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Mr. Mandel suggests I am confusing socialism and communism. In his piece in the second paragraph, he says, Communism, on the other hand, is a failed branch of socialism.

Could it be that socialism is in a category with communism, bringing similar disastrous effects on a large scale should authoritarianism arrive on our shores.

The Nazis operated under National Socialism. People could be in a murderous jail, the political allegiance of the jailers not mattering.

My point is our freedoms easily could be lost if we allowed socialism or communism to creep in.

My friend and her family had to flee from Cuba in the middle of the night. Castro expelled the intellectual professionals so he could retain the compliant, whom he could control. And who can forget Maduro and the harsh, unforgiving life in Venezuela.

My Cuban friend tells me, Fidels brother, Raul, is even crueler, although his portrayal of the beauty and serenity of his communist island belies the incarceration of political prisoners who languish in rat-infested prisons.

How we could expect to live under socialism or communism is thoroughly undesirable.

I didnt see anything I like.

Sandy Goble

Brevard

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PRAGUE/WARSAW (Reuters) - Eastern Europeans with strong memories of authoritarian Communist rule have taken a been there, done that attitude to the restrictions on free movement and shortages of some basic goods caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

FILE PHOTO: A woman wearing a face mask stands at the Prague Castle as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues in Prague, Czech Republic, March 24, 2020. REUTERS/David W Cerny/File Photo

The shuttered stores, sealed borders and other measures have revived memories of life behind the old Iron Curtain before the fall of Communism and advent of democracy in 1989.

As Czech scientist Jan Konvalinka, 57, joked on Twitter, Shut borders, nothing on shelves, store closures? Welcome to my childhood.

Weve been there, done that, he added.

Scenes of shoppers in Britain, the United States and elsewhere plundering supermarkets for toilet paper, pasta and canned goods have bemused many in a region where people once had to wait years to be able to buy a car or where they would queue hours for a rare delivery of bananas at a state-run store.

In the UK, where youve had democracy for years, people panic when theres an unusual situation. We are behaving in a more rational way, we are detached, said Piotr Adamowicz, 59, an opposition member of the Polish parliament and former anti-communist activist.

Echoing that comment, Andrea in Budapest said: People here are not panicking.

My grandmother lived through two wars, my mom was born during World War II and then we had Communism. We are prepared for this, said Andrea, an ethnic Hungarian who grew up in Romania and spent time in a detention center before 1989 after trying to cross into Hungary.

People do not expect the current restrictions to last very long, unlike the privations they endured in the past.

For me these border closures dont hurt me as much as during Communism because I know they will open one day, said Filip Antos, 51, owner of Czech online travel service A-Hotel.com.

This is not like Communism because we know this will end. During Communism we didnt think it would ever end.

Access to trustworthy news sources today has also eased the strain for those who remember Moscow-dominated rule that ended in a series of mostly peaceful revolutions in 1989. Under Communism, governments that nobody trusted were the main source of peoples information in a pre-Internet world.

i For younger east Europeans, however, the experience of shortages and closed borders is novel.

I never thought such things could happen again, said Tomas Klima, 31, who was born a year before the 1989 Velvet Revolution in then-Czechoslovakia.

But, noting the hugely expanded role of the state in many countries to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and cushion the economic impact of the disruption caused, he added:

We tend to forget too quickly what it used to be like back then. The state controlled everything, you had to ask for permission to travel abroad etc.

I hope people will realize soon that by allowing the state to take control of various aspects of peoples lives, even if with good intentions, they lose a lot of their liberty.

Additional Reporting by Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw, Jan Lopatka in Prague and Krisztina Than in Budapest, Editing by Gareth Jones

Original post:
Closed borders, no shops? Been there, done that, say east Europeans - Reuters

Commentary

Now that college classes have been forced online because of the CCP virus pandemic, professors are worried that their lessons will be exposed to the public via right-wing sites.

Its no wonder. As Grinnell College music professor Tony Perman revealed in his essay on the NBC News site Think, their sympathies lie with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more than their own country.

Perman reported that he felt safer in China than he did in the United States, because, when he and his family returned to the United States, the CDC employee trusted them to self-isolate for 14 days and never even asked where we were going.

By contrast, the Chinese states heavy-handed approach seemed to work. There, the obligation to isolate felt shared, and the public changed their habits almost immediately, practicing sterilization, cleanliness and social distancing.

Perman gave credit to the communist regime for the citizenrys collectivist attitude that even encouraged some to rat out others suspected of hiding symptoms. He praised Chinese propaganda that celebrated health care workers and thus led to pride in collective civic responsibility.

A person like Perman would have once been called a useful idiot. The Chinese regime, as Epoch Times reporter Bowen Xiao pointed out, causes crises, blames others, and then uses the crises to clamp down with full force, ultimately praising its own heroism.

Perman made no mention of Dr. Li Wenliang, the health care worker who tried to sound the alarm in December 2019, but was punished by the government and has since died. The Chinese officials suppressed data for two months and then claimed the United States introduced the virus to China via the military. A Southampton University study found that cases would have been reduced by 95 percent had Beijing intervened three weeks sooner.

Perman was displaying the same attitude that one of my international students from China did when I was teaching at Emory University between 2007 and 2013. As we were discussing the documents and speeches of the American Founding that emphasized liberty, freedom of speech, and equal rights, she became visibly disturbed. In her mind, a strong dictatorial government was necessary and good. Freedom scared her.

At a state college where I also taught around the same time, I discovered during a lecture that a third of my college sophomore literature class hadnt heard of the word communism. When I assigned a speech by Mao Zedong as a lesson in propagandistic rhetoric, college freshmen believed the first things that came up on Google searches, i.e., that Mao was a great leader.

At Emory University, most of my American students had been taught that communism was a phantom red scare promulgated by right-wing reactionaries.

According to a survey conducted for Victims of Communism, Only 57% of Gen Z and 62% of Millennials, compared to 88% of Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation think China is a communist country and not a democratic country.

A quarter of Generation Z and millennials say they have gotten a positive presentation of communism in K12, as opposed to 7 percent for Boomers and older. The percentages go up for college. Seventy percent of millennials said they were at least somewhat likely to vote for a socialist. They support Bernie Sanders who, at the last debate, repeated his praise for communist China for allegedly lifting its people out of extreme poverty, and he distinguished his approach to dealing with the pandemic by promising to institute Medicare for All and to work with China.

I think its no coincidence that the precipitous rise in favorable attitudes about communism, and attendant ignorance about it, parallels the increasing use of Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the United States, especially in Advanced Placement U.S. History courses, which were revised to a far-left, Marxist interpretation under the Obama administration.

Zinn, a one-time member of the Communist Party USA, taught at Spelman College and Boston University. In his book, first published in 1980, he claimed American leaders allowed a myth of Soviet expansion to cover for domestic suppression during the Cold War. He said the takeover of countries by the Soviet regime after World War II was a falsehood spread by American imperialists. Really, these were locally led peoples movements, he claimed.

This is Zinns presentation of China: In China, a revolution was already under way when World War II ended, led by a Communist movement with enormous mass support. A Red Army, which had fought against the Japanese, now fought to oust the corrupt dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek, which was supported by the United States. In January 1949, Chinese Communist forces moved into Peking, the civil war was over, and China was in the hands of a revolutionary movement, the closest thing, in the long history of that ancient country, to a peoples government, independent of outside control.

Today, the nonprofit Zinn Education Project pushes Zinns history to primary and secondary schools by distributing curriculum materials in print and online. A recent Zinn Education Project lesson, The Corona Connection, which makes the connection to climate change and indigenous people, is typical fare.

The co-sponsor of the Zinn Education Project, the nonprofit Rethinking Schools, which distributes these materials, on March 18 sent out an email announcing its commitment during the pandemic to providing social justice teaching, storytelling, and resources.

They encouraged organizing against Trumps naked xenophobia and defending especially the rights of children in immigrant detention facilities. The crisis, they urged, was not a time of retreat, but a time to insist on, to organize for, an agenda of human rights and wealth redistribution.

Democrats delayed the stimulus bill by insisting it include pet projects of their freedom-denying, wealth-redistributing agenda, such as green energy, abortion funding, and mandated diversity quotas and regulations for corporations. And China, in its propaganda, is using charges about xenophobia being promulgated by Democrats (including Joe Biden), CNN, and NBC.

After three decades of off-shoring and global citizenship, Americans are being forced to acknowledge the folly of dependence on a communist regimenot only for cheap plastics, but for essential medicines and equipment. Americans should return to their roots of self-reliance. But first we must teach the young the truth about communism and American history.

That begins by exposing the lies of Howard Zinn.

Mary Grabar holds a doctorate in English from the University of Georgia and is a resident fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. Grabar is the author of Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History that Turned a Generation against America, published by Regnery History.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Its Time to Teach the Truth About Communist China (and the Lies of Howard Zinn) - The Epoch Times

Since its start a century ago, Communism, a political and economic ideology that calls for a classless, government-controlled society in which everything is shared equally, has seen a series of surgesand declines. What started in 1917 Russia, became a global revolution, taking root in countries as far flung as China and Korea to Kenya and Sudan to Cuba and Nicaragua.

Communism launched from Lenins October Revolution and spread to China withMao Zedongs rise to power and toCuba, withFidel Castros takeover. It was the ideology behind one side of the Cold War and saw a symbolic decline with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today just a handful of countries remain under communist rule. Below is a timeline of notable events that shaped Communisms arc in history.

February 21, 1848: German economist and philosopher Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto, calling for a working-class revolt against capitalism. Its motto, Workers of the world, unite! quickly became a rallying cry.

November 7, 1917: With Vladimir Lenin at the helm, the Bolsheviks, ascribing to Marxism, seize power during Russias October Revolution and become the first communist government. Later that month, the leftist Socialist Revolutionaries defeat the Bolsheviks in an election, but, despite his promises of bread, land and peace, Lenin uses military force to take power. Its during this period the Red Terror (executions of the Czars officials), prisoner-of-war labor camps and other police state tactics are established.

July 1, 1921: Inspired by the Russian Revolution, the Communist Party of China is formed.

January 21, 1924: Lenin dies at age 54 of a stroke, and Joseph Stalin, who had served as Lenins general secretary, eventually takes over official rule of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953 from a brain hemorrhage. He industrialized the country through a state-controlled economy, but it led to famine. Under his regime, detractors were deported or imprisoned in labor camps, and, as part of the Great Purge, 1 million people were executed under Stalins orders.

1940 to 1979: Communism is established by force or otherwise in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Yugoslavia, Poland, North Korea, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, China, Tibet, North Vietnam, Guinea, Cuba, Yemen, Kenya, Sudan, Congo, Burma, Angola, Benin, Cape Verde, Laos, Kampuchea, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Vietnam, Somalia, Seychelles, Afghanistan, Grenada, Nicaragua and others.

May 9, 1945: The U.S.S.R. declares victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. With Japans defeat, Korea becomes divided into the communist North (which the Soviets occupied) and the South (which had been occupied by the United States).

March 12, 1947: President Harry S. Truman addresses Congress in what would come to be known as the Truman Doctrine, calling for the containment of communism, and later, leading to U.S. entry into wars in Vietnam and Korea to provide defense from communist takeovers. The doctrine becomes the basis for Americas Cold War policy.

March 5, 1946: Great Britain Prime Minister Winston Churchill makes his famous Iron Curtain speech in Missouri, alerting Americans to the division between the Soviet Union and the Western allies.

October 1, 1949: Following a civil war, Chinas Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong declares his creation of the Peoples Republic of China, leading the United States to end diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades.

July 5, 1950: Leading United Nations forces, the first U.S. troops engage in the Korean War, after communist North Korea invaded South Korea with the intent of creating a unified communist state. The war would last until July 27, 1953, with North Korea, China and the United Nations signing an armistice agreement.

January 1, 1959: Fidel Castro overthrows the corrupt Fulgencio Batista regime, and Cuba becomes a Communist state.

April 25, 1976: Following the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, South Vietnams capital is seized by communist forces. A few months later, in July, the nation is reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under communist rule.

October 25, 1983: The United States invades Grenada under orders of President Ronald Reagan to secure the safety of American nationals under the countrys communist regime, led by Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. The pro-Marxist government was overthrown in about a week.

June 4, 1989: After weeks of protests, the Communist Chinese government sends in its military to fire on demonstrators calling for democracy in Beijings Tiananmen Square. The bloody violence ends in hundreds to thousands of deaths (no official death toll was ever released).

November 9, 1989: The Berlin Wallthat separated communist East Berlin from democratic West Berlin for nearly 30 yearsfalls. The years 1989-90 see the collapse of communist regimes in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Benin, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Yemen.

December 25, 1991: With the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union is dissolved. New Russian President Boris Yeltsin bans the Communist Party. Communism soon ends in Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Congo, Kenya, Yugoslavia and other nations. China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam remain under communist rule.North Korea remains nominally communist, although the North Korean government doesn't call itself communist.

History of Communism,Stanford UniversityCommunism: Karl Marx to Joseph Stalin,Center for European Studies, University of North CarolinaFrom Tsar to U.S.S.R.: Russias Chaotic Year of Revolution,National GeographicThe Truman Doctrine, 1947,U.S. Department of StateThe Chinese Revolution of 1949,U.S. Department of StateThe Korean War: Timeline,"CBS NewsTiananmen Square Fast Facts,"CNNUnited States Invades Grenada,Politco

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Communism Timeline - HISTORY

PRAGUE/WARSAW Eastern Europeans with strong memories of authoritarian Communist rule have taken a "been there, done that" attitude to the restrictions on free movement and shortages of some basic goods caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The shuttered stores, sealed borders and other measures have revived memories of life behind the old 'Iron Curtain' before the fall of Communism and advent of democracy in 1989.

As Czech scientist Jan Konvalinka, 57, joked on Twitter, "Shut borders, nothing on shelves, store closures? Welcome to my childhood."

"We've been there, done that," he added.

Scenes of shoppers in Britain, the United States and elsewhere plundering supermarkets for toilet paper, pasta and canned goods have bemused many in a region where people once had to wait years to be able to buy a car or where they would queue hours for a rare delivery of bananas at a state-run store.

"In the UK, where youve had democracy for years, people panic when theres an unusual situation. We are behaving in a more rational way, we are detached," said Piotr Adamowicz, 59, an opposition member of the Polish parliament and former anti-communist activist.

Echoing that comment, Andrea in Budapest said: "People here are not panicking".

"My grandmother lived through two wars, my mom was born during World War II and then we had Communism. We are prepared for this," said Andrea, an ethnic Hungarian who grew up in Romania and spent time in a detention center before 1989 after trying to cross into Hungary.

TEMPORARY MEASURES

People do not expect the current restrictions to last very long, unlike the privations they endured in the past.

"For me these border closures dont hurt me as much as during Communism because I know they will open one day," said Filip Antos, 51, owner of Czech online travel service A-Hotel.com.

"This is not like Communism because we know this will end. During Communism we didnt think it would ever end."

Access to trustworthy news sources today has also eased the strain for those who remember Moscow-dominated rule that ended in a series of mostly peaceful revolutions in 1989. Under Communism, governments that nobody trusted were the main source of people's information in a pre-Internet world.

i For younger east Europeans, however, the experience of shortages and closed borders is novel.

"I never thought such things could happen again," said Tomas Klima, 31, who was born a year before the 1989 Velvet Revolution in then-Czechoslovakia.

But, noting the hugely expanded role of the state in many countries to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and cushion the economic impact of the disruption caused, he added:

"We tend to forget too quickly what it used to be like back then. The state controlled everything, you had to ask for permission to travel abroad etc.

"I hope people will realize soon that by allowing the state to take control of various aspects of people's lives, even if with good intentions, they lose a lot of their liberty."

(Additional Reporting by Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw, Jan Lopatka in Prague and Krisztina Than in Budapest, Editing by Gareth Jones)

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Closed Borders, No Shops? Been There, Done That, Say East Europeans - The New York Times