Michael Bérubé points out that everyone’s favorite Post-Traumatic Political Turncoat David Horowitz has posted his carefully compiled list of nefarious US leftists, and I am royally pissed off.
He left me off of it.
I mean here I’ve worked with groups ranging from the Attica Brothers defense to the Marxist Leninist Party USA to War Resisters’ League, I’ve written for the Revolutionary Worker and New Internationalist, I’ve gotten arrested for trespass at the White House and Vandenberg Air Force Base. I’m a known associate of Dave Dellinger, Judi Bari and Katya Komisaruk. I’ve published Ward Churchill, Winona LaDuke, and Mike Vandeman. I’ve protested every war the US has been in since Vietnam, even the popular ones like Clinton’s bombing of Kosovo and Carter’s hostage rescue attempt. I committed numerous felonies relating to Selective Service registration and gone on national TV encouraging people to disobey the law. I bought a box of cigars from Cuba in 2002.
And what recognition do I get for all this? Zilch. Zip. Nada.
So I’m going to write up my own damn dossier in Horowitz’s trademark guilt by association style and send it in along with that bunny-hugging headshot I posted a while back. Here goes:
Chris Clarke
Chris Clarke, Publications Director of the extremist Earth Island Institute, was born within minutes of the death of left-wing French Philosopher Albert Camus, who infamously said “What is a rebel? A man who says no.” Clarke’s association with opposition to the mainstays of modern industrial society did not end there. Given a gift subscription at age eight to Izvestia News Agency’s propaganda and travel magazine Sputnik by his father, Clarke assiduously studied Russian during the height of the totalitarian Brezhnev regime, listening to Red Army Chorus LPs and reading Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience at the orders of his Eastern European instructors.
Entering college at the radical University of Buffalo, then a hotbed of anti-American activism, Clarke fell in with anarchist college professors Charles “Charlie” Haynie and Elwin “Ed” Powell. His left-wing thoughts were strongly influenced by reading a number of books Haynie recommended, including one called The Free World Colossus by David Horow… Um. Anyhow, he participated in a takeover of UB’s administration building in 1975 in an attempt to force the school to use tax dollars on a demonstration in support of the Attica Prison rioters. Transferring to Buffalo State College in 1976, he helped take over THAT administration building protesting a tax-relief measure his comrades smeared as “budget cuts.” Shortly thereafter, Clarke conspired with Upstate Resistance, an underground network of anti-war extremists across New York State, to “nonviolently” obstruct our country’s Selective Service System, illegally suggesting that young men not support their nation by registering. He also worked with anti-Freedom-of-Educational-Choice propagandist Bernadette Medige and others to prevent establishment of an ROTC chapter at the Buffalo State Campus, forcing patriotic students to commute across town in the harsh Buffalo winter to train to defend their country, which almost certainly softened their resolve and led to the later terrorist attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut.
Moving to the radical Mecca of Berkeley in 1982, Clarke continued his radical activities, working with the so-called “National Resistance Committee,” “Berkeley Resistance,” Berkeley Ecology Center,” and “Berkeley Horticultural Nursery.” He met with left-wing Berkeley mayor Gus Newport and radical congressman Ron Dellums, who both wrote letters attacking the US Attorney’s office for attempting to investigate Clarke’s admitted draft-related felonies.
Proving the obvious link between anti-military and environmental extremism, Clarke then became editor of the Berkeley Ecology Center’s publication Terrain, likely so named for the “Rain of Terror” his Earth First! compatriots planned to bring down on capitalist society. His work there and at the radical Pacifica station KPFA attracted the attention of the extremist Earth Island Institute, which hired him to study the art of eco-extremist propaganda under the tutelage of America-blaming Gar Smith. Clarke eventually replaced Smith as Editor of Earth Island Journal, which is secretly funded by Theresa Heinz Kerry and the Queen of England with money laundered through BCCI and George Soros. His most recent act has been to devote the resources of Earth Island Institute to opposing president George W. Bush’s reforms of burdensome environmental law, openly stating that “Earth Island Journal is on a war footing.”
(I think that’s probably not inaccurate enough to suit Horowitz, but he could add a few things here and there to bring it down to his reportorial standards.)
Added later: Dammit, I tried to send this to Horowitz using his “contribute information” link, but got a database error. What is wrong with this society when our far-right nut jobs can’t even run a decently functioning web site?
Added even later: special note for people reaching this page from Hoowitz’s Moonbat Central: some of the things I say in this post are jokes. For example, I did not “assiduously” study Russian: I reallly didn’t put in the effort I was capable of, according to my long-suffering Russian teacher. Anyway, see if you can figure out what the other jokes are. It’s fun! One even has a special hint attached.
I LOVE it.
I think it was Howard Zinn who expressed glee about having an FBI file opened on him in the 60s, giving the rationale that if the feds hadn’t investigated him, he’d be too ashamed to face his friends. Sounds like you have a little of that going on here as well, Chris.
Not that I blame you. You should totally be on there. Frigging Commie.
Speaking of Camus, I’m reading The Rebel right now, and just finished Matthew Ward’s new American translation of The Stranger. Heady stuff.
Hell yeah. I didn’t even mention my role in founding the Leon Czolgosz Brigade.
Incidentally, Mr. the_bone, the precise term for the jealousy Zinn describes is “subpoena envy.”
Ooooh, he hates on Duke on his website! Fantastic!
http://discoverthenetwork.org/Articles/CampusTerrorism.pdf
Despite the fact that, you know, I think they invited him to campus once. But then people got mad and other people got fired. And then we asked the Palestinian Solidarity people to come over to play instead. It’s a happy cycle.
Ok, now I’ve started to read this and he is a horrifying man. Make it stop.
OK. It’s 12:41 am in the morning and I am dying of laughter (as quietly as I can without waking anyone up). How am I suppposed to get to sleep now?
Sigh. My resume is depressingly short. Sub-subpoena envy.
I had a sniper rifle pointed at my chest — just inches from me — by one of Dick Cheney’s Secret Service agents. Does that count for anything?
It counts for scaring your mother when she reads this post.
He already told me about it. Some of the other things you two guys do scare me more, like climbing around in high places.
Chris,
Any luck getting on the “List”. I have tried several times myself and keep getting the same error messages you get. I mean, damn, whats a poor liberal gotta do to get himself blacklisted. You’d think they would be happy we are volunteering the info.
I want to hear the sniper rifle story!
Me too.
oh, long story, I’ll tell ya some day, or show you the video. In short they didn’t react well to me thrusting my arms into their creepy black SUV’s window and politely offering them one of those Dick Cheney “Evildoer” posters.
Please remember I was on medication at the time.
HUH?? I missed that one, too!!! How long ago was this??
Chris, I suspect that publishing Vandeman cancelled out the rest.
Naah, Ron: it was Vandeman’s piece about his dead cat. Perfectly good content.
The chance to be honored on Horowitz’s list of all intellingent life in America is almost enough to make me out myself. After all I am a graduate of the University of Oregon and was even an officer in the University Democrats and Oregon Young Democrats and actually attended a class on Marxism for 2 weeks before dropping it out of boredom.
Chris, you are as deserving as the next person. Maybe they will get to you soon. After all maintaining an enemies list is a lifetime job when you spend your life attacking good people.
E Pluribus Unum