The FSLN also sided with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) but this was not just a foreign policy question. The comandantes did not look kindly on Nicaragua’s small Jewish community, whose synagogue was firebombed during a religious service in 1978. The following year the FSLN toppled dictator Anastasio Somoza and took power.

FSLN “divine mobs” chanted anti-Semitic slogans outside the synagogue, which the FSLN confiscated along with the property of Jewish families. The regime arrested Abraham Gorn a leader of the Jewish community. As minister of the interior, Tomas Borge was in charge of the regular and secret police, so he surely ordered those repressions. Abraham Gorn was able to escape and flee the country. The rest of Nicaragua’s Jews fled into exile.

The FSLN regime also had a problem with indigenous people. The comandantes waged a Stalin-style relocation campaign against the Miskito Indians of the Atlantic coast, many of whom were Protestant Christians. FSLN forces bombed villages and burned churches, killing those trapped inside. Filmmaker Werner Herzog made a documentary on the conflict, “Ballad of the Little Soldier,” and denounced the FSLN’s “concentration camps.” Russell Means of the American Indian Movement (AIM) talked of organizing an international brigade of warriors to defend Nicaragua’s native peoples.

Organizations such as Amnesty International called attention to FSLN repressions but the American left looked the other way, particularly the religious left. National Council of Churches boss Arie Brouwer conceded only “mistakes” by the government, the left’s default position when confronted by undeniable evidence of Sandinista atrocities. The NCC funded the Evangelical Committee for Aid to Development (CEPAD), a pro-FSLN front group that justified attacks on the Miskitos as “a plan to guarantee their rights.”

Sojourners magazine referred to “serious errors of judgment,” and allowed that the FSLN had “at times been insensitive to racism and injustice.” Asked if the campaign against the Miskitos was a violation of human rights, Maryknoll missionary Pat Hynds said that “militarily it was a move that had to be made.”

“North Korea’s labor camps,” says Blaine Harden “have now existed twice as long as the Soviet Gulag and about twelve times longer than the Nazi concentration camps.” Harden, a former Washington Post bureau chief in East Asia, has written an important account of a man born into one of the camps and the first man to escape from the notorious Camp 14.

“Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.” That was the view of Kim Il Sung, who with Stalin’s blessing invaded South Korea in 1950. The policy continued under Kim Jong Il, who deployed the camps to eliminate the evil seed. According to escapee Shin Dong-hyuk, the camps work well as a killing machine.

Shin’s view is that Kim Jong Il was worse than Hitler because while Hitler attacked his enemies, the North Korean dictator worked his own people to death in places like Camp 14. In the event of some major action, the North Korean regime would launch “collective execution” of all prisoners. Shin has solid grounds for this belief, such as Rule 10 of Camp 14.

“Prisoners who violate the laws and regulations of the camp will be shot immediately.” Camp commandants force prisoners to watch executions, including those of their own parents. Shin was forced to watch his mother executed by hanging and his older brother killed by a three-man firing squad.

In camp schools Shin saw teachers beating students to death for no apparent reason. Students worked as slaves at such tasks as gathering human excrement in freezing conditions, with no gloves and no proper winter clothing. Their lot included heavy lifting in factories and on farms.

“Prisoners must more than fulfill the work assigned them each day,” explains Camp 14 rule number 7. “Prisoners who neglect their work quota or fail to complete it will be considered to harbor discontent and will be shot immediately.” Those were the working conditions under which Shin and thousands of other inmates labored. The death penalty also applied to dalliance between the sexes.

“Should sexual physical contact occur without prior approval, the perpetrators will be shot immediately,” explains Camp 14 rule number 8. Camp guards, however, were free to function as sexual predators. If one of their victims became pregnant, the mother and the baby were killed. For a genocidal regime infanticide is not a problem and neither is torture.

Shin Dong-hyuk bears the marks of his own torture sessions, which make for grim reading. Such suffering was part of the process in which the Marxist-Leninist regime punishes children for the sins of their parents. “Prisoners must genuinely repent of their errors,” says Camp 14 rule number 9. “Anyone who does not acknowledge his sins and instead denies them or carries a deviant opinion of them will be shot immediately.”

Last month, as part of its Race in Hollywood series, Turner Classic Movies featured “Arab Images in Film.” Dr. Jack Shaheen accompanied TCM host Robert Osborne in the screening of more than 30 movies. The selections proved entertaining and instructive, though perhaps not in the way Dr. Shaheen intended.

Jack Shaheen is the author of Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Olive Branch Press, 2001), hailed by some film scholars as a courageous expose of Hollywood’s racist stereotypes aimed at Arabs and Middle East culture. Shaheen, of Lebanese parentage, traces interest in this theme from his early days watching television.

He has since come across more than a thousand movies he views as detrimental to Arabs, such as Team America Secret Police and Blackhawk Down, and a few he sees as beneficial. These include The Chronicles of Riddick, Flightplan, and Kingdom of Heaven, a tale of the Crusades starring Ghassan Massoud as Saladin.

Shaheen has served as a Middle East consultant for CBS News and has consulted on such films as Syriana and Three Kings. In July on TCM he screened such films as The Sheik (1921), Lawrence of Arabia, Tarzan the Fearless, Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Jewel of the Nile, Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy, and others. Shaheen castigates most of the films as deliberate vilification of Arabs.

That is a stretch for such fare as The Road to Morocco, and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. This approach reaches its nadir in Harem Scarem, from 1965, starring the late Elvis Presley. To see in the worst of Presley’s 30-odd movies a deliberate attempt to vilify Arabs is more than a stretch. At that point, good judgment, perceptive criticism and common sense, have all left the building, just like Elvis.

One might imagine a screening of Marx Brothers movies such as A Night at the Opera or Horse Feathers as an attempt to vilify Jews and Judaism. The characters appear to have no religion, no jobs, and spend all their time cracking jokes. By Shaheen’s standards Three Stooges and Red Skelton movies are a vilification of all Americans.

Scott Martelle, The Fear Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial, Rutgers University Press, 2011, $26.95.

The trial of Communist Party USA bosses in 1949 was actually a trial of American democracy, an attack on civil liberties and free speech that, as the jacket copy says, “takes on added resonance in today’s environment of suspicion and the decline of civil rights under the U.S.A. Patriot Act.” That’s the basic story of The Fear Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial, which also holds deeper significance.

Coming out of the gate, it seems to be squarely in the genre of American history as a chronicle of oppression. The Fear Within could also pass for the latest edition of Commie Dearest, dedicated to all those whose lives are guided by “the desire to make a better world.” The cover shows more Stalinists per square inch than any book in recent memory.

“I am not a communist myself,” says author Scott Martelle, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, “though, in truth had I lived in the 1930s I likely would have been at some of the same meetings of political progressives that caused so much trouble for the attendees in the 1950s.” Even so, he notes that “The fear was not abstract – Hitler’s Abwehr and Stalin’s NKVD were actively trying to plant spies in the United States, and pro-Nazi and pro-Soviet agitation by American supporters was common.”

A book in this genre from 60s to the 80s would have avoided all that, along with the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Comintern, the Profintern and other uncomfortable subjects Martelle feels compelled to mention. He is also fair to Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko, defectors from Stalin’s spy service and both the target of countless attacks from the American left.

As for CPUSA bosses, “Their alliance with the Soviet Union was clear, but they were not engaged in covert acts against the United States.” The proceedings against Benjamin Davis, William Z. Foster (author of Toward Soviet America), Eugene Dennis et al., were based on the Smith Act, whose founder, Rep. Howard W. Smith was “xenophobic and virulently anti-communist.”  Likewise, back in the day, the Los Angeles Times was “virulently anti-communist.”

In this book, nobody is “virulently anti-American” or “virulently anti-capitalist.” And no person of any country other than the USA can possibly be xenophobic or indulge in hysteria. The defendants included black Communists Benjamin Davis and Henry Winston. Martelle provides some helpful background on racial issues. William Nowell, also a black Communist, was opposed to “the party’s call for a segregated black homeland in the Black Belt of the South.”

Like any legal proceedings, the tactics of the prosecution were open to criticism, but the trial was held in the open, under the rule of law, and duly covered by the press. The defendants, who as Communists did not believe in the United States Constitution, enjoyed full representation by competent counsel. Martelle fails to convince that this trial was a failure of American democracy.

On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, and killed nearly 3,000 people. On September 24, 2001, only 13 days after the attacks, California artists R.J. Waldron, Eric Noda, and Thomas Hanley, as a tribute to those who lost their lives, painted a 35-foot American flag on a concrete wall near Interstate 680 in Sunol, about 40 miles southeast of San Francisco.

For nearly nine years, passing motorists could view the mural — that is, until the California Department of Transportation, known as “Caltrans,” destroyed the artwork by covering it over with paint. California’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, found the cover-up disturbing, particularly the timing.

“It has come to my attention that Caltrans has recently removed a patriotic and meaningful flag mural that was painted on the side of Interstate 680 following the tragic events of 9/11,” said the Governor Schwarzenegger in a written statement. “To do so only days before we celebrate our independence and reflect on the freedoms we are lucky enough to enjoy in America is unconscionable.”

According to news reports, Caltrans considered the American flag mural to be “graffiti.”

“We don’t allow graffiti on state property,” Caltrans spokesman Allyn Amsk told the San Jose Mercury News. “No matter what kind of graffiti it is, we don’t show favoritism.” Mr. Amsk did not mention other cases that might confirm favoritism on the part of Caltrans.

The state agency has let stand for decades an anthology of anti-American, Communist and irredentist imagery on state property in San Diego. The site is Chicano Park, near the Coronado Bridge, and supporters call it a celebration of “Chicano history.” Some murals celebrate prominent Communists not of Mexican-American background.

These include Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, head of the longest standing Communist dictatorship in the Americas. Argentine Stalinist Che Guevara also shows up, as does Vietnamese Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh. Prominently depicted is “Aztlan,” a term adopted by leftist Chicano militants during the 1960s, to describe the American southwest as occupied Mexican territory. The legacy of this variant of 60s radicalism includes various Chicano Studies departments in California universities and groups such as the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. The Aztlan militants consider themselves part of a special raza, meaning race. Mi Raza Primero, “My Race First,” explains one of the Chicano Park murals.

State Senator Leland Yee, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, wants to bar California from adopting any new material from curriculum changes in Texas, which he and other critics view as right-wing revisionism. Though much publicized, the charge fails to stand up, but some textbooks do need correction. Those would be California textbooks, and this is not a new problem.

“They’re all horrors, and there is no reason for them.” State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig said that in 1988 about California’s watered-down texts. Honig, a liberal San Francisco Democrat, duly invited scholar Diane Ravitch to revise California’s history curriculum, which had been tasked to instill pride in accredited victim groups.

“Telling publishers that their books must instill pride only guarantees a phony version of feel-good history,” Ravitch wrote. “Publishers, as a result, bend over backward to be positive, whether writing about the genocidal reign of Mao Tse-tung (presumably to avoid offending his admirers) or the unequal treatment of women in Islamic societies (to avoid offending Muslims).”

Texts should be accurate, Ravitch wrote, “but to impose contemporary political requirements on how the events are portrayed only ensures that the history we teach our students is inaccurate and dishonest.”  In California, it certainly has been that.

The textbook An Age of Voyages: 1350-1600 showed Sikh founder Guru Nanak wearing a crown instead of a turban, and a beard that was trimmed instead of long, as alert Sikhs pointed out. At the time, the California Department of Education had no mechanism for ensuring that textbooks were “factually accurate.”  Little wonder that errors became commonplace.

“Studies have found hundreds of errors in California textbooks,” says the website of the Textbook Trust, a watchdog group. The mistakes include geography, such as the notion that California’s southern border is the Rio Grande. It isn’t, and that river ventures nowhere near the Golden State, whose textbooks also fail to get math right.

A second-grade math text used in 79 schools in California’s capital city of Sacramento contends that five times three equals five. The book, fully approved by the state, is part of a series published by MacMillan/McGraw-Hill and used through the sixth grade. In the nearby Folsom Cordova district teachers have students hunting for errors as part of a learning exercise. The eager fourth-grade students documented 90 errors in the math series, for which the district paid $1.9 million.

So the kids shape up as smarter than the publisher’s fact-checkers and anyone in what the Sacramento Bee calls the “labyrinthian process” of approving the books for the classroom. So do the teachers who are correcting the errors with red pen.  Many other state-approved California textbooks could be marked up.

Meanwhile, the “Texas Curriculum Massacre,” (Newsweek ) that so disturbed Sen. Yee and other liberals, is overblown. As David Upton, assistant professor of politics at the University of Dallas, noted, this may not be the best curriculum, but “no one has pointed to a particular significant error of fact.” And contrary to accusations, Upton writes, “the curriculum is replete with specific references to Jefferson, religious freedom, the civil rights movement, and the achievements and struggles of women and minorities.”

These will never be enough to assuage critics on the left, argues Amity Shlaes, of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.  “Whatever lines it inserts about church, state, hip-hop or the Alamo,” writes Shlaes, “the board will not restore true balance. It will merely manage to make the curriculum a little less skewed to the left.” In a more general way, she adds, “the left also hijacked American culture” so the Texas social studies issue makes sense as a “small check on a larger problem.”

Yet another problem lurks in the background, the government education system itself, an unreformable collective farm of ignorance and mediocrity. This system encourages mass purchase of textbooks, with large states like Texas and California setting the pace. The books may be politically correct, and instill pride in Maoists and Muslims, but that is not the same as accurate. That is why Guru Nanak gets a crown instead of a turban, the Rio Grande gets misplaced, and five times three equals five. Call it the stupidity inherent in the system.

Earth Day turns 40 today, April 22, a good time for scientists, politicians, journalists and the public to dump climate-change orthodoxy. Too many facts are interfering with the familiar story line.

The earth is getting warmer and the cause is modern industry. Unless we curtail industry, and much other human activity, disaster is at hand in the form of catastrophic storms, sea-level rise, and global chaos. This all comes billed as a matter of settled science, and alarmists have been comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers. But as the recent “Climategate” scandal revealed, the alarmists have problems of their own.

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University plays a prominent role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Phil Jones, head of the CRU, now concedes that his raw data can’t be replicated or verified. That’s a big problem for someone purporting to deal in unalloyed science, which concerns observation and measurement.

As Almanac of Environmental Trends author Steven F. Hayward notes, “the gap between observation and conclusion in this subfield is so dependent on statistical techniques rather than direct measurement.” Mistakes are bound to ensue, and infallibility does not apply in this field.

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) may have been warm as today, which nixes the charge that modern industry is to blame for global warming. Mr. Jones admits that the medieval warm period may have been as warm as today. He also agrees that for the last 15 years no statistically significant warming has taken place.

Record cold weather continues in some areas, but alarmists chant that “weather is not climate,” like saying rain is not moisture. Al Gore and his followers have been claiming that all types of weather prove global warming. This is not how science works.

Other controversies involve Michael Mann’s “hockey stick graph,” and significant errors in temperature reconstructions by James Hansen of NASA, a leading climate alarmist. Contrary to what such alarmist claim, the science is not settled, and there is more at stake here than argument.

“The climate policy process contemplates trillions of dollars in costs to economies around the world based partially on this incompetent work,” notes Hayward. Politicians, unfortunately, have welcomed climate superstition with fathomless credulity. The fortieth anniversary of Earth Day is a good time to review, and if necessary rescind, legislation and regulation based on climate orthodoxy.

Legislators should base public policy only on the best science. Journalists also have a part to play. They too have greeted apocalyptic claims with credulity.

George Monbiot of the British Guardian conceded last year that “I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.” The public, likewise, has good cause to be more skeptical of sweeping claims from high-profile alarmists.

Global warming is a hoax inside a fraud wrapped in a myth. Its devious promoters deploy scare tactics to quash economic growth and expand government.  The fortieth anniversary of Earth Day is a good time to dump climate dogma and remember some overlooked realities.

Economic growth is consistent with environmental quality. It remains true that the affluent society does not want to be the effluent society. The data also show that, in many ways, the earth is a cleaner place than it was in 1970. That is something to celebrate in 2010.

K. Lloyd Billingsley is the editorial director at the Pacific Research Institute.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has presented its Community Leadership Award to Imam Mohamed Abdul-Azeez, spiritual leader of the SALAM (Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims) Islamic center in the capital city of California. Drew Parenti, the FBI special agent who nominated Abdul Azeez for the award, struck up a friendship with the imam in the wake of a local terrorist case, and holds the local leader in high regard.

“The award is for preventing violence, creating understanding, bringing people together, and that’s what Mohamed Azeez brings,” Parenti told reporters. “He’s a dynamic community leader, irrespective of religion. Sacramento is truly blessed to have a leader with the vision, energy and compassion demonstrated by Mr. Azeez.”

The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Sacramento office also said that “it’s no secret there is a degree nationally of mistrust, misunderstanding and miscommunication between not just the FBI but the federal government in general and the Muslim community. Imam Azeez should be commended for his willingness to engage in meaningful dialogue.”

Irfan Haq, president of Council of Sacramento Valley Islamic Organizations, called Abul-Azeez “a truly outstanding man who represents mainstream Islam and has done a tremendous amount of outreach work.” Haq also told the Sacramento Bee that “It is also very healthy for the FBI to recognize there are those in the Muslim leadership making an effort to build bridges and reach out and help build a better and safer society. . . There is a certain climate of tension with the FBI on the national level.”

Special agent Parenti has been a friend of Mohamed Abdul-Azeez since a recent terrorism case in Lodi, California. In 2006, American-born Hamid Hayat was sentenced to 24 years for supporting terrorism. He had traveled to Pakistan for jihad training in firearms. His father, Umer Hayat, also a U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to lying to customs agents while carrying $28,000 into Pakistan. He also admitted to FBI agents that he approved of the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Drew Parenti became head of the FBI’s Sacramento office shortly after the arrest of the Hayats. He inherited the case, which Abdul-Azeez said would not have happened under a more cooperative approach with the FBI.

“It’s not us against them,” Abdul-Azeez told the Sacramento Bee,  “and by working together, it’s having a profound effect on preventing another 9/11. Prevention’s not about phone-tapping and visiting people at 3 a.m. It’s about being friends with the community.” Parenti, a veteran of anti-drug operations in Mexico, filled that role.

Parenti made no apology for the way the Lodi case was conducted or prosecuted, but he went the second mile to calm local Muslims, and for a time even kept a Muslim prayer rug in his office. He visited mosques in the Sacramento area.

“The overwhelming majority” of Muslims, Parenti told the Sacramento Bee last year, “want the same things we all want — they want safety for themselves, for their family. . . They want the freedom to express their views and pursue their faith without fear of retribution or harassment. . .  There’s the same exact sense of shared American values that everybody else has.”

The agent’s campaign met with approval from local representatives of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic relations. No cases similar to the Hayats have surfaced in Sacramento but the federal government is moving to seize the Qoba Foundation Islamic Center in nearby Carmichael, charging that it is a front for the Iranian government. Those who worship at the center claim to know nothing about any Iranian connection.

Sacramento is also one of four American cities with branches of As-Sabiqun. (The others are Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia.) The group, based in Washington DC, defends Ford Hood gunman Nidal Malik Hasan as a victim, supports Hamas and Hizbullah, and calls for an “Islamic State of North America” by 2050.  A report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism quotes As-Sabiqun leader Imam Abdul Alim Musa that “America is finished” and that “the war is already won. They just have to fall over.”

No news stories have appeared about FBI dealings with the Sacramento branch of this organization. They do not appear to share “the same exact sense of American values that everybody else has,” that FBI agent Drew Parenti finds in the vast majority of Muslims, and Imam Mohamed Abdul-Azeez in particular.

Abdul-Azeez will receive his Community Leadership Award in March, in Washington, from FBI director Robert Mueller. The agency appears to believe that people should be rewarded for what they should be doing as a matter of course. Whether that approach will help avoid terrorist recruitment or attacks remains to be seen.

Mueller, meanwhile, is conducting an investigation into the November 5 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, involving Major Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 32. This investigation has been portrayed as difficult but it is already known, among other things, that the Army psychiatrist did not share the same American values as everybody else.

Political correctness, common in government and media, has invaded the precincts of the professional sport where ethnicity has meant the least. Los Angeles Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Michael Smith were suspended for comments about Hamed Haddadi, the first Iranian to play in the National Basketball Association.

Haddadi plays for the Memphis Grizzlies and during a November 18 game between the Grizzlies and Clippers, this exchange occurred:

Lawler: “There aren’t any Iranian players in the NBA?”

Smith: “He’s the only one.”

Lawler: “He’s from Iran?”

Smith: “I guess so.”

Lawler: “That Iran?”

Smith: “Yes.”

Lawler: “The real Iran?”

Smith: “Yes.”

Lawler: “Wow. Haddadi — that’s H-A-D-D-A-D-I.”

Smith: “You’re sure it’s not Borat’s older brother? If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I’m going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part.”

Lawler: “Here’s Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball.”

Smith: “Especially the post players.”

Lawler: “I don’t know about their guards.”

Cohen, it might be recalled, starred in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, but that wasn’t the only problem. The announcers pronounced Iran “Eye-Ran,” and Iranian “Eye-ranian,” which rankled season-ticket holder Arya Towfighi, the vice president and assistant general counsel for Univision Communications Inc., the nation’s leading Spanish language media company. Towfighi, of Iranian background, told the Los Angeles Times that his goal was to “highlight the issue that a lot of folks who wouldn’t consider saying such things about African Americans or Hispanics but because this was an Iranian player, it just flowed more easily.”

Towfighi’s complaint was the only one received by Prime Ticket, which televised the game. Lawler and Smith were apologetic but drew a one-game suspension anyway. It was the first broadcast Lawler had missed in 25 years. Hamed Haddadi, who stands seven feet two inches, had no comment but Jonathan Arianeei, born in Iran, decided to weigh in with the Los Angeles Times.

“I am an Iranian-born American and I’ve been lucky enough to meet Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith a few times. Not only have they both been courteous and professional each time I’ve encountered them, before a game a couple of seasons ago Ralph surprised my then 5-year-old son with a program and media guide as I took their picture together.

I listened to Lawler’s and Smith’s broadcast that apparently offended Arya Towfighi so much. I thought it was funny and heard nothing offensive. In fact, it reminded me of Chick Hearn’s sense of humor during his Lakers days. But speaking of offensive dialogue, Mr. Towfighi might want to listen to some of the stuff I’ve heard on his Univision outlets.”

John McMullen, NBA editor of The Sports Network, provided a sensible observation on the Iranian affair. “I’m not a big fan of political correctness, the all-encompassing term that virtually regulates peoples thoughts and behaviors on gender, racial, cultural and sexual orientation matters. It’s always been my thesis that political correctness has no place in a free society aiming to reach a higher cultural plane where people actually accept each others’ differences. . . . As usual, when the political correctness crowd is involved, nothing gets accomplished.”

That wasn’t exactly the case. On November 29 the Clippers hosted Memphis and promoted Haddadi’s appearance with “Iranian Heritage Day.”

Political correctness, meanwhile, is particularly out of place in a league where every player is there because of ability, not ethnicity. The Sacramento Kings roster includes Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the NBA. Kings announcers have made no on-air gaffes about Casspi, and the team has not promoted “Israel Heritage Day.”  Kings broadcaster Jerry Reynolds does call American player John Brockman the “Brock Ness Monster,” but that has occasioned no fan complaints or suspensions.

New Castro, Same Cuba, a new report from Human Rights Watch, notes that under Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, Cuba continues to harass and imprison dissidents. The criminal code punishes “dangerousness,” which punishes such crimes as handing out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or any behavior deemed contrary to “socialist morality.”

One gets no clue of these conditions, or any history of Castro repressions, from American political tourists, mostly educators, who visit the island under the auspices of Cuba Education Tours, based in Vancouver B.C.

“We have an amazing Cuba trip for teachers during New Years and we warmly invite you to join us on the island,” says an email from Marcel Hatch, Education Director of  Cuba Education Tours. This trip will showcase “the real Cuba,” and “you’ll return having made new friends and contacts abroad.” The upbeat Marcel also links to some educators who already took the trip. Their testimonies are indeed educational.

Norva Schapira and Abigail Cleary, high-school Spanish teachers from Lansing, New York, mention “many stereotypes about the country” but do not mention whether these include the stereotype that Cuba is a one-party Communist dictatorship that represses all dissent, persecutes homosexuals, and has reduced a once prosperous nation to sub-Haiti levels of poverty.

“The experience was smooth from beginning to end,” and “the orientation information was thorough and useful.” Further, “our guide, Tatiana Rodriguez, as well as our driver, Angel always took very good care of the group.” The pair will return soon.

Amy DeCola, an early childhood education administrator with the South Carolina State Department of Education, discovered that “Cubans are passionate about life and it is evident in their music, dance and art. They have overcome challenges with determination and a special resilience. Americans can learn a great deal from the urban organic gardens and sustainable communities.” Amy saw “where Che Guevara set up his headquarters,” and peppered Tatiana with endless questions.

Ann Eskridge, African-American studies professor at the University of Detroit, danced the salsa on a rooftop and testifies that “I came back from my trip to Cuba with a deeper understanding of the issues affecting that country and a newfound respect for the Cuban people. I attribute this to the hard work Cuba Educations Tours staff put into making sure that we had a well-rounded look at what Cuba is like today.”

Dulce Maria Gray, professor of English, writing, literature and women’s studies at West Valley College in Saratoga, California, dropped off her bags at the Hotel Habana Libre in La Rampa, a central neighborhood in Vedado. “Until the revolution, this was the Hilton Hotel that had been opened in March 1958 and had become a gambling casino and playground for rich Americans,” the professor explains. “But, the revolution triumphed on 1 January 1959.”

Sheila Scharmann, a high-school teacher at Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools in Morinville, Alberta, says “We were treated royally from the minute we stepped off the plane.” Breakfast at the Habana Libre was “excellent” and “Never once did we feel threatened or unsafe, even after dark.” Sheila advises tourists to bring a “very large notebook” because “if you go, your eyes and hearts will be opened, and you’ll come home with different outlooks on many issues. This trip is was worthwhile, indeed life-changing!”

That was the experience of  Alexis P. Markowitz, of the UCLA Dept of Humanities, Sciences, Social and Health Sciences. “I am changed forever after such an amazing experience!” Alexis says. “Our guide Mildred was awesome and goes the extra mile. She ensured we had the most complete, authentic, and satisfying trip possible and saw the REAL Cuba.”

And so on. None of the eager tourists, of course, saw anything resembling the real Cuba. The faithful guides did not introduce them to anyone imprisoned for “dangerousness” or violating “socialist morality.” On the other hand, the eager tourists probably showed no interest in victims of the regime.

The visitors also appear unaware of the long history of Potemkin village tours by Communist regimes, charted by Paul Hollander in Political Pilgrims. That book recalls that New-Left icon Abbie Hoffman described Fidel Castro standing erect among his people “like a great penis.” The outpourings of the recent political tourists may be less vivid but are every bit as fatuous. Material about Cuban repression, meanwhile, is not exactly in short supply.

In Improper Conduct, Nestor Almendros and Orlando Jimenez Leal document Castro’s persecution of homosexuals. In 8A, Jimenez Leal documents Castro’s show trial of General Arnaldo Ochoa, in which his state-appointed lawyer pleads with the court that his client should be executed. Armando Valladares charted Cuban prison conditions in Against all Hope and in Heroes are Grazing in My Garden the poet Heberto Padilla explained what it was like to be a writer in a Communist state.

The Cuba Education Tours crowd shows no familiarity with this body of work. The various Amnesty International reports also offer other insights on a regime so loathsome that, at the first opportunity, people will flee in anything that floats, leaving loved ones behind.

When it comes to the worst dictatorship in the Americas, the pilgrims of Cuba Education Tours combine willful ignorance with full cognitive dissonance. They prop up the regime and perpetuate the stereotype of happy peasants who love their massa. If they are so wrong on something so basic, why should their students listen to them on anything else? And now abides credulity, fatuity, and ignorance, but the greatest of these is ignorance.

*

[To get the whole story on political pilgrimages to Castro's Cuba and the psychology behind fellow traveling, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.]

Fallout from a raid on fundamentalist Islamic separatists confirms that police officials take no back seat to politicians and the media when it comes to appeasement.

The Ummah, a violent fundamentalist Sunni Islamic group in Detroit, advocates a separate Islamic state that would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, also known as H. Rap Brown, a veteran of the black power movement now in prison for gunning down two police officers. According to the U.S. Department of justice the Ummah group “is alleged to have engaged in violent activity over a period of many years, and known to be armed.”

Last month, as the result of a two-year investigation, the FBI raided the Michigan headquarters of the group, now headed by Luqman Ameen Abdullah, sought by the FBI for providing firearms and ammunition to a person known to be a convicted felon, sale or receipt of stolen goods, and other violations. Luqman Ameen Abdullah fired at federal officers, who returned fire and killed him.

Other members of the group remained at large, including Yassir Ali Khan and Mohammad Al-Sahli, also known as Mohammad Palestine, both wanted for conspiracy to commit federal crimes. The pair were arrested across the border in Windsor, Ontario, by local police cooperating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

In the course of the arrest, Windsor police patted down one of the suspect’s wives. This sparked complaints about police insensitivity. Gary Smith, Windsor’s chief of police, promptly issued a public apology.

“It was never the intention for Windsor police officers to offend or embarrass the families of our Islamic community,” said Smith’s press release. “The actions taken did cause embarrassment and did offend their religious beliefs. I sincerely apologize to the families and the Islamic community.” The police chief further called for more “cultural sensitivity training.”

Arrests are generally embarrassing events for those being arrested and their families. It did not emerge which religious “belief” the officers had violated, but the police rank and file were at odds with their boss over the need for any apology.

“Usually, when you make an apology, that means something was wrong,” Ed Parent of the Windsor Police Association told reporters. “In my opinion, nothing went wrong here. . .  I believe the officers were doing everything they’re entitled to do under the law. I believe they did it professionally. I don’t see an issue here.” The RCMP agreed.

Sgt. Marc LaPorte told reporters that officers have the right to determine whether or not there is a threat.  “If they deemed it was necessary to pat her down, then the officers do have the authority to do that,” LaPorte said.

U.S. authorities wanted Yassir Ali Khan and Mohammad Al-Sahli to be denied bail. Canadian authorities released them on bail. Dr. Murad Aktas of the Windsor Islamic Association is slated to provide the training in cultural sensitivity for Windsor police officers. The sensitivity quality seems lacking in the Ummah group.

One of the FBI’s sources said that  Luqman Ameen Abdullah would beat children with sticks until they couldn’t walk.  And in a recorded 2004 sermon, Abdullah said, “Do not carry a pistol if you’re going to give it up to police. You give them a bullet!”

He has not yet officially declared, but last week California Attorney General Jerry Brown, a former mayor of Oakland and a three-time presidential candidate, filed papers with the California Secretary of State that will enable him to raise more money to run for governor, an office he held from 1975 to 1983.

On October 1, Brown announced that he would investigate ACORN, an organization much in the news. The investigation provides some clues as to what a new Brown administration might be like, and recalls key events from his past terms as governor – an office whose clout extends far beyond the Golden State.

As the world knows, ACORN’s California staffers were caught on film handing out advice about the best way to smuggle in underage prostitutes into the United States, not exactly legal activity. That news did not prompt California’s attorney general immediately to launch an investigation. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger requested the investigation, but it took Brown several weeks to get on board. His angle is also of interest.

According to spokesman Scott Gerber, Brown’s office will not limit its inquiries to the activist group. It will also look into the circumstances under which ACORN employees were taped. So, the undercover filmmakers, Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe, are as much a target as ACORN, a government-funded strike force of the left claiming to aid accredited victim groups. That recalls Governor Jerry Brown’s grant of amnesty to Dennis Banks, a founder of AIM, the American Indian Movement.

Banks took part in the occupation of Alcatraz, the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington DC, and Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. He was acquitted of the charges over Wounded Knee but convicted of riot and assault over a courthouse gun battle at Custer, South Dakota. Rather than serve time, Banks fled to California.

There Governor Jerry Brown refused to extradite him, and Banks took full advantage of the protection by studying at UC Davis and serving as chancellor of Deganawidah-Quetzecoatl University (DQU), a ramshackle outfit of left-wing origins near Sacramento. Banks also taught at Stanford but thought it best not to prolong his stay in California beyond the governorship of Jerry Brown. In 1983, he duly fled to a reservation in New York State.

Jerry Brown’s choice for a seat on the California Arts Council was actress and left-wing activist Jane Fonda. This came not long after Fonda jollied it up with the Stalinist North Vietnamese regime while it was torturing American POWs. She also made anti-US broadcasts from Hanoi and allowed herself to be photographed, looking positively euphoric, on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. After U.S. withdrawal, she remained uncritical of the Communist regime and attacked those who criticized its repressions.

In filling the council seat, Governor Brown, who opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam, did not lack for choices. His selection of Jane Fonda was a poke in the eye of the soldiers who fought bravely in Vietnam, despite wavering support from Washington, and who were being vilified in the streets and in popular culture. The U.S. military is now battling foes such as the Taliban, again with wavering support from Washington, and similarly under fire from the Left.

The Fonda appointment was not the only disappointment of Brown’s gubernatorial tenure. As Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee notes, Brown rode into office in the wake of Watergate as a reformer who would restrict the influence of special interests. Instead, says Walters, Brown “created the almost hegemonic power of public worker unions.” These favor continued expansion of state government and, as attorney general, Brown is still lending them a hand.

As a result, the unions have prospered. In 2000, Gov. Gray Davis and the state legislature established the UC Institute for Labor and Employment as a gift to the California Labor Federation. From 2000 to 2008, the legislature gave the institute $37.4 million in taxpayer funds. The institute uses taxpayer money to crank out biased studies, labeled as UCLA or UC Berkeley studies, for release shortly before key votes.

California is in the throes of its worst budget crisis since the 1930s. Yet, in 2008, the legislature still saw fit to give the labor institute another $5.4 million. This time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the funding. But after the veto, attorney general Brown joined other leading Democrats to pressure the University of California to pony up the money. The University of California system has been cutting services and raising student fees for several years. Nevertheless, it managed to find $4 million for an institute that it did not create and has no obligation to fund.

Brown’s advisers say he won’t make the official call until next year. Dan Walters, meanwhile, has dubbed Jerry Brown the “leading contender” for governor. But given Brown’s troubling political legacy, one must wonder if California can afford his leadership once again.