Trevor writes:

There has been a big buzz on the blogosphere since October 8, 2008, when US mega-blog Power Line picked up on evidence proving that Barack Obama was, in the mid '90s, a member of a short-lived socialist organisation, the Chicago New Party.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which also endorsed Obama that year and to which the Senator has longstanding and ongoing ties, has also been dragged into the fray.

The Obama camp has countered in two ways.

Firstly-claiming that while Obama was endorsed by the New Party he was never a member.

That lie is easily disposed of.

Here is a photo of Obama and other New Party members, including Danny K. Davis (center) from the front page of New Party News, Spring 1996.

Page 2 includes this paragraph:

New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)... these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work' said Obama.

Secondly -- supporters claim that the New Party was not actually socialist.

Long time Obama associate and former Chicago New Party activist Carl Davidson (left) has posted this statement on several blogs.

The New Party in Chicago was never a socialist party. DSA in Chicago had little to do with it in any practical way. It was a pragmatic party of ’small d democracy’ mainly promoting economic reforms like the living wage and testing the fusion tactic, common in many countries but only operational in New York in the US. The main trend within it was ACORN, an Alinskyist outfit, which is hardly Marxist. Most socialist left groups either ignored it or opposed it, even if a few of their members took part in it. That’s the truth of the matter.

This is so far from the truth.

The New Party was the creation of DSA and the radical community organisation ACORN -- which was in itself something of a DSA front. In some areas the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) was involved, but in Chicago the CPUSA splinter group Committees of Correspondence (CoC)was more prominent. Carl Davidson is well aware that Marxists set up the Chicago New Party because he was one of them.

From Chicago DSA's New Ground of March/April 1995:

On January 27th approximately 45 people attended the Chicago DSA and Chicago CoC organized public form at the ACTWU hall on Ashland Ave... Chicago DSA was represented by Co-Chair, Kurt Anderson and Political Education Officer, Bob Roman. CoC was represented by Carl Davidson, who is a member of CoC's National Coordinating Committee and Ronelle Mustin, an activist from the 22nd ward. The event was chaired by Sandi Patrinos, chair of Chicago CoC...

Carl Davidson wanted to focus on "voting patterns." ...To win elections, Davidson emphasized that there are two necessary coinciding factors. First, a passive majority... Secondly, a militant minority...

Davidson emphasized that in this historical period the Left's strategy must be electoral politics not revolution. Consequently the Left must galvanize the "majority" - the working class and poor... Moreover the democratic left needs get active in the New Party which has won 20 of 30 local elections. Thus a short-term strategy of working with the Democratic Party and in the long-term work with the New Party.

If that's not clear enough I quote from Chicago DSA's New Ground of September/October 1995:

The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia's District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer's vacant seat... Although ACORN and SEIU Local 880 were the harbingers of the NP there was a strong presence of CoC and DSA (15% DSA)... Four political candidates were "there" seeking NP support.

Obama's 1996 New Party running mate, Danny K. Davis (right) was elected to the US Congress as a Democrat -- the highest office won by a New Party candidate.

Not only an NPer and a Democrat, Davis was and is a DSA member. The politically promiscuous Congressman was also linked to both CoC and CPUSA.

According to Chicago DSA’s New Ground of September 1994:

Over 500 delegates and observers (including 140 from Chicago) attended the founding convention of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) held here in Chicago in July.

Speakers…included Charles Nqukula, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party; Dulce Maria Pereira, a senatorial candidate of the Workers Party of Brazil; Angela Davis of CoC; and Andre Brie of the Party of Democratic Socialism of Germany (a revamp of the old East German Communist Party) Other guests during the Convention included Cook County Commissioner Danny Davis, Alderman Helen Schiller and Rick Munoz, a representative of the Green Left Weekly of Australia, and a representative of the Cuban Interest Section.

The Chicago Communist Party has for many years held an annual fund raising banquet for its paper, the Peoples Weekly World (formerly the Peoples "Daily" World).

According to the PDW of July 28th 1990, Chicago alderman Danny K. Davis attended that year's banquet on July 15th.

Davis applauded those at the banquet, who, he said, are always in the midst of struggle. PDW readers, he said, are "steadfast in the fight fòr justice."

According to the Peoples Weekly World of October 3rd 1998, congressman Danny K. Davis interrupted his campaign work for Senate candidate Carol Mosely Braun to present an award at the Chicago annual Peoples Weekly World banquet.

Obama incidentally helped get the CPUSA/CoC/DSA-connected Moseley Braun elected in 1992 and inherited her former Senate seat in 2004.

Danny K. Davis remains one of Obama's most loyal supporters.

Carl Davidson is right in that the Chicago New Party was not OPENLY socialist. It was designed as a vehicle for socialists to infiltrate leftist candidates into positions of power through the Democratic Party.

So Chicago New Party was socialist dominated, but what about nationally?

I have in my possession an undated New Party document from 1995 or 1996 entitled "Who's Building the New Party?"

It lists approximately one hundred

...community leaders, organizers, unionists, retirees, scholars, artists, parents, students, doctors, writers and other activists who are building the NP.

Those listed include:

• Elaine Bernard -- A Labour academic and prominent DSA member.
• Noam Chomsky -- Linguist and activist, member of both DSA and CoC.
• Steve Cobble -- Political consultant, now a leader of the DSA linked Progressive Democrats of America.
• Barbara Ehrenreich -- Author, activist and DSA leader.
• Bill Fletcher Jr. -- Former Maoist, a labour activist and leading DSA member.
• Maude Hurd -- Longtime ACORN president. Awarded for her work by Boston DSA.
• Manning Marable -- A founder of both DSA and CoC. Regarded as a driving force within the New Party.
• Frances Fox Piven -- A DSA member; regarded as the brains behind ACORN.
• Raphael Pizzaro -- New York labour activist and former CPUSA member. An official of both CoC and DSA.
• Gloria Steinem -- Author and DSA member.
• Cornel West -- Academic and prominent DSA member.
• Quentin Young -- Chicago doctor, prominent DSA member, formerly allegedly involved with CPUSA.
• Howard Zinn -- Historian. Describes himself as an anarchist/democratic socialist.

Is there a pattern here?

While the New Party helped launch Obama's political career, the connections did not end there.

Quentin Young is a longtime friend, near neighbour and political supporter of Obama. He attended the famous 1995 meeting in the Chicago home of former terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn where Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Barack Obama as her chosen successor.

Cornel West is now one of the two members of Obama’s “Black Advisory Council”.

In August 2006 several former Weather Underground terrorists, including Ayers and Dohrn, joined leaders of DSA, CPUSA and CoC to form a new organisation -- Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS).

Several former New Party leaders joined the MDS board including Noam Chomsky, Carl Davidson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher Jr. and since January 2007, chairman Manning Marable.

Unsuccessful board nominees included former NP leaders Cornel West and Howard Zinn.

Early this year MDS board members Davidson, Ehrenreich and Fletcher joined with former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) leader Tom Hayden and DSA linked actor/activist Danny Glover to form a satellite organisation, Progressives for Obama (P4O)

According to Aaron Klein, writing September 26, 2008, inWorldNetDaily:

In its creed, first published in March in the Nation magazine, the Progressives for Obama founders state their organization descended from the "proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country."

Is this a reference to the New Party?

Progressives for Obama stated it can help the Illinois senator's ascent to highest office by contributing funds, using the Internet to reach "millions of swing voters;" defending Obama against negative attacks and making its agenda known at the Democratic National Convention.

"Progressives can make a difference in close primary races like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon and Puerto Rico, and in the November general election," the founders state.

The P4O website carries a long list of endorsers, many of whom are from DSA, CoC, SDS or the Weathermen.

They include former New Party leaders Steve Cobble, Frances Fox Piven and Cornel West.

Is this all just coincidence?

Or are the same socialists who supported Obama in his 1996 State Senate race now trying to put their man into the White House?

You can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of them all of the time. Despite earlier attempts to intimidate ‘dissenters’ with lawsuits (the backing of ‘Big Sewage' has its advantages) and ‘Pravda-squads’ in places like Missouri, Obama’s connection to Ayers has now more or less come out in the open. No more ‘I did not have asexual relations with that man, mister Ayers’.

So the spin-doctors do their thing yet again:

Here we have Obama spokesman David Axelrod:

and his henchman Robert Gibbs:

Both now claim Barack Obama didn’t know in 1995 that William Ayers was ‘the’ William Ayers of Weathermen-infamy. Besides still leaving wide-open the question at what point of time this fact did then, according to his campaign, dawn upon Obama, this ‘I didn’t know’ claim has of course raised a lot of eyebrows. As others have pointed out, the media in Chicago and elsewhere were at the time awash with reports on Ayers because of the ‘historic’ return of the DNC to Chicago. Apparently mister Obama didn’t read newspapers at the time, or, if he did, it must have been sports-and-funnies only.

Funny thing is, in at least one professional magazine concerning education--a subject very dear to mister Obama, we are told, and a constant thread in his career--there was an extensive profile on mister Ayers’ background and view on education. In a 10-page (printer-friendly version) piece titled "Rebel With a (New) Cause" dated March 1994, Education Week (listed as ‘Teacher Magazine’ in Bill Ayers’ profile on his SmallSchoolsWorkshop webpage) delved deeply into Ayers’ Weathermen-background and its deeds, making use of both research and interviews with Ayers himself (who may have pandered to the target audience).¹ It’s a fascinating piece that leaves no room for doubt that Ayers was ‘the’ Ayers of the Weathermen, and the terrorist nature of the Weathermen. Any reader would have known it.

Right off the bat, on page 1, Ayers is introduced as

... a former leader of the radical Weathermen organization and now a professor of education and author ...

The article continues on page 1 with a short bio:

At the age of 21, he was a teacher and then director of an Ann Arbor, Mich., experimental preschool that was "multicultural'' years before the word had currency. During the mid-60's, he was a traveling salesman for Students for a Democratic Society, building chapters on college campuses throughout the Midwest. By April 1970, having six months earlier rampaged through the streets of Chicago during the "Days of Rage,'' he was a Weathermen fugitive, advocating armed struggle against the U.S. government. And now, as a college professor, he is bringing to the teaching of teachers the passion, radicalism, and advocacy for change that have marked all of his adult life.

In case we had forgotten, Ayers the Bomber had a darling partner-in-crime (page 4):

Ayers, along with his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, is most famous--or infamous--for his central role in the Weathermen

It firmly establishes Ayers (and Dohrn) as Weathermen, and central figures in the group as well. Now, what kind of organisation were the Weathermen? It’s in the same article (page 6):

If the civil-rights movement informed the "sensitive'' Bill Ayers--that is, helped shape the empathetic side that has apparently so inspired his students--the Weathermen years, many would say, speak of something darker.

For the civil-rights movement was inspired in part by an evangelism that insisted each person had an inherent right to be treated with dignity and respect; the Weathermen ideology, fueled by crude Marxism-Leninism and a smirking arrogance, had a tendency to approach--or dismiss--people as abstractions. Third-world revolutionaries were heroes; police were "pigs'' ("Oink, oink, bang, bang, off the pig!'' was one of the Days of Rage chants).

Members of Students for a Democratic Society who were unwilling to transform themselves into armed insurgents were "movement creeps,'' "right wingers,'' "wimpy.'' At the 1969 "National War Council'' in Flint, Mich., where the Weathermen irrevocably broke with more moderate S.D.S. contingents, the Weathermen posted an enemies list that included Richard M. Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, and the actress Sharon Tate, who had recently been murdered by members of the Manson "family.'' The slogans were "Piece Now,'' "Sirhan Sirhan Power,'' and "Red Army Power.''

Or as it more eloquently continues, Ayers (page 7):

... was now part of a splenetic collective that, in its almost eschatological vision, divided the world into revolutionary heroes and fascistic enemies. They were not unlike the socialists in Ralph Ellison's novel Invisible Man, who approach the black protagonist as a pawn in a grand ideological scheme.

and:

... a leader of a group that talked of "armed struggle'' and "trashing the masses''. The Weathermen's 1974 political declaration, "Prairie Fire,'' which Ayers co-wrote while living underground, is studded with such statements as, "The purpose of class analysis is to isolate the enemy and to identify our potential friends. ... Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to make it hard for it to carry out its bloody functioning. ... Without armed struggle there can be no revolution.

The infamous DNC-riots in 1968 are covered as well (page 8):

"For me, one of the most important demonstrations I organized was at the [1968] Democratic convention. Because this was the place where the American government showed itself for what it was: a brutal, divisive, authoritarian force that was doing whatever it took to maintain policies and position.''

Funny way to describe a Democratic administration. The journalist isn’t easy on Ayers about this or the other Weathermen-actions -- which are dilligently listed (page 8):

But learning by doing in the schools is one thing; learning by doing through planned violent confrontation is quite another. The former, as in Dewey's Chicago Laboratory School, is experimental; the latter, on the other hand, is inevitably destructive. During the October 1969 Days of Rage in Chicago, about 300 Weathermen smashed windows and fought with police; 70 people were injured, one critically. In 1970, three Weathermen were killed while building a bomb at a townhouse in New York City's Greenwich Village. Three days later, Ayers, wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on several riot-related charges, went underground, where he--along with the remaining members of the Weathermen--would remain for 11 years. The Weather Underground, as they now called themselves, went on to bomb a number of other targets, including the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.

Dohrn’s record is also touched upon (page 8):

Dohrn, whose name had appeared on the F.B.I.'s "10 most-wanted list,'' pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and jumping bail and was fined $1,500 and placed on three years' probation. (In 1982, Dohrn served seven months in jail for refusing to cooperate with a grand-jury investigating a 1981 Brink's truck robbery in Nanuet, N.Y., which had been carried out by three members of the Weather Underground. Dohrn is now the director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law.)

From just reading this one article, it’s clear that a) Ayers was a central figure of the Weathermen and b) the Weathermen did some despicable things in the 60s, 70s and 80s, to paraphrase Barry O’Bomber’s words.

Was it terrorism? Well, in case a reader hadn’t figured that out by himself (in the real word, it’s just a tag), the article features e.g. Mike Klonsky, who the article states, broke with Ayers for 10 years because of his involvement in the Weathermen, and he specifically uses the word ‘terrorism’ to describe the actions of Ayers the Bomber and Dohrn:

“But you have to remember that in '68, a lot of people were angry. He's basically a warm, loving person who ran a day-care center, and if you're a teacher of kids, it's hard to see pictures of them being napalmed. You must understand him in this context. Yes, I disagreed with him over the use of terrorism, but the main victims of that terrorism were the Weathermen themselves.''

Klonsky's words, considering the premature-detonation accident, has some validity, one might say, though of course the Weathermen continued long after the Vietnam War was already ended by Ford and Nixon.

There you have it: an extensive article outlining Ayers’ terrorist-background, featured in an influential professional educational magazine in 1994, well before 1995. Any reader would have ‘gotten’ it. Either Obama didn’t read this kind of magazine, either, at the time (which may look poorly on his professionalism as a lecturer and ‘education-buff’), or he is, once again, not being honest to the voters.

Note 1: When the Weathemen were ‘cool’ for example, Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, were far from repentent in their 21st-century (interview (2004) with Independent Television/PBS:

Bill Ayers: “I’ve thought about this a lot. Being almost 60, it’s impossible to not have lots and lots of regrets about lots and lots of things, but the question of did we do something that was horrendous, awful?… I don’t think so. I think what we did was to respond to a situation that was unconscionable.(...) I don’t think what we did was extreme…. We didn’t cross lines that were completely unacceptable. I don’t think so.”

Dohrn: “I can iterate four or five things that I have profoundly complex feelings about. I wish that we hadn’t been hierarchical, and had a concept of leadership. I wish that I had bridged the feminist movement and the anti-war movement better than I did. I wish that we hadn’t used the language of war. You heard me saying a declaration of war. I wish we had used the language of resistance.

Obviously, we didn’t stop the war. We were part of an authentic, aroused opposition to the U.S. empire and to racism at home. Those were two issues we had a grip on…. Of course, I wish we had done better, and I wish we had stopped the war earlier, and I wish we had been more effective, and I wish we had been more unifying. Or at least fought for unity even when we couldn’t achieve it.

At the end of the day, I feel like we were lucky to be in that history. We were lucky to be in that history. We were lucky to be in that moment where there was hope and a sense of libratory possibility.”

Hope. Change. Narcissism.

Our Naval Calendar 2009 features 13 images of US Navy and allied naval forces in action. Buy the Naval Calendar 2009 exclusively at the PatriArt Gallery for only $ 19.99. Worldwide delivery available.

The Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System's (SRDRS) Rescue Capable System (RCS) replaced the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle Mystic (DSRV-1) as the U.S. Navy's deep-submergence submarine rescue asset on Sept. 30. Mystic and the DSRV program began deactivation on Oct. 1.

SRDRS is a rapidly deployable rescue asset that can be delivered by air or ground, installed on pre-screened military or commercial vessels of opportunity (VOO) via a ship interface template, and mated to a distressed submarine within a 72-hour time to first rescue period.

Mystic is a small rescue submarine capable of deploying via air or ground to a port where it is mated to a specially-configured submarine which serves as the host platform for the voyage to the disabled submarine.

"Mystic has served the United States and the international submarine community admirably for the last 31 years," said Steve Schulze, executive director, Undersea Warfare, Naval Sea Systems Command.

"Mystic brought new capabilities to the fleet when she entered service in 1977; now SRDRS builds upon those innovations, delivering even greater capabilities to the international submarine community."

SRDRS is a three-phased acquisition program that will deliver advanced submarine rescue and treatment assets to the fleet. The first phase of the program was the Atmospheric Dive System 2000 (ADS2000) which was delivered to the Navy in 2006. ADS2000 is a manned, one-atmosphere dive suit capable of inspecting disabled submarines and clearing debris from escape hatches. The RCS constitutes SRDRS' second phase.

SRDRS-RCS consists of Falcon, the tethered, remotely-operated Pressurized Rescue Module (PRM), its launch and recovery system, and its support equipment; all of which are controlled from a VOO.

The final phase of the SRDRS program is the Submarine Decompression System (SDS), scheduled for delivery in late 2012. SDS will allow rescued submariners to remain under pressure during the transfer from the PRM to hyperbaric treatment chambers aboard the VOO.

Unlike Mystic, which could only be transported to the disabled submarine via modified submarines, SRDRS is a "fly-away" system that can quickly and easily be mobilized via large military or civilian transport aircraft and installed aboard a variety of VOOs within hours of notification of a submarine in distress.

Falcon can conduct rescue operations to a depth of 2,000 feet, can mate to a disabled submarine at a list and trim of up to 45 degrees, and can transfer up to 16 personnel at a time. Mystic required its own power source – necessitating a two-hour battery charge between cycles. Because SRDRS-RCS receives its power from a VOO via an umbilical, it can operate around the clock without pause.

"SRDRS has been a tremendously successful program to date," said Rear Adm. William Hilarides, program executive officer for submarines. "We took this platform and exercised it in some difficult conditions on the world stage and it performed up to our very high expectations."

SRDRS underwent a unique test and operational evaluation during the international submarine rescue exercise Bold Monarch in May-June 2008. During Bold Monarch, SRDRS demonstrated its ability to mate and transfer personnel from three participating submarines, one each from Norway, the Netherlands, and Poland. Personnel from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, India, Norway, Italy, Israel, Sweden, Spain, Singapore, the Netherlands, France, and China spent time aboard SRDRS. More recently, SRDRS demonstrated its capabilities during an exercise with the Chilean submarine CS Simpson (SS-21) Sept. 17-18.

"From a testing and certification standpoint, SRDRS has delivered on all of its initial expectations," said Capt. Gary Dunlap, program manager for Advanced Undersea Systems. "This system provides not only the U.S. Navy, but all navies, with a flexible, capable, and – most importantly – rapidly deployable rescue asset."

SRDRS will be based out of San Diego, and operated by the Navy's Deep Submergence Unit.

NNS

Da ich immer noch keinen Abschlussbericht zum European Social Forum verfasst habe und demnach wohl auch nicht mehr werde, verweise ich hiermit einfach auf die sehr gelungene Zusammenfassung von Rainer Rilling.

Finally, Palin is going after Obama for Bill Ayres:

The Republican candidate’s running mate Sarah Palin attacked Mr Obama for his links to Bill Ayres, the former terrorist-turned-education professor, whose Weather Underground group bombed the Pentagon in the 1960s, and with whom Mr Obama worked on community projects in the mid-1990s.

Mrs Palin said: “This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America. Our opponent is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. Americans need to know this.”

source: daily telegraph

Že na naslovnici so se vprašali, kdo bo komu vladal. Torej, ali bosta Golobič in Kresalova imela večji vpliv od Pahorja.

Obrnem stran in na tretji strani mi oko obstane na sliki Katarine Kresal. Članek je seveda privoščljivo blatenje poraženke volitev. Seveda ni mogoče oporekati dejstvu, da je LDS na letošnjih volitvah dobila precej manj glasov in s tem poslancev kot na volitvah 2004, a vsi vemo, da pretekli mandat za LDS nikakor ni bil lahek, saj je del njihovih poslancev in članstva prestopil v SD oz. ustanovil Zares. Kresalova je prevzela tako rekoč mrtvo stranko, ki po takratnih raziskavah sploh ne bi prišla v parlament. In Kresalova je prišla v politiko brez izkušenj. V enem letu pa ji je le uspelo stranko nekoliko spraviti k sebi.

Pred volitvami so javnomnenjske ankete LDS-u kazale okoli sedem, osem odstotkov. Ne bom razpredala o zanesljivosti teh raziskav, ampak recimo, da so zanesljive. Zakaj je potem stranka LDS na volitvah dobila manj glasov kot ji je bilo napovedano? Ker je marsikateri volivec LDS presodil, da lahko levica pride na oblast samo, če ena od treh levih strank prehiti SDS. In zato so volili za najmočnejšo stranko levice, SD. Šlo je za mandatarstvo, polarizacijo. Manjše stranke so potegnile krajši konec. Tudi LDS.

Zato se mi zdi pisanje in govoričenje o porazu LDS s tega vidika popolnoma nesmiselno. Vsi smo vedeli, da bo Zares pobral lep del nekdanjih volivcev LDS-a. To, da bo LDS na letošnjih volitvah dosegla veliko slabši rezultat, kot na volitvah 2004, je bilo jasno od vsega začetka.

No, pod tem člankom pa je v tokratni številki Slovenskega tednika objavljen povod za pisanje tega zapisa.

Pristopna izjava k stranki SDS.

Preostanka brezplačnika sploh nisem prelistala. Nimam živcev, da bi brala to svinjarijo. Upam, da nova vlada na nek način uspe preprečiti nadaljnje poneumljanje Slovencev.

Who: Students for a Democratic Society . . . and all of you!!!

What: Student led teach-in on the financial crisis.

Where: Thurgood Marshall Room, Stamp Student Union, University of Maryland

When: October 7, 7pm

The event will be the first student-led event on the financial crisis at the University of Maryland. Members of CP-SDS will creatively and succinctly explain the root causes of the crisis, what the Bush administration and Congressional figures propose to deal with the situation, and how it will affect students.

What to post flyers? (pdf) (jpg)

Ich halte die Auseinandersetzung mit anderen Positionen für sehr wichtig. Wenn diese aber von so grundlegend anderen ontologischen und epistemologischen Annahmen ausgehen, fällt es mir schwer meine Argumente treffend zu entfalten. Besteht nicht letztendlich doch ein permanenter Zwang sich eines strategischen Essentialismus zu abedienen, um über den Anschluss an bestehende Diskurse (auch die der Linken) zu finden?

Sehr gut haben mir die Ausführungen zu Antonio Gramsci von David Salomon gefallen. Ein sehr talentierter und belesener Redner. Da konnte ich selbst als jemand der viele Texte von Gramsci und über Gramsci gelesen hat, noch viel mitnehmen.

Beim abendlichen Kneipenquiz konnte sich unsere Gruppe in der letzten Runde durchsetzen und Freigetränke abkassieren.

Der Abend sollte mit Vorträgen von Elmar Altvater und Michael Krätke beginnen. Letzterer war leider krank und somit erlebte ich nur meinen ich weiß nicht wievielten Input von Elmar Altvater.

Elmar Altvater entwickelte seinen Vortrag an Hand der Frage, warum Marx uns als Leitfaden zum Verständnis der Welt dienen sollte. Seiner Meinung nach kann nur die marxische Theorie den Zusammenhang von Geld und Arbeit, den Gegensatz von Wert und Stoff und die Aufhebung von Raum und Zeit ädequat erfassen. Er beschränkte sich in seinen Ausführungen weitgehend auf eine ökonomischen Analyse der Welt. Der größte Verdienst von Elmar Altvater ist es sicherlich, die ökologische Frage in den Marxismus getragen zu haben. Darüber hinaus finde ich seine Vorträge interessant, aber ich lerne nicht mehr viel dazu und mir fehlt das Politische in der Politischen Ökonomie.

Zu dem im Reader aufgeführten Artikel von Michael Rätke hätte ich einige Fragen gehabt. Es handelt sich um eine gekürzte Version von "Zeitgenosse Marx". Ich kenne den Originaltext nicht und vielleicht sind gerade die kritischen Passagen gestrichen worden. So liest sich der Artikel jedenfalls wie "Marx hatte in allem recht und wo er nicht recht hatte, haben wir ihn nur falsch verstanden". Ferner strotzt der Artikel von einer Überheblichkeit, die mir ebenfalls nicht gefällt. Dabei lese ich die Beiträge von Michael Krätke im Freitag wirklich gerne. Gerade deswegen hätte ich mir gerne die ein oder andere Erläuterung zu seinen Positionen durch seinen Vortrag erhofft.

Interessant fand ich hingegen die Passage aus dem Artikel über die historische Besonderheit des Kapitalismus. Dort steht:

Marx "[...] kann und will [...] keine ewigen ohne Zeit und Ort gültigen ökonomischen Verhältnisse konstruieren [...] Alle ökonomischen Begriffe, die Marx entwickelt und gebraucht tragen eine "historische Spur". Sie sind nicht als Universalkategorien gedacht, die für alle Zeiten gelten".

Soviel Relativismus in Marx?

Außer mir ist niemand aus Kassel, aber viele Gesichter kommen mir bekannt vor. Heute war ich allerdings viel zu müde, um mich in irgendeiner Weise zu sozialisieren.

My last three posts have looked at Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) and the organisation's relationship to Barack Obama and his campaign.

Despite its innocuous sounding name, MDS (founded August 2006) is a coalition of former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) its terrorist splinter the Weather Underground and three Marxist organisations, Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

Every one of these strands has supported Barack Obama since at least the mid '90s -- some even further back.

Today many MDS activists are working in the Obama campaign, particularly through the MDS offshoot, Progressives for Obama (P4O).

Much as been written about the links between Barack Obama and his "patrons" former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

I've shown that Dohrn has been an MDS board member, while her husband Ayers is at least an active supporter.

That's two known former terrorists involved in MDS, but there are at least three more in the MDS/Progressives for Obama orbit -- Jeff Jones, Howie Machtinger and Mark Rudd.

Ayers, Dorhn, Jones, Machtinger and Rudd are old revolutionary comrades. In the late '60s the five were key leaders of the faction of SDS that split to form the Weather Underground. All attended the famous 1969 Flint War Council that effectively gave birth to the Weathermen faction of SDS.

All were virulently anti-American in their radical heyday.

Bernardine Dohrn has been accused of planting a bomb that killed San Francisco policeman Brian V. McDonnell. When police raided a Weathermen bomb factory in Pine Street San Francisco in 1970, they found the fingerprints of Ayers, Machtinger and Rudd.

All are still radicals today and all are proven Obama supporters.

This post profiles the three neglected Weathermen in the MDS/Progressives for Obama network-Jones, Machtinger and Rudd.

Who is Jeff Jones?

According to Jeff Jones's own website

Jeff Jones went to his first rally against the Vietnam War in 1965. Within a year, he had quit Antioch College to become a fulltime organizer for Students for a Democratic Society.

In 1966 he traveled to Cambodia to meet with high-level leaders of the NLF. In 1967 and 1968 he served as SDS Regional Organizer for New York City. In 1969, he was elected, along with Bill Ayers and Mark Rudd, to SDS national office. Then, in the spring of 1970, he disappeared. As a leader of the Weather Underground, Jeff evaded an intense FBI manhunt for more than a decade. In 1981, they finally got him. Twenty special agents battered down the door of the Bronx apartment where he was living with his wife and four-year-old son.

Jeff Jones serves on the board of MDS. Jeff Jones is also a signed up supporter of Progressives for Obama.

^{Jeff Jones right, at the MDS Conference New York City February 2007}

Who is Howie Machtinger?

Today Howard Machtinger is director of Teaching Fellows at the University of North Carolina.

According to Frontpage Magazine

Machtinger was on the barricades at Columbia University in 1968 and was one of the founders of the Weather Underground. He co-authored a tome that stated, “At the right moment, revolutionaries within the United States were to wage a ‘people’s war’ and attack from within. The government would fall and ‘world Communism’ would eventually be instituted.” He also spoke about “how the black liberation movement is so far advanced at this point that the only thing left for white revolutionaries is to support blacks by fighting cops as a diversionary tactic.”

Machtinger is not a confirmed member of MDS, but does contribute to Next Left Notes, which is edited by MDS board member and Progressives for Obama endorser Tom Good.

Ayers, Dohrn and Rudd are also Next Left Notes contributors.

Machtinger has signed on as a supporter of progressives for Obama, on the same page incidentally as yet another former Weatherman, Steve Tappis. Further along Jennifer Dohrn---sister of Bernardine Dohrn--has also signed up.

Machtinger is also the author of a widely distributed essay entitled Obama and the Left:

If we, as a Left, are content to smugly and dismissively critique the Obama phenomenon, we trade self-fulfilling sectarianism for the chance at political impact. A victory for Obama will not only be a boon for the African-American community and for people of color, it will offer a unique opportunity for the development of an organized and aggressive Left movement that retains its independence at the same time that it is willing to risk everyday involvement in the strange world of American politics.

If we just critique, we will miss a moment that may not come again for a while. If our politics are meaningful, effective, and get to the root of problems, we should put them to the test in political work that connects to large numbers of people struggling to find direction in an increasingly dangerous world. Something wonderful is happening. We must be alive to it. I hope we can figure out how to relate to it effectively before we consign ourselves to continued marginalization.

Who is Mark Rudd?

Today Mark Rudd¹ is a New Mexico school teacher.

From Mark Rudd's website:

As he traveled the country, from the fall of 1968 to the summer of 1969, Mark met many other activists in SDS who were thinking along the same lines as he, that SDS could move from anti-war resistance to full-scale socialist revolution...

White students would reject their “white skin privilege” and actually begin armed struggle against the U.S. government; this, in turn, would attract broad youth support as the struggle increased, following the Cuban model. This theory became fully articulated in a paper presented to the SDS National Convention in Chicago in June, 1969, authored by a collective of eleven, of which Mark was a member. Its title was “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” from which Mark’s faction of SDS became known as “The Weathermen.”

That convention proved to be SDS’ last. Following a titanic ideological battle concerning “the correct revolutionary direction,” a split occurred between the Weathermen and allies grouped around the National Office and a competing faction of Maoist Progressive Labor Party members and their allies. When it was all over, Mark found himself elected National Secretary of SDS, along with comrades Billy Ayers as Educational Secretary, and Jeff Jones as Inter-organizational Secretary, and the Weathermen in control of the National Office backed by a small number of chapters around the country...

A few national SDS leaders had met with Vietnamese and Cubans to find out about their resistance to U.S. imperialism. Out of these meetings came an invitation for SDS to send a group of students to Cuba in January, 1968. Because of his active work with the chapter, Mark was invited by the National Office to join the trip, which was openly defying the U.S. government’s ban on travel to Cuba. He accepted, working out a month-long absence with his professors...

Mark met young Cubans in positions of responsibility such as running schools and farms and medical institutions who were fired up with revolutionary enthusiasm: they were remaking society along non-capitalist lines, creating socialism! Meeting with Vietnamese delegates in Cuba, he learned about the nature of the resistance to American aggression, that these people believed they would inevitably drive the Americans from their country, no matter how long it took. As if to prove their point, the Tet Offensive was raging at the time in Vietnam, giving the lie to the American military’s claims that they were winning the war. His group was told by a Vietnamese diplomat in Havana, “The American people will eventually tire of the war and the troops will have to be withdrawn.”

According to the FBI Mark Rudd's trip to Cuba also involved terrorist training in camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine.

Today Mark Rudd serves on the board of MDS. Rudd is also an endorser of Progressives For Obama.

^{Mark Rudd addressing the MDS Conference New York City February 2007}

Clearly Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are not the only former Weathermen backing the Senator from Illinois.

Add their old comrades Jeff Jones, Howie Machtinger, Mark Rudd and even Steve Tappis to the mix and you are starting to get beyond coincidence.

That former terrorists are working with Marxist groups to elect Barack Obama is beyond doubt.

Should US voters know this?

Update: Also see Aaron Klein's 4 Weathermen terrorists declare support for Obama. Call for 'grassroots effort' to help boost campaign and Joseph Farah's We don't need any Weathermen …, both posted October 2, 2008, at WorldNetDaily.

Former Weathermen member Mark Rudd

By Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily

Former Weathermen member Mark Rudd JERUSALEM - One of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization is a signatory to an independent organization acting to ensure the election of Sen. Barack Obama, WND has learned.

The Obama campaign was not prepared to comment on the links to Rudd and other extremists in the allied organization.

The group in question, Progressives for Obama, also includes among its ranks many former members of the 1960s radical organization Students for a Democratic Society, from which the Weathermen splintered, as well as current and former members of other radical organizations, such as the Communist Party USA and the Black Radical Congress.

In its creed, first published in March in the Nation magazine, the Progressives for Obama founders state their organization descended from the "proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country."

Progressives for Obama stated it can help the Illinois senator's ascent to highest office by contributing funds, using the Internet to reach "millions of swing voters;" defending Obama against negative attacks and making its agenda known at the Democratic National Convention.

"Progressives can make a difference in close primary races like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon and Puerto Rico, and in the November general election," the founders state.

The founders stress it is crucial to form a grassroots leftist movement to ensure Obama does not stray too far to the center, claiming other grassroots liberal movements have successfully pressured U.S. presidents into creating new policy:

It was the industrial strikes and radical organizers in the 1930s who pushed Roosevelt to support the New Deal. It was the civil rights and student movements that brought about voting rights legislation under Lyndon Johnson and propelled Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy's antiwar campaigns. It was the original Earth Day that led Richard Nixon to sign environmental laws.

And it will be the Obama movement that will make it necessary and possible to end the war in Iraq, renew our economy with a populist emphasis, and confront the challenge of global warming. We should not only keep the pressure on [Obama] but also connect the issues that Obama has made central to his campaign into an overarching progressive vision."

Among the signatories and endorsers to Progressives for Obama is Mark Rudd, one of the main founders of the Weathermen terrorist organization. Rudd worked closely for years with Weathermen terrorist William Ayers, whose association with Obama has generated controversy for the presidential candidate.

Rudd originally was a top member of the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, leading the famed 1968 Columbia University strikes in which hundreds of students seized several university buildings. He also served as spokesman for the strikes, attracting international media attention.

In 1968, Rudd traveled with the SDS to Cuba, defying U.S. travel bans, where he says he was heavily influenced by the legacy of Che Guevara and by Cuban-style revolution. When he returned to the U.S., Rudd advocated for Columbia's chapter of the SDS to carry out militant, aggressive action, but he was turned down.

A bio published on his own website explains Rudd worked to form the Weathermen as a radical alternative to the SDS and for white Americans to eject their "white skin privilege" and begin "armed struggle" against the U.S. government.

The Weathermen took responsibility for bombing U.S. governmental buildings in the 1970s.

Rudd went underground in 1970, when a bomb exploded in a townhouse in Greenwich Village in New York City, killing three of his comrades. He lived for seven and a half years in hiding as a fugitive, finally surrendering in 1977, facing only low-level state charges after federal charges against Weathermen leaders had been dropped. He resurfaced as a teacher in New Mexico.

As late as 2005, Rudd wrote an editorial in the Los Angeles Times lamenting the state of the antiwar movement in the U.S.

"What's hard to understand - given the revelations about the rush to war, the use of torture and the loss of more than 2,000 soldiers - is why the antiwar movement isn't further along than it is. Given that President Bush is now talking about Iraq as only one skirmish in an unlimited struggle against a global Islamic enemy, a struggle comparable to the titanic, 40-year Cold War against communism, shouldn't a massive critique of the global war on terrorism already be underway?" he wrote.

Rudd condemned the Weathermen's decision to embark on an "armed-struggle," calling it "stupid" since the violent acts led to the group's demise.

Rudd didn't condemn the terrorism itself, only its contribution to the downfall of the Weathermen.

Rudd declined to speak on the record to WND, explaining an interview may spark more Weathermen controversy for Obama.

Rudd is just one of scores of radicals involved with Progressives for Obama.

The group was founded by four individuals with ties to extremist groups:

Tom Hayden, a former state senator who was a founder and principal organizer of the SDS. Discover the Networks notes Hayden, previously married to actress Jane Fonda, traveled many times to North Vietnam, Czechoslovakia and Paris to strategize with communist North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leaders on how to defeat America's anti-communist efforts.

Bill Fletcher, a former Maoist and current leader of Democratic Socialists of America or DSA. The New Zeal blog notes Fletcher was also a founder of the Black Radical Congress, closely linked to the Communist Party USA, which advocated for "progressive social justice, racial equality and economic justice goals within the U.S.

Barbara Ehenreich, an honorary chairman of DSA who was formerly active in antiwar movements in which some notorious radicals took part.

Actor Danny Glover, a member of the Black Students Union, who has visited Venezuela, making guest appearances on President Hugo Chavez's television and radio talk show. He reportedly has accepted loans of about $20 million from the Venezuelan government to make a movie about a Haitian revolutionary leader.

The Progressives for Obama webmaster is Carl Davidson, a former vice president of the Students for a Democratic Society, who has traveled to Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro.

The signatories and endorsers of the Obama activist group, listed on the Progressives website, include scores of well known communist, socialist and anarchist activists and former SDS members.

Well, now that all of those who instantly said, "Conspiracy nutjob! cuckoo!" have left my site, let me direct you firstly to read the article above, as well as the article, "Cloward-Piven Strategy" before reading my comments that follow.

For months those of us who listen to talk radio have been hearing of the connection that Barack Obama has with Bill Ayers at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers as we know has advocated unapologetically for the destruction of capitalism and becoming a socialist state. We have heard of the connections Obama has with ACORN, that he was a lawyer for them. We know that he was a "community organizer agitator" working with churches in Chicago.

Let's outline in brief what we know about him, and then you decide whether you see as clearly as I do, that Obama is a Manchurian candidate. The main source is Discover The Networks - Barack's World page, and I have also added other figures and connections as I have come across them. The summaries are mostly my take on their content. Everyone should read these sources thoroughly to fully appreciate the depth of the connections.

UPDATE: Since starting this post, the page had become so long that it was no longer a quick page load. I have split it into six separate pages so that load times are shorter...

1. Introduction, and Radical and Socialist Influences
2. Political Allies and Advisors
3. Religious Affiliations
4. Organizational Affiliations
5. Academic Affiliations, and Foundations
6. Money Scandals and Family

Radical and Socialist Influences:

Frank Marshall Davis

Read: p1, p2 - was a known member of the Soviet controlled Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA). Davis became a mentor and advisor for Barack Obama through the 1970's until at least when he left for college in 1979.

• Michael Savage radio interview of Cliff Kincaid

• Bill O'Reilly's interview of David Freddoso

Saul Alinsky

Read: p1, p2 - never personally met as Obama was a young boy when he died , but trained in the Alinsky model. This model aims to bring about a revolution to bring about a Marxist society through slow methodical change in institutions. Obama lead workshops to train people in the Alinsky model.

Harold Washington

Read: p1 - was major of Chicago. Washington was responsible for stacking the public service of Chicago with numerous card carrying communists and marxists. It is highly likely that Washington was also a member of the Communist Party USA in secret. Washington was associated with the Democratic Socialists of America also. One of the inspirations for Obama coming to Chicago has been said to be Washington.

Bill Ayers

Read: p1, p2 - leader of terrorist organization Weatherman, formerly Students for a Democratic Society (both sought the downfall of democracy and capitalism. Ayers launched Obama's political career for his Illinois senate campaign in his own private home. Ayers was also a campaign contributor in 1996. Both Ayers and Obama served together on the boards of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund of Chicago. This year Obama pronounced Ayers as a respectable member of mainstream society. Obama has made the claim that he was merely 8 years old when the bombings took place, however this is inaccurate. The most recent attacks took place in the 1980's at a time when Obama and Bill Ayers were at Columbia University.

Obama's Friends

Bernardine Dohrn

Read: p1, p2 - wife of Bill Ayers (see above) and a co-leader of the Weatherman terrorist cult. Some audio of her opinions can be found at Powerline, as well as her 'declaration of war' from 1970, part of which she said to "guard your children" - The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1 and Part 2. Dohrn and Ayers launched Obama's political career in their private home.

Khalid Al-Mansour

Read: p1 - is a Black Muslim and Black Nationalist who was a “mentor” to the founders of the Black Panther party at the time the party was founded in the early 1960s.” Furthermore this Al-Mansour is described, “as advisor to “one of the world’s richest men,” Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal.”

Here is video of Percy Sutton discussing the connection between Obama and Al-Mansour.

Carl Davidson

Read: p1, p2 - personally aims to transform the US into a socialist nation, through systematic change. He was a very prominent figure in Chicago's socialist circles. Obama and Carl Davidson met through the Chicago chapter of the New Party, a Marxist organization focused on endorsing and electing public officials. New Zeal writes that "Davidson serves on the steering committee of the communist dominated US peace umbrella organisation, United for Peace & Justice and is co-chair of the equally radical Chicagoans Against War & Injustice." Carl Davidson is close enough to Obama, to have visited him in his home. Obama SOUGHT the endorsement of the New Party, and Carl Davidson became an avid supporter of Obama.

Carol Moseley Braun

Read: p1 - ran for the US Senate in 1992. she was a member of the CPUSA. Obama endorsed her, and helped her in her campaign.

Democratic Socialists of America

Read: p1, p2 - the largest socialist organization in the United States and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, that has stated that "many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed". Obama was endorsed in his Illinois Senate race by DSA. Obama has also been endorsed by numerous DSA members in this presidential campaign: Henry Bayer, Tom Balanoff, Henry Tamarin, Barbara Lee among them. Obama eulogized long-time socialist Saul Mendelson. Obama also campaigned for openly socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in his 2006 campaign.

Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA)

Read: p1 - is the leading communist group in the US. Members include/d Frank Marshall Davis, Carol Moseley Braun, Joyce Wheeler, and Tim Wheeler. Obama has received the endorsements of many CPUSA member's among them are: Terrie Albano, Pepe Lozano, Norman Markowitz (see article discussing Markowitz article that highlights Obama's socialist ideals here), Rosalio Munoz, Xavier Becerra.

Gamaliel Foundation

Read: p1, p2 - trains activists in techniques and methodologies for effectively bringing about social change. It is modeled on the principles of Saul Alinsky. GF is a rabid advocate for illegal immigrants. Obama was at one time employed by GF.

New Party

Read: p1, p2 - founded to endorse and elect leftist public officials. That stated purpose was to move the democratic party to the left, eventuating in the rise of a Marxist third party. Obama sought and received the endorsement of the New Party in his 1996 Illinois Senate race. Obama enlisted the New Party for his task forces on voter education and voter registration. He also used a number of New Party volunteers for his campaign.

Socialist Scholars Conference

Read: p1, p2 - these were conferences held at Cooper Union, a private college. These conferences "featured the elite of socialist academia as well as union activists, political revolutionaries, reformers, and opponents of “corporate greed.” including "members of the Communist Party USA and its offshoot, the Committees of Correspondence, as well as Maoists, Trotsyists, black radicals". While at Columbia, Obama attended a number of these conferences.

Continued in Separate parts...

1. Introduction, and Radical and Socialist Influences
2. Political Allies and Advisors
3. Religious Affiliations
4. Organizational Affiliations
5. Academic Affiliations, and Foundations
6. Money Scandals and Family

Others who have written on this subject...

Obama, the Mortgage Mess, and the Cloward-Piven Strategy

About Barack Obama

A MUST READ: The Cloward-Piven Strategy and Obama’s Role

The Cloward-Piven Strategy: Part I Jim Simpson's first (?) take on this article

The Cloward-Piven Candidate? this author is not so sure that Obama is knowingly a "Cloward-Piven Candidate". Saul Alinsky's theories I believe at least echo the intent of Cloward-Piven, and Obama is a Alinksy disciple and teacher. I do not think it matters in the end, since he is surrounded by so many individuals and organizations that are fully committed to the Cloward-Piven strategy, and Obama absorbs gladly their advice and direction.

Obama, Manufactured Crises, & The Cloward-Piven Strategy

Cloward-Piven - has some discussion

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis - raise some questions we all wish we had the answers to...

Cloward-Piven, Obama And The Fall Of America

Barack Obama — The Most Radical Leftist To Ever Get This Close To Occupying The White House?

The Bailout: Three words (w/podcast)

Newsmax article - from August - Obama, Voter Fraud & Mortgage Meltdown

American Thinker: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

So many dots! So little time!

So much disinformation, so little time

Obama And ACORN - ‘It’s A Power Thing’

On April 2, 2007, Christopher Phelps reported at The Nation on some recent MDS developments. Phelps wrote:

The new SDS's adult counterpart, Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), has been riven by divisions rooted deep in SDS history. Power has resided largely with three figures: historian Paul Buhle (left), once editor of the original SDS journal Radical America; Thomas Good, a 48-year-old Communist-turned-anarchist who created the new SDS website; and Bruce Rubenstein, a Connecticut personal-injury attorney. Left on the outs have been Haber, a kindly bearded sage, and a small "democracy" caucus whose best-known member is historian Jesse Lemisch.

Phelps provided some information about the MDS's organizational efforts:

In February [2007] MDS held a daylong public meeting to announce a nonprofit corporation, MDS, Inc., that will raise funds for SDS. One of the selected speakers, former Weather leader Mark Rudd (right, with Elaine Brower), delivered a piercingly honest self-criticism, stating that Weather "did the work" of the FBI by "killing off" the original SDS. Rudd urged the new SDS to recognize violence and property destruction as politically self-defeating in the United States.

And Phelps had this to say about the MDS "board":

The newly elected board of MDS, Inc., is broadly representative of the whole left, but its biggest names--Tom Hayden, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky--are symbolic luminaries, not actively involved. Much hinges on whether the new chairman, Manning Marable (right), a distinguished African-American historian at Columbia University, can guide MDS, Inc., beyond its present contretemps to "assist and promote the development of activism among young people," as he envisions.

See next page

"The youth in SDS have for the most part tuned out MDS. They are instead focused on their own priorities: defining their points of unity, developing a decision-making structure and challenging the Iraq War," Phelps commented.

In an April 2, 2007, article from Next Left Notes, reposted at Radical Blogs, Tom Good expressed his disappointment with Phelps's article, in particular what he did and did not report from his interview with Good:

The larger problem is that nothing that MDS is currently doing was mentioned at all - and that is quite alot. There was no mention of the Radical Education Project, for example. There were also factual errors. I was listed as being secretary of MDS. MDS has no officers. I am Secretary of MDS, Incorporated - a non-profit organization that provides legal defense and other monies to the SDS student activists.

Jay Jurie, "an MDS organizer from Orlando and Vice-President of MDS, Inc.," commented:

"That he made no assessment of the potential of the REP and RIP (Radicals In The Professions) projects of MDS further illustrates this shortcoming. While on the whole a decent enough article, it’s not up to the sort of cover story one would like to see from a leading left publication.”

Good added:

“I guess you could say Chris wrote largely like a journalist when dealing with SDS but with MDS he lapsed into the role of gossip columnist in that all he reported on was the infighting that occurred on the MDS listserv. To be fair, the rhetorical exchanges there are colorful - but they have nothing at all to do with what MDS is doing on the ground....”

Although far behind SDS in terms of organizing, MDS now has several activist chapters: in Orlando, Austin and Arlington (Texas), in Louisville (Kentucky), Denver, Philadelphia, in Baltimore/D.C. and in New York City. New York City MDSers participated in a variety of nonviolent civil disobedience protests recently - Good and fellow MDSer Mike Morice were arrested with the War Resisters League for protesting on Wall Street (March 19th, 2007) while other MDSers served in a support capacity. In a widely publicized action on Staten Island (March 23, 2007), Good was arrested for being part of a nonviolent occupation of Congressman Vito Fossella’s office - an action organized by Peace Action Staten Island (PASI) and one in which, in a role reversal, SDS activists provided logistical and legal support. In addition to protests, MDS is involved in: the Radical Education Project (www.radicaleducation.org) which is a clearinghouse of educational materials for organizers; the effort to get more white collar workers involved in resistance (Radicals In The Professions), and; the SDS Legal Defense project.

See next page

Ayers and Dohrn

One of the most interesting items thus far involves veteran SDSers, former domestic terrorists and Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, his wife.

In his August 25, 2006, article about the SDS revival, Adam Doster, a senior editor at In These Times and a reporter-blogger for Progress Illinois, interviewed some veteran SDSers on the "new" SDSers (emphasis added):

The revival of the name also attracted the attention of various SDS veterans who have created a post-graduate division known as the Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS). MDS hopes to develop a concurrent program specializing in legal defense and radical education that will provide knowledge to the new SDSers.

“The original SDS did not have access to elders who made mistakes,” says New York City regional organizer and MDS member Tom Good. “If we are careful not to finger wag but only to advise, that knowledge will be an asset.”

Finally, members think that restarting SDS provides a tacit connection to the important and comparable battles their predecessors waged. “SDS offers a sense of long continuity of the struggle,” says [Al Haber, SDS founder]. “Students sometimes don’t have much perspective and SDS allows us to build a sense of how it’s all connected.”

Doster added:

But some are skeptical of SDS’s revitalization. While excited by the group’s desire to “develop a deep analysis of the root causes of the crises and catastrophes we face,” former SDS member and Weatherman dissident (and now University of Illinois at Chicago education professor) Bill Ayers thinks that nostalgia for the first major student movement can be detrimental. “There’s nothing more depressing than longing for a ship that’s already left the shore,” says Ayers.

In April 2006, former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn "was invited to speak at the first new SDS conference, held in Providence, Rhode Island."

Dohrn "received a rousing welcome," Phelps wrote.

In August 2006, at "the first new SDS national convention in Chicago," veteran SDSer Thomas Good "opened the proceedings by reading greetings from Dohrn," Phelps wrote.¹

"Although I cannot be there in Chicago, we have your back. May you stay clear about the challenges of movement-building: strengthening and connecting the widespread organizing work already underway, reaching out to engage new forces, and contending with principle and unity. As the great Chicago poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks said, 'Live and have your blooming in the eye of the whirlwind.'"²

In her April 5, 2007, response to Phelps at CounterPunch, Dohrn includes herself with other MDS members and actors (emphasis added):

Yet Phelps focuses on the sectarian divides of the MDS generation rehearsing old political grudges or offering simplistic "lessons" from the New Left, rather than highlighting the steps forward and the common ground between radical organizers.

Our points of convergence (young and old, organizers and activists) are numerous, including the need to strive for participatory democracy and non-exclusion, resist the savage US wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, fight brutal poverty and gluttonous wealth here and globally, act to end catastrophic climate change, racial injustice and patriarchal power, and reject the permanent so-called war on "terror" in toto.

[...]

Phelps stereotypically characterizes me as a "celebrity" while the male ideologues are described by what they say about politics. I object. Who knows why any speech or article is well received?

At the SDS conference at Brown University in Spring 2006, it seemed that the political substance of my talk was what generated the positive response from students: the urgent needs to reject the framework of US military and economic empire, to forge active opposition to white supremacy and grapple with the issue of multiracial organization, and to reckon with the importance of direct action to organizing and educating. I intentionally ignored the challenge to debate the issue of what killed SDS 38 years ago and who was right when, in favor of exploring what we all can do, in solidarity, now. Building bridges between issues, finding points of convergence, and creating an independent radical movement resonates across generations. The last thing the new SDS needs is patronizing elders wagging their fingers with cautionary tales.

Notes:

• 1 -- Veteran SDSer Jesse Lemisch, Professor of History Emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, discusses September 18, 2006, at HNN, what he calls "Sectarian Rage in the New SDS."
• 2 -- Jenny Brown, SDS meets in Chicago, The Gainesville Iguana, September 2006.

Also see:

• Doug Viehmeyer, Steppin' It Up: The New SDS, ZMag.org, March 21, 2007.
• SDS Call to Action: Endorse and Participate in Shutting Down the RNC, ACTIVATEgr.org, March 25, 2008.

The Rogers Park Bench posted an excellent short version video (49+ min.) of events at the November 2007 Students for a Democratic Society reunion in Chicago.

The Bench's T. Mannis commented August 26, 2008:

Here in Chicago, many old members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) still roam around. The Weathermen were an offshoot of the SDS. They were the militant wing, if you will. Last November, a bunch of the old hippies - still radicals at heart - got together on the Loyola University campus in Rogers Park. William Ayers could have been in the room; he would have fit right in. Ayers and these people are comrades in arms.

Knowledge in Action

This issue presents a critical selection of activists today who are consciously continuing the tradition of autodidactic initiatives in direct actions. We would like to place this new local experience of today into the international context of independent educational structures and their history.

The issue features articles by and about the Street University, the War Group, DSPA, the New SDS, Copenhagen Free University, and Universidad Nomada, and inspiring graphics by Max Neroda and R.E.P.

Read it online or download it here.

In the coming week, we’ll also be posting articles from the new issue in this blog.

– Г-н Лилков, на какво се дължи очевидното затопляне на отношенията между доскорошните врагове от ДСБ и ГЕРБ?

– Това, което се случва през последните месеци, действително може да се нарече промяна в отношенията между ДСБ и ГЕРБ. Окачествявам тази промяна като положителна, защото наближават парламентарните избори и е ясно, че приоритет на всички политически, сили, които стоят вдясно, трябва да бъде свалянето на тройната коалиция от власт. Но когато говорим за сближаване с ГЕРБ, всъщност говорим за това, че ние заедно дефинирахме общия си противник. Това, че двете партии ще се явят самостоятелно на изборите и че всяка партия ще следва своя политически път в бъдещия парламент, също е ясно. Говорим за обща цел, но не и за коалиране или за някакви други по-близки взаимоотношения, като изграждане на обща парламентарна група например.

– Каква политическа линия да очакваме от общинските съветници на ДСБ в София, като се имат предвид новите ви отношения с ГЕРБ? От БСП вече открито ви обвиниха, че правите коалиция с партията на кмета Бойко Борисов.

– По волята на гражданите на София ние сме опозиция в общинския съвет. Затова и категор�