This page was last updated on August 15, 2016.
Police Violence: Sowing the Wind, Reaping the Whirlwind …; Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS); July 8, 2016.
Our Task: Build the Common Front to to [sic] Crush Trump and Organize the Left; Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS); July 15, 2016.
Trump Surges at ‘Dark’ Convention, Get Ready for Battle; Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS); July 22, 2016.
If the links above don’t work in the future, try the “CCDSLinks” link on the CCDS home page.
Be careful when accessing CCDS pages. As of 8/3/16, Norton Security rates ccds-discussion.org as “unsafe” with 51 “Computer Threats.” At the time I wrote this review, none of the CCDS pages I linked to were rated unsafe.
CCDS started as a splinter group of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
A few local leftsters in CCDS leadership positions are Carl Davidson (KD) (co-chair) and Randy & Tina Shannon (members of the CCDS national coordinating committee). These folks also hold leadership positions in Progressive Democrats of America – PA 12th CD Chapter (aka Beaver County Reds). Note: According to KD, he is no longer a CCDS co-chair as of the CCDS 2016 Convention.
There’s more to the group’s name than you may think. According to CCDS, “Our name is taken from the history of the U.S. revolutionary war against British colonialism. In the 1770s, Committees of Correspondence were formed in all 13 colonies and became the catalyst for united action against British oppression.” Make no mistake; despite its efforts to pretty itself up by linking itself with our founders, CCDS views the U.S. and our founders as our founders viewed the British.
When CCDS says it’s “for Democracy,” keep in mind the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. According to Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” not a democracy. The word “democracy” does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, someone asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got - a Republic or a Monarchy?” Mr. Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” In an 1814 letter, John Adams (a Founding Father and second President) wrote, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” The difference between a democracy and a republic is not semantics and our Founding Fathers knew the difference, as does CCDS.
Finally, if you are for socialism, you oppose the Constitution as it now exists. That’s because socialism and all other leftisms require government power far beyond what the Constitution grants. The Ninth Amendment states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The 10th Amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.” Absent a very creative interpretation ignoring both the actual words and clear intent of the Constitution, the policies/programs required for communism, Marxism, socialism, et cetera are unconstitutional.
This isn’t a full-blown review. There are just a few items I want to mention.
When I saw the title of the 7/8/16 edition of “CCDSLinks,” I first thought it was great CCDS was finally taking responsibility for the left’s hateful, inflammatory, and truth-challenged rhetoric, like “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon!” About a half-second later, however, I came to my senses and remembered what CCDS is and who runs it. As noted above, local lefties KD and Randy & Tina Shannon are in CCDS leadership positions and KD recently retired as a co-chair. KD also publishes “CCDSLinks.” Further, from August 18, 2014, to at least December 9, 2014, KD fed his followers a steady stream of “misinformation” (I’m trying to be kind.) about the Ferguson incident. Going back to “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” for a second, even the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizer realized how bad it looked to have BLM protesters calling for violence against police officers. The BLM organizer’s “solution?”; claim the BLM protesters were being “playful.”
As I did with Ferguson, I will avoid drawing conclusions until all the facts are in. Here’s why. In the Ferguson case, just about everything of import commonly treated as fact early turned out to be false after the grand jury hearings and the Department of Justice investigation, including the “hands up, don’t shoot” nonsense. You may recall Dorian Johnson – Michael Brown’s accomplice in the convenience store robbery – originated “hands up, don’t shoot,” a lie upon which BLM formed.
The Alton Sterling (AS) Democracy Now! piece doesn’t mention why the police officers were there. According to CNN, a homeless guy (HG) repeatedly pestered AS for money. After he had enough of HG’s pestering, AS allegedly showed HG his handgun hoping HG would leave him alone. Instead, HG used his cell phone (Yeah, a homeless guy can afford a cell phone, but that’s a topic for another day.) to call 911. Another piece indicated the police dispatcher told the responding cops AG had a handgun.
According to CBSNEWS.com, AS served prison time for “an incident eerily similar” in 2009 to the current event. The CBS story says “Sterling pleaded guilty to illegal carrying of a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance. On July 19, 2011, he was sentenced to five years in prison, where he was until being granted parole on Dec. 5, 2013.” Louisiana law prohibits felons from owning firearms.
In the piece entitled “Five Dallas police officers were killed by snipers Thursday night …,” you’ll find it says nothing about the murdered police officers. If the murder of “Five Dallas police officers” didn’t get CCDS riled up, what did? “Five Dallas police officers were killed …” is solely about how a BLM protester carrying a rifle at the demonstration was incorrectly identified as a suspect. The protester was Mark Hughes, brother of Cory Hughes, the guy who organized the BLM protest. At the end of the full NYT piece, Sewell Chan quotes Cory Hughes as saying, “We helped protest, but we ain’t had nothing to do with this foolishness.” The killing of the police officers is “foolishness?”
In the 7/22/16 edition of “CCDSLinks,” you’ll see a link to a video entitled “‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Respond To Dallas Shooting.” As with “Five Dallas police officers were killed …,” you’ll find none of the alleged BLM protesters – including the foul-mouthed, crying woman – in the video say anything about the murdered Dallas police officers.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
© 2004-2016 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.