Posted on 11/03/2009 11:03:19 AM PST by My Favorite Headache
I have discussed with Freepers over the last 4 months that I am back in school earning my Masters degree. Today my head about exploded when not only my professor but people (grown adults) said Communism was a fear on paper but never a real threat to the U.S.
Let me give you direct quotes taken from today's lecture.
"Exactly where does communism fit in today's classroom, newspapers, and television sets? It doesn't, only the right wing fringe in this country wants you to believe that is the case, where is the proof?
America feared communism based on it being different than what we believed to be the correct government. It was never a world wide threat and the "red" invasion was nothing more than a fear tactic designed to paint a clear target on a superpower.
Communism, as an ideology, did not present a treat to a democratic U.S. Soviet Russia endangered U.S. interest when the Red Care reflected fears that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia might spread to the United States. They were described by the post as a compound of slaughter, confiscation, anarchy, and universal disorder.
Famous journalist, Ray Stannard reported that Americans were not in favor of the war. National leaders made huge efforts to get Americans to support the way by stating this would be a benefit the economy. This was the US first major military conflict on foreign soil which changed American life. The European powers led to international tensions within Central Powers and the Allies. International Law permitted neutral nations to sell or ship war materials to belligerents. American looked to the war for economic recovery. In mobilizing for the military, the government put the economy at risk to centralized management and develops policies to control public opinion. The Allies were able to buy American goods. The order for steel explosives, uniforms, wheat and other products helped pull the country out of the recession. Due to labor shortages, the war opened the job industry for women and new job opportunities appeared for black women. Issues with the government arose and civil rights were being violated.
The fear of the Bolshevik party was fear of an unknown type of Government and being different than what we viewed as the only type of government that would work. The mounting support in Russia to a communist state worried the country. Personally I don't believe that it was justified. The fear of communism forced us to view Russia as our own great enemy through out the rest of the 1900's. Had we been a little more rational with their government we probably could have gained their trust and worked towards more diplomatic and lest costly solutions throughout the years.
All I heard today was as if Communism is not bad and not what the U.S. Government made it out to be. Tell me where I am going wrong here people. I beg of you. How is it a room full of people are just nodding their heads to this madness?
While partially valid in argument, the truth remains a fact that cannot be disputed thus far by history: Communism, in its absolute form...not some Chinese Communism-Capitalism caricature or form, has never succeeded.
Ask him why Leninism, Marxism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism, Socialism, Statism, Communism and like ilk killed more than 200 million people last century alone. Then ask him who many hundreds of millions did democracy/capitalism kill of its own citizens in the same time period.
If the ‘sheeple’ do not consider Communism a danger......ask them how many people it killed during the 20th Century.
Since the numbers are "official" numbers from documents and ledgers, the hundreds of millions the book lists are obviously low. The Communist movement was and continues to be the real Holocaust machine.
I would have raised my hand to said “professor” and asked him if he would rather see the USA as a communist country.
Call the guy out.
The best way to attack and disprove the assertion that “communism’s not so bad” is to lay out the pedigree of the ideas behind it and then point out that Communism and its variants have been responsible for more mass murder, atrocity and human misery than any other ideology outside of Islam.
None of that nonsense survives an honest first principles-based debate. That’s why leftists have to shout you down, resort to name calling and other ways to shut you up. They know their ideas are indefensible.
Tell that to the people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Georgia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, E. Germany, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Maldovia, etc, etc, etc.... Communist countries had a habit of taking over all neighboring countries- literally, not just on paper. They also had documented plans to continue to expand their influence, through either arms or manipulation. If anything, they were worse than pop-culture makes it out to be. Communists regimes were responsible for far more genocide than any other similar group in our world's documented existence.
Or Kruschev banging his shoe while screaming "We will bury you!"
L
I think I see the disconnect. Communism as an ideology is harmless. Communism in practice is always dangerous because real communism cannot exist. Communism is a Utopian impossibility. Using their own vocabulary, no communist state has ever real evolved past the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and as we know dictatorships, whether the dictator be one or many protect themselves at the cost of anyone who gets in their way.
For those that do not raise their hand, ask them what their fears are preventing them from taking such action. For those that raise their hands, ask them why they have not yet acted on this preference and still remain in the U.S.A.
What’s that old saying? “The Devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist.” (actually by French poet Baudelaire, but has been copied numerous times) It’s also interesting to note that Baudelaire refers to the devil as a “she”, but I digress.
I used the numbers game, the dictators game, the economic failure game...they kept coming back to the line “But it did not pose a threat to the U.S. and was trumped up by the U.S.”
Perhaps your professor needs to write a nice little research paper answering my questions above. He could submit his work to FR for a grade.
There’s a reason Lenin told Gorky “Intellectuals aren’t the revolution’s brains, they’re it’s s**t.”
I concur. Get it while you can. Have a copy of it here at work and it drives the statists I work with insane. (That alone was worth the price). I believe it is out of print, but it can be found. Also try Albris.com
Toss in “The Harvest of Sorrow” and “Death by Government”.
Ping.
I have one and, like you, I love to drag it out read aloud when my show biz friends start rhapsodizing about Marxism.
Read “The Gulag Archipelago”.
My uniform experience has been that any person who apologizes for Communism secretly wishes to rule you.
Heck, ask them what they think the word communism means: The political system of the communist bloc was not communism, it was called socialism back then. Today you often meet idiots claiming “that was no socialism what they had there,” but back then, everybody still knew what “socialism” means: The state controls the means of production. They had that. Communism, on the other hand, was the mythical final state of the world once the entire planet had adopted socialism: The “contradiction” between socialism and capitalism would be over and a “dialectical” transition would be made to a sort of Eden where all “contradictions” are resolved and everybody was going to be happy and gay until the end of days. That is what drove the communists, that is why they were so eager to take over the world, by hook or crook, no matter the cost, no matter how many people they had to murder on their journey to paradise.
From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States (Paperback)
by Paul Hollander (Editor) 1933859490
Oh, the argument that Communism was never a therat to the US can be easily countered by this: "So - we should not have intervened against the Nazis because at the time, they didn't present a threat to the US?
More embarassing questions: Furthermore, what is the appropriate response to an evil and inhuman regime? Do you even admit to the existence of evil? When it comes to mass murder, where's your threshold for condemnation? Define servitude for me. Do you believe that some have a right to dictate the terms of existence to everyone else? To whom does your life belong?
Watch 'em squirm.
Very true, I believe they are vicariously thrilled by the concept of being able to slaughter their enemies in wholesale quantity as well.
A bunch of chickens*** neck shooters like Che.
My uniform experience has been that any person who apologizes for Communism secretly wishes to rule you.
______________________________________________________
.......and need a ‘Daddy’.
BINGO!
We had the bomb first, and means to deliver it. They must be big fans of Curtis LeMay and Bernard Schreiver. ;)
One infallible sign of someone who is a True Believer in such nonsense is the frequency of the occurrence of words such as "could" and "would." It's the sign of speculation on the basis of a set of unexamined premises, and speculation makes for creative ideology but lousy politics.
You can't talk someone out of that sort of wishful alternate narrative. They'll either come to an epiphany on their own or insist on believing it even as they're being led to the wall to be shot. Don't let them get to you.
“The ghoulish fantasies about butchering political opponents is overflowing at that toilet.”
are overflowing, that is...
I believe the vicarious thrill of which you speak is real. It is, I think, a manifestation of a sense of personal impotence, if not outright failure. There is a reason Hitler ended up the way he did, and Mao, too. People of limited intellect who nonetheless manage to secrete it behind a facade of personal bravado and superficially compelling rhetoric ought always be treated with the utmost suspicion. Like a certain President I might mention.
Our founders believed that man was imperfect and that laws would be established to protect individuals from outlaws and our government.
Communism espouses a "perfectabiltiy paradigm" thus we have "The Soviet Man" and the "Aryan Race".
Today we can see the same views being espoused by the Democrat Party.
Honestly, I covered that. So tomorrow I have to return with a list of examples of where in history and in today’s media (TV, Print, Film, Radio, Music) communism exists.
Certainly, the White Russians and the Romanovs would agree with you. They were the first to die at the hands of Marxism. What is interesting is that even before the Revolution in Russia, the Commies had built an extensive and very skilled intelligence department.
What you face is entrenched leftist academia. Nothing more. Remember that the average drooling slob would pick Communism over Capitalism any day of the week. Any system that lets them ride along and still eat is preferable to one that demands they contribute meaningfully.
It’s free online
The Roosevelt administration was riddled with communists and fellow travellers.
"Who determines who is in need? Who determines who has the ability?"
Ask them to seriously consider the answer to the question and get back to you with a valid working plan that doesn't involve genocide.
They will not be able to do it.
From Time magazine: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/07/08/the_politics_of_lil_wayne/ "You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school," Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia. The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need for people to be committed to working hard in school so they can get a job after school. Obama said he knows some young men think they can't find a job unless they are a really good basketball player. "Which most of you brothas are not," Obama, who played basketball in high school, a sport he continues to play to this day, said jokingly. "I know you think you are, but you're not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA." http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/07/08/obama_says_this_hope_stuff_onl/
Why don’t you ask your teacher if Al Quedia and Bin Laudin was just misunderstood and not a threat. It has been 20 years since the end of the Cold War and most students today can’t relate to that but they do remember 9/11.
I would also point out the repeated terrorist attacks on America from marxist or left wing groups from the late 19th century to early 20th century before the Soviet Union was even a threat. The 1920’s bombing at Wall Street for example.
Of course if you really wanted to have fun you could point out that it was liberal democrats such as Woodrow Wilson and his Palmer Raids and liberal Harry Truman that stroked the fear of communism. Then you could mentioned how the Democrats has been the party of racism in the past as well. I say making your professor compare the communists with today’s Islamic threat would be the best course.
You can always tell a good political philosophy by the number of Gulag’s it requires to be sustainable.
Do the Cuban refugees know that Communism isn’t so bad? How about the folks that got shot trying to escape East Germany across the Berlin Wall? Did they know that Communism wasn’t so bad? I’m sure that the North Koreans would be happy to let us know the benefits of Communism but they sure don’t seem to get out much.
Your Problem, Komrade, is that you don’t understand that Fundamental CHANGE has come to Amerika, and that means COMMUNISM. We are being assaulted by communist propaganda morning, noon, and night, all this service crap, the bailouts, the takeovers, and it’s no surprise that they want to sugarcoat what the commie bastards did back in the day, and what the red chinese and norks are still doing today.
I had one on Facebook telling me that the old labels don’t apply, there’s no such thing as socialism or communism any more they are just 20th century concepts. I said F-U you columbian commie bastard and unfriended him. It’s the same old crap in a new package, and they can call it cotton candy if they like but it’s STILL FREAKING COMMUNISN, it’s STILL FRICKING SERVITUDE it’s STILL FRIGGIN DEADLY and its STILL A FREAGIN POLICE STATE. There is no “Nanny state” there’s only an ugly, communist goverment full of individuals doing their best to enslave you and me. F them. Don’t ever cooperate with a goverment commie bastard. Shun them. Shun the feds of all stripes. It’s rough out there for a fed.
It is being extended to say, “we were threatened by a totalitarian regime and not by their ideology.”
The counter argument to start with is why were the totalitarian aspects were so central to the ideology that it foisted totalitarianism upon every society on which it was tried?
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