Like the dog that finally catches the car, the radicals have become the establishment. Those free-wheeling students of the ’60s – fighting “the man,” bombing government buildings, burning draft cards – now work for that government and are counting the days when they’ll receive their taxpayer-funded pension and retiree health care.

In fact, the radicals of the 1960s are now pushing retirement age, wrapping up careers that saw them control so much of American society — the news media, academia, government bureaucracy and Hollywood. When Obama told audiences during the 2008 campaign that “We are the change we’ve been waiting for,” it must have been an unsettling realization for these radicals, and likely triggered an existential crisis for some of them.

In my research of the left, I’ve gone down a few rabbit trails. I visited New Orleans and talked to Wade Rathke, a few months before the ACORN tree came crashing down. I met Frances Fox Piven in New York and interviewed her about a range of things at her home. (I’ve never met a socialist with a doorman before.) I wrote about the radical Jack Gerson, an SDS alum now influential in the Oakland, CA teachers union.

Which led me to Fred Klonsky. Klonsky, along with his brother Mike, were leaders of Students for a Democratic Society. Fred now is living comfortably as a public school teacher and union leader in the upscale Park Ridge community in suburban Chicago. Mike was reportedly lauded by Mao Zedong for his work spreading communism throughout the United States.

My organization, Education Action Group, suspected Klonsky could be using his school district e-mail account for inappropriate purposes. So we submitted a Freedom of Information request for all the e-mails sent from his school account. According to Illinois state law, e-mails of government employees are considered public records.

Seemed routine.

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There is something tragic in man’s nature that an ideology which has been the scourge of the 20^th century, inflicting misery and death upon hundreds of millions, still has so many adherents. China recently celebrated the 60^th anniversary of its Communist Party. Although communism’s horror show continues to enslave a large portion the world’s population, many in our county are still sympathetic to this cancer. Its track record bears repeating, particularly to students, whose naïveté and inexperience leave them susceptible to dangerous belief systems.

Also in need of a primer on communism’s track record are those in the United States Congress who continue to support and appease communist dictators and tyrants like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. For example, in April of 2009, key representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus met with Castro. “It was almost like listening to an old friend,” said Rep. Rush (D-Ill.). According to Representative Richardson (D-Long Beach), Castro knew her name and district. “He looked right into my eyes and he said, ‘How can we help? How can we help President Obama?’” On second thought, these minds have already been irreversibly poisoned. It’s better their constituents should hear the story of Communist China.

The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949 and the charismatic Mao Zedong, exposed to Marxism as a student at Peking University, was its leader. Mao’s cult of personality produced slavish devotion and enabled him to be seen as a visionary. Mao sought to fundamentally remake Chinese society. Dutiful to communist dogma, he needed someone to blame for society’s problems, and fomented class hatred. Mao insisted that the peasants were kept poor because landowners and small farmers had taken what was rightfully theirs. Mao demonized those farmers who held more land than he deemed acceptable. He confiscated the land and promised it to the peasants. Part of Mao’s plan for “land reform” was to select at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution. Political opponents were at first ridiculed, then simply eliminated. So far, Mao’s strategy was akin to his Soviet counterparts but Mao took it a step further. Not only did he confiscate the land; he actually made the people property of the state. Family life and traditions, personal property, privacy, personal initiative and individual freedom, were utterly destroyed for around one-seventh of mankind.

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