Front Page Magazine has some great insights by ex-soviet and chess master, Garry Kasparov:
Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov lived in the USSR and he is not feeling the bern.
I’m enjoying the irony of American Sanders supporters lecturing me, a former Soviet citizen, on the glories of Socialism and what it really means! Socialism sounds great in speech soundbites and on Facebook, but please keep it there. In practice, it corrodes not only the economy but the human spirit itself, and the ambition and achievement that made modern capitalism possible and brought billions of people out of poverty. Talking about Socialism is a huge luxury, a luxury that was paid for by the successes of capitalism. Income inequality is a huge problem, absolutely. But the idea that the solution is more government, more regulation, more debt, and less risk is dangerously absurd.
[….]
That reminds me of that Pavlov said about Communism as an experiment. Sure, let’s experiment with Socialism some more until everyone is poor or dead.
Perhaps in response to those who claim that Sanders is really more about Scandinavian-style socialism than the actual ownership of all means of production by the state, Kasparov wrote:
Yes, please take Scandinavia as an example! Implementing some socialistic elements AFTER becoming a wealthy capitalist economy only works as long as you don’t choke off what made you wealthy to begin with in the process. Again, it’s a luxury item that shouldn’t be confused with what is really doing the work, as many do. And do not forget that nearly all of the countless 20th-century innovations and industries that made the rest of the developed world so efficient and comfortable came from America, and it wasn’t a coincidence. As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, and yes, being “inequal,” it had the luxury of benefiting from the results without making the same sacrifices. Who will be America’s America?
Exactly so. And I would add that Sweden has moved away from high taxes and government domination because socialism has led to stagnation and declining standing in the world.
Gay Patriot does an excellent job in calling out the fascination of the extremist left’s enchantment with totalitarian “art.”
Shepard Fairey continues to establish himself as the Valentina Kulagina of American Socialism, coming with new iconography for the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Socialists, for some reason, really love this kind of stuff, the mating of terrible ideas with stunning graphic design.
The People’s Cube mock’s it by putting it side-by-side for comparison:
…Enter Shepard Fairey, the favorite visual agitator and propagandist of the American Left. We don’t think he considers himself a fascist at all. It’s just that when he tries to think of the coolest possible visual for a socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders, he comes up with a design that not only screams “national socialism” due to its style and execution, but directly imitates the elements and composition of Nazi paraphernalia…
The Daily Caller will finish off this post with some points of interest:
Shepard Fairey, the “artist” who “created” that iconic image, is back. And you’ll never guess which presidential candidate he’s supporting this time!
In the Netherlands (a progressive democratic-socialist Eurotopian country in the Bernie Sanders model), the police are paying house calls to intimidate people who express the wrong ideas in social media.
Throughout the Netherlands, the police visits are part of campaign led by local authorities to address concerns related to social media at the communal level. A spokesperson from the municipality of Loon op Zand, which governs Kaatsheuvel, told DW that police in her municipality only rarely pay personal visits to social media users. If they do, she says, the goal is to clarify that user’s intentions and plans for real-world protests. A police spokesperson from the Oost-Nederland region added that similar programs in his region are intended to be proactive rather than reactive: Local authorities let social media users know in advance that they’re walking a fine line, and they also inform those users that they could face incitement charges if their calls for protests ultimately result in violence.
All Socialist countries will incline toward authoritarianism; this is because all Socialists are authoritarians in their bones….
In rare instances, Dutch police are knocking on social media users’ doors and asking them to be careful writing posts about refugees that could lead to real-life violence and, ultimately, to charges of online incitement.
One example is Mark Jongeneel, a small business owner in the small city of Sliedrecht who tweeted his reaction to asylum plans in his city:
Translation: “The college of Sliedrecht has a proposal to receive 250 refugees in the coming 2 years. What a bad plan! #letusresist”
Hours later, his mother (with whom he lives) contacted him to say local police had visited her house and were now on their way to his office.
“I asked them what the problem was. And they said, ‘Your tweets,'” Jongeneel told DW. “And they asked me to be careful about my Twitter behavior, because if there are riots, then I’m responsible.”….
Later, FRONTPAGE MAG notes that Mark Jongeneel said:
I hope they’ve got some Stasi advisers to help them do it.
Mark Jongeneel says the increased attention has not changed his behavior online – nor will it. “Freedom of speech is very important, and I will not be silenced,” he said.
Here is an interesting story of censorship on Amazon via Breitbart:
Bowing to left-wing pressure, U.S. online retailer Amazon.com has taken down “wartime refugee” costumes for children on its Italian and German sites dw.com reports.
To British and American readers the move would seem to come at an odd time, but for Germans and Italians the upcoming season of Carnival is their chance to dress up.
The most interesting thing about the costumes in question are that they are obviously not meant to represent the continent’s current migrants, but Amazon has still removed them for fear of causing offence.
The boys’ costume consists of brown trousers, a white shirt, grey sleeveless jumper and a flat cap. It is something more reminiscent of wartime comedy Dad’s Army than the ongoing war in Syria. The girls costume is equally innocuous, being a long dress infinitely less flashy than anything worn by young girls today.
The costumes look old because they are based off of children from the first and second world war when both mothers and their children were often evacuated from cities targeted for bombing raids, and ended up in places less likely to be bombed like Wales or small rural towns….
Dennis Prager tackles a couple issues and takes some calls on the matter of how far the left is/has moved to the left as compared to how far the right has moved.
“In America what conservatives are trying to preserve is liberty. And there’s nothing fascist about that” ~ Andrew Klavan, PJ Media (via Libertarian Republican)
I found this clear delineation by Hitler of the movements direction he headed up to be interesting, and one many Democrats could say (and do say) today — the main quote ends the longer portion:
In this and subsequent orations Hitler seemed to be following the socialist line of Gregor Strasser; he even used the terminology of the leftists in attacks on capitalism and the decadent bourgeoisie. But the brunt of the battle to win urban workers over to National Socialism he left to someone more qualified. Josef Goebbels had set off for Berlin in a third-class railroad compartment with a worn satchel containing two suits, several shirts, a few books and a pile of manuscripts. He arrived to find the Berlin Gau in complete disarray and later would write that “what went as the party in Berlin in those days in no way deserved that description. It was a widely mixed collection of a few hundred people with National Socialist ideas.” Although much of his account was more fictional than his diaries, this was no exaggeration. Meetings in the capital often degenerated into shouting matches and slaps in the face were commonplace. One quarrel between Gregor Strasser and a man named Hagemann became so acrimonious that it ended in a challenge to a duel.
Goebbels was faced with an apparently impossible task. Besides being at odds with one another, the thousand party members under his jurisdiction were opposed on the streets by overwhelming numbers of Communists and Social Democrats. Gau headquarters were located in a “filthy basement” of a building in the Potsdamerstrasse. “There was complete confusion. The finances were a mess. The Berlin Gau then possessed nothing but debts.” This state of affairs inspired rather than depressed Goebbels. He moved his headquarters to a better area, set up regular office hours and established a sound accounting system under his personal control. By February 1927 the Gau owed nothing while owning almost 10,000 marks’ worth of office equipment as well as a used car.
Goebbels decided it was now time to broaden the base of membership and to do that he had to attract the attention of a jaded public. “Berlin needs its sensations as a fish needs water,” he wrote, “this city lives on it, and any political propaganda not recognizing this will miss the mark.” His speeches and articles took on a crisp, graphic style attuned to the Berliner; his SA troops deliberately sought physical combat with the Reds—preferably when the odds were in their own favor—on his theory that “He who can conquer the streets can also conquer the masses; and he who has conquered the masses has thereby conquered the state.”
He rehearsed his speeches before a full-length mirror and, according to his landlady, would practice body movements by the hour. Once on the podium he was a brilliant improviser, and soon perfected a variety of styles. Before a meeting he would ask what audience he would face. “What record must I use—the national, the social or the sentimental? Of course, I have them all in my suitcase.”
He appealed directly to the masses in graphic, aggressive language. A consummate actor, he could switch from humor to sentiment and then to invective. Often he deliberately provoked the Reds into vocal protests which he would twist to his own advantage. “Making noise,” he once said, “is an effective means of opposition.” To him propaganda was an art and he was, by all accounts, including his own, a genius at it—and he sold National Socialism with American-style showmanship as if it were the best soap in the world.
He entered the lists of battle in the working-class district of Wedding by announcing in glaring red posters that “The Bourgeois State Is Approaching Its End,” and inviting workers to a mass meeting on February 11, 1927, at the Pharus Hall, a center commonly used for Communist Party gatherings. It was an open declaration of war. No sooner did the chairman open the meeting than a Marxist worker shouted out that he wanted to clarify a point in the agenda. The chairman ignored him and when the worker repeated his request he was thrown out by storm troopers. This touched off a brawl in which eighty-three Reds were beaten up. A dozen Nazis were also injured and Goebbels showed his talent as propagandist by bringing these men on stage where their moaning was more effective. The Battle of Pharus Hall brought the party to the front pages of the newspapers, and Berliners who knew little or nothing about Hitler and his movement were made aware of a new political force in town. The publicity was meant to be derogatory but in the next few days 2600 applications for membership were received, and 500 of these applicants also wanted to join the SA.
With every meeting the size of the audience increased and by the time Hitler appeared at the Clou restaurant center there were 5000 present. The occasion was a closed celebration of the Marxist holiday, May Day, and the Führer began like a Lenin: “We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”
This video is recently uploaded to my RUMBLE to save it from disappearing,
as, the original was uploaded in 2008
Some say we throw terms around too much, like: socialistic, Marxist, fascist, and the like. I tend to agree with some commentators that we need to find one term and stick with it. Like statist. the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics defines statism as:
STATISM
In development studies, statism means the direction and control of economic and social affairs by the state. The practices included: investment in public enterprises; centralized economic planning; the regulation of employment; and other price-distorting interventions in the market.
The American Heritage Dictionary simply states it as:
The practice or doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy.
So you could call Obama a statist to sum up all the differing factors of his statements, his acquaintances, and his goals via political-philosophy in growing government. The case against Obama and that he is at the minimum a statist is air tight. So the idea of people who get upset with us conservatives about using terms like socialist, Marxist, and the like, should know the facts before making such (in their mind’s eye) counter attacks. I will only deal with a few of the facts that today’s Left is more radical than anything one could find on the mainstream political opposite. For instance, is there an equivalent to the Socialist Democrats of America organization (The Progressive Caucus):
As of June 2006, the following Members of Congress belonged to the Progressive Caucus: Neil Abercrombie; Tammy Baldwin; Xavier Becerra; Madeleine Z. Bordallo; Corrine Brown; Sherrod Brown; Michael Capuano; Julia Carson; Donna Christensen; William “Lacy” Clay; Emanuel Cleaver; John Conyers; Elijah Cummings; Danny Davis; Peter DeFazio; Rosa DeLauro; Lane Evans; Sam Farr; Chaka Fattah; Bob Filner; Barney Frank; Raul Grijalva; Luis Gutierrez; Maurice Hinchey; Jesse Jackson, Jr.; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Stephanie Tubbs Jones; Marcy Kaptur; Carolyn Kilpatrick; Dennis Kucinich; Tom Lantos; Barbara Lee; John Lewis; Ed Markey; Jim McDermott; James P. McGovern; Cynthia McKinney; George Miller; Gwen Moore; Jerrold Nadler; Eleanor Holmes Norton; John Olver; Major Owens; Ed Pastor; Donald Payne; Nancy Pelosi; Charles Rangel; Bobby Rush; Bernie Sanders; Jan Schakowsky; Jose Serrano; Louise Slaughter; Hilda Solis; Pete Stark; Bennie Thompson; John Tierney; Tom Udall; Nydia Velazquez; Maxine Waters; Diane Watson; Mel Watt; Henry Waxman; and Lynn Woolsey.
Remember, the Socialist Democrats have a history of totalitarianism. That is not the point however, does the “right” have something as radical as that where mainstream politicians are active parts or members of? Obama, for instance, ran under the New Party, which can roughly be said to be a Communist political party (CONSERVAPEDIA):
In 1995 Obama accepted the nomination, signed a contract,[285] and ran as a candidate of the openly Marxist New Party.[286][287] The New Party was an electoral alliance that worked alongside ACORN, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America (SPUSA and DSAUSA) and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA (CPUSA).[288] The New Party was funded by literally hundreds of leftist front-groups operating as special interest 527 organizations.[289]
HOTAIRpointed to the many radical positions within this New Party a while ago as well:
In any case, the New Party was clearly far to the left of mainstream Democrats, and according to Sifry, the party explicitly thought of itself as made up of committed “progressives,” rather than conventional “liberals.” That is entirely consistent with a famous 1995 profile of Obama by Hank De Zutter, which portrays him as closely tied to ACORN, and holding a world-view well “beyond” his mother’s conventional liberalism.
To get a sense of where the New Party stood politically, consider some of its early supporters: Barbara Dudley of Greenpeace, Steve Cobble political director of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coaltion, and prominent academics like Frances Fox Piven coauthor of the “Cloward-Piven strategy” and a leader of the drive for the “motor-voter” legislation Obama later defended in court on behalf of ACORN, economist Juliet Schor, black historian, Manning Marable, historian Howard Zinn, linguist Noam Chomsky, Todd Gitlin, and writers like Gloria Steinem, and Barbara Ehrenreich…. In any case, the New Party clearly stands substantially to the left of the mainstream Democratic party.
Obama has even mentioned he has read and been influenced by Marxists. For example, in this Accuracy in Media article, this fact is pointed out:
In his books, Obama admits attending “socialist conferences” and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a “hard-core academic Marxist,” which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.
However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his “poetry” and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”
The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What’s more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.
BERTHA LEWISis a name in infamy, thanks to a “pimp and ho” undercover job. But her and Obama’s ties are well-known as illustrated in the above video. However, many do not search out the ties some of these people have. Not only that, but often times one need only go to the “horses mouth” to find this radicalism:
This is one reason that Arizona has canceled radical ethnic classes that go under the guise as multiculturalism but in fact want to create racist separatism in its place. One candidate for office rightly calls some of these people terrorists. Navy veteran, patriot and fierce Obama critic, Les Philip, is running for Republican candidate for Congress, Alabama. He makes the point that the person whom Obama started his political career in the home of is really a terrorist:
As one can see from the following video, Obama was closer to Ayers that at first imagined, not to mention that this was a great political ad that failed to reach the hearts of enough people:
ZOMBLOG got his hands on a photo of Barack Obama reviewing a Bill Ayers book:
From this we can surmise that Obama was aware of Ayers. Further more, Ayers mentions Obama on page 82 of that book reviewed by Obama (FLOPPING ACES):
Ayers omits any discussion of his famous 1970 statement, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.” He also omits any discussion of his wife Bernardine Dohrn’s famous reaction to the Manson killings, as conveyed by journalist Peter Collier: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!” (In a 1993 Chicago Magazine profile, Dohrn claimed, implausibly, that she’d been trying to convey that “Americans love to read about violence.”)(REASON)
So we know that some of Obama’s closest political ties are radical socialist, communists, or Marxists. But let’s not try to differentiate between all the minutia between them, let’s just call them statists. Statists want a government similar to the below:
Obama, then, and the left, would speak in terms similar — or at least more at home in — a camp of statist terms and understanding. Let’s see how these few examples fair after this quote:
“From Each According To His Ability, To Each According To His Need (Or Needs)”
Karl Marx, In His 1875 Critique Of The Gotha Program
