The Gods of Socialism
In my former life, I walked in all kinds of Marxist moccasins over many miles and for many years, and I know for a fact that Marxism, no matter how disguised, always begins its way to power by preaching the need to change — a society, a country, a group of countries, the whole world. Of course, people everywhere want their leaders to do a better job than their predecessors did. But “change” is also the very quintessence of Marxism, which is built upon the dialectical materialist tenet that “quantitative changes generate qualitative transformations.” (Translation for the media savvy: If you say it often enough, it becomes the truth.)
In 2008 I could hardly believe my ears when “change” became the electoral motto of the Democratic Party’s campaign for the White House. “Change” was bursting forth everywhere like a biblical shibboleth, distinguishing that party from the rest of the world.
The leaders of the Democratic Party painted the United States of America, the undisputed leader of the Free World, as a “decaying, racist, capitalist realm” unable to provide medical care for the poor, to rebuild her “crumbling schools,” to replace the “shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race,” and it pledged to “change” it by redistributing its wealth. Our media jumped in, and transformed the Democratic Party’s “change” into a nationwide tsunami.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Click here and have fun.
The frenzy over “change” brought back vivid memories to me of the campaigns I used to be involved with during my years in Romania promoting the election of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu. “Change” was Ceausescu’s electoral motto, as well. When he came to power, he painted Romania as a decaying, corrupt, economically devastated country, and he pledged to “change” it by redistributing its wealth. That lie, repeated hundreds of times, became the truth. Of course, he certainly did “change” what had been the picturesque, pastoral country of Romania. Here is a sample of Ceausescu’s devastated, polluted transformation. Here is another. And one more. And another one.
I do not intend to compare the leaders of our Democratic Party with a monster like Ceausescu, but their common electoral motto gives me reason to believe that both arrived at their destination traveling in the same Marxist boat.
“Change” is not only the quintessence of Marxism, it is its credo as well. Marxists believes that the nationalization of the economy generates not only political and social changes, but spiritual changes. Eventually, these changes make Marxism a religion — the only religion permitted — and the Marxist leader the only god allowed. The religious adulation of Lenin and Stalin, which filled oceans of newsprint and generated international respect for Marxism and admiration for its leaders, may well be one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated in history. Its lingering tentacles live on. Even today, visitors in Moscow wait patiently in long lines in order to pay their respects to Lenin’s embalmed body, which has been exposed as a holy relic in Moscow’s Red Square Mausoleum since shortly after his death in 1924.
My personal experience with a “spiritual” Marxist “change” began in September 1944, when the Soviet Red Army “liberated” the Kingdom of Romania from Nazi occupation. Stalin publicly portrayed that serene sovereign nation as a decaying capitalist country, and he began “changing” it into what he called “a Socialist paradise.” At that time I was not yet familiar with the organic connection between “change,” Marxism, and the nauseating cult of personality. Soon, however, my native Romania — an idyllic Francophile country whose capital, Bucharest, was nicknamed Le Petit Paris — was changed into a monument to the Marxist who was changing it. Stalin became Romania’s new god. Stalin portraits, Stalin statues, Stalin streets, Stalin boulevards, Stalin plazas, and Stalin factories sprouted up like mushrooms all over the country. Romania even got its own Stalin city.
In 1947, Stalin forced the Romanian king to abdicate, “changed” the country’s name to “Popular Republic,” and installed on its throne a little Romanian god named Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. That “change” generated a new change. After that, every Romanian town also acquired its Gheorghiu-Dej monuments, Gheorghiu-Dej streets, Gheorghiu-Dej boulevards, Gheorghiu-Dej plazas, and Gheorghiu-Dej squares. Before long, quite a few industrial and agricultural organizations got similar names. The change worked for Gheorghiu-Dej, who was able to keep his throne until he died in 1956. It did not work for Romania, which became a kind of European Ethiopia, whose lack of freedom and depth of poverty aroused worldwide pity and compassion.
Ceausescu, who succeeded Dej, “changed” Romania once more. “We do not need idols,” Ceausescu proclaimed. “Marxism has rejected and still rejects all those concepts that have nothing in common with the ideology of the working class.” Then Ceausescu “unmasked” Dej’s “unprecedented” cult of personality, and allowed the plebs to cast their eyes on the opulence of Dej’s palace. It was not long, however, before Ceausescu proclaimed himself a “Lay God,” and began alternately residing in 21 lavishly furnished palaces, 41 “residential villas,” and 20 hunting lodges. Here is just one of his palaces.
Immediately, Ceausescu streets, boulevards, and plazas sprang up like mushrooms after rain, and grandiose arches inscribed “The Golden Epoch — The Epoch of Nicolae Ceausescu” appeared at the entrance of most Romanian cities. Here is a glimpse of Ceausescu’s real Romania.
“A man like me is born only once every five hundred years,” Ceausescu used to proclaim, over and over. The Romanian media did its part, nicknaming Ceausescu the “Most Beloved Son of the People,” the “Guarantor of the Nation’s Progress and Independence,” and the “Visionary Architect of the Nation’s Future.” In 1989, Ceausescu functioned as the head of state, leader of the Communist Party, commander of the armed forces, chairman of the Supreme Council for Economic and Social Development, president of the National Council of Working People, and chairman of the Socialist Democracy and Unity Front. By that time, the personality cult was extended to Ceausescu’s wife as well. Elena Ceausescu became the country’s first deputy prime minister, chair of the National Council on Science and Technology, and head of the National Council for Science and Education. Elena Ceausescu’s national prominence had grown to the point that her birthday was celebrated as a national holiday, as was her husband’s.
The U.S. Democratic Party also began constructing its own god. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” proclaimed Senator Barack Obama during his electoral campaign as the 2008 nominee for the White House. The leaders of the Democratic Party jumped in, calling him an “American Messiah.”
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” the senator assured the country in his acceptance speech.
After winning the 2008 elections, the Democratic Party’s agenda for “change” began changing the U.S. into a monument to its leader as well. Below is a partial list of projects and places already named after President Obama:
California: President Barack Obama Parkway, Orlando; Obama Way, Seaside; Barack Obama Charter School, Compton; Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy, Los Angeles; Barack Obama Academy, Oakland. Florida: Barack Obama Avenue, Opa-loka; Barack Obama Boulevard, West Park. Maryland: Barack Obama Elementary School, Upper Marlboro. Missouri: Barack Obama Elementary School, Pine Lawn. Minnesota: Barack and Michelle Obama Service Learning Elementary, Saint Paul. New Jersey: Barack Obama Academy, Plainfield; Barack Obama Green Charter High School, Plainfield. New York: Barack Obama Elementary School, Hempstead. Pennsylvania: Obama High School, Pittsburgh. Texas: Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy, Dallas.
Change is still the Democratic Party’s theme for the 2012 elections. The current target for change is American capitalism, and this new crusade for change started with the article “Why isn’t capitalism working?” by Lawrence Summers, former head of President Obama’s National Economic Council. According to Summers’ essays, Americans are disillusioned with market capitalism: Only “50% of people had a positive opinion of capitalism, while 40 percent did not.” The reasoning:
[Capitalism produces] inequality and declining social mobility. … The problem is real and profound and seems unlikely to correct itself untended. Unlike cyclical concerns, there is no obvious solution at hand.
The “problem’s roots,” according to Summers, “lie deep with the evolution of technology.” Capitalism is a profit-driven economic system that cares more about enriching its owners than about modernizing the country’s economy. The solution? Government-financed research and production facilities.
Solyndra! Remember that cute glass and steel factory built with $535 million of government money, which on August 31, 2011, went bankrupt, laying off 1,100 employees and shutting down all operations? That was the solution. That was the future, in Lawrence Summers’ view. And not only his. Said Obama:
I have confidence that decisions [about Solyndra] were made based on what would be good for the American economy and the American people and putting people back to work.
Another root of the problem, according to Summers, was that “the governments of industrial market capitalist societies are bankrupt.” Solution? Replace them with “people’s governments.” Replace capitalism with socialism! Marx’s ghost!
It is not so much the most capitalist parts of the contemporary economy but the least — those concerned with health, education, and social protection — that are in most need of reinvention.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters joined the fray, labeling President Obama’s Republican opponent Mitt Romney a “vulture capitalist” whose election would amount to “a fox guarding the henhouse.” As Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa explained in a press release, Romney “represents everything that is wrong with our financial system. He made his money as CEO of Bain Capital by destroying U.S. businesses, sending good-paying American jobs overseas and filling his pockets with millions while putting workers out on the street.” Hoffa promised to put “boots on the ground” in all fifty states.
Said Teamsters general secretary-treasurer Ken Hall:
Working families know who is fighting for their rights, and it sure isn’t Mitt Romney. … President Obama has worked hard to make sure that Wall Street is held responsible for ruining our economy, enacting the most sweeping financial reform package since the Great Depression.
Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, called American capitalism “casino capitalism”:
[It uses] other peoples’ money to make big bets which, if they go wrong, can wreak havoc on the economy. … It’s been terrible for the American economy and for our democracy.
In a speech to the United Auto Workers Local 12 Hali in Ohio, Vice President Joe Biden agreed:
Ultimately, that’s what this election is all about. It is about a choice. A choice between a system that’s rigged, and one that’s fair.
Fortunately, the United States is still run by “We the people,” and it still has free elections. On June 5, 2012, “we the people” in Wisconsin owerhelmingly endorsed capitalism. Scott Walker became the first governor in U.S. history to win a recall. His crushing victory may prove to be the Democratic Party’s Waterloo, and the American funeral for Marx’s ghost.
Simply brilliant!!! I find it truely fascinating that an ex-Marxist captures so clearly the “theological” nature of the gnosticism call Marxism. I wrote two books on the mythopoetic origins of Marx’s Marxism, starting from his poems all the way up to Das Kapital. Your thesis corresponds totally to my speculations years ago. Your undercovering of the “religious” moment, however, reveals a peculiar danger for America. Why?
We burgeois of the West could grasp “godless” Communism as proclaimed by the Soviet Union and be moved to opposition (even if many a liberal sought to appease). In addition we could see the theological dimension (e.g., my books as an extended example). But today, we are getting “the ghost of Marxism” in a Jesus quoting reincarnation. To the degree that Obama comes from Black Liberation Theology, he has swallowed, willy/nilly, the gnostic model of an “ultimate” battle between Good and evil, whose resolution must entail a fundamental “change” of existing reality. This is also the myth of Marxism. This is wild stuff for Obama, to be a Messiah and have “true believers” (which include, alas, my best friend of 50 years and my rev. sister). How does one argue with cold, hard economic theory against the Savior? The “true believers” that I know remain indifferent to argument and simply continue “to believe”. Faith may move real mountains, but it does not dimish a real mountain of debt. Alas, the “true believer” does not care or even really listen. My conclusion concerning a peculiar danger: If Obama can manage to cast the election in terms of the battle between good and evil, with ultimate salvation in sight, he will beat a truely religious person who thinks like a prosaic business man.
Whatever, I do wish to communicate my admiration for the insights that you have cimmunicated. I do wish that the general public had exposure. But then, in Romania did the general public ever have exposure to what did not reflect the “Messiah”?
I am looking forward to future articles from you.
Your writings are brillant for the behind the scenes insight they provide as a former participant in a communist regime, however, historically I must point out Romania declared itself neutral at the beginning of European hostilities but quickly became an Axis partner with the Nazis when Hitler’s march thru Europe turned eastward. Romania supplied more troops and more war machinery to the German war effort than any other Axis power save Germany. Sadly, Romania also liquidated approximately half of it’s Jewish citizens. Later when the war effort turned against Germany and Romania had suffered tremendously from Allied bombings and an invasion by the Red army Romania switched sides and became an Allied power, declaring war on Germany and fighting the Axis forces in Hungary and Translyvania, caputured thousands of German soldiers and handed them over the the Soviet army. Romania was hardly an occupied country, but rather a woefully misguided country trying to survive the European madness.
Romania was the only country who did not marched its Jewish population to the gas chambers.
It did created work camps as only reason to save their lives. It was the first country to recognize the State if Israel. Ask the head of the Jewish organization, Mr Weissel(sp) I don’t know if he is still alive but I am sure he will agree.
I was not born during those times; I’m not Jewish; I’m not a Democrat but I was born there where I lived for 28 years.
MC
My recollection is that the USSR was before Romania, in that respect.
Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia) is the author of a FREE ON-LINE autobiography, entitled “Diary of a Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality.”
http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html
It is a testimony based on a diary kept between 1946 and 2004 (in the USSR, Poland, France and the USA).
That is not true. Romania was a Nazi ally and murdered more Jews that any other Nazi allied or occupied nation except for Germany itself. Those that did live were treated horribly. The Jews there were killed by the Romanians themselves not the Germans and not under orders from Hitler.
My wifes mothers family were Romanian Jews. Those who survivied left for Palestine as soon as the war ended, alond with most other surviving Jews. They were fortunate to get out before the communists clamped down.
You may be thinking about Albania. That Muslim country althugh occupied saved all of their Jews and took some in besides.
As an American living in Germany I have become aware that the destruction of European Jewry was realized not only by Germans, but that some allies of Hitler Germany contributed. I do not possess enough knowledge in order to comment about the internal politics of Romania at the time. Whatever, with willingness or pushed into it, the Romanian soldiers accompanying the Wehrmacht’s 6th Army (ca. 250,000 man strong with “modern” tanks) were assigned the task of defending the flanks of thiatArmy as it entered Stalingrad. Hitler did not arm the Romanian soldiers with the then modern weaponary of the Wehrmacht, rather with weapons captured from the French. This meant no re-supply of ammunition once spent. On the average, the Romanian soldier had 6 rounds, and no more, for his rifle. When the Red Army began a MASSIVE counterattack leading to the encirlement of the 6th Army, a massive slaughter of Romanian troops took place. Hitler treated his allied troops in the sameway he treated anyone, namely exploitation. From the 6th Army only 90,000 were alive to surrender and only ca. 6,000 returned to Germany ten years after the war. All others dead! I have no information if a single Romanian soldier ever returned.
I repeat that I do not have sufficient knowledge about what the leaders of Romania did or did not do. If they contributed to the slaughter of Jews, then unrestricted condemnation is called for. However, I would be careful about using a collective term such as “Romania” as if “Romania” were a single individual acting out conscious choices. Whatever the guilt of each Romanian soldier might have had, the man-of-the street Romanian soldier was misused and, given their defeat and probable death in Soviet “concentration camps” for the captured enemy, they have, hopefully, paid for any “sin” enacted. Hitler had a policy of slaughter and the Jews got the worse treatment. But with victory, that evil man would have started eliminating slaves (I take Himmler’s word on the matter to be true). In their miserable way, the Romanian soldiers experienced Hitler’s mentality of slaugher.
One individual Romanian, King Micheal, lead a political and military coup against the Nazi supported Romanian dictator Antonescu and brought the Romanian people around mid war to the Allies, and regained Transylvania as a reward. Despite this last ditch effort to change the fortunes of war for Romania the Soviest were allowed to occupy and control Romania as a satellite country until the fall of the Soviet empire. The point in my post is that Romania started the war as an axis nation, was a huge supplier of industry and troops to the Nazis and were not an occupied people by the Nazis as stated by Pacepa in his otherwise thoughtful, insightful writing. Romania choose its pathway and respectfully tried to change horses midstream, to their great credit.
Hegel characterized this desire for change as the “unhappy consciousness.” Deep in the psychology of every change-loving idealist is depression and anger, leading to the desire to annihilate being, or the values that actually exist.
As this article brilliantly points out, the result of annihilation is nothingness. It is one thing to promise Utopia and quite another to deliver it when Utopia is literally no-where. You can totalize labor and negate capital, but you can’t give the laborers heaven. All you can do is enslave them to your own untethered dreaming.
Capitalism is simply that which occurs when people are granted economic freedom in the modern age. There is beauty in Marx’s resistance to capitalism and its abuses and unintended consequences, but resistance is an annihilating power. It leads to slavery, since it must overturn economic freedom in order to realize its ideals of commonality. And it leads to nothingness, as seen in the anti-capitalists today and their vapid, meaningless utopia of the mega-state.
Quite right. Obama and his minions are romantics who fail to appreciate the cruelty necessary to impose a Marxist system. Bill Ayers stated quite correctly that it would take the internment or elimination of 40 million Americans to impose a Marxist vision. The plan would require the equivalent of Red Guards, labor camps, disappearances, the whole nine yards. Soft Marxism by half measures cannot work. But America is not a nation of kulaks. The imposition of the Marxist vision would eventually lead to civil war, but the left has no real stomach for such an eventuality. Mr. Obama is no Lenin. He is a national nuisance, nothing more. This too shall pass.
“Mr. Obama is no Lenin. He is a national nuisance, nothing more. This too shall pass.”
From your keyboard to god’s ear – hopefully. But although history repeats itself, it does not often do so in an exactly parallel manner. I think there is more danger here than you realize. Corruption will follow power as sure as night follows day. And since corruption builds power, we may see a vicious resonance that gets out of hand faster than we expect. It’s time to stop this thing in its tracks now.
Certainly Obama is not Lenin, as of yet. But I do suggest some similarities. By that I mean Lenin’s New Economic Policy which allowed for some market economy, actaually helped a certain economic revival. This was no return to capitalism, rather to the usual form of socialism of the 20th Century, be it national, fascistic or slightly FDRish. For some reflections on the parallel being hinted at turn to Burnham’s “Managerial Revolution”. In his study, Burnham compares the morphological similarity between the different -isms, all enshrining a centralized gov. that orders mangerially the economic life and subordinates the individual to the collective whole (I think here of Obama’s Black Liberation thesis that the salvation of the individual takes place in the collectivity). Morphologically, Obama is heading towards Lenin’s position. Just how much violence the Obama version of the “managerial society” will enact is not clear to me. When does an “imperial presidency” become of necessity imperially commanding? Obama’s “mangerial society” might pass or, as the case of a comparison with FDR, it might go beyond the New Deal to new hights of “forced” centralized order, of course, for the “common good”.
It takes one (or ex-one) to know one. Thanks Ion.
How so? Just start paying attention. If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck, it is probably a duck! ABO2012
It seems you may have totally misconstrued my meaning. It seems clear to me that I am, based on Mr. Pacepa’s personal knowledge, commending him on the article.
I think Mr. Baker is saying that it doesn’t take a communist (or ex-communist) to recognize a communist, just someone who is paying attention.
Maybe you both need to keep your eyes on your fries. I liked the article. We can quibble later.
I felt that I had little trouble deciphering “It takes one to know one.” I just told you that it does not necessarily “take one to know one.” Now that you have straightened me out on the intent of your comment, you have left me confused on your meaning of “It takes one to know one.” Please explain what you meant by “It takes one to know one”, because I thought I disagreed with you on whether “It takes one to know one.” I thought you meant that a person has to be a Communist in order to know when he is observing a Communist, in which case, I thought you insulted the author. But, I have never been a Communist and I am pretty sure of my observation that Obama is a Communist, so I objected to your assertion. My bad. Let’s get together with the Cambridge cop and Boobily and all have a beer, eh?
The beer sounds good to me. I guess I was implying that Mr. Pacepa due to his personal experience knows what he is talking about more thoroughly than most, not that one who is not or has never been a communist can’t tell a communist when he hears one. I would think, however, that he would be harder to fool by the likes of what one of our commenters, Mr. Bleachers, calls small c communism, than most. Like our host, Roger Simon (and I count myself in their number), those of us who once travelled in, shall I say, more progressive waters, might have special insights into how the left operates and how their minds work. Like all those burned by the hot stove, we learn from our past foolishness. Sorry if I was unclear.
Thomas, I think those people who have run the gauntlet on political philosophies usually wind up with a better basket of arguments to support their current convictions. They are well researched convictions, as it were. There is a second class of political activist who have no personal opinions at all. They go through life trying to bet on the success or failure of other people, so as to avoid being associated with any failures. “There are a thousand fathers of every success, but every failure turns out to be a bastard”. Even though I have never met him, I feel that Ion Pacepa is a member of the first group, and in that respect, he has my respect. ABO2012
We do have free elections but areas like education which literally get to preserve or alter or even destroy the prevailing mindset of future voters are being transformed in anticipation of gutting capitalism and rejecting the concept of individualism itself. Even elected school boards which most of us see as the stewards of our school systems and all those taxes we pay are being counseled now that they must defer on almost all matters to the wisdom of the professional administrators with their degrees in education.
What an opening for transformative political, social, and economic change of the collective nature. It may not work but it does provide power and control for a few so back it comes.
Speaking of change, do you want the National Education Association doing values retraining in America’s schools to “re-imagine America”? They even trademarked it. Or training teenage students to be change agents to transform their school’s culture and climate?
Social and emotional learning is a real threat to the integrity of the individual in the West. Person-in-community means you only exist as a sacrificial lamb for others to borrow Ayn Rand’s phrase on coerced altruism.
If the NEA in this position troubles you, here’s a post I just finished.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/does-purple-america-come-with-a-toy-dinosaur-or-is-it-just-more-sel/
I literally gasped when I saw this post on The Gods of Socialism. The person-in-community concept and express rejection of the individual are straight from the UN influenced ecological humanism from the 70s. It all just keeps coming back with the same functions but nicer sounding names.
Boy, our founders were right. These creeps cannot be stopped and must be fought every generation from now ’till forever. Elena sounds like Hillary. Pity the poor sculptor having to create her ‘likeness’, cankels and all.
We must strive to elect only those who will commit to keeping the government’s boot off our necks. And begin the process of shutting down federal departments of wasted resources (Ed.,Energy, EPA,etc). We have to ‘change’ back to what we once were before it’s too late.
So you would like a different kind of “change?” I have pointed out that something close to “socialism” has become the norm in our and just about every other society in the world. Changing that is even more radical than just schlepping somewhat socialistically onward, which is what we are 95% likely to do no matter who gets elected. Small differences in recommended tax rates now determines who gets called a socialist on Fox.
Cutting down on government stops the kind of “growth” that many have come to depend on. How will that work?
I was in Romania in 1985, when Ceaucescu was trying to pay off the
country’s debt. It was one of the most depressing trips I had ever
taken. It seemed that the entire country was run on a string of
40 watt bulbs. The hallway in our hotel was so dimly lit that my
wife and I had to grope down the hallway looking for our room.
We made a side trip to Sinaia(sp?)in the mountains and since it
was a tourist attraction, it was more like the typical European
spa, with most of the creature comforts.
I drove from Yugoslavia to Bucharest and back in 1980. What I remember vividly was the yellow cloud engulfing Craiova. You could see in the distance nothing but a yellow cloud. As you got closer, you could see some sort of factory just south of the highway. Eventually, the highway went right past the front gate of the factory, with short stacks in the back belching this yellow schmutz. The entire city was engulfed. Then as you left, it dissipated, and you could see the stationery cloud in the rear view mirror. The entire city was in that yellow cloud, 24 hours a day.
And today’s greens are all for socialism.
They don’t see it that way. You see, those other guys weren’t “real” Socialist or Marxist! Stalin, et al, were Fascists not true Communist (Lenin probably was though), but this time we’ll get it right because we are so so so smart!!
Joe Biden said a few days ago that the world’s greatest cities are now in China (sorry America, you lost the game).
China where commie style capitalism doesn’t care what happens to the Earth OR the workers as long as the stuff keeps getting pumped out, China of the monstrous algae bloom covering the lake during the Olympics, of the willy nilly dumping of benzene into the rivers, of 7 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world.
Maybe Crazy Joe was thinking of the mushroom cloud over Beijing
Lawrence Summers, Hillary, Pelosi, Obama, Soros, Alinsky, moveon, Daily Kos,the wealthy left intelligentsia professionals, academia, the poor,the minorities, the young are on the same marxist ship believing that none of them will be harmed by this new found religion of socialism. They are above it, benefit from it or plan to run and control it.
Still, in 1929 Stalin began cleansing the soviet of scholars, scientists, cultural and religious leaders and most convincingly the utter annihilation of the Kulaks, a landed class of moderate to somewhat wealthy landowners (by soviet standards of the day they were wealthy owning 24 acres of land or more). Stalin successfully purged and starved the Kulaks and the elites from the soviet in a successful effort to insure his continued power and the rise of the marxist state. Millions of others were purged intentionally or not through the simple expedient of starvation as grain, even seed grain, was ursurped by the state.
Stalin is one of the great examples of marxism gone horribly and ususally wrong (say Zimbabwe, say Venezuela, etc.). In the beginning there is a benevolent, well intentioned elite who believe they can bring change for the good of all citizens. But it is inevitable that power will eventually fall ino the hands of corrupt and evil person/persons/tyrant.
Afterall Caesar Augustus was a benevolent dictator, Caesar Caligula not so much and both were living gods.
The difference is that Stalin was a cold-blooded killer who murdered his way to the top. By comparison Obama is a Marxist with a limp wrist and a lisp. Stalin would have met the Tea Party with truncheons, tear gas, arrests, and deportations. Obama’s media lap dogs branded the Tea Party racist – ooh, scary! Notice how many of Obama’s advisors have scuttled back to the academy where they can once again get paid to be armchair philosophers: “Oh dear, the communist coup d’etat failed; I’ll have another glass of merlot, please.” Likewise the OWS crowd from Berkeley. Let’s play communist revolutionary had no more substance to it than killing Balrogs with dice.
Point well taken, but Larsky is basically saying, “But what follows Obama?” If the socialist ideal becomes embedded in the American psyche, as would be proven by his re-election, then how can we be sure someone more like Stalin won’t eventually supplant Obama or one of his limp-wristed successors?
The first job of a serious communist would be to politicize the military. An aspiring dictator would need the equivalent of the Red Army fully infiltrated by NKVD commissars. The problem is that our military forces are sworn to the Constitution, and not to an individual or party. I would have been concerned had Obama actually made good on his suggestion to form a civilian defense corps. Such an organization could easily become the equivalent of brown shirts or red guards. Whatever Obama’s true colors are (red or just pink?), he’s still an amateur.
The religious adulation of Lenin and Stalin, which filled oceans of newsprint and generated international respect for Marxism and admiration for its leaders, may well be one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated in history.
“change” “forward” etc. are slogans used by would be dictators, historically and in real time.
It is shocking that our nation should have fallen so low as to afford immense power to someone like Barack Obama, an individual who lies & misrepresents at every turn as he tries to procure another 4 years to “finish what we started”.
“A man like me is born only once every five hundred years.”
Obama would echo that sentiment. He claimed rising seas would halt as a mere function of his election, and people voted for him anyway.
Arrogance, coupled with exploitation of ignorance, must be required personality traits.
What you relate about Ceausescu in terms of his own opulent lifestyle (contradicting the spewed ideology) stands true for America’s current king and queen.
Nixon used the phrase “Forward Once More Together” in 1972. I guess he was a Marxist, too?
Ignorance is bliss, PJers.
“Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress. And that alone makes it irreconcilably opposed to religion.” – Leon Trotsky, 1936
Simplistic, pitching.
The “forward” angle is integral to all pitches for the workers’ paradise on earth
I can understand Doc’s reluctance to hop on the PJM-bandwagon. Sceptism is always correct. However, scepticism that cites as a top-rank authority Totsky on progress and then accuses the PJers of ignorance, such scepticism is about as intellectually clean as presenting to a historical ignoramus quotations from Goebbels about the “Jewish problem in Germany” and how Goebbels was seeking a “final solution” to said difficulty. Let me just touch, ever so lightly, on the “progressive” (sic) Totsky and his life’s accomplishments.
If you follow Trotky’s career as the founder of the Red Army and then follow the barbaric acts of that army and other Trotsky organized units on their opponents, you will glean an insight into murderous horror (and it was the Lenin gov. that eliminated almost totally the 10,000 Kronstadt sailor cadets north of St. Petersburg –a place I have visited with sadness–, the very soldiers that twice saved the Bolsheviki revolution, many of whom thinking that it was all about freedom from the repressive Tzar). Trosky was the organizer of military massacres of great magnitude, “crimes against humanity” necessitated by the exigencies of “change”!!! (And you are right, Mr. Doc, that is anti-religious.) In the great struggle to become the next “Messiah”, whoops, dictator-in-chief after Lenin, Trotky lost out to Stalin (whom the Russians were tought effectively to worship–just saw in Germany a documentary on the “divine” function of Stalin). When Trotsky fled Russia (a land that many Western progressives, from Harry Hopkins to Bernard Shaw, saw as an embodiment of positive “change”–also shown in documentaries), he eventually ended up in Mexico. There he theoretically, but not morally, criticized Stalin. Nevertheless, Trotsky maintained, even with Stalin as dictator, that the Soviet Union was the true bearer of Leninist/Marxist “change”. How is that for the blindness inherent in the “true believers” of radical change. In order to penetrate into the vulgarity and, more importantly, the blind theoretical stance of Trotsky, look up in internet the debate that Trotsky-ite #2, namely James Burnham, began with Trotky refuting his theoretical blindness. Trotsky simply could not understand concretely the situation (as clearly seen in Trotsky’s lame response to Burnham) and ended up supporting barbarity as change. Burnham’s revolt against Trotsky, the man of blind progressive faith, led him eventually to write his famous “Managerial Revolution”, a revolution continued effectively by Barrack Obama. But finally, in order to end this short narrative, let us consider how Trotky, the proclaimer of progress as structurally anti-religious, ended his illustrious career, namely with a pickaxe in his head at the orders of Stalin. What are the moral objections that you, Mr. Doc, might offer, when the Father of his people, i.e., Stalin, does away with a “heretic”, viz., a theorectial falsifier of the structure of “change” as embodied in the Soviet Union. And such a falsifier was Trotsky. Trotsky’s life and death witness to the latent violence inherent in those who accept Marxism’s call to “change”, whether this call comes directly from reading Marx of “believing” in Black Liberation Theology. As a final note, read the violent poems that the pre-Marxist Marx wrote calling for the annihilation of what is in favor of realizing a radical “change”. There you will find the presaging of the murderous feelings motivating radical “changers”.
Unfortunately for you, Mr. Doc, you have inadvertently substantiated the gist of the article. Your ignorance of what a true believer, a radical changer, such as Trotsky does is a testimony to the blindness inherent in your criticism. Amen!
Funny how Google has no reference to “Forward Once More Together” and Nixon. What they did say in his 1972 campaign was “Nixon: Now More Than Ever”. I remember some democrats removed the “w” and the “than” to make it read, “Nixon: No More Ever”. I was in high school and one of my lefty teachers (head of the local NOW chapter) got a real chuckle out of that.
“Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress. And that alone makes it irreconcilably opposed to religion.” – Leon Trotsky, 1936
Well, if Trotsky says it, then it must be true! No, not anything like a Religion, eh? And what with Communism promising only a measly
HeavenUtopia on Earth and all…It never ceases to amaze me that the socialists always try to say how capitalism fails, yet it’s been over a century since capitalism ran unfettered in this country. Every time it “fails” we can point to a socialist policy that assisted it’s failure, starting with the privately owned Federal Reserve who, in just 16 years after taking over our monetary policy, helped usher in the great Depression.
When things don’t change they die, that is a rule of nature, politics, religion, etc… Anyway, how can a person whom has not raised taxes, and showed the growth of the federal government be a socialist? He has not pushed any policy, which was not part of the Republican platform in the 90s. What a fake enemy you have created in your minds.
…showed (sic) the growth of the federal government be a socialist?
Obama is a great advocate of what he calls “public sector” hiring & has made numerous speeches to the effect that…”golly, gee whiz, bureaucrats do important things, too, but don’t get no respect”
A week or so ago he told us the private sector was doing just fine, with an implicit lament that his beloved public sector, not so fine.
By public sector, he means both MORE teachers, MORE firemen, MORE police hires AND simple bureaucratic paper pushers. The latter has been recommended as a lifetime gig by people in his administration, like the infamous Shirley Sherrod of agriculture fame. Very hard, if not impossible, to fire you once you’ve gained admittance to the club.
Obama has not been shy in adding bureaucrats to the national barnyard
You sound like a Romney commercial.
I guess me taking the time to counter your baldfaced lie (uh, claim) about growth in the federal government under Barack Hussein Kardashian didn’t have any effect on you.
So you wrote some different vapid BS.
“has not raised taxes”, true but not for lack of will or desire to do so. He has said repeatedly that he would do so if he could “Tax the rich”, “there is a time for profits”,”rescind the Bush tax cuts” (what uninformed nonsense) . “Slowed government growth” in a recession is not that hard to do, but running consecutive trillion dollar deficits is purely a signature of someone who does not have any meaningful understanding of how capital, business or an economy works or what unfettered growth of debt will ultimately do to an economy,,,,say Greece..say Spain..say EU and you might envision the future under Obama and friends.
In the wrong hands the wrong kind of “Change” can also destroy “nature, politics, religions, etc…”.
You go on believing your regurgitated feel good drivel, the rest of us will take care of it so your children might have a life. Oh and we’ll go ahead and save you from yourself and yes we know you won’t read or listen to anything from any viewpoint other than the left in order to understand what is occurring under your watch as you continue to get all of your brilliance from NYT, WAPO, moveone, The Daily Kos, MSNBC,the Nation and Bill Maher, oh and Saul. We get it and have fun in your sandbox.
“Marxism is saturated with the optimism of progress. And that alone makes it irreconcilably opposed to religion.” -Leon Trotsky, 1861
I for one have had more than enough of “Hope and CHANGE.” The only real change I want to see is Obama thrown out of office in November. Then maybe we can get back to our lives and try to rescue what’s left of this country from financial ruin.
Americans didn’t want to believe in 2008 that Obama’s “change” was really a desire to turn America into a social-welfare state like France. Well, now Americans know what Obama meant about “change” and for the few people out there who still think Obama is right, just look at Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy to see what your future has in store for you. Nothing but financial and economic ruin. If you don’t want that, vote Republican in November.
Excellent synthesis and comparison of events, behaviors, and attitudes which characterize the socialist/communist/death cult lifecyle.
Looking forward to reading more pieces like this one, particularly analyses of other countries that apply variant systems or principles thereof.
I can just imagine what Putin was saying to Obama when he was lecturing him a few days ago. “America was ripe for the picking and you blew it with your over-reach. It takes years of small lies, years of chipping away at the people’s freedoms until they have no choice but to surrender to your will. Now look at what you have done: gun sales are at an all-time high and Americans are arming themselves to the teeth. It will take decades to undo the damage that you have done to our cause. Decades! Where’s my vodka!”
You saw the hostile body language between Putin and Obama at that do nothing gathering this week in Los Cabos Mexico ?
Barry still mumbling about getting “the Russians” on board over Syria, even while Vlad supplies the hardware and vehicles to enable Assad to slaughter his citizens ?
Vlad may be nothing more than an ex KGB thug, but he knows when he’s got a paper tiger by the balls.
I didn’t think about that. So Putin is concerned that Obama will start a conflict in Iran or Syria to distract and rally Americans before the election? I thought he was reprimanding Obama for going after all three cornerstones at one time rather than continuing to chip away. Obama probably would’ve been successful, if, during his first term, he used the EPA to drastically increase energy costs. His failure was that he also went after healthcare and the fast & furious gun control cornerstones. Should’ve left those for future, democrat presidents.
So Putin is concerned that Obama will start a conflict in Iran or Syria to distract and rally Americans before the election?
I was alluding to the absurdity Obama’s lame words in the press conference that the US was still working on getting the Russians on board vis â vis stopping Assad/Syria while Putin is actually and actively enabling Assad/Syria.
And that Obama is a weak man, a man who has promised “reset” and “more flexibility” to Putin after he (Obama) gets another 4 years and that Putin knows this American President is weak.
Arrest, try and publicly execute the Marxist usurper.
testing
[Deep drag on clove cigarette...exhale...sip coffee...point nose at ceiling]
‘Those who claim Obama is a socialist don’t know the definition of socialism.’
Oh woe, we are so lacking in enlightenment. Help a poor sinful soul and give me the definition of “socialism”. But once you do, try to explain to me how Mussolini spent much of his early life as a socialist (learned from his father) only to become a fascist (a form of nationalistic socialism) and come to support the national SOCIALISM of Hitler. Let me be clear here. I am not suggesting that socialists are to be thrown into the Hitler box of anti-semitism. This would be false for Mussolini, either as a socialist or as a leader of the Italian form of nationalistic socialism, fascism, was not murderously anti-semetic. My God, the man had support from some “rich” Jews, at least for awhile. And he snuck into bed with more than one Jewish maiden. Mussolini went the anti-semitism way later in the war, having become abjectly dependent upon and subservient to Hitler. So, I am not claiming that socialists are Hitlerites. No I am JUST looking for a definition of socialism that covers its variants. Surely, Mr. Patchy, you can reveal such wisdom.
I do wish do know if your succint definition of socialism will explain to me why Hitlerism was, indeed, national SOCIALISM and, while it lasted in the 30′s more successful than Britain or the USA. Note: James Burnham, the ex-Trotsky socialist/Marxist, in his famous “Managerial Revolution”, showed morpholocical parallels between Soviet socialism/communism, Hitler’s national socialism and FDR’s New Deal interventionism. Please pay attention to Burnham’s thesis. FDR’s New Deal was morphological similar to Soviet and Nazi “socialisms”. As far as I know, Obama sees himself in the tradition of FDR. It is not difficult to make the case that Obama’s “change” politics entails the same principles as found in FDR’s New Deal, only expanded. If Burnham’s analysis is correct and my thesis of the last sentence is valid, then by simple logical extension, Obama’s radicalized FDRism is “socialism”. Or? Besides, Obama comes out of Black Liberation Theology which itself is highly Marxist in its diagnoses and prognoses, i.e., it is socialistic. But, I am am obvious ignorant of Mr. Patchy’s definition of socialism. I await said definition, which hopefully will not be too patched up.
P.S. Mr. Patchy there is the chance that I misread your intent. Perhaps you were just being ironical. After all you put your thesis in quotations marks. What that was supposed to mean is not clear to me. However, if irony is there, I may have pushed you into a false position. If so, I apologize. Nevertheless, my answer given to the thesis in quotation marks hold, be it irony or deadly seriousness.
Yes it was an ironic post meant to take the [mickey] out of those who attempt to mask their ignorance and/or the ideology of their political leaders by attempting to flummox the opposition via shifting definitions. When they must defend generalities, they go for specifics and vice versa.
Their refusal to countenance the very real SOCIALIST intentions, policies and practices of Barack Obama and like-minded individuals, they instead attempt to change the subject or, more specifically, to claim there isn’t a subject at all.
I appreciate your zeal and your follow-up message but my ‘stage directions’ were intentional and meant to portray a garden-variety dilettante speaking of that which he/she knows very little indeed outside what their jumped-up Marxist professors have spouted.
I live in MIAMI- ask any of the older Cubans here- yes Batista was bad, and at first everyone was on board for Castro’s revolution- of course then many of those same found their way in front of his & Che’s firing squads, betrayed, fooled by the CHANGE rhetoric. The ones who could escaped in the 60′s. Some came later on rickety rafts, risking their lives to get OUT- they still arrive on our shores.
No one tries to escape from USA or Canada or other FREE nations. However illegal escape may be the only option for those caught under Marxist regimes- East Berlin and East German for example. Other nations like Russia have pretty girls lining up to marry old men just to get green cards to get OUT.
I am truly stunned, amazed, and just saddened by my fellow Americans embrace of socialistic utopianism. History and facts have not touched them. Are they so uneducated? insane? blinded? yes they are hopin and wishin for change they will surely regret
The American system of limited government that the American founders set forth required strict limitation of the power of the Federal government in the economic forum. Individual Enterprise is a traditional American philosophy that is as inseparable and indivisible to the American right of Individual Liberty.
In President Thomas Jefferson’s first annual Message to Congress in 1801, he
stated: “Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.”
Mr. Pacepa warns us – again — that Socialism mandates government coercion for the implementation of its transformational policies through threats of penalties, punitive regulations and even violence. The fact is, that to change/transform traditional American philosophy, it will require force, intimidation, compulsion and oppression.
When Obama spoke at the University of Michigan in May 2010, he said we must cease using phrases like, “socialist,” “Soviet-style takeover,” “fascist,” “right-wing nut,” and left-wing nut.” He warns us that by labeling the transformation of America (his achievements) by calling it socialism “prevents learning,” and “coarsens our culture.”
I think we need to coarsen our culture and say “No” to government socialist coercion and preserve our traditional American heritage. In 1771, Samuel Adams issued a warning to America about the internal dangers to Individual Liberty. It continues to be relevant year after year since then. It is quoted here as it was in the original text: (Boston Gazette, ‘Candidus’)
“If the liberties of America are ever compleatly ruined, of which in my opinion there is now the utmost danger, it will in all probability be the consequence of a mistaken notion of prudence, which leads men to acquiesce in measures of the most destructive tendency for the sake of present ease. When designs are form’d to rase the very foundation of a free government, those few who are to erect their grandeur and fortunes upon the general ruin, will employ every art to sooth the devoted people into a state of indolence, inattention and security, which is forever the fore-runner of slavery– They are alarmed at nothing so much, as attempts to awaken the people to jealousy and watchfulness; and it has been an old game played over and over again, to hold up the men who would rouse their fellow citizens and countrymen to a sense of their real danger, and spirit them to the most zealous activity in the use of all proper means for the preservation of the public liberty, as ‘pretended patriots,’ ‘intemperate politicians,’ rash, hotheaded men, Incendiaries, wretched desperadoes, who, as was said of the best of men, would turn the world upside down, or have done it already.”
Bravo!
I have little doubt that, if the hopes and dreams of all conservatives in America come true, that Romney wins, Republicans gain a majority in both houses, that the current plunge toward ruin is averted, and prosperity returns to America, that the administration that follows Romney will be Democrat and as leftist as ever, because the people will want that old time gravy train to take them on another ride to utopia.
Perspective.
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/c0.220.327.327/p403x403/426895_295813500484944_1666128110_n.jpg
So now anybody who wants to change anything is a Marxist? You Marxists need to complete your recovery before you start telling all of us how to live.
No, only those who want to change things by government intervention and re-distribution are Marxists. You know, the ones who “just want to spread it around”.
Fundraiser-In-Chief Manages To Spend More Money On His Campaign Than He Raised In May…
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/06/20/fundraiser-in-chief-manages-to-spend-more-money-on-his-campaign-than-he-raised-in-may/
Still waiting for the oceans to recede. Bushhitler was worse than even obama imagined. Who knew?
Capitalism had a couple hundred year lucky streak. Railroads, medical miracles, air conditioning, computers, xrays, air travel, television, cell phones, agricultural revolution, birth control, movies, radio, microwaves, electricity, soft drinks, nuclear power, automobiles, lasers, chocolate, dentistry, doubled lifespans, hearth transplants, hundreds of products in hundreds of categories, department stores, leisure time, cheap food, expensive sneakers, Disneyland, sports empires, fashion, much much much much more. Yeh those greedy capitalists got lucky some and invented stuff that unenlightened people seem to find useful…but that’s just because they don’t know how oppressed the masses are.
obama’s gonna fix that problem and get us back to a fair society. Like it used to be before those greedy capitalists messed everything up.
Michael Beschloss, reputed Presidential historian, said that Barack Obama “was probably the smartest man to ever hold the office of President of the United States.” To make the ridiculous even more sublime, he went on to state that utter obsurdity on national television. With elites like Michael Beschloss, is it any wonder the United States is circling the drain toward failure?
It’s all quite stunning, you must have to drink some brain cell destroying water in order to be admitted into “élite” status.
(now now, don’t rag on me for the accent mark, it’s my pretension to being one of them
)
I remember Bill Clinton being called an ‘agent of change’ back in the day,(’92?). I remember Barbara Jordan talking about ‘change’ at the ’92 Dem. Nat. Convention, “Change: From what, to what?, from what, to what?….What is the catalyst which will bring about the change we’re all talking about? I say that catalyst is the Democratic Party, and our nominee for President.”
Bill Clinton, in 2007, said of Hillary, “She has spent her lifetime as a change agent when she has the option to do other things.”
It would seem that Marxist rhetoric with regard to ‘change’, never changes.
Please, Mr Pacepa, you are the most indicated to show us the steps (something like finally having a right wing agenda) to stop this madness, stop the march through institutions. Since every time a right wing politician gets in the white house, he seems to be just a normal politician without conscience of the fact that we need to not only stop the socialist thing, but to reverse it.
Is there a path to follow? Any suggestion?
This is pathetic gibberish. Try to focus on a coherent thought and learn the meaning of a few words before you write them. Sheesh.
Sir, I believe you are wrong. Mr. Pacepa can confirm or deny my statement.
Have a good day.
Michael
To understand the incessant call for “change”, just remember the legendary story of a remote French Foreign Legion outpost.
Higher headquarters suddenly had an exaggerated concern with sanitation. So it was ordered that every man would have a change of underwear every day without fail.
Of course the quartermaster had no underwear in stock and none ever arrived. So every morning at formation Jean would change underwear with Claude. Claude would change underwear with Marcel. Marcel would change underwear with Pierre.
Pierre would change underwear with Henri and on and on and on and on.
Now do you get Le Picture?
Is Obama the only president who used change as a campaign theme and had facilities named after him during his term of office? I would have thought those were standard elements of the presidential process (at least for non-incumbents — incumbents being unlikely to tout the virtues of change).
You forgot Ms. Coffee and Madeleine, so there are, in fact, 4 characters that lactate things besides milk.