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Before My Head Freaking Explodes Please...(Communism Debate in Classroom)
11/03/2009

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.


TOPICS: Education; Government; History
KEYWORDS: academicbias; commiesympathizer; communism; communismkills; fellowtraveller; indoctrination; reddupe; revisionisthistory; socialism; starkravingsocialism; usefulidiot
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To: My Favorite Headache
November 2,1962 in History John F. Kennedy announces Cuban missile bases were being dismantled.
21 posted on 11/03/2009 11:18:49 AM PST by mdittmar (May God watch over those who serve,and have served,to keep us free)
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To: Bender2

Ping.


22 posted on 11/03/2009 11:19:31 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: cld51860

I have one and, like you, I love to drag it out read aloud when my show biz friends start rhapsodizing about Marxism.


23 posted on 11/03/2009 11:20:19 AM PST by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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To: My Favorite Headache
It did pose a threat to the US. By the very statements of members of the Politburo, it posed a threat. By its actions, it posed a threat. They wish for their belief to be true. You are dealing with a cult mindset.
24 posted on 11/03/2009 11:22:36 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: My Favorite Headache

Read “The Gulag Archipelago”.


25 posted on 11/03/2009 11:23:21 AM PST by TruthBeforeAll (To liberals if something is a complete and utter disaster, it's because there's not enough of it.)
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To: My Favorite Headache

My uniform experience has been that any person who apologizes for Communism secretly wishes to rule you.


26 posted on 11/03/2009 11:23:39 AM PST by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: My Favorite Headache
This is a kind of revisionism that is just as stupid and evil as is holocaust denial. If they say Communism is not bad, talk to them about the Black Book of Communism, and the Gulag Archipelago. If they say the Soviet Union wasn’t a threat to anyone, tell them to ask the Poles why they keep putting up all those Katyn memorials everywhere. Also list the countless wars of Soviet supported communist aggression from Korea over Vietnam to Angola and Afghanistan.

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.

27 posted on 11/03/2009 11:24:12 AM PST by cartan
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To: My Favorite Headache

From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States (Paperback)
by Paul Hollander (Editor) 1933859490

http://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Killing-Fields-Political-Repression/dp/1933859490/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257275981&sr=8-4


28 posted on 11/03/2009 11:25:02 AM PST by listenhillary (A "cult of personality" arises when a leader uses mass media creating idealized/heroic public image)
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To: My Favorite Headache
Ooops - that's Professor R J Rummel's Website

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.

29 posted on 11/03/2009 11:25:12 AM PST by Noumenon (Work that AQT - turn ammunition into skill. No tyrant can maintain a 300 yard perimeter forever.)
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To: andy58-in-nh

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.


30 posted on 11/03/2009 11:25:33 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim (Live jubtabulously!)
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To: My Favorite Headache

31 posted on 11/03/2009 11:25:43 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: andy58-in-nh

My uniform experience has been that any person who apologizes for Communism secretly wishes to rule you.
______________________________________________________

.......and need a ‘Daddy’.


32 posted on 11/03/2009 11:27:21 AM PST by RushIsMyTeddyBear (I don't have a 'Cousin Pookie'.)
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To: andy58-in-nh

BINGO!


33 posted on 11/03/2009 11:27:28 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: My Favorite Headache
“But it did not pose a threat to the U.S. and was trumped up by the U.S.”

We had the bomb first, and means to deliver it. They must be big fans of Curtis LeMay and Bernard Schreiver. ;)

34 posted on 11/03/2009 11:28:06 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim (Live jubtabulously!)
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To: My Favorite Headache
Been touched on in other posts in this thread but my first question would be for the prof to name one place where communism was a success or even close to it. Also when people have the freedom to choose, they always reject communism.
35 posted on 11/03/2009 11:29:18 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)
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To: My Favorite Headache
Understand that the people you're debating have constructed their own historical narrative and in nurturing it have managed to leave out inconvenient facts (some 200 million of them, as others have mentioned). In truth, they're being profoundly disrespectful to the Communists themselves. Imagine suggesting to a Trotsky or a Lenin or even a Castro, that they weren't really revolutionaries and that they wouldn't really harm anyone. They'd look at you like you were insane, and if they didn't shoot you they'd at least wonder how anyone could be so deluded when they were so perfectly clear in everything they said and did. A real revolutionary calls such people "useful idiots" for a reason.

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.

36 posted on 11/03/2009 11:30:33 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Tijeras_Slim
Ah, so you have visited Democrat Underground? The ghoulish fantasies about butchering political opponents is overflowing at that toilet.
37 posted on 11/03/2009 11:31:22 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Army Air Corps

“The ghoulish fantasies about butchering political opponents is overflowing at that toilet.”

are overflowing, that is...


38 posted on 11/03/2009 11:32:16 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

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.


39 posted on 11/03/2009 11:33:14 AM PST by andy58-in-nh (America does not need to be organized: it needs to be liberated.)
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To: DCBryan1
Don't forget to include NAZI philosophy.

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.

40 posted on 11/03/2009 11:33:58 AM PST by Young Werther ("Quae Cum Ita Sunt - Julius Caesar "Since these things are so!">)
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