May 11, 2025

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Totally Radical!
by Robert W. Lee

These congressmen wrote the book on extreme

January 21st marked the 75th anniversary of the death of Soviet despot Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The most powerful Bolshevik leader at the time of Lenin’s demise was Leon Trotsky, the regime’s commissar for war. Yet during the ensuing power struggle, Josef Stalin emerged the victor, and Trotsky was forced into exile and eventually assassinated.

What gave Stalin the edge? By far the most important factor was his control of the media. It enabled him to manipulate public opinion by smearing (or ignoring) his opponents while glorifying himself and his objectives. Historian Boris Souvarine writes in Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism (1939) that "the entire press belonged to [Stalin] and praised his foresight unblushingly.... No despot in any age or in any country has ever enjoyed such powers of deceiving public opinion or, if that failed, of suppressing it." The ability to guide and manipulate what "the masses" see and hear is arguably the most potent weapon in any revolutionary movement’s political arsenal.

Consider, for instance, the extent to which the most influential elements of the major media here in the U.S. have marched in lockstep during the past year to tag President Clinton’s most outspoken congressional critics with such pejorative labels as "extremists," "far rightists," "ultra-conservatives," and "fringers." Yet even the most radically left-wing apologists for the President are passed off as mere "liberals" or "moderates."

When Representative Dan Burton (R-IN), chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee charged with investigating Clinton campaign fundraising abuses, referred to the President during a newspaper interview as a "scumbag," he was vilified about it for weeks. Ditto for former Senator Al D’Amato (R-NY) when he referred to Democratic opponent (and successor) Charles Schumer as a "putzhead" during a private conversation picked up by the press. The offhand remark was transformed into a vicious attack, and the subsequent media barrage became a significant factor in the Senate race.

On the other hand, when former Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (D-IL), who lost to Peter Fitzgerald, implied that columnist George Will was a racist, the matter was only briefly covered and then dropped. As were intemperate assertions by House Democrats comparing their GOP opponents to Klansmen (Charles Rangel) and fascists (George Miller).

Congressmen Rangel (NY) and Miller (CA) both belong to the House Progressive Caucus (HPC), a consortium of radical congressional collectivists whose stunning success in November remains one of the most under-reported stories of the election. Fifty-five of the 58 members on last year’s HPC roster ran for re-election; every one of them was re-elected.

This success occurred in spite of the fact that there is a symbiotic relationship between the HPC and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — a relationship that has been ignored by the major media. The DSA is the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, the world’s oldest and largest hodgepodge of socialist, social democratic, and labour parties. The Socialist International proudly boasts that it is the successor to the so-called "First International" of Karl Marx, founded in London in 1864. According to one DSA position paper, its collectivist agenda includes "massive redistribution of income from corporations and the wealthy to wage earners and the poor and the public sector"; "a massive shift of public resources from the military … to civilian uses"; and "expanding [Medicare] eligibility to people of all ages and income regardless of health or employment status" so that "the federal government can serve as the single payer" for the nation’s health care. After all, the DSA contends, "Free markets or private charity cannot provide adequate public goods and services."

The House Progressive Caucus was founded in 1992 by Representatives Bernard Sanders (Independent-VT), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Lane Evans (D-IL), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and then-Congressman Ron Dellums (D-CA).

Although Congressman Sanders, who currently chairs the HPC’s executive committee, is a self-avowed socialist, he is one of the group’s more "moderate" members. During the previous Congress, 51 of his HPC colleagues scored lower than he did on this magazine’s "Conservative Index" voting guide!

The HPC states that it "works with a coalition of organizations, called the Progressive Challenge, to bring new life to the progressive voice in U.S. politics." Sponsors of the Progressive Challenge include the aforementioned DSA and such other far-left entities as Americans for Democratic Action, Friends of the Earth, Institute for Policy Studies, National Organization for Women, National Council of La Raza, Center for Defense Information, Council for a Livable World, Amnesty International, National Education Association, and the National Rainbow Coalition.

The HPC’s list of legislative goals includes "a more progressive tax system" (Karl Marx would be pleased), deep cuts in the military budget, and a "cradle-to-grave" single-payer health care plan. In the following pages we survey a rogues’ gallery of HPC congressmen and others with a similar ideological bent.

Erstwhile Congressman Ron Dellums was a DSA official when he helped launch the HPC. During nearly three decades in the House he worked closely with the hardcore Marxists and Soviet KGB agents at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPR), the Soviet-front World Peace Council, and sundry Marxist-Leninist dictators around the world, including Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and Grenada’s late dictator Maurice Bishop.

Dellums announced his retirement from Congress in late 1997 and endorsed California State Senator Barbara Lee in the race to succeed him. Lee easily captured the special election, joined the HPC, and garnered more than 86 percent of the vote in November to secure her first full term.

Unfortunately, Barbara Lee is an ideological clone of Dellums, having served as his senior adviser and chief of staff from 1975 to 1987. It was during that time (in 1983) that U.S. forces liberated Grenada after determining that a huge airport under construction with Cuban and Soviet financing could handle the Soviet Union’s long-range bombers. During the invasion, U.S. troops discovered nearly seven tons of documents that confirmed the Communist nature of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s New Jewel Movement. Included was correspondence with Dellums’ office.

In 1982, Dellums had traveled to Grenada to, he said, gain an overview of "the building of the new international airport." In a report submitted to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee on June 14, 1982, he emphatically denied that the airport was intended for military use. A copy of the report was found among the cache of Grenadian documents, along with minutes of a December 15, 1982 New Jewel Movement Politburo meeting. At one point, the minutes assert: "Ron Dellums: His assistant — Barbara Lee is here presently and has brought with her a report on the International Airport that was done by Ron Dellums. They have requested that we look at the document and suggest any changes we deem necessary — they will be willing to make the changes." That is, Dellums, aided by now-Congressman Barbara Lee, agreed to let Grenada’s Communist government (which was merely a puppet regime run from Havana and Moscow) edit his report prior to submitting it to the chairman of his House committee.

In July 1992, while a member of the California State Assembly, Lee attended a conference of the Committees of Correspondence (CoC) and was elected to its national coordinating committee. The CoC was spawned by members of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) who had a falling-out with CPUSA leader Gus Hall. Others elected to the coordinating committee with Lee included Charlene Mitchell, erstwhile member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee and its nominee for U.S. President in 1968, and longtime Communist functionary Angela Davis, who was on three occasions the Party’s vice presidential nominee. Mitchell was also elected co-chair of the group. In an essay currently posted on the CoC’s website, former CPUSA national organizations secretary Danny Rubin states that "it is the Committees of Correspondence that has become a continuer of the best traditions and history of the CPUSA...."

Congressman John Conyers (MI), ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and a key player on the President’s congressional defense team, is also a member of the HPC. First elected in 1964, when he won by a scant 128 votes, he was re-elected to a 19th term in November with 89 percent of the vote.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee during Watergate, Conyers urged the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. During the Clinton impeachment effort, however, he regularly appeared on television talk shows and news programs to vilify Republicans as "right-wing extremists" engaged in a "partisan witch hunt" against Bill Clinton. And in doing so, he has been portrayed as merely a responsible liberal or moderate.

Due to the silence of the media lambs, many Americans remain unaware of Conyers’ incredibly subversive record of support for a litany of Marxist movements (including the Soviet-front World Peace Council and the pro-Communist Institute for Policy Studies) and the enthusiasm with which he has backed the likes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, and other Red despots.

In Covert Cadre: Inside The Institute for Policy Studies (1987), author S. Steven Powell describes how the IPS sought to directly influence Washington policymakers by establishing its Washington School, whose seminars served to "provide a forum at which the leftist community can meet on a regular basis" and "influence government policy making." John Conyers, described by Powell as "one of IPS’s strongest supporters in Congress," was among the House participants in Washington School programs. Indeed, Powell asserts, Conyers "taught ‘American Politics: Who Gets What, When and How’ at the Washington School with IPS fellow Michael Parenti, and served as a moderator for the IPS budget conference on Capitol Hill, February 2, 1983." In a June 1, 1979 New York Times op-ed piece co-authored with IPS co-founder Marcus Raskin, Conyers claimed that "government’s responsibility is to revitalize the nation’s economy through creative forms of public ownership" — i.e., socialism.

On May 10, 1974, Conyers addressed an audience of 500 at the Trinity Methodist Church in Detroit during the opening rally of the convention of the Communist-front National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression. The confab was chaired by then-Communist Party luminary Charlene Mitchell. Another speaker was Angela Davis. Conyers lauded the organization for "building a great coalition" as he had long proposed. The late labor columnist Victor Riesel subsequently scolded Conyers for taking "the trouble to fly into Detroit May 10 to join a member of the Communist Party U.S.A. Central Committee and others to whip up a typical radical rally." Two years later, on June 27, 1976, more than 600 persons attended a salute and tribute to the congressman sponsored by the Coalition for Economic Survival. A message from Communist Angela Davis, then co-chair of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, was subsequently quoted in a glowing account of the event published in the Communist newspaper People’s World for July 3, 1976. Davis wrote: "At a time when corruption, immorality, and undisguised disdain for the people of the country are the distinguishing marks of those in government, it is particularly important for us to know that we can rely on a man like Conyers to articulate our outrage and our will to effect radical changes in the political and economic scene."

John Conyers served on the national executive board of the notorious National Lawyers Guild (NLG), which a congressional committee described as "the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its front organizations, and controlled unions." Throughout all of the most violent and tumultuous episodes of riots, demonstrations, subversion, agitation, and espionage of the past half century, it has always been Conyers’ barrister comrades of the NLG who could be counted on to provide legal cover and assistance to the enemies of America. And in a letter published in the New York Times for March 7, 1986, Conyers defended Nicaragua’s Communist Sandinista regime, claiming that "there is more freedom and less brutality in revolutionary Nicaragua than in Central American countries supported by the Administration."

Then there is also Conyers’ longtime connivance with the KGB-created and -funded World Peace Council (WPC). Instigated by the Soviets in the late 1940s, the WPC served as a key component of Moscow’s "peace" and "disarmament" campaigns for nearly four decades. It was identified by U.S. intelligence authorities as "the largest and most active Soviet front organization."

On September 30, 1975, members of the WPC were guests of honor at a Capitol Hill luncheon hosted by Conyers and Congressmen Ron Dellums and Philip Burton. A few days later, on October 6th, Conyers was listed as a sponsor of a meeting in Detroit to welcome the WPC delegation headed by Romesh Chandra. In KGB Today: The Hidden Hand (1983), Reader’s Digest senior editor John Barron describes how "American Communists joined by non-Communists formed a ‘National Committee’ to welcome Romesh Chandra [general secretary of the WPC] and the World Peace Council Presidential Bureau to a ‘Dialogue on Disarmament and Détenté’ in Washington, January 25-28, 1978. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr., heartily welcomed the group. ‘You have joined us to give us courage and inspiration in our fight for disarmament and against the neutron bomb,’ he declared."

Needless to say, Chandra, a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of India, was delighted. In the wake of that 1978 meeting, the WPC information center in Helsinki published a 48-page brochure describing the events, including a reference to "special meetings inside the U.S. Congress itself" with WPC operatives and "several Congressmen among which were … Ronald Dellums, John Conyers, Jr. … Charles Rangel and others." One photograph was captioned: "Congressman John Conyers, Jr. addressing a luncheon for participants in the Dialogue on Disarmament and Détenté. The luncheon was given at the restaurant of the U.S. House of Representatives."

When the WPC formed its official American branch, the U.S. Peace Council (USPC), in 1979, Conyers was there. As one of the main speakers at the founding conference of the USPC, Conyers faithfully parlayed the Moscow line, calling on activists to work for passage of the Transfer Amendment to take funds from the defense budget and transfer them to "social programs."

Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) is another member of the House Judiciary Committee whose fulminating visage continually graced the nation’s television screens during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. A more bellicose congressional apologist for Mr. Clinton would be difficult to name. Or one more radical. But "Mad Maxine’s" ultra-extremist, left-wing record is regularly glossed over by the liberal media. First elected to Congress in 1990, she was re-elected to a fifth term in November, receiving 89 percent of the ballots. In 1992 she seconded Bill Clinton’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention and was a co-chair of the Clinton-Gore campaign.

In 1992 Representative Waters sided with the "Rodney King" rioters and looters who rampaged in her district and its environs following the jury verdict acquitting police officers involved in the King incident. During one television interview she blurted that the "anger out there is a righteous anger, and it’s difficult for me to say to the people, ‘Don’t be angry....’ We know that some of the things we are going to see may be senseless, but that’s a kind of anger that says, ‘I’m fed up and I’m not going to take it anymore.’"

On May 1, 1982, the so-called "People’s College of Law," an unaccredited "college" launched in 1974 by sundry pro-Marxist entities (including the National Lawyers Guild), hosted a salute to Waters and two other leftists (including actor Ed Asner, a longtime member of Democratic Socialists of America). An advertisement in the printed program stated: "National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles salutes … Maxine Waters … with whom we are proud to be associated."

The Communist newspaper People’s World for September 27, 1980 included a photograph of Waters with "Mother of the civil rights movement" Rosa Parks and Communist Party official Charlene Mitchell. They were described as among those present at a "Tribute to Charlene Mitchell" that had been held in Los Angeles on September 13th. Six years later, on May 1, 1986 (the Communist holiday known as May Day), the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles was the site of the 29th annual People’s World banquet. Ed Asner was there. And so was Assemblywoman Maxine Waters.

On September 14th of last year the House approved a Concurrent Resolution calling on Fidel Castro’s government to extradite back to the U.S. escaped murderess Joanne Chesimard and "all other individuals who have fled the United States to avoid prosecution or confinement for criminal offenses...." The measure passed 371 to 0 and was later approved by the Senate. But although even Waters voted for it, as we will see there is more to the story.

On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and two friends were stopped in their car by New Jersey State Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster on the New Jersey Turnpike. While being questioned, Chesimard and the driver opened fire, striking Trooper Foerster twice in the chest and Trooper Harper in the left shoulder. They then used Trooper Foerster’s own gun to fire two additional bullets into his head. In 1977 a jury found Chesimard guilty of first-degree murder for the slaying, and she was sentenced to life in a New Jersey state prison. But in 1979 she escaped from her maximum security cell and fled to Cuba, where she was granted political asylum.

Once in Cuba she assumed the name Assata Shakur. When Representative Waters found out that Chesimard and Shakur were one and the same, she became livid, claiming that she had been duped into voting for the resolution calling for Chesimard’s extradition.

On September 29th Waters penned a letter of explanation and groveling apology to Fidel Castro. The People’s World was sufficiently impressed to reprint the missive in full in its October 10, 1998 issue. Writing as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Waters stated that had she known who Chesimard was, she "would have voted against the legislation." She portrayed Chesimard as a victim of "political persecution," and stressed her respect for "the right of Assata Shakur to seek political asylum." After all, the convicted cop-killer "has maintained that she was persecuted as a result of her political beliefs and political affiliations." Wailing that "the most vicious and reprehensible acts [by the FBI during the 1960s and 1970s] were taken against the leaders and organizations associated with the Black Power or Black Liberation Movement," Waters recalled how Chesimard had been "a member of the Black Panther Party, one of the leading groups associated with the Black Liberation Movement." Waters closed by telling Castro: "I hope to see a new era of U.S.-Cuban relations in the future."

Waters’ special solicitude for Comrade Fidel and "U.S.-Cuban relations" is particularly telling inasmuch as she has made a moral crusade of her effort to "expose" CIA involvement in narcotics trafficking. What is so disturbing about Waters’ labors in this regard is her single-minded determination to pin all the myriad problems associated with the devastating drug scourge in our inner cities on CIA drug-running, while ignoring the overwhelming evidence that it is her dear Havana soul mate who has been chiefly responsible for pumping narcotics into the African-American, Hispanic — and White — communities of America. She cannot claim ignorance of this indisputable fact because she certainly has been made aware of the massive documentation from official sources compiled by Dr. Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. in his authoritative 1990 book, Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America.

In 1998, Waters told a congressional committee that her own sleuthing had produced ironclad proof of U.S. government drug trafficking from a top-level source: Tomas Borge. Tomas Borge? The Cuban-trained Communist thug who headed Nicaragua’s secret police under the Ortega brothers during the Sandinistas’ Red dictatorship? Yes, that Tomas Borge.

As Dr. Douglass explains in Red Cocaine: "Nicaragua’s participation in drug and narcotics trafficking into the United States sprang from Raul Castro’s [Fidel’s brother] meetings with Humberto Ortega [Daniel’s brother]. The narcotics operation itself was placed under the Nicaraguan intelligence service, with Tomas Borge, the Minister of Interior and head of the intelligence service, in charge of the operation, and his deputy, Frederico Vaughan, the chief of staff of the operation."

Nevertheless, Maxine Waters met with Borge and accepted his evidence, which (surprise!) absolved him and his fellow Reds of any complicity in the dirty drug trade she claims to abhor, while laying all blame for the deadly trafficking on the U.S. government. Or, to be more precise, on white Republicans in the U.S. government. Which, of course, fits perfectly with the Communists’ revolutionary agenda of stirring up racial distrust and hatred.

It is worth noting that for all of her self-righteous blathering about CIA drug running, Mrs. Waters has pointedly ignored the most solid and damning evidence — that which implicates Bill Clinton, the man she has aggressively defended. Besides Mr. Clinton’s longstanding connections to Little Rock cocaine kingpin Dan Lasater and the evidence of Governor Clinton’s involvement in the infamous "cocaine highway" through Mena, Arkansas, there is the embarrassing fact (documented in White House photos) of Cuban drug lord Jorge "Gordito" Cabrerra’s support for the Clinton-Gore campaign. But Maxine Water’s ideological blinders never seem to have trouble screening out such inconvenient facts.

Sharing Marxist Maxine’s ideological affinity for Sandinistas and Fidelistas is Representative David Bonior (D-MI), whose potentially treasonous activities in "Managuagate" were hushed up as neatly as Clinton’s Chinagate perfidies. On January 14, 1988, Bonior led a group of Democratic congressmen to meet with Nicaragua’s Communist "El Presidente," Daniel Ortega. They advised Ortega on cosmetic policies he needed to adopt so that Congress would scuttle Republican proposals for more aid to the Contras. Ortega followed their counsel, paying lip service to "human rights reform," even as his Sandinista security police in Managua arrested leaders of the opposition and instituted new rounds of repression. Bonior and his colleagues praised Ortega for his statesmanship. At the time, Bonior was chief Deputy Majority Whip and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, with access to classified information. Four years earlier, on March 20, 1984, Bonior and nine other congressmen wrote the infamous "Dear Commandante" letter to Daniel Ortega, apologizing for American foreign policy in Central America and expressing support for the Sandinista narco-terror regime.

Like Waters and Conyers, Bonior not only toes the Marxist policy line, but is also a reliable and highly vocal propagandist of the left-wing cause du jour. And no matter how grievous the sin, he has proved himself always ready to find an excuse to offer total absolution for his party chief, Bill Clinton.

Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) was first elected to the House in 1992 after serving eight years as an Alderman in Chicago’s South Side. At the time of his election to the House he was deputy chairman of the Illinois State Democratic Party. He has not, to date, affiliated with the House Progressive Caucus, though his leftist credentials are impeccable.

In 1966 Rush joined the revolutionary and pro-Marxist Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), remaining a member until 1968 when he co-founded the Illinois branch of the Black Panther Party (BPP). He became its deputy minister of defense. As the IPS-launched Marxist weekly In These Times noted in 1992 after Rush announced for Congress, he "has continued to support progressive policies and has never disavowed his Panther past."

On April 8th of last year, Rush attended a "Friends of Kwame Ture Testimonial Dinner" in Washington to pay tribute to the ailing former SNCC and Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael. Comrade Stokely had assumed the name Kwame Ture (in honor of former Marxist dictators Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sekou Toure of Guinea) after moving to Ghana in 1969. It was Carmichael who initially urged the establishment of an Illinois chapter of the Panthers and enlisted Rush in the effort. Rush described his revolutionary compatriot, who died in Ghana on November 15th, as "probably the last prominent Pan-Africanist who is philosophically pure," by which he meant that Carmichael "has not compromised with the forces of capitalism." Rush told reporters that he attended the event "because I want to honor and celebrate Stokely Carmichael and thank him for all he has done for myself and Africans all over the world."

The Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. It was Seale’s view that "Negroes in America should oust racist pigs from their communities and work for establishment of a socialist state." Newton advised that "every time you execute a white-racist, Gestapo cop, you are defending yourself." Although Newton was subsequently convicted of killing a policeman during a shootout, the conviction was overturned and the case was eventually dismissed after two later juries deadlocked.

When Rush announced his candidacy for Congress in 1992, the Associated Press inaccurately reported that he had "quit the Panthers in 1969 after a police raid killed two members." The two were Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who died during a shootout with police. Their deaths quickly became a Communist cause célèbre. Bobby Rush had himself recruited Fred Hampton into the Panther Party. AP’s claim that Rush had "quit the Panthers in 1969" was shown to be false by a full-page notice in The Black Panther for November 29, 1971, announcing an upcoming "rally for survival" "in commemoration of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark." Listed as one of the main speakers was "Bob Rush," who was identified as "Deputy Minister of Defense, Illinois Chapter Black Panther Party." That event took place only days after Rush was released from prison after serving most of a six month sentence for a 1969 weapons violation.

The same AP dispatch that misled readers about Rush’s departure from the Panthers quoted the congressman-to-be as saying that the Panthers were not as anti-establishment as some might think. He stated that they "always viewed themselves as being part of the system, although a highly critical part of the system." In a biographical sketch posted on the congressman’s website, Rush does not hide his past affiliation with SNCC and the Black Panthers. He simply whitewashes it. His only reference to his activity in the Panthers, for instance, is to his operation of "the Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children program" and his work at a medical clinic which "developed the nation’s first mass sickle cell anemia testing program."

For the record, in 1969, the year that Rush was apprehended on the weapons charge, about 350 Panthers were arrested for such serious crimes as murder, armed robbery, rape, bank robbery, and burglary. The killings of four policemen, and wounding of nearly two dozen others, were attributed to party members. Panther leaders openly called for the assassination of President Richard Nixon, and the FBI labeled the Panthers "the most notorious and dangerous of current militant groups." In short, Congressman Rush’s compatriots were doing more than feeding hungry children.

Representative John Lewis (D-GA) was first elected to the House in 1986. He seconded the nomination of Al Gore for Vice President at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and was selected in 1996 to serve as one of seven honorary co-chairs of the Clinton-Gore campaign. He has been a fierce defender of the President, lamenting on the day that Mr. Clinton was impeached that "today is a very sad day for America. Today, when I got up, I wanted to cry."

Congressman Lewis’ biographical sketch notes that "during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, from 1963 to 1966, Lewis was the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he helped form." Lewis was defeated for re-election as SNCC chairman by Stokely Carmichael in 1966, after which he left the organization. Newsweek for February 10, 1969, quotes him as saying he dropped out because "there was less emphasis on nonviolence, less commitment to programs that I thought would bring about change." Yet Newsweek also noted that "Lewis admits that an escalation of methods and demands may be necessary for the black movement today...."

Indeed, based on the evidence it is reasonable to question Lewis’ commitment to nonviolence. On December 7, 1963, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the SNCC leader felt that "the possibility of violence is justified … because ‘out of this conflict, this division and chaos, will come something positive.’" After all, the objective was "to precipitate a crisis in Mississippi of such magnitude that ‘the Federal Government will have to take over the State.’..."

In February 1964, Lewis proclaimed in a brochure that "the struggle for Freedom in Mississippi can only be won by a combination of action within the state and a heightened awareness through the country of the need for massive federal intervention to ensure the voting rights of Negroes." And according to the Boston Globe for April 15, 1964, Lewis "quite frankly believes in quasi-insurrectionary tactics."

Lewis’ biography notes that he "was one of the planners and keynote speakers at the historic ‘March on Washington’ in August 1963." Investigative reporter Alan Stang writes in It’s Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights (1965) that Lewis’ speech on that occasion "was marred when he was forced to delete the ripest passages, which included such ‘non-violent’ rhetoric as: ‘We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own "scorched" earth policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground — non-violently.’"

And on February 20, 1964, during a speech at a "freedom rally" in Nashville, Tennessee, Lewis called for action that "would turn this Southland upside down" to rid it of "the evil of segregation." Specifically, he urged "those of us involved in the freedom fight to bring about confrontations between the federal government and the state governments of the South."

Yet the New York Times once labeled Lewis "a priest of nonviolence," and Time included a profile of the congressman in an article captioned "Saints Among Us."

On the Senate side during the impeachment proceedings,Tom Harkin (D-IA) appeared to be vying for the dubious honor of top Clinton apologist and Republican basher. Or perhaps he was merely indulging his penchant for ideological gasbaggery disguised as constitutional profundity with his numerous press conferences and appearances on national television programs to attack the House impeachment effort. Harkin first came to national attention in 1970 when, as a staff aide to the House Select Committee on United States Involvement in Southeast Asia, he accompanied a fact-finding mission to South Vietnam and worked with two radically leftist committee members to develop sensational charges regarding so-called "tiger cages" being used at the Con Son prison complex in South Vietnam. The alleged mistreatment of the pro-Marxist and terrorist prisoners in the "tiger cages" was effectively propagandized to undermine sympathy in the U.S. for the government of South Vietnam at a crucial point in that nation’s struggle against Communist aggression and subversion. Subsequent investigation revealed that the conditions at the prison, and the charges leveled by Harkin, were grossly exaggerated.

The infamous "tiger cage" incident was bolstered by photographs taken by Harkin during a half-hour "investigation" of prison conditions. He subsequently refused to turn the photographs over to the House committee on grounds that he had "a higher obligation to those 500 human beings who are jammed in those cages." He then sold them to Life magazine for a reported $10,000. Harkin even granted an interview to the Daily World, official newspaper of the Communist Party, USA, in which he made additional charges regarding the prison situation in South Vietnam. The Red propaganda organ promptly put them to good use in its own campaign to enhance the Communist position in Southeast Asia by undermining the Saigon government.

After losing a congressional bid in 1972 (as a George McGovern backer), Harkin took advantage of the Watergate scandal and won a House seat in 1974. When the Institute for Policy Studies threw its 20th anniversary celebration in 1983, Harkin was one of 14 members of Congress who served on its anniversary committee. In 1984, with IPS network help, he won his Senate seat. Over the past quarter century he has racked up one of the most radical voting records in Congress. Early that year, Harkin gave the opening remarks at a reception hosted by the IPS concerning Central American policy. "Now I am here to basically thank the Institute for Policy Studies and the people who have worked so hard over the past couple or three years," he noted, and then outlined his (and IPS’) agenda for our southern neighbors. Which, not surprisingly, were identical to the Soviet-Cuban agenda. One key feature being to force the government of El Salvador "to enter into real negotiations with the FDR and FMLN," the Moscow-aligned terrorist groups.

The following year, Harkin and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) took one of the most scandalous and treacherous "diplomatic" junkets ever. Forty-eight hours before a crucial congressional vote on a bill authorizing $14 million in aid to the Contras, they went to Nicaragua for an agitprop tour that helped sway Congress to kill the aid. Lavishly attended by the major media, their expedition garnered favorable press coverage of supposed Sandinista reforms. The trip was arranged by IPS staffer Peter Kornbluh. Several days after defeating the Contra aid bill, Daniel Ortega flew to Moscow to pick up $200 million in aid. After witnessing this blatant deception, Congress reversed its decision and voted for Contra aid — but Harkin held fast to his "principled" pro-Marxist position.

In April 1985, Senators Kerry and Harkin were back again stumping for revolution in Latin America, releasing a study that listed 77 instances in which the Reagan Administration had allegedly misled Congress about its policies in Central America. Turns out the study was written by their Soviet disinformation friends at IPS.

As visible and vociferous as Senator Harkin has been in defending the indefensible outrages of Bill Clinton, he is "moderate" compared to Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT). As with Harkin and the others we have profiled in the rogues’ gallery above, Dodd knows that when he appears on CNN, CBS, or other networks he will not have to worry about explaining his radical politics or being greeted with modifiers like "extremist," "vindictive," or "partisan" that are reserved for the President’s opponents. No reference will be made, for instance, to his January 1982 trip to Nicaragua with Representatives Michael Barnes (D-MD) and George Miller (D-CA) to meet with El Supremo Daniel Ortega. In preparation for their visit, the Sandinista Foreign Ministry drafted a memorandum for Ortega. The document, obtained by the Council for Inter-American Security, details how the Sandinistas sought to manipulate sympathetic members of the U.S. Congress.

"In the first place," the Foreign Ministry document began, "we should remember that these persons are friends of our revolution. Both Congressman Barnes and Senator Dodd have questioned and continue to question seriously, firmly and insistently the policies of the Administration with respect to Central America in general, and El Salvador and Nicaragua in particular."

Long an ardent activist in the IPS congressional network, Dodd joined Senator Harkin in sponsoring the 20th anniversary fundraising gala for the Marxist institute in 1983. He is also at the center of the Chinagate scandal. When the Thompson Committee in the Senate began investigating Clinton’s Chinagate connections, Dodd was there to derail the effort. Of course, he had a personal stake in halting that inquiry: It would likely lead to his own doorstep and his connection to Beijing agent John Huang. Senator Dodd, remember, was general chairman of the Democratic National Committee in the 1996 election cycle, when John Huang was brought over from the Commerce Department to become one of the DNC’s principal fundraisers. Connecticut businessman and DNC contributor James Belcher, for example, has stated that it was Dodd who put him together with Huang. Records show that Belcher’s $120,000 in contributions to the DNC — in several installments — match closely his meetings with Dodd, Huang, and Clinton. But, employing the familiar defense adopted by the Clintons, Dodd has claimed barely to know John Huang.

Thomas Jefferson once observed that "it is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood." His personal experience with the media led him to conclude that the "man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." We suspect that Jefferson would include today’s electronic media in that evaluation were he here.

The media have ignored the extremism of congressmen who have openly allied themselves with a subversive network seeking to supplant our form of government with totalitarian socialism. Yet the same media have branded as extremists congressmen who supported the impeachment of our corrupt President. The problem, in short, extends far beyond the President to the media and Congress and the other citadels of power. But the problem can be solved — if only sufficient numbers of grassroots Americans will become involved.

The truth about the congressmen profiled above, if widely enough known, could destroy their effectiveness and electability. That is why the major media, which supports their vision of a Socialist America, cover up their records — and that is why we must circumvent the major media.

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House Progressive Caucus Members

The following 58 members of the U.S. House of Representatives also belonged to the House Progressive Caucus during the 105th Congress. All, save Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont, are Democrats. States and districts represented are listed in parentheses:

Neil Abercrombie (HI-1)

Xavier Becerra (CA-30)

David Bonior (MI-10)

Corrine Brown (FL-3)

George E. Brown, Jr. (CA-42)

Sherrod Brown (OH-13)

Julia Carson (IN-10)

John Conyers (MI-14)

William Coyne (PA-14)

Danny Davis (IL-7)

Peter DeFazio (OR-4)

Diana DeGette (CO-1)

Julian Dixon (CA-32)

Lane Evans (IL-17)

Eni Faleomavaega (AS)†

Chaka Fattah (PA-2)

Bob Filner (CA-50)

Barney Frank (MA-4)

Elizabeth Furse (OR-1)*

Luis Gutierrez (IL-4)

Alcee Hastings (FL-23)

Earl Hilliard (AL-7)

Maurice Hinchey (NY-26)

Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (IL-2)

Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)

Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)

John J. LaFalce (NY-29)

Barbara Lee (CA-9)

John Lewis (GA-5)

Jim McDermott (WA-7)

James P. McGovern (MA-3)

Cynthia McKinney (GA-4)

Carrie Meek (FL-17)

George Miller (CA-7)

Patsy Mink (HI-2)

Jerry Nadler (NY-8)

Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)‡

John Olver (MA-1)

Major Owens (NY-11)

Ed Pastor (AZ-2)

Donald Payne (NJ-10)

Nancy Pelosi (CA-8)

Charles Rangel (NY-15)

Lynn Rivers (MI-13)

Carlos Romero-Barcelo (PR)#

Bernard Sanders [Independent] (VT-At Large)

Bobby Scott (VA-3)

José Serrano (NY-16)

Pete Stark (CA-13)

Louis Stokes (OH-11)*

Bennie Thompson (MS-2)

John F. Tierney (MA-6)

Esteban Torres (CA-34)*

Nydia Velázquez (NY-12)

Maxine Waters (CA-35)

Mel Watt (NC-12)

Henry Waxman (CA-29)

Lynn Woolsey (CA-6)

* Did not run for re-election in 1998

† Delegate, American Samoa

‡ Delegate, District of Columbia

# Delegate, Puerto Rico