PrintFebruary 6, 2011
The Code Pink Blues
It was a cold day in the maelstrom of a Midwest blizzard when I inadvertently stumbled upon the glossy, pink, smiling cheerleaders of the Code Pink website.
The attraction can only be compared to the inexplicable instinct to slow and gawk at a horrific accident, only to be left with images of a sad and unanswered tragedy. Trolling Code Pink's website is nothing less than an assault on rational thinking. If only I'd turned away.
Women swathed in pink running about objecting to war, undermining our soldiers, targeting the children of military families, sticking blood-covered hands in the faces of politicians, forsaking rights in the name of social justice, and frolicking with dictators joyously fill the pages of Code Pink's website. "People who want to influence a shift in the focus of world society and government from militarism to life-affirming endeavors are CODEPINK!" In the words of co-founder Medea Benjamin, "[a]ctivism is good for our health and spirit - it keeps us engaged, active, upbeat, and passionate."
Stalin could only have been so lucky to have the public relations of a Code Pink. Peasants would have volunteered to starve themselves to death! Like so many benevolent leftists before them, who would ever guess that smiling, unassuming peace-lovers could harbor such a loathing anti-Americanism? And under so much pink.
The "Code Pink" name was born from the color-coded homeland security alert system introduced by the Bush administration soon after 9/11. Code Pink isn't the only group that finds the color-coding ineffectual, frankly. For most of us, it seems only logical to assume that we're always on high alert in the war on terror, and the color warnings simply aren't all that meaningful to a parent watching his four-year-old get felt up by the TSA.
Naturally, Code Pink opposes the coded threat levels because there aren't any actual terrorists other than American soldiers, Israelis, and George Bush. According to their website, "[w]hile Bush's color-coded alerts are based on fear and are used to justify violence, the CODE 'PINK' alert is a feisty call for women and men to 'wage peace.'"
And let's face it: the Code Pink ladies just don't wear red, white, and blue all that well.
Code Pink's progressive agenda is well-documented: single-payer health care, social justice, green environmentalism, federally funded abortion, marijuana legalization, rampant anti-capitalism, the crippling of our defense, and the weakening of our military and their morale at every opportunity (http://www.Code Pink4peace.org). Suggestions for more entertaining pursuits such as infiltrating Tea Party rallies, games with decks of cards featuring U.S. war criminals, and moving Bush's book, Decision Points, to the crime section of bookstores are also available at their website.
Far more damning are Code Pink's international exploits: meeting with Hugo Chávez in 2006, delivering $600,000 in cash to the counter-insurgents in Fallujah in 2007, traveling to Iran in 2009 to meet with Ahmadinejad, and the 2010 Gaza Flotilla delivering "aid" to Palestinians in Gaza and sparking an international incident when Israel was provoked to self-defense. It was in 2010 that Evans asked the Muslim Brotherhood to "join us in cleansing our country," even endorsing the kidnapping of George and Laura Bush, Karl Rove, and others.
Most recently, Code Pink worked with Greenpeace and public employee unions to "crash" the meeting of the billionaire Koch brothers, dubbed by leftists as the "secret financiers" of the grassroots Tea Party movement. The Koch Brother's real crime is their prosperity -- and their devotion to the only system that affords opportunity to all citizens: capitalism.
Co-founder Jodie Evans and dozens of other pinks in the last few years alone have traveled to Iraq, Turkey, Great Britain, Iran, Thailand, Cuba, Egypt, Venezuela, and Brazil, undermining our foreign policy whenever possible. If that's not proof of their "outreach," Code Pink now has active chapters or offices in at least a dozen other countries.
Their impressive growth leads one to wonder just how many peace-wagers are forking over their savings in gas, incandescent bulbs, plastic baggies, and not having to buy t-shirts in colors other than pink. Perhaps we'll never know just how all those trips are underwritten.
Interestingly, Code Pink is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization, classified as a 501(c)(3).
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates. (www.IRS.gov/charities/charitable.html)
Perhaps we can safely put to rest just how wide an interpretation the Internal Revenue Service is afforded in determining political impartiality.
Jodie Evans has well-documented ties to Obama and Soros, but also to a mind-boggling number of leftist organizations: the Women's Media Center, Drug Policy Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Institute for Policy Studies, World Festival of Sacred Music, 826 LA, Office of the Americas, Sisterhood is Global Institute, and Global Girl Media, to name a few.
Evans has more than just a passing acquaintance with those organizations. She sits on the board of each and every one, confirmed by each organization's website. And she's in good company with some of her better-known friends: Sean Penn, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, Woody Harrelson, Daryl Hannah, and the late Howard Zinn. Some of the organizations are innocuous, but others, such as the Institute for Policy Studies, make no secret of their quest for one global economy and economic and social justice.
Evans's love of the limelight may be becoming a liability. Her more quasi-covert cohorts -- Ayers, Klonsky, Soros,Van Jones, and the ever-left-lurching Annenbergs - may not appreciate the increasing transparency. It's becoming quite clear the next push for social justice may be hiding in plain sight -- education.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated a staggering $100 billion to public schools (www.recovery.gov). The $5 billion in "discretionary or incentive grants" has yet to be allocated. In the words of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, "we have to educate our way to a better economy." Or at least a more progressive one.
Dollars don't necessarily translate to a system with any political or social bent, but grants endorsing progressive "education" organizations unapologetically do. Ayers and others have used that attack for some time. Who better to be a link between the new, or at least now-transparent, "social justice" education in schools and available education dollars than a smiling sorority sister? She's more than familiar with the organizations preaching the concepts.
We know that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was never about job stimulus, but what if it wasn't just about greasing Democrat wheels, either? What if the nearly one third of the ARRA education "stimulus" dollars -- still unspent -- was never meant to be spent, but instead to be held ever so patiently in reserve for a rainy progressive day? Stranger things have happened with leftists in charge.
The pink ladies may seem like nothing more than a shrill, annoying pack of girlfriends on the verge, but they know how to use chaos as well as the best community organizer. If the chaos embraced by the left ever results in a collapse, do we really want the likes of Evans and Benjamin with access to the coffers? Imagine Code Pink with a seat at the table, doling out the spoils of the new "fundamental transformation" in education. It's almost unthinkable, but so were unaccountable czars at one time.
Call them dangerously naïve, brilliantly opportunistic, or both. Code Pink seems to be unaware, as they pose in solidarity with their Egyptian sisterhood, that nothing the Muslim Brotherhood stands for is pro-democracy. Nothing. If chaos is your modus operandi though, Egypt is the place to be. It doesn't seem to bother the ladies of Code Pink that commiserating with the enemy, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, leads only to more war. And lost wars lead to far worse. A pink burka is still a burka.
Code Pink's anti-military and antiwar antics are nothing less than despicable while our brave soldiers' boots remain on very dangerous ground. Taking that message to young schoolchildren is a new low, even for femi-leftists. Even worse, taking the message of the U.S. as an enemy and a warped interpretation of "democracy" overseas to women in very vulnerable situations is anything but sisterly.
No matter how "benevolent" Code Pink's founding in 2002, it's fallen into its own leftist trap of ever-increasing, dangerous radicalization. Their message of peace and sisterhood no longer masks an agenda filled with a loathing for America and her ideals.
The Department of Justice is either criminal in failing to investigate Code Pink or complicit in Code Pink's crimes. Continuing to address Code Pink's behavior as anything less than criminal undermines the right to free speech we all hold dear. Or maybe Ms. Evans, et al. and our DOJ already know something about that seat at the table?
Hard to know what came first -- the "girl" in pink, or the red radical?
