The Founders had no reason to suspect that the government and majority of the people would suffer from mass psychosis,
abandon piety and religion and become irrational and incapable of logical thinking and decision making.
Posted on 03/17/2022 7:06:16 AM PDT by Heartlander
I grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. Back then, we needed permission from the government for every aspect of life: How much food we could have. (For my family, it was one pound of meat per person per month, and we were the lucky ones.) Where we could live. To which school we could go. Where we could work. When we could get married. When we could have children. How many children we could have - only one per couple. The government had its say in every aspect of life. Every adult had an identification booklet in which his or her class affiliation was recorded. You needed it for traveling, booking a hotel, getting rations, getting married, and on and on and on...
We were slaves. Yet, none of us knew that. We thought that we lived in the best country in the whole world. They said we were lucky to live under the greatest savior in human history, Chairman Mao. Our purpose in life was to realize the Communist Utopia and liberate the proletariat in capitalist countries from exploitation.
How did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manage to enslave more than one billion people for more than 70 years? Below are some of their tactics, but the CCP did not invent them. They just followed the blueprint of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin.
Control all media outlets.
Every media outlet had at least one political officer. Their job was to make sure every piece of news fit the party’s narrative. They were loyal party members, and most of them were not journalists. But they knew how to toe the party line. The tricky part for them was to know which faction in the party leadership to follow.
Every year we were told we had a better harvest than the previous year, even though I could see some people in my small town were starving. They told us that Chairman Mao was generous to other small Communist countries, like Albania and North Korea. He sent them food and coal for free.
Every report about America was negative. Blacks were dying in the inner-city ghettos. Black children had to work in factories or cotton fields. Tons of milk was dumped in the sewer to keep the price high. The nice houses the Americans had were owned by banks. So were their nice cars. They had to pay all kinds of taxes. We Chinese workers don’t pay any tax!
In addition, we got free housing, free education, free daycare, and free medical care (though it wasn’t even as good as a Walgreens clinic). Chairman Mao was our great father, and he loved us more than our own parents.
Once in a while, they would parade a Western journalist who praised Mao and told us that we were free from capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. Of course, they were happy to go back home to liberate their folks.
Present a false sense of choice.
We had many media outlets. You could choose the People’s Daily, the Workers’ Daily, the Liberation Daily, etc., at the national level, and many newspapers at the local level. But they were all controlled by the party. Every newspaper had to take cues from the People’s Daily.
So we had a false sense of diversity and thought. Since every one of them said something was true, it must be true. Pretty soon, people didn’t even care about what was true. What mattered was what the party thought was true. Not following the party narrative had dire consequences.
Control education and use it to serve the party.
As soon as the CCP took power, it outlawed all private schools and provided free pre-K to college to every citizen. Since most Chinese people at that time were poor and had little or no access to education, they were grateful for this policy and supported the CCP.
Both of my parents had to work and had no time for my siblings and me. I was taught that my purpose in life was to spread Communism worldwide. The political officers told us that we had to raise our class consciousness. We were encouraged to report on grownups, including our parents, who might say something different from what the CCP taught. They told us that since the adults grew up in Old China, their ideas, culture, habits, and customs had to be purged through reeducation.
Everything was about class struggle. We children of the Red Five - revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary officials, workers, poor peasants, and lower peasants - were against children of the Black Five - former landowners, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and the rightists. But you had to be careful all the time, lest you become a counter-revolutionary. For example, you dared not to say Chairman Mao would die one day. So, when he died in 1976, it was a huge psychological shock to all of us. We felt the world was going to end.
Keep telling the people that they are the masters.
We did not know we were slaves because they kept saying we were the masters. We children sang songs with the lyrics like “The Future Masters Must Be Us.” The Chinese anthem started with, “Rise up, you who don’t want to be slaves.” “The Internationale,” the Communist anthem, was blasted from loudspeakers every evening with, “Arise, you starving and frozen slaves.” Because the CCP claimed that their mission was to liberate every slave in the world, we thought we lucky Chinese must not be slaves.
You dared not say something had been better before 1949, when the CCP had taken power. That would automatically put you in the counter-revolutionary class. You dared not say that you are not a master. That would classify you as the enemy of the people.
Every official wore a button that said, “Serving the People.” They called themselves “People’s Servants.” But if you wanted to be served, you had to prove that you were not an enemy of the people. You really didn’t know what could get you in trouble. So you’d better not get served.
It became a society where the people’s servants lived much better than the people.
Silence dissenting voices.
The CCP had very effective ways to silence any dissenting voice. If you were not careful and said something different from the official narrative, you had to take reeducation training and apologize for your mistakes. Otherwise, you would be classified as a counter-revolutionary and get reeducated through hard labor. Your children and spouse would denounce you and sever any relationship with you. Otherwise, they could experience all kinds of hardship. It was a matter of mere survival.
When I was in elementary school, the school administration found a so-called counter-revolutionary slogan in a school bathroom. All of the students had to turn in their homework so the administrators could make comparisons. Every one of us was very scared. The CCP called this kind of thing the Red Terror.
Make everyone dependent on the government.
There were no private companies during the Cultural Revolution. Everyone worked for the government. The lucky families lived in government-assigned apartments. Several families had to share one bathroom with only one or two toilets.
There were no private marketplaces. You bought meat, vegetables, rice, flour, etc., from government-run stores. Everything was rationed. You could not survive without the government.
Promise free stuff.
So, why did the Chinese people become slaves in the first place?
Simple. They took the bait and believed that the government would take care of them from cradle to grave. That it would provide you with free daycare and free education. That it would provide you with a job and an apartment and free medical care. Once you took the bait, you were hooked.
The Chinese people are not alone in this. The Italians fell for it and surrendered their liberty to Mussolini. Under him, the trains ran on schedule and people had jobs.
The Germans fell for it and made Hilter their Fuhrer. He gave them jobs and raised German pride.
Trading Liberty for Security
They all traded liberty for security.
Totalitarianism started out as a good word, as a model of a society where the state provides all the above-mentioned benefits. Its bad connotation resulted from the results of its practice in every country, without exception.
Friedrich Hayek in his famous book The Road to Serfdom argued that socialism would lead to totalitarianism. He made this observation:
Few are ready to recognize that the rise of Fascism and Naziism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.
He saw what happened in Germany and Italy, and he was worried that England and America would follow the same route.
Is America on the road to serfdom?
In 2016, Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist, almost won the nomination to be the standard-bearer for the Democratic Party, even though he was not a member of the Party. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest ideological caucus in the Democratic Party and the second-largest ideological caucus overall, with Bernie Sanders as its first chair and socialist Pramila Jayapal its current chair.
A 2019 Gallup poll found that nearly 50% of Millennials and Gen Zers had a positive view of socialism.
Will they end up suffering the same fate as the Germans, Italians, and Chinese of the past and Cubans and Venezuelans today? Only God knows the future, but the trends do not bode well for them or their children.
How the American democrat party enslaved 165 million people without their consent.
An article very worthwhile to read.
One could look at this at a smaller level, and consider how Detroit, which withers and continues to feel the effects of bankruptcy, was "enslaved" by the Democrat Party through successive elections and "loyalty" to those grifters who robbed them "progressively."
I have seen quite the same on an even smaller level when a small association -- like a club -- was taken over by a few who were "smarter" than the rest of us, and caused erosion of the members until the association simply withered away, being "captured" by the few being rejected. On a national level -- and certainly international level -- "leaving" is not so easy.
I think the author is asking this rhetorically, based on things happening in the US.
The media chouces part, and convincing the people they are the masters part to me were especially chilling.
For the latter, consider both the January 6th detainees and the so called "committee". Or the voting discrepancies from the 2020 election. Or the DOJ going after parents challenging their school boards.
The Americans DID learn from the Chinese. Our Nation is in the “end game” of becoming a communist tyranny.
We’ve GOT to stop separating the parties when it comes to this.
When we are slaves, our “masters” won’t just be the democrat politicians, it’ll be ALL politicians. Republicans are right there with them and share in ALL the spoils of their victories.
Good reading. Very depressing.
The DNC is following the blueprint to a T.
“The Americans DID learn from the Chinese.“
The American POLITICIANS..
Anyone remember how many of them praised Mao not very long ago?
Hillary, 0bama -with his Mao Christmas tree ornaments and so many of their flunkies were all praising Mao and the Chinese .. they still do.
We’re nearly there now… except for all of our pesky “gun” rights..
When you slaughter the 20-70 million people who oppose you, the others give their consent…
I don’t think Americans would actually use those “pesky gun rights” to defend the Constitution. Their maximum level of participation is the malfunctioned ballot box and Internet blogs.
Should have focused much, much more on this:
"Once in a while, they would parade a Western journalist who praised Mao and told us that we were free from capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. Of course, they were happy to go back home to liberate their folks.We had many media outlets. You could choose the People’s Daily, the Workers’ Daily, the Liberation Daily, etc., at the national level, and many newspapers at the local level. But they were all controlled by the party. Every newspaper had to take cues from the People’s Daily. So we had a false sense of diversity and thought."
anita dunn who was forced to resign from obama admin and is now working for biden admin
The CCP constitution also says the government is by the people.
Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, all in there. At the same time, the document admits the system is a dictatorship. Nothing inherently harmful there, benevolent dictator could be better for society than self-government.
All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people. ...You get the idea. What matters more than words on paper is how the people in positions of power use and abuse the power they have. Our federal government is out of control. Has been for decades. The unelected minions and experts run everything. The government is so far out of constitutional bounds. Maybe inevitable as technology advanced, the crap we are in now started around the advent of radio and flight.The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. ...
All nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China's nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. ...
All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election ...
Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. ....
I’m afraid you’re entirely correct.
I just believe that our politicians are still a bit nervous about us having them..
But yeah, they’ll fix that “problem”
I don’t know it was consensual; Chinese people have been fleeing ever since Mao won the civil war. The neighboring countries have plenty of Chinese who wouldn’t be enslaved, to say nothing of those who traveled even farther away.
It was the others that did the slaughtering. Tens of millions of people don’t just drop dead on their own.
The Founders had no reason to suspect that the government and majority of the people would suffer from mass psychosis,
abandon piety and religion and become irrational and incapable of logical thinking and decision making.
You are correct. Just as “the government” controls the media and pretends to be many voices, they also control the parties and pretend to be two (or more). Controlled opposition is what we fall a two party system. It is all theater.
Shazam. The dream of every mainland Mandarin is to become a millionaire and get the far as f-ck away from China as possible.
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