Random Campaign Notes
Dean
The Bush campaign has a nice new ad, "Whatever It Takes," that's worth seeing. You can view it on the Bush campaign web site.
Also, a few hundred family members of people who perished in 9/11 have endorsed Bush's re-election. You know, very little annoyed me this last year more than the cynical people who who formed a group called "The 9/11 Families" who said all kinds of vicious things about the President, Mayor Guiliani, and other leaders who stepped forward that day.
Yes, of course some of the family members of those killed in 9/11 don't like Bush. That's normal out of a group of thousands of people. It never bothered me that those folks wanted to speak against Bush. But it did bother me that they named themselves "The 9/11 Families" and that they were treated as if they were somehow representative of those who lost people on 9/11--and when they acted as if they had the moral authority to tell the rest of the country how to react to 9/11. That group's behavior at the 9/11 commission was especially abominable. (But then if you ask me the whole commission was abominable anyway.)
In other news, Paul at Wizbang has a primer on the revelation that recent Soviet documents have been unearthed showing that, back in the 1970s, there was direct international communist involvement in John Kerry's Vietnam Vets Against the War group.
Some find this significant. I, unfortunately, do not. Well no, that's a lie, I find it significant, but only in an intellectual way. Why? Because I always assumed it was true.
I am a minor expert on communism, and am quite widely read on the subject. Any time I've seen any of the "Vietnam Vets Against the War" literature from the 1970s (such as The Winter Soldier materials), I can tell I'm reading old communist propaganda. Ditto when reading John Kerry's book from the early 1970s, The New Soldier. I am virtually certain I could show some of it to my mother-in-law from Poland and she'd say the same thing without hesitation: yeah, sure, that's communist propaganda.
It's like reading a Nazi tract from the 1930s. Certain phrases and lines of thinking just jump out at you. It's as obvious as a fingerprint.
Furthermore, if you've read much about what's been unearthed from the Soviet and Comintern archives in the last 10-15 years, you know that countless groups here in the U.S. were Communist front groups in the 1930s through the 1970s. Just like International A.N.S.W.E.R. is a communist front group today.
Therein lies the problem. If Kerry was involved in a communist front group back in the 1970s, few people will care. He did, after all, resign, and it was, after all, 30+ years ago.
Besides, when you say "communist propaganda" most people just smirk. They figure it's a joke or that you must be some far-right wacko. Most people just don't care.
Does it bug me that Kerry was a communist dupe? Some. What bugs me more is that he won't admit it today. But I'm cynical on this: I think Kerry's behavior ever since his fellow Swift Boat Vets came out against him has shown us all a man who refuses to own up to the mistakes of his youth. And anyway, like I said, say "communist dupe" and most people just roll their eyes and say "whatever."
Should people care? Maybe, but you can't make them. It's a standing double-standard this country's always had: If you're tainted with Nazism, like a Leni Riefenstahl or a Charles Lindbergh, you're tained with evil forever. But if you're tainted with communism, most people shrug it off as youthful idealism. Never mind that the communists killed a lot more people than the Nazis. People just don't care.
Still, for whatever it's worth: yes, it does appear to be true: Kerry was a communist dupe. And he does not, apparently, regret that.
Should we care? Well, I care, but I've given up thinking most people will. Anyway, if you do care, you can read about it on Wizbang.
I doubt much that Kerry was aware he was a communist-dupe; no more than Clinton realised it when he went on his grand tour of the communist bloc in the 1960's - I know you'll feel differently, but they are both just too stupid, self-absorbed and ignorant to realise it. I know that neither man is supposed to be considered stupid - after all, Clinton was a Rhode scholar (or a sort) while Kerry speaks fluent French...but stupid really is as stupid does. Stupid is someone from the United States thinking that non-democratic tyrannies can have anything better than the United States...to even entertain the concept you have to be stupid along the order of a man who believes the world is flat.
Win or lose on November 2nd, John Kerry will go to his grave believing that he has always and ever been a paragon of moral virtue - that intention trumps action and since he intended good, it was good. To me, its rather pathetic - and if it didn't endanger the Republic it would be worthy of a comedy skit.
If you watch Fahrenheit 9/11 you can see how Michael Moore uses all the same techniques as Nazi and Stalinist propagandists. It's classic stuff. Although some of the Nazi propagandists were better cinematographers, most were as trashy and heavy-handed as Moore.
In my more cynical moods, I've come to believe that people will forgive you anything so long as you can find a way to make them view you as a well-intentioned idealist.
What's with all this past tense stuff. Kerry's foreign policy still consists of unilateral disarmament and giving North Korea what it wants (unilateral talks). If he were still a communist operative, it would explain his behavior at least as well as any other theory that I've heard to date.
Of course, I haven't heard any theory which adaquately explains Kerry's behavior, so take that with a grain of salt.
And actually, I think that communist operatives were not so much romanticized as mythologized in the wake of McCarthy — the way the McCarthy era is explained now, McCarthyism was a witchhunt pretty exactly parallel to the withchunts of the puritan days, complete with the innocense of everyone accused. At least, that's how I recall it being taught in school, and I'm 25.
You're right about the tag-lines. I could almost write some of that myself:
"mafia-CIA cabal"
"imperialist lackeys"
"running dog"
Never understood the running dog thing, though. Why not a sitting dog? Just doesn't translate into American English from the orginal Russian, I guess.
Those of us who care about the truth have to keep saying it: Julius Rosenberg was guilty. So was Alger Hiss. The Roosevelt and Truman White Houses did indeed have communist agents in them. The AFL-CIO was at one time infiltrated by Stalinist agents. The blacklist era in Hollywood was created in part by reaction to the fact that some Hollywood locals were taken over by Stalinist thugs who were often violent and dangerous.
Almost no one knows these things. They should know them. They're the truth.
Does it bother no one here that Bush won't admit he's made a single fucking mistake in Iraq?
From what I see, Bush had admitted to making mistakes. He just won't make a list. I think that's because any such admission of anything specific will be repeated a thousand times a day in sound bite form and used against him.
Do you really think a similar confession by Kerry, basically saying, "thirty years ago I was dumb and repeated some stupid propaganda I shouldn't have" would really be similarly harmful to him?
I don't recall a President ever in my lifetime being asked to say what specific mistakes he made in an ongoing military operation. Is that really a fair thing to ask any President to do? Especially considering that any mistakes me made were almost certainly made when he took a recommendation from one of his generals?
Presidents typically ask their generals and other advisors for their opinions and then make a choice. If he said, "I made a mistake in advising X on Y operation," he is in effect saying that general gave him bad advice. That's got direct career and really life ramifications for whoever. And so any such specific statement would wind up looking like this:
"It was a mistake to trust the CIA and British Intelligence."
"It was a mistake to take Tommy Franks' advice. I should have taken that other general's advice instead."
Is that really appropriate? Or necessary? And has any President in history been asked to do such a thing?
The President has made clear that mistakes happen and that historians will undoubtedly look back on his record and say that this, that, or the other thing could have or should have been differently. He's admitted in a general way that there are things he'd do different in hindsight but he won't make a list now. Why is that not good enough?
Here I see a difference between a personal failing of John Kerry's when he was in his 20s, one that he and only he is responsible for, vs. asking a President to basically say he made a mistake in listening to dozens of people who told him what his options were.
Can anyone imagine asking Roosevelt in 1944 if he'd made any mistakes in the war operation? Jesus, in one military mistake made in 1944 over a thousand men died in a screwed up training operation. Should they have...
Oh never mind. This has gone on long enough.
I agree - and it is just bizarre that the Donk's tried the "why wont he admit a mistake?" meme...I guess it polled well in some focus groups.
Getting into reality, I don't see any mistakes - a mistake being taking a particular action when a different particular action was clearly called for; Anzio was a botched military operation, but it wasn't a mistake - on the other hand the Penninsular Campaign was a mistake executed with flawless precision.
President Bush made the correct decisions based upon the information he had available at the time and the available forces...its all well and good for Kerry to say we needed hundreds of thousands of more troops in Iraq back in April of 2003, but that begs the question of where they were to come from...and how long it would take to get them there and the possible costs of delayed action. Kerry's actions are those of the worst sort of Monday-morning quarterbacking.
Excellent analysis of Communism and its supposed "idealism". Yes, Hiss, the Rosenbergs, et. al., were Communists betraying our country. Owen Lattimore, too. I'm glad McCarthy exposed him.
Actually, Communists aren't supposed to be idealists, they officially call themselves materialists. The mystique of Communism, of Che, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, etc., has largely been propagated by hollywood, which shows me that Communists did indeed have, and still have, enormous influence in that milieu. Ayn Rand warned against the lies of the Communists in their movies.
It also ties in with the "unconstrained vision" examined by Thomas Sowell in his "A Conflict of Visions" and with the premises of rationalist liberalism or Leftism examined by James Burnham in his "The Suicide of the West". I also highly recommend Whittaker Chambers's indispensible "Witness" for the true story, not only of the Hiss case, but of the spiritual crisis of the West which that epochal episode reflected.
Takes me back to my high school days once again. Among the liberal or Left hippies, the "flower children", the "idealists", the "lovers of peace and love", it was fashionable to carry around a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book". They thought Mao (like Che, etc.) was "cool". I don't know how many of them still think that.
By contrast, the bad, naughty, evil, wicked kids, the boys who liked motorcycles and cars and "dirty" jokes, loved to profess how they admired Hitler. They thought Hitler was "cool". In fact, the first time I ever heard of Hitler was some boys in first grade "heiling" him. (No girls ever professed to like Hitler, that's yet another male-female thing Dean can explore someday.) Bart Simpson likes Hitler.
None of those kids grew up to be neo-Nazis.
Here's the difference in today's culture: If you have a woman tie you up and whip you and stomp you with her boots, chances are she'll be dressed as a Nazi. She most likely won't be dressed as a Communist. Nazis are evil. Hitler is the Devil, complete with horns, tail, and pitchfork. Nazis (like capitalists and conservatives) are stock Hollywood villains. Nazis wear monocles and have a sinister laugh. Communism, by contrast, is idealistic, too idealistic perhaps, too good for this world. Communism is the boring heaven, while Nazism is the fiery hell. That's how it's seen in popular culture.
In actual history on this Earth, however, the Communists enslaved, tortured, and murdered even more people than did the Nazis. In fact (surprise!, surprise!), the Communists enslaved, tortured, and murdered infinitely more people than did Senator McCarthy. Yet McCarthy ranks with Hitler as the arch-villain of Hollywood.
Much as the Soviets called themselves communists, the Stalinist regime wasn't 'true' communism. Castro's regime isn't 'true' communism. Mao and Che weren't 'true' communists. Tito wasn't a 'true' communist
In order to pre-empt the almost inevitable argument, there hasn't yet been a true Marxist communism. And there probably never will be because Marxism assumes that all people are essentially altruistic and would like to place the welfare of the society above their own personal comforts. Unfortunately, people (in general) will help others only to a certain point. That point isn't necessarily as far as it should be in order for the Marxist idealistic communism to work. (Hey, if communism were to truely work, it wouldn't need a dictator because everyone should be equal.)
Capitalism can also be said not to exist in its true form. The world doesn't work to ideals. It works on practicalities.
There have been a few forms of communism practiced here and there in very small groups. Some early christians practiced communism, for example.
The thing is, it's not worth talking about idealistic communism on a large scale because no one will do it, so you have to shoot the worst offenders and threaten the rest to take away their capital and divide it amongst everyone equally, etc. That's why communism really does mean the brutal, barbaric dictatorships that everyone thinks of — there's really no other form that has existed, does exist, or ever will exist.
In discussions of practical politics, genuine things have preference in naming over unattainable theoretical constructs.
In a perfect world, government wouldn't exist and there'd be anarcho-communism of some sort or other. Anything short of that involves actual government and private property and to point out that no one has ever tried perfection is simply to be silly.
We all know that the world has never been perfect. Believe me, we all know that quite well.
Regardless, communism isn't so much a form of government as it is an idealogy. Theoretically, communism as an ideaology could be practiced by a democracy. Communism as government is the brutal dictatorships that have been mentioned. But those weren't really communism as government so much as they were dictatorships operating under the guise of communism.
Point of information:
How does true Marxist communism take away people's right to opinions?
(Preferably one in which the maintain the rule of silence.)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Everyone with sense realized that people sharing is good, and that if everyone shared, that would be good. There's no need for academic detachment to discuss the utterly non-controversial idea that people being good to each other is good.
No small communistic group lasts more than a few generations. If you want to discuss anything larger scale than the various communes which have cropped up from time to time, you don't need academic detachment, you need detachment from reality.
Human beings, as they exist in this world, are selfish creatures, and any scheme which doesn't presuppose that fact — or at least allow that it will never be abated or very significantly diminished in the long term — is no more relevant than a scheme which presupposes a magic Genie who will grant an unlimited number of wishes.
So, in short, if you're interested in debating the merits of communism you're wasting your time because there are far more interesting subjects to discuss, like the social rammifications of a beautifying ray that turned anyone it hit instantly and permanently gorgeous. It's more practical, too, since with nanotechnology such a thing might approximate possible.
"From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." Where exactly does individual choice occur there? I'm 6'1", fairly well built, and therefore have great 'ability' as a manual laborer. I prefer the transportation management field, but in a completely Communist society I wouldn't have a choice, I'd have to perform the work that I was considered to have the best 'ability' at. It's a hive-like caste system, and it's inhuman. Attempting to force people into a system like this is evil. In our society, if you want to form a "commune" and try to live like this, you have that choice, but your members can walk away as soon as they figure out how pointless such an existence is. In a Communist society, you have no such choice.
There is a romanticism applied to Communism by the young and loosely-educated (soft science and psychobabble fields rather than courses in hard reality). The idea that other people will provide for them, and the poor little people, is appealing, but it usually takes a few years of real-world experience for them to realize just how dehumanizing Communism truely is.
He isn't talking about real communism, where force is involved, but utopian communism, where everyone works to their utmost for the good of everyone else out of shear love for humanity. Presumably in such a society you'd do traffic management since, I assume, however well suited you are to manual labor you'd benefit everyone more by managing the traffic.
Communism is actually quite human, if it spontaneously takes place in blissful anarchy, there's no such thing as human imperfection, and everyone loves all of creation to the fullest of his being.
That is, of course, utterly irrelevant in a practical discussion which involves real people on this side of heaven, but give vi-co his due.
(note: for the atheistically inclined, take my mentions of creation, heaven, etc. as metaphorical.)
I understand everything that you said in answer to my question, and that's why I only asked how communism took away opinions. It obviously either takes away or negates individual goals and priorities, that's why I left both of those things out of my question.
And although everything you point out makes perfect sense and I agree with you whole-heartedly, but you didn't ever answer my question. I repeat: How does true Marxist communism take away people's right to opinion?
I'm not just asking to prove a point, I'm asking because I'm honestly interested in the answer.
I like theory of true communism for its equality and inherent altruism, but I know that it isn't a fair system. And that it would never work in reality.
You're right communism might have a certain romanticism with certain groups of people (but only true communism), but I wouldn't necessarily count myself as one of them, even though I am young.
Chris-
The things that you've said don't require any detachment, or they require complete detachment. But actually, the statement of yours that I had wanted to address was this one:
To point out that no one has tried perfection is not silly. If you don't point out the imperfections in what has been tried, then there is no hope of improving it. To merely state that things aren't perfect is of no help to anyone, but it's not silly. If people didn't point it out, then nothing would ever change. If there aren't people willing to step back and say that, then the world would be a much worse place.
The academic detachement would have been required because I would have been making pro-communist arguments not for the basis of proving that communism (as an ideaology) is good, but rather that your statement was incorrect. Doing that would probably just have sparked further comments that I would have felt obligated to defend against, all in order to prove a point in a very round-about way. (And I doubt that the point would ever have been made.)
But what I meant in making the comments that prompted your statements is that the communism being discussed in the post and in the responses wasn't communism as an ideaology, but rather was a group of dictators claiming to use communism as a form of government. I was merely attempting to point out the difference.
In this frame of reference, it is still quite obvious that "true Marxist communism" inherently takes away people's right to an opinion, for if you read Marx, he makes it clear that his theories are the only possible correct interpretation of human nature, history, and how human relations should be structured. Under Marx, by definition any disagreement with Marxist philosophy is a former of counter-revolutionary activity. Those who disagree are simply wrong, and will either recognize the error of their ways or will simply be ground under the wheels of history by the inevitable revolution.
So, thoughts counter to Marxist theory are automatically assumed counter-revolutionary and incorrect. As a direct, real-world result of this, every group which has ever attempted to directly put Marx's nonsense into practice in the real world has resulted in forcible re-education or death. That is as inevitable as saying that anyone who accepts Adam Smith's principles accepts that there will be some poverty in the world.
I'm not sure whether you would consider the Benedictan and Franciscan monastic orders small-c communist, but if you do, the Benedictans recently celebrated 1500 years and the Franciscans are older, if memory serves.
More evidence that communism is religious in nature and more evidence still that a great deal of idealism is needed to make it work.
Yours,
Wince
But how does that take away a person's right to an opinion?
(Sorry to repeat myself yet again, but the question still hasn't been answered.)
The fact that disagreement is counter-revolutionary to Marxist philosophy is true. But you are still able to have that opinion.
All that I was driving at was that people will always have opinions, no matter what else happens. They might agree with something. But they might also disagree.
I agree with you whole-heartedly about the inherent flaws in Marxist philosophy. I'm just asking the question to see what the answers are. I don't know that there is a right one, but I was hoping for other opinions.
I've never lived under a communist regime, so I have no first-hand knowledge of it. I freely admit that I've never been able to get through any Marx. That's why I'm asking the questions of those who appear much more informed about it.
Yours,
Melissa
Marx also considered such rights as freedom of speech, freedom of press, and free elections to be part of a "false consciousness" and the bouergeois values that needed to be destroyed in order to bring the revolution about. So it would seem to me that it's playing semantics games to say that "true Marxist Communism" doesn't take away your right to an opinion. It states that you'll be destroyed if you have the wrong opinions and treats concepts such as free speech as unacceptable if that speech repudiates Marxist belief.
I just don't see how that doesn't take away the right to opinions.
Communism on the other hand, presents to the world as the means to achieve social justice for all men. For the young idealists, this is a powerful suggestion...to join in the cause of social justice. And is probably the reason that the evils of communism are often not recognized and condemned in a free society as is fascism. On one level communist ideology is not nearly as threatening as Nazism or fascism because ostensibly it pretends to work towards the betterment of all men not just those of one tribe. BTW, I believe the social justice goal is what aligns the American left with the Islamo-fascist terrorist movement.
This rather inconvenient fact has been the source of many intellectual contortions by modern Marxists, to whom Reality has dealt a harsh blow.
Correct. Furthermore, this fundamental doctrine of Marxism is part and pracel with every Communist society's justification for either forcing dissenters into re-education camps (where they were kept indefinitely until they came to accept Marxist principles) or for the outright liquidation of any persons or groups who opposed the revolutionary government.
This is what directly led to the slaughter of millions of Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Kulaks, Cossacks, Indian tribes in Nicaragua under Ortega, the victims of the Shining Path in Peru, and so on and so forth in population group after population group in every single nation that ever attempted to implement "true" Marxism.
Which is, again, why anyone who thinks that "True Marxist Communism" isn't an ideology of repression and death is fooling himself. You cannot escape this fundamental aspect of Marxism.
Precisely. I, for one, do not grant Communism the status of an ideal precisely for that reason. Back when I was in junior high school, I did think Communism or socialism was idealistic, but then I discovered the real idealists, the European Romantics such as Coleridge, Novalis, and Chateaubriand, many of whom were very conservative or reactionary even if they themselves had started out as revolutionaries. And I discovered Nietzsche and Rand, and I realized that what is really romantic, really idealistic, really noble, even benevolent, is the individual ego, the self as the fountainhead of all values, in other words, difference, inequality, the opposite of Communism. Communism is the ant-heap, both in theory and in practice. I'm against it.
Marx was not an evil man nor a foolish one. His writings were genuinely intended to better the world. And communism still has some good ideas that could be used, if people were pragmatic enough to look at the subject dispassionately.
It's real weakness was in its own insistence that it was absolutely correct. Any ideaology that is inflexible will eventually collapse under the weight of contradictions.
That is the great thing about capitalism, its a pragmatic belief.
Imagine
Imagine lots of possessions
Private property everywhere.
A man's home, a woman's home,
Her castle, his castle.
Lots of houses and cars and clothes and books
And my colored things in bins
And scattered all over the floor,
To have and to hold.
Mine!
Imagine lots of countries,
Lots of languages, cuisines, and histories.
Free, independent nations,
Of free, independent men and women,
Creating marriages, families, friendships, cities, countries.
Myself, my property, my loved ones, my country (America), my civilization (the West),
To have and to hold,
To live for, to fight for, to die for.
Mine!
Imagine your God, and lots of Gods and Goddesses.
Imagine lots and lots of Myths.
Lots of Saints and Angels and Devils.
Fearful Hells below,
Fiery Gehenna, icy Niflheim.
Awesome Heavens above,
Valorous Valhalla, the ecstatic Empyrean realm.
Myself, my property, my loved ones, my country (America), my civilization (the West), my Deities,
To have and to hold and to worship,
To live for, to fight for, to die for, to strive for eternally.
Mine!
By the way, Chris, its transportation management I'm in, not traffic management, two entirely different fields. Transportation management is the control of the distribution of product from site to site, supervision of those responsible for these deliveries, and knowledge of the regulations of the Department of Transportation as apply to those commercial vehicles. Traffic management is a civil engineering field, and involves road design, signal allocation, and knowledge of federal, state, and local regulations and requirements as to traffic zones, mass transit, and flow patterns. Transportation is the lifeblood of our economy, whereas traffic is the adrenaline. But in any case both professions are greatly enhanced in a capitalist society, whereas in a true communism, product choice, luxury items, and variable demand are inhibited.
Everyone else has covered my bases on the rest of the communism issue, good points Dean, Steven, Jane, Jeff, and Ru.