Mediaboss Marketing

COMMENTARY: In 2020, the United States, the longtime home of free markets, watches millions of its citizens embrace socialism and even communism, the scourge of the 20th century.

Thirty years ago this month, something critical happened in Moscow signaling the end not only of the Cold War, but of the Soviet Union itself.

On Feb. 7, 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded in banishing the Communist Partys guarantee as the USSRs sole political party. He backed a proposal by free-market reformers to repudiate Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, which had ensured the more-than-70-year communist stranglehold on power. The communist monopoly was officially ended.

This historic shift was greeted by a top-of-the-fold headline across The New York Times. I still remember where I was when I saw that headline. I was walking down Fifth Avenue of the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, en route to my job at Childrens Hospital and Presbyterian University Hospital, where I was a pre-med student working for the organ-transplant team. The headline hit me like a Soviet SS-20 missile and was a key factor redirecting my path ahead, eventually taking me toward a different field of study, one in which I would go on to spend the next three decades of my life explaining why the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed and, equally important, why no rational human being should ever choose the destructive road of communism and socialism. As evidence of the political systems history of human-rights violations, conservative estimates of the death toll under communist/socialist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Cuba and elsewhere number in the tens of millions.

And yet, all along, Ive watched in dismay as an entire generation of young people raised in our public schools and universities not only havent learned the crucial lessons about communism and socialism but, quite the contrary, have been taught that these ideologies really werent all that bad. Socialism and communism, theyre told, merely had not been done properly.

Ive thus spoken to countless groups on college campuses and elsewhere giving talks with titles like, Why Communism Is Bad and Communism, Socialism and Democratic Socialism: What the Heck Is the Difference. This is information they flatly do not know.

Ive sounded that warning for years now, with many colleagues rolling their eyes thinking Im being a tad hysterical. Sure, I could give anecdote after anecdote, but these were just anecdotes. Right?

Well, now we have more than anecdotes. We have hard data, and that data is only getting worse.

In the early 2010s, I noticed a clear break during the Obama presidency. I began to see a flip in surveys asking young people if they preferred socialism. A 2014 survey by the Reason Foundation found that 53% of 18- to 29-year-olds viewed socialism favorably. In 2015, the same year that socialism was the most looked-up word at Merriam-Webster, Gallup found69% of millennials saying they would vote for a socialist president.

Many people shrugged that off. And yet, in the 2016 Democratic primary, millions did precisely that, voting for Bernie Sanders, a lifetime avowed socialist. Sanders got 13 million votes in the Democratic primary 40% of votes that year, and almost as many as Donald Trump received (14 million) in the Republican primary.

In 2020, Bernie is the front-runner for the Democratic Party. That should not surprise us, given a 2019 survey that found that, among registered Democrats, 57% view socialism positively.

High as these numbers are, they continue to increase. A November 2019 survey by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (conducted by YouGov) found 70% of millennials saying that they are likely to vote for a socialist.

And it isnt merely young people. In May 2019, Gallup found that four in 10 Americans generally prefer socialism, with 43% saying socialism would be a good thing for America.

Even more disturbing, praise for communism is on the rise. That November 2019 survey by Victims of Communism and YouGov shows that 36% of millennials say they approve of communism, and 22% believe society would be better if all private property was abolished.

Their ignorance of the crimes of communism is likewise shocking. Amazingly, an October 2016 survey by the Victims of Communism found that one in three millennials and one in four Americans generally believe President George W. Bush killed more people than Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Yes, you read that right. Few statistics are so revealing of a profoundly sick ignorance.

Alas, likewise disturbing, especially for readers here, is that some Catholics are not immune to this growing enchantment.

Last summer, in July 2019, America magazine published a piece by one of its staff correspondents, Dean Dettloff, titled, The Catholic Case for Communism, along with a defense by the editor in chief, Jesuit Father Matt Malone, Why we published an essay sympathetic to communism. The piece is posted online with a photo of the Communist Crucifix handed to Pope Francis by Bolivias Marxist President Evo Morales.

This is grossly ill-informed and irresponsible on many fronts, particularly given how the Catholic Church has consistently confronted communism and socialism for literally more than 170 years, unlikely any other institution.

In 1846, two years before the Communist Manifesto was even published, Pope Pius IX issued his encyclical Qui Pluribus, which stated that communism is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself and would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself.In 1849, Pius IX issued Nostis Et Nobiscum, which described both socialism and communism as wicked theories, perverted theories and pernicious fictions.

Such condemnations continued on from papacy to papacy. In 1878, Pope Leo XIIIs Quod Apostolici Muneris criticized communism as the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin. Pope Pius XIs May 1937 encyclical, Divini Redemptoris (Atheistic Communism), referred to communism as a satanic scourge, a collectivistic terrorism replete with hate. Marxists were the powers of darkness. The evil we must combat is at its origin primarily an evil of the spiritual order, said the encyclical. From this polluted source the monstrous emanations of the communistic system flow with satanic logic.

And as for socialism, Pope Pius XI in May 1931 issued Quadragesimo Anno, which affirmed, Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.

Read that again: One cannot be a good Catholic and a socialist.

As for oddball Christians who confusingly want to be socialists, Pius XI advised a better course:

If they truly wish to be heralds of the Gospel, let them above all strive to show to socialists that socialist claims, so far as they are just, are far more strongly supported by the principles of Christian faith and much more effectively promoted through the power of Christian charity.

If they want to help the poor, they should be Christians, not socialists.

In July 1949, Pope Pius XII issued his Papal Decree Against Communism, which asserted that it was not licit for Catholics to join or show favor to communist parties, nor to publish, distribute, or read publications that support Communist doctrine or activity, or to write for them. The decree even stated that Christians who profess, defend or promote materialistic Communist doctrine incur the penalty of excommunication as apostates from the Christian faith.

Think about that. That means that, quite literally, America magazines piece last summer could have been cause for excommunication in 1949.

Pope Francis has also condemned communism. In December 2013, he said, The Marxist ideology is wrong, though adding: But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people.

Francis knows how deadly communism has been. In April 2017, Francis decried the many Christians killed by the demented ideologies of the last century. In June 2019 in Romania, he beatified seven communist-era martyred bishops who had endured suffering and gave their lives to oppose an illiberal ideological system that oppressed the fundamental rights of the human person.

To be sure, Francis is a product of a 1970s Argentinian mindset thats skeptical of free markets and favorable toward aspects of collectivism and wealth redistribution. But still, he has condemned Marxism as wrong, as has his Church. Francis knows, as any Catholic should, that Catholics cant support communism or socialism.

As St. Pope John XXIII put it, No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism. He rightly insisted: Socialism takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. It places too severe a restraint on human liberty.

And yet, here we are in the United States in 2020, and young people are praising communism, voting for socialists, and Catholic publications are publishing articles making a Catholic Case for Communism. This is a highly disturbing trend, prompting many of us to wonder if we really did defeat these ideologies when we won the Cold War. We defeated socialism and communism in the war room but not in the classroom.

And so, take a look back and assess where we are today: In 1990, the USSR, the longtime home of socialism and communism, rebuked socialism and communism. In 2020, the United States, the longtime home of free markets, watches million of its citizens embrace socialism and even communism. Pretty sad.

Paul Kengoris professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

His books include A Pope and a President andThe Divine Plan and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism.

Read the rest here:
Soviet Union Rewind: Why Are We Praising Communism Again? - National Catholic Register

From their suppression of dissenting voices, use of propaganda, and capitulation to Russia, the GOP is behaving like US Communists in the 1930s and 1940s.

President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Former Sergey Kislyak (AP)

Professor Leonard Weinberg is a Senior Fellow at CARR, Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada, and recipient of both Fulbright and Guggenheim research awards.

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, the Harvard University historian, Jill Lepore, challenges the mood of pessimism that has overcome many thoughtful individuals about the direction of democratic institutions in the West, the United States especially. She asks us to recall a similar though even darker mood that an earlier generation of thoughtful pessimists had about the prospects of democracy. Not only did much of Europe fall under the control of Fascism but also, despite many western admirers, the Soviet Union was brutalized by Stalinist rule.

Democracy, to paraphrase the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, seemed to be where the world had been, not where it was going. And yet, as Lepore writes and as many others have written, the post-war world saw a revival of democratic values and the restoration of democracy itself in much of the West. Thanks to the New Deal and its military successes against the Axis powers, the United States became something of a model to be emulated elsewhere. Lepores core message is, do not despair democracy may be in recession at the moment, but it is sufficiently resilient to survive Trump and his base.

By taking our thinking about politics back to Depression-era America, we might pay some attention to the countrys Communist Party (CP). For the only time in American history, the Party counted for something. Its role was limited but it attracted the support of many artists and intellectuals (see R.H. S. Crossman ed., The God that Failed) and something approaching a mass base of support (see, Nathan Glazer, The Social Base of American Communism, and Harvey Kiehr, The Heyday of American Communism). Its leaders, Earl Browder, Jay Lovestone and their lieutenants, played significant roles in the formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization that became one of the countrys two leading labor union federations. The CP also became a champion of civil rights for African-American long before the issue became center stage in the politics of the 1960s.

Aside from a small group of Trotskyites, the CP was a largely unquestioning follower of Stalin and the Soviet Unions zigzag policies during the 30s. These rapid changes, of course, involved switching from condemnation of socialist parties in the US and elsewhere as social fascists during the early years of the decade to support for broad-based popular front alliances during the mid-30s (including a benign view of the Roosevelt administration). In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR signed the non-aggression agreement, and Communist parties around the western world were instructed to remain neutral in the deadly struggle underway between the western democracies and Nazi Germany. All this changed, once again, when the Hitlerite regime attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Stalin called once again for a broad alliance of all progressive forces in the fight against Nazism.

Then, there were the Moscow purge trials. Between 1936 and 1938, prosecutors acting at Stalins orders charged prominent leaders of the Soviet Party with Treason (Arthur Koestlers Darkness at Noon captures the atmosphere). Key figures in the Party/State apparatus were tried and executed for allegedly acting on behalf of the bourgeois democracies all along.

How were members of the American CP able to stomach all these changes of direction? How were they able to absorb the transformation of previously admired heroes of the USSR and the international communist movement (e.g. Bukharin, Radek) into betrayers of the cause, almost overnight?

The answers involve the flow of information to CP USA members. The Party published newspapers and magazines (e.g. The New Masses, The Communist, Pioneer, the Daily Worker, PM), which provided correct interpretations of developments in the USSR. At cell meetings, Party members were told not to believe accounts of the show trials and other anti-Soviet accounts published in the capitalist (or CAP) press. The latters aim, according to CP leaders, was to weaken the Party by sowing dissension within the international working-class movement.

It is hard to imagine a wider distinction in political outlook than the one between American Communists in the 1930s and the contemporary Republican Party. Certainly, in terms of ideology they are virtual polar opposites. Yet, in terms of the way they treat dissident voices, there are striking similarities.

Trump and his administration have been racked by scandal, with one Trump confidant and appointee after another going to prison while still others await trial. The President has been caught up in sex scandals involving multiple young women who, using an intermediary, he has paid to remain silent. He has been impeached by the House of Representatives for seeking to bribe (with military assistance), Ukrainian officials to persuade them to announce an investigation of a likely rival in the 2020 presidential election. Trumps financial dealings are under investigation by state and local authorities. Newspapers, such as The Washington Post, report Trump has lied to the public over 16,000 times since taking office on January 20, 2017.

Despite this record, opinion polls have shown the Presidents popularity has remained virtually unchanged since taking office; it seems to oscillate between 40 and 45 percent of those questioned. By contrast, between his landslide re-election in 1972 and his resignation from office in the summer of 1974, President Nixons popularity fell to a bit over 23 percent. The Watergate scandal and its attendant publicity had a dramatic impact thanks largely to enormous newspaper and national television coverage. If Nixon, why not Trump?

The answer is that in the intervening decades there has grown up a conservative echo chamber consisting of Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, and a long list of conservative talk radio commentators. They serve to insulate their right-wing audiences from information and opinions that conflict with conservative ones they are already disposed to believe, much like the CP publications of the 1930s.

When it comes to zigzagging, GOP supporters of Trump again bear some resemblance to CP members during the Depression years. For decades during the Cold War, Republicans foremost foreign policy perspective was anti-communism and opposition to Soviet expansionism in Europe and elsewhere. Soviet leaders were often depicted in demonological terms. Today, all that has changed. After several meetings with Putin, solicitation and acceptance of Russias election help, effort to undermine the Russia probe, and indifference to Russian annexation of the Crimea and its invasion of eastern Ukraine, GOP supporters of Trump now have a more favorable view of Russia and the Putin than the general American population. Despite warnings on the Lamestream media about Russias malevolence, Trumps supporters seem to ignore this fact and instead, thanks to Fox News etc., follow Trumps lead.

Todays equivalent of the CAP press is fake news. Trump and his subordinates repeatedly warn Republicans belonging to the Presidents base not to believe what they read, see and hear from the mainstream media, what the former GOP 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sara Palin labeled the lamestream media. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and news programs on the major television networks so the narrative goes deliberately falsify descriptions of Trump and his administration by broadcasting tales invented to discredit the conservative movement.

If we recall the CPs effort to induce its members to ignore stories in the CAP press in the 1930s, all this will seem familiar. We might even follow Lepores optimism by noting the CPs own failure. No matter how much it tried, it could not prevent major defections after Stalins non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. Food for thought as the Trump foreign policy train trundles on.

This article is brought to you by the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right(CARR). Through their research, CARR intends to lead discussions on the development of radical right extremism around the world.

Join Our Exclusive Community One-Month Free

Read more from the original source:
GOP Is Similar To US Communist Party In The Early 20th Century - Rantt Media

Scott noted earlier Ilhan Omars bizarre response to the fact that a member of the Minneapolis Somali community who knows Omar well has confirmed that she married her brother for fraudulent purposes. First she falsely asserted that Somali Abdi Nur was paid to smear her. Next she asserted that the whole thing is a Zionist conspiracy.

That reeks of desperation, obviously. I just want to add one more log to the fire. Omars source for her crazed tirade was a piece in something called Humans4HumanLife, which she tweeted. You really should read the whole Humans piece at the link. If you are looking for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, youve come to the right place.

Still, one funny thing about the Humans4HumanLife piece is that the author doesnt seem at all certain that the allegations against Omar are untrue:

Undeniably, no one is immune to making mistakes, or even regrets.

Her private life is no ones business. It is of no reflection on her sincerity, integrity nor her abilities.

Its impossible for anyone on the public stage to achieve everyones expectations all the time. As a human being, its impossible to be everything to everyone every time.

Some of us, though, do manage to avoid marrying our siblings for fraudulent purposes.

Never having heard of Humans4HumansLife, I was curious about the organization. It is obscure, and, it turns out, deservedly so. The fact that Omar apparently reads its stuff is itself revealing. Humans Facebook page starts with the enemy collaboration post about the supposedly Jewish conspiracy to disclose the fact that Ilhan married her brother. But its next Facebook post celebrates Communism:

I had never heard of Mr. Pansare, but he was an Indian communist.

If you keep scrolling, you see the usual left-wing stuff: anti-Israel, anti-Brexit, anti-law enforcement. And, apparently, pro-ISIS:

Relentlessly crucifiedthat refers to revocation of her British citizenshipsimply for joining ISIS. Simply!

Ilhan Omar is an extremist. She thinks nothing, apparently, of citing openly Communist friends in support of her anti-Semitic fantasies. She hates the United States and Israel, but has no particular problem with Islamic terrorists who simply join ISIS. If a Republican Congressman linked to a white supremacist web site to defend himself against a well-supported allegation of corruptionsomething almost impossible to imagineevery news outlet in America would come crashing down on him, and he would be out of Congress within 24 hours. Ilhan Omar did something worse. She linked to and cited a Communist, openly anti-Semitic, and terrorist supporting web site to deflect well-founded (frankly, obviously true) allegations of multi-level corruption: marriage fraud, immigration fraud, tax fraud, among others. And yet the Democratic Party press has been, so far, silent.

See more here:
Ilhan and the Communists - Power Line

I was one of them.

One of the 147 million Americans who had their information compromised in the epic 2017 Equifax data breach. It was one of the largest hacks in history, leaking the names, social security numbers, addresses, and credit history of over a third of the country.

At first, we were led to believe it was the result of sloppy cybersecurity and greedy hackers who wanted credit card data.

But now, according to last weeks indictment from the Justice Department, we know it was the handiwork of four members of Chinas military.

To think it was a few renegade black hat hackers with expensive tastes was upsetting enough, but now to learn it was the long arm of the Chinese Communist party? This is serious.

What do the Chinese communists want with my credit history? Is it to spam me with emails or offers in the mail? Or, worst-case scenario, to add me and millions of my fellow Americans to their social score database so our behaviors can be ranked and judged?

Most of the fallout between liberal democratic nations and China in the last few years has been over governmental policy: trade spats, currency manipulation, and theft of intellectual property. These high-level issues were problematic enough, and now it seems Chinas desire to exert control over the US is directly affecting the people.

Weve known for years that Chinese Communist Party censors have made creeping demands in Hollywood: Tibetan monks replaced with Celtic ones in Marvels Doctor Strange, Tom Cruises bomber jacket with the Taiwan flag removed in the Top Gun sequel, and cut scenes in Bohemian Rhapsody to obscure that Freddie Mercury was gay.

When Quentin Tarantino refused to edit his latest movie, Once Upon a Timein Hollywood, to please Chinese censors, they pulled its release date. It was eventually shipped to Chinese cinemas, but its uncertain if portions of the film were cut.

China has the worlds second-largest movie market, making it no surprise that with Chinese capital comes more aggressive demands for censorship. Will they allow any criticism of Chinese communism, or even praise of liberal democracies? What about a potential movie about the brave Hong Kong protesters fighting for their liberties?

Mike Pompeo recently warned American governors to be wary of any dealings with institutions or businesses with significant ties to China.

Theyve labeled each of you friendly, hardline or ambiguous, he said. And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the Communist party of China as friendly or hardline, know that its working you, know that its working the team around you.

These revelations about the insidious nature of the Chinese government come at a critical time.

The Hong Kong protests continue after months of mounting force from police. Fears of the spread of the Coronavirus have emboldened Chinese authorities to fully exercise their authoritarianism: canceling the Chinese New Year, a complete lockdown of Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, and arrests of doctors and health workers who shared their concerns about the virus on social media.

The Chinese people, at least, are beginning to wake up to the antics of their government. Li Wenliang, a doctor who was threatened by police for fear mongering about the Coronavirus, which later took his life, was labeled a hero for his efforts to spread the truth about the disease. But it will take many more acts of courage to cause a total paradigm shift in the minds of the people.

From the theft of credit information to entertainment censorship and brutal authoritarian crackdowns, its clear that citizens and consumers in liberal democracies have something to fear in the rise of the Chinese Communist party.

For our part, we must continue to champion our free societies as bulwarks against the authoritarian regime. We must fight for the ideas and principles that have helped make liberal democratic countries great stewards of our liberties.

Yal Ossowski is a writer, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, and a director at 21Democracy.

Read more from the original source:
Why does the Chinese Communist party want my credit history? - The Spectator USA

A Lithuanian immigrant who attended President Donald Trumps rally in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Friday spoke to Breitbart News and warned of the dangers of communism, saying Bernie Sanders (I-VT) supporters should go to a socialist country to understand what it is like.

I thought America is free, said Daiva Gaulyte, an immigrant from Lithuania who has lived under communism. Ive been in a communist country. I dont want to have it here.

The communist took away my grandparents land, they transported them to Siberia, and then when they got all this land, they didnt know what to do with them because theyre lazy, Gaulyte continued. Communists are lazy.

There is nothing they can do with that land so they gave lands back to work on it, but it was very difficult to have any kind of profit, but you could work on it because the lands were just sitting there and communists didnt know what to do with it.

Gaulyte also explained how she was restricted from viewing certain American materials under the rule of communism.

We were not allowed to watch American movies, she said. We had to hide if someone gets American movie, we close the curtains and watch it so nobody knows.

Gaulyte also offered advice to those who support Sanders bid to become the next president.

I feel sorry that they do not understand what they are doing, she concluded. Maybe if they really want to experience socialism, they should go to the socialist country and live there for a while so they know what it is.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @RealKyleMorris and Facebook.

Originally posted here:
Lithuanian Immigrant to Bernie Supporters: They Should Go to a Socialist Country and Live There a While - Breitbart