another.

Update: A blog post on Robert McChesney’s Monthly Review has been up at Organizing for America at barackobama.com since April 18 2009. Obviously they approve.

Obama can run but he can’t hide from the truth:

Obama: “…there was an explicitly political aspect to the mission and message of Trinity at that time that I found appealing.”

Also see:

[Video] In 2005 Obama FCC Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd Defends Known Communist Paul Robeson [Update: Llyod's Backdoor Fairness Doctrine]

Klein: Radical Wright: Maybe Plouffe didn’t know, but Axelrod and Jarrett did - RBO