Posted on 01/19/2005 2:22:08 AM PST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Insisting that they are "not criminals, they are patriots," an array of Bush-bashing protesters are making last minute plans for their Inauguration Day demonstrations in Washington. However, the protesters have more in common than an aversion to war. They have a history of sympathizing with America's enemies including North Korea and Cuba, and look to a former U.S. attorney general for guidance.
"We're coming in a spirit of non-violence," Shahid Buttar, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and political activist, emphasized, in a Jan. 12 news conference at the National Press Club, where various left-wing groups announced plans for "non-violent" protests.
Nancy Shia, organizer of Critical Mass and a self-described freelance photographer/activist, outlined plans for a Critical Mass bike ride on Inauguration Day. Her group's protest is intended to be "creative, not confrontational," she told reporters. "We intend to cooperate with police."
Jim Macdonald, a D.C. Anti-War Network (DAWN) organizer, said the group would be protesting the "war here at home on our civil liberties." The protests would "promote a world of peace and justice," he added.
Macdonald's group is planning a march, a rally, and civil disobedience in the form of a 'die-in,' featuring 1,000 black-draped coffins to symbolize the U.S. soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq.
Sister Shazza Nzingha, national chairwoman and founder of the National Alliance of Black Panthers, denounced what she called President Bush's "occupation of Iraq, his occupation of Palestine, his occupation of Haiti," and said her group would protest the president's "anti-people policies."
Lila Kaye of the Anarchist Resistance, which boasts of "smash[ing] a Secret Service checkpoint," burning an American flag, and "pelt[ing] the motorcade with trash" at the last Bush inauguration in 2001, said her group was also planning a non-violent march.
She said people worldwide are suffering from Bush's policies and that Thursday's protest will be an attempt to "stand in solidarity with those people." She added that Bush is responsible for "genocide."
Sarah Kauffman, field director for Turn Your Back on Bush (TYBOB), discussed the group's plan to protest "without signs, without pins, without placards." TYBOB members will turn their backs on the presidential motorcade to symbolize what they see as Bush turning his back on Iraq, the international community, the economy, the environment and schools.
Buttar said there will be "multiple actions all over the city," and "several thousand (people involved) at a minimum, but denied the existence of any kind of "grand organization."
However, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition were named as major players in the protests.
While these groups have been recognized for their large, noticeable protests over the years, they have also been accused of anti-American activity, and their leadership includes unapologetic sympathizers of regimes and political entities that are considered enemies of the United States.
Ramsey Clark is the answer
The International ANSWER Coalition is directed by Ramsey Clark, who rose to fame as U.S. attorney general for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, but since then has publicly defended radical regimes around the world and offered legal assistance to some of the world's most notorious and reviled figures.
Clark is currently part of the legal defense team for ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He also defended former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic in the International Criminal Court when Milosovic was charged with ethnic cleansing, and according to a November 2002 World Net Daily article, represented a Rwandan pastor who had been charged with participating in the genocide of Tutsi civilians.
In 1986, Clark reportedly defended the Palestine Liberation Organization in a lawsuit brought by the family of American Leon Klinghoffer, the tourist who was killed by PLO terrorists in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.
According to the Capital Research Center, Clark also founded the International Action Center (IAC), a spin-off of the Workers World Party (WWP), and has served as the official spokesman for the WWP since the early 1990s when he led the group's National Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East.
The Workers World Party, which describes itself as a "revolutionary socialist" political party in the United States, was founded in 1959, the same year Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba.
The WWP, according to the World Net Daily article, defended the Chinese communist government's use of tanks in its bloody suppression of pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Articles in Workers World, the WWP newspaper, blamed the students for "violent attacks on the soldiers," insisting the "events were a battle," and not, as many media organizations in the West characterized it, "a massacre."
While claiming to support workers' rights, the WWP defended the Soviet suppression of worker rebellions in Hungary in the 1950s, Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and Poland in the early 1980s, according to Politics1. The WWP also reportedly supported the 1991 KGB coup against then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
In May 2001, FBI Director Louis Freeh labeled the WWP a "domestic terrorist group" in a statement to several U.S. Senate committees. "Anarchists and extremist socialist groups ... such as the Workers World Party have an international presence and, at times, also represent a potential threat in the United States," Freeh said at the time.
Birds of a Feather
Clark is not the only link between International ANSWER and the International Action Center. The International ANSWER steering committee includes members of IAC and the two groups share office space at 39 West 14th Street in New York City, along with a long list of left-wing, anti-war activist groups, according to an April 2004 report by the Capital Research Center and a number of other reports.
"Basically, ANSWER is dominated by the IAC, which is largely a front for the Workers World Party ..." said Stephen Zunes, chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, in a 2003 report in the Mercury News.
In a statement on the Workers Work Party website, the group claims that its "anti-war and anti-racist movements" are part of a socialist vision. It advertises the International Action Center's inaugural protest and has a phone number for information about transportation.
According to Politics1, the WWP also currently or in the past has sponsored or directed groups like the All People's Congress, the Nicaragua Network, the Alliance for Global Justice, Pastors for Peace, the Korean Truth Commission, the Movement for a People's Assembly, the National People's Campaign, the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama and the Campaign to Stop Settlements in Occupied Palestine.
Politics1 data indicates that some of these groups also have members on the International ANSWER steering committee and work out of the New York City building on West 14th Street. Other groups claiming the same address are Millions for Mumia, the People's Video Network, VoteNoWar.org, VoteToImpeach.org, and the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five.
Sympathies for North Korean dictator
Brian Becker, national coordinator for International ANSWER and organizer of a number of anti-Bush anti-war rallies, is a supporter of North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong Il. According to Becker's own statements, he has spent considerable time in North Korea advocating for the reunification of the Korean peninsula and denouncing U.S. troop presence in the Demilitarized Zone.
Although President Bush included North Korea in his famous "Axis of Evil" speech and Kim's policies are said by some in the Bush administration to be responsible for the starvation and death of approximately 2 million North Koreans, Becker claimed in an interview in Pyongyang in March 2002 that it was the U.S. that had carried out a campaign of genocide against the North Korean people.
A 2003 National Review report revealed that Becker, in concert with the Workers World Party, was an aggressive supporter of the former Soviet Union and opponent of what Becker labeled "U.S. imperialism." He claimed the Soviets "sent invaluable aid to Vietnam, Cuba, the African National Congress in South Africa, and other national-liberation movements."
In support of Castro and the Sandinistas
United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), an "umbrella group" of over 100 left wing groups, including the Young Communist League, Communist Party USA, and various state communist parties, will also be involved in the Jan. 20 protests. The background of the UFPJ leadership is similar to that of International ANSWER.
Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator for UFPJ, is a known supporter of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, and in her time as director of the Cuba Information Project, defended Cuba against what she called the "brutality and power of the U.S. government," according to a February 2003 FrontPage Magazine report.
According to this report, Cagan in the late 1960s and early 1970s was allied with the Venceremos Brigades, a rebel group organized by Castro's intelligence agency, which trained "brigadistas" in guerilla warfare tactics.
In the mid 1980s, Cagan advocated the cause of the Marxist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua as coordinator of the National Mobilization for Justice and Peace in Central America. A FrontPage Magazine report claimed that Cagan led marches of up to 75,000 people against U.S. aid to the Contras who opposed the Sandinista government.
Code Pink, another prominent counter-inaugural group which falls under the umbrella of UFPJ, includes prominent anti-capitalists like Medea Benjamin, who played a key organizing role in the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization riots, according to a website for Global Exchange, another activist group headed by Benjamin. The riots in Seattle caused millions of dollars in property damage, according to numerous news reports.
Benjamin also served as project coordinator for the Institute for Food and Development Policy, which reportedly sent aid to the Sandinistas. Benjamin claimed in her book, "I, Senator" that she "fought Ronald Reagan's illegal and immoral war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua."
In a 2001 San Francisco Chronicle article, Benjamin was asked about protestors sympathizing with so-called enemies of U.S. foreign policy, including the communist Viet Cong and the Sandinistas. "There's no one who will talk about how the other side is good," she said.
In another Chronicle report, Benjamin was asked to compare communist Cuba, which she had visited in the 1980s, with the United States. "It seem[ed] like I died and went to heaven," she reportedly said of Cuba.
Who is Funding These Groups?
Observers of the anti-war movement have speculated about the way these organizations, International ANSWER in particular, are funded. According to the Capital Research Center, the groups are sponsored by non-profit, tax exempt groups. Individuals or organizations may make tax-deductible contributions to the 501(c)3 non-profit, which then transfers funds to the activist groups.
Tracing the funds, however, is "all but impossible," according to the CRC.
Contributions to International ANSWER or the International Action Center may be made through the People's Rights Fund, yet another group sharing the New York City address and categorized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit "charity."
When Shahid Buttar, the Washington, D.C., lawyer, was asked at the Jan 12 news conference how the counter-inaugural events would be funded, she stressed the unimportance of money, calling the efforts the "people's uprising."
Macdonald mentioned that a lot of donations came through the groups' websites, but named UFPJ as one of the "big, overarching groups." UFPJ contributed $1,500 for the protests, which Macdonald described as "our biggest funding source."
He emphasized that there hasn't been much funding otherwise. "We're doing this for free," using "resources of the people." Macdonald said those involved are "willing to be transparent."
"United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), an "umbrella group" of over 100 left wing groups, including the Young Communist League, Communist Party USA, and various state communist parties, will also be involved in the Jan. 20 protests. The background of the UFPJ leadership is similar to that of International ANSWER."
Communism is alive and active in the USA
I didn't know the United States invaded and occupied Palestine last night? Interesting....
Haiti? Oh yeah, the country President Clinton invaded.
Never confuse them with the facts.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1323639/posts
Nazis aren't hip: Unfortunately, Commies still are
Union Leader ^ | 1/19/05
They are confused by the facts......reality has no meaning...
ON THE NET...
http://inaugural.senate.gov/index.cfm
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http://www.counter-inaugural.org/index.php
For over thirty years Ramsey Clark has been a traitor to the United States and a staunch communist. A very evil man who should have been put in jail or deported to a third world dictator lead country. If he disappeared today I am sure he would not be missed.
"Insisting that they are "not criminals, they are patriots,"
And they're willing to destroy America to prove it.
How long have we occupied Palestine? This is the first I've heard of it!
Isn't Ramsey Clark getting pretty old by now?
I mean, he was appointed as attorney general, when middle-aged, by Lyndon Johnson.
Lyndon Johnson was, uh, a pretty long time ago.
Great article, kattracks. Very useful synopsis of the links between all these organizations as well as their core anti-Americanism.
~~~~~
Yes, and endorsed Kerry for President.
Perspective: Communist Party USA supports John Kerry
http://www.staugustine.com/stories/071404/opi_2435145.shtml
Publication Date: 07/14/04
The southern Democrats must be thrilled by the news that the Communist Party of The United States of America, CPUSA, is publicly supporting the election of John Kerry.
The CPUSA has made available on its Web site, cpusa.org, an advertisement entitled Top Ten Reasons To Defeat Bush. This advertisement can be downloaded. The communist party urges readers to place this ad in local newspapers throughout the country to defeat President Bush.
[snip]
The gnashing of teeth in all walks of life means the end times is near. The Harlot rules the day, the liar calls himself Jew, but is not.
Bolsheviks are the spawns of Satan, they are spreading venom in the U.S.A., through the ACLU, and the Mainstream Media.
OPs4 God BLess America!
This is John Kerry's base; the Communist party and all these organizations backed Kerry in this past election. If these activists were to try this in most any country other than their own, they would be thrown into jail or worse. It’s ironic to say the least.
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