Monday, January 30, 2006

The Los Angeles Communist Times

The Los Angeles Times, much like the New York Times, and much like the vast majority of academia, the news media, the television and motion picture industry, and first-year college students around the world, never met a communist they didn’t like. In fact, I would say the word “like” is a bit on the weak side. I’d venture to say that “love” or “adore” are more fitting. This point is proven many times over with the continuing praise they have given to Frank Wilkinson, the tried, convicted, and jailed Communist who died a few weeks ago and has since left his mark on the world.

I had never heard of Frank Wilkinson before his death. Popular commies never interested me, and frankly, he’s about as important as a grain of sand on the beach. But apparently, as I found out after about two hours of research, he was one of the most important figures in communist heroism to date. While Marx holds the flag in deceased commies aged over 100 years, Wilkinson just might be the newest hero for the past 50 years, riding along side of Che Guevara, and standing tall with Uncle Fidel Castro. The LA Times summarized the most important part of his life in their extended obituary, “member of the Communist Party for more than 30 years, Wilkinson lost his job at the Los Angeles Housing Authority in the McCarthy era after refusing to answer questions about his political affiliations during a city hearing concerning housing in Chavez Ravine. But he continued his anti-poverty work and was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1958.” As you can see, Wilkinson was a man of honor, as any communist is who stands against capitalism so bravely and stands for the working class. It finished with “Rather than assert his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, as others did, he refused to answer questions citing the 1st Amendment. His case went to the Supreme Court, where he lost, 5-4. He spent nine months in prison for contempt of Congress.”

Anyone who believes that the United States is not divided is either not paying attention, or they just don’t care. Luckily the division is only apparent, and probably only matters if you’re some sort of political junkie, so the continuing infiltration of communists and socialists in the American mainstream will remain with what I’m guessing to be somewhere near 10 – 15% until the end of time. The only problem is that the commies themselves, as well as the sympathizers and enablers, hold positions of power or high-ranking positions in the American media. Take Jackie Goldberg, who has never met a child rapist, murderer, or pedophile that she didn’t like, who had some shining words for Wilkinson, calling him a man “… who inspired people because he was courageous.” Goldberg, a California Assemblywoman, called for action against landlords who refused to accept sex offenders as renters, citing that it was offensive and not courteous to the sex offenders. This, along with the proposed legislation by her comrade Mark Leno last week, which allowed for pedophiles to have up to 24 articles of child pornography before it would be considered a felony, demonstrates the kind of company that she keeps. A teacher from Culver City brought Wilkinson to speak to the class, noting that he kept the students on the edge of their seats, and that he took over the entire semester. Of course, this was before she could make it to the part where she spoke about how evil Reaganomics was. “He taught them what fear can do to a country. They really listened. Frank took over the semester. We never made it to Reaganomics,’ the teacher said, drawing laughter.”

I was reading an article in some Los Angeles magazine last week, which dove into the history of the Chavez Ravine. For LA natives, the Chavez Ravine now houses Dodger Stadium, the old Los Angeles Police Academy, as a few parks that mostly serve as sets for various television shows and movies. The article talked about Wilkinson in detail, and how he fought against the development of Dodger Stadium, the police academy, and anything else that garnered a profit or served the community. The area, prior to the building of the stadium and academy, became infested with communists who enjoyed the low-rent housing, and was coined “Red Hill” by Angelenos.

Of course, this is not the first, and it will not be the last of the mainstream media’s attraction to dead commies. Expect weeks of coverage when Castro finally kicks the can, with rewrites of history about how well he treated his people, and how no one ever wanted to leave the utopia known as communist Cuba.