PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

DAVID HOROWITZ

INTERVIEWED by Jamie Glazov about his new book Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left. Quotable:

I have .. applied the same term that Trotsky used to describe the international [leftist] movement when he said they were "frontier guards" for the Soviet state. Since 9/11 the .. left and its "international solidarity" units have acted as frontier guards for the terrorists and the terrorist states .. As for the radical death cult, this parallel was noted before me, and quite eloquently by Paul Berman .. in his book Liberalism and Terror. [Leftists] are best viewed as social redeemers, people deluded into thinking they can .. usher in a future in which there are no fanatics, Islamic or otherwise. On day one of the revolution.. the Islamic lion will lie down with the Jewish, Christian and feminist lambs. People who believe that Palestinian suicide bombers are reasonable individuals acting out of political desperation and not sick enthusiasts of a religious death cult, are themselves partial believers in that cult. Their dementia is to believe that if only enough Israelis/Christians/neo-conservatives are eliminated, the world will become a livable and just place. This is the group psychosis that afflicts our time ..

THE LEFT SHOWS

it's true colors -- standing ovations for a Robert Redford movie celebrating the life of a Stalinist killer.

UPDATE: See also this. Quotable:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian .. [he] presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system .. [Indeed] to get a lot of other people killed was central to Che's imagination.

And here are some typical reviews:

It's got poetry to it -- the poetry of humanity.

"Walter Salles's stirring and warm-hearted film reconstructs a journey across South America."

The film is like a series of pretty postcards with poor people - Masterpiece Theatre for Marxists

A deeply felt and beautifully acted hagiography.

A mesmerizing look at an asthmatic, rich-boy medical student in the act of discovering his insurgent spirit.

this soulful and reflective film, as gentle as it is potent ..

Salles presents the evolutionary course of a young man who coincidentally became the dorm-room poster boy for an idealistic generation, and captures the lovely, heart-and-eye-opening ode to youthful possibility with affection and compassion.

Imagine such things written in reference to a new movie about, say, Hermann G�ring or Reinhard Heydrich or Adolf Hitler or Joseph Mengele.

"THEIR GAME

is to use Islam to demoralise Western bourgeois life." -- More on the British left.

CITIZEN SMASH

is having some fun with �Code Pink� and has an update on his old friend Rebecca.

DEAD BILLIONAIRES

bankrolled scores of left-wing philanthropies which have played an important role in remaking America's most important institutions as bulwarks of leftist ideology. Over the last 30 years a small handful of mom-and-pop sized foundations have led a surprising counter-revolution, transforming America's marketplace of ideas into a real debate between liberty and the left. The big question. Has the current cycle run its course? James Piereson of the Olin Foundation -- which closes its doors next year -- looks back and ahead .

Kimball, Huntington & ParaPundit.

Quotable:

"�multiculturalism� is really a form of mono-cultural animus directed against the dominant culture .. ".

"The �sensitivity� of the multiculturalist is an index not of moral refinement but of moral vacuousness .. ".

"Many intellectuals are promoting ideas that are causing decay of our civilization simply in order to position themselves at higher points in status hierarchies."

MORE -- ParaPundit "Roger Kimball On Samuel Huntington".

Kimball's article on Huntington is here.

Eight months.

That's how long Swedish Prime Minister G�ran Persson has had to wait to have his hip replaced. Quotable: "In September last year [Persson] was diagnosed to need an urgent operation for his arthrosis in the hip. Persson has obviously been in great pain, walking with a limp, and he has reportedly been using strong painkillers. He has been forced to cancel official travels, such as the recent EU-Latin America meeting, since he is in too much pain .. ". Read the whole thing.

The Real World.

Micha Ghertner explains "Why I Am Not A Socialist".

Clinton school plan.

If a new proposal by Sen. Hillary Clinton passes, U.S. taxpayers would pay for "basic education for all children throughout the world". I kid you not. Here's a forecast -- look for Bush Republicans taking up the Clinton plan and repackaging it as "compassionate conservativism".

Killer Leftists.

"Now perhaps, it is time for a new "Silent Spring," a book outlining how so many children's voices have been forever silenced by the environmentalists .. ". more Oh, That Leftist Media.

Up From NPR.

"A few years ago, I worked for a struggling dot-com in Manhattan whose work force was almost uniformly [leftist]. Given my conservative orientation, I saw little sense in getting involved in workplace political discussions. My silence was interpreted as acquiescence until I could stand it no longer and fessed up. One co-worker, who had served on the committee that hired me, felt betrayed. "But," he stammered, remembering my resume, "You worked for NPR." .. I was a co-producer for one of the most unusual programs NPR ever carried, "Bridges: A [Leftist]/Conservative Dialogue." The premise was a discussion between the [leftist] of the show's title, Larry Josephson, and leading conservative thinkers .. One of our first shows after I arrived was a history of American conservatism with the historian George Nash. His magnum opus, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, has long been a reference bible on the right. The book condenses the thought of some of the most consequential political and economic thinkers of the 20th century � men such as Russell Kirk, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and James Burnham. I had heard of very few of them. Nash traced the intellectual fault lines that appeared on the right and that endure today, such as, for example, the one between traditionalists and libertarians. As I read, I kept thinking to myself: "This sure beats Michel Foucault." .. With each subsequent guest � Sam Tanenhaus on Whittaker Chambers, James Q. Wilson on crime and punishment, David Horowitz on Vietnam and the New Left � my [leftist convictions] weakened .. ". more PAUL BESTON.

Sierra Club vs. Dick Lamm.

John Leo on the leftist mugging of Richard Lamm.

Mega Rich Democrats.

"Did you ever wonder why George Soros, Warren Buffett, John Kerry, and innumerable wealthy Hollywood celebrities all support the Democratic party � hook, line, and sinker? It doesn't seem to make sense. Why would these patricians favor the party that wants to increase tax rates? Here's one explanation. They may act like philanthropists, but in actuality these Democrats are fat cats who can either avoid taxes entirely or pay just a minimal amount. They surely don't pay their fair share relative to their wealth. These megabuck corporate elites take minimal salaries and then benefit from tax-sheltered windfalls when their company stock prices go up. In addition they create huge foundations that provide tax deductions which can offset much of their taxable income. Ongoing contributions to these foundations can materially reduce income taxes for an indefinite period of time. So the guys at the top � whether they are billionaires by inheritance, luck, or hard work � have amassed enormous fortunes that grow, and at the same time they use their assets to keep their income taxes low. Legions of tax accountants and lawyers make sure they take advantage of every tax loophole .. ". more on MEGA RICH DEMOCRATS.

The folks who stress over taxes are the broad middle class -- the people for whom tax rates can make a difference over whether mom or dad have free weekends or have to work a second job. The folks for whom tax rates can make a difference over which schools Jason and Emily go to -- or if they get to go at all. Pre-School two days a week or three? State university or private? And so on.

A car upgrade this year? Or another year driving the old clunker?

This is a world the Mega Rich Democrats don't feel -- income tax increases often leave them untouched, and any tax increase merely effects the size of their tax deductable donations to charity, and never shows up at all as an impact on their lifestyle. Does it cause them to send their kids to different schools? No. Does it cause them to change cars? Are you kidding me? It doesn't even cause them to downsize from five homes to four. Tax increases or tax cuts simply don't register in the lives of the Mega Rich. And so they don't care -- they don't care whether taxes go up, and certainly so when this means your taxes, and not theirs.

Quotable: "John Kerry, fat cat from Massachusetts, is unlikely to endorse any true tax on the rich. He only wants to raise taxes on the wannabe's � people like you and me."

UPDATE: InstaPundit readers answer the question, What did you do with your tax refund daddy?

Editor, Writer, Bureaucrat, Spy.

Speechwriter for Roosevelt, State Department offical, editor of the New Republic, spy in the service of mass murder.

Tax-free "Charity". Tax-free capitalism funds leftist politics -- funnelling tens of billions of dollars to radical --often racist -- lawyers, academics, political organizers, propagandists, etc.

Neo-Conservative Watch. The neo-conservative neo-leftist Weekly Standard proves once again that it favors limited government every where in the world accept here in America with its support of yet another massive GOP spending program. With friends like these ...

The Left. "[Lefties] simply can't grasp the problem Lexis-Nexis poses to their incessant lying. They ought to stick to their specialty -- hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte .. ". MORE Ann Coulter.

Anne Applebaum -- Auschwitz Under Our Noses.

Quotable Mark Steyn:

The legacy of this period is less musical than political: forty years ago, the self-consciously childlike �folk song� met the civil rights movement and helped permanently infantilise the left. I caught an anti-war protest in Vermont last year and the entire repertoire was from the Sixties, starting with �Where Have All The Flowers Gone?�, which as a poignant comment on soldiering was relevant in the Great War but has no useful contribution to make in a discussion on Iraq.

They hate us because .. Those dumb and corrupt Europeans and the America rage they just can't shake. Quotable:

A large part of the European left spent a large part of the 20th century hating the United States not because it had economic inequality or Jim Crow but because it did not have show trials, labor camps and the other appurtenances of "actually existing socialism."

Steyn on Elia Kazan and Hollywood's dirty little "Gentleman's Agreement".

How dumb are these people? Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times writes:

Religion may preach peace and tolerance, yet it's hard to think of anything that .. has been more linked to violence and malice around the world

No, Nic, it isn't hard -- think SOCIALISM. These names -- and a smack to the head -- should help Nic in that difficult think department: Stalin, Hitler, Hussein, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro, Mussolini, Ho, Lenin, etc., etc. Malicious violent killers and socialists all. Not religious fanatics. Not bible thumpers. Socialists. Can you handle the truth Nic?

The faculty at Bard College, a liberal arts school at Annandale, NY, includes a scholar who glories in the title Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies. Anyone aware that Hiss was a Washington bureaucrat who spied for the Soviet Union will consider this as sensible as a John Dillinger Chair in Business Ethics or a Jack the Ripper Chair in Criminology. But at Bard College no one is laughing, least of all the occupant of the chair, Joel Kovel, who believes the Soviets were never a threat to the Americans and that U.S. criticism of communism was the product of hysteria. His views resemble those of Hiss, and he's not lonely. Hard as it may be for outsiders to imagine, a lingering affection for communism remains part of American university life ...

Robert Fulford in the National Post. Read more.

Stalinist fellow-traveller Walter Duranty of the NY Times as victim. Will the whitewash of leftist history never end?

A letter from Michael Moore to the German people. Quotable:

Should such an ignorant people [i.e. Americans] lead the world? How did it come to this in the first place? 82 percent of us don't even have a passport! Just a handful can speak a language other than English (and we don't even speak that very well.) ...

Ok, come on, you Germans, you really know better! You are well-read. Your media also reports on things south of the Alps. You travel. You value education. And in the past year you took over the moral leadership in the question of war or peace.

Unbelievable.

DDT and the human tragedy of PC environmentalism. Money quote:

there are 300 to 500 million malaria cases worldwide. Thousands of people die of the disease every day .. In 2000, South Africa started spraying tiny amounts of DDT in homes in its province with the most malaria cases, and rates of the disease dropped there by almost 90 percent, from a high of 60,000 a year. Sadly, other African countries would like to follow suit but can't do so on their own. They need funds from the World Health Organization or the U.S. Agency for International Development - and neither organization, though they know better, has the political guts to buck the international environmental lobby and allow funding for the spraying of DDT.

(via Reductio Ad Absurdum)

"geezer" -- banned in the classroom -- but not here at PrestoPundit! Diane Ravitch has the story.

The archives of Comintern are going digital, and will be up on the web later this month. What an amazing world we live in. Have a drink, raise you glass to George Orwell, and smile.

Ronald Radosh writes an open letter to Julius Rosenberg's son.

David Bernstein has good stuff on the early Stalinist beginnings of the ACLU -- and its current embarrassment about its past history. Needless to say, today's Leftists at the ACLU aren't embarrassed about the groups prior sympathy for the blood soaked system of government which once ruled Russia.

Explain to me what sort of parenting and schooling produces this:

Now, what is the argument again for government education? And why did so many of my family members have to work so hard to pay for the sort of education which produces this? (via Sharkblog. And don't miss his backstory on this event.)

The case against Amnesty International.

Has Adam Michnik betrayed the left?

James Moore (Harvard) reads Swift and comes up with a new battle plan for the Left's ongoing war against America:

As the United States government becomes more belligerent in using its power in the world, many people are longing for a �second superpower� that can keep the US in check. Indeed, many people desire a superpower that speaks for the interests of planetary society, for long-term well-being, and that encourages broad participation in the democratic process. Where can the world find such a second superpower? No nation or group of nations seems able to play this role, although the European Union sometimes seeks to, working in concert with a variety of institutions in the field of international law, including the United Nations. But even the common might of the European nations is barely a match for the current power of the United States."

Moore blogs the struggle over the "Second Superpower" meme here.

Here's what I thought after listening to the Chris Hedges' commencement address

such a speech needs to persuade. It needs to draw the audience close, make eye contact. Crack a joke, wax colloquial, opine a bit, then bring it all back to the grads. Pat them on the back, remind them that the process of learning has just begun, warn them against cant of any sort, and give them a closing that wraps this extraordinary day up in one sweet smart line they can take with them for the hard years to come.

What did he do? He cracked the mike, and said I have come to talk about war, and empire. You could just hear the shoulders sag: oh man. It's Mr. Big Wet Pillow fingering his Vietnamese worry-beads. As if we haven't heard this for the last four years.

As I've been saying for months here: it's not the dissent that bothers me - please! Dissent! Carp, snipe, poke, hammer away; that's essential. But there's a difference between "our failure to find WMD raises troubling questions about our prewar intelligence" and "Chimpy lied to get his hands on the oiiiilll." Hedges appeared to be one of those critics who presumed that everyone in the audience was an uncritical victim of cable-TV agitprop, and no one had ever paused to consider that war was harsh work. Everyone needed 50 ccs of RAW TRUTH, STAT to wake them from their comfy comas.

It's LILEKS - The Bleat of course, but that's what I thought too. Honest.