Time to reject the United Socialist
States of America USSA
Past is prologue: America is more like Soviet
Russia than you might expect, by: Benjamin Weingarten 9/16/16
Could America have its own version
of a Russian Revolution? With Vladimir Putin’s modern-day authoritarian
intelligence state inserting itself into the 2016 American
presidential election, the question is more timely than
you might think. More unsettling — putting aside Russia’s meddling in American
affairs — is the argument that such an ideological revolution is already well
underway.
A recent essay in The New Criterion
by Gary Saul Morson illuminates this chilling thesis. As a professor of (among
other weighty subjects) Russian literature and the history of ideas at
Northwestern University, Morson is uniquely qualified to comment on the
parallels between the two nations that previously represented opposing poles of
political philosophy. In his piece titled “The house is on
fire!” Morson explains how the Soviet
Union’s bloody communist past has great bearing on America’s present and
future.
Morson, that perhaps rare,
intellectually honest professor at a major American university, surveys
communism’s past and reasonably suggests — with its millions of victims from
the Soviet Union, China, and Ethiopia — that communism ought to be considered
on par with Nazism in terms of its barbarism and our revulsion to it.
Yet curiously, Prof. Morson writes,
likely alluding to his peers in the academy, In intellectual circles … such comparisons taint
not Communists, but the person who makes them. This in spite of the
ghoulish
revelations from the Soviet archives – from Mitrokhin to Stalin
– hiding in plain sight. Morson gives an example:
Our
knowledge of Bolshevik horrors expanded dramatically when, after the fall of
the Soviet Union, its archives were opened. Jonathan Brent and Yale University
Press brought out volume after volume of chilling documents, but public opinion
did not noticeably change. How many readers of The New
York Times know about its role in covering up the worst of Stalin’s crimes and
earning a Pulitzer Prize (still unreturned) for doing so?
I
understand being so carried away by Communist ideals that one denies or
justifies millions of deaths. What amazes me is that people and publications
who have done so still feel entitled to criticize others from a position of
moral superiority. More on that Pulitzer story here and here.
The refusal to acknowledge
communism’s history of genocide — and for the “lucky” ones starvation, misery,
and the constant need to look over one’s shoulder — in particular among the
nation’s progressive elite, has real consequences. As does the inability of
said progressives to acknowledge a link between collectivist ideology and its
dire consequences. To many such people, it is the intent of the ideas — using
the state to “help others” and thus create a utopia — that matters, even if the
ends prove cataclysmic.
And the pervasiveness of political
correctness powerfully attests to the idea that the roots of communist ideology
have insinuated themselves in the American mind, manifesting themselves in
every aspect of our culture.
Look no further than the viability
of a Bernie Sanders presidency in the same country that several decades ago had
supposedly vanquished communism for the corrosive effect of such an ethos. No,
Bernie is not a communist in the sense of being a Bolshevik or Menshevik. But
his ideas are based on the same socialist principles underlying those
movements, and they are geared toward similarly disastrous ends. His
ideological and political differences with the communists of yesteryear are a
matter of degree, not kind.
The idea that wealth redistribution
is moral, and that the provision of goods and services by the state is a
legitimate function have tremendous sway in America.
And the pervasiveness of political
correctness powerfully attests to the idea that the roots of communist ideology
have insinuated themselves in the American mind, manifesting themselves in
every aspect of our culture.
If there is an underlying subtext to
Prof. Morson’s piece, that is the harrowing reality. Consider several of the
communist bigwigs that Prof. Morson quotes, and the relevance of their
positions to our nation at present:
Delivering
a toast on the twentieth anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power, Stalin
declared: “We will destroy each and every enemy, even if he was an old
Bolshevik; we will destroy all his kin, his family. We will mercilessly destroy
anyone who, by his deeds or his thoughts — yes, his thoughts! — threatens the
unity of the socialist state. To the complete destruction of all enemies,
themselves and their kin!” … Georgy Arbatov, adviser to five general secretaries
of the Soviet Communist Party, observed that “the main code of behavior” was
“to be afraid of your own thoughts.”
In America we do not destroy
political enemies by sending them to the gulag or grave by way of mysterious
“accidents,” but we do so in more subtle, nuanced ways: Think of the IRS
Scandal, selective
enforcement of laws, harassment at the hands of federal agencies, etc.
But thought control — a.k.a.,
political correctness — is a much more powerful tool. It calls to mind a
certain former secretary of state’s comment in front of the Organization of Islamic Conference on
“combatting religious intolerance.” Then-Secretary Clinton spoke to a group of
Sharia supremacists about the need for Western nations to use “some
old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming” to counter language
offensive to Muslims.
Who needs a formal, state-controlled
cultural police force when people will self-censor lest they draw the ire of
friends and colleagues?
A direct government threat may be
happily distant for most Americans, but fear of social ostracism for holding
beliefs conflicting with the prevailing progressive orthodoxy is ever-present.
Who needs a formal, state-controlled cultural police force when people will
self-censor lest they draw the ire of friends and colleagues?
Prof. Morson quotes Felix
Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, a secret police force and precursor to the
KGB used to purge (read: assassinate thousands of people) Russia of “enemies of
the state” during the so-called Red Terror. Dzerzhinsky wrote in a journal aptly
titled, “Red Terror”:
We are
not waging war against individual persons. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie
as a class. During the investigation, do not look for evidence that the accused
acted in deed or word against Soviet power. The first questions that you ought
to put are: To what class does he belong? What is his origin? What is his
education or profession? And it is these questions that ought to determine the
fate of the accused.
True, the scale of violence in
American class warfare is incomparable to that of the Soviet Union and China —
rooted though it may be in the same Marxian philosophy and ethics and geared
toward consolidating all manner of power in the hands of the state. Different
cultures are different. But Dzerzhinsky’s questions are telling.
From railing against “millionaires
and billionaires” of America’s most prominent political figures to the
pervasive social justice warrior rhetoric on white privilege and the patriarchy,
Dzerzhinsky’s premises are more apparent in American society than anyone might
care to admit. And perhaps most stunning of all, we as a nation cannot see it
and do not know it. This blindness, ignorance, or combination of both speaks to
the effectiveness of a communism that we may have “vanquished” in a
conventional sense – the Soviet Union fell, albeit without its murderous
leaders ever being put on trial and punished for their crimes – but the ideas
of which are powerful as ever.
Prof. Morson quotes Lenin, who said
“Morality is entirely subordinated to the class struggle of the proletariat.”
The means are what matters. Ends are irrelevant. The struggle is inherently
moral. Get on the “right side of history.” This is how you get the Affordable Care
Act the effects of which are diametrically opposed to its name.
Prof. Morson quotes Trotsky on the
Communist Party: Comrades,
none of us wishes or is able to be right against his Party. The Party in the
last analysis is always right, because the Party is the sole historical
instrument given the proletariat for the solution of its basic problems ... I
know that one cannot be right against the party. It is only possible to be
right with the Party and through the Party for history has not created other ways
for the realization of what is right.
The progressivism that pervades our
government, our media, and our schools — as well as the consequence of not adhering to such an ideology —
testify to the power of The Party.
Prof. Morson continues: Is it any wonder that those who reject human
rights, treat people in terms of friendly or enemy groups, place no moral
limit on action, and are certain that whatever they do is right should wind up
committing colossal evil?
Although the Left in America would
take issue with the idea that the violation of individual liberty represents a
rejection of human rights, does any statement better describe the party of
class warfare, Clintonian notions of right and wrong, and all manner of
disasters from Obamacare to open borders and suicidal “Countering Violent Extremism”?
Prof. Morson concludes his piece on a
sobering but well-taken note: Perhaps
my training as a Russian specialist distorts my judgment, but as I contemplate
the ideas spreading from the academy through society, I fear, a century after
the Russian Revolution, a tyranny greater than Stalin’s. Comrades, the house is
on fire.
Bad ideas have bad consequences. Don’t Miss The left's Russian diversion [VIDEO] PC bureaucrats tread upon our free speech
[VIDEO] More Twitter censorship concerns [VIDEO] REPORT: Obama's ‘Countering Violent
Extremism’ programs are a 'catastrophic failure' - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/09/america-is-more-like-soviet-russia-than-you-might-expect#sthash.rjTdbcBH.dpuf
Comments
I totally
agree with this article. This is our Bolshevik moment has arrived. Trump’s
refusal to accept political correctness and left wing claims like global
warming that make no sense.
My
friends who have emigrated from Russia to the US have been spreading the word
that the US media acts exactly like the Russian media. They repeat the same news using the same
phrases. It’s like the news from the US
media is censored and fed to the masses, just like Russia. Too many US citizens
drank the Kool aide and parrot the Liberal code words like racist, sexist,
homophobe and islamophobe. These are code words for traditional free market
economy Americans, who support the US Constitution (as written) and who reject
global crony capitalism and prefer nation-centered the free market
“protectionist” economy that made us great in the first place.
The
corporations who have joined the Marxists will convert back to becoming
Americans after November if Trump wins. They will follow the money. They will
adjust their operations to fit Trump’s recovery plan.
Our best
hope is to elect Trump in November and hound our elected officials to begin to
act normal and repeal all laws and regulations that support the Liberal
Fantasies.
The UN
has failed in its lame attempt to implement the “new world order” based on the
global warming hoax. Like all past
attempts to make Communism work, this one has failed.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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