Obama administration communications director Anita Dunn commended the wisdom of mass murdering Communist Chairman Mao in her address to high school students this past June. Dunn cited Mao and Mother Teresa as her two favorite political philosophers. I wrote about Dunn’s address here, John here; both posts include video of Dunn’s address. Dunn said to the assembled students:
A lot of you have a great deal of ability. A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the “why not” question. There is usually not a good reason. And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say why not. You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.
But here’s the deal — these are your choices. They are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities that had the army. They had the airport. They had everything on their side, and people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all the odds against you?” And Mao Zedong said, “You know, you fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.” And think about that for a second. You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war. You lay out your own path. You figure out what’s right for you. You don’t let external definitions define how good you are internally. You fight your war. You let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.
And Mother Teresa, who, upon receiving a letter from a fairly affluent young person who asked her whether she could come over and help with that orphanage in Calcutta, responded very simply, “Go find your own Calcutta.” OK? Go find your own Calcutta. Fight your own path. Go find the thing that is unique to you. The challenge that is actually yours, not somebody else’s challenge. One of the things that we see the Obamas, both of them, Michelle and Barack, came out of backgrounds as community organizers, working.
Among Dunn’s explanations of her citation of Chairman Mao as one of her favorite political philosophers is that she was kidding. Watching the video of Dunn’s speech, however, we can see with our own eyes that she takes Mao seriously indeed. We can now also observe that that she lies like a rug.
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