Soviet Propaganda Abroad

One would think that there would be more information available dealing with Soviet propaganda during the Vietnam war. Unfortunately, there isn't. I have touched upon this before and have provided some insight into Communist groups funding and organizing recent peace protests in D.C. It may sound like the some ridiculous rant taken from the McCarthy playbook, but that is what the Soviets were hoping we'd think (see italicized text below). Could it be that history is repeating itself? I planon delving into this further by analyzing the source material. For now, here is a blurb taken from Wikipedia; links were left in for "easy access."

"Propaganda abroad was partly conducted by Soviet intelligence agencies. GRU alone spent more than $1 billion for propaganda and peace movements against the Vietnam War, which was a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost", according to GRU defector Stanislav Lunev [9].
He claimed that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad". [9]
According to Oleg Kalugin, "the Soviet intelligence was really unparalleled. ... The KGB programs -- which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women's movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS was invented by the CIA ... all sorts of forgeries and faked material -- [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at the public at
large." [10]
Propaganda against the United States included the following actions [11]:

Promotion of false John F. Kennedy assassination theories, using writer Mark Lane.
Discreditation of the CIA, using historian Philip Agee (codenamed PONT).
Spreading rumors that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was a homosexual.
Attempts to discredit Martin Luther King, Jr. by placing publications portraying him as an "Uncle Tom" who was secretly receiving government subsidies.
Stirring up racial tensions in the United States by mailing bogus letters from the Ku Klux Klan, placing an explosive package in "the Negro section of New York" (operation PANDORA), and spreading conspiracy theories that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination had been planned by the US government.
Fabrication of the story that AIDS virus was manufactured by US
scientists at Fort Detrick; the story was spread by Russian-born biologist Jakob Segal Senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov made the claim to writer Pete Earley that the KGB "created the myth of nuclear winter" as disinformation (see Sergei Tretyakov for details), although Earley said that the accuracy of this claim "is impossible to
discern",[12] and subsequent studies using more advanced climate models have continued to support the hypothesis (see nuclear winter). "

Bush Heckler Arrested After Punching Wheelchair-Bound Girl

Is it fair to put anti-war weenies into the same category as this loser?
Probably not.
Do I care?
No.

Bush Heckler Arrested After Punching Wheelchair-Bound Girl
Thursday , April
24, 2008

A man heckling First Lady Laura Bush and
daughter Jenna outside the 92nd Street Y was arrested after he punched a
wheelchair-bound girl whose parents had told him to shut up, authorities said
Wednesday.
German Talis, 22, was shouting obscenities at the Bushes, who
were leaving the building Tuesday, when he crossed paths with Wendy and John
Lovetro and their daughter Maureen, 18, who has cerebral palsy.
They had been in the audience to hear the Bushes talk about their children's book, "Read All About It."
"He began yelling about Iraq and Iran at Jenna Bush. She was
waving at the crowd. I told the guy, 'What are you doing? Shut up. This is about
a child and books,' " said John Lovetro. "He was unperturbed. I said, 'Get out
of here! You're being a moron!' "
The next thing he knew, Talis was allegedly punching Maureen, a fan of the first lady since meeting her in 2004.

Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?

Believe it or not, I actually did a lip-sync (remember those) in Middle School to a Megadeth song of the same name as the above title. It meant little to me then(1980s), but it makes a lot more sense to me today then yesteryear(s). Today while driving to work, a red, old,beat-up looking eco-car was trying to pass me on the left. Looking over from my comfy SUV I noticed the male driver looked disheveled and appeared to be suffering from an extreme case of "Angst" and "Ennui". On his dashboard was a beat up old hackey sack, some change and other gunk. As the car struggled to pass me with it's rusty undercarriage and pint size wheels, I slowed down and let him pass. I find myself doing this more often than not, as for some reason, be it ESP, or simply conditioning, I asked myself "Yup, I wonder what stupid bumper stickers this guy has?" Sure as the driven rain, on the right side was a "Bush's last day" bumper sticker showing the Jan 2009 date, and on the left side was one that had a picture of President Bush that read "America's number one terrorist."
Now, normally this wouldn't bother me as I am used to it, but for some reason I got angry. Then I remembered: an hour earlier I had been watching the news where there was a report about a bomb going off outside a recruiting station in downtown Manhattan. It later turns out the bicycle "bomber" allegedly sent some anti-war letters to congress in protest of the war in Iraq. So let me get this straight, in an effort to create "peace" some yahoos decide to bomb a recruiting station? I mean give me a friggin' break here.
So this brings me back to the bumper sticker guy. I have no problem with somebody expressing themselves, but when an American slaps on a bumper sticker saying that President Bush is the number one terrorist, it makes me mad. Not because he is making fun of Bush, but because it is a slap in the face to all the men and women, especially military men and women, who are overseas busting their ass getting shot at and dying in order to secure two countries we were asked and paid for to go save 17 and 19 years ago, respectively. The former being the same country whose leader, uncle Saddam, kept us there by constantly bullshitting and bribing the United Nations (not to mention the fact they were constantly firing at our aircraft) and the latter country, Afghanistan, whose ass we saved from the Soviets. These efforts are what that bumper sticker is speaking to; essentially that anybody fighting these current wars are carrying out terrorist acts. Am I going overboard here? No, I am not. The War on Terror (WOT) or whatever one wants to call it, has by no means run like clockwork, but these are important, nay, very important times, and the WOT is far greater than President Bush alone. From spouses who are separated from their loved one to those who lost loved ones, Americans are out there sacrificing and frankly, the general population couldn't give two shits about it.
To the bums who tried to blow up a recruitment station, like-minded individuals and yes, even bumper sticker boy, truthfully I don't respect your opinion and to quote a good Marine who appeared in one of my videos I posted below, "You suck."

Anti-War Protests in DC Funded By The Revolutionary Communist Party

Iraqi Gives Thanks At Pro-Troop Rally (Ok, this was a pro-troop rally but was later interrupted by anti-war "activists" crashing the Party).






Iraqi's Give Thanks At Pro-Troop Rally Part 2: The "Peace" Movement Strikes Back





Pro-Troopers Sound Off

Comrades and the Peace Movement: The Vietnam Redux

If any of you have seen any of the videos I have posted that deal with the peace rallies in DC, some may say I am going overboard or painting everything with a broad pink brush. I wish that were true, but the fact of the matter is the vast majority of groups represented at these anti-war rallies are not what they claim to be. They claim they are for "peace", yet support tyranical regimes. They claim they are against war, but are silent about wars, which have been fought in the name of utopian societies as we see in communist or socialist regimes e.g. China, Cuba and Venezuela. They are all too quick to condemn the USA for pouring water over terrorist masterminds' faces, but turned a blind eye to Saddam's past transgressions or Iran's murdering of gays, political detractors or their strapping of cords around teenagers and old women's necks to to be hoisted up slowly by crane in a public square for all to see. I have seen these things; it is truly heart-wrenching, and yet I don't see the streets of Washington DC filled with angry activists condemning such actions.
This brings me to Vietnam and the propaganda machine they had going. Vietnam, I admit, is very similar to what is going on in Iraq. First, however, let's get the differences out of the way; Vietnam was never a threat to us, nor did they have 16 UN resolution slapped upon them, nor was there intelligence indicating they may give bio or chemical weapons to proxy agents, nor did they bribe the UN and other not so United Nations i.e. France, Russia, Germany etc., nor did the Vietcong plan to reconstitute a nuclear program after sanctions were lifted due to the bribing of said countries. What is very similar, aside from the fact that the USA lost not a single military battle in either theater, is that we lost and are losing the information war. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and in that vein, perception and the not-so-invisible hand of public opinion is mightier than the A-Bomb.
The Vietcong reveled at the site of dead Vietnamese civilians for its propaganda value, whether caused by the USA or not, much like al-Qaeda gloats when it can cause as much havoc as possible. The formula is simple, the more chaos created that will be pinned on the Superpower the better; the side with the big guns, regardless of the fact that the US military practically jumps through its own rear end to avoid civilian casualties, will always look like the bully. A lot of these peace protesters, hard as it is to imagine, want the US to lose. Yes, I will say it again: A lot of peace protesters want the US to lose. This is the same attitude the prevailed during the Vietnam era, and it worked. What is more chilling, is the fact that the same communist utopian ideological groups whose agenda it was to see the US raise the white flag, bowing to Soviet interests, are of the same cloth as those funding anti-war rallies today, see below. Just think about this: If the same media we have today were embedded with US troops during World War II, we probably would be living in very different, German speaking if you will, world. Scary isn't it?
One can debate the merits for why the US intervened in the later wars. That is another topic for another day, but the fact remains that when the media starts playing politics and foreign media picks up our news and broadcasts thousands of people pontificating in the streets of DC calling Bush a war criminal and the US government filthy liars, it does nothing but embolden those who wish to do us harm. And as far as I am concerned, I would rather keep my moral compass away from those who are trying to kill me.

Here are some Wikipedia.org blurbs dealing with the main groups funding today's "peace" rallies:

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP, USA), known originally as the
Revolutionary Union, is a Maoist-oriented communist party formed in 1975 in the
United States.

United for Peace and Justice
Ms. Cagan was a founder of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off group of the Communist Party in America.

Workers World Party (WWP) is a communist party in the United States founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy. During the Civil Rights Movement the WWP had a youth movement, "Youth Against War and Fascism", which opposed the Vietnam War. Workers World and YAWF were also notable for their consistent defense of the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground along with Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

Other groups affiliated, albeit more clandestinely, with communist agendas:

http://www.answercoalition.org/

International Action Center

Not In Our Name

All People's Congress

And here some more blurbs from Wikipedia.org:

Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small
but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party,
which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary
and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese
government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.

Racism and Misogynism From the Left?

To be honest, I think most people should just loosen up and stop playing gotcha politics. I very recently was reading a blog that insinuated Conservatives were fascists and that if they didn't want to be deemed as such then they shouldn't make fascist comments. In that vein,"Fascism" gets thrown around a lot these days, without anybody really knowing the true meaning of the word. Fascism is often considered the antithesis of Communism. This however is not really the case; they are both totalitarian, consisting of a one party system, whose goal is to make everybody fall under nationalistic lockstep and collectivism, whether they want it or not. The Nazis were a socialist system of government; their name comes from Nationalsozialisten (Nation Socialists). Communism differs slightly in that it claims to support the common worker, albeit exploitative, over the State. Left leaning groups today illogically denounce conservative opponents as fascists when in reality fascism and communism are cut from the same cloth. One of the most commonly used tactics is to characterize the other side as being racist, whereas in the past it was more common to deem the "Main Adversary" as imperialists.

Wikipedia:

Fascism is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a cult of personality and unquestioned obedience to orders (Führerprinzip). Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.


Conservatism in the United States comprises a constellation of political ideologies including fiscal conservatism, free market or economic liberalism, social conservatism, libertarianism, bioconservatism and religious conservatism,[2]
as well as support for a strong military, small government, and states' rights.

As we can see from the above. Conservatism and its roots in limited government and unabashed support for individual freedom, through its strong libertarian base, is hardly in line with fascism. The following are some quotes or musings by liberals that could be construed as racist or misogynist. Personally, I don't believe the people writing them are any more so than conservatives who bash Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson or whomever else for that matter. The difference is, conservatives would NEVER get a way with it, and it's racial undertones. I find this strange considering that the GOP was the Northern, pro-business, anti-slavery party, where the Democrats were, at the time mind you, the pro slavery party.


From Opinion's Journal about cartoon appearing in New York Times:
"One of Mr. Danziger's recent illustrations features National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as a semi-literate mammy. Ms. Rice--a Russia scholar, former provost of Stanford University and concert pianist--is drawn barefoot and wearing a housedress. Mr. Danziger forgot to put a handkerchief on her head, but the size of her lips has been exaggerated sufficiently to make up for that oversight. She's sitting in a rocking chair and nursing an aluminum tube as though it were an infant. The caption reads: 'I KNOWS ALL ABOUT ALUMINUM TUBES! (Correction) I DON'T KNOW NUTHIN' ABOUT ALUMINUM TUBES . . .'


Comment by Andrew M. Alexander:
- But Rall saved his vilest slurs for National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. In a panel titled, "Sent to inner-city racial re-education camp," Rall depicts Condoleezza Rice confronting a black man wearing a t-shirt that reads, "You're not white, stupid." The man says, "Now hand over your hair straightener." Ms. Rice protests, "I was Bush's beard! His house nigga!"


From the Independent Woman's Forum:
-Consider America's greatest political cartoonists. Hands down, my favorite is Aaron McGruder and the cutting political satire reflected in his cartoon strip, The Boondocks. That being said, I must admit that I do enjoy the barbed satire of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury. Recently, Trudeau's political observations ran a red light in referring to the nation's National Security Advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, a black woman, as "brown sugar." Frankly, the political satire in the April 7, 2004 Doonesbury escapes me and most women I know, black or white, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican. It draws on centuries of deep-rooted, wicked and indefensible portrayals of black women. In doing so, it is decidedly unfunny. The only purpose served by this cartoon strip is that it proved one sad fact: despite the contentions of many, in 21st century America, race and gender still matter.


- “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.... He is an absolutely reprehensible person.” -- USA Today columnist and Pacifica Radio talk show host Julianne Malveaux on Justice Clarence Thomas, Nov. 4, 1994, on PBS’s “To the Contrary.”

From the Smoking Gun:
- OCTOBER 27--A Florida man has been charged with attempting to run over controversial Republican congresswoman Katherine Harris with his Cadillac. According to the below Sarasota Police Department report, Barry Seltzer, 46, told cops that he was simply exercising his "political expression" when he drove his car at Harris and several supporters, who were campaigning last night at a Sarasota intersection. Seltzer--pictured at right in a booking photo--allegedly drove up on a sidewalk and headed directly for Harris before swerving "at the last minute." Harris told officers that "she was afraid for her life and could not move as the vehicle approached her," according to the report. For his part, Seltzer--who's a registered Democrat--told cops, "I intimidated them with the car. They were standing in the street."

Comments made afterPhilip Edgar Smith and William Zachary Wolf threw pies at Anne Coulter:

"The skank can shift ass on a dime" Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott

"It would take a lot more than one cream pie to sweeten that sourpuss up! We hear she kills rats with her teeth and eats broken bottles for breakfast"


Here are some liberal cartoons in question:

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1113079/posts
http://mhking.mu.nu/archives/049887.php
http://www.cagle.com/working/041116/cagle00.gif
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/kni/lowres/knin153l.jpg
http://www.rightwingnews.com/graphics/racistcondi.jpg
http://planetsean.blogspot.com/condi.jpg
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/oliphant_rice.gif
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/MrFish/images/CondiSealion.gif

Welcome

This blog isn't about me or any particular axe I have to grind. This is about trying to be successful in a very complicated battle between Western civilization and guerrilla forces wrongly invoking the name of God as a cover for their cult of terrorism. The current situation goes deeper than this however; this deals with exploiting one group to pit them against another. Such is the case with the Soviet Union successfully being able to help convince much of the world, especially the Third world, that Americans were nothing but greedy imperialists hellbent on dominating the world. This sentiment has been carried over in the shape of leftist college professors and so-called anti-war protesters. The anti-war movement is certainly nothing new. While there are some legitimate peacenicks, the vast majority are, often unwittingly, pawns of an ideology that cares not about peace, but the downfall of Western Society. Most of what I will be posting deals with Soviet/communist propaganda and how this has influenced public opinion from the Cold War up until now.
v/r
USNAVYVET2002

Reds Still

Reds Still
The story no one wants to hear about the antiwar movement.

By Byron York

When thousands of protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue during the big antiwar demonstration in Washington on January 18, they just happened to pass the national headquarters of the College Republicans. And on that afternoon there just happened to be some young Republicans inside, drinking wine and hanging out. When they heard all the commotion outside and saw the protest going by — they hadn't known their office was on the route — they couldn't help making a statement.

The students pulled a dry-erase board off the wall and wrote a simple message: "Hippies Go Home." They took it out to their second-floor balcony overlooking the march, and what followed was what diplomats sometimes call a frank exchange of ideas.

"F*** YOU!" a group of the protesters yelled. "Nazis!" someone shouted. Others began chanting: "Hey hey! Ho ho! Yuppie f***s have got to go!" The College Republicans seemed to enjoy it all, smiling and waving and making peace signs. They enjoyed it so much that after a while, they found another board and made a sign that said: "Saddam Kills." That seemed to particularly agitate the protesters. "Bush kills too!" they screamed. "Bush kills too!"

It all made for good street theater, but in one sense the young Republicans had it wrong. If they had really wanted to get to the heart of the matter, they might have raised a sign that said, "Commies Go Home." While that wouldn't have been fair to most of the marchers, it would have been a direct hit at the people who organized the demonstration — and who are the most forceful voices in today's antiwar movement.

The protest was put together by a group called International ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.

At the demonstration, which many media reports portrayed as a gathering of mainstream Americans, speaker after speaker condemned the United States with ancient Communist rhetoric: "revolution," "struggle," "oppressed peoples," "imperialism," and "liberation." One speaker even addressed her fellow protesters as "comrades." Given the impressive strength of the public-address system, it felt like a literal blast from the past. And if the subject had not been so serious, it might have seemed almost quaint. But the demonstration's organizers, perhaps unwittingly, made a very serious point: More than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, and long after most Americans stopped worrying about the Red Menace, a significant part of the movement that has risen up in opposition to war in Iraq is, in essence, a Communist front.

COMRADE BRIAN
Perhaps the most visible face of the demonstration was its co-director and chief spokesman, Brian Becker. Becker got a lot of exposure in the days leading up to the rally; he was quoted in newspaper articles, appeared on TV, and did radio interviews to promote the event. A member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party — and called by some the party's house intellectual — Becker is a contributor to the party's newspaper, Workers World, as well as a top official of International ANSWER and the International Action Center.

There is an almost central-casting quality to Becker's Communism. For example, in a December 2000 address to the Workers World Party conference in New York, Becker began by discussing issues raised by "comrades" who had recently been to Cuba and then launched into a detailed and impassioned analysis of Marxism and revolution. Becker stressed that the Workers World Party had "supported the Soviet Union against imperialism and domestic counter-revolution." He praised the Soviets for having "sent invaluable aid to Vietnam, Cuba, the African National Congress in South Africa, and other national-liberation movements." He railed against "U.S. imperialism." And he concluded: "We know that the biggest single contribution that we can we make to the final transition to socialism everywhere is to build a truly revolutionary party that can lead the struggle to overthrow imperialism at its center."

These days, with the Soviet Union long dead, Becker spends much of his time supporting rogue regimes. Last August, he traveled to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Ramsey Clark. In an article in Workers World, he bitterly condemned the "lawless aggression" of the "imperialist" and "racist" U.S. air patrols enforcing the no-fly zone. In early 2000, Becker traveled to North Korea to help build what he had earlier called "a movement of genuine solidarity" with Pyongyang. Accompanying Becker was a WWP writer, who described the deep impression North Korea made on them. "Wherever we went and whomever we spoke with," she wrote, "what impressed us the most was the unbreakable determination of the North Korean people to defend their socialist society against U.S. imperialism."

Such statements do not add up to the ideal profile for a leader in an antiwar movement that seeks broad mainstream support. But don't suggest that to Becker. At a news conference the day before the protest, he grew angry when asked about his association with the WWP. "I want to talk about you," he said. "National Review is a racist pro-war magazine. It's got a long — many, many generations of racism and militarism. So your so-called interest in the Left is complete bulls**t. You're just looking to try to divide the antiwar movement. This is a right-wing, racist, militarist magazine. You should be embarrassed to be working for it." End of conversation.

OBNOXIOUS
Becker is not the only WWP activist who played a key role in the January 18 demonstration. Another co-organizer — and M.C. — of the event was a man named Larry Holmes. A member of the Workers World Party secretariat, Holmes has run for president twice on the WWP ticket. At the rally, he used his time to lecture the crowd on the plight of political prisoners in the U.S. He cited two examples, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Al-Amin (better known as H. Rap Brown), who have both been convicted of murdering police officers and have become causes célèbres in radical circles. "There are so many political prisoners," Holmes told the crowd. "They want peace more than any of us, and they're in prison for fighting for it."

Yet another member of the WWP secretariat, a woman named Sara Flounders, also spoke at the rally, denouncing George W. Bush's "racist arrogance" and "plans for criminal war of colonial conquest." In addition, the crowd heard from representatives of other groups — the Free Palestine Alliance, Free the Cuban Five, and the Korea Truth Commission — that are apparently front organizations associated with the WWP. By the time the rally was over the audience had heard enough cries of "Butcher Sharon!," "We don't want your racist war!," and "Free Mumia" to last for many months to come.

For outside observers, the effect of it all was to raise questions about the real nature of the peace movement. "The Workers World Party is one of the most obnoxious groups on the far Left," says Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who studies the antiwar movement. The WWP exercises influence, Zunes explains, by its sheer energy and resourcefulness. "Historically, you have these groups that are just able to out-organize anybody else. One thing you can say about Marxist/Leninist groups is that at least in the organization stage, they are very efficient." The Workers World Party has simply out-hustled other leftist groups in the work of getting parade permits and organizing big events. According to Zunes, that has created a problem for more moderate antiwar organizations. "It causes division among the non-authoritarian Left groups. They say, 'Do we march at a rally organized by a group like this? I don't feel comfortable with this, but it's the only game in town.'"

But it is not at all clear that other Left groups are truly distressed by the WWP's tactics. In interviews with several representatives of peace-movement groups, most declined to condemn the politics of Brian Becker and his associates. "Good for them for having the wherewithal to call the demonstrations," says Scott Lynch, a spokesman for Peace Action, considered the largest antiwar group in the country. "This is ANSWER's dance, and they get to call the tune." Leslie Cagan, a long-time antiwar activist with the group United for Peace, adds, "We are at a point where it is really, really critical that many, many groups come out and voice their opposition to this war. Some in the hard-core Left have taken the lead on that, and I applaud those groups for that."

But others have their fears. "These groups with the more radical agenda get a lot of media attention," says Bob Edgar, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches who is helping lead a new, more centrist antiwar group called Win Without War. "I don't think they discredit the movement, but they turn off some [people] in Middle America."

If anyone in the crowd on January 18 was turned off, there was little evidence of it. Most people seemed to listen enthusiastically to the WWP speakers. But the WWP has no more than a couple of thousand members in the world, and there can't be enough Marxist-Leninists to fill a large portion of the National Mall. So why did they listen?

The answer appeared to be this: Because they hate George W. Bush. Yes, they oppose a war, but the thing that seemed to unite the attendees was an intense hostility toward the president. The signs they carried seethed with rage and condescension. "He Is A Moron . . . And A Bully," said one. Another denounced "Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld: The Real Axis of Evil."

There were old peaceniks: "We've been marching for peace since 1960, and it hasn't happened yet," one gray-haired couple said. There were college students doing their best imitations of hippies. And there were the assorted nuts, like the man who stood naked, but for his underwear, in the 24-degree cold, inviting people to use felt-tipped pens to inscribe peace messages on his shivering flesh (he said he wanted to "get people together on my body — literally, everyone signing up for peace").

Speaker after speaker claimed that the crowd represented the "real America," the millions who are said to passionately oppose a war to oust Saddam Hussein. And that was the way the rally was covered in the press. One fairly typical report on MSNBC said the demonstration included "a growing number of people [who] are speaking out against a war with Iraq — students, grandparents, businessmen, politicians, teachers, actors, and activists, standing shoulder to shoulder in protest."

Newspaper reports largely ignored what was said on the stage; the New York Times and Washington Post failed to mention much of anything that was said by ANSWER's speakers. The Times editorial page said the demonstration "represented what appears to be a large segment of the American public . . . [and was] impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers."

Surely the Times editorialist did not actually attend the march. And surely he or she has not spent much time listening to Brian Becker and his WWP allies. Many on the left are trying to will themselves to believe that there is a massive, grass-roots, centrist opposition to war in Iraq rising in the heartland — and finding its voice in rallies like the one on January 18. Perhaps that sounds plausible to people who weren't there. But not to anyone who was.