The latest "victim" of the left is Jeremiah Wright, according to David Axelrod, chief political strategist for Obama's re-election campaign.  In a speech on January 10, at Thousand Oaks, Ca., he described Wright as a victim of selective editing and the 2008 news reports of him as "ninety seconds of vitriolⁱ plucked from thirty years of sermons by some enterprising opposition researcher" (Big Government).  The "Transparency Policy" prevented the recording of the event, but the  quotation was written down and tweeted immediately upon delivery.  Numerous writings and YouTube recordings of Wright's preaching at Trinity United Church of Christ, including one  immediately after Obama's famous "race speech" in Philadelphia flatly contradict that.

In evaluating the "victim" status of Wright, it's important to put him within the larger context of "victims" of the left in recent years.

"Good" victims of the left have included not only Wright, but also black farmers who alleged that they were discriminated against by the USDA, illegal aliens, victims of the home mortgage frauds, victims of U.S. wars, and victims of pedophiliaⁱⁱ.  No one is denying that discrimination -- and in some cases, horrendous crimes -- took place, but in the majority of cases, "liberal" (perhaps unscrupulous) compensation was given.  The Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress, integration of schools is the norm, and the Pigford Settlement (Big Government) was recently distributed.  There were investigations of fraudulent home mortgages at the state and federal level and investigation of churches, changes in statutes of limitations for some crimes, financial compensation, and major changes in the selection and training of personnel.

It is a remarkable study in comparative justice to compare "good victims" with the "bad victims" of the left.  Bad victims are rarely if ever mentioned and include the victims of communism (approximately 100,000,000 deaths, including approximately 1 million from "Uncle Ho" [The Black Book of Communism]); the victims of the Fort Hood massacre (13 dead and 30 wounded); the victims of "Fast and Furious," including Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexicans;  blacks in failing inner-city schools; the victims of the GM and Chrysler bailouts, which include bondholders, managers of car dealerships, and uncompensated parents or relatives of deceased victims of GM and Chrysler cars due to negligence of the manufacturers (The Wall St. Journal); Mary Jo Kopechne; the rape victims of Occupy Wall Streetⁱⁱⁱ; and the three police victims of the Brinks robbery in Nyack, NY.

What do the good victims have in common that makes them worthy of extensive news coverage, making them a cause célèbre, demonstrations, and changes in U.S. laws?  What do bad victims lack that prevents similar coverage, buries their stories in silence, or worse, refers to them in euphemisms -- e.g., labeling the Fort Hood Massacre as "workplace violence"?  Who were the champions of these latter "oppressed" people?  Did the National Lawyers' Guild represent any of the bad victims?

The answer is startling and simple: the good victims further the left's cause, which is never about an individual victim, but instead about the left's collective cause.  A leftist admitted this to David Horowitz, a former radical, back in the 1960s.  In an interview with the head of the ACLU task force on women, Leslie Harris, Horowitz asked how feminists could continue to support Ted Kennedy, who was a prominent abuser of women.  Her answer: "We know that, but he's down for the political agenda"^iv.

The reality is that victimization is a clever propaganda technique preeminent in communism.  To appreciate its centrality, a member of the of the Central Committee in 1925 remarked: "I think it is quite clear by now that the Communist International in its earliest years in a number of countries, was only a society for the propaganda of communism without being aware of this itself."  (Emphasis added.)  (From Propaganda Society to Communist Party: Pages from Party History, 1919-1925.)  It is used to manipulate the masses as well as the victim, a tactic perfected by the left in warfare.

The algorithm is fairly simple.  For bad victims: deny, delay, deceive, de-emphasize, distract, deflect, and, if necessary, destroy.  For good victims: emphasize, initiate petitions, agitate, influence legislators, and (this is critical) "use" them -- so that even the victims don't know that they are being manipulated (together with the masses, of course).  Subsequently, there will be a dedicated and collective unity surrounding the victim with disciplined messaging from the media, be it "tax the rich," "occupy Wall Street," or "academic freedom."

Victimization is simply a form of propaganda to affect public opinion and further the left's goals of radical change through regulations, laws, and social engineering.  Budenz, a former communist and editor of the Daily Worker, said that "every act of the communist is for the purpose of affecting public opinion"^v.  According to instructions from a member of the American Politburo in 1950, the communist must "seek out the grievances or arguments which will appeal to those around him as non-Communist in character"^vi.

In comparing the left's good and bad victims, there is an imbalance in the scales of social justice.  There is never an examination of the consequences of the left's actions.  Could it be that the bad victims are, in fact, consequences of the left's policies and heroes?

ⁱ Note the tactic of charging the researcher, rather than Wright, with vitriol.  "The Big Lie technique is particularly marked in the Communist device of accusing opponents or prospective victims of the crimes which the proletarian dictatorship itself commits" (Budenz, Louis, The Techniques of Communism, Arno Press, New York, 1977, p. 58-9).

ⁱⁱ A majority of the victims of pedophilia are represented by SNAP, whose national director, David Clohessy, worked for ACORN (Catholic World Report).

ⁱⁱⁱ There was a string of rapes at the Occupy Wall Street protests.  Far from publicity for these rapes, one organizer said, "We don't tell anyone.  "We handle it internally. I said too much already" (Daily Caller).  The protesters at Wall Street were represented by the National Lawyers' Guild.

^iv Horowitz, David, Radical Son, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1997, 333.

^v Budenz, ibid., 155.

^vi Ibid., 155, 156.