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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; David Swindle</title>
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		<title>How the Left Conquered Wikipedia, Part II: Coddling Progressives</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-ii-coddling-progressives/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-ii-coddling-progressives</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-ii-coddling-progressives/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:25:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=103575</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Radicals and anti-Semites are respected at the “unbiased” encyclopedia. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/wikipedia-21.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-103578" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/wikipedia-21.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a></p>
<p>In <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/08/23/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-1/">a previous article</a> in this series on Wikipedia’s leftist bias I discussed briefly the friendly treatment the online encyclopedia gave such influential figures as Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, and Noam Chomsky. These entries featured muted criticism if any at all and little embarrassing “personal life” content (which, as I noted, is the primary way in which bias is conveyed on the site.) Progressives continually receive the benefit of the doubt. Wikipedia does not have to be overtly biased in favor of leftism; it is simply the site’s default option, synonymous with a sophisticated and humane worldview. When considering people on the Left, Wikipedia assumes the best; if there are blemishes on their records, it tends to explain and exculpate, whereas with conservatives what it regards as failings are subjected to unforgiving analysis.</p>
<p>There are three unwritten rules that pervade the treatment of most leftists on Wikipedia:</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>[1] Quote feeble critics only so they can be rebutted. </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore">Al Gore’s entry</a> is 8984 words, a reasonable length for a Vice President active in politics for more than 30 years. None of Gore’s political decisions or positions receives criticism from opponents, nor does he have a “personal life” section (thus eliminating the need to mention his allegedly forcing himself <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1291661/A-inconvenient-masseuse-How-saint-Al-Gore-sanctimonious-eco-crusader-lost-halo-wife.html">on a Portland masseuse in 2006</a>—a story that would have likely been included in the entry of a conservative political figure.) The 465 words of criticism in the Gore profile is reserved for Gore the environmental activist and  raises five different objections – including a particularly trivial one from <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/petaprofiledtn.html">People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)</a> &#8212; each of which also allows Gore or one of his supporters to get in the last word. For example, in response to critics noting the Gore family’s increased energy usage (multiple homes, private jet trips) an official spokesman claims that the mansions run on more expensive “renewable energy” and philosopher A.C. Grayling claims the whole matter of Gore’s “footprint” is irrelevant and an example of fallacious ad hominem reasoning.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>Similarly, comedian <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1689">Bill Maher</a> has a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher">thorough 3095-word</a> entry with a single inconsequential criticism (51 words from Alabama Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus claiming that Maher’s 2005 comments highlighting the military’s failure to reach its recruiting goals were demeaning) that is included only so Maher can refute it.  Flaunting his supposedly “pro-military” politics, Maher claims that he supported the military and challenges Bachus to fix the problem.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>[2] Give the Benefit of the Doubt to the Jew-Haters.</strong></p>
<p>More troubling than the way Wikipedians set up straw men for their leftist heroes to knock over is the way they minimize their bigotry.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>The Rev. Al Sharpton has the unique distinction of being the only cable news host to have <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1527">provoked an anti-Semitic pogrom in New York City</a>. But one will not know this from reading Sharpton’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton">3979-word Wikipedia page</a> profile, in spite of its larger-than-usual criticism section.</p>
<p>Sharpton’s career is filled with episodes illustrating his commitment to inflaming racial conflict. In 1987 one of his lowest points came in his support for Tawana Brawley, a black teenager who claimed to have been gang raped by white police officers. (A grand journey would find that these charges were wholly fabricated.) Sharpton furthered these allegations, and was later successfully sued for defamation by one of the prosecutors he claimed participated in the rape. Refusing to pay the $345,000 judgment against him, he relied on his wealthy supporters to pick  up the tab. Even as late as 2007, Sharpton <a href="http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton_speaks_out_on_race,_rights_and_what_bothers_him_about_his_critics">was still on record</a> supporting Brawley’s lies.</p>
<p>At least with the Brawley case, Sharpton’s demagoguery did not result in violence. That was decidedly what happened in 1991 when Sharpton’s most nakedly anti-Semitic actions inspired riots in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood. Sharpton’s <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1527">DiscoverTheNetworks</a> profile gives the story as it should be told:</p>
<blockquote><p>That same year, anti-Semitic riots erupted in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section after a Hasidic Jewish driver accidentally ran over and killed a 7-year-old black boy. Within three hours, a black mob had hunted down and slain an innocent rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, in retribution. Sharpton declared that it was not merely a car accident that had killed the black child, but rather the &#8220;<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2089153/">social accident</a>&#8221; of &#8220;apartheid.&#8221; He organized angry demonstrations and challenged local Jews––whom he derisively called &#8220;<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2089153/">diamond merchants</a>&#8220;––to “<a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/08/05/newsweek_whitewashes_al_sharpton_106619.html">pin their yarmulkes back</a> and come over to my house” to settle the score. Stirred in part by such rhetoric, hundreds of Crown Heights blacks took violently to the streets for three days and nights of rioting. Sharpton reacted to the chaos by <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-12-21/news/9512210007_1_tawana-brawley-rev-al-sharpton-louis-farrakhan">stating</a>, “We must not reprimand our children for outrage, when it is the outrage that was put in them by an oppressive system.”</p></blockquote>
<p>In contrast, this event earns Sharpton only 61 words of criticism at Wikipedia for his use of the “diamond merchants” and “pin their yarmulkes back” slurs. No criticism is presented for Sharpton’s actions, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_riot">the Wikipedia entry devoted to the riots</a> similarly omits Sharpton’s role.<strong> </strong></p>
<p>While Sharpton can threaten Jews with violence and rely on Wikipedia to sanitize the episode, radio show host Don Imus’s “nappy-headed ho’s” comment draws 1273 words from Wikipedia, more than all of Sharpton’s controversies combined. And who appears in Imus’ entry to label his words &#8220;abominable&#8221;, &#8220;racist&#8221;, and &#8220;sexist&#8221; and to demand his termination? Sharpton the anti-Semite.</p>
<p>Wikipedia cannot even bring itself to use the word “anti-Semite” anywhere within Sharpton’s entry. So of course there is not a quote provided from critics who regard Sharpton as such. More time is spent on a very mild homophobic remark (80 words,) and Sharpton’s anti-Mormon comments with his apology (231 words.)</p>
<p>How did Sharpton’s entry earn such a thorough clean-up? Examining <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Al_Sharpton">the Al Sharpton “talk” page</a> provides the answers and reveals the page’s leftist protector. Casual Wikipedia users might not notice that at the top of every Wikipedia entry is a secondary page labeled “Discussion.” It’s here where editors are encouraged to discuss significant changes to the articles and try to achieve the Wikipedia utopia of “consensus.” Visit these pages and you’ll find the ideas which are excluded from entries and – occasionally – justifications why.</p>
<p>When o<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Al_Sharpton#Al_Sharpton_as_a_.22race_hustler.22">ne frustrated contributor</a> links several conservatives who describe Sharpton as a “race hustler” and demands to know why such criticism is not permitted, he is mocked by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators">an administrator-level</a> user (a veteran Wikipedia editor with the extra ability to “protect” pages from other editors changing them and also to block specific editors from contributing.) The administrator has the Malcolm X-inspired handle Malik Shabazz and responds sarcastically: “Wow. Four <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">race hustlers</span> accuse Sharpton of being a race hustler. Film at 11.”</p>
<p>A day later another unregistered user (one who has not created a Wikipedia name and instead is identified only by his computer’s IP address) responded to this abuse of authority. Venting his frustration at Shabazz’s dictatorial behavior in securing the page, <a title="Special:Contributions/96.224.55.81" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/96.224.55.81">96.224.55.81</a> knows he is one of Wikipedia’s “second class citizens” when he writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>One does not need to resort to conservative commentators, as the person above does, to see that Al Sharpton has done more to harm race relations in New York City than to help. In fact, in my own attempt to solicit revision to the misleading and inaccurate current narrative describing Al Sharpton&#8217;s divisive, destructive, and unjust (prosecute the driver for murder?) &#8220;contributions&#8221; to the Howard Beach attack and the Bensonhurst attack, I cited two very fair minded, objective, and reliable sources whose credentials are beyond reproach. Yet my request for any editor to make these changes to the semi protected article [ “semi-protected” is the status for all biographies of living people – they require an administrator’s okay before changes go live] has resulted in no result. Apparantly [sic] you, Mr. Malik Shabazz, are &#8220;in charge&#8221; of the Al Sharpton Wikipedia page, and I concede defeat to you. Anonymous users, however fair minded and however much they follow Wikipedia rules, are impotent when faced with someone dedicated to being guardian of entrenched fluff pieces that hide inconvenient facts. You win. I now see that I have to become a registered user to even hope to have a chance of getting the Wikipedia Al Sharpton entries for Howard Beach and Bensonhurst to reflect the truth…. It seems as though the entire raison detre of the Howard Beach and Bensonhurst Al Sharpton Wikipedia entries is for the single minded purpose of sanitizing the Sharpton role there, and to tar and feather these entire communities. In Howard Beach, who called 911 during the attack, and said please send the police some teens are beating a Black man? Yup, the White residents of Howard Beach, whose houses the mob of thugs passed by. But you wouldn&#8217;t know it from Wikipedia. <a title="Special:Contributions/96.224.55.81" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/96.224.55.81">96.224.55.81</a> (<a title="User talk:96.224.55.81 (page does not exist)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:96.224.55.81&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1">talk</a>) 02:19, 19 August 2011 (UTC)</p></blockquote>
<p>Who is Shabazz? His <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Malik_Shabazz">user page</a> tells the whole story in uncomfortable detail. He claims to be a secular, African-American Jew who identifies as a feminist and an anarchist. Strangely, his feminism does not prevent him from boasting on his page that he “enjoys pornography” and that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Malik_Shabazz/WikiProjects">he’s a member</a> of Wikiproject Pornography, the team that creates Wikipedia’s obsessive database of adult film stars.</p>
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		<title>How the Left Conquered Wikipedia, Part 1</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-1/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-1</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-the-left-conquered-wikipedia-part-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:13:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=102601</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An encyclopedia founded on the belief that people are basically good cannot be “unbiased.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/wikipedia-2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-102604" title="wikipedia-2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/wikipedia-2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Wikipedia is <a href="http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org">currently ranked</a> by internet analysis firm Alexa as the seventh most popular website in the world. Alexa estimates that 14% of global internet users have visited the site in the last three months. The free encyclopedia with more than 19 million articles in hundreds of languages stands with Google, Amazon, Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook as one of the foundational bases for the organization and distribution of information on the internet today. Used by students in term papers and individuals anxious for quick facts, it has acquired the reputation as a source of reliable “general information.” But like so many information-based institutions, Wikipedia has also come under growing criticism from political conservatives who see a leftwing bias, sometimes overt and often subtle, in its entries. Some on the Right take the claim so seriously that in protest they created <a href="http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page">Conservapedia</a> as an alternative.</p>
<p>Finding examples of Wikipedia’s bias is not difficult. One need only compare the entries of figures who do the same thing but from opposite sides of the political spectrum.</p>
<p>Consider Ann Coulter versus Michael Moore. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter">Coulter’s entry</a> (on August 9, 2011) was 9028 words long.* Of this longer-than-usual entry, 3220 words were devoted to “Controversies and criticism” in which a series of incidents involving Coulter and quotes from her are cited with accompanying condemnations, primarily from her opponents on the Left. That’s 35.6 percent of Coulter’s entry devoted to making her look bad. By contrast, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moore">Moore’s entry</a> is 2876 words (the more standard length for entries on political commentators), with 130 devoted to “Controversy.” That’s 4.5% of the word count, a fraction of Coulter’s. Does this mean that an “unbiased” commentator would find Coulter eight times as “controversial” as Moore?</p>
<p>The same disproportion can be seen in the former flagship stars of Fox News and MSNBC, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann. Beck’s entry is 7810 words; instead of featuring a dedicated “controversy” section, as in the case of Coulter, the 1789 words of criticism from leftist opponents are scattered throughout &#8212; 23 percent of the profile.</p>
<p>Beck’s page shows other metrics for measuring Wikipedia bias. First, the sources: Of the 206 references, 25-35 could be characterized as leftists critical of Beck, with frequent citations from <em>Salon</em>’s resident Beck antagonist Alexander Zaitchik and his attack book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Common-Nonsense-Glenn-Triumph-Ignorance/dp/0470557397/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1313503108&amp;sr=8-1"><em>Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance</em></a><em>.</em> Another telling sign of bias is the fact that 9% of the entry, or 729 words, are comprised of potentially embarrassing details from Beck’s “personal life.” Such information is often more detailed in conservatives’ entries.</p>
<p>In Olbermann’s 3750 word entry 199 words (5 percent) could be characterized as criticism. However it is much more muted than that directed at Beck. Of the 199 critical words 113 are devoted to an incident in which Olbermann went off on a rant against Republican Senator Scott Brown that was so vulgar that Jon Stewart stepped in, eventually causing the MSNBC host to apologize. This is a frequent element in the treatment of leftist figures by Wikipedia. Criticism from those further to the Left (or, like Stewart, higher within progressives’ hierarchy of household gods) may be included which itself “centers” the subject of the profile. Incidents where the figure apologized for his or her transgressions may be featured as a form of exculpation, transforming a failing into a chance to show the subject’s humanity.</p>
<p>In the 111 references for the Olbermann entry, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann#cite_ref-41">only a single one</a> is from a conservative source, and it is not even used to present critical information. In contrast to Beck, Olbermann’s “personal life” section is 197 words, a mostly complimentary 5% of the entry.</p>
<p>Perhaps more interesting than the bias itself on Wikipedia are the two factors which enabled it, the first present in the project’s founding DNA, and the second in a new policy implemented in 2009.</p>
<p>Wikipedia was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia">originally launched</a> in 2001 as an off-shoot from Nupedia, a similar effort to construct a free online encyclopedia, although in this case written by experts instead of random, anonymous contributors. Developed by <a title="Jimmy Wales" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales">Jimmy Wales</a> and <a title="Larry Sanger" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger">Larry Sanger</a>, Wikipedia was an idea whose time had come on an information-driven net whose consumers  couldn’t wait for the slow workings of expertise or the cost of proprietary content: a free encyclopedia written by anonymous users supposedly striving for an “unbiased” perspective.</p>
<p>There was not a single ideological vision driving Wikipedia’s founders and core contributors as they launched the project. Jimmy Wales, who would become the face of the project and its “benevolent dictator,” according to Andrew Lih’s <em>The Wikipedia Revolution</em>, is a libertarian and Ayn Randian Objectivist. Also important in shaping Wikipedia was the so-called “hacker ethos,” the culture that has developed amongst computer programmers over the last 40 years and been shaped by the Left, the counterculture, popular culture, and anarchist thought.</p>
<p>What binds together these ideologies is a utopian ideal that human beings are more prone to altruism rather than self-interest. In <em>Wikipedia Revolution</em> Wales is quoted as saying, “Generally we find most people out there on the internet are good… It’s one of the wonderful humanitarian discoveries in Wikipeda, that most people only want to help us and build this free nonprofit, charitable resource.” Ward Cunningham was the programmer who created the wiki concept and software. According to Lih, he believed in the Wiki because “People are generally good.”</p>
<p>Lih explains how this philosophy is embedded within Wikipedia’s rules:</p>
<p>A core idea Wikipedia embraced.. was to assume good faith when interacting with others. The guideline promoted optimistic production rather than pessimistic nay-saying, and reads, “Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, assume that people who work on the project are trying to help it, not hurt it; avoid accusing others of harmful motives without particularly strong evidence.</p>
<p>But as it worked out, Wikipedia in practice has strayed from these utopian ideas because of the ease with which political and social bias trumps altruism.</p>
<p>After almost a decade of rapid growth and free-wheeling experimentation the situation at the site by the Summer of 2009 was <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208941/Free-edit-Wikipedia-appoints-volunteer-editors-vet-changes-articles-living-people.html">chaos</a>. Political operatives would sabotage one another in electoral contests by vandalizing pages<strong>.</strong> More malicious misinformation filtered in freely, with living historical figures accused of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegenthaler_incident">involvement in conspiratorial plots</a>.</p>
<p>Ira Matetsky, known by his Wikipedia handle as newyorkbrad, is a lawyer and veteran Wikipedian, both an administrator on the site and part of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_Committee_%28English_Wikipedia%29">Arbitration Committee</a>, the council of editors who sort out disputes between editors. In a series of articles at the libertarian group blog <em>The Volokh Conspiracy</em>, Matetsky discussed some of these incidents and <a href="http://volokh.com/posts/chain_1242098183.shtml">described the power of Wikipedia</a> to affect people’s lives:</p>
<p>In the intervening years, though, it’s become more and more clear that malicious or simply thoughtless content added to Wikipedia BLP’s (“Biographies of Living Persons”) can be very damaging. A series of serious and widely reported incidents have brought the problem to public attention. Among these: the [[Siegenthaler incident]], in which an article was vandalized to accuse a completely innocent person of suspected complicity in an assassination, and no one caught the problem for four months; the incident in 2007 in which a Turkish academic was detained for several hours by immigration officials in Canada, reportedly based on an inaccurate allegation in his Wikipedia article that he was a terrorist; the lawsuit brought by a prominent golfer against the person who added defamatory content to his article; the blatant attack page created against a well-known California attorney, allegedly as part of a negative public relations campaign launched on behalf of one of the companies he was suing.</p>
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		<title>Matt Damon Joins the Fight Against Good Teachers and Poor Students</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/matt-damon-joins-the-fight-against-good-teachers-and-poor-students/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=matt-damon-joins-the-fight-against-good-teachers-and-poor-students</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:04:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Oscar-winning actor only plays a genius in the movies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Picture-11.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-100733" title="Picture-11" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Picture-11.gif" alt="" width="375" height="247" /></a></p>
<p>“See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you&#8217;re gonna start doing some thinking on your own and you&#8217;re gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One, don&#8217;t do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f***in education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”</p>
<p>&#8211; <em>Good Will Hunting</em></p>
<p>Oscar-winning actor and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=939">Howard Zinn</a> disciple Matt Damon has demonstrated once again that he’s not actually the Boston boy genius Will Hunting in real life. The star of the “Bourne Identity” and “Ocean’s Eleven” series made an appearance at the July 30 <a href="http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/">“Save Our Schools”</a> rally at the White House to repeat the teachers union party line and support a broken educational system.</p>
<p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/education/2011/07/30/283832/matt-damon-stop-war-on-teachers/">ThinkProgress</a> featured a video of Damon at the event joking about summers in the Hamptons and on a yacht from the supposedly lavish teacher salary his mother earned when he was a child:</p>
<p><iframe width="610" height="343" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eXDLtwDf4yM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://reason.tv/video/show/what-we-saw-at-the-save-our-sc"><em>Reason TV</em> interviewed</a> Damon and other activists, including <em>Nation-</em>contributor <a href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/jonathan-kozol">Jonathan Kozol</a>:</p>
<p><iframe width="610" height="343" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TJ7icVvDK9I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>The subject Damon was confronted with by Reason TV’s Michelle Fields is especially important. Fields challenged Damon with the fact that union-negotiated K-12 teacher contracts make it very difficult to fire poor teachers once they have attained tenure:</p>
<blockquote><p>Fields: In acting there isn’t job security, right? There is an incentive to work hard and be a better actor because you want to have a job. So why isn’t it like that for teachers?</p>
<p>Damon:  You think job insecurity is what makes me work hard?</p>
<p>Fields: Well you have an incentive to work harder.</p>
<p>Damon: [Shakes head] I want to be an actor, that’s not an incentive. That’s the thing. See you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It’s the problem with ed policy right now. It’s this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It’s like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?</p>
<p>Cameraman:  Ten percent of teachers are bad… Ten percent of people in any profession maybe should think of something else.</p>
<p>Damon: Well, OK, maybe you’re a shitty cameraman, I don’t know.</p></blockquote>
<p>Damon was unprepared to deal with one of the least controversial, obvious, and devastating problems in education today. While he’s correct that the challenges to the educational system are complex, this specific one is very simple – which is why both conservatives and some leftists agree on it.</p>
<p>Making it easier to fire bad teachers is one of the self-evident solutions to the country’s educational shortcomings. The concept of tenure originally was meant solely for the college level. It was there so there could be something real to support the concept of academic freedom. Professors would not have to worry about controversial research and the threat of being fired for exploring unpopular ideas. Tenure usually was only awarded after more than a decade in which a Ph.D.-credentialed scholar proved his devotion to academia. This is out of place in the K-12 environment and certainly does not work when tenure can be achieved in just a few years by those with only a bachelor of arts degree. The only people who benefit are unions who are able to collect dues from the bottom 10% of teachers who should have been fired long ago.</p>
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		<title>The Wit and Wisdom of Thomas Sowell</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-thomas-sowell/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-wit-and-wisdom-of-thomas-sowell</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:06:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=100342</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The autobiography of a great thinker showcases the author’s sense of humor.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/asowell.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-100374" title="asowell" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/asowell.gif" alt="" width="375" height="359" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is Part III of an ongoing series exploring the books of author Thomas Sowell. For Part I, see </strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/27/2011/07/13/compassion-vs-guilt-in-the-age-of-barack-obama-2/"><em>Compassion Vs. Guilt</em></a><strong>.</strong><strong> For Part II see </strong><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/27/the-3-most-important-lessons-in-basic-economics/"><em>Basic Economics</em></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Thomas Sowell is most well known for his writings and research on economics, race, culture, and the history of ideas. Over a long career his books profoundly influenced the ideas of political and cultural figures ranging from future Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the 1970s, to a rising talk radio talent named Rush Limbaugh in the 1980s, to just recently the conservative convert and playwright David Mamet. The scope of his achievements has perhaps obscured one of the most underrated qualities of Sowell’s work: his unique sense of humor. It’s this quiet, confident wit that makes Sowell’s memoir, <em>A Personal Odyssey,</em> such an engaging read, offsetting the tension of the challenges the author had to overcome on his journey to becoming one of America’s most important public intellectuals.</p>
<p>The book has numerous laugh-out-loud moments, as Sowell uses his intellect to triumph in often hostile environments. From a damaging home life that he had to flee during his teen years, to a young adulthood struggling with unemployment, through years as a Marine during the Korean War, and on to the tough climb into the academic world, Sowell continually relied on his wits and gifted analytical mind to overcome obstacles.</p>
<p>As Sowell progressed through his adolescence his relationship with his mother (actually biologically his aunt) deteriorated to the point that he hoped to leave home as soon as he was legally able to do so. His mother would regularly make up stories about his supposed bad behavior and get the police involved. Here’s one example with Sowell’s witty response:</p>
<blockquote><p>One day I received a summons, ordering me to appear in court down on the lower east side of Manhattan, to answer charges of disorderly conduct. I could not imagine what story she had concocted to get this summons issued, but I did know that the burden of proof was on the prosecution.</p>
<p>To me, the court was a place where I might put an end to these farcical attempts at intimidation, and where I might find out whether Mom had any legal right to stop me from leaving. I was in sufficiently upbeat mood to get into a long conversation with a receptionist at the court. When I was finally called into the magistrate’s chambers, however, I found that Mom had completely won him over to her side, and that he saw his job as being to lean on me to bring me back into line.</p>
<p>“This is a very serious charge, young man,” he said grimly.</p>
<p>“Yes, I know,” I said, “and I’ll be very interested to see how anybody can prove it.”</p></blockquote>
<p>No one <em>could</em> prove the charge, so it was downgraded to Sowell being a “wayward minor” and the magistrate backed his mother’s refusal to let him leave the house. So Sowell declared that he would play their power game. He asserted that from now on he would do nothing that he was not legally required to do – including driving his aunt back to their apartment in Harlem from the hearing. It was not long before his mother relented and allowed Sowell to leave home and get a full-time job.</p>
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		<title>Ann Coulter, Exorcist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/ann-coulter-exorcist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ann-coulter-exorcist</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/ann-coulter-exorcist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:41:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=100109</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The bestselling polemicist exposes the demons of the Left.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ann_coulter.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-100137" title="ann_coulter" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ann_coulter.gif" alt="" width="375" height="251" /></a></p>
<p><sup>2</sup> When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. <sup>3</sup> This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. <sup>4</sup> For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. <sup>5</sup> Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.</p>
<p><sup>6</sup> When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. <sup>7</sup> He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” <sup>8</sup> For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”</p>
<p><sup>9</sup> Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”</p>
<p>“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”</p>
<p><strong>-Mark 5:2-9</strong></p>
<p>Ann Coulter begins her newest polemic with this quotation from the Gospel of Mark, immediately capturing the reader’s attention and setting the tone for her most elegant, sophisticated, and literary work to date. <em>Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America</em> is Coulter’s exorcism of the dark spirits hidden within the political Left. The bestselling author combines insights in mob psychology, the history of the French Revolution, and the theology of evil to illuminate the political challenges of the day. Even those who have studied the Left in depth will be startled by the clarity and originality of the argument she methodically demonstrates over 300 packed pages.</p>
<p>Coulter uses Gustave Le Bon’s 1896 <em>The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind</em> as the foundation of her analysis. She notes as evidence of the book’s accuracy that both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini used the text not to understand mobs but to incite them. Throughout <em>Demonic </em>she returns to the influential text and applies its analysis to the union mobs of Ohio, the Obamacare mobs, the progressive conspiracy mobs, and the Bush Derangement mobs. World War II’s totalitarian dictators aren’t the only ones reading from Le Bon’s playbook to harness the power of a mob to push forward an intolerable political agenda.</p>
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		<title>The 3 Most Important Lessons in &#8216;Basic Economics&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/the-3-most-important-lessons-in-basic-economics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-3-most-important-lessons-in-basic-economics</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jul 2011 04:27:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=99946</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell’s introduction to capitalism is a clear guide to realities utopians would rather obscure.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sowell2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-99949" title="sowell" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sowell2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="300" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Editor’s note: This article is Part II of an ongoing <em>FrontPage</em> series exploring the ideas of author Thomas Sowell. For Part I, see </strong><a href="../2011/07/13/compassion-vs-guilt-in-the-age-of-barack-obama-2/"><strong><em>Compassion Vs. Guilt</em></strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Economist Thomas Sowell drew from his years of teaching the subject at some of the nation’s most prestigious ivy league schools and gave himself a challenge: to create a book on economics for the lay reader without using technical language or visual aids. His book was a success, and is now in its fourth edition. <em>Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy</em> is a straightforward and readable guide to economics’ core concepts.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to count the number of economic myths Sowell debunks. More challenging is to determine which are the most important. Political ideologies can be a bit like dominos – just disrupting a single idea can be the beginning of a chain reaction that will eventually result in a changed mind. These three insights are perhaps some of the most important talking points to keep in mind when stumbling into political discussions with those less informed on basic economic principles.</p>
<p><strong>3. We do not have enough resources to meet everyone’s desires.</strong></p>
<p>The very definition of Economics already begins to challenge any utopian scheme. Sowell cites the British economist Lionel Robbins:</p>
<blockquote><p>Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses.</p></blockquote>
<p>Using resources to do one thing requires us to take resources away from somewhere else. And “resources” does not always refer to money or raw materials either. Time, manpower, talent, and knowledge are all resources too that individuals, businesses, governments, and families have to figure out how to use in the most effective way. And these resources can be used in any number of combinations, some much more effective than others.</p>
<p>With this point Sowell demonstrates that economics really isn’t about money or becoming rich:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is about the material well-being of society as a whole. It shows the cause and effect relationships involving prices, industry and commerce, work and pay, or the international balance of trade—all from the standpoint of how this affects the allocation of scarce resources in a way that raises or lowers the material standard of living of the population as a whole.</p></blockquote>
<p>In other words, Sowell and other economists are going to study what the real results are when certain policies are put into place, instead of focusing on the high-minded hopes and expectations of those who dreamed the into existence. It’s this approach that he brings to analyzing such misunderstood concepts as prices and profits.</p>
<p><strong>2. Businesses cannot survive if they arbitrarily set high prices because their owners are “greedy.” </strong></p>
<p>One of the most persistent memes to embed itself within the popular consciousness is the idea that those participating in capitalism are “greedy.” It’s all too easy to look at rising gas prices and rising oil company profits only to assume that it’s because of “greedy” oil executives just adjusting the price in their favor.</p>
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		<title>Alice Walker, the War Against the Jews, and Human Sacrifice</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/alice-walker-the-war-against-the-jews-and-human-sacrifice/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=alice-walker-the-war-against-the-jews-and-human-sacrifice</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jul 2011 04:27:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=98777</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Understanding a Pulitzer Prize winner’s devolution into Jew-hate.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/alice.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-98782" title="alice" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/alice.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="432" /></a></p>
<p>“<em>My mother is very ideologically based, and her ideology is much more important in many ways than her personal relationships</em>.” – <a href="http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3866798.ece">Rebecca Walker</a>.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, <em>The Color Purple</em> novelist and activist Alice Walker married a Jewish man and gave birth to a biracial baby, Rebecca. Now more than 40 years later, the couple is long-divorced, the mother and half-Jewish daughter are estranged, and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Alice is the celebrity sponsor of a movement committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. How could Alice make such a profound shift from joining a Jewish family to aiding in the Jewish people’s annihilation? Perhaps it is not that Alice changed. Rather, the political religion that served as her anchor suffered a radical devolution since the colorblind dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.</p>
<p>In 1967, Alice was an aspiring novelist, poet, and political activist who married Mel Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights attorney whose parents fled the Holocaust. The couple chose to relocate from New York City to Jackson, Mississippi, a provocative act given that miscegenation laws had just recently been overturned in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia"><em>Loving vs Virginia</em></a>. Leventhal spent many nights awake with a shotgun should the Klan choose to come after them. In November of 1969, Rebecca was born, and she notes in her 2001 memoir, <em>Black White and Jewish,</em> that it was “seventeen months after Dr. King was shot.”</p>
<p>The union of Alice and Mel was not to last. In 1976 the couple divorced. The seeds of the failed marriage can be seen in the ideological shifts of the period. The 1970s saw both of Alice’s movements take much harder, Marxist turns. The Civil Rights cause under King’s leadership was one of interracial unity. By 1976 Black Power was the dominant message and a white, Jewish husband was viewed with suspicion. The Feminist movement had also grown more radical, influencing Alice to resent her role as wife and mother. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1021293/How-mothers-fanatical-feminist-views-tore-apart-daughter-The-Color-Purple-author.html#ixzz1RLwH1Ksv">In an article for the <em>Daily Mail</em></a> in 2008, Rebecca described a traumatic discovery:</p>
<blockquote><p>I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me  -  a &#8216;delightful distraction&#8217;, but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.</p></blockquote>
<p>This left-inspired rejection of motherhood pervaded Rebecca’s rocky adolescence moving forward. Her parents came up with an unusual arrangement that only exacerbated the feelings of isolation she already had as a biracial child. From elementary through high school Rebecca went back and forth between the Bohemian artist world of her San Francisco-based mother and the more stable middle class Jewish life of her father in New York. She would spend two years building herself and her identity only to have to leap back across the country to reinvent herself.</p>
<p><em>Black White and Jewish</em> depicts such a life not just in its story but in its tone and style as well. The book is more than 300 pages of fragmentary childhood and adolescent recollections. The average chapter is only a few pages long and the voice maintained throughout is one of a scared child unable to piece together a coherent narrative of the life forced upon her by “movement” parents. It’s not until the last 30 pages that Rebecca finally starts to provide some insights into the chaotic life her parents provided.</p>
<p>Alice putting her leftist ideology before her parental responsibilities had very real consequences. Since her parents rarely set any boundaries for her, Rebecca experimented with drugs and sex early on. At 14, Rebecca had an abortion, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1021293/How-mothers-fanatical-feminist-views-tore-apart-daughter-The-Color-Purple-author.html#ixzz1RRacxTDW">an event she describes</a> as something that traumatized her:</p>
<blockquote><p>Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I&#8217;d never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.</p></blockquote>
<p>It was the birth of Rebecca’s first child, Tenzin, in 2004 that would finally collapse the already-shaky relationship between a Pulitzer-prize-winning mother and her “calamity” of a daughter. Just as Alice saw her own marriage and Rebecca’s birth primarily as political acts, she also brought this same approach to Tenzin, her grandchild. Rebecca’s choice of parenthood over more time for writing and political activism is a rejection of her mother’s ideology.</p>
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		<title>Compassion vs. Guilt in the Age of Barack Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/compassion-vs-guilt-in-the-age-of-barack-obama-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=compassion-vs-guilt-in-the-age-of-barack-obama-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:04:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=98511</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell’s writings from 30 years ago are as relevant as ever.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sowell1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-98514" title="sowell" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sowell1.jpg" alt="" width="384" height="288" /></a></p>
<p>Surely at some point in his long-admired writing career Thomas Sowell has grown frustrated. What to do when the same issues arise over and over again in the national debate and he’s already addressed them many times only to continue to be ignored by a political Left unwilling to deal with inconvenient facts? <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Compassion-Versus-Guilt-Other-Essays/dp/0688086705/ref=tmm_pap_title_0"><em>Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays</em></a> is the first collection of Sowell’s newspaper columns and features his selections from 1982 through 1986. Most of the pieces are as fresh and relevant today as when they were first published.</p>
<p>Sowell articulates the central theme that binds these essays together in the title essay. When looking at all the suffering around the world it’s natural for Americans to have a sense of guilt since they were born into more prosperous circumstances by chance. The attempts to alleviate these feelings have often been efforts to show compassion for the less fortunate. Sowell warns,</p>
<blockquote><p>Many of our attempts to share our good fortune with others, at home and abroad, have undermined the very efforts, standards and values that make that good fortune possible. Trying to ease our own guilt feelings is very different from trying to advance those less fortunate.</p></blockquote>
<p>Just because a policy is put in place with the compassionate goal of trying to help those less fortunate does not mean that the less fortunate will be helped. This has been one of the central themes of Sowell’s work in fields ranging from race relations to economics.</p>
<p>Sowell urges a “There, but for the grace of God, go I” mentality – an approach far removed from the Obama administration’s visions of helping the uninsured with new government regulations that will have unintended consequences. For example, surveys of business-owners recently showed that come 2014, when the law’s provisions kick in, <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/firms-halting-coverage-as-reform-starts-survey-2011-06-06">30% of employers plan on dropping</a> health coverage.</p>
<p>The common refrain from the President’s supporters when conservatives point out these unintended consequences is one Sowell anticipated decades ago: well what’s <em>your</em> solution?</p>
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		<title>Three Ways to Tell if a Muslim Charity Supports Jihad</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/three-ways-to-tell-if-a-muslim-charity-supports-jihad/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=three-ways-to-tell-if-a-muslim-charity-supports-jihad</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jul 2011 04:12:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=98034</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another Islamist front group is revealed through its own carelessness.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/news1917.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-98036" title="news1917" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/news1917.gif" alt="" width="375" height="255" /></a></p>
<p>The Chicago-based Zakat Foundation of America, a 501©3 non-profit, was founded in 2001, and <a href="http://www.zakat.org/about_us/">presents itself</a> in a benevolent light:</p>
<blockquote><p>Zakat Foundation of America (ZF) is an international charity organization that helps generous and caring people reach out to those in need. Our goal is to address immediate needs and ensure the self-reliance of the poorest people around the world with Zakat and Sadaqa [acts of worship] dollars of privileged Muslims and the support of other generous donors.</p></blockquote>
<p>Does the Zakat Foundation of America merely help, in an innocent charitable way, “the poorest people” or is it a front for jihad? Part of the answer comes in the identity of the Muslim thinkers the foundation promotes. Chief among them is <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=822">Yusuf al-Qardawi</a>, spiritual leader of the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386">Muslim Brotherhood</a> who <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/2315/moderate-qaradawi-defends-hitler-and-nuclear">in 2009</a> declared his hope that before his death, even if he was wheelchair-bound, he would be able to “shoot Allah&#8217;s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom.”</p>
<p>Another answer comes in the organizations with which the charity is associated. A number of organizations in the United States have already been identified as Muslim Brotherhood front groups by the FBI. The Zakat Foundation of America works with at least two of the 29 groups the bureau has specified as falling into this category—the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6178">Islamic Center of North America (ISNA)</a> endorsed the Zakat Foundation as an organization with “a strong history of immediate and effective responses to national and international disasters” and featured in several of the Zakat Foundation <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_p29haZHDI">promotional videos</a>. The other Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated group the Zakat Foundation collaborates with is the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=776">Muslim Students Association (MSA), </a>having designed printed material guiding MSA activists on “<a href="http://www.zakat.org/resources/entry/how_to_start_a_successful_halaqa_group_in_your_masjid/">How to start a successful halaqa group in your Masjid</a>,” “<a href="http://www.zakat.org/resources/entry/how_to_help_neighbors_in_need/">How to Help Neighbors in Need</a>,” and “<a href="http://www.zakat.org/resources/entry/starting_a_food_pantry_whats_for_dinner/">Starting a Food Pantry</a>.”</p>
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		<title>How Self-Proclaimed Pacifists Support Pro-War Marxists and Islamists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-self-proclaimed-pacifists-support-pro-war-marxists-and-islamists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-self-proclaimed-pacifists-support-pro-war-marxists-and-islamists</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jul 2011 04:07:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97581</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new documentary promotes "peace" groups who have a fetish for violence. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/cultures.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97753" title="cultures" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/cultures.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="320" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7664">“Cultures of Resistance,”</a> a documentary directed by Iara Lee, began its festival tour this year. The film profiles over a dozen different radical activist groups around the world, many of which have received grants from <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5388&amp;category=79">the two nonprofit</a> <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5387&amp;category=79">foundations</a> created by Lee <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2517">and her billionaire husband (the film’s producer) George Gund III</a>. This scatter-shot approach results in an intellectual incoherence as Lee, who claims to embrace absolute pacifism, gives a platform to some of the most pro-war, revolutionary voices on the Left.</p>
<p>For an activist who claims to support nonviolence, Lee relishes military metaphors <a href="http://films.culturesofresistance.org/about#synopsis">when describing her film</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Does each gesture really make a difference? Can music and dance be weapons of peace? In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, director Iara Lee embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict and, as she saw it, heading for self-destruction. After several years, traveling over five continents, Iara encountered growing numbers of people who committed their lives to promoting change. This is their story. From IRAN, where graffiti and rap became tools in fighting government repression, to BURMA, where monks acting in the tradition of Gandhi take on a dictatorship, moving on to BRAZIL, where musicians reach out to slum kids and transform guns into guitars, and ending in PALESTINIAN refugee camps in LEBANON, where photography, music, and film have given a voice to those rarely heard, CULTURES OF RESISTANCE explores how art and creativity can be ammunition in the battle for peace and justice.</p></blockquote>
<p>Like many leftists eager to achieve the cultural deification of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, Lee claims to support nonviolence. She released a statement to accompany the film in which she stated that nonviolence was “the only way to break the cycles of militarism and oppression.”</p>
<p>Problems with Lee’s supposed pacifism emerge when researching the people and groups actually profiled in “Cultures of Resistance.” Many certainly are as Lee describes – artists and activists who are largely benign. However, other groups Lee showcases have a peculiar disposition toward &#8220;peace.&#8221;</p>
<p>For example, Katibe 5 is a Beirut-based rap group Lee describes as carrying on “a tradition of socially conscious rap.” Three of the five MCs in the group have chosen terrorist-themed names: C-4, Molotov, and “the Butcher.” Such a fetish for violence is understandable given the group’s idolizing of <a href="http://mepop.blogspot.com/2008/01/katibe-5-palestinian-rap-from-refugee.html">Marxists</a> like Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara. Molo, the leader of the team stated his revolutionary politics openly: “Peace means politics, politics means negotiations, negotiations are meant to sustain negotiations and not bring a solution. So I say, fuck negotiations, fuck politics and fuck peace.”</p>
<p>While Katibe 5 may only be fanning the flames of destruction, others in Lee and Gund’s agitprop are actually doing real damage. Breaking with her theme of political artists, Lee devotes one of the segments of “Cultures of Resistance” to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1092">Jeff Halper</a>, the Israel-based spokesman for the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6233">International Solidarity Movement (ISM.)</a> Halper has called for the obliteration of Israel, declaring, “The ‘two-state’ solution envisioned by all Israeli governments since 1967 &#8230; is simply unacceptable.” Halper instead advocates for a “one-state” solution. Since 2008, Halper has also been an organizer with the Free Gaza Movement (FGM.) Both the ISM and the FGM have received grants from Lee and Gund’s Caipirinha Foundation, totaling $25,000 through 2009.</p>
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		<title>John Lennon’s Second Thoughts</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/john-lennon%e2%80%99s-second-thoughts/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-lennon%25e2%2580%2599s-second-thoughts</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:08:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97489</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new documentary reveals the Beatle's change of heart in his final years.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/john-lennon.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97499" title="john-lennon" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/john-lennon.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="306" /></a></p>
<p>For more than 40 years Beatles member John Lennon towered above all others as the Left’s most powerful artistic icon. His anthem “Imagine” dreamed of a unified world that transcended the divides of nation-states and religious strife. It was an inspiration to generations of utopians. Now a new documentary reveals a startling fact: in his final years before his murder, the songwriter abandoned his famous progressive faith, enjoyed arguing with radicals, and supported Ronald Reagan.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/28/lennon-was-a-closet-republican-assistant"><em>Toronto Sun</em> reported Tuesday night</a> on one of the interviews from a new documentary called <a href="http://beatlesstories.com/">“Beatles Stories.”</a> Director Seth Swirsky spent five years collecting anecdotes from those who knew members of the band. One of the people Swirsky talked with was Fred Seaman who worked as Lennon’s personal assistant in 1979 and 1980.</p>
<p>According to Seaman,</p>
<blockquote><p>John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;d met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event&#8230; Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young (peace) demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that&#8230; He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.</p>
<p>&#8220;I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who&#8217;s an old-time communist&#8230; He enjoyed really provoking my uncle&#8230; Maybe he was being provocative&#8230; but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.</p>
<p>&#8220;He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he&#8217;d been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy&#8217;s naivete.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>How will the Left respond to these revelations? If <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/06/john-lennon-was-a-closet-reagan-republican-claims-former-assistant.html">the first reaction at <em>The Los Angeles Times</em></a><em> </em>is any indication, the attempt might be to damage the credibility of the witness. Tony Pierce does not even bother commenting on the claims and instead noted that Seaman plead guilty in 1983 to stealing photos, journals, and letters from Lennon.</p>
<p>Jon Wiener at <em>The Nation</em> <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/161751/john-lennon-not-closet-republican">also jumped on this strategy</a> to defend the icon he wrote a whole book promoting. Wiener went further though, trying to pass off a bland written statement in support of a group of striking workers and an ambiguous comment that the 1960s “gave us a glimpse of the possibility” of a better world as evidence that Lennon died a progressive. (At <em>Salon</em> Justin Elliott <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/29/john_lennon_ronald_reagan">regurgitates</a> this weak tea response.) Wiener ends with another <em>ad hominem</em> against Seaman, noting the former personal assistant also tried to “cash in” on his Lennon connection before with a book. Wiener fails to explain what financial stake Seaman could possibly have today in telling lies about Lennon’s politics.</p>
<p>It’s worth remembering that <em>The Nation</em> was the publication with the longest track record of defending the innocence of the Rosenbergs &#8212; regardless of every new piece of evidence to emerge over the last 30 years.</p>
<p>The problem with this kill-the-messenger strategy is that it labors under the mistaken impression that Seaman’s anecdotes are the only proof of Lennon’s Second Thoughts. As soon as one starts looking at Lennon circa 1980 as a Reagan conservative, more and more long-available evidence comes into focus. Old, familiar statements suddenly make sense in a new way. Some writers had even already theorized of Lennon’s political shift.</p>
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		<title>How Billionaire George Gund III Funds Jew-Hate</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/how-billionaire-george-gund-iii-funds-jew-hate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-billionaire-george-gund-iii-funds-jew-hate</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:10:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97356</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The former San Jose Sharks owner funneled over half a million to radical groups.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cannesipop3.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97357" title="cannesipop3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cannesipop3.jpg" alt="" width="440" height="364" /></a></p>
<p>The phenomenon of leftist billionaires funding anti-capitalist activism seems on the surface to be a contradiction.  How could those who should understand the way individual freedom and initiative creates wealth with the power to do good seek the destruction of the system that produces this wealth? The answer is a complex one, although for those who inherited wealth, rather than making their own fortune, guilt clearly plays a role. This seems to be the case with billionaire former sports mogul <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2517">George Gund III</a>.  He used to own the San Jose Sharks and Cleveland Cavaliers. Today he’s the co-founder of two foundations which provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to dozens of radical causes.</p>
<p>In a rare public interview, Gund has commented <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-07-10/entertainment/17606926_1_daruma-japanese-ink-painting-berkeley-art-museum">on his admiration for those</a> who led lives that challenged the established cultural order, like Zen artists. This affinity for the “outsider” has driven Gund to bankroll the films and activism of <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2516">Iara Lee</a>, his Korean-Brazilian wife <a href="http://synthetic.pleasures.xs2.net/Reviews/nytimes-sep16.html">27 years</a> his junior. Since 2003, Lee has globe-hopped throughout the Middle East, filming sequences for a documentary she and Gund released this spring as <a href="http://films.culturesofresistance.org/about">“Cultures of Resistance.”</a> Last year she rose to prominence after <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iara-lee/the-video-israel-doesnt-w_b_621788.html">releasing footage she shot</a> on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> during a clash between jihadist IHH activists and Israeli commandos during the “flotilla” confrontation.</p>
<p>In spite of their supposed sympathy for outsiders, the couple chooses to focus most of their activist money against the most tolerant Middle Eastern state. Israel is their primary target. The couple is completely  indifferent to the reality that the rights of gays, women and religious minorities are protected more diligently in this supposedly “apartheid” state than in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Thus, the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5387&amp;category=79">Iara Lee and George Gund III Foundation (ILGGF)</a> (founded 2004) and the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5388&amp;category=79">Caipirinha Foundation</a> (founded 2006) have funneled more than half a million dollars to activist groups committed to demonizing Israel and supporting Hamas.</p>
<p>The most troubling of Lee and Gund’s anti-Israel donations has been the Caipirinha Foundation’s <a href="http://caipirinhafoundation.org/?page_id=129">grant</a> to the <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7544">The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (IHH)</a> which sponsors flotillas that seek to disrupt Israel’s military blockade of Gaza. The IHH also has ties to <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6204">Hamas</a>, <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6211">Al Qaeda</a>, and <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386">the Muslim Brotherhood</a>, a fact which prevented the IHH from participating in the next flotilla scheduled for the end of this month. Lee <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iara-lee/slandering-the-good-guys_b_649604.html">has defended</a> the IHH in a video and blog post at <em>The Huffington Post</em>.</p>
<p>The dollar amount of Caipirinha’s grant is not yet available. The donation was likely made in 2010 as it does not appear on the organization’s 2007, 2008, or 2009 records. Caipirinha used <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5389&amp;category=79">the Zakat Foundation</a> of America as a “fiscal sponsor.—that is, as a non-profit intermediary to funnel tax-exempt donations to another organization that’s too openly radical to qualify for 501©3 status, the progressive non-profit world’s version of money laundering.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/912/146/2009-912146075-05e8ef9d-F.pdf">2009</a> the ILGGF gave $50,000 to <a href="http://discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6258">Human Rights Watch (HRW)</a>, a George Soros-sponsored non-profit which disproportionately targets its Human Rights concerns on Israel. In both 2008 and 2007 the ILGGF made donations of $60,000 to HRW, making their three-year total $170,000.</p>
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		<title>The Flotilla Jihadists’ Artsy Propagandist and Her Billionaire Husband</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/the-flotilla-jihadists%e2%80%99-artsy-propagandist-and-her-billionaire-husband/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-flotilla-jihadists%25e2%2580%2599-artsy-propagandist-and-her-billionaire-husband</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 29 Jun 2011 04:07:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=97247</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new leftist filmmaker targets Israel.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/iaralee.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-97253" title="iaralee" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/iaralee.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="334" /></a></p>
<p>When the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6204" target="_blank">Hamas</a>-linked <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=7544" target="_blank">Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief (IHH)</a> sponsored a “humanitarian” flotilla last summer to try and break the Israeli “siege” of Gaza, the purpose was not merely to engineer a showdown between Israeli commandos and armed IHH “peace activists.” Far more vital to the IHH’s cause was the ensuing campaign to demonize Israel in the international media, a campaign in which propagandists such as documentary filmmaker <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2516">Iara Lee</a> played a key role.</p>
<p>Lee later appropriated the language of the American Civil Rights Movement to <a href="http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-great-iara-lee-on-the-flotilla-bloodbath/">describe herself</a> and the IHH:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>Israeli spokespeople insist that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a provocation. It was, in the sense that civil rights protesters in the American south who sat at segregated lunch counters represented a provocation to segregationists, or in the sense that all nonviolent protests against the illegitimate acts of a government are by definition provocations. Under an illegal siege, the delivery of aid to civilians is a prohibited act; the intent of our humanitarian convoy was to violate this unjust prohibition. </em></p></blockquote>
<p>This account of what happened on the <em>Mavi Marmara</em> was reprinted in the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, <em>The Huffington Post</em>, and in the O/R Books anthology <em>Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How it Changed the Course of the Israel/Palestine Conflict</em>. Online it was accompanied by footage Lee <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iara-lee/the-video-israel-doesnt-w_b_621788.html">shot of the event</a>. Touted as “the video Israel doesn’t want you to see,” Lee’s images, showing the IHH attacking Israeli soldiers with slingshots and other weapons, dramatically undermine her claims of innocent moral witness.</p>
<p>Who is Iara Lee and what was she doing on a ship determined to provoke an agitprop showdown with Israeli soldiers? And how is she involved in the next flotilla? The answers to these questions cast a harsh light on the movement supporting Hamas by making the “siege” of Gaza into another skirmish in the international propaganda war against Israel.</p>
<p>Lee first began her film career in the 1980s. She <a href="https://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist?sk=info">was the producer</a> of the Sao Paulo International Film Festival – located in her native Brazil – from 1984 through 1989. She relocated to New York City and <a href="http://www.ovguide.com/iara-lee-9202a8c04000641f800000000bea1541">began</a> Caipirinha Productions, a multi-media company. (The <em>Caipirinha</em> is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caipirinha">Brazil’s national cocktail</a>.)</p>
<p>Behind Lee’s relocation to the US was her relationship with a new patron. In 1986 – <a href="http://synthetic.pleasures.xs2.net/Reviews/nytimes-sep16.html">when she was</a> 20 <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i_nHd7lMIAcJ:synthetic.pleasures.xs2.net/Reviews/nytimes-sep16.html+George+Gund+Iara+Lee&amp;cd=3&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us&amp;source=www.google.com">and he</a> was 47 – Lee met sports mogul and art film enthusiast <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2517">George Gund III</a> at the Berlin Film Festival. The couple married and the wealthy Gund started producing and distributing her films.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1990s Lee’s work centered on cultural issues. Her first feature documentary, “Synthetic Pleasures” (1995) focused on technology and art and featured countercultural figures Timothy Leary and R.U. Sirius. No company would release the film so Lee and Gund distributed it themselves. Lee followed this in 1998 with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139468/">“Modulations,”</a> a movie exploring the history of electronic music.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist?sk=info">Since the beginning</a> of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 Lee has lived abroad and grown increasingly engaged in leftist political causes. The shift is reflected in her documentaries. In 2006 she lived in Lebanon, and claimed afterwards that her virulently anti-Israel political views were the result of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist?sk=info">having</a> “experienced firsthand the 34-day Israeli bombardment of that country.” (The fact that Israel’s reaction was a response to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6256">Hezbollah’s</a> terrorist attacks does not enter her discussion of her political development.)  By 2008 Lee was living in Iran with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/iara.lee.filmmaker.activist?sk=info">the goal of</a>, “promoting arts &amp; culture for global solidarity.”</p>
<p>Lee has released a film this year called <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7664">“Cultures of Resistance”</a> that compiles her adventures with more than <a href="http://films.culturesofresistance.org/about">a dozen other activists</a>. The next showing of “Cultures of Resistance” will be sponsored by <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6149">Code Pink</a> on June 29 in <a href="http://www.codepink4peace.org/calendar.php?id=3823">Los Angeles</a>. Code Pink co-founder <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1628">Jodie Evans</a> will be on the panel and Lee will participate via skype from the <em>Audacity of Hope </em>in the Gaza “freedom” flotilla.</p>
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		<title>The Jew-Hating Roots of the Conspiracy Culture</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/david-swindle/the-jew-hating-roots-of-the-conspiracy-culture/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-jew-hating-roots-of-the-conspiracy-culture</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 May 2011 04:03:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=94446</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the 9/11 Truthers. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/among-the-truthers.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-94695" title="among-the-truthers" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/among-the-truthers.png" alt="" width="324" height="501" /></a></p>
<p>Jonathan Kay’s compulsively-readable new book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062004816/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=217145&amp;creative=399349&amp;creativeASIN=0062004816" target="_blank">Among The Truthers</a></em> is as definitive a book on the American conspiracy culture as we are ever going to get.</p>
<p>Kay, a managing editor for Canada’s <em>National Post</em>, jumped right into the oddball world of the so-called Truthers who doubt Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and instead suspect an “inside job.” Kay spent years in this world, going to Truther conferences, interviewing prominent Truthers in depth, and pouring over their literature.</p>
<p>In Part I, Kay describes the history and rise of American conspiracism, noting the powerful effects of the ambiguity of the JFK assassination, the <em>real</em> conspiracy of Watergate, and the shattering of a consensus media reality with greater technological development. He then positions the wide variety of Truther narratives in this context, noting the multitude of different stories. For some Truthers, Osama bin Laden really was responsible for 9/11, except that he did so under the orders of his American government handlers. For others, the hijacked planes were controlled by remote control and all the passengers and hijackers were secretly unloaded before they crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The motive for the attacks is generally the same – a cabal of “neo-cons” wanted to make money, colonize the Middle East, defend Israel, and transform the United States into a police state. (Though, for prominent British Truther David Icke, 9/11 was engineered by his unique boogeymen, the most creative and entertaining in all of conspiracy culture: blood-drinking, child-molesting, shape-shifting lizard humanoids from the fifth dimension.)</p>
<p>More interesting – and important – than the specific stories are the people themselves and the psychological conditions that drive them. Kay does not ridicule his subjects but analyzes them with affection and precision. In Part II, he creates a Truther taxonomy, identifying the following types: Midlife Crisis Case, Failed Historian, Damaged Survivor, Cosmic Voyager, Clinical Conspiracist, Crank, Evangelical Doomsayer, and Firebrand. Those who familiarize themselves with Kay’s profiles will be more than equipped to recognize which type of conspiracist they are dealing with when they bump into one on Facebook or the comments section of a blog.</p>
<p>Kay does an especially good job of carefully threading the needle on the subjects of Glenn Beck and the Tea Party. The claim that Beck is an Alex Jones-style conspiracy kook has been one of the Left’s favorite rhetorical weapons to use against the popular talk radio host. Kay acknowledges that Beck has sometimes explored conspiracist themes but he does not position him amongst the Truther mainstream. Similarly, he does not cast the Tea Party as a conspiracist movement, instead defending it while noting that conspiracists have found a place at the margins – as they have with most political and religious movements:</p>
<blockquote><p>It would be entirely wrong to call Tea Partiers a straightforward conspiracist movement – and I don’t want to stand accused of doing so here. Many of their political gripes about big government are shared by tens of millions of mainstream Americans: In a September 2010 survey, 71 percent of Republican respondents said they have a “positive opinion” of the Tea Party movement.</p></blockquote>
<p>But as with all populist uprisings, it has attracted a fringe of angry extremists who will swallow just about any accusation launched against the nation’s elite.</p>
<p>The book’s most important contribution is the way Kay effectively traces the origins of all of America’s conspiracy narratives to a single document: the notorious, fraudulent <em>Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion</em>.</p>
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		<title>Melting Leftist Arguments on Contact</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/melting-leftist-arguments-on-contact/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=melting-leftist-arguments-on-contact</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/melting-leftist-arguments-on-contact/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Dec 2010 04:42:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=79871</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new book rips the lid off the Unholy Alliance between Islamic Jihad and Utopian Socialism.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/diversitylane_glazov-ad_for-websites.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-79870" title="diversitylane_glazov-ad_for-websites" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/diversitylane_glazov-ad_for-websites.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="599" /></a></p>
<p><strong>[Editor&#8217;s note: Many thanks to Diversity Lane for the cartoon. Be sure and visit for more great conservative cartoons at <a href="http://diversitylane.com/index.htm">Diversitylane.wordpress.com.</a>]</strong></p>
<p>My friend and mentor Dr. Jamie Glazov has a new book out, <em>Showdown with Evil: Our Struggle Against Tyranny and Terror</em> which you can purchase <strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0973406550?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0973406550" target="_blank">here</a></strong>.</p>
<p>The book is a collection of some of the best of Jamie’s interviews that he’s conducted over the years for <em>FrontPage Magazine</em>. I helped Jamie with the project, writing introductions to each section and conducting the interview which concludes the book. To promote Jamie’s new book, we’re printing that interview here. Enjoy.</p>
<p><strong>David Swindle:</strong> Dr. Glazov, let’s discuss the themes of this collection and what conclusions we can reach from them.</p>
<p>First, in several interviews in this work you discuss your background as  the son of two prominent Soviet dissidents. Can you tell us a bit about  how you became politically aware over the course  of your childhood and adolescence? Most young people are blissfully  ignorant of political matters and the often disturbing realities of the  world. Given your family’s history of fighting tyranny and terror,  perhaps you did not have such a luxury?<br />
<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Glazov: </strong>Thanks David. Well I am grateful to God I  didn’t have this so-called luxury. To say the least, it would be an  understatement to say that I never envied a lot of the people I grew up  with in the West who walked around without one idea in their head or any  yearning for anything. I remember being around certain friends growing  up and they would be sitting around aimlessly and complaining that they  were “bored.” I can understand being happy or sad, or being elated or depressed, but I could never understand being bored. My heart  and mind has, from the time I was young, been consumed with worrying  for the dissidents back in Russia, and in other totalitarian societies. I  am not trying to glorify myself; I’m just being honest in that I was  perpetually troubled by the suffering inmates of the communist gulag and  I yearned for their release and for the punishment and overthrow of  their tormentors.</p>
<p>My soul was intertwined with my dad’s and mom’s battle and perpetual concern for the martyrs that fell and the heroes that rose  fighting against communist despotism. I was forever perplexed not only  at the indifference around me about these matters, but, as I grew older  and entered high school and the university, at the actual excuse and support for it. Liberal and leftist friends and acquaintances chastised my parents  and me constantly about our inappropriate views and concerns,  explaining to us that our focus should not be on communism, that really  wasn’t so bad, but on American imperialism, aggression and oppression —  supposed realities that, no matter how hard I tried, I could not detect  my entire life.</p>
<p>These circumstances in which I grew taught me, on many levels, what  life was and gave me a priceless gift: the gift of caring for justice,  of caring for something greater than just my own immediate material or  physical needs. I am forever grateful to my parents for having given me access to the divine gift of having an inner life and world.</p>
<p>My parents took on one of the most evil regimes in human history, a  regime that massacred millions of people and brought misery and  destitution to millions of others. Because of this background, I think I  have a little inkling of what freedom is and what real oppression is.  And so I have developed a reflexive nausea when I am confronted with the  smug liberal and leftist, of whom I have met a million, who thinks he  knows it all, is better than conservatives, and yet, when it comes down  to it, has absolutely no concern for the truth or for the millions of  human beings who suffer under the tyrannies that he supports and makes  excuses for – and under which he himself would perish.</p>
<p><strong> Swindle:</strong> Please tell us a bit about your odyssey  through academia. What drove you to pursue scholarly work? What were  some of the subjects you studied which influenced you the most? How did  your studies affect your political philosophy?  What was it like being a son of Soviet dissidents in a leftist academic  culture which celebrated the monsters who had brought so much pain to your family?</p>
<p><strong>Glazov: </strong>Going to university was just a given thing to  do. I come from a family of academics and pursuing knowledge is  something that you just love and pursue, there’s not really a question  about it.<strong> </strong>I did my undergrad in history and then went  on to do Ph.D. studies in history as well. I did it because I longed for  fighting for the truth about communism and for telling the truth about  it. I studied the Cold War because America was a divine entity to me and  the Soviet Union was, for anyone with eyes to see, a clear evil empire  that represented a toxic threat to every single human being, whether  they were under its totalitarian grasp or outside of it.</p>
<p>I detested the leftists in academia who not only apologized for the  Soviet Union, but cheered for its victory. I observed the glorification  of Mao, Che Guevara, Castro, the North Vietnamese and other mass  murderers everywhere I went on campus. No academic professor, with an  exception or two, had the courage or integrity to put Solzhenitsyn’s <em>Gulag Archipelago</em> or Armando Valladares’ <em>Against All Hope</em> on their syllabuses, even though the Soviet Union and Cuba  played prominent roles in their courses. No professor would dare to  accompany his reading list full of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn with a  counter-reading from a David Horowitz or Thomas Sowell. You were only  allowed to get one side of the story. And if you thought that capitalism  was a good thing or that Ronald Reagan was a great president, you would  get a bad mark, because it meant you didn’t understand the course and the truth.</p>
<p>It hurt my heart and infuriated my whole being watching these people  on campus apologize for evil and heap abuse and slander upon the United  States and Israel, the two most beautiful countries in the world that  represent and stand up for freedom, justice and equality (well, with the  U.S. up until Obama), and are on the frontlines of defending it. In  this context, a desire was born in me to expose leftists and their true  motives. I wanted to understand and to explain the typical colleague I  looked at daily who worshiped societies under which he himself would be  exterminated and who heaped criticism at a society that was allowing him  every luxury, liberty and material allowance to sit around and think up everything he hated about it.</p>
<p><strong> Swindle: </strong>With this background it’s quite obvious  how you could connect with David Horowitz and the Freedom Center. Could  you discuss how you became <em>FrontPage Magazine</em>‘s managing editor?<strong> </strong><br />
<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Glazov: </strong>Well, back in 1997 I had decided to write a  script on how to be a good leftist, a satirical kind of thing. I found  leftists so pathetic as I was observing them, that I decided to create a  comedic how-to-guide. So I was reading a few books to crystallize my  ideas and then, before finishing, I got my hands on <em>Radical Son</em>,  David Horowitz’s memoir. I was totally overwhelmed by it. It had really  grabbed me. I remember I had not been that moved by a book for a very  long time — and haven’t been since. I was very sad, I remember, when the  book ended. I really didn’t want to move on to anything else, the  narrative had such a hold on me. Picking up another book just wouldn’t  do, and that really was the situation for awhile. <em>Radical Son</em> enters your consciousness in a way that you really can’t explain unless  you read it. It delivers some of the greatest truths about life, the  human condition and the Left in the most powerful of ways.</p>
<p>So I decided to write a letter to David and tell him how much his  memoir meant to me and how much I respected him. And when I sent him the  letter, I decided to include my script with it, which was called “15  Tips on How to be a Good Leftist.” I just included it for something to  do, not really expecting to hear anything back. But I did leave my phone number along with my address on the bottom of the letter I wrote.</p>
<p>A few weeks later my phone  rang. So I picked it up and said “Hello?” And a voice asked: “Is Jamie  Glazov there?” And I said, “Speaking.” And the voice said, “Hello Jamie,  this is David Horowitz.” To say the least, well, it would be an  understatement to say that it was quite a surprise. He thanked me for my  letter and also expressed an interest in publishing my satire as a  little booklet at his Center. So of course I agreed and it became the Center’s pamphlet. After that, I started submitting to <em>FrontPage Magazine</em> as a regular writer and eventually I became a columnist. One day I got an email from David and it said: “What’s your day job?”  And well, it all kind of happened from there. I became an assistant  editor and then just kind of moved up I guess. And here I am today.  David gave me a great opportunity and it has been an honor and privilege  to work with him, the Center, and at <em>FrontPage</em>. I consider him  the most important political thinker and activist of our time. He’s a  warrior battling on the frontlines. He’s a hero. And I am grateful to  fight by his side against the totalitarians of our time and their  human-hating ideologies.</p>
<p><strong> Swindle: </strong>You edited and wrote a very impressive introduction to Horowitz’s anthology of his writings, <em>Left Illusions</em>.  There are few people more familiar with Horowitz’s writings and with  Horowitz personally than you. What do you think are some of the  intellectual lessons that we can learn from Horowitz’s work? Are there  particular Horowitz books that you especially appreciate?<br />
<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Glazov: </strong>Well David<strong> </strong>comes from  within the Belly of the Beast. He was in hell and was able to come out  of it and to tell us how the devil thinks and what his strategy is. In  essence, David demonstrates how the totalitarianism in communist  practice is rooted in the socialist idea itself. He has shown, in the  most profound way, how the utopianism of the Left leads to the  monstrosities of its earthly incarnations. And he experienced all of  this personally in terms of what he witnessed as a child of communists  and as a leader of the New Left. He has illuminated the belief system of  the believer, which envisions replacing this earth and its human beings  with a new earth with perfect human beings. This child-like fantasy, as  he has termed it, is the “original sin” of the Left. And it is this  fantasy that has led to Stalinism, Maoism and all the other communist  totalitarian experiments that have killed more than a hundred million  human beings and caused mass suffering for millions of others.</p>
<p>My favorite Horowitz books, the ones that had the deepest impact on me, are <em>Radical Son</em> and <em>The Politics of Bad Faith.</em> <em>Radical Son</em>, as I mentioned earlier, was extremely moving. The memoir goes beyond Whittaker Chambers’ <em>Witness</em> in that it engages in a fearless examination of self, which is almost  unprecedented in political memoirs. By going further than any previous  narrative in demonstrating how deeply the Marxist fairy tale is entwined  with the character and psychology  of its believers, David shows how the socialist lie reaches into every  corner of its believer’s soul. He makes clear why the break from  radicalism can be such a personally devastating decision. And that’s  why, as we know and have seen, a leftist can never look back or say “I’m  sorry.”</p>
<p><em> The Politics of Bad Faith</em> builds on this incapacity of the progressive to say “<em>mea culpa</em>” and for leftists to say “<em>nostra culpa</em>.”  The book, a collection of essays, is extremely powerful in that it  exposes the refusal of radicals to accept the implications of the  collapse of Communism for the future of the socialist project. David  shows how the Left simply ignored (and ignores) the lessons of  communism’s collapse, and has just renamed itself and its agendas. And so leftists just continue with their destructive agendas. This is the politics of bad faith. There is really no literature out there that deals  with this phenomenon in the way that David’s does. This remains really  the only book written after the fall of the Berlin Wall that  systematically confronts the arguments of the Left with the history that  refutes them. Not surprisingly, the Left has ignored it. It deals with David’s work the same way that the Soviet regime simply took people out of existence when it rewrote its own history.</p>
<p><strong> Swindle: </strong>Let’s now discuss the subject of this volume: the ideas you have encountered and promoted at <em>FrontPage Magazine</em> over the past decade. What has been your understanding, as the editor  of the last nine or so years, of the threat posed by tyranny and terror?<br />
<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Glazov: </strong>Well, radical Islam is now the greatest  threat the West faces. We are, as Norman Podhoretz has noted, in World  War IV. We face totalitarian and religious zealots who seek to establish an Islamic caliphate worldwide. They hate freedom and liberty,  and so they hate and need to destroy the United States and Israel the  most, since these two nations are the bulwarks and representatives of  freedom in the world.</p>
<p>The threat of radical Islam is rooted in the teachings of Islam,  which mandate Islamic supremacism and the subjugation of non-Muslims.  Unfortunately, the liberal stronghold on our culture does not allow us  to confront this truth, and so it remains a serious challenge how we  will be able to defeat an enemy that we cannot name.</p>
<p>We now see this tragedy inherent in the Obama administration, headed  by leftists, that somehow cannot see the presence of Islamic jihad in  the Fort Hood massacre and in Abdulmutullab’s attempt to blow up  Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Nidal Hasan and Abdulmutullab themselves insist that they were inspired by Islam and the teachings  of the Koran, but the Obama administration treats them as criminals  rather than as war combatants. This is simply suicide, it puts American  lives and security at risk. And it is, of course, all part of the  workings of the unholy alliance that David Horowitz has delineated. It’s  how the Left makes us vulnerable to our totalitarian enemy. Both seek  to destroy our society.</p>
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		<title>Why it&#8217;s Good the Economy Crashed in 2008</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/why-its-good-the-economy-crashed-in-2008/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-its-good-the-economy-crashed-in-2008</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Aug 2010 04:00:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=69528</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Howard Bloom explains the meaning behind boom and bust -- and just how deep it goes in nature.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/boom-and-bust.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-78685" title="boom-and-bust" src="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/boom-and-bust.gif" alt="" width="420" height="305" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of part 1 of this interview.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/30/is-capitalism-natural-videos-2-and-3-of-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of parts 2 and 3 of this interview</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/08/06/capitalism-died-for-your-sins-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-4/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of part 4 of this interview.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/how-science-crushes-the-left/" target="_blank">Click here for my <em>FrontPage Magazine</em> review of this and the author’s other books.</a></p>
<p>The central narrative of Howard Bloom&#8217;s <em>The Genius of the Beast</em> is about the recent economic crisis. Howard puts it in the context of not just human history but of all life on this planet. He isolates the boom and bust pattern as something Mother Nature has built into us in order to provoke our continued evolution.</p>
<p>Part 5: Why did the Economy Crash in 2008?</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3cba9n8HwbM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3cba9n8HwbM?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Part 6: How You Boom and Bust In Your Own Life</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/A0GZKNMzlQ8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/A0GZKNMzlQ8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>For the remaining parts of the interview Howard will be discussing the issues that we&#8217;re most engaged with at <strong><em>NewsReal Blog</em><span style="font-weight: normal;"> and <em>FrontPage Magazine</em>. Coming up next: Howard on Israel. Stay tuned.</span></strong></p>
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		<title>Capitalism Died for Your Sins</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/capitalism-died-for-your-sins/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=capitalism-died-for-your-sins</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/capitalism-died-for-your-sins/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:00:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=68211</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In part 4 of NewsReal Blog's interview with Howard Bloom the author explains how the free market makes the world better.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591027543?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1591027543"><img class="size-full wp-image-68214 aligncenter" title="genius-of-the-beast" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/genius-of-the-beast.jpg" alt="" width="326" height="500" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of part 1 of this interview.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/30/is-capitalism-natural-videos-2-and-3-of-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of parts 2 and 3 of this interview</a></p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/how-science-crushes-the-left/" target="_blank">Click here for my <em>FrontPage Magazine</em> review of this and the author’s other books.</a></p>
<p>In part 4 of my interview with visionary author Howard Bloom we learn about &#8220;messianic capitalism&#8221; &#8212; the idea that the free market is the force that has uplifted humanity more than anything else we have ever known. Enjoy.</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6kRw2mPmfkM&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6kRw2mPmfkM&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Is Capitalism Natural?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/is-capitalism-natural/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=is-capitalism-natural</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/is-capitalism-natural/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:00:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=67537</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[NewsReal Blog's interview with Howard Bloom illuminates man's deep urge to compete.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/global-brain-cover.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-67539 aligncenter" title="global brain cover" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/global-brain-cover.jpg" alt="" width="309" height="475" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank">Click here for the video of part 1 of this interview.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/how-science-crushes-the-left/" target="_blank">Click here for my FrontPage Magazine review of this and the author&#8217;s other books.</a></p>
<p>Today I&#8217;m offering parts 2 and 3 of my dialogue with author Howard Bloom. In these clips, Howard takes us far back to the origins of life on this planet to show the patterns that still drive us today. As with part 1 of the interview &#8212; which I strongly encourage you to watch before diving into these new segments &#8212; I&#8217;ve illustrated the discussion with a variety of images.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank"></a>In this first clip we learn about how group competition and cooperation are the forces that drive us to evolve:</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pvlDMZPd8q4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pvlDMZPd8q4&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Part 3 of the interview is featured on the next page:</p>
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		<title>The Freedom Center&#8217;s New TV Ad on Obama and Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/the-freedom-centers-new-tv-ad-on-obama-and-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-freedom-centers-new-tv-ad-on-obama-and-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/the-freedom-centers-new-tv-ad-on-obama-and-israel/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:25:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[DHTV]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=67100</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ajboKOaplo&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ajboKOaplo&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Where Does Evil Come From?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/where-does-evil-come-from/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=where-does-evil-come-from</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/where-does-evil-come-from/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:01:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=66790</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Author Howard Bloom talks about his first groundbreaking book, "The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/lucifer3.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-66792 aligncenter" title="lucifer3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/lucifer3.jpg" alt="" width="404" height="408" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank">Visit </a><strong><em><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/07/23/video-nrb-dialogue-with-howard-bloom-part-1-the-lucifer-principle/" target="_blank">NewsReal Blog</a></em></strong></p>
<p>For awhile now I&#8217;ve been talking up author Howard Bloom. I&#8217;ve referenced his work in <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/05/21/why-the-left-ignores-the-call-for-a-second-holocaust/" target="_blank">numerous</a> posts, featured<a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/26/newsreal-blog-book-club-david-swindle-enthusiastically-endorses-the-genius-of-the-beast-an-exhilarating-defense-of-capitalism/" target="_blank"> his books in </a><strong><em><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/26/newsreal-blog-book-club-david-swindle-enthusiastically-endorses-the-genius-of-the-beast-an-exhilarating-defense-of-capitalism/" target="_blank">NRB</a></em><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/26/newsreal-blog-book-club-david-swindle-enthusiastically-endorses-the-genius-of-the-beast-an-exhilarating-defense-of-capitalism/" target="_blank"> book club</a> and then earlier this month I reviewed his newest book for <em>FrontPage</em> in an article titled <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/how-science-crushes-the-left/" target="_blank">&#8220;How Science Crushes the Left.&#8221;</a></span></strong></p>
<p>Tuesday night I had the exciting experience of getting to interview Howard for two hours. Over the course of our talk he laid out the central themes behind his three books and makes clear his general approach to interpreting the world. I then got to get his take on the issues that we care about most at <strong><em>NRB</em><span style="font-weight: normal;"> &#8212; foreign policy, Israel, Islam, and capitalism.<br />
</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">What struck me in particular about Howard from talking to him was something I already knew: he has a similar style and approach to the world as David Horowitz. Both are passionate defenders of Israel with a deep appreciation for the power of capitalism to improve the quality of human life. </span></strong>Both speak with passion and have intellects that dance from subject to subject. In fact both were even pushed out of the Left by the same historical reality: the practical effect of the &#8217;60s antiwar movement was the communist takeover of Vietnam and Cambodia and the subsequent genocide. They just come from different life experiences. David emerged from the worlds of Marxism, the &#8217;60s New Left, and America&#8217;s racial problem. Howard comes from the worlds of science and entertainment. These two sets of life experience cause them to come at the problems from very different angles but ultimately arrive at strikingly similar conclusions.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Today I present the first segment of this interview. I&#8217;ve created a video with the audio. To jazz up the experience I&#8217;ve featured images throughout illustrating the subjects Howard and I discuss. I hope you enjoy it, there&#8217;s at least a dozen more to come, all of which should be more technically exciting as </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><em>NRB</em><span style="font-weight: normal;"> begins its leap into more audio and video media.</span></span></strong></p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pTasLbPNXZU&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pTasLbPNXZU&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
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