The hot dog vendor must have had Obama's favorite Dijon mustard

I had been thinking about the level of angst from the nutroots that had posted on William’s blog, and how they missed the point altogether because of their fear of someone having a dig at their messiah, and it suddenly struck me that 2 female journalists might have had to go change their undies after such an in depth report ROFL

You have certainly opened my eyes up to some new theories. My only hope is that he can open wide and swallow our national debt.

I love the Graphic.

Yes, “thoroughly addressed” and thoroughly debunked. Zero evidence was even presented that he “advocated communism.” It is regrettable that a member of an unjustly maligned group, such as yourself, would willingly engage in spreading false accusations against anyone else.

Or are you privy to some heretofore undisclosed information?

Please note that even Paul Kengor wrote that “Davis always tried to conceal any communist associations .” Professor Edgar Tidwell said he was a “closet communist.” He did not advocate communism.

Frank Marshall Davis rejected collectivism. He was a capitalist. He owned two paper companies, and sold advertising specialties, in Hawaii. He joined the CPUSA because of the professional and social opportunities it presented. He joined the CPUSA during WWII, just as the United States joined the Soviet Union during WWII, not because they shared the delusion of a communist utopia. Each was a marriage of convenience. He joined because membership had its privileges, such as professional and social opportunities. He considered membership in the CPUSA as a “vehicle and tool” because, according to “The New Red Negro” (cited by AIM’s Cliff Kincaid as a source):

“ONLY the Communist left had any significant institutional impact on African-American writing during the 1930s and 1940s. This support was crucial as the institutions that had maintained the New Negro Renaissance faded. And for better or for worse, the leading CPUSA functionaries involved in “Negro work” took a direct interest in African-American cultural production in a manner that was unusual, if not unique.

Vilifying a writer for continuing to publish in CPUSA-supported publications, when they provided his only significant institutional support, is completely unfair. Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Frank Marshall Davis all took advantage of this institutional support.

Further, as The New Red Negro makes clear, there was no monolithic Stalinist doctrine within the CPUSA: “This is not to say that the impact of the Communist Left on African-American writers in the 1930′s and 1940′s flowed from absolute unity of ideology and practical application of that ideology. As mentioned before, the CPUSA itself, despite the claims of both the party leadership and its most ardent detractors, contained various, often conflicting tendencies. This conflicts appeared within top leadership, where Earl Browder and William Z. Foster and their supporters were frequently at odds. They also surfaced in the regional leadership of important districts that were occasionally, and in the case of southern California frequently, in opposition to the national leadership. Finally, at the rank-and-file level, when leadership debates broke out into the open (as they did in 1929, 1956-1946, and 1956), the were replayed in almost every CPUSA unit, often serving as the vehicle for the expression of a wide range of “unorthodox” political beliefs (ranging from social democratic to anarcho-syndicalist.”

“A huge proportion of African-American poets (and writers and intellectuals generally) remained engaged with the Communist Left and cultural institutions from at least the early 1930′s until at least the early 1950′s. With the partial exception of the period from the German invasion of the Soviet Union to the end of the Second World War, the CPUSA placed the issue of race and the fight against Jim Crow near the center of all its work.”

The bottom line is that communist ties were the NORM for African American poets and civil right activists during that period. Such ties did not mean that they internalized Marxist values, much less Stalinist values, even if they were aware of the distinction. To them, the CPUSA provided safe harbor from the ravages of Jim Crow America.

For those who question whether anyone would join the CPUSA without internalizing collectivist values, examples abound in more recent developments. Russians and Chinese joined their respective Communist parties because membership was important to professional advancement. Mikhail Gorbachev rejected these values in dismantling the Soviet Union. Leaders of the PRC’s capitalist boom are nevertheless pro forma Party members.

Even today people join some organizations, such as churches and the YMCA, without internalizing their core values because membership has its advantages. I believe everyone will agree that many so-called “Christians” have not internalized Christian values. Some could argue that Stalinism perverted the core values of Marxism, just as the Spanish Inquisition and pedophile priests perverted the core values of Christianity.

Thank you for keeping an open mind and objectively evaluating the evidence, rather than accepting the deliberate misrepresentation regarding my father spread by professional prevaricators of the blogosphere.