Having previously reported on the participation of Revolutionary Communist Party members at the “National Conference on Media Reform,” I can now confirm that members of the old Soviet-line Communist Party USA were there, too. But it gets even more interesting. It turns out that one of the founders of the group sponsoring the conference is personally rubbing elbows with identified communists in a broader movement designed to impeach President Bush and force a U.S. defeat in Iraq.

In a message to supporters of the People’s Weekly World (PWW), the CPUSA paper, editor Teresa Albano reports that she attended the event along with two St. Louis PWW bureau members. She says, “What a conference it was! Over 3,000 people attended―all concerned about the state of democracy in this country now that Big Media Conglomerates control most of the political debate, culture and stories that Americans see, hear and read everyday. It’s a new and blossoming movement?”

In her article about the event, supposedly dedicated to “media reform,” she reports, “Many conference speakers celebrated the defeat of the Bush administration in the November elections. All stayed on message?targeting the big corporate and right-wing interests that have taken over the news and other sources of information. Speakers also blasted the commercial media’s role in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.”

“With a new Congress,” she added, “the conference touched on legislative possibilities for media reform. Rep. [Maurice] Hinchey said legislation governing media reform is possible in this session of Congress, but only with continued public pressure. Hinchey sponsored the Media Ownership Reform Act, a bill that would rein in media monopolies and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that requires broadcasters to present issues in an all-sided manner. That kind of equal access, he said, was ‘wiped out’ in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan.”

As I previously reported, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was at the conference, maintaining a booth and passing out literature about its leader, Bob Avakian, who thinks the current leadership in Communist China has sold out to the capitalist West. The RCP is regarded as the largest Maoist party in the U.S., and Mao is considered the greatest mass murderer in history. 

The RCP website reports that one Sunsara Taylor, a writer for the party paper and a “revolutionary leader,” was on the Bill O’Reilly show on Fox News, where the host labeled her a “lunatic” for opposing the war on terrorism in general and the detention of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo prison in particular. The communist group complained that “At one point, the frustrated O’Reilly snarled that if things were as bad as she says, she’d be hanging on a meat hook in Guantanamo.”

O’Reilly, who has the most popular show on cable news, was labeled a “fascist” by the communist organization, which urged its supporters to send messages of protest to Fox News over his treatment of Taylor. 

Under the federal Fairness Doctrine, which the Democratic Congress could restore, the RCP could file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and possibly get additional time on the air to rebut O’Reilly. “This must not be allowed to quietly subside,” the party said about O’Reilly’s misbehavior. 

Indeed, that’s what the “media reform” movement is all about. The movement is openly dedicated to forcing conservative media to incorporate “progressive” views into their programs. 

On January 4, Taylor participated in a National Press Club news conference sponsored by the “World Can’t Wait” coalition, which wants President Bush and his “regime” removed from office. Interestingly, Taylor serves on the advisory board of the coalition. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, notes that, “Some of the founders of World Can’t Wait are public supporters” of the RCP and cites Sunsara Taylor as one example. This would appear to lend credence to the suspicion that World Can’t Wait is nothing but a front organization of the RCP. 

Other members of the World Can’t Wait advisory board are James Abourezk, former U.S. Senator, South Dakota; Rosemary Candelario, pro-abortion activist; Warren Hern MD, physician and pro-abortion activist; Mark Leno, California State Assembly; Mark Crispin Miller, professor & writer; Tomas Olmos, attorney; Boots Riley, hip hop performer; Lynne Stewart, attorney; Gore Vidal, writer; and Howard Zinn, historian.

Stewart, of course, is the attorney convicted of aiding an Islamic terrorist group.

Other speakers at the January 4 press conference included Cindy Sheehan and John Nichols, a writer for The Nation and co-founder of Free Press, the sponsor of the media reform conference. 

In her report on the news conference that she also participated in, Sunsara Taylor praised Nichols for urging Bush’s impeachment. She reported, “As opposed to taking impeachment off the table because of the big trouble the U.S. is having with the war in Iraq, Nichols argued forcefully that these are the circumstances when it is needed most!”

It looks increasingly like the official participation of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the media reform conference was no fluke, and that the organization, like the CPUSA, is an important part of this “blossoming” movement.

But don’t expect our “corporate media” to report the facts about how these “progressive activists” include hard-core communists dedicated to the destruction of America and the American way of life. 

Will it be considered newsworthy that the World Can’t Wait coalition includes a convicted pro-terrorist lawyer on its advisory board? And that a leading advocate of “media reform” is right in the middle of all of this? Don’t bet on it.

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