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Immigrants inside the United States can be denied the ability to adjust their status to lawful permanent resident on the grounds of membership or affiliation [emphasis added] with a Communist or totalitarian party, either foreign or domestic, according to new policy guidance issued Oct. 2 by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The directive refers to the immigrants as aliens.

This throwback to the McCarthy Red Scare era should be no real shock. (It is the Trump administration, after all!) In implementing this policy, our country would be banning immigrants in a way that clearly violates the Constitutions First Amendment: Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The Constitution does not carve out any exemptions allowing Congress to deny immigrantsor anyone else in the United Statesthis freedom.

The new directive from the Trump administration is a heartless and stupid rule with far-reaching, disturbing implications that could affect the lives of many trying to be legal residents of the United States immigrants who do have a belief in democracy, and who want to make a life in this country.

Being a communist is not against the law in the U.S. and the Communist Party, founded in 1919, is a legal, tax-paying entity. Legislation outlawing Communist Party membership has been ruled unenforceable by a series of court decisions. In a 1967 case, the Supreme Court ruled that one such piece of legislation, the Subversive Activities Control Act literally establishes guilt by association alone, without any need to establish that an individuals association poses the threat feared by the Government.

Contrary to the USCIS directive, communist is not synonymous with totalitarian. Across the globe, communist movements participate in political systems that could not even remotely be considered authoritarian nor totalitarian.

For example, the Communist Party of Spain, is part of a greater coalition of the Left that was democratically elected to office recently. The Japanese Communist Party is one of the largest communist parties that is not a ruling party. The JCP had 300,000 members as of 2017 and multiple members elected to the Japanese parliament and many more elected to local offices. Both the Spanish and Japanese parties are transparent, unarmed, with internal democracy practiced in their own organizations. The same, of course, can be said of the French Communist Party, the Communist Party of Greece, the multiple Communist Parties in Italy, and many others in Latin America. In Germany, the small Communist Party is constitutionally legal and there is a large communist caucus in the Left Party which has seats in the Bundestag.

It is telling that Japan, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany and almost all of Latin America have been through periods of true fascism and do not employ draconian measures to ban or limit the communists in any way. It seems strange for the USCIS to make such a point in the year 2020 to place a ban on communists becoming permanent residents. But rationality has never been a strong suit for this administration: we must assume darker, more nefarious purposes.

An election year ploy

This new policy serves two purposes for this administration. First it is a propaganda ploy lumping Communist Party membership with totalitarianism and implicitly signaling to the American public that communism represents a real and present danger that must not settle on our shores from the outside world. The USCIS is acting like an arm of Trumps reelection campaign by issuing such a directive in order to drum up the idea that there is a threat from Marxism in America today (and for an added scare factor, foreign communists could be trying to apply for residency).

Secondly, the absolute vagueness of the directive can be used to deny thousands their right to immigrate to the U.S. What defines a Communist Party? There are parties that are indeed communist with the name communist in the title of course, but there are also communist parties that do not have the title for various reasons. The Workers Party of Ireland is one example a communist party, through and through, though without being called one. The Socialist Labour Party of Croatia is another, the Workers Party of Bangladesh is another, and the list goes on and on.

There are other parties that have communist currents within them but are not communist. Would that be considered affiliation with a communist or totalitarian party under this new policy? The New Democratic Party of Canada, a soft left socialist party that has been at times an official opposition and the third largest party of Canada, has members belonging to Fightback, a Trotskyist and thus communist grouping. If a person was an active NDP member and moved to the United States, would that person be considered to have been affiliated with communists?

In a broader sense, if anyone who was an alien ever went to a BLM or anti-police protest, would that be considered affiliation with communists? It sounds ridiculous to anyone with more than two brain cells, but Trump and Trumps allies have said that Black Lives Matter is either a Marxist or communist movement. Would BLM be considered a Communist Party? It does have some Marxists and Communists involved though it is hardly a communist group. An alien who went to one protest could have Americas door slammed in their face for their exercise of the precious right of free speech.

All in all, this new policy is a combination of the ghost of Joseph McCarthy and the miserable nature of Trumps anti-immigrant directives. It will be used, abused, and directed at political enemies. Those trying to legally immigrate to the United States will be barred or have to jump through ridiculous legal hoops brought about by the worst president this country has seen in over a hundred years.

As with all op-eds published by Peoples World, this article reflects the opinions of its author.

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration: Reds need not apply - People's World

In the waning days of 1981, an estimated fifty thousand Chicagoans followed a coffin draped in a Polish flag from the Loop two miles up Lake Shore Drive to the Polish Consulate. Polish flags waved from the crowd, some adorned with black ribbons of mourning mirrored by the armbands of marchers, while drummers provided a solemn accompaniment.

I remember looking back down Lake Shore Drive and it was just a swarm of people, says Richard Owsiany, who was carrying the coffin. I had never, ever experienced anything like that before. In front of Owsiany and the coffin bearers was a sign: In memory of the victims of communism in Polandmay their deaths never be in vain.

The demonstration honored victims killed since the imposition of martial law by Polands Communist regime two weeks earlier. The crackdown, initiated by the Prime Minister, General Wojciech Jaruzelski under pressure from Moscow, followed a brief period of surprising openness in Poland.

After the ruling party raised centrally controlled meat prices in the summer of 1980, strikes broke out in every major industrial city in the country. (Increased food prices in 1970 and 1976 had also led to protests.) At the Lenin Shipyard in the port of Gdansk, workers formed a new union that they named Solidarity. Forced to bow to the widespread protests and struggling economy, the government made the unprecedented move of negotiating with workers in Gdansk, eventually leading to the registration of Solidarityinto which all the new unions across the country had coalescedon November 10, 1980. With an estimated ten million members, it was the first officially registered independent trade union in a Communist countryand an important step towards the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe.

Everybody was optimistic and thought that things were changing, recalls Owsiany, a native Chicagoan who was president of the Polish Students Club at DePaul University at the time, and is now president of the Polish Museum of America. That optimism was cut short on December 13, 1981, when martial law was declared. Solidarity was formally banned the following year.

While Poles and Polish Americans in the United States didnt experience the repression directly, many of them were deeply involved in trying to end the Communist regime in Poland from half a world away. They took part in demonstrations like the one on Lake Shore Drive and sent food, medicine, and money to support Solidarity and its dissidents. Some even participated in hunger strikes.

A pennant dating from Solidarity leader Lech Walesa's visit to Chicago following the Round Table Agreement in 1989. Image: Courtesy Polish Museum of America

Many of these activities were organized by the Polish American Congress, which had been founded in 1944 with the explicit goal of working towards a free Poland. The Polish American Congress was the lead organization in the United States and in Chicago at that time, says Owsiany, who became involved with it after graduating from DePaul.

The Chicago division was led then by the powerful Alderman Roman Pucinski, who spearheaded many of the efforts against Polish Communism, including the Lake Shore Drive march. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he helped raise $1.5 million for Solidarity over the years. On New Years Eve of 1982, he connected directly to the movement when he spoke on the phone to its leader Lech Walesa (who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia that year), in a test of government restrictions. I almost fell off the phone when Lech answered the phone personally, he said.

Walesa wasnt the only dissident that Pucinski and the Chicago division of the Polish American Congress connected with; Owsiany also recalls clandestinely meeting the prominent opposition leader Jacek Kuron in Chicago. The Congress gave him cash it had raised to support the printing of dissident materials.

I think one of the most important things was that the Polish community in Chicago never gave up during that time period, Owsiany says. Every day, across the street from the [Polish] Consulate, there was always a group of people demonstrating. Their faith in change was predicated on the fact that they were doing something.

After the imposition of martial law and the banning of Solidarity, faith could be hard to maintain. For several years afterwards, it was a difficult and scary time, says Owsiany, noting as an example the murder of the dissident priest Jerzy Popieluszko. But in its religious manifestation, faith played an important role: the Catholic Church, under the leadership of the Polish Pope John Paul II, supported the fight against Communism, and encouraged the United States government to secretly subsidize Solidarity in its underground years.

The Polish American community also played an important role in pushing the United States to support Polish dissidents, as Walesa acknowledged through an interpreter in a 2009 interview with Chicago Tonight.(Watch it below.)The Polish Americans played an extremely important role, he said. They inspired the assistance of the United States as well.

So truly speaking, Solidarity was not only [a] Polish movement, it was an international Solidarity, he continued. And people from Chicago, among others, contributed to establishing this Solidarity.

Martial law ended in 1983, and Solidarity and other dissidents continued to work underground to overthrow the Communist regime, always through nonviolent means. The economy continued to falter, especially under international condemnation for the repression of Solidarity, and prices were raised again in 1987 and 1988. In 1987, the government took the unprecedented step of asking in a vote what types of financial reforms citizens preferred, but the options were all rejected.

Under the pressure of more strikes, the Communists invited Walesa to round table negotiations in 1989, and eventually agreed to reforms, including a new, free election. Despite the Communists attempt to rig the resultsnon-Party members could only run for less than half of the seats in one body of the assemblySolidarity routed them, winning 99 of 100 seats in the newly created Senate and all available seats in the other body. It was the first free election in any Soviet country.

The Communists were eventually forced to accept the overwhelming vote, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki became the first post-Communist Prime Minister in August, 1989. Within several months, Polands Communist Party had been dissolved. Communist regimes in the Eastern bloc quickly followed Polands lead, culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

Its a beacon of change, says Owsiany about Solidarity and the end of Communism in Poland. Under a repressive regime, a nation of people organized themselves and stood up for what was right, basic human rights. I think it serves in todays world of what a nation can do to try to make change.

As the people of Polands neighbor Belarus continue to protest the disputed reelection of their longtime leader amidst a repressive security crackdown, its a beacon that remains relevantand inspirational.

Read more here:
The 40th Anniversary of the Polish Movement That Toppled Communism - And Chicago's Supporting Role - WTTW News

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Pope John Paul II and President Reagan worked together to bring an end to atheistic Soviet communism. The two had a divine plan to stop the Soviet empire that was engaged in a war on religion and individual liberties. The work of a pope and a president helped bring about the collapse of communism and yielded more freedom and opportunity for people all over the world.

During a trip to his native land in June 1979, the pope stood at the Polish Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and declared, In how many places in Europe and the world has [a fallen soldier] cried with his death that there can be no just Europe without the independence of Poland marked on its map! The courage of Pope John Paul II to call out communism caught the attention of Ronald Reagan even before he was commander in chief of the United States.

As president-elect, Reagan reached out to the Vatican during the transition period following the 1980 election. Assassination attempts on both men delayed a meeting in 1981, but a personal note the president sent soon after the pope was shot defined his admiration of the holy father and his hopes for their close relationship.

In his letter, Reagan shared, Your heroism, and the universal outpouring of love and concern which it evoked, is proof that a single irrational act cannot prevail against the basic human decency which continues to inspire most people in most places. The qualities you exemplify remain a precious asset as we confront the growing dangers of the moment confront them with confidence and faith.

The two of them did as much as any others to not only provide freedom to the people of Poland but to win the Cold War and bring down the Soviet regime. Remembering the principles they followed to accomplish this provides an essential lesson for world leaders today.

The rise of democratic capitalism, along with the collapse of socialism, dramatically improved the living conditions of people all over the world. Data from the World Bank shows that the share of the global population living in poverty was 42.3% during the first year of Ronald Reagans presidency. By 2018, it had dropped to 4.8%. That means that nearly 1.25 billion fewer people were living in extreme poverty.

In 2018, the Brookings Institution released a report saying: For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. By our calculations, as of this month, just over 50 percent of the worlds population, or some 3.8 billion people, live in households with enough discretionary expenditure to be considered middle class or rich. About the same number of people are living in households that are poor or vulnerable to poverty. So September 2018 marks a global tipping point. After this, for the first time ever, the poor and vulnerable will no longer be a majority in the world.

Sadly, most Americans believe that global hunger has increased when just the opposite is true. The number of people living in starvation-level poverty has fallen by more than 80% since 1970.

Here are the facts: Democratic capitalism otherwise known as free enterprise or entrepreneurship is the best way to fight poverty and improve the lives of our citizens here in the United States and to help people in other countries around the world.

Freedom and capitalism go hand in hand. A society must adhere to the rule of law and property rights for a free enterprise system to work. The lack of that freedom explains the failures in Poland and the rest of the areas controlled by the Soviet regime during the height of Communist control. It also explains why countries like Venezuela are in trouble today. Socialist leaders promise power to the people but deliver poverty to the masses. Last year, 9 out of 10 Venezuelan citizens lived in poverty. Time and again, its been proven that freedom is essential for the masses to benefit from a free enterprise system.

There are legitimate concerns about the impact of the global pandemic on the poorest people and countries in the world. Pope Francis wrote about these concerns earlier this week. Capitalism, however, is not the problem. Rather, the severity of the disease is driving the negative impact. The most effective way to combat this global pandemic will be to allow free markets and the private sector to drive innovation in treatment and advancement in prevention. The principles of free enterprise will drive the discovery of new vaccines and effective therapies.

We should learn from the example of Pope John Paul II and President Reagan and the lessons they gave us. Among them, when governments work to provide free and open markets along with more individual liberties, they overwhelmingly reduce poverty. Freedom and prosperity go hand in and hand.

Scott Walker was the 45th governor of Wisconsin. You can contact him at swalker@washingtontimes.com or follow him @ScottWalker.

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When Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan engineered the collapse of communism - Washington Times

Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say? This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.

"So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.

"When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.

Many Christians would undoubtedly recognize the first two of the above paragraphs as part of the Gospel according to John. The third paragraph? After the Wuhan virus, the third paragraph might be the most despicable thing emanating from a nation run by unapologetic Chinese communist thugs.

Thugs who intend to rewrite Holy Scripture so it aligns with the Politburos sensibilities.

Chinas state-run Xinhua News Agency said late last year that Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Yang had presided over a meeting of so-called scholars and religious people from the grassroots level to discuss making accurate and authoritative interpretations of classical doctrines to keep pace with the times, reveals columnist Matthew Taylor King.

The full version of the Beijing Bible has yet to be released, but the above passage was made public last week as part of a textbook for Chinese high school students. According to the Roman Catholic news agency UCA, the textbook will be used to teach those students professional ethics and law, and the above passage is a moral example, explaining that obedience to the law at all costs is an absolute necessity.

Totalitarian government demands nothing less. And while many Americans should be rightly infuriated by this wholesale bastardization of Christian beliefs and values, they ought to be just as enraged by a progressive-controlled American education system that force-feeds our own students an equally contemptible bastardization of American values and history in the form of Common Core, Critical Race Theory, the 1619 Project, and the LGBTQ agenda.

Just like Chinas Communist Party, progressives are dedicated to teaching children what to think, not how to think.

Xi Lian, a professor at Duke University Divinity School, illuminated the big picture, noting that the Chinese fear Christianity for three reasons. First, the religion is international, and thus links people in bonds of solidarity and affection that transcend national controls. Second, it is congregational, giving it the ability to mobilize a stable, reliable community capable of toppling dictatorships. Third, Christianitys transcendent vision [and] transcendent values present the Communist Party with an insuperable moral and ideological rivalry, in comparison to the CCPs Marxist-Leninist foundation, that many Chinese view as a spent force.

By contrast, Christianity is thriving: According to the book A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China, co-authored by sociologist Rodney Stark and Xiuhua Wang, the number of Christians in China is increasing by 7% per year. Thus, between 1980 and 2007, the number of Chinese Christians increased from 10 million to 61 million. If that trend continues, there will be 295 million Christians in China by 2030.

Again, while that reality is anathema to Chinese totalitarians, Americans shouldnt be too smug. As Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, noted [recently], there is a strong parallel between Chinas efforts to create a new version of Christianity and those pioneered by Protestant liberalism in Europe and America, explains columnist Tyler O Neil.

They arent alone. Last Sunday, in his latest encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All), Pope Francis asserted that the pandemic proved the magic theories of market capitalism have failed and should be replaced by a new type of politics promoting dialogue and solidarity. Pope Francis also revealed that he views the nation-state as an impediment to that agenda, adding, The limits and borders of individual states cannot stand in the way of this.

In short, the pope embraces the globalist agenda, couched in Christian terms. In doing so, he willfully ignores the reality that it wasnt the capitalists who unleashed a global pandemic and lied about it, exponentially increasing its devastation. It was the same Chinese communists intent on making a mockery of the Bible itself in pursuit of unassailable power.

Tragically, the popes current stand should surprise no one. In 2018, the Vaticans foreign minister stated that sinicization and inculturation defined as aligning Christianity with the Chinese communist worldview are the keys to Christianitys future in China.

In other words, communist sensibilities should trump Christian doctrine. How will that work? Perhaps the pope and other equally feckless Christian leaders should examine the realities of life as a Muslim minority in China, where government officials have turned that nations Uyghur Muslim population into de facto slave labor. Slave labor that produces goods for American multinational corporations, whose CEOs worship the god of market share which has reached a new high during the pandemic.

There is much more that could be said about this project, but the most important point for Americans to grasp is that the CCP has learned from the mistakes of the Soviet Union where religion is concerned, warns columnist Cameron Hilditch. Beijings co-opting, repackaging, and careful control of Christianity within Chinas borders is in stark contrast with the Soviets outright, implacable hostility to organized religion.

In America, under the banner of incrementalism, secular progressives have embraced similar efforts to undermine Christianity. And just as in China, their biggest obstacle is people of faith, who are routinely dismissed as bigots for rejecting that secularism in favor of religion.

Yet something revealing and quite timely just occurred. After Trump contracted COVID-19, the outpouring of hate from far too many progressives (with notable exceptions) revealed a stunning callousness impossible to obscure. That it happened so close to the election provides the electorate with perhaps the starkest choice among many regarding the nations future.

A constitutional republic can survive many things. Government-endorsed soullessness isnt one of them.

The rest is here:
China Rewriting the Bible to Align It With Communism - Patriot Post

LETTER from SCOTT DUNCAN

To the Editor:

I grew up in a small town in Upstate New York where the streets were lined with big maple trees. Some streets had still had slate sidewalks. There were many of those big beautiful old Victorian houses you see in villages across Central New York.

I remember marching down the street in the parades. I was a Cub Scout and then a Boy Scout. I think I even got to carry the American flag one time. We would end up at the American Legion where they would serve hotdogs and bug juice as many of the village residents milled around.

In those days I was proud of America, it was my country, it was a nation of immigrants who all came together for a better way of life. Thats the way I saw it at my young age.

As I got older I discovered the truth about many things: the shootout at OK corral with Wyatt Earp had nothing to do with justice. It was about a monopoly of gambling and prostitution.

The founding of my country was the result of mass liquidation of the indigenous species thatwere already here. Millions were murdered.

And then there was the fact that there had been wars almost every year since the founding of this country.

We are an island: Why do we invest so much in military? Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex, but nobody listened. Greed and power were too tempting.

The AMA was created to form a monopoly to drive away homeopathy doctors. It was not about freedom or a better healthcare system. The American Cancer Society was started to form a monopoly. So much power and greed.

I am embarrassed. The reality is every country in the world has blood on its hands. Its time to stop whining about the past, forget about restitution. We should just move forward as a country and try to do better America has evolved into a petty country. We think everything is black or white. Democrats or Republicans, socialism or democracy, communism or democracy.

Politicians spend time backbiting each other. Its more about their character and how much money they can put into advertising than the quality of their character or the ability to do the job.

Then there are all those people who fear socialism or communism its like they feel its an either/or situation. Sure socialism can breed lethargy, but then capitalism breeds greed and self-centeredness.

Hopefully, one of these days we will get somebody who focuses on the needs and problems of the people, not the government and corporations. The corporations have gained so much power and control they have taken away much of our freedom.

So think about what America really is and what it can be for all, not just you!

I am not well-versed in history but I think the early settlers saw this land as a place of new beginnings for all people regardless of race or religion.

A land of opportunity in fairness for all equality and justice

When its time to vote in any election, forget about what he said or she said, think about what they can do for all the people and not just the One Percent or yourself.

Its not a popularity contest, its not about protecting your beliefs. It is a responsibility to run a nation. It should be done with dignity, compassion, iron-willed determination and a love for a nation that embraces all races and religions and all economic needs in a peaceful environment.

Whether we like it or not, it is not just ourselves anymore but we are part of a global community and we had better start acting with maturity, and not like a reality TV show.

SCOTT DUNCANHardwick Forest

See more here:
DUNCAN: Come Together To Build Better U.S. - AllOTSEGO