Cartoonist Ted Rall to Appear at Communist Bookstore
http://www.usasurvival.org/ck11.15.10.html
By Cliff Kincaid
November 15, 2010
The communist book shop known as Revolution Books in New York City
recently hosted a party and
elebration for a 91-page book called Constitution for the New
Socialist Republic in North America. The book is officially published
by the Revolutionary Communist Party [1] (RCP), a Maoist cult that
follows the rants of Bob Avakian, a former comrade of Bill Ayers and
Bernardine Dohrn in the Students for a Democratic Society. This
coming Thursday, November 18, Revolution Books is hosting nationally
syndicated cartoonist/columnist Ted Rall, a recent guest on the MSNBC
television network who is going to read from his new book, The
Anti-American Manifesto.
Rall was a guest on the Dylan Ratigan show [2] on MSNBC, where he
claimed the title of his book is "partly in jest" but added that he
wants to "change the system entirely" and a "revolt" is necessary.
Saying that peaceful avenues for change had been fruitless, he said
that violence was a last resort.
It is disgusting that a network such as MSNBC, whose on-air
personalities have been so critical of the Tea Party movement, would
give a platform to Rall and his statements that seem to endorse
revolutionary violence. The last time this happened in America was
when the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and the
Puerto Rican FALN were accepting the support of Communist Cuba and
bombing buildings and murdering people, mostly police officers. Some
of these criminals went to prison, but others had help from the
National Lawyers Guild and served little, if any, jail time. Some
received pardons from President Bill Clinton and another, Assata
Shakur, escaped to Cuba, where she lives today.
Of course, the Tea Party wants to change the system as well. The
difference is that, while some of its members have been unfairly
depicted by the media as violence-prone, they have peacefully
demonstrated their power through the recent elections.
What's more, the Tea Party recognizes the fallacies, dangers, and
bloody record of Marxism. They want to avoid in America what happened
to Cuba and the old Soviet Union.
Some have called Rall a crank. But his appearance at Revolution Books
suggests he knows exactly what he's doing. A critic of the Tea Party,
Rall has no problem in appearing at a bookstore that celebrates an
ideology that has resulted in more than 100 million deaths since the
Communist Manifesto. Rall seems proud of his scheduled appearance at
the communist bookstore, having posted it [3] on his blog.
Although he has a national platform, Rall represents a very tiny
segment of the population, much smaller than the 20 percent
describing themselves in exit polls as liberals. This makes MSNBC's
promotion of him even more offensive. Ratigan only served him
softball questions.
Can you imagine the media hue and cry if a leader of the Tea Party
movement were to show up for a book signing at a Nazi bookstore?
MSNBC personalities Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann would be
falling all over one another to cover the story.
But don't hold your breath waiting for Ratigan, Maddow, or Olbermann
to launch commentaries denouncing Ted Rall's appearance at Revolution Books.
This isn't just a communist bookstore devoted to theoretical
discussions of Marxism; it is devoted to promoting the ideas of
Chinese Communist mass murderer Mao Tse Tung, himself responsible for
65 million deaths.
So who is this despicable person named Ted Rall? Described as one of
America's top five syndicated editorial cartoonists, his work is
distributed by Universal Press Syndicate [4] to more than 100
newspapers and magazines. One of his cartoons, which concerned the
late Pat Tillman, the NFL player who quit football to join the Army,
was considered so offensive that it was pulled from the MSNBC.com
website [5] because it fell short of "standards of fairness and
taste." It depicted Tillman as an idiot because he favored America's
war on terrorism.
But Ted Rall isn't the only left-wing personality to sell his wares
at Revolution Books. Chris Hedges, a former New York Times
correspondent, appeared at the Community Church of New York on
November 8 for the "first release party" in New York City of his
book, The Death of the Liberal Class. It was a benefit evening for
Revolution Books, with proceeds from ticket and book sales going to
the Maoist bookstore.
Revolution Books, which also has a bookstore near the University of
California at Berkeley campus, is devoted not only to Mao but RCP
chairman Bob Avakian. Like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Avakian
came out of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the group
that laid siege to college campuses before turning into the terrorist
Weather Underground.
Interestingly, recent visitors to Revolution Books in New York City
found a large pencil drawing of Cornel West, a Marxist academic and a
member of Obama's Black Advisory Council during his 2008 presidential
run. The drawing was being auctioned off to benefit the communist
bookstore. West had debated Carl Dix of the RCP at an event sponsored
by Revolution Books. A DVD is now available of the debate and is
titled, "The ascendancy of Obama and the Continued Need for
Resistance and Liberation."
According to the DVD, "Proceeds from this historic evening went to
Revolution Books NYC and the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund,
which provides subsidized subscriptions of Revolution newspaper and
other revolutionary literature to prisoners."
As stated, the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund provides
copies of the RCP newspaper to criminals in prison. To understand the
impact, consider this letter [6] from a prisoner posted on the website:
"The recent issue #213 that was a special issue on Israel was
excellent in its portrayal of the Imperialist attack dog known as the
state of Israel. Most people don't make the connection that what
Israel is doing to the Palestinians, how it is oppressing the
Palestinians is the same treatment all oppressed people get
worldwide, of course on different levels."
When there were indications that copies of the communist paper were
being held back from the criminal population, the ACLU went into
action, threatening a lawsuit against prison officials.
This program is supposed to guarantee that once the criminals get out
of prison, they will be committed communists.
One of the supporters of the program to send "revolutionary"
literature to criminals is Lynne Stewart, identified on the website
as "A highly respected 'peoples' attorney in NY who is presently
appealing a prison sentence of her own." Stewart has since been
sentenced to 10 years in prison for providing illegal support to one
of her clients, Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik
responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
On the radio show called "Democracy Now," a platform for left-wing
extremist views, Cornel West described [7] where he differs with his
"brother" and "comrade" Carl Dix: "I think probably I am a free
Jesus-loving black man, and he's my dear secular, atheistic,
revolutionary communist comrade. So we disagree on the God question.
We disagree probably on what it means to engage in revolutionary
transformation of a capitalist society. I am a democratic socialist;
he's a revolutionary communist. I'm pink; he's red."
Whether pink or Red, it is certainly significant that people like
Cornel West, Chris Hedges, and Ted Rall are appearing under the
auspices of a bookstore that promotes "the foremost Maoist
revolutionary in the United States" and "a major leader of the
international communist movement," as Avakian describes himself.
His website [8] goes on, "Bob Avakian is the visionary leader of a
Maoist vanguard party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, which has
its sights on the revolutionary seizure of power and the radical
transformation of society in the colossus that is late imperial
Americaall as part of a worldwide process of revolutionary struggle
whose final aim is communism, a world without exploitative and
oppressive relations and the corresponding political structures,
institutions, and ideas and culture."
One is tempted to laugh at such rhetoric, except for the fact that
the RCP bookstore attracts such notables as former New York Times
reporter Chris Hedges, Obama supporter Cornel West, and MSNBC-TV
guest and syndicated cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall.
Fellow travelers, or dupes, have made communism and its crimes
possible over the course of history. But when or if the "late
imperial America" becomes a reality and the communists take over, the
dupes will be among the first victims of the "New Socialist Republic
in North America."
They will probably be begging for mercy in front of the communist
criminals their appearances helped raise funds to "educate." Mao
showed them the way.
--
End Notes:
[1] Revolutionary Communist Party: http://revcom.us/rcp-e.htm
[2] a guest on the Dylan Ratigan show:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/11/08/liberal_columnist_urges_violence_and_revolution.html
[3] posted it: http://www.rall.com/rallblog/events
[4] Universal Press Syndicate:
http://universaluclick.com/editorial/cartoons/rallcom
[5] pulled from the MSNBC.com website: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4893131/
[6] this letter:
http://www.prlf.net/content/repression-suffered-palestinians-hands-israelis-%E2%80%A6-must-be-pulled-out-roots-imperialist-roots
[7] described:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/22/cornel_west_and_carl_dix_on
[8] website: http://bobavakian.net/about.html
.
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