Notra Trulock has a nice discussion of Ronald Radosh's book, Commies, about the old/new left in the USA of which Radosh was, at one time, a member in good standing. Yes, Virginia, there really are Communists in the USA. I previously mentioned Radosh's article on the NY Times Continuing Love Affair With Communism which provides a flavor of the book, including Camp Kinderland, where NYC Communists sent their kids for the summer.
Trulock notes that:
Radosh observes that leftists spent most of their time putting out journals and newsletters. These journals and the leftist movement, in general, spawned several prominent players in the American media and, later on, a remarkable number of members of the Clinton administration. In his first term, Clinton intended to appoint Johnetta Cole as Secretary of Education. But she was soon identified as a leader of the Venceremos Brigades and a member of the U.S. Peace Council, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Soviet-run World Peace Council. Her most outspoken defender was Jesse Jackson, who claimed that the opposition to Cole's appointment came from "Jewish complaints." Clinton eventually backed away from nominating her. Another leftist star, Michael Lerner, became Hillary Clinton's guru during her "politics of meaning" phase.I'm shocked! Truly shocked! Needless to say, the book did not get a good review in the Times. But the best part of the article is:
One left-wing journal, In These Times, produced John B. Judis, now a senior editor of The New Republic, as well as Sidney Blumenthal, who became a Washington Post reporter. He later became Bill Clinton's chief hatchet man with the media. Another left-wing star, David Gelber was the staff director for the massive May Day 1971 anti-war march on Washington, before moving to network televison news. After a stint producing for Dan Rather, he ended up as Ed Bradley's senior producer at "60 Minutes."
And then there is Robert Scheer, contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times and The Nation, syndicated columnist, and senior lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication. Scheer's current bio omits some intriguing highlights, however. He visited Kim Il Sung's North Korean paradise and told Radosh, in a taped interview, that Kim had created a true path to socialism. Scheer's views were too much even for Pacifica radio, which refused to run the interview. Scheer later became Wen Ho Lee's staunchest defender.
During a 1970s trip to the Havana General Psychiatric Hospital, a group of visiting American leftists were told that this hospital led the world in the percentage of its patients lobotomized. The leftists had already encountered "perfectly sane" homosexuals in the mental wards, because the Castro regime believed that homosexuality was a disease justifying commitment. Some leftists were horrified, and exclaimed that this "was exactly what we're working against at home." But another retorted, "We have to understand that there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies."Aren't the little varmints a hoot!
