Mediaboss Marketing

Words matter, especially for the emotions of politics. Trigger words can evoke powerful emotions that decide votes. Decades ago, Sen. Joe McCarthy terrorized Americans by lumping pacifists, social justice advocates, labor leaders, liberals, socialists, and American communists with foreign communist regimes. An ember of McCarthyism smoldered in the GOP until MAGA fanned new life into it.

During the 20th century, various American socialist-communist movements gained followers through social justice advocacy, but few Americans favored violent revolutions or total governmental control. After our government acted to integrate the military and schools, democratize civil rights and voter rights, and upgrade womens rights, domestic communism faded away.

Internationally, violent Marxist revolutions overthrew governments and installed brutally repressive regimes, but failed to establish one-class communism. Communist nations are frauds. Every communist country features a stratification of classes and oligarchic-authoritarian leaders like regimes of the extreme right. Although strictly controlled, communist China has a thriving capitalistic economy. Authoritarians, foreign and domestic (including Donald Trump), threaten to destroy democracy.

Todays mainstream Democrats are similar to mid-20th century Republicans, but dishonest MAGA Republicans attempt to falsely link Democrats with communism and stolen elections to evoke a visceral vote. May reason prevail.

Continue reading here:
Letter: 'Communism' is not the threat - The Columbian

Charles, 67, Bournemouth

Occupation Former diplomat turned speech writer

Voting record Always Conservative. Charles voted for Brexit: I was one of the few diplomats who did

Amuse bouche While working overseas, Charles borrowed some wallabies for a reception for Fosters lager. No one had seen one at a diplomatic party before

Occupation Complaints adviser for an NHS trust

Voting record Always Labour, and remain in the EU referendum

Amuse bouche Chris much prefers Grease 2 to Grease. Its deeper, stronger, a feminist film, and the songs are better

Chris We had a chat about what we did. He told me the places hes been and the things hes done. It wasnt intimidating, but I did think: Im over my head a bit.

Charles I asked what Chriss motivating principle is, where he comes from when hes approaching anything. He said something like sympathy, empathy, passion, those sort of words. I come from a place which is more about the consent of the governed under what basis are rules set, and who sets them? Thats a big foundational disagreement, you might say, between heart and head.

Chris Our biggest difference was in how we view the world and how we want to change it. For me its more about rights, social justice, wanting a fairer and more equal society. He talked a lot about his hatred of communism.

Charles I have lived in communist countries and seen the results. The idea is that the end justifies the means; there are no limits to government. The spirit of communism is alive and well, and pops up in all sorts of places in some of these cancel culture things, the ideological uniformity in US universities, for example.

Chris He said the reason he didnt like the left is that they are mean-spirited and always assume the worst in people. Thats my experience of the right.

Charles What I dislike is the angry, aggressive, obnoxious left. Chris didnt seem to be part of that at all he seemed to have a libertarian instinct of some sort, which was fine. We could sit down and talk about ideas.

Chris We agreed about how divided and tribal the country is in the way we talk about issues, and how that is driven by social media.

Sign up to Inside Saturday

The only way to get a look behind the scenes of our brand new magazine, Saturday. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.

Charles Everyone is living in echo chambers and the algorithms are making it worse. They serve up the stuff they know you like because they want to send you advertising.

Chris We talked about taking the knee, which I support if someone wants to show their solidarity with people who suffer racism in football. It became a thing in 2020 and 2021 when enmity and violence against the black community was a world issue. If it had been before George Floyd was murdered by the police, and people just said they wanted to show solidarity and drive out racism, I dont think it would have had that much attention.

Charles Youve got all these people taking the knee. What attitude do you take to the people who dont take the knee? The way its presented is that if you somehow challenge it, or laugh, or boo or whatever you do to show your disapproval, then you are ipso facto a racist. Its a sort of all-or-nothing view, and that to me is obnoxious.

Chris Its not just a leftwing issue. Poppy outrage is driven by the right. Every year, TV presenters get complaints if theyre not seen to be wearing poppies or not wearing them early enough.

Charles Chris hit back over the net pretty well there, but its not clear to me that its analogous. If you dont wear a poppy, I dont go around saying youre anti-patriotic; theres no mass movement of people demanding everyone wears poppies in the same way as you would be attacked if you said taking the knee was ridiculous.

Chris I was a little bit disappointed afterwards because I didnt feel I had said enough. I felt he bamboozled me a bit. At one point I thought: What am I doing here? I have nothing to say.

Charles He seemed to go away with some things he hadnt thought about before, and to some degree I did, too. I dont know if hes a vegan or a vegetarian, but he seemed unimpressed by his courgettes, which made me warm to him, because everyones unimpressed by courgettes.

Additional reporting: Sarah Hooper

Charles and Chris ate at Arbor at The Green House, Bournemouth

Want to meet someone from across the divide? Find out how to take part

Originally posted here:
Dining across the divide: He talked about his hatred of communism a lot - The Guardian

Information is Beautiful

According to a disturbingly pleasant graphic from Information is Beautiful entitled simply 20th Century Death, communism was the leading ideological cause of death between 1900 and 2000. The 94 million that perished in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe easily (and tragically) trump the 28 million that died under fascist regimes during the same period.

During the century measured, more people died as a result of communism than from homicide (58 million) and genocide (30 million) put together. The combined death tolls of WWI (37 million) and WWII (66 million) exceed communism's total by only 9 million.

It gets worse when you look at the lower right of the chartThe Natural Worldwhich includes animals (7 million), natural disasters (24 million), and famine (101 million). Curiously, all of the world's worst famines during the 20th century were in communist countries: China (twice!), the Soviet Union, and North Korea.

Communism is a killer. And yet some still say they support the idea:According to a 2011 Rasmussen poll, 11% of Americans think that communism would better serve this country's needs than our current system.

See original here:
Communism Killed 94 Million People in 20th Century - Reason.com

Argentine Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja scolded those who demonize communism and praised the Chinese Communist Party in an interview given to Chinas state-run Global Times on Tuesday.

Opposition to communism is reviving the misconceptions of the Cold War, Vaca Narvaja lamented.

The interview is part of what has become a growing emphasis in Argentine foreign policy of obsequious statements about China under socialist President Alberto Fernndez, who himself venerated mass murderer Mao Zedongs corpse during a Beijing visit this year.

Without the Communist Party, there would be no new China. These lyrics succinctly capture the fundamental reason why China has achieved unprecedented progress in human history, said Vaca Narvaja to Global Times, referencing the lyrics of one of the most long-standing pieces of musical propaganda used by the Chinese Communist Party.

Vaca Narvaja stated that he heard the song during the centennial anniversary of the Chinese communist party at Tiananmen Square in 2021 the site where the historical massacre of thousands of students and demonstrators took place.

In this June 5, 1989, file photo, a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijings Changan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

The ambassador, who adopted the Chinese name Niu Wangdao as his own, was appointed as the head of the Argentine diplomatic mission in China in 2020. The pro-China ambassador has been instrumental in strengthening Chinas influence over the South American nation since 2021, starting with the arrangement that allowed China to send 15 million doses of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine product by the firm Sinopharm to Argentina.

Sabino Vaca Narvaja, who has never been shy with his affinity towards communist China, is the son of Fernando Vaca Narvaja, a former member of the left-wing guerrilla Montoneros who shares a granddaughter with Argentinas far-left Vice President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner (no relation to Alberto Fernndez).

The Argentine ambassador has been heavily criticized in the past for his excessively pro-China stances. Vaca Narvaja has stood in defense of Chinas genocide of the Uyghur people by claiming that there is harmony in Xinjiang.

In reality, China has illegally detained between 1 million and 3 million Uyghurs and other minority groups in occupied East Turkistan since 2017 in concentration camps, forcing the detainees into inhumane conditions that include physical and sexual abuse, torture, slave labor, and force sterilization. China has also engaged in mass sterilization campaigns to limit the number of non-Han ethnic people born in the region.

A protester from the Uyghur community living in Turkey, holds an anti-China placard during a protest in Istanbul. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

Vaca Narvaja was also quick to condemn Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for visiting Taiwan this month.

We are sure that this visit has been a provocation for China, and a problem for the entire international community, the ambassador claimed.

In this photo released by the Taiwan Presidential Office, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center left, and Taiwanese President President Tsai Ing-wen arrive for a meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)

The government of Argentina backed Vaca Narvajas condemnation of Speaker Pelosis visit shortly afterwards.

President Fernndez traveled to Beijing in February to meet with dictator Xi Jinping and officially joined Chinas predatory Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) during that meeting. President Fernandez availed himself of his official visit to Beijing to lay a wreath in honor of Mao, believed responsible for the killing of tens of millions of people, at his mausoleum.

Cases of Argentine ambassadors siding with the countries theyve been sent to over their own are not limited to just China alone. On Tuesday, the Argentine ambassador to Venezuela, Oscar Laborde, tacitly sided with the socialist regime of Nicols Maduro by stating that the Venezuelan-Iranian cargo airplane suspected of having ties with Iranian terrorism which the Argentine goverment seized on August 11 was instead kidnapped, echoing the narrative espoused by Venezuelas socialist regime over his countrys own.

During her presidency, Fernndez de Kirchner also faced accusations of cutting deals with the government of Iran to help it cover up its role in the deadliest terrorist attack in the nations history, the 1994 bombing for the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA). The prosecutor who built the case against Kirchner, Alberto Nisman, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head the day before he was scheduled to present his findings against Kirchner to the Argentine Congress in 2015.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitterhere.

Here is the original post:
Argentinas Ambassador to China Rails Against Demonizing Communism in ...

Many conservatives, and all conservative politicians, worship the hallowed ground on which the late Margaret Thatcher walked.

A visit to Old Blighty is not complete until they have been to Westminster Abbey to kneel at her tomb, only to discover that the Iron Lady was cremated and her ashes buried at the Royal Hospital Chelsea next to those of her husband.

While staunch Labor supporters might chant the rhyme, Thatcher Thatcher, the milk snatcher among her adoring crowd she is fondly remembered for two other endearing exploits: her harsh response to exercises of trade union power, and her military response to Argentinian claims regarding the Falkland Islands.

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was Britains longest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century, serving from 1979 until her resignation in 1990. If her memory is both loved and hated in almost equal proportions, it cannot be denied that she was able to reach out at election time in a way that appealed to that trait in the British character that usually signals their great moderation; they generally put up with inconvenience until a tipping-point is reached.

There was, however, one particular act for which Mrs Thatcher was responsible that can only now be seen to have been most ill-advised. Its worldwide implications surfaced in 2019 when the people of Hong Kong became the front line of the global battle against Beijings communism when tyranny was imposed on the island under the national security law. Within two years, the people of Hong Kong lost their liberties and became the subjects of the brutal communist state.

As the island slipped below the communist horizon, it has been forgotten that the communist takeover would not have been possible without extreme violence enabled by Margaret Thatchers error. It was the Iron Lady who permitted Hong Kong to be handed back to the communists after being outmaneuvered during the negotiations. In particular, it was falsely reckoned that the British leases from pre-communist governments would expire giving government to Beijing.

The cunning since adopted by the communists has been to rewrite the history of Hong Kong in a way that emphasises Chinas sovereignty over the island since time immemorial. It is reported that Beijing will introduce a new history book to Hong Kong schools that denies Hong Kong was ever a British colony.

The disaster of the islands takeover is detailed most clearly in Louisa Lims book, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong. The advantages of British rule over the island are detailed in the book, as are the three fatal mistakes that sealed Hong Kongs fate.

Negotiations between the British government and the Chinese communists were commenced by Mrs Thatcher in 1982 as the 1997 end of leases from the Qing empire in 1842 loomed on the horizon.

The first mistake was the result of British bias that denied to Hong Kong democratic rule and when the last governor tried to do so, it was too late. The second mistake was British naivety about the intentions of Beijing which allowed them to be out-negotiated. The third mistake, however, was a failure to allow Hong Kongers to be involved in the negotiations. Although Margaret Thatcher told the British Parliament that the final agreement was acceptable to the Hong Kong people, those people never had any say in it.

Despite the communist claims to sovereignty, the successor to the Qing empire, the Republic of China, had given up claims to Hong Kong and Kowloon. The communist Chinese claims were based on their 1949 victory by force over the Chinese nationalists, a victory facilitated by Soviet-gifted of weapons. Maos CCP was able to exercise brute power over the Chinese people, but they had no claim to Hong Kong under the lease without the British governments agreement. The original owner of Hong Kong was dead and buried and the people of Hong Kong were entitled to the land on which they dwelt.

As Louisa Lim explains, the chief British negotiator at the time, Percy Cradock, bought completely the threat by Beijing to use force to take over Hong Kong if the negotiations failed. Instead of fighting for the peoples interests, Cradock sought to secure a form of wording that allowed Thatcher to give ground to the Chinese demands without losing face.

As a result, while the British thought that the agreement allowed the people of Hong Kong to choose their own leader, Beijing simply denied it had ever agreed and the clauses in Mandarin were ambiguous, something that the involvement of Hong Kong people could have avoided. This led to the massive protests of the Umbrella Movement in 2014.

It is worth remembering that despite the brutal suppression of the people of Hong Kong, there were no Hong Kong Lives Matter protesters on the streets, even when Daniel Andrews government sought to take a share of Beijings Belt and Road honey trap.

Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.

Continued here:
Thatcher failed to protect Hong Kong - The Spectator Australia