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In a Halloween tweet thats since gone viral, Donald Trump Jr. jokingly (although who really knows these days?) took the opportunity to impart an important political lesson to his cute little daughter.

Perhaps he should share his wisdom with millennials.

According to the latest survey from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a D.C.-based nonprofit, one in two U.S. millennials say they would rather live in a socialist or communist country than a capitalist democracy.

Whats more, 22% of them have a favorable view of Karl Marx and a surprising number see Joseph Stalin and Kim Jong Un as heroes.

Really, thats what the numbers show.

Millennials now make up the largest generation in America, and were seeing some deeply worrisome trends, said Marion Smith, executive director of the organization. Millennials are increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.

But do they even know what it is?

The survey, which was conducted by research and data firm YouGov, found that millennials are the least knowledgable generation on the subject, with 71% failing to identify the proper definition of communism.

Smith explained that this troubling turn highlights pervasive historical illiteracy across the country and the systemic failure of our education system to teach students about the genocide, destruction, and misery caused by communism since the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago.

Other findings include the belief held by 53% of millennials that Americas economic system works against them, which is the same percentage in the prior study. Meanwhile, 66% of Gen Z, ages 16-20, say the system works for them.

When it comes to the wealth divide, Americans seem to be on the same page, with 80% saying its a serious issue, up from 78% a year ago. They also mostly agree (68%) that the highest earners dont pay their fair share in taxes.

This report clearly reveals a need for educating our youth on the dangerous implications of socialist ideals. Smith said. We will continue to work with educators to build curriculum to address this important need.

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Millennials: Communism sounds pretty chill - MarketWatch

Communism - Marxism & The Communist ManifestoCommunism, which is also described as "Revolutionary Proletarian Socialism" or "Marxism," is both a political and economic philosophy. The abridgment of Communism is enclosed in two primary writings: (1) The Communist Manifesto, which was first published in 1848 by Karl Marx, and (2) Principles of Communism, by Friedrich Engels. At the request of the Communist League, an activist group they were members of, Marx and Engels together authored The Communist Manifesto. The main goal of The Communist Manifesto was to focus on class struggle and motivate the common people to riot. Even more so, it was designed to envision a model government, whose economics would destroy the upper class - freeing the lower class from tyranny. According to The Communist Manifesto, Communism has ten essential planks:

Communism - Atheism and AmoralityCommunism doesn't end with economic and political reform. By definition, it further demands the abolition of both Religion and the Absolute Morality founded upon Religion. The irony is that Communism supposedly attempts to enhance civility within society, but removes all notions of Absolute Morality, the very cornerstone of civility. Furthermore, after Communism is instituted by the people, the system becomes Totalitarian, resulting in greater oppression of the people it was designed to "serve." This fact is well documented throughout the history of Communist nations.

Communism - Foundation in CzarismCommunism, though distinctive, is thought by some to have been heavily influenced by Czarism, a Totalitarian regime replaced by Communism after Russia's 1917 Revolution. While most of Europe's history has been symbolized by the rule of limited centers of power, Russia resisted Europe's movement to limit monarchical power. Legal historian Harold Berman writes regarding historical European political policy, "It also has been, or once was, a source of freedom. A serf might run to the town court for protection against his master. A vassal might run to the king's court for protection against his lord. A cleric might run to the ecclesiastical court for protection against the king." (Law and Revolution). Russians under Czarist rule had no such protection from the wiles of an unjust Czar. And so it is for Communists. Under Communism, the government is absolute. Under Stalin, perhaps the most notorious Communist, around 40 million Russian citizens were murdered for "the good of the state."

Communism - The Practical ResultsThe practical results of Communism have been horror and atrocity for those under communist rule. So much so, advocates of the Marxist Worldview have made every attempt to point out where communist leaders have strayed from the fundamental teachings of Karl Marx, in an attempt to absolve Communism. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Marxist influence brought about many of these horrors. The irony is, Marxism renounces religion, not because of religious doctrine, but because of the actions of "religious" men. No one could accuse a religion such as Christianity of evil doctrine. However, it seems that men are intrinsically evil and need only an opportunity to express this inherent reality. One must look at the overall outcome of a philosophical doctrine on society, both good and bad, not specific instances of abuse. Christianity, for example, has been used by wicked men to do much evil, but its underlying doctrine has been the cause of much good in the world. Communism, on the other hand, has brought only atrocity into the world. Communism has not brought relief to the majority as promised, nor has it ended oppression as purposed. Communism has only served to remove Morality from the masses -- a dangerous and costly experiment.

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Communism - Philosophy - AllAboutPhilosophy.org

Barring such a revival, the future would belong to socialism and communism, which on this view were but the most consistent sects of the new secular religion.

According to communism, history was a series of class struggles, and at the time industrial workers were pitted against their employers.

Proponents of domestic containment invoked the threat of communism to justify suppressing all elements of society that did nt meet their vision of a stable family.

In cases of crimes against humanity committed in the eras of national socialism and communism the world still applies a double standard.

Although these relations were never entirely free of frictions, tensions have increased over the two decades since the fall of communism.

In 1932, communists came into the sanatorium, and his attitude toward the autonomy of patients was mistaken for his favoring communism.

After the fall of communism political and social changes caused an increase in the number of airlines operating at the airport.

Then, political propaganda got more aggressive, informing those who had rejected the fake image of communism, that the regime reported overall success through the country, praising its achievements.

The civilian government considered joining the allies, but many officers in the armed forces and ordinary citizens objected due to fears over the spread of communism.

Their mission was to stop communism and in pursuit of that mission they would ally with anyone and do anything to fight communism.

He had read about communism since his youth, and concluded that it was a poison that would destroy humans, take away their liberties and relinquish the independence of nations.

The primitive communism stage most likely begins soon after the dawn of humanity itself, at the stage where fire is developed, and communal living therefore becomes more convenient.

Anarchism is often considered to be a radical left-wing ideology, and much of anarchist economics and anarchist legal philosophy reflect anti-statist interpretations of communism, collectivism, syndicalism or participatory economics.

The radical politics in the continent, with the spectre of nationalization, contributed daily to the feeling of confrontation, in an archipelago that was openly hostile to communism and leftist ideologies.

Their evaluation is supported, in their minds, by a quasi-scientific theory according to which the wheel of history moves inexorably towards communisma curious hypothesis because the evidence is, frankly, lacking.

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communism Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary

No, they are not true-believing Communists. No, they are not unaware of the toll of the Great Leap Forward or the Killing Fields. No, they are not plotting to undermine democracy.

But they will insist that there is an essential difference between Nazism and Communism between race-hatred and class-hatred; Buchenwald and the gulag that morally favors the latter. They will attempt to dissociate Communist theory from practice in an effort to acquit the former. They will balance acknowledgment of the repression and mass murder of Communism with references to its real advances and achievements. They will say that true communism has never been tried. They will write about Stalinist playwright Lillian Hellman in tones of sympathy and understanding they never extend to film director Elia Kazan.

Progressive intelligentsia is moralist against one half of the world, but accords to the revolutionary movement an indulgence that is realist in the extreme, the French scholar Raymond Aron wrote in The Opium of the Intellectuals in 1955. How many intellectuals have come to the revolutionary party via the path of moral indignation, only to connive ultimately at terror and autocracy?

On Thursday, I noted that intellectuals have a long history of making fools of themselves with their political commitments, and that the phenomenon is fully bipartisan.

But the consequences of the lefts fellow-traveling and excuse-making are more dangerous. Venezuela is today in the throes of socialist dictatorship and humanitarian ruin, having been cheered along its predictable and unmerry course by the usual progressive suspects.

One of those suspects, Jeremy Corbyn, may be Britains next prime minister, in part because a generation of Britons has come of age not knowing that the line running from progressive social commitments to catastrophic economic results is short and straight.

Bernie Sanders captured the heart, if not yet the brain, of the Democratic Party last year by portraying democratic socialism as nothing more than an extension of New Deal liberalism. But the Vermont senator also insists that the business model of Wall Street is fraud. Efforts to criminalize capitalism and financial services also have predictable results.

Its a bitter fact that the most astonishing strategic victory by the West in the last century turns out to be the one whose lessons weve never seriously bothered to teach, much less to learn. An ideology that at one point enslaved and immiserated roughly a third of the world collapsed without a fight and was exposed for all to see. Yet we still have trouble condemning it as we do equivalent evils. And we treat its sympathizers as romantics and idealists, rather than as the fools, fanatics or cynics they really were and are.

Winston Churchill wrote that when the Germans allowed the leader of the Bolsheviks to travel from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in 1917, they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus.

A century on, the bacillus isnt eradicated, and our immunity to it is still in doubt.

Originally posted here:
Opinion | Communism Through Rose-Colored Glasses

I was a child of the Cold War. I grew up being taught to fear the commies. They wanted to take away all my rights, make us slaves, send us to camps, nuke the planet. You know, standard scare-the-crap-out-of-a-7-year-old-with-existential-dread.

Of course, as the Cold War thawed and eventually ended because Rocky beat Ivan Drago and gave a speech, commies werent so scary anymore. Sure, their ideology was still bad, their economic philosophy was stupid, and they would never rule the world, but they werent scary.

I still dont find them frightening anymore. I mean, basically whats left of the commies is China, which is just a bunch of capitalist oligarchs; Cuba, which has become a hipster tourist destination; and North Korea, which is only kinda communist and mostly just good for the occasional nuclear annihilation nostalgia. In America, communism is pretty much the domain of millennials wholl lose interest after their first good job and the hard-core types who spend most of their time holding meetings about planning meetings to hold a rally if they can get off work. For the most part, communism is dead. Oh, I forgot Vietnam is still communist, but were friends with them, so it doesnt count.

But sometimes, sometimes I remember why communism existed in the first place. Earlier this week, Louise Linton, the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, gave a good example for why Russia isnt a monarchy anymore. She posted on her Instagram a picture of herself striding off a government jet with her husband after visiting the Scrooge McDuck vault of gold at Fort Knox, and tagged all of her expensive clothes.

Look, I get that shes rich, I mean her parents own a freaking castle in Scotland and shes married to a former Goldman Sachs guy; shes not hurting. You shouldnt begrudge peoples wealth; its one of the Ten Commandments for a reason. People just get lucky by birth or work or simply picking the right numbers and end up stinking rich, but it doesnt make them a bad person. Look at the group The Giving Pledge 158 billionaires who collectively donated $365 billion to charities. Nicki Minaj, whos worth about $70 million, just randomly decided to start paying off peoples student loans one day on Twitter. Makes me regret not following her. Theres nothing wrong with making money. There is a problem with it turning you into a jackass.

Of course, when Linton posted the photo along with the list of her designer clothes, people began to call her out. When the Secret Service is out of money because it has to guard Trumps daughter during a spending spree and pay Trump to use the golf carts at the golf courses he lives at, it's really beyond the pale that Linton steps off a government jet tagging Valentino shoes, Mouret pants, and a freaking scarf that costs at least $200 (seriously, I Googled all the things she tagged). Her entire outfit, including the purse, is two-thirds of what I make in a year. The shoes alone are just about my take-home pay in a month. But $200 or more scarf?! Its a square of fabric. Ive been to the fabric store; I can get two yards of silk for like 20 bucks. Oh, but its designer! So fucking what? I get spending a few million on a Picasso, but two bills for a fancy napkin you wrap around your throat?

When people called Linton out, she went on a big tirade about how much money they pay in taxes, talking about how much they have sacrificed for the country, and told a commenter her "life looks cute." Look, lady, unless you got no legs and PTSD from an IED in Anbar Province, you dont get to compare paying taxes to sacrificing your body for the country. Hell, Peace Corps members sacrifice more, social workers who are on welfare sacrifice more, freaking fire jumpers out in Yellowstone sacrifice more than you having to pony up some cash.

Then she had the audacity to say her critics were out of touch. Seriously. I know people who prostitute to pay back student loans. Hell, I know some who do it just to pay the rent. So when you live with a guy whose goal is to cut taxes on the 1 percent and corporations for a president who is billing the U.S. government to babysit him while he shitposts on Twitter from the 11th hole, bragging about your stupid sunglasses kind of pisses us off when a lot of us have seriously thought, You know, I could probably rob this place and not get caught, when standing in line at the 7-Eleven using change to put gas in the car.

I have a pithy saying, The best argument for communism is capitalism and vice versa. Im cool with European-style socialism; corporations make the goods and give you jobs while the government taxes them and pays for your school and health care, and will feed you and put a roof over your head if necessary.

Capitalism is cool because if youre clever enough and lucky enough, you can be fugly as sin and still get laid regularly. Communism sucks, though, because its an authoritarian regime that crushes dissent, cant run a national economy, and makes shitty cars. Capitalism can be hell too. Just go back and read about the Gilded Age. You think its bad now, but corporations basically hired out the National Guard to shoot union workers, for Gods sake, back then. Upton Sinclairs The Jungle, a novel about the horrific conditions in the meatpacking industry at the turn of the century, wasnt that embellished. I mean, unregulated capitalism and its associated robber barons and plutocrats corrupting the government nearly tore the country apart at the turn of the last century. Anarchists were setting off bombs on Wall Street for a reason back then.

At a time when our countrys government is becoming more and more beholden to special interests and lobbyists; when corporations are putting quarterly profits above the environment, and executives get multimillion-dollar severance packages for driving a company into the dirt while their workers cant afford to go to the doctor; when people have to take on a lifetime of crippling debt just to get an education so they can rise above poverty wages I mean, cmon. Do these folks just not get it? People dont believe in the American Dream anymore; they dont buy the temporarily embarrassed millionaires shtick anymore. Theyre anxious, theyre desperate, theyre hopeless, and theyre getting angry.

For a D-list actress married to a Wall Street banker whos working for a guy who is basically a grifter and store-brand mobster to tell average Americans to get over her flaunting her wealth so flippantly while using government resources paid with their tax dollars? Well, all I can say to that is, Workers of the World Unite

AMANDA KERRI is a writer and comedian based in Oklahoma City. Follow her on Twitter @Amanda_Kerri.

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Louise Linton Is a Walking Ad for Communism - Advocate.com