Beck and right-wing bloggers push video in which Bloom quoted Mao

Feb. 2008: Bloom discussed union action “on the field” and stated, “We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” From Bloom's February 2008 presentation, “Asserting the Union Position in Restructurings”:

BLOOM: The second thing about us is we've decided to get on the field. Some unions and our union, in fact, some years ago, largely played defense in these situations. We had what we had and we tried to protect it. What we realized through long and often painful experience is that management matters, business strategy matters, capital structure matters, ownership matters. We spent a long time trying to clean up the messes that others had left us. And so now we try to create our own messes. This is more dangerous politically, it's more difficult. It has higher risk. We think it has higher reward. But in any event, in these cases where we can be on the field, you should expect to find us on the field.

Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

Beck: Bloom seems to “just love Chairman Mao.” In his October 20 newsletter, Beck stated, “Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom is the latest in a long line of White House officials who seem to just love Chairman Mao. Mao, of course, is the loving former Chinese dictator who killed 70 millioin people during peacetime, so what's not to love?” From GlennBeck.com on October 20:

Limbaugh: “Can you think of any other administration” where somebody praised Mao “as a philosopher to follow” or cited Lenin? Limbaugh stated, “Can you think of any other administration in this country where a president or a communications specialist or anybody else would run around and start praising Mao Zedong as a role model, as a philosopher to follow? Can you think of any administration who would have previously cited Stalin or Lenin or Castro? This administration idolizes all these people. I'm not suggesting they're mass-murderers; I'm saying they envy the total control, the tyrannical control that Mao Zedong had.” After playing an audio clip of Bloom's comments, Limbaugh stated, "[Y]ou got two high-ranking White House officials citing their appreciation for and respect for the philosophies of Mao Zedong." [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 10/20/09]

Jim Hoft: Bloom is “ANOTHER Mao-Praising Obama Czar.” Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft wrote that Bloom “prais[ed] mass-murderer Mao Tse-Tung in a speech.” Hoft also stated, “How many commies have invaded the White House? ... We may never know.” [Gateway Pundit, 10/20/09]

Fox Nation: “Obama Czar Agrees With Mao: Thinks Free Market Is 'Nonsense.' ” From the FoxNation on October 20:

Breitbart TV: “Obama czar agrees with Mao.” A clip of Bloom's comments were posted on Breitbart.tv on October 20 with the headline, “Obama czar agrees with Mao - also thinks free market is 'nonsense' ”:

Dobbs to discuss “just the latest member of this administration to quote Mao.” Lou Dobbs' website, LouDobbs.com, stated, “The nation's manufacturing czar thinks the free market is nonsense, and he's just the latest member of this administration to quote Mao.” From LouDobbs.com on October 20:

Numerous conservatives have approvingly cited Mao's and other communists' tactics, rhetoric

McCain repeatedly quoted Mao when discussing politics. McCain has repeatedly quoted “the words of Chairman Mao,” stating of his presidential campaign, "[I]t's always darkest before it's totally black," during a July 2007 conference call with bloggers, an April 2008 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, and on several other occasions.

Gingrich quoted Mao: "[P]olitics is war without blood." A May 1995 Roll Call profile of then-Speaker of the House and current Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich reported that Gingrich said the House and Senate are “arenas for conflict” where “we sublimate civil war to bring people together.” Roll Call further reported, “Gingrich even quoted a political leader not previously known to be one of his influences. 'War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood,' said the Speaker, citing the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung.” Gingrich regularly appears on Fox News' Hannity, The O'Reilly Factor, On the Record, and Fox News Sunday, and visited Beck's Fox News program earlier this year, according to a search of the Nexis news database.

Goldwater's “alter ego” said he “followed the advice of Mao Tse-tung.” In his 1964 essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Richard Hofstadter wrote that Stephen C. Shadegg, adviser to Sen. Barry Goldwater during his senatorial and presidential campaigns, approvingly cited Mao and quoted him, saying that he “followed the advice of Mao” while working for Goldwater and in his other campaign work. In its obituary of Shadegg, The New York Times described him as “a political campaign manager who was regarded as the alter ego of Senator Barry Goldwater in the Senator's unsuccessful quest for the Presidency in 1964.” The Times also reported that Shadegg “for three years wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column that carried Senator Goldwater's byline,” “served as Western regional director of the Goldwater forces” during his 1964 presidential campaign, and “was acknowledged as the person closest to the Senator in philosophy and as the craftsman of the Goldwater image as a staunch conservative.” (The New York Times, 5/24/90)

GOP strategist Ralph Reed approvingly cited Mao, Viet Cong. A 1992 Seattle Times article reported that Republican strategist and former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed said in an “interview with The Phoenix Gazette” that “Mao Tse-Tung said politics is war without bloodshed. Clearly, there are some metaphors that sit nicely with politics.” (The Seattle Times, 10/25/92, from Nexis)

Reed called for using Viet Cong-style political tactics. In The Art of Political Warfare, John J. Pitney Jr., a contributing editor to the libertarian journal Reason, wrote that Reed explained the Christian Coalition's strategy of sometimes backing " 'stealth candidates' for local office who would downplay their affiliations in order to attract broader support" by saying, “It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. ... It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective.”

Bush recommended Mao bio to adviser Karl Rove. In his December 26, 2008, Wall Street Journal column, Rove wrote that he and President Bush “recommended volumes to each other (for example, he encouraged me to read a Mao biography; I suggested a book on Reconstruction's unhappy end.) We discussed the books and wrote thank-you notes to some authors.”

Cato article on " 'Leninist' Strategy" for Social Security reform reportedly laid foundation for Bush's proposal. According to Los Angeles Times staff writer Janet Hook, "[a] generation of free-market conservatives like [Cato Institute president Edward H.] Crane" had been “laying the groundwork for” “Bush's plan to allow younger workers to divert Social Security taxes into personal investment accounts.” Hook then cited a 1983 Cato Journal article in which Heritage Foundation analysts Stuart Butler and Peter Germanis wrote: “It could be many years before the conditions are such that a radical reform of Social Security is possible. ... But then, as Lenin well knew, to be a successful revolutionary, one must also be patient and consistently plan for real reform.” In their Cato Journal article, titled, “Achieving a 'Leninist' Strategy,” Butler and Germanis wrote that "[a]s we contemplate basic reform of the Social Security system, we would do well to draw a few lessons from the Leninist strategy. Many critics of the present system believe, as Marx and Lenin did of capitalism, that the system's days are numbered because of its contradictory objectives or attempting to provide both welfare and insurance." According to a Nexis search, Cato and Heritage experts have appeared on Beck's show a total of at least 14 times in the past six months.

Beck previously targeted Anita Dunn for citing Mao

Beck cropped Dunn quote to falsely claim she said Mao was “the man she turns to most.” Continuing Fox News' witch hunt against members of the Obama administration, both Beck and Special Report misleadingly cropped Dunn's remarks at a high school graduation ceremony to falsely claim that she was, in Beck's words, “proclaiming Mao [Zedong] as ... the man that she turns to most.” In fact, Dunn actually said that Mao and Mother Teresa were “the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices” [emphasis added].

Beck falsely claimed Dunn “worships” “her hero” Mao Zedong. Throughout most of his October 15 Fox News program, Beck falsely claimed that Dunn “worships” and “idolizes” “her hero” Mao Zedong. In fact, in the video that Beck aired as evidence to support his claims, Dunn offered no endorsement of Mao's ideology or atrocities -- rather, she commented that Mao and Mother Teresa were two of her “favorite political philosophers,” and based on short quotes from them, she offered the advice that “you don't have to follow other people's choices and paths” or “let external definition define how good you are internally.” In attacking Dunn, Beck has targeted yet another Obama administration official in his Fox News-assisted witch hunt of President Obama's so-called “czars.” Beck and Fox News have previously attacked with falsehoods and spurious claims White House officials Kevin Jennings, Cass Sunstein, Harold Koh, and Van Jones.

Transcripts

From the October 20 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: Can you think of any other administration in this country where a president or a communications specialist or anybody else would run around and start praising Mao Zedong as a role model, as a philosopher to follow? Can you think of any administration who would have previously cited Stalin or Lenin or Castro? This administration idolizes all these people. I'm not suggesting they're mass-murderers; I'm saying they envy the total control, the tyrannical control that Mao Zedong had. You fight your battles, and I'll fight mine.

We've got another one to add to the list now. This is the manufacturing czar, Ron Bloom. He was the car czar, but he's moved over to manufacturing now. He called the free market nonsense. This is February 2008 in New York City, the sixth annual Distressed Investing Forum. And he was special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers union at the time. He's now the White House manufacturing czar. Ron Bloom.

BLOOM [audio clip]: We get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.

LIMBAUGH: Now he's speaking as a union guy there, but he's now the manufacturing czar at the White House. So you got two high-ranking White House officials citing their appreciation for and respect for the philosophies of Mao Zedong.

From the October 20 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:

BECK: So what if I told you that -- Pat, you remember -- the day that Van Jones left the White House. OK? It was early Sunday morning we found out.

PAT GRAY (radio host): Yes, it was.

BECK: And the same -- about an hour later we found out that the president was appointing somebody to be a new czar.

GRAY: Yes, Ron Bloom.

BECK: Ron Bloom. Our manufacturing czar.

GRAY: Yes.

BECK: He's the guy who's going to turn around our manufacturing.

GRAY: Well, he was a big union guy.

BECK: He's a big union guy.

GRAY: We were very excited about that.

BECK: Yeah. Do you remember when I first heard that, and I started to Google Ron Bloom.

GRAY: Yeah, I do.

BECK: And I said, “Something's wrong here.” Do you remember that?

GRAY: I do.

BECK: Yeah.

GRAY: I thought, no, surely not --

BECK: Surely not. Surely, there couldn't be --

GRAY: Surely not another one.

BECK: And after about another hour I discovered that he had some nefarious ties to some socialist and redistributive wealth kind of organizations.

STEVE “STU” BURGUIERE (producer): But that's all theory and --

BECK: Well, can I tell you something? Yes, and that's why we never went on the air with it.

BURGUIERE: Right.

BECK: Because we couldn't nail it down specifically. It was in his youth. And I said at the time, I'm telling you, something's wrong. Wow. May I?

GRAY: Yes, you may.

BECK: May I now play the audio of our manufacturing czar giving a speech? This is when he was the head of the unions, giving a speech on how the manufacturing sector is just falling apart.

BURGUIERE: But this is way -- I mean, this is such --

[crosstalk]

BECK: Aught eight. If we can get the media now to just say that it was from “aught eight,” you'll know how old it really is.

GRAY: It sounds really old when you say “aught.”

BECK: Yeah, all right. So here is Ron Bloom, the administration's manufacturing czar. The latest in a long, long line of those who don't understand America.

BLOOM [audio clip]: Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is --

BECK: Oh, stop, stop, stop.

BURGUIERE: What a way to open a speech, everybody.

GRAY: I get that joke, ha ha ha.

BECK: We get the joke.

GRAY: What American doesn't get that the free market is nonsense.

BECK: That the free market is nonsense.

BURGUIERE: Oh, that's hilarious.

BECK: Play it again. He'll be at Yuk-Yuks all week.

BLOOM [audio clip]: Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense.

BECK: Wait, wait, wait, there's more.

GRAY: Oh.

BLOOM [audio clip]: Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.

BECK: Oh.

BLOOM [audio clip]: And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

BECK: Well, I don't have a problem with that, that's just the guy who's restructuring manufacturing in America.

GRAY: Can you imagine the jobs he'll be creating?

BECK: Oh my gosh, of course.

GRAY: All Maoists know how to create jobs.

BECK: No, sure, and they don't, I mean, anybody who knows that the free market is nonsense --

GRAY: Well, that's a great way to start.

BECK: -- they're going to be able to -- they're going to be able to build a great car, I'll tell you that right now. Sure. Especially the kind of car that you buy after somebody puts a barrel of a gun to your head. Those are the kinds of cars that sell, usually, don't you think?

GRAY: Oh yeah.

BECK: Yeah.

BURGUIERE: So what is his -- I'm just, I'm sorry, and I know I shouldn't be shaken by this at this point. But this is the man --

BECK: Yes you should. Yes you should. You should be -- you know what you should be shaken by? Not only that yet there's another one, but you should be shaken by the fact that no one in the media is -- are you telling me that Glenn Beck, a guy who's been a DJ his whole life, who is a guy who doesn't have a degree from any university, doesn't have one. Just a normal guy, just a dad. I can be standing in some place and hear that Van Jones is out, and at the same time Van Jones goes out, Barack Obama gives a speech and appoints Ron Bloom, and Glenn Beck can then look at that and go, “Wait a minute, I -- something's not right with that.” Really? What is it, my education? Is it my vision? Is that what it is?

GRAY: No, it's that you're in bed with the Republican Party. You're just a wing --

BECK: Oh yes, a research arm.

GRAY: A right-wing research arm --

BECK: That's what it is. So I can do that, but there's no one else in journalism that can do that. There's no one else. Nobody even finds that interesting. That we have a guy who has now been appointed as the manufacturing czar, and he doesn't believe in the free market system. Oh, and he pretty much agrees with Mao that power comes from the end and the barrel of a gun.

[...]

BECK: Play the Ron Bloom thing here. This is --

BLOOM [audio clip]: Generally speaking --

BECK: This is our manufacturing jobs czar, and I need to make an important point here. Listen.

BLOOM [audio clip]: Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market, or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money because they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults-only, no-limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.

BECK: OK, stop. Here's the thing. I'm not going to call this guy a Maoist. I am going to call this guy an anti-free market person, maybe a Marxist. Maybe. He's quoting Mao, and he is -- he thinks the free market system is nonsense, so you could go out on a limb and say he's a Marxist. But let's be accurate here. Just because he's quoting Mao doesn't make him a fan of Mao. However, I don't agree with the whole “power comes from the barrel of a gun” thing, so I got a problem with that quote, and the free market system is nonsense.

See that's the difference. You can look at a quote like this and say, all right, he's not a Maoist. However, if you look at the scope of his life and what he's been involved in since early childhood, you might think that maybe he's a Marxist. But I'll leave that for real journalists to look into.