Newsvine Politics News

Help The Cause

March 2011

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    

« Sunday's Web | Main | Tuesday's Web »

September 28, 2009

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54f8c40f588330120a5a464ba970b

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Monday's Web:

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Kaleokualoha

"We DO know young Obama’s mentor in Hawaii was a Frank Marshall Davis – an avowed member of the Communist Party – dispatched to Hawaii by his party with orders to recruit members and create a Communist cell on our 50th State."

How do we "know" this? Speculation is not knowledge. Obama denies Davis was his mentor. Davis was a closet CPUSA member, not an "avowed" member.

Although Obama's book indicates "Frank" was a family friend who offered him advice on racial issues, Obama wrote that Davis "fell short" and his views were "incurable." Obama did not even visit Davis for three years before going to college. Obama's book, itself, proves that Obama did not consider Davis to be a "wise and trusted counselor," which is the definition of "mentor." By what creative definition can Davis be considered his "mentor"?

Do you have any primary source evidence that he was "dispatched to Hawaii by his party with orders to recruit members and create a Communist cell on our 50th State"? Do you have evidence (not speculation) to support these other claims?

BTW: As a retired Air Force Intelligence Officer with specific training in Deception Analysis by the C.I.A. in 1989, I am researching political disinformation. I am familiar with disinformation campaigns, including Pope Gregory's misrepresentation of Mary Magdalene, Russian and German misrepresentation of Judaism, Operation Fortitude protecting the D-Day invasion, Operation Left Hook protecting the coalition drive into Kuwait, and the misrepresentation of the Iraqi threat this century.

This disinformation fits the pattern epitomized by "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," where a target is smeared through deliberate misrepresentation. Relying on unsubstantiated claims of mentorship to implicate Obama makes no more sense than relying on Curveball's unsubstantiated claims of mobile weapons labs to implicate Iraq.


Kaleokualoha

The only evidence that Davis was actually a member of the CPUSA comes from Professor Edgar Tidwell. Although “I'm hardly interested in proving my research to Kincaid or any of those whose work is a travesty to scholarship," University of Kansas Professor Edgar Tidwell, whom AIM's Cliff Kincaid cites as "an expert on the life and writings of Davis," dismisses misrepresentation of Davis's influence in one simple paragraph:

"Although my research indicates that Davis joined the CPUSA as a "closet member" during World War II, there is no evidence that he was a Stalinist, or even a Party member before WWII. Further, to those attempting to make the specious stand for the concrete, there is no evidence that he instructed Barack Obama in communist ideology. Frank Marshall Davis did NOT believe in overthrowing the USA. He was committed to what the nation professed to be. For him, communism was primarily an intellectual vehicle to achieve a political end-a possible tool for gaining the constitutional freedoms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for ALL Americans"

This misrepresentation of Frank as Obama's mentor was only the first deceptive step in building a house of cards against Obama. Then, by misrepresenting "Frank" as a virtual Dr. Frank-enstein who created a Marxist Obama, opponents may have thought they had a silver bullet. After all, who would bother to defend an obscure dead black poet? The Dead Poets Society?

It is indeed regrettable that so many honest people have been hoodwinked by a skillful disinformation campaign led by Kincaid's ironically named "Accuracy In Media" (AIM). Fraudulent memes, unwittingly propagated by well-intentioned bloggers, have spread throughout the blogosphere, which proves the effectiveness of viral disinformation campaigns. Even the title of Kincaid's initial attack, "Obama's Communist Mentor," is itself a masterful deception. Through the "fallacy of equivocation," it implies three enduring falsehoods:

- That Davis was an avowed or known communist who advocated collectivist principles. The evidence, however, indicates that Davis was a closet communist who never advocated communism.

- That Davis had a continuing mentorship with teenage Obama, "almost like a son." The evidence, however indicates that Davis was an occasionally visited family friend whom Obama did not even see for three years before college.

- That Davis taught communism to young Obama. The evidence, however, indicates that although Davis offered advice on racial issues, Obama did not even trust that advice.

(The "fallacy of equivocation" is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense, by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time. It occurs when an equivocal word or phrase makes an unsound argument appear sound.)

Through innuendo, half-truths and outright fabrication, Obama’s opponents have deliberately misrepresented a casual family friendship as sordid political indoctrination sessions or worse. In their fervor to malign Obama, they sought to transform the legacy of a relatively obscure leftist poet into a “Stalinist agent” who corrupted Obama’s values. Slander and libel were their tools of the trade, because truth was no obstacle. Destroying Davis’s reputation was collateral damage.

For example, another piece in AIM's web of lies is the post "Obama's Red Mentor Praised Red Army" (see http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-red-mentor-praised-red-army/). This is a double deception because it contains a half-truth built on the falsehood of mentorship. It is a half-truth because Cliff Kincaid neglects to mention that during WWII many Americans, including President Roosevelt, praised the Red Army. The Soviet Union was our ALLY (see http://books.google.com/books?id=kjDwCkg1HB8C&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=fdr+praise+red+army&source=bl&ots=ooSzuhMGDr&sig=1v2SJsWam4pjFWNqC0BuGduOIAY&hl=en&ei=ilksSpvUN5ayMJ2_5dsJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6). Praising your allies is the NORM for leaders during wartime!

(A half-truth comes in several forms, and is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The purpose and or consequence of a half truth is to make something that is really only a belief appear to be knowledge, or a truthful statement to represent the whole truth, or possibly lead to a false conclusion.)


The AIM disinformation campaign consisted of a series of small lies fabricated to support the big lie that "His values, passed on to Obama, were those of a communist agent who pledged allegiance to Stalin" (see http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-excuse-obamas-false-advertising). A painstakingly documented analysis of Kincaid's falsehoods is posted as "specific misrepresentation" at http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/Kaleokualoha/gGxdvX. I invite any person of integrity to refute my evidence against his body of lies. If he had authentic evidence of Davis's radical influence, he would not need to fabricate such evidence.

Kaleokualoha

You may be interestede in this cordial exchange between myself and Max Friedman, Cliff Kincaid's researcher: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/05/31/judge-sonia-sotomayor-and-singing-sensation-susan-boyle/#comment-13017.

Only the last group of comments pertain to this situation. Please note that Max agreed to follow through with Cliff Kincaid regarding the specific misrepresentation I had identified in June. Not a peep was heard from him since then.

The comments to this entry are closed.