American Youth: The Latest Tool of the American Left

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday April 01, 2003 02:52 by Max - PLS

By Kerri Houston March 24, 2003

The "peace" movement is a spork. You know, that hybrid utensil of unknown origin and dubious utility whose parts seem to have no logical relationship with each other.

Like the spork, the anti-war demonstrators are an amalgam -- in this case, a combination of manipulators and the clueless. The movement also shares composition with this plastic implement -- artificial, fake -- and is equally as useless. Ever tried to eat soup or spear a piece of meat with a spork?

Communism and socialism are proven failures as political and economic systems. Humiliating defeats include the end of the Soviet Union, followed by the emergence of former eastern bloc nations that are stellar examples of free market economies, technology-based governments and definitive, sensible foreign policy. Despite these planet-wide defeats, hard left activists in our own country have never given up hope for emergence as a political force.

In President Bush's drive to rid the world of terrorist threats, opportunity has knocked.

In a recent National Review article entitled "Follow the Money," contributor Byron York carefully chronicled the trail of cash financing demonstrations and organizers. According to York's research, the anti-war group Not In Our Name -- front and center as an organizing force both on the ground and in the media -- has connections to the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party.

One of its founders, Clark Kissinger -- a longtime supporter of Maoist policies in China, got his feet wet in anti-government activism during the flower-power 60s -- first with the Students for a Democratic Society and then with the Black Panthers. He is the pointy end of the spork -- not a guy you would want your kids hanging out with.

Fortunately for democracy and freedom, American communists cannot find enough bodies to create a protest large enough to warrant news coverage. Enter America's children.

Last fall, the National Geographic Society surveyed students in nine countries to test proficiency in world geography. American students failed miserably -- 87% could not find Iraq on a map; 83% could not find Afghanistan. Seventy percent couldn't even find New Jersey.

In another recent survey, only 19% of American high school students could identify Condoleezza Rice as the President's National Security Advisor or Kofi Annan as the U.N. Secretary-General. Answers to the question "Who is the Prime Minister of Israel?" included Russian President Vladimir Putin and PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat.

Yet thanks to organizers from Not In Our Name and other leftist organizations, some of these same American students have been hitting the streets protesting Bush Administration policies about which they know nothing, regarding a country that they can't find.

Some of them just like skipping class and getting on TV, but others really believe they are doing the right thing, not knowing that they are being manipulated by a political force they cannot even begin to understand. Kids make for great press and provide the anti-national security team the numbers that they cannot produce by honest means.

Another leftist group organizing anti-war protests around the world is ANSWER -- Act Now To Stop War and Racism. This organization is a downline front group for the Stalinist Workers World Party. These people could care less about the potential war -- they are anarchists battling America and everything it stands for and using the Iraq situation to stick their jackboots in the door of America's youth.

Interestingly, the blatantly anti-Israel and pro-Saddam stance of ANSWER has brought harsh criticism from an unexpected quarter -- the American left itself. The leftist e-zine Salon.com has criticized ANSWER for its racist posturing, and Marc Cooper, contributing editor to liberal The Nation magazine, has circulated a public letter signed by prominent leftists condemning the actions of this group.

Most parents whose children are participating in "peace" rallies probably have no idea that their kids are being mixed with a batch of hardcore Marxists and Stalinists. Kids marching for "peace" are merely pawns of organizations dedicated to destroying the way of life and the freedoms that these young people and their families enjoy in these United States.

Another one of America's children is on a ship heading to Iraq. When his mother wrote to him asking if he would object to her marching in an anti-war protest, Navy Corpsman Lonnie J. Lewis responded; "What type of country would we be if we didn't defend the rights and freedoms of others, not because they're Americans, but just because they're human?"

"My life is an easy expense to ensure that my family and friends can live in peace ... wish you were here to see ... the honor and privilege that American soldiers aboard this ship are feeling."

"My family is first. My country is where they live. I will defend it."

God bless you, Lonnie, and your comrades in arms. In your honor, we will recall the first principles of our nation and our society -- and toss the unhelpful and offending spork of anti-peace activism into the trash heap of forgotten history.

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Kerri Houston is Vice President of Policy for Frontiers of Freedom, http://www.ff.org, a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization dedicated to protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans and restoring constitutional limits on the extent and power of government.