Communists

Socialism Has Never Been Tried (Mantra’s of the Left)

Published by Papa Giorgio

ORIGINALLY POSTED OCT 3, 2013 — JUST UPDATED “DEAD” MEDIA

I wish to post some ideas and thoughts by others here that will allow a framework to reply to such a challenge. Many professors will infect young minds with this idea, which is, “you cannot criticize Marxism, socialism, or the like because its ‘pure form[s]’ have never been implemented on earth.” To which I would reply to said professor that he then would not be able to criticize Christianity, Republicans, Capitalism, etc…. because the ideal they hold has never been purely implemented on earth. [In Christianity I would note that the faith was modeled perfectly in the man of Christ Jesus.]

So if you have a professor who is harping on Capitalism, Bush, Republicans, Reagan, Newt, Ted Cruz, whomever…, you just need to point out that since  FDR’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “Great Society” all they are really criticizing is regulation and redistribution. Because we are far from a truly free-market.

So, what are some good resources to build a cumulative case or allow deeper — non-sophomoric thinking as the author of The Politically incorrect Guide would say — on this subject? While I responded to the person where I work with the quick answer of, “that is essentially copping out of dealing with what is produced by such beliefs,” my thinking on the matter goes beyond how I could or can express it in the work environment. This frustration of quick interactions has led me partly to blog on various topics so not only myself, but others can access this “nugget” if-you-will for both personal edification and learning or linking to friends, co-workers, and family that you discuss this issue with. Especially young people at university.

I do wish to note that just because I am posting items by others below, it does not imply I fully agree with their position stated or worldview. For instance I use Student of Objectivism’s (SO) video (spliced with a quick “baked in the cake” precursor), while I enjoy and agree with Ayn Rand on many points… on many others I disagree. I CAN recommend wholeheartedly — for the lover of theology that really wishes to understand the political divide — a book by Thomas Sowell entitled, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. While this is a must read for any political junkie, it is all the more powerful for one who believes in The Fall of mankind, objective grounding of ethics, man’s spark of life/creativity as well as mankind’s depravity. So to all the pastors and apologists that read this… add that book into your reading hopper.

Okay, I wanted to begin with this chapter, at least the opening pages of it, the chapter can be seen below.

In it the author notes that “baked into” socialism is serfdom… by violence if necessary. Scott Huber of Brightlight Books comments well on this idea and the book:

Williamson ended Chapter 1 (see that summary here) with the observation (from Hayek) that socialist planners always lead an economy on the “road to serfdom”. This is because socialist economic planning cannot work because the planners cannot have enough information or knowledge to make the proper economic decisions. So, in lieu of having enough knowledge to properly make economic decisions, they opt for varying and escalating levels of coercion to enforce their Plan.

In Chapter 2, he begins by refuting what he calls the high school debater’s trick of claiming that socialism in “theory” is great (and true and just and compassionate, etc.) but it just gets screwed up in practice.

Not so, he says:

In truth, the theory behind socialism is deeply flawed: it is intellectually narrow, inhumane, and deeply irrational in that it fails to account for the ways in which knowledge works in a society. Socialism in theory is every bit as bad as socialism in practice, once you understand the theory and stop mistaking it for the common and humane charitable impulse.

Here is a key question? How is economic value determined? Next, we can ask a slightly different set of questions: How should economic value be determined and, perhaps more importantly, by whom?

Williamson argues that on the issue of determining economic value Marx (and every socialist) is a moralist. How so?

Because for Marx, and every other socialist, the value of economic activity, which is to say the value of any product or service, is (or more precisely should) be objectively related to the labor of the worker who produces it. This contrasts with the subjective approach of the capitalist marketplace which basically says that the value of a product or a service is related to how people in the marketplace subjectively value it.

In other words, let’s say you spend a lot of time, human labor, and other resources to produce something. The socialist approach to value says that your product is, at least roughly, worth the sum of the costs required to produce it especially the labor costs. To price it higher or lower is an injustice.

Marx’s analysis is morally normative [i.e. what should be] in that he insists that, since labor is the measure of value, wages must equal the price of the product. The mere existence of profits – squeezing economic value out of a product beyond what workers are paid – for Marx was proof of capitalist’s exploitation of workers. It was indistinguishable from outright theft.

And, according to Williamson, it’s this moral (and moralizing) context that fuels Marxists’ and other socialists’ revolutionary fervor. Note Marx’s most famous quote: The point of philosophy is not merely to understand the world, but to change it. And at the point of a gun if necessary, which it usually is since free people do not readily cooperate with the revolution.

“Communism is a great idea, it just hasn’t been tried properly.” Leftist fellow travelers rush to embrace every Marxist experiment, champion the system and agitate for it to be copied in their own country. …and then walk away when it inevitably fails; searching once again for the next soon to fail utopia. Communism has been tried over 40 times in the last 100 years and has produced egregious results in every iteration. This video shows every application and deep dives into half a dozen examples, comparing before and after Communism was tried as well as comparing examples directly with free and mixed market neighbors.(Via VOTE NIXON)

And one should note that ALL of the above have a current application to what we are seeing the Democrats implementing. Socialized Medicine. And who better to explain this to us that the Gipper himself:

Walter Williams makes this real for us in a way that should perk the interest of those who love and cherish freedom:

…Mao Zedong has been long admired by academics and leftists across our country, as they often marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving his little red book, “Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung.” President Barack Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, in her June 2009 commencement address to St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral, said Mao was one of her heroes.

Whether it’s the academic community, the media elite, stalwarts of the Democratic Party or organizations such as the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children’s Defense Fund, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism — a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Today’s leftists, socialists and progressives would bristle at the suggestion that their agenda differs little from those of Nazi, Soviet and Maoist mass murderers. One does not have to be in favor of death camps or wars of conquest to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that one has to believe in the primacy of the state over individual rights.

The unspeakable horrors of Nazism didn’t happen overnight. They were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for “social justice.”…

Social Justice. This social justice always leads to repression, from the NAACP asking the rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask to be investigated, to, Dr. Benjamin Carson being audited after his prayer breakfast speech by the IRS. These are murmurings of the greater end that always ends in violent repression. From pro-lifers being threatened on university campuses, to suppression of free speech, to… eventualy, the outgrowth — naturally — to violent repression. The difference between Marxism, Socialism, Communism, and Fascism, is a matter of degrees, only:

✯ A Marxist will scream at you, argue and fist-fight you down the road to his dream, as he carries your belongings and says, “They belong to the collective”.

✯ A Socialist will grab you by the hand or the hair, and beat you on the head with a stick and drag you along, as they make you carry your own belongings and tell you they, “Belong to the collective”.

✯ A Communist will get behind you and make you carry your own belongings to his dream, as he points a gun to the back of your head, and kicks you in the back and screams at you, “They belong to the State”… as in the collective.

✯ A Fascist will will have your neighbor carry your belongings, and shoot you if you do not agree with his dream of “Centralized Authority, and it all belongs to the State”,… the collective”.

…a matter of degrees.

(I cry every time I watch the beginning of this.) This footage is a great example of how Democrats are joined at the hip with radicals. The example comes by way of the two radical Democrat women making my point:

Question is, which is our temperature to stop this from going further in our country?

And any person should acknowledge why someone should “fear” government more than business. In fact, I made this point on my FB outgrowth of this blog in talking to my liberal friend:

…the point was to show how the Obama admin is stacking the books with GM. You see, when the government chooses winners-and-losers instead of getting contracts with private companies (like Ford, GM, etc.), they are invested to [i.e., forced to] only choose a government run business and stock their fish (so-to-speak) with GM fleets… leaving the non-government company to flounder.

This next audio deals with the differences of the Koch brothers, in comparison to the Left’s version of them, Soros. There are many areas that one can discuss about the two… but let us focus in on the main/foundational difference. One wants a large government that is able to legislate more than just what kind of light-bulbs one can use in the privacy of their own home. Soros wants large government able to control a large portion of the economy (see link to chart below), and he has been very vocal on this goal. The other party always mentioned are the Koch brothers. These rich conservatives want a weak government. A government that cannot effect our daily lives nearly as much (personal, business, etc) as the Soros enterprise wants. And really, if you think about it, what business can really “harm” you, when people come to my door with pistols on their hip… are they a) more likely to be from GM, or, b) from the IRS?

The possibility of them being from the IRS is even more possible with the passing of Obama-Care [i.e., larger government]. So the “fear” (audio in next comment) I think the Left has of “Big-Business” is unfounded, and the problem comes when big-business gets in bed with big-government. Here I am thinking of (like with the penalties that were found to be Constitutional in the recent SCOTUS decision) a government that can penalize you if you do not buy a Chevy Volt, or some other green car in order to save the planet. When this happens, guys coming to my door because of unpaid (hypothetical… but historical examples abound of the tax history of our nation) “fines” are likely to be IRS agents because of a personal choice made in the “free-market.”

Appendix: If the above example didn’t inspire any liberal fear (forced to go green or be penalized), maybe this one will?

…First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want. It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own. Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines. Which agency would do the best job? Hmmmm … I know! How about TSA? With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.

Don’t want to own a gun? Hey, no worries. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates. The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all. Isn’t choice great? Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own. Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway. Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t. Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership….

…read more…

(See More)

The Pilgrims could have benefited from sound theology which would have dissuaded their (and should ours) experiment with “communal” activities:

Many Americans believe socialism to be a form of social kindness by the government. But true socialism isn’t a social safety net. It is when the government controls most prices, businesses, property, and other aspects of economic life. The historical record of socialism has been wrecked or stagnating economies and flagrant human rights violations. The truth borne of a hundred years of hard experience is that people do not prosper in socialist countries.

A. PRIVATE PROPERTY

According to the teachings of the Bible, government should both document and protect the ownership of private property in a nation.

The Bible regularly assumes and reinforces a system in which property belongs to individuals, not to the government or to society as a whole.

We see this implied in the Ten Commandments, for example, because the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exod. 20:15), assumes that human beings will own property that belongs to them individually and not to other people. I should not steal my neighbor’s ox or donkey because it belongs to my neighbor, not to me and not to anyone else.

The tenth commandment makes this more explicit when it prohibits not just stealing but also desiring to steal what belongs to my neighbor:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod. 20:17).

The reason I should not “covet” my neighbor’s house or anything else is that these things belong to my neighbor, not to me and not to the community or the nation.

This assumption of private ownership of property, found in this fundamental moral code of the Bible, puts the Bible in direct opposition to the communist system advocated by Karl Marx. Marx said:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.

One reason why communism is so incredibly dehumanizing is that when private property is abolished, government controls all economic activity. And when government controls all economic activity, it controls what you can buy, where you will live, and what job you will have (and therefore what job you are allowed to train for, and where you go to school), and how much you will earn. It essentially controls all of life, and human liberty is destroyed. Communism enslaves people and destroys human freedom of choice. The entire nation becomes one huge prison. For this reason, it seems to me that communism is the most dehumanizing economic system ever invented by man.

Other passages of Scripture also support the idea that property should belong to individuals, not to “society” or to the government (except for certain property required for proper government purposes, such as government offices, military bases, and streets and highways). The Bible contains many laws concerning punishments for stealing and appropriate restitution for damage of another person’s farm animals or agricultural fields (for example, see Exod. 21:28-36; 22:1-15; Deut. 22:1-4; 23:24-25). Another com­mandment guaranteed that property boundaries would be protected: “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess” (Deut. 19:14). To move the landmark was to move the boundaries of the land and thus to steal land that belonged to one’s neighbor (compare Prov. 22:28; 23:10).

Another guarantee of the ownership of private property was the fact that, even if property was sold to someone else, in the Year of Jubilee it had to return to the family that originally owned it:

It shall be a Jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan (Lev. 25:10).

This is why the land could not be sold forever: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23).

This last verse emphasizes the fact that private property is never viewed in the Bible as an absolute right, because all that people have is ultimately given to them by God, and people are viewed as God’s “stewards” to manage what he has entrusted to their care.

The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1; compare Ps. 50:10-12; Hag. 2:8).

Yet the fact remains that, under the overall sovereign lordship of God himself, property is regularly said to belong to individuals, not to the government and not to “society” or the nation as a whole.

When Samuel warned the people about the evils that would be imposed upon them by a king, he emphasized the fact that the monarch, with so much government power, would “take” and “take” and “take” from the people and confiscate things for his own use:

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:10-18).

This prediction was tragically fulfilled in the story of the theft of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite by Ahab the wicked king and Jezebel, his even more wicked queen (see 1 Kings 21:1-29). The regular tendency of human governments is to seek to take control of more and more of the property of a nation that God intends to be owned and controlled by private individuals.

Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 261-263.

Our Founders Hated “Direct Democracy”

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted in April of 2015. New media added)

…the Founders hated democracy and left behind a REPUBLIC OF HIERARCHY, not a Democracy of Equality

Take note of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution reads:

  • “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government…”

I tell my kids that we do not have a democracy, but a Democratic REPUBLIC; and I am basing these on the Constitution and the authors (and signers) understanding of it (commonly referred to as “original intent”).  Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America but chose not to.  In fact, they made very clear that we were not – and never to become – a democracy:

James Madison (fourth President, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the “father” of the Constitution) – “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general; been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

John Adams (American political philosopher, first vice President and second President) – “Remember, democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration) – “A simple democracy… is one of the greatest of evils.”

Fisher Ames (American political thinker and leader of the federalists [he entered Harvard at twelve and graduated by sixteen], author of the House language for the First Amendment) – “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction.  These will provide an eruption and carry desolation in their way.´ /  “The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.”

Governor Morris (signer and penman of the Constitution) – “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate… as [it has]  everywhere terminated, in despotism….  Democracy!  Savage and wild.  Thou who wouldst bring down the virtous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.”

John Quincy Adams (sixth President, son of John Adams [see above]) – “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

Noah Webster (American educator and journalist as well as publishing the first dictionary) – “In democracy… there are commonly tumults and disorders…..  therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government.  It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”

John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence) – “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”

Zephaniah Swift (author of America’s first legal text) – “It may generally be remarked that the more a government [or state] resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.”

CATO Article:

Critics have long derided the Electoral College as a fusty relic of a bygone era, an unnecessary institution that one day might undermine democracy by electing a minority president. That day has arrived, assuming Gov. Bush wins the Florida recount as seems likely.

The fact that Bush is poised to become president without a plurality of the vote contravenes neither the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution. The wording of our basic law is clear: The winner in the Electoral College takes office as president. But what of the spirit of our institutions? Are we not a democracy that honors the will of the people? The very question indicates a misunderstanding of our Constitution.

James Madison’s famous Federalist No. 10 makes clear that the Founders fashioned a republic, not a pure democracy. To be sure, they knew that the consent of the governed was the ultimate basis of government, but the Founders denied that such consent could be reduced to simple majority or plurality rule. In fact, nothing could be more alien to the spirit of American constitutionalism than equating democracy will the direct, unrefined will of the people.

Recall the ways our constitution puts limits on any unchecked power, including the arbitrary will of the people. Power at the national level is divided among the three branches, each reflecting a different constituency. Power is divided yet again between the national government and the states. Madison noted that these two-fold divisions — the separation of powers and federalism — provided a “double security” for the rights of the people.

What about the democratic principle of one person, one vote? Isn’t that principle essential to our form of government? The Founders’ handiwork says otherwise. Neither the Senate, nor the Supreme Court, nor the president is elected on the basis of one person, one vote. That’s why a state like Montana, with 883,000 residents, gets the same number of Senators as California, with 33 million people. Consistency would require that if we abolish the Electoral College, we rid ourselves of the Senate as well. Are we ready to do that?

The filtering of the popular will through the Electoral College is an affirmation, rather than a betrayal, of the American republic. Doing away with the Electoral College would breach our fidelity to the spirit of the Constitution, a document expressly written to thwart the excesses of majoritarianism. Nonetheless, such fidelity will strike some as blind adherence to the past. For those skeptics, I would point out two other advantages the Electoral College offers.

First, we must keep in mind the likely effects of direct popular election of the president. We would probably see elections dominated by the most populous regions of the country or by several large metropolitan areas. In the 2000 election, for example, Vice President Gore could have put together a plurality or majority in the Northeast, parts of the Midwest, and California.

The victims in such elections would be those regions too sparsely populated to merit the attention of presidential candidates. Pure democrats would hardly regret that diminished status, but I wonder if a large and diverse nation should write off whole parts of its territory. We should keep in mind the regional conflicts that have plagued large and diverse nations like India, China, and Russia. The Electoral College is a good antidote to the poison of regionalism because it forces presidential candidates to seek support throughout the nation. By making sure no state will be left behind, it provides a measure of coherence to our nation.

Second, the Electoral College makes sure that the states count in presidential elections. As such, it is an important part of our federalist system — a system worth preserving. Historically, federalism is central to our grand constitutional effort to restrain power, but even in our own time we have found that devolving power to the states leads to important policy innovations (welfare reform).

If the Founders had wished to create a pure democracy, they would have done so. Those who now wish to do away with the Electoral College are welcome to amend the Constitution, but if they succeed, they will be taking America further away from its roots as a constitutional republic.

How did the terms “Elector” and “Electoral College” come into usage?

The term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.” In the Federalist Papers (No. 68), Alexander Hamilton refers to the process of selecting the Executive, and refers to “the people of each State (who) shall choose a number of persons as electors,” but he does not use the term “electoral college.”

The founders appropriated the concept of electors from the Holy Roman Empire (962 – 1806). An elector was one of a number of princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the German king (who generally was crowned as emperor). The term “college” (from the Latin collegium), refers to a body of persons that act as a unit, as in the college of cardinals who advise the Pope and vote in papal elections. In the early 1800’s, the term “electoral college” came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into Federal law in 1845, and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as “college of electors.”…

Karl Marx: 1st To Suggest Political Genocide On Massive Order

Published by Papa Giorgio

(originally posted June 2013)

What is the deadliest thing mankind has ever encountered in history? Disease, famine, nuclear weapons? Not even close. By sheer body count, it’s an idea. One that thrives on absolute power and control, and will stop at nothing to achieve complete domination. This is the story of the deadliest virus in the world, COMMUNISM. You can’t kill an idea, but ideas can kill you. We must fight this virus to survive.

You always hear that the right is fascist, WRONG! Here is a short clip from a documentary that is able to respond quite well to this charge. One should watch the whole DOCUMENTARY, its cheap enough. But this snippet can be used as a great — embeddable — answer to the left leaning challenge that Nazism and Marxism is any different.

All quotes from THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF MARX AND ENGELS (also at MARX & FRIENDS IN THEIR OWN WORDS):

  • “…the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terrorism.” — Karl Marx, “The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna,” Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 7 November 1848.  (See entry of 29 Jan. 2007)
  • “By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, and will sooner or later take Belgium — by that same right Germany takes over Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as against stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark’s favor — which is very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements, for it is the right of historical evolution.” — Friedrich Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 10. Sep. 1848 (See entry of 8 Jan. 2005)
  • “And as for the Jews, who since the emancipation of their sect have everywhere put themselves, at least in the person of their eminent representatives, at the head of the counter-revolution — what awaits them?” — – Karl Marx, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 17. Nov. 1848)
  • “Every provisional political set-up following a revolution requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that.” — Karl Marx, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 14. Sep. 1848
    (See entry of 9 Jan. 2005)
  • “Among all the nations and sub-nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and are still capable of life — the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary holocaust. [“world storm” ? J.D.] For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary. …these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character… [A general war will] wipe out all these racial trash [Völkerabfälle – original was given at Marxist websites as “petty hidebound nations” J.D.] down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.” — Friedrich Engels, “The Magyar Struggle,” Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 13, 1849

  • “We discovered that in connection with these figures the German national simpletons and money-grubbers of the Frankfurt parliamentary swamp always counted as Germans the Polish Jews as well, although this dirtiest of all races, neither by its jargon nor by its descent, but at most only through its lust for profit, could have any relation of kinship with Frankfurt.” — Friedrich Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 29. Apr. 1849 (See entry of 17 Jan. 2005)
  • “Germans and Magyars [of the Austro-Hungarian Empire] untied all these small, stunted and impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness… In short, it turns out these ‘crimes’ of the Germans and Magyars against the said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the Magyar people can boast in their history.” — Friedrich Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 15 February 1849 (See the entry of 6 April 2005)
  • “To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. … Then there will be a struggle, an ‘unrelenting life-and-death struggle’ against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and most determined terrorism – not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!” — Friedrich Engels, “Democratic Pan-Slavism” Neue Rheinische Zeitung 15. Feb. 1849  (See entry of 16 Jan. 2005 and 3 April 2005)
  • “…only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution there will be a struggle, an ‘inexorable life-and-death struggle’, against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror – not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!”  — Friedrich Engels, “Democratic Pan-Slavism, Continued,” Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 16 February 1849 (See entry of 29 Jan. 2007)
  • “We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.” — Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels “Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung”, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 19, 1849 (See entry of 29 Jan. 2007)
  • “The workers… must try as much as ever possible to counteract all bourgeois attempts at appeasement, and compel the democrats to carry out their present terrorist phrases. They must act in such a manner that the revolutionary excitement does not collapse immediately after the victory. On the contrary, they must maintain it as long as possible. Far from opposing so-called excesses, such as sacrificing to popular revenge of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful memories are attached, such deeds must not only be tolerated, but their direction must be taken in hand, for examples’ sake. …from the first moment of victory we must no longer direct our distrust against the beaten reactionary enemy, but against our former allies [the democratic forces], against the party who are now about to exploit the common victory for their own ends only. … The arming of the whole proletariat with rifles, guns, and ammunition should be carried out at once [and] the workers must … organize themselves into an independent guard, with their own chiefs and general staff, to put themselves under the order, not of the [new] Government, but of the revolutionary authorities set up by the workers. … Destruction of the influence of bourgeois democracy over the workers …[is a main point] which the proletariat, and therefore also the League, has to keep in eye during and after the coming upheaval. …to be able effectively to oppose the petty bourgeois democracy. In order that [the democratic party] whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the first hour of victory, should be frustrated in its nefarious work, it is necessary to organize and arm the proletariat.” — Karl Marx “Address to the Communist League” March 1850, cited in E. Burns (ed): A Handbook of Marxism 1935, p.66-68.
  • “Removed and expelled members, like suspect individuals in general, are to be watched in the interest of the League, and prevented from doing harm. Intrigues of such individuals are at once to be reported to the community concerned.” — Rules written by Karl Marx and others for the Communist League (Art. 42) 1850 (See entry of 18 Jan. 2005)

  • “Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.” — Karl Marx, “Forced Emigration”, New York Tribune 1853 (See entry of 29 Jan. 2005)
  • “Even with Europe in decay, still a war should have roused the healthy elements; a war should have awakened a lot of hidden powers, and surely so much energy would have been present among 250 million people that at least a respectable battle would have occurred, in which both parties could have reaped some honor, as much honor as courage and bravery can gain on the battlefield.” — Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, “The Boring War”, 1854 (See entry of 13 March 2005)
  • “Those dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff will see that we’re the only chaps who haven’t been stultified by the ghastly period of peace.” — Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels (Letter, 25 February 1859) (See entry of 11 Feb. 2005)

“Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.

…the real work is done by the Jews, and can only be done by them, as they monopolize the machinery of the loan-mongering mysteries by concentrating their energies upon the barter trade in securities… Here and there and everywhere that a little capital courts investment, there is ever one of these little Jews ready to make a little suggestion or place a little bit of a loan. The smartest highwayman in the Abruzzi is not better posted up about the locale of the hard cash in a traveler’s valise or pocket than those Jews about any loose capital in the hands of a trader… The language spoken smells strongly of Babel, and the perfume which otherwise pervades the place is by no means of a choice kind.

Thus do these loans, which are a curse to the people, a ruin to the holders, and a danger to the governments, become a blessing to the houses of the children of Judah. This Jew organization of loan-mongers is as dangerous to the people as the aristocratic organization of landowners… The fortunes amassed by these loan-mongers are immense, but the wrongs and sufferings thus entailed on the people and the encouragement thus afforded to their oppressors still remain to be told.

The fact that 1855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish moneychangers out of the temple, and that the moneychangers of our age enlisted on the side of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a historical coincidence. The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a larger and more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is timely and expedient to expose and stigmatize their organization.”

— Karl Marx, “The Russian Loan”, New York Daily Tribune, 4 January 1856 (See entry of 20 May 2009)

Karen Finney Hangs Up on Hugh Hewitt After Failing History

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally Posted: Aug 28, 2013

More on Alger Hiss via WND:

Former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss was the darling of the Franklin Roosevelt Democrats and the architect of the United Nations.

That he was also a Soviet spy remains one of the most well-guarded secrets of the 20th century.

But a new book, “Alger Hiss: Why He Chose Treason,” shatters the veil of secrecy so well maintained by “progressives” in the Democratic Party and a complicit media establishment.

It all began unraveling in 1948, when Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy. Because the statute of limitations on espionage had run out, he was convicted only of perjury. Decades later – after the Hiss trial had been long forgotten by most – archival evidence surfaced confirming the accusations: a public servant with access to classified documents had indeed passed crucial information to the Soviets for more than a decade.

Yet many on the American Left still consider Hiss an iconic figure – an innocent victim accused of unsubstantiated crimes. They prefer to focus on the collectivist ideals Hiss stood for, rather than confront the reality of a man who systematically and methodically betrayed his country.

[….]

Why exactly were the intellectual elite so determined that Hiss was innocent? His accuser, Time magazine senior editor Whittaker Chambers – originally Hiss’s Soviet handler and author of the classic “Witness” – presented compelling written evidence. However, the intelligentsia were intent on supporting one of their own. They ignored the facts, a willful blindness that helped contribute to a polarization still in place in our country today.

Thirty years of intelligence analysis gives Shelton the expertise to approach the story from many different angles, especially:

  • Her persuasive argument that communism and fascism are not polar opposites, as has so long been claimed, but highly similar ideologies.
  • How Hiss’s central role at the Yalta Conference and the founding of the United Nations are examples of the significance of Soviet intelligence recruitment of high-level Americans who could influence U.S. foreign policy in their favor.
  • Why the silence surrounding the implications of Hiss’s espionage continues—and why apologists fear that smearing his name would undercut New Deal policies and the United Nations. Shelton doesn’t just detail the body of evidence pointing to Hiss’s guilt; she suggests new layers of meaning in light of the current political landscape……

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

The stroy about the Rosenbergs saw new light when the two sons of the Rosenbergs asked Obama to exonerate their mother (NEWSMAX). The AMERICAN THINKER notes the continued Lefty accolades of Ethel…

In its latest fit of leftist madness, the City of New York again displayed its colors when its City Council enacted a resolution honoring convicted and executed spy Ethel Rosenberg on the centenary of her birth. The council declared September 28 “Ethel Rosenberg Day of Justice in the Borough of Manhattan.”

The council’s proclamation heralded Ethel for her “great bravery” and asserted that she had been “wrongfully” executed for joining her husband Julius in giving atomic secrets to Stalin’s Soviet regime. “A lot of hysteria was created around anti-communism and how we had to defend our country,” lamented Councilman Daniel Dromm, “we rushed to judgment and they [the Rosenbergs] were executed.” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer added her regrets, condemning this “terrible stain on our country.”

There could scarcely be a more apt gesture from a city that long housed the Communist Party USA, the Daily Worker, and Columbia University. New York was home to more communists than any city in America, and its current mayor, Democrat Bill De Blasio, once peddled subscriptions for the newspaper of the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua before later honeymooning in Castro’s Cuba — a decade after his earlier romance in the Soviet Union…..

Here is an old one pager (2005) I wrote regarding the Rosenbergs… followed by an excerpt about them from another post:

WERE THEY SPIES? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

The Rosenbergs are often pointed to as an example of the government being too overbearing.  And people on the political left – more often than not – take this position in public discourse.  Often it has imbued in the premise of the Rosenberg’s illusions to the McCarthy era as well as a disdain for the political right. 

However, in recent years many documents have been declassified, and these documents along with a plethora of once secret documents from the now defunct U.S.S.R. show that not only McCarthy, but also others who saw a Marxist conspiracy were actually right in their investigations.  In fact, these documents from Russia and the KGB show the problem was worse than McCarthy had thought!  As one author put it:  “McCarthy was making a good point badly.”

Case in point: the Rosenbergs (4-points of rebuttal):

  • In 1995 the government declassified the Venona cables, which proved definitively that Julius and Ethel were part of a sophisticated network of communist traitors. 
  • And if the Venona messages weren’t enough, Aleksander Feklisov, the former KGB colonel, really sealed the deal.  While Venona was comprised of documents decoded by American cryptanalysts, no messages from the KGB itself proved the Rosenbergs’ guilt.  But then Feklisov, who personally handled the Rosenberg case, admitted that he recruited Julius to spy for the U.S.S.R. in 1943.  Feklisov and Julius had fifty meetings, and Julius gave Feklisov valuable military information.  Further, Feklisov said that Ethel knew about her husband’s spying.  (Incidentally, the KGB’s codename for Julius was ”Liberal.”)
  • The evidence does not end here.  In 1990 Nikita Khrushchev published his memoirs in which he praised the Rosenbergs for their ”very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb.”
  • Additionally, during the Rosenbergs’ trial, the defense—that is, the people who were trying to keep the Rosenbergs’ Red flesh off the electric chair—asked the media to leave the courtroom while David Greenglass, the guy who had allegedly fed Julius and Ethel the secret information, detailed to the court what he had shared with the accused.  If Greenglass hadn’t broken the law, and if, therefore, the Rosenbergs hadn’t, why would reporters have to leave?

Two books that are a good read:

  • Blacklisted by History: the Real Story of Joseph McCarthy and the Fight Against America’s Enemies, by M Stanton Evans.
  • The Venona Secrets: Exposing America’s Cold War Traitors, by Herb Romerstein.

Here is that excerpt from my: “Howard Zinn (1922-2010) Passing From This Hell To The Next“

Which causes one to ask JUST HOW GOOD is Zinn’s historical “narrative” from his Marxist “red colored glasses”? Reason.com asks the same question, “JUST HOW POOR IS ZINN’S HISTORY?“

They then answer it:

…After hearing of his death, I opened one of his books to a random page (Failure to Quit, p. 118) and was informed that there was “no evidence” that Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya was behind the 1986 bombing of La Belle Discotheque in Berlin. Whatever one thinks of the Reagan administration’s response, it is flat wrong, bordering on dishonest, to argue that the plot wasn’t masterminded in Tripoli. Nor is it correct to write that the American government, which funded the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s, “train[ed] Osama bin Laden,” a myth conclusively debunked by Washington Post correspondent Steve Coll in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars.

Of Cuba, the reader of A People’s History is told that upon taking power, “Castro moved to set up a nationwide system of education, of housing, of land distribution to landless peasants.” Castro’s vast network of gulags and the spasm of “revolutionary justice” that sent thousands to prison or the executioners wall is left unmentioned. This is unsurprising, I suppose, when one considers that Zinn recently told an interviewer “you have to admire Cuba for being undaunted by this colossus of the North and holding fast to its ideals and to Socialism….Cuba is one of those places in the world where we can see hope for the future. With its very meager resources Cuba gives free health care and free education to everybody. Cuba supports culture, supports dance and music and theatre.”

There is also no mention of the Khmer Rouge or Pol Pot, though in a misleading digression into the so-called Mayaguez Incident, Zinn mentions that “a revolutionary regime had just taken power” in Cambodia and treated its American prisoners rather well. And it is untrue, as Zinn claims, that President Gerald Ford knew Cambodia had released its American captives in 1975 but still allowed a small Marine invasion simply to show American muscle after the Vietnam humiliation.

A People’s History is full of praise for supposedly forgotten truth-tellers like “Dalton Trumbo and Pete Seeger, and W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson,” all apologists for Stalinism. (Both Du Bois and Robeson were awarded the Stalin/Lenin Peace Prize by the Kremlin, and both enthusiastically accepted.) There is no accounting of communism’s crimes, though plenty of lamentations that, after the Second World War, “young and old were taught that anti-Communism was heroic.” Indeed, in the comic book version of A People’s History, Zinn writes that the Cold War “would last for over 40 years” but “to keep it going required political and social repression on both sides” (emphasis in original).

Despite conclusive evidence from Russian archives, Zinn suggests the atom spies Morton Sobel and Julius Rosenberg were railroaded with “weak” evidence and their subsequent trials were simply to show “what lay at the end of the line for those the government decided were traitors.” When Sobel confessed his espionage to the The New York Times earlier this year, Zinn told a reporter, “To me it didn’t matter whether they were guilty or not.”

This is a strange sentiment for someone whose job, one assumes, is to mine the historical record in search of historical truth. But Zinn wasn’t, as Schlesinger correctly said, a historian in any traditional sense. Zinn abjured footnotes (there are a number of quotes in A People’s History that I couldn’t verify), his books consist of clip jobs, interviews, and recycled material from A People’s History, and he was more likely to be found protesting on Boston Common than holding office hours at Boston University. But it is clear that those who have praised his work do so because they appreciate his conclusions, while ignoring his shoddy methodology.

This helps explain why few of his acolytes mention the effusive blurbs Zinn provided for David Ray Griffin’s two books of 9/11 conspiracy theories, Debunking 9/11 and The New Pearl Harbor, or why A People’s History uses the work of Holocaust denier David Irving to inflate the civilian death toll at Dresden….

They end this “eulogy” with this thought, “Call him what you will—activist, dissident, left-wing muckraker. Just don’t call him a historian.”

Islam Is [NOT] Peace (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Don’t believe the lies. Islam doesn’t mean peace. And every single good Muslim knows this FACT. But that doesn’t stop them from pushing the ‘peace’ narrative. It works well with the massive wave of opportunistic Muslim migration. In fact, it’s a key aspect of the dissimulation that allows the European Migrant Crisis to continue to spiral out of control.

Gateway Pundit notes the naivety expressed by a New York Times reporter about how Muslim law views non-Muslims. GP goes on to quote the Urban Dictionary, which defines ‘kuffar’ as:

“Also spelled ‘kafir’ or ‘kaffir’, Kuffar is a highly derogatory Arabic term used to refer to non-Muslims, though it is usually directed less against “People of the Book” (Christians and Jews) and more against others (Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, etc)…”

This just isn’t true. That is, that it is directed less against the “People of the Book.” Bill Warner explains (also, see the final — long — quote at bottom):

The ISM (International Solidarity Movement) issued a statement praising Kayla Mueller for her work with the group in “Occupied East Jerusalem.”

The Jewish Action Taskforce (JAT) notes the radical nature of this organization, ISM:

…The Solidarity Movement is not a legally incorporated entity. It is a fairly loose association of individuals free to unite, to depart, and to call themselves by a different name every day. Indeed, it is often to their advantage to do so because if, as has happened, Charlotte Kates, the leader of the New Jersey Solidarity Movement, gives a ringing endorsement of suicide bombing, other branches of the solidarity movement can say: she does not speak for us.

Solidarity movement is also both a proper noun and a term of art. Supporters of the Solidarity Movement have come out of the International Socialist Organization, a group that has spawned other international solidarity movements. Socialists and radical leftists use this sort of phrasing: we should form an international solidarity movement to help in the people’s struggle for X since international solidarity movements have been so useful in past struggles.

This particular International Solidarity Movement is often called the Palestinian Solidarity Movement in the United States. Local chapters have myriad names. Names of groups linked in the “local chapters” section on theInternational Solidarity Movement web site, include: Boston to Palestine, the Palestine Information Project (Seattle), and the Free Palestine Campaign (Ann Arbor), which has a useful section on its web site labeled “attacks on the ISM” [Ref. 1]. The section contains several excellent articles regarding the nature of the ISM and its activities.

The web sites of local ISM affiliates are indicative of the complexity of the Movement itself. The founders of ISM openly endorse terrorism, and the volunteers on the ground in Israel work to protect terrorists, but in the United States the group also depends upon the support of individuals who believe that they are working for a peaceful solution and who not only are not personally anti-Semitic, but who are often Jewish.

[….]

In another email, ISM cofounder George Rishmawi offers his opinions on why terrorism and violence are needed [Ref. 11]:

You are mistaken my friend. I am sorry to tell you this but you are. Well, When did the suicide bombing start? When did the occupation of the west Bank and Gaza started? When did the aggression agaisnt the Palestinian started?

You need to know the source of the conflict and the source of the suffering that bushes people to kill themselves and others.

I do not want to see anybody killed but we need to say that taking people’s rights and freedom is the source of the problem and when this stops there should be not need for anymore killing. This is what we should advocate for it right now.

In a recent interview, ISM cofounder Adam Shapiro “justifie(d) the Palestinian armed resistance against Israel as long as it is targeting Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Otherwise, he is not in favor of suicide bombings.” [Ref. 12].

…read it all…

The socialists LOVE jihadists… because their real goal is to overthrow capitalism (see chapter from book explaining more, here):

Jihad Watch also notes the support the organization (ISM) gives to terrorists:

…But many documented International Solidarity Movement speakers or workshop leaders participated in this week’s Duke conference, including ISM’s co-founder Huweida Arraf, who tried to recruit students to join her group.

Arraf led a workshop yesterday titled “Volunteering in Palestine: Role and Value of International Activists.” Arraf handed out brochures for the ISM and urged students to join the terror-supporting group, members of Duke’s Conservative Union who attended the workshop told WorldNetDaily. They asked that their names be withheld from publication.

Arraf, together with seven other self-declared International Solidarity Movement members who would not state their last names, screened a slide show about ISM activism, detailed the group’s two-day training session and fielded questions about the logistics of traveling to “Palestine,” explaining how to fool Israeli border control since ISM members are denied entry.

Arraf also told students the ISM “happily works with Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said one Conservative Union member who attended the talk…

…read more…

Explaining Islamic theology to all the wing-nuts at the NYTs is this longer excerpt from a wonderful book edited by Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch:

NON-MUSLIMS IN THE QUR’AN

The attitudes of modern Muslims toward non-Muslims are rooted, of course, in the Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be the eternal words of Allah dictated to the prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. The Qur’an occupies an influence in the Islamic world that is far greater than that of the Bible in the West, even during the heyday of Christendom; it exerts a dominant and formative influence on the Muslim mind and culture.

Proponents of the myth of Islamic tolerance point to verses such as this one: “Those who believe [in the Qur’an], and those who follow the Jewish [scriptures], and the Christians and the Sabians, any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve” (sura 2:62; cf. 5:69 and 22:17). Muslim spokesmen in the West like to quote such verses and to stress, as in the Council on American Islamic Relations ad, the commonality between Islam and Christianity—and sometimes even between Islam and Judaism.

However, the preponderance of Qur’ anic testimony favors not tolerance and harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims, but just the opposite. A fundamental component of the Qur’an’s view of non-Muslims is the often repeated and implacable belief in its own superiority: “The Religion before Allah is Islam” (sura 3:19), or, as another translation has it, “The only true faith in God’s sight is Islam.” Muslims, accordingly, are also superior to others: “Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah.” By contrast, most Jews and Christians (“People of the Book”) are wrongdoers: “If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors” (sura 3:110).

According to orthodox Muslim belief, the Qur’an is the final and perfect revelation from Allah, the one true God. It confirms earlier revelations—a fact of which Muhammad was evidently so sure that in the Qur’an he has Allah telling him that if he is harboring any doubts about the veracity of his experiences with Gabriel, he need only check with those who received scrip­tures before Muhammad’s time—that is, Jews and Christians: “And if thou (Muhammad) art in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto thee, then question those who read the Scripture (that was) before thee. Verily the Truth from thy Lord hath come unto thee. So be not thou of the waverers” (sura 10:94).

Yet the testimony that the earlier scriptures were supposed to bear to the coming of Muhammad has been obscured by Jews and Christians. In a lengthy passage in a late sura (chapter) of the Qur’an, “al-Baqara” (the Cow), Allah castigates the Jews and Christians for rejecting Muhammad when they know better:

We gave Moses the Book and followed him up with a succession of mes­sengers; We gave Jesus the son of Mary Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the holy spirit. Is it that whenever there comes to you a messenger with what ye yourselves desire not, ye are puffed up with pride? Some ye called impostors, and others ye slay! They say, “Our hearts are the wrappings (which preserve Allah’s Word: we need no more).”

Nay, Allah’s curse is on them for their blasphemy: Little is it they believe. And when there comes to them a Book from Allah, confirming what is with them, although from of old they had prayedfor victory against those without Faith, when there comes to them thatwhich they (should) have recognised, they refuse to believe in it but the curse of Allah is on those without Faith. Miserable is the price for which they have sold their souls, in that they deny (the revelation) which Allah has sent down, in insolent envy that Allah of His Grace should send it to any of His servants He pleases: Thus have they drawn on themselves Wrath upon Wrath. And humiliating is the punishment of those who reject Faith.

When it is said to them, “Believe in what Allah Hath sent down,” they say, “We believe in what was sent down to us”: yet they reject all besides, even if it be Truth confirming what is with them. Say: “Why then have ye slain the prophets of Allah in times gone by, if ye did indeed believe?”

There came to you Moses with clear (Signs); yet ye worshipped the calf (even) after that, and ye did behave wrongfully. And remember We took your covenant and We raised above you (the towering height) of Mount (Sinai), (saying): “Hold firmly to what We have given you, and hearken (to the Law).” They said: “We hear, and we disobey.” And they had to drink into their hearts (of the taint) of the calf because of their Faithlessness. Say: “Vile indeed are the behests of your Faith if ye have any faith!”.. .

Say: Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel—for he brings down the (revelation) to thy heart by Allah’s will, a confirmation of what went before, and guidance and glad tidings for those who believe—whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and messengers, to Gabriel and Michael, lo! Allah is an enemy to those who reject Faith. We have sent down to thee Manifest Signs (ayat); and none reject them but those who are perverse. Is it not (the case) that every time they make a covenant, some party among them throw it aside? Nay, Most of them are faithless. And when there came to them a messenger from Allah, confirming what was with them, a party of the people of the Book threw away the Book of Allah behind their backs, as if (it had been something) they did not know! . . . If they had kept their Faith and guarded themselves from evil, far better had been the reward from their Lord, if they but knew! (sura 2:88-103)

By the evidence of this passage and others in the Qur’an, the Jews and Christians who remain in the world after the time of Muhammad are renegades who have rejected this final revelation out of corruption and malice and who have exchanged truth for falsehood: “The Jews call Uzair [Ezra] a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say” (sura 9:30). Nor is that remotely all. The Jews “have incurred divine displeasure): in that they broke their covenant; that they rejected the signs of Allah; that they slew the Messengers in defiance of right; that they said, ‘Our hearts are the wrappings (which preserve Allah’s Word; We need no more)’; nay, Allah hath set the seal on their hearts for their blasphemy, and little is it they believe . .” (sura 4:155). They even misrepresent the scriptures: “There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues: (As they read) you would think it is a part of the Book, but it is no part of the Book; and they say, ‘That is from Allah,’ but it is not from Allah. It is they who tell a lie against Allah, and (well) they know it!” (sura 3:78). They blasphemously doubt Allah’s power: “The Jews say: `Allah’s hand is tied up.’ Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for the (blasphemy) they utter” (sura 5:64).

The Qur’an also frequently censures Christians for believing in false doctrines—including beliefs that are central to the faith as it had been understood and practiced for as long as six centuries before Muhammad began preaching. Apparently misunderstanding the nature of the Christian Trinity, one verse has Allah quizzing Jesus: “0 Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah?” Jesus answers: “Glory to Thee! Never could I say what I had no right (to say)” (sura 5:116).

In the book Allah frequently insists that he has no son—a fact Muslims believe to be an essential component of true monotheism. “Say: ‘Praise be to Allah, who begets no son, and has no partner in (His) dominion: Nor (needs) He any to protect Him from humiliation: yea, magnify Him for His greatness and glory!'” (sura 17:111).

Finally Muhammad weaves his charges against Jews and Christians together by condemning Christians for believing that Jesus was crucified, and Jews for believing that they crucified him: “They said (in boast), ‘We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah’; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not” (sura 4:157).

Because of the cavalier, self-serving, and underhanded ways in which they have treated Allah’s message, both Jews and Christians live under the curse of Allah: “Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!” (sura 9:30).

The idea that Jews and Christians are accursed recurs several times in the Qur’an. Both have rejected Allah and his messenger Muhammad:

Allah did aforetime take a covenant from the Children of Israel, and we appointed twelve captains among them. And Allah said: “I am with you: if ye (but) establish regular prayers, practice regular charity, believe in my messengers, honor and assist them, and loan to Allah a beautiful loan, verily I will wipe out from you your evils, and admit you to gardens with rivers flowing beneath; but if any of you, after this, resisteth faith, he hath truly wandered from the path of rectitude.”

But because of their breach of their covenant, We cursed them, and made their hearts grow hard; they change the words from their (right) places and forget a good part of the message that was sent them, nor wilt thou cease to find them—barring a few—ever bent on (new) deceits: but forgive them, and overlook (their misdeeds): for Allah loveth those who are kind.

From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done.

0 People of the Book! There hath come to you our Messenger, revealing to you much that ye used to hide in the Book, and passing over much (that is now unnecessary): There hath come to you from Allah a (new) light and a perspicuous Book, wherewith Allah guideth all who seek His good pleasure to ways of peace and safety, and leadeth them out of dark­ness, by His will, unto the light, guideth them to a path that is straight. (sura 5:12-16)

All this leads directly to the Qur’an’s notorious verses of jihad, such as this one from later in the same sura: “And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith” (sura 2:190). Many Western Muslim spokesmen today deny that this verse applies to Jews and Christians of this age or any other, as they are in the Qur’an “People of the Book” and not idolaters. However, it is clear from the long passage above that Jews and Christians are indeed counted in the Qur’an among those who “suppress faith” and thus must be met by Muslims not with talk of tolerance and peaceful coexistence but with jihad warfare: “And fight them until persecu­tion is no more, and religion is all for Allah. But if they cease, then lo! Allah is Seer of what they do” (sura 8:39).

Indeed, the sura that most Muslim scholars believe to have been the last one revealed—and hence the portion of the Qur’an that takes precedence over any contradictory passage revealed earlier—is sura 9, at-Tauba (“Repentance”). It explicitly enjoins Muslims to wage war against the People of the Book until they either convert to Islam or are subdued as second-class dhimmis: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya [a special tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (sura 9:29).

In the end it is the will of Allah that Islam will triumph over all other reli­gions: “He it is Who bath sent His messenger with the guidance and the Reli­gion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may be averse” (sura 9:33).

This is tantamount to a declaration of war, and its spirit pervades the entire Muslim holy book. So far is the Qur’an from modern notions of toler­ance and peaceful coexistence that it even warns Muslims not to befriend Jews and Christians—apparently including those who “feel themselves sub­dued” and are paying the jiyza: “0 ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors. They are but friends and protec­tors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust” (sura 5:51).

It is ironic in light of all this that the Qur’an also criticizes Jews and Chris­tians for being intolerant. Allah warns Muhammad that “never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion. Say: ‘The Guidance of Allah, that is the (only) Guidance.’ Wert thou to follow their desires after the knowledge which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither Protector nor helper against Allah” (sura 2:120; cf. 2:135).

This is the Qur’an that pious Muslims cherish and memorize in its entirety; it is for them their primary guide to understanding how they should make their way in the world and deal with other people. It is nothing short of staggering that the myth of Islamic tolerance could have gained such cur­rency in the teeth of the Qur’an’s open contempt and hatred for Jews and Christians and incitements of violence against them—and a testimony to the ease with which one can convince himself of the truth of something in which one wants to believe, regardless of evidence to the contrary.

NON-MUSLIMS IN THE HADITH

The Hadith, the traditions of the sayings and doings of the prophet Muhammad, are second in authority only to the Qur’an for most Muslims. In fact, Sunni Islam, the sect of 85 to 90 percent of Muslims worldwide, takes its name from the Sunnah, the Traditions, which Sunnis follow in contradis­tinction to Shi’ite Islam, which from the days of its great imams and in a different way thereafter invested more authority than do Sunnis in religious leaders. Sunnis rely instead, at least according to the theory, on the teachings of Muhammad as recorded in the Hadith and explicated by Islamic jurists.

The Hadith is voluminous, and much is of doubtful authenticity. But in the early centuries of Islam six collections were identified by Muslims as being substantially authentic and therefore trustworthy: those known today as Sahih Sittah (“reliable collections”): Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, the Sunan of Abu Dawud, the Sunan of Ibn Majah, the Sunan of an-Nasai, and the Jami of at-Tirmidhi. These, as applied and interpreted by jurists from the four prin­cipal Sunni madhhabs, or schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi’i) form the primary source for the innumerable regulations of Islamic law, which governs virtually every aspect of life—from personal hygiene to macroeconomics. Although it is likely—and Western scholars have established in many cases—that many of these traditions that are revered as reliable are just as tenuous and inauthentic as many of those that are univer­sally rejected, this fact has had little impact thus far in the Islamic world. Many of them enjoy normative status as principal sources for religious beliefs and practices. Critical analysis of both the Qur’an and Hadith has been slight and furtive among Muslims—largely owing to the fact that Islamic tolerance, both in history and today, does not generally extend to a willingness to allow the words of Allah to be examined and prodded. To allow this would be tan­tamount to admitting that the Qur’an is a human book, which few pious Mus­lims have been prepared to do ever since the comparatively rationalist Mutazilite sect was vanquished centuries ago and the idea that the Qur’an was uncreated was raised to the level of an unquestionable dogma. In any case, since these traditions are regarded as authentic by orthodox Muslims, they play a key role in the elaboration of Islamic intolerance and were accordingly muted in the era of the imposition of the myth of tolerance.

The Traditions’ message regarding non-Muslims consists primarily of an amplification of that of the Qur’an. The Qur’an’s inconsistent statements about whether or not Jews and Christians will enter paradise are resolved: “It is narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) observed: By Him in Whose hand is the life of Muhammad, he who amongst the community of Jews or Christians hears about me, but does not affirm his belief in that with which I have been sent and dies in this state (of disbelief), he shall be but one of the denizens of Hell-Fire.” So once again we see that if there is any tolerance in Islam at all, it is only provisional, in anticipation of the great Day on which Allah will make it manifest to all that “the Religion before Allah is Islam” (sura 3:19). Another Hadith has Muhammad saying:

On the Day of Resurrection, a call-maker will announce, “Let every nation follow that which they used to worship.” Then none of those who used to worship anything other than Allah like idols and other deities but will fall in Hell (Fire), till there will remain none but those who used to worship Allah, both those who were obedient (i.e., good) and those who were dis­obedient (i.e., bad) and the remaining party of the people of the Scripture. Then the Jews will be called upon and it will be said to them, “Who do you use to worship?” They will say, “We used to worship Ezra, the son of Allah.” It will be said to them, “You are liars, for Allah has never taken anyone as a wife or a son. What do you want now?” They will say, “0 our Lord! We are thirsty, so give us something to drink.” They will be directed and addressed thus, “Will you drink,” whereupon they will be gathered unto Hell (Fire) which will look like a mirage whose different sides will be destroying each other. Then they will fall into the Fire. Afterwards the Christians will be called upon and it will be said to them, “Who do you use to worship?” “They will say, ‘We used to worship Jesus, the son of Allah.'” It will be said to them, “You are liars, for Allah has never taken anyone as a wife or a son,” Then it will be said to them, “What do you want?” They will say what the former people have said. Then, when there remain (in the gathering) none but those who used to worship Allah (Alone, the real Lord of the Worlds) whether they were obedient or disobedient.

Of course, consigning other groups to hellfire doesn’t necessarily mean that one will not consent to live in peace as equals with them on earth. But Islam in its totality attempts an audacious recasting and, in a real sense, appropriation of Judaism and Christianity—a kind of theological imperialism that can serve as a useful analogy and paradigm for the true nature of the tol­erance that Islamic jurists envision for this world.

For Muhammad did not hesitate to appropriate the central figures of Judaism and Christianity and to claim that they were Muslim. Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus appear in the Qur’an and Hadith as Muslim prophets (see suras 2:87, 2:136, 3:84, 33:7, 42:13, etc.). Their religion was Islam—until it was corrupted by their wicked followers (who were, of course, the ancestors of the Jews and Christians, who remained outside the fold of Islam). In the Christians’ case, Jesus will set this right in the latter days, returning to end the dhimmi status of non-Muslims in Islamic soci-eties—not by initiating a new era of equality and harmony, but by abolishing Christianity and imposing Islam upon everyone:

Allah’s Apostle said, “By Him in Whose Hands my soul is, surely (Jesus,) the son of Mary will soon descend amongst you and will judge mankind justly (as a Just Ruler); he will break the Cross and kill the pigs and there will be no Jizya (i.e., taxation taken from non Muslims). Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it, and a single prostration to Allah (in prayer) will be better than the whole world and whatever is in it.” Abu Huraira added, “If you wish, you can recite (this verse of the Holy Book): `And there is none of the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) But must believe in him (i.e., Jesus as an Apostle of Allah and a human being) before his death. And on the Day of Judgment He will be a witness against them”‘ (4.159)

To drive the point home, another tradition adds that Muhammad said: “How will you be when the son of Mary (i.e., Jesus) descends amongst you and he will judge people by the Law of the Qur’an and not by the law of Gospel?”

Still, while all this and similar material is useful to refute the pseudo-multicultural posturing of contemporary Muslim advocacy groups (particu­larly in the United States), it doesn’t add up in itself to anything particularly intolerant. Theological absolutism of a similar kind can be found in virtually all sects of Christianity, as well as in other religious traditions. But although sura 109 of the Qur’an—often quoted today—envisions a live-and-let-live attitude between Muslims and non-Muslims, that is far from the last word on the subject in either the Qur’an (as we have seen) or the Hadith. The Hadith expand upon verses 9:5 and 9:29 of the Qur’an with accounts of Muhammad’s battles against unbelievers. One of the most notable of these records not a battle but an epistolary encounter between the Prophet of the new religion and the leader of the old empire, Heraclius of Byzantium. The account in Sahih Bukhari is full of unlikely details, including the assertion that Heraclius was mightily impressed by Muhammad and all but acknowl­edged his prophethood. To the dismay of courageous Muslim apostates through the centuries, the Heraclius of this hadith burbles to one of Muhammad’s men: “I asked you whether there was anybody who, after embracing [Muhammad’s] religion, became displeased and discarded his religion; your reply was in the negative. In fact, this is the sign of True Faith, for when its cheerfulness enters and mixes in the hearts completely, nobody will be displeased with it.”

But most noteworthy is the brief, easy-to-overlook threat lobbed into the letter from the holy man: “Embrace Islam,” he exhorted Heraclius, “and you will be safe.” No guarantee of safety or offer of truce is made in the event that Heraclius declines to accept Islam.

The imperative was to invite non-Muslims to become Muslim—as Muhammad did Heraclius and Osama bin Laden did the United States in the late 1990s—and then fight those who refuse. This hadith delineates these choices, in accord with sura 9:29’s mandate to fight Jews and Christians until they pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)—or, of course, convert to Islam. Says Muhammad:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war; do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. . . . If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them.

When speaking of non-Muslim dhimmis, the sahih ahadith are primarily concerned with the collection of the jizya—which constituted the “source of the livelihood” of the Muslims. The traditions say little about the way in which Islamic societies are soon going to ensure that non-Muslims “feel themselves subdued,” in accordance with sura 9:29. But Muslims from the earliest ages seem to have been intent to fulfill this command and devised numerous ingenious ways to do so. This resulted in an elaborate system of regulation for the treatment of dhimmis that enforced their humiliation and inferiority on a daily basis—and that remained constant in the Islamic world, although they were enforced with varying degrees of ferocity in different regions over the ages. These regulations, as intolerant as they are, remain part of the Sharia to this day. Radical Islamic terror organizations around the world have repeatedly declared their intention to impose the Sharia wherever and whenever they can. This stands as an enduring threat to non-Muslims in nations with Muslim majorities and elsewhere.

Robert Spencer, Ed., The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treat Non-Muslims (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), 39-48. (For footnotes/references of quotes, buy the book.)

“The Last Communist City” ~ A City-Journal Article (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Before the WONDERFUL article…

…one should also consider C-SPANs interview “Book Discussion on Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” ~ the discussing Cuba, Fidel, Che Guevara, and their “useful idiots,” is Humberto Fontova. His Amazon.com page has three books on Cuba available. Here is the truncated video interview:

  • Inside the BookTV Bus, Humberto Fontova was interviewed about his book Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, published by Regnery Publishing. He spoke about the media’s affixation with the Cuban dictator. Mr. Fontova also discussed political prisoners and a decline in health care.

I want to say, firstly, our of all the politically/culturally minded journals I subscribe to, The City Journal is by far the best, if one were to subscribe to one journal, this would be it. Here are a few excerpts from the article, “The Last Communist City: A visit to the dystopian Havana that tourists never see“

…Marxists have ruled Cuba for more than a half-century now. Fidel Castro, Argentine guerrilla Che Guevara, and their 26th of July Movement forced Fulgencio Batista from power in 1959 and replaced his standard-issue authoritarian regime with a Communist one. The revolutionaries promised liberal democracy, but Castro secured absolute power and flattened the country with a Marxist-Leninist battering ram. The objectives were total equality and the abolition of money; the methods were total surveillance and political prisons. The state slogan, then and now, is “socialism or death.”

Cuba was one of the world’s richest countries before Castro destroyed it—and the wealth wasn’t just in the hands of a tiny elite. “Contrary to the myth spread by the revolution,” wrote Alfred Cuzan, a professor of political science at the University of West Florida, “Cuba’s wealth before 1959 was not the purview of a privileged few. . . . Cuban society was as much of a middle-class society as Argentina and Chile.” In 1958, Cuba had a higher per-capita income than much of Europe. “More Americans lived in Cuba prior to Castro than Cubans lived in the United States,” Cuban exile Humberto Fontova, author of a series of books about Castro and Guevara, tells me. “This was at a time when Cubans were perfectly free to leave the country with all their property. In the 1940s and 1950s, my parents could get a visa for the United States just by asking. They visited the United States and voluntarily returned to Cuba. More Cubans vacationed in the U.S. in 1955 than Americans vacationed in Cuba. Americans considered Cuba a tourist playground, but even more Cubans considered the U.S. a tourist playground.” Havana was home to a lot of that prosperity, as is evident in the extraordinary classical European architecture that still fills the city. Poor nations do not—cannot—build such grand or elegant cities.

But rather than raise the poor up, Castro and Guevara shoved the rich and the middle class down. The result was collapse. “Between 1960 and 1976,” Cuzan says, “Cuba’s per capita GNP in constant dollars declined at an average annual rate of almost half a percent. The country thus has the tragic distinction of being the only one in Latin America to have experienced a drop in living standards over the period.”

Communism destroyed Cuba’s prosperity, but the country experienced unprecedented pain and deprivation when Moscow cut off its subsidies after the fall of the Soviet Union. Journalist and longtime Cuba resident Mark Frank writes vividly about this period in his book Cuban Revelations. “The lights were off more than they were on, and so too was the water. . . . Food was scarce and other consumer goods almost nonexistent. . . . Doctors set broken bones without anesthesia. . . . Worm dung was the only fertilizer.” He quotes a nurse who tells him that Cubans “used to make hamburgers out of grapefruit rinds and banana peels; we cleaned with lime and bitter orange and used the black powder in batteries for hair dye and makeup.” “It was a haunting time,” Frank wrote, “that still sends shivers down Cubans’ collective spines.”…

Some equate Cuba to Iraq or Afghanistan. The author of the article, after being told this by a fellow travelor responded to this in the article:

I visited Iraq seven times during the war and didn’t have the heart to tell her that Baghdad, while ugly and dangerous, is vastly freer and more prosperous these days than Havana. Anyway, Iraq is precisely the kind of country with which Castro wants you to compare Cuba. It’s the wrong comparison. So are impoverished Third World countries like Guatemala and Haiti. Cuba isn’t a developing country; it’s a once-developed country destroyed by its own government. Havana was a magnificent Western city once. It should be compared not with Baghdad, Kabul, Guatemala City, or Port-au-Prince but with formerly Communist Budapest, Prague, or Berlin. Havana’s history mirrors theirs, after all.

[….]

…As for the free health care, patients have to bring their own medicine, their own bedsheets, and even their own iodine to the hospital. Most of these items are available only on the illegal black market, moreover, and must be paid for in hard currency—and sometimes they’re not available at all. Cuba has sent so many doctors abroad—especially to Venezuela, in exchange for oil—that the island is now facing a personnel shortage. “I don’t want to say there are no doctors left,” says an American man who married a Cuban woman and has been back dozens of times, “but the island is now almost empty. I saw a banner once, hanging from somebody’s balcony, that said, DO I NEED TO GO TO VENEZUELA FOR MY HEADACHE?”

Housing is free, too, but so what? Americans can get houses in abandoned parts of Detroit for only $500—which makes them practically free—but no one wants to live in a crumbling house in a gone-to-the-weeds neighborhood. I saw adequate housing in the Cuban countryside, but almost everyone in Havana lives in a Detroit-style wreck, with caved-in roofs, peeling paint, and doors hanging on their hinges at odd angles.

Education is free, and the country is effectively 100 percent literate, thanks to Castro’s campaign to teach rural people to read shortly after he took power. But the regime has yet to make a persuasive argument that a totalitarian police state was required to get the literacy rate from 80 percent to 100 percent. After all, almost every other country in the Western Hemisphere managed the same feat at the same time, without the brutal repression.

Cuba is short of everything but air and sunshine. In her book, Sánchez describes an astonishing appearance by Raúl Castro on television, during which he boasted that the economy was doing so well now that everyone could drink milk. “To me,” Sánchez wrote, “someone who grew up on a gulp of orange-peel tea, the news seemed incredible.” She never thought she’d see the day. “I believed we would put a man on the moon, take first place among all nations in the upcoming Olympics, or discover a vaccine for AIDS before we would put the forgotten morning café con leche, coffee with milk, within reach of every person on this island.” And yet Raúl’s promise of milk for all was deleted from the transcription of the speech in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper. He went too far: there was not enough milk to ensure that everyone got some.

Even things as simple as cooking oil and soap are black-market goods. Individuals who, by some illegal means or another, manage to acquire such desirables will stand on street corners and whisper “cooking oil” or “sugar” to passersby, and then sell the product on the sly out of their living room. If they’re caught, both sellers and buyers will be arrested, of course, but the authorities can’t put the entire country in jail. “Everyone cheats,” says Eire. “One must in order to survive. The verb Ωto steal≈ has almost vanished from usage. Breaking the rules is necessary. Resolví mi problema, which means ‘I solved my problem,’ is the Cuban way of referring to stealing or cheating or selling on the black market.”

Cuba has two economies now: the national Communist economy for the majority; and a quasi-capitalist one for foreigners and the elite…

[….]

…The Floridita bar in downtown Havana was one of Ernest Hemingway’s hangouts when he lived there (from 1940 until 1960, the year after Castro came to power). He was in the Floridita all the time—and, in a way, he still is. There’s a statue of him sitting on his favorite bar stool, grinning at today’s patrons. The décor is exactly the same, but there’s a big difference: everyone in the bar these days is a tourist. Cubans aren’t strictly banned any more, but a single bottle of beer costs a week’s salary. No one would blow his dismal paycheck on that.

If he were still around, Hemingway would be stunned to see what has happened to his old haunt. Cubans certainly aren’t happy about it, but the tourists are another story—especially the world’s remaining Marxoid fellow travelers, who show up in Havana by the planeload. Such people are clearly unteachable. I got into an argument with one at the Floridita when I pointed out that none of the patrons were Cuban. “There are places in the United States that some can’t afford,” she retorted. Sure, but come on. Not even the poorest Americans have to pay a week’s wage for a beer…

[….]

…An advertisement in my hotel claimed that the Sierra Maestra restaurant on the top floor is “probably” the best in Havana. I had saved the Sierra Maestra for my last night and rode the elevator up to the 25th floor. I had my first and only steak on the island and washed it down with Chilean red wine. The tiny bill set me back no more than having a pizza delivered at home would, but the total nevertheless exceeded an entire month’s local salary. Not surprisingly, I ate alone. Every other table was empty. The staff waited on me as if I were the president of some faraway minor republic.

I stared at the city below out the window as I sipped my red wine. Havana looked like a glittering metropolis in the dark. Night washed away the rot and the grime and revealed nothing but city lights. It occurred to me that Havana will look mostly the same—at night, anyway—after it is liberated from the tyrannical imbeciles who govern it now. I tried to pretend that I was looking out on a Cuba that was already free and that the tables around me were occupied—by local people, not foreigners—but the fantasy faded fast. I was all alone at the top of Cuba’s Elysium and yearning for home—where capitalism’s inequalities are not so jagged and stark.

You Should READ It All!

ReasonTV:

John Stossle & Daily Beast:

Cuban’s in L.A. Fighting Castro:

Sen. Marco Rubion on Jay-Z:

Other Worthwhile Articles:

Communism, Creating Equality Since 1848 (Venezuela & USSR)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This first video is of a Soviet grocery store filmed in 1986:

This second video is of a grocery store from Venezuela from this year (2015):

And as Libertarian Republican notes they are running out of beer:

First, it was shortage of toilet paper. Then, a shortage of food. Now, Venezuela is facing a beer shortage.

The official excuse is that the country isn’t able to import enough ingredients, and that the evil farmers are holding out. As Lenin said of those evil farmers, they are nothing but petite bourgeoisie. Why, they are the dung of the devil!….

DannyGlover Chavez and Penn Director
[From an older post] Protein Wisdom has this awesome post! Read the rest… linked at bottom:

In a move that will no doubt help further the Venezuelan government’s aim of establishing a socialist utopian republic, President Nicolas Maduro announced this week that grocery stores will soon begin the mandatory fingerprinting of customers. The peculiar initiative, which could be implemented by the end of the year, is meant to help combat the hoarding and smuggling of government-subsidized goods.

Venezuela exerts stringent currency and price controls on many products in an attempt to keep them affordable for its poorest citizens. Unfortunately, a staggering quantity of this merchandise ends up being secreted out of the country and re-sold at a profit in neighboring Colombia.

The oil-rich nation has been experiencing a chronic shortage of food supplies for a long while. Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, accused the political opposition last year of engineering the country’s shortages with the help of the CIA in order to undermine his government.

[…]

Faced with empty store shelves due to the combination of price controls, currency restrictions, and smuggling, Venezuelans are having a hard time finding the basics they need to live. The crisis has spurred the development of an app called Abasteceme (“Supply Me”), which allows shoppers to document and share where they have managed to find products.

The fingerprinting proposal, which critics decried as an invasion of privacy

Privacy? PRIVACY??!!?? What an out-dated, bourgeoisie, imperialistic, patriarchal notion! Honest people have no need for privacy!

Harruuummmmph.

and an attempt to institute a Cuban-style rationing program, would be similar to an anti-fraud system Venezuela currently employs during elections,

Voter id is only valid in Progressive socialist nations to keep enemies-of-the-people from reactionary crimes. Those of you in countries that have not repented of your oppressive capitalistic crimes must never, ever use ID of any kind when it comes to voting.

– See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/#sthash.Idans5Q7.dpuf

You see… down deep all these “freedom of speech” guys who say they are libertarian or for freedom of thought — are really small tyrant down deep. The Left always falls into what is in their nature.

Venezuelans fighting over powdered milk:

Here is a line at a grocery store via Economic Policy Journal:

Ahh, the joys of socialism.

Pope Francis Accepts A Death Crucifix (+ Marxist Leanings?)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Pope John Paul and this Pope are on different ends of the spectrum.

(BBC) “There is a lot of scepticism among (US) Catholics,” says Stephen Moore, the chief economist at the conservative Washington think tank the Heritage Foundation, and himself a Catholic.

“I think this is a Pope who clearly has some Marxist leanings. It’s unquestionable that he has a very vocal scepticism (about) capitalism and free enterprise and… I find that to be very troubling.”

[….]

Most of John Paul’s early life was lived under totalitarian regimes – first the Nazi occupation during World War Two, then the long Stalinist and Soviet domination of Poland during the Cold War. Everything he experienced as a priest and a bishop taught him that communism was the enemy.

Another comment on the large difference between the Pope and his understanding of economics comes from his encyclical, and it notes the rhetoric of the left known to be merely that ~ an economic myth:

He said “some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

So-called “trickle down” is not an economic theory. It is a pejorative term used by socialists and others in favor of wealth distribution to describe laissez-faire capitalism. A product of the Enlightenment, laissez-faire capitalism was “conceived as the way to unleash human potential through the restoration of a natural system, a system unhindered by the restrictions of government,” writes Toufic Gaspard. For political economist Adam Smith and other classical economists, the concept was inextricably connected to natural rights.

Capitalism Works, better than any other economic system that ~ again ~ WORKS — devised by man.

Obama Admits Communist “Schooled” Him on Class Warfare

Published by Papa Giorgio

H/T ~ Gateway Pundit:

In an extraordinary development, film of Obama explicitly and openly identifying “Frank” as Frank Marshall Davis has suddenly surfaced on the Internet. It is described as having been recorded on September 20,1995, with the program originally airing on Channel 37 Cambridge Municipal Television as an episode of the show “The Author Series.” Obama admits the mysterious “Frank” from his book Dreams from my Father is indeed the communist Frank Marshall Davis. But Obama does NOT say Davis was a communist. America’s Survival, Inc. President Cliff Kincaid discusses the significance of this discovery.