http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/21/jeffrey-scott-shapiro-obama-radical-left-communist/
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro
September 21, 2009
Although some of President Obama's advisers like former green jobs
czar Van Jones and climate czar Carol Browning are self-admitted
socialists, and the president has openly associated with former
Weather Underground radical leaders like William Ayers, it is still
politically incorrect to imply that he holds a thinly veiled contempt
for what America really stands for.
However, anyone who associates with radical leftists cannot possibly
respect America because their hatred of capitalism and individualism
is so intense that their fundamental view of the world would offend
even the most extreme liberal. I should know because when I was in
college some of them tried to recruit me.
In 1991, shortly after starting college, I explored the radical left
and encountered many people who shared the same belief system as many
of the people now working for or associated with the Obama administration.
As a young student of political science I was fascinated by
ideological movements and wanted to find a cause of my own.
My experience began when I reached out to Jeff Patterson in San
Francisco, the first Marine to defy orders to deploy to Iraq during
the Gulf War. I told Patterson that I was pro-choice and cared very
much about equality for women and minorities and he suggested that I
contact a woman in New York City who led a movement called "Refuse
and Resist," a self-styled civil rights and liberties organization
that had been featured on MTV News.
"We've got flag burners and flag washers, but we all love America,"
the woman assured me. "We need young people like you."
After I was put in touch with a contact in Atlanta, I was brought to
a "safe-house," there and introduced to other activists. I suddenly
felt like I was a part of something, and as a young idealist, I
wanted very much to believe that I could make a difference for the
better of America.
After leaving the Atlanta safe-house, I joined up with a small band
of activists traveling to Washington, D.C. to protest the U.S.
Supreme Court. To my surprise, many of the so called "civil rights
activists" I had met were also either members or sympathizers of the
Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (RCYB) the youth movement of
the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a subversive Maoist
organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the United States
government. The RCP also illegally raised money for the Peruvian
"Shining Path" terrorist army.
During that trip and on another to NYC, many leftist activists tried
to "educate me about the truth" that individual freedom really
meant freedom to oppress, that America's leaders were racist
imperialists, and that people had no right to own private property
because "ownership is theft."
They frequently told me stories about how America would change "once
we have the guns," and "when the revolution comes." Although the
active RCP members frightened me, they did not concern me as much as
those activists who denied to me they were communists at all. They
fashioned themselves as "civil rights activists" fighting for "social
justice," but in the same breath talked about the oppression of
capitalism, often referring to our economy as a "slave system," and
said the Gulf War was a front for the "fascist New World Order."
When I frequently challenged their patriotism, they became angry and
told me they loved America just as much as I did in fact, they
loved it more because at least they cared enough to try and change it.
"But you want to change it so severely, what you want isn't even
American," I told them. "It's communist. That's not American."
Contrary to what they repeatedly professed, these people did not love
America. They hated it. Perhaps what I find difficult to understand
is how I as an 18-year-old teenager was able to see this, but the
president of the United States cannot. After all, President Obama has
not only associated with many of these kinds of people, he's hired
some of them as his personal advisers.
Maybe that's because President Obama isn't sickened by the radical
left's virulent hatred for capitalism and individualism like I was.
Maybe he actually believes what the Weather Underground believed and
that's why he associates with their former members. After all, a
person wouldn't tolerate the company of self-admitted racists unless
he was a racist himself. So, why would a politician associate with
and even hire self-admitted communists unless that politician shared
their belief system?
In the early 1970's the Weather Underground tried to bomb the U.S.
Capitol, the Pentagon and NYPD headquarters. Obama's association with
Ayers, as well as radical green organizations like the Apollo
Alliance -- which have hired former Weather Underground leader Jeff
Jones as a consultant is at the very least, suspect.
People change however, and it is entirely possible that as time goes
on President Obama will move closer to the center and associate with
more moderate people.
My short journey into the radical left underground didn't last very
long because I love America, and although I was young, I knew the
difference between right and wrong. It was obvious to me then that
what was being preached to me then in communist "safe-houses" was
anti-American just as it is obvious now when that same rhetoric comes
from the White House.
--
Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a Washington, D.C. based investigative
reporter and lawyer who interned for U.S. Senator John Kerry's legal
team during the presidential election of 2004. He can be reached at
jshapiro@ufl.edu.
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