Posted on 08/15/2006 4:51:55 AM PDT by Molly Pitcher
Grove City College publishes an excellent newsletter titled "Visions and Values." Its July 2006 edition features an interview with Dr. Richard Pipes, acclaimed Russian historian and Harvard University professor of Sovietology. The interview was conducted by Grove City College professor of political science Dr. Paul Kengor.
Dr. Pipes, who served on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, explained that there are actually only a few communists among academics. At first glance, that's a puzzling observation, given the leftist bias at most college campuses. Drs. Pipes and Kengor explain the puzzle in a way that makes perfect sense.
While academic leftists, and I'd include their media allies, are not communists, they are anti-anti-communists. In other words, they have contempt for right-wingers, conservatives or libertarians who are anti-communists. Why? Academic leftists, and their media allies, are in agreement with many of the stated goals of communism, such as equal distribution of wealth, income equality and other goals spelled out in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' "Manifesto of the Communist Party." Leftist elites love the ideas of communism so much that they are either blind to, or tolerant of, its many shortcomings.
In practice, communism is nothing less than sheer barbarism that makes even the horrors of Naziism pale in comparison. Professor Rudolph J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii outlines that barbarism in his book "Death by Government," a comprehensive detailing of the roughly 170 million people murdered by their own governments during the 20th century. From 1917 to its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union murdered about 62 million of its own people. During Mao Zedong's reign, 35,236,000, possibly more, Chinese citizens were murdered. By comparison, Hitler's Nazis managed to murder 21 million of its citizens and citizens in nations they conquered. Adding these numbers to the 60 million lives lost in war makes the 20th century mankind's most brutal era.
At home and abroad, leftists have done a thorough and commendable job documenting and condemning the horrors and crimes of Hitler and his fascist Nazi regime, but when have you heard them direct similar condemnation of Joseph Stalin, his successors and Mao Zedong? By and large, they've chosen to overlook the horrors of communism.
The reason for their reluctance to condemn the barbarism of communism is simple. Dr. Pipes says, "Intellectuals, by the very nature of their professions, grant enormous attention to words and ideas. And they are attracted by socialist ideas. They find that the ideas of communism are praiseworthy and attractive; that, to them, is more important than the practice of communism. Now Nazi ideals, on the other hand, were pure barbarism; nothing could be said in favor of them."
Often, when people evaluate capitalism, they evaluate a system that exists on Earth. When they evaluate communism, they are talking about a non-existent Utopia. What exists on Earth, with all of its problems and shortcomings, is always going to fail miserably when compared to a Utopia. The very attempt to achieve the utopian goals of communism requires the ruthless suppression of the individual and an attack on any institution that might compromise the loyalty of the individual to the state. That's why one of the first orders of business for communism, and those who support its ideas, is the attack on religion and the family.
Rank nations according to whether they are closer to the capitalism end or the communism end of the economic spectrum. Then rank nations according to human rights protections. Finally, rank nations according to per capita income. Without question, citizens of those nations closer to capitalism enjoy a higher standard of living and a far greater measure of liberty than those in nations closer to communism.
I highly doubt that. I spent a while in academia and got a phd. You find a lot of flaming liberals but I only met one real communist.
Is the Pope German?
Yes.
There, didn't even have to read the article.
Sort of redundant if you ask me.
You find a lot of flaming liberals but I only met one real communist.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Please define a "flaming liberal". You will find that they are communists. Remember if they are quacking like a communist, they are a communist.
Yes, along with the MSM and a lot of "liberals." You know, the kind of people who hate Bush, but still think Castro is a pretty good guy.
Wikipedia on The Frankfurt School (later to become Columbia University), IMO the beginning of the state higher education is now in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
Academic leftists always delude themselves into thinking these goals can be achieved by mutual consent of the robber and the robbed - rather than by using a man with a gun from the government as a collection agent.
You Can Trust The Communists (to be Communists)
Dr. Fred C. Schwarz
Download the whole book in Rich Text Format (RTF)
http://www.schwarzreport.org/
"You don't understand the class structure of American society," said Smetana, "or you would not ask such a question. In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists."
Whittaker Chambers, Witness, p. 616
The number of apologists for the former Soviet Union and its mass murderers dwarfs the handful of aberrant pro-Nazi academics in America. Sympathy for the Communist project and distaste for attacking are today fully accepted in American higher education.
John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage (2003), p. 13
Professor of Communism - fixed!
I would think that Sovietology would be a more narrow field than Communism in general.
You're correction would seem to be less exact, and Pipes doesn't deny studying Communism extensively, he merely has merely focused on the Soviet Union.
He's also not a communist himself.
Does a bear honk in the woods?
What amazes me of these elites is that they believe in distribution of wealth except when it comes down to their own.
"Those that can, do.
Those that can't, teach."
So all teachers are at best second-rate? Does that include homeschooling parent teachers?
"Those that can't do or teach, work for the government."
Don't you just hate those do-nothings like Condi Rice and Rumsfeld?
Academics and media types are wage earners who by and large will never accumlate the wealth and assets that risk takers and business owners do. Smug in their cerebral superiority, they deeply resent industrious, and often less well educated entrepreneurs, who accumulate more than they have. It does not take much of a leap for them to also see those gains as being ill gotten and having resulted from the exploitation of others. Academics and their left wing elitist brethern are not immune from materialistic envy and like the idea of income redistribution. They hate feeling inferior.
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