Maggie's Farm

CPUSA. On mom's and dad's side.

Whoa. If Woodward and Bernstein had been reporting on a Democratic president, the story would have never made it beyond the sports page or, more likely, fish wrap.

Look into Walter Duranty of the NYT and his conspiracy of silence as Stalin starved millions of Russians and Poles. Or try Herbert Matthews, again of the NYT, who sold Castro as anti-Communist worthy of U.S. sympathy. Or the role of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in starting the Spanish-American War. The media has long been the ready co-conspirator for whomever the owners support and the propagandists for many of the problems we now face.

The Internet might be more the saving grace than pamphlets, newspapers, radio, TV and Hollywood. At least there's an opportunity for those so inclined to fact check (and not at those political "fact checkers" so named and underwritten by, once again, propagandists).

My understanding is Ms. Jarrett was born in Iran as her parents went there after WWII. Her father, who became a prominent physician in Chicago, wanted to study blood pathologies and diseases, specifically those acquired genetically. I don't believe that experience, which lasted until she was about five years old, gave her contacts still alive today.

But, both her parents were part of the U. of Chicago community which attracts international attendance from professors, students and donors in, most recently, Middle Eastern studies. Both sides of the family were part of the black political in-crowd. Her maternal grandfather, an architect, was the Chicago Housing Authorities first black chairman. That's a long story in the mythology that is Chicago Southside and racial divisions.

Her father-in-law was a noted member of the media and communist community in Chicago, and a comrade of Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's mentor. Her mother co-founded the Erickson Institute for early-childhood education, a huge influence on programming for Head Start, and presently heads the Chicago Board of Education's early childhood department.

Valerie entered the political fray as part of the Harold Washington mayoral administration, stayed on to serve Richard Daley, later heading a real estate firm known for some slumlord problems and serving on many politically important boards. Washington, a black, was a neighbor, another member of the Hyde Park community, the location of the U. of Chicago. In short, she is a part of a wealthy, connected, influential family of black heritage that has been politically connected for several generations.

Her birth in Iran is less the problem than her association with the Middle Eastern money infiltrating politics, education and academia with fingers into the corporate world. The tangled web among all these parts gets scary when you consider how much power they hold on directing of our country as the government grows and grows and grows with less influence from the citizens.