by Trevor | Sep 9, 2018 | CPUSA, Democratic Party, Russia, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
A donkey is shown with the American flag. (Pixabay)
By Trevor Loudon | The Epoch Times | Sep 9, 2018
Commentary
In a move that could have major implications for American politics, the leading socialist and communist organizations in the United States have formally allied to increase their infiltration and manipulation of the Democratic Party.
Communist Party USA (CPUSA) leader John Bachtell partially explained the new strategy in a pitch to Party members to attend an online webinar that was held on May 23, 2018. According to Bachtell, the webinar would feature a panel of representatives from the CPUSA, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), LeftRoots, and others.
The event was sponsored by a group called the Left Inside/Outside Project, which is the idea of “building power inside and outside the Democratic Party.” The organization began shortly after the 2016 election as a response to the presidency of Donald Trump. Bachtell claimed that CPUSA “is collaborating with several left groups and progressive activists to promote unity and coalition building in the electoral arena.”
The plan is to encourage all elements of the left to vote, which would result in “defeating the extreme right domination of government and the courts.” This “strategic imperative,” according to Bachtell, is why “building electoral coalitions with every force possible including with the Democratic Party is key.”
Inside/Outside
The Left Inside/Outside Project first announced itself in a letter, titled “The Left We Want to Build: Breaking Out of the Margins,” published on the FRSO-aligned website, Organizing Upgrade, on June 9, 2017.
The letter laid out a bold plan by America’s leading communist groups to massively expand their collective influence both inside and outside the Democratic Party. In the wake of “the ascent of authoritarian white nationalism to the White House and the GOP’s headlock on 25 state governments and Congress,” the letter called for “building a left trend—an alignment of organizations and individuals—based on strategic unity.”
The letter laid out a bold plan by America’s leading communist groups to massively expand their collective influence both inside and outside the Democratic Party. In the wake of “the ascent of authoritarian white nationalism to the White House and the GOP’s headlock on 25 state governments and Congress,” the letter called for “building a left trend—an alignment of organizations and individuals—based on strategic unity.”
Further: “We believe that … only determined, long-term, energetic efforts to break out of the margins based on a common view of how to engage in our electoral system, while also building mass protest, offer a chance to make the left a force in U.S. politics and, eventually, a contender for power.”
The letter went on to propose better coordination among America’s largest Marxist organizations, to increase infiltration of the Democratic Party, and to further pressure it from without, through mass protest action:
“The fight against the far right is strongest when it is energized by an inspiring vision for economic and social justice. Campaigns for openly socialist candidates and progressive challenges to neoliberal Democrats must all be part of the political mix. And the opportunities for broadening the reach of progressive and left forces will be greatest when they both struggle within and work in tandem with the larger anti-Trump or anti-right front.”
The letter described this proposed communist–socialist alliance as a “left trend.”
“All of the organizations and networks we belong to have important strengths, but also very real limitations in terms of size, demographics, or geographic or sectoral concentration. None of them, in their current form, are capable of playing the strategic role we believe the left must play in the next period. A left trend might have that potential—the ability to reach far beyond the existing left to create a force that can move us from defense to offense.”
The letter was signed “In unity and struggle” by key leaders of America’s most powerful Marxist organizations, CPUSA, FRSO, DSA, and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS).
Potential Disaster
Broadly speaking, there are two lefts in America. One side is the anti-Democratic Party left—which consists of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party USA, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Party of Communists USA, and so on. On the other side are the groups willing to work inside the Democratic Party—that is, those organizations signing on to the strategy outlined above.
These organizations are not to be underestimated. Separately, all these groups are dangerous. Together, they spell potential disaster.
For example, CPUSA claims about 5,000 members, but its support base is much wider. Many Communist Party USA leaders are also Democrats. Examples include Houston Communist Party Chairman Bernard Sampson (local Democratic Party precinct chairman) and Ohio Communist Party Chairman Rick Nagin, who serves on the Cuyahoga County Democratic Executive Committee.
The CPUSA is strong in organized labor, in black churches, and in the “peace movement.” CPUSA strongholds include New York City, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Arizona, California, and Texas. The CPUSA is aligned with China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, and the communist parties of Russia, Britain, Canada, Mexico, Iraq, and Iran.
CCDS is only a few hundred strong. It often shares members with DSA, FRSO, and CPUSA. Its strongholds include Boston, New York City, Chicago, Louisville, Kentucky, and the Bay Area. CCDS has close ties to China, Vietnam, and Cuba.
FRSO is extremely secretive about membership numbers. Fewer than 100 cadres are publicly acknowledged. My estimate is around 2,000 members, but that is purely an educated guess. Dozens of front organizations of FRSO are extremely well funded through the Ford Foundation and other large leftist nonprofits.
FRSO is strongest in the following areas: Boston, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, southern Florida, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. FRSO also has smaller bases in Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, Vermont, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington state. FRSO supports Cuba and Vietnam. Some elements also support China and North Korea. The organization focuses heavily on racial politics and is the main force behind Black Lives Matter.
FRSO-aligned activists currently holding public office include Philadelphia City Councilor Helen Gym, Memphis Tennessee County Commissioner Tami Sawyer, and Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.
LeftRoots “is a national organization of 250 front-line organizers and activists, committed to politically developing their members to lead social movements across the U.S.” It is essentially a project of FRSO.
DSA is the giant of the bunch. On the back of the Bernie Sanders movement, DSA has grown from 6,000 to upwards of 50,000 dues-paying members in less than two years. The organization has locals in every state but South Dakota. The larger local groups include Seattle (600 members), Portland, Oregon (350 members), East Bay (850 members), Los Angeles (1,200 members), Chicago (1,100 members), Boston (1,000 members), New York (more than 3,000 members), District of Columbia (1,200 members), Baltimore (450 members), Atlanta (500 members), and Austin, Texas (more than 700 members).
Thousands of DSA comrades are active in the Democratic Party and have taken hold of local Democratic County committees from Maine to Nebraska. In Iowa, DSA controls about 20 percent of the delegates to the Democratic state convention. DSA has run hundreds of members and supporters across the country on the Democratic ticket this election cycle. They include DSA members Kaniela Ing (Hawaii, Congressional District 1), Rashida Tlaib (Michigan, Congressional District 13), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York, Congressional District 14), Zak Ringelstein (Maine, U.S. Senate seat), and Connie Johnson (Oklahoma, governor).
The Democratic Socialists of America is in many ways further left than the Communist Party. In 2017, DSA voted to leave the Socialist International because it was too moderate.
Democratic Socialists of America also controls Our Revolution, the reportedly 100,000-strong nationwide organization set up to support candidates sympathetic to the Bernie Sanders movement.
Working Together
David Duhalde, former deputy director of Democratic Socialists of America and now “senior electoral manager” at the activist website Truthout, said in an interview published by the website:
“I have been rather pleasantly surprised about how well the different post-Bernie formations have been doing and working together to keep this political revolution going. I want to give one great example, which is Our Revolution, [which] either locally or nationally endorsed all of our candidates that we endorsed nationally, as well. Not to mention tons of local races.
“We have a very good working relationship with Our Revolution. We often share information and talk about candidates. We, also, have this affiliation program where DSA chapters can be the local Our Revolution chapter, as well. That is to avoid unnecessary conflicts, duplication of efforts. So, our Knoxville chapter which helped elect two DSA members is, also, the Our Revolution chapter.”
According to Bachtell, the CPUSA also has a presence in Our Revolution, as well as other “grassroots” progressive organizations:
“[CPUSA] members were involved with Bernie Sanders campaign and are continuing their activism in Our Revolution, Swing Left, Indivisible, Working Families Party, statewide groups like the New Virginia Majority and local Democratic Party groups and 2018 electoral campaigns.”
The hard left has infiltrated the Democratic Party in virtually every state, from the largest cities to remote rural areas, from New York City and Los Angeles to North Dakota and Central Oregon. In rural areas in Republican-dominated states, the Democratic Party is often a shell, nothing more than a ballot line. It is easily conquered by disciplined socialist activists. In the big cities DSA and their friends can overwhelm local Democratic party branches by sheer weight of numbers.
The shock primary victory of 29-year-old socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over high-ranking Queens Congressman Joe Crowley is but one of many examples.
Our Revolution and the communists and socialists of the Left Inside/Outside Project are rapidly taking over the Democratic Party.
All in all, the Democratic Party-aligned U.S. left can boast about 57,000 cadres. Support organizations and affiliated unions, churches, civic groups, and non-profits would add several hundred thousand more to that total. If well organized, these numbers are more than enough to solidly take over the Democratic Party.
The party of FDR, Harry Truman, and LBJ is rapidly becoming the party of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Voters need to be acutely aware of their choices when they go to the polls in 2018, 2020, and beyond.
Trevor Loudon is an author, filmmaker and public speaker from New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics.
Trevor presents his movie, “ENEMIES WITHIN” DVD—BUY NOW!
by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Jul 25, 2015 | Barack Obama, Latin America, Liberty, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
Thanks to Donald Trump, the major media are being forced to cover the illegal immigration movement, such as the proliferation of “sanctuary cities” across the U.S. that attract criminal aliens, give them legal protection, and let them back out on the streets to commit more crimes. But the really taboo topic is how these sanctuary cities grew out of a movement started by the Catholic Church and other churches.
Over 200 cities, counties and states provide safe-haven to illegal aliens as sanctuary cities, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reports. What has not yet been reported is that the Catholic Church, which gave President Obama his start in “community organizing” in Chicago, has been promoting the sanctuary movement for more than two decades.
What’s more, in April, a delegation of U.S. Catholic bishops staged a church service along the U.S.-Mexico border and distributed Communion through the border fence. At the same time, Pope Francis said a “racist and xenophobic” attitude was keeping immigrants out of the United States.
No wonder the pope’s approval ratings have been falling in the United States. Overall, Gallup reports that it’s now at 59 percent, down from 76 percent in early 2014. Among conservatives, it’s fallen from 72 percent approval to 45 percent (a drop of 27 points).
“Few people are aware that this extreme left branch of the Catholic Church played a large part in birthing the sanctuary movement,” says James Simpson, author of the new book, The Red-Green Axis: Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America.
Simpson says Catholic Charities, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and its grant-making arm, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, are prominent elements of the open borders movement.
The sanctuary movement has its roots in the attempted communist takeover of Latin America.
With the support of elements of the Roman Catholic Church, the Communist Sandinistas had taken power in Nicaragua in 1979. At the time, communist terrorists known as the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) were threatening a violent takeover of neighboring El Salvador. President Ronald Reagan’s policies of overt and covert aid for the Nicaraguan freedom fighters, known as the Contras, forced the defeat of the Sandinistas, leaving the FMLN in disarray. In 1983, Reagan ordered the liberation of Grenada, an island in the Caribbean, from communist thugs.
Groups like the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) were promoting the sanctuary movement for the purpose of facilitating the entry into the U.S. of illegal aliens who were supposedly being repressed by pro-American governments and movements in the region. The U.S. Catholic Bishops openly supported the sanctuary movement, even issuing a statement in 1985 denouncing the criminal indictments of those caught smuggling illegal aliens and violating the law. Section 274 of the Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits the transportation or harboring of illegal aliens.
Two Roman Catholic priests and three nuns were among those under indictment in one case on 71 counts of conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States. One of the Catholic priests indicted in the scheme was Father Ramon Dagoberto Quinones, a Mexican citizen. He was among those convicted of conspiracy in the case.
Through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the Bishops, the church has funded Casa de Maryland, an illegal alien support group which was behind the May 1, 2010, “May Day” rally in Washington, D.C. in favor of “immigrant rights.” Photographs taken by this writer showed Mexican immigrants wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, and Spanish-language communist books and literature being provided to rally participants.
An academic paper, “The Acme of the Catholic Left: Catholic Activists in the US Sanctuary Movement, 1982-1992,” states that lay Catholics and Catholic religious figures were “active participants” in the network protecting illegals. The paper said, “Near the peak of national participation in August 1988, of an estimated 464 sanctuaries around the country, 78 were Catholic communities—the largest number provided by any single denomination.”
A “New Sanctuary Movement” emerged in 2007, with goals similar to the old group. In May, the far-left Nation magazine ran a glowing profile of this new movement, saying it was “revived” by many of the same “communities of faith” and churches behind it in the 1980s.
One group that worked to find churches that would provide sanctuary to immigrants in fear of deportation is called Interfaith Worker Justice, led by Kim Bobo, who was quoted by PBS in 2007 as saying, “We believe what we are doing is really calling forth a higher law, which is really God’s law, of caring for the immigrant.”
But conservative Catholic Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute says Interfaith Worker Justice is run by “committed Marxist socialists,” and that Bobo is “highly active and involved with the Democratic Socialists of America,” a group which backed Obama’s political career.
by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Jul 3, 2015 | Liberty, North America, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By: John Hawkins
RightWingNews
Scott Walker’s campaign caught flack for hiring Liz Mair earlier this year. Liz, whom I know and respect despite the fact she’s well to the left of me on a number of issues, made the mistake of slamming Iowa’s position in the primary system. Most conservatives don’t like Iowa having so much sway in the GOP primaries, but most conservatives also aren’t working for a candidate who’s running in those primaries either. After Walker caught flack from Iowans over Mair’s remarks, she ended up resigning. That’s too bad because Liz is an excellent digital media strategist, but once her comments became a big enough issue to actually hurt Walker in the primary, it put him in a very difficult position.
Today, he’s in a much worse position because Scott Walker’s Unintimidated PAC has hired Brad Dayspring.
Some people might excuse Scott Walker for this hire because he currently can’t coordinate with the PAC. However, people in the know realize that’s a cop-out. The PAC is run by former high-level Scott Walker staffers who would NEVER deliberately do anything he doesn’t agree with. Furthermore, you can be sure that there was PLENTY of coordination between Walker and his staffers right up until the moment he was legally unable to continue to do so. Is it possible that he personally approved the hiring of someone like Dayspring beforehand? Absolutely, but a big part of the value of PACs like this one is that they create a degree of separation between the candidate and the PAC. The PACs can run dirty ads and they can hire dirtbags who will undermine grassroots conservatives at every opportunity and supposedly, the candidate can’t be blamed.
Well, not this time.
Walker shouldn’t get a pass if his PAC keeps Dayspring on staff — and this is no small matter. If Walker becomes our nominee and wins the election, many of the staffers on his campaign and his PAC will end up working in the White House. The people holding those positions will have a tremendous impact on the sort of policies we’ll see. For example, one of the reasons that Ted Cruz has been such a champion of conservatives is that he ended up bringing in a number of staffers from Jim DeMint’s office. When a politician surrounds himself with those sort of staffers, it’s no surprise when he ends up fighting the good fight. On the other hand, when a politician is surrounded by people like Brad Dayspring, you can be sure he’ll end up fighting conservatives. Want an example? Brad Dayspring used to work for Eric Cantor. Was any grassroots conservative sorry when Cantor was beaten by Dave Brat?
Please.
Now, maybe the PAC just didn’t do its due diligence on Brad Dayspring. For example, maybe the PAC didn’t realize that he has a teen porn problem. Do the staffers who run Scott Walker’s PAC approve of that? People should ask them.
Here’s a little excerpt from Breitbart that will give you an introduction to one of the most loathsome people in the Republican Party and someone no grassroots conservative should ever trust.
There’s perhaps no Republican operative from the establishment side of the party, however, who’s been more effective in eliminating conservatives nationwide throughout the movement in recent years—and Team Walker’s decision to bring Dayspring aboard just a few months after the similarly problematic Liz Mair was let go could backfire in a significant way. The 2016 GOP presidential primary is shaking out to mirror the larger fight inside the Republican Party—the conservative grassroots is hungry for a Washington outsider, while the establishment side of the party is more interested in attempting yet again to win a general election without the GOP base.
“Brad Dayspring is well known as a despicable establishment operative who specializes in slander and character assassination against conservative candidates,” Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel—one such conservative Dayspring personally frequently attacked—told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday. “He is the perfect example of why conservatives no longer trust the GOP. He’s little more than a paid attack dog, without principle and honor, the personification of everything wrong with our present political system.”
McDaniel added:
“Scott Walker appears to be a good man with solid conservative instincts. But his hiring of the unstable Dayspring is an insult to honorable political discourse. If Dayspring is aligned with Walker, then conservatives should be warned to look elsewhere for leadership.”
Here’s more from Brent Bozell.
“Gov. Walker should have known better than to hire Brad Dayspring, the worst GOP anti-conservative hit man in Washington,” said Brent Bozell, the conservative chairman of ForAmerica and president of the Media Research Center. “Brad Dayspring has a despicable record using character assassination to besmirch the reputations of conservative candidates and public policy leaders. He’s paid to do the ugly work of the Washington establishment. He is the personification of everything that’s wrong in politics today. Gov. Walker, people are policy. If you want conservatives’ support, you need to get rid of this cretin immediately.”
Here’s Mark Levin on Dayspring.
Mitch McConnell’s National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) hit man, some idiot named Brad Dayspring, does not intimidate me and will not silence me with his sleazy inside-the-beltway tactics. In fact, I am more fired up than ever.
…Now, let me be clear. I hold McConnell and the chairman of the NRSC – Jerry Moran of Kansas – personally and politically accountable for the sleazy intimidation tactics of their current and former staffers. My opposition to McConnell’s re-election is underscored by pathetic behavior like this. Conservatives should not give a dime to the NRSC, money which is used to pay the salaries of these hit men and empower McConnell, et al.
Here’s more from Redstate.
As we have documented here on RedState, Brad Dayspring was one of the loudest lying voices in the dishonest, dishonorable, and disreputable campaign the NRSC waged on behalf of the mildly profoundly senile, corrupt, and adulterous Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) 46%. In this campaign Dayspring was front and center in lying about challenger Chris McDaniel. In fact, the scorched earth campaign waged by Dayspring against McDaniel exceeded any campaign the NRSC has ever run against a Democrat. He was also instrumental in launching attacks on the challenger to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) 70%, Dr. Milton Wolf….
…Though there is no monetary teat, or other appendage, Dayspring won’t pull to extract cash, he routinely accuses conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100%, and conservative organizations like the Family Research Council of putting fund raising ahead of principle– which to Dayspring equates with whatever Establishment corruptocrat he’s being paid to support. At a time when the best man for his wedding was under arrest for child pornography (and favoriting pornographic tweets) he accused Mark Levin and the Senate Conservative Fund of pay-to-play purchases of Levin’s book. This is simply another of the lies Dayspring has told, knowing them to be lies. And then he moves along to yet another lie.
….There is no way I will support Governor Walker so long as Dayspring is affiliated in any way, no matter how tangential, with his campaign. This hiring of a casual liar, of a man who sets about to destroy the reputations of anyone he is told to attack speaks ill of Governor Walker. If he keeps Dayspring, it also tells you that Governor Walker is no conservative. He has now become the designated establishment candidate. If Dayspring stays with the campaign, conservatives must oppose him no matter the cost.
I like Scott Walker a lot. He’s one of my favorite candidates in the race, but if Dayspring is allowed to continue on with his PAC, grassroots conservatives would be wise to be very cautious about rallying behind Walker. I would also strongly recommend that NO ONE give any money to Scott Walker’s PAC or his campaign as long as Dayspring is affiliated with it. If you’re a grassroots conservative, this guy is not your friend and no one who wants him in a key position is your friend either.
You can tell a lot about candidates by watching when they’re willing to stand and fight. The fact that Walker fought the UNIONS in WISCONSIN and WON three elections in four years going toe-to-toe with them speaks very highly of him. However, if his staffers are the sort of people who know what they’re getting with Dayspring and are willing to lose the support of a lot of grassroots conservatives to keep him on board, that tells you they’re planning to spend a lot of time FIGHTING CONSERVATIVES if Walker gets elected. We have too many people like that in Congress as it is and we certainly don’t need one in the White House.
So, if you’re concerned, tweet Scott Walker and the PAC’s digital media director, Brittany Cohan. You should also send an email to Unintimidated PAC. Be honest, but polite. If you’re a conservative fan of Walker who’s concerned, say so. If you don’t intend to give any money to the campaign or PAC as long as Dayspring is there, say so. Give them the benefit of the doubt — for now. But, if they hang onto Dayspring, it’s a neon warning sign about Walker that’s fifty feet high and conservatives should heed it.
by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Jul 3, 2015 | Liberty, North America, Social Movements, Socialism/Communism, Socialist Opinion Shapers
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
Director Amy Berg exposed the cover-up of pedophilia in the Catholic Church in her 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary, “Deliver Us from Evil.” On Friday night, July 3, New Yorkers can see her new explosive documentary on how pedophiles operate in Hollywood and cover up their crimes. Her film, “An Open Secret,” is being shown at the Cinema Village at 22 East 12th Street in New York City.
Several journalists are included in the film, with one describing his attempt to document the sexual crimes committed by top Hollywood figures and how his story exposing this criminal conduct was killed.
Even more shocking, director Berg was quoted as saying last November that she could not find any company willing to distribute her film.
That has changed with the showing on Friday night in New York, and the opening in the Los Angeles area on July 17 at Laemmle’s Music Hall in Beverly Hills.
Rocky Mountain Pictures, the distributor behind such ground-breaking conservative-oriented documentaries as “Obama 2016,” has stepped up to make sure this important film gets released in various cities throughout the summer. (Vesuvio Entertainment is also helping with distribution of the film.) The film is rated R, meaning those under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
It includes interviews with victims and identifies by name those who have been caught, prosecuted and convicted for sexual abuse. The film identifies a pedophile ring once led by a convicted sex offender named Marc Collins-Rector, who had ties to the rich and famous in Hollywood.
Collins-Rector established an Internet-based TV company called Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), whose investors reportedly included movie director Bryan Singer, David Geffen and Arianna Huffington’s ex-husband Michael Huffington.
The company’s first show, “Chad’s World,” was described by the Los Angeles Times as centering “on a 15-year-old from Michigan who questions his sexual orientation and ultimately flees his town’s intolerance to move in with a gay couple in a California mansion.” This and other questionable DEN projects are discussed in the Berg film.
It’s impossible for critics to dismiss the sensational charges in the film, since Berg has a reputation as someone who meticulously documented a film about a Catholic priest and serial child molester who served in a number of parishes in Southern California. That film, “Deliver Us from Evil,” was nominated for an Academy Award. What’s more, several characters in addition to Collins-Rector who are named in the film have been convicted of sexual abuse.
Conservatives may not like parts of the film, since it attempts to separate the rampant homosexuality in Hollywood from the pedophilia that is described in excruciating detail. But there is no doubt that Hollywood is an industry dominated by homosexuals, some of whom don’t want this film to be seen by the American people.
The claim that the film is not about homosexuality, but rather pedophilia and child abuse, is strictly true. However, all of the cases described in the film involve adult males molesting boys. What’s more, the founder of the modern gay rights movement, Harry Hay, was a supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).
Comedian and author Adam Corolla has described the existence of a gay “mafia” in Hollywood that determines whether movies get made, and what can be said about them and their influence in the industry.
At the same time, the recent revelations in the Dennis Hastert case suggest that pedophilia is a problem that crosses ideological and political lines. Hastert, the former Republican House Speaker, has been indicted on federal charges of lying to the FBI about an alleged money-laundering scheme which was apparently designed to cover up the case of an innocent child sexually abused by Hastert when he was a high-school wrestling coach.
Another alleged victim, a student by the name of Steve Reinboldt, told his sister Jolene that his first homosexual sex experience was with then-coach Hastert. The boy was apparently abused throughout his high school years and later embraced a “gay” identity, before dying of AIDS at the young age of 42, in 1995.
A New York Times review of “An Open Secret” notes that “some of the culprits, we’re told, still work in Hollywood,” and that “further aggressive reporting is needed.” The Times adds, “This topic deserves a tenacious call for answers.”
This is certainly the case. But while more reporting is absolutely necessary, it is important in the first place to make sure people around the country have an opportunity to see the film.
