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by Danny Haiphong

Feeling not a bit ridiculous, so-called progressives carry signs depicting the right-wing billionaire Donald Trump under a hammer and sickle flag. TheDemocratic Party and its loyal white liberal base have spearheaded adangerous Neo-McCarthyist campaign that pits anyone who doesn't align with the Democratic Party line a dupe of the Russian government. The truth is, Trump is a (ruling) classmate of Clinton. Its a war within the One Percent.

Donald Trump is a lot of things, but a communist is not one of them. Yet signs sporting the communist symbol of the hammer and sickle have been spotted in protests against Trump across the country. These signscould be seen at the Women's March in Washington D.C. the day after the inauguration as well as the most recent "Not my President" rallies in a number of US cities. White liberals have been the primary messengers of the false connection between Trump and communism. Behind them is the Democratic Party, whose loss in the Presidential elections has intensified only intensified their anti-Russia narrative.

Many left groups and activists have become energized by the election of Donald Trump. Anarchist and socialist formations have taken to the streets in opposition to the Trump Administration. Trump's proposals to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and create an even more Wall Street-friendly regulatory apparatus are indeed affronts to anarchist and socialist principles. But so too should the Democratic Party's claim that Russia meddled in the elections in favor of Donald Trump. TheDemocratic Party and its loyal white liberal base have failed to provide convincing evidence that links Trump to Russia. Instead, these forces have spearheaded adangerous Neo-McCarthyist campaign that pits anyone who doesn't align with the Democratic Party line a dupe of the Russian government.

The neo-McCarthyism of white liberals and their friends in the Democratic Party is completely detached from reality, as most lies are. Those who link Russia to communism ignore the fact that Russia has not been under a socialist, Marxist-oriented planned economy since 1991. It was in the Western-backed destruction of the Soviet Union where the US was caught meddling in the so-called "democratic" elections held in 1996 in favor of Boris Yeltsin. Under Yeltsin's reign, poverty exploded andlife expectancy for men decreased fiveyears all in the name of "shock therapy."

The US and Western-backed destabilization of the Soviet Union allowed global capitalism to spread its misery unfettered from pesky socialism. Russia came under the control of oligarchs concerned only for their own enrichment and that of its billionaire partners in the West. The transition of power to Vladimir Putin in the 21st century led to a number of reforms that curbed the disastrous looting of the nation by the oligarchic bandits. Putin and his allies vowed to build an independent, capitalist Russia that was capable of determining its own affairs free from US and Western domination. Such an orientation placed Putin in direct confrontation with US imperialism's plans for unipolar global hegemony.

It is this context that white liberals and the Democrats work hard to ignore. The Democratic Party's loss to Donald Trump has laid bare US imperialism's existential crisis. Anti-communist, anti-Russia narratives provide a useful distraction from the symptoms of the crisis. These symptoms include a stagnate capitalist infrastructure with nothing to offer but joblessness and poverty, an increasingly repressive state apparatus built on the racial oppression of Black Americans and the surveillance of all Americans, and endless warfare that produces nothing but chaos. Trump took advantage of the vacuum left by these unpopular policies; but to acknowledge this means to acknowledge the bankruptcy of the system.

Furthermore, Trump as an individual is the antithesis of communism. Communismisdefined as the final stageof economicdevelopment. The basis of communism is a classless global society made possibleby economic conditions of abundance made possible by a worker-controlled socialist state. Under communism, the state has "withered away" -- or in other words become gradually irrelevant to the needs of humanity. The state is rooted in the formation of class society where a separate body mediating the conflict between classes is necessary to maintain the power of the oppressing class. Without classes, there is no need for such a formation to exist.

Donald Trump is a member of the capitalist ruling class. Communists worldwide have struggledto overthrow this class for well over a century. Trump accumulated his fortune from the exploitation of labor's surplus value, which is true of any billionaire. His class position alone makes him an enemy of communists. By this logic, Trump should be a friend of the ruling class. However, Trump has come under fire, and not just from Democrats. Leading Republicans such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham and billionaires like the Koch Brothers have all voiced their opposition to Trump.

Ruling class antipathy towards Trump is rooted both in the anti-communism of the past and the crisis of the present. John McCain and Lindsay Graham insist, without proof, that Trump is an agent of Russia. A section of the billionaire capitalist class has other concerns, such as the viability of an Administration that openly targets the extremely profitable undocumented labor force. The capitalists aligned with the Democratic and Republican Party establishments view Trump as a blemish and a stain on the political legitimacy of the system. Trumps very presence in the White House is a reflection of a broader economic crisis of the system.

Trump and his administration must be opposed by the left on every front when it comes to its attacks on working people both here and abroad. The fact is,even if such opposition must intensify, the corporate assault on working people was a staple of prior administrations. Trump's bigotry may not becoded like prior administrations, but it certainly isn't new. What is new is the revival of McCarthyism and anti-communism brought to us bythe so-called "progressive" wing of the US capitalist state.

The arbiters ofneo-McCarthyism have significant institutional power. Ask Michael Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor. Flynn was dismissed not too long after US intelligence caught him having a mere discussion with Russia's Ambassador to the US. While Flynn was dangerous in his own right for his position on Iran, his ouster provides no cause for celebration. Flynn's forced removal reveals that in many cases the Neo-McCarthyist faction of the establishment can determine policy without the aid of the executive branch.

The Neo-McCarthyist agenda of the ruling class cannot be defeated merely by forcing Trump into an early exit from the Oval Office. Only the independent organization expressed by the oppressed and working class masses can push back against the forces peddling the false connection between Trump, Russia, and communism. The popular struggle against this false connection will reveal the decrepit state of imperialism and the true character of communism. Communism was embraced by Black revolutionaries such as Assata Shakur, W.E.B. DuBois, and Harry Haywood. In order to follow their example in a manner applicable to the current period, we must refuse to align with the ruling class forces seeking to bury Trump with anti-communist and anti-Russia lies.

See the original post:
Contrary to White Liberal Opinion, Donald Trump is no Communist - Black Agenda Report

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Speaking at an event to mark Memorial Day for the Victims of Communism on Saturday, the populist leader noted the left wing ideologyemerged in the 20th century as an intellectual product of the West [but] in the end it was we Central Europeans who were forced to live under this originally Western idea.

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Orbn underlined that, in the West, communism remained nothing more than a theory, providing tingling intellectual excitement [for] meddlesome global utopians such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, prominent figures in Fabian socialism accused of acting as apologists for the Soviet Union.

He recalled how many members of the Western intelligentsia, artists, writers and politicians self-proclaimed progressives praised the genocidal communist dictatorship.

It is difficult to believe that it was not obvious to them that those whom the Soviets regarded as class enemies or as dangerous for any other reason were being deported to slave labour camps.

The Fidesz leader criticised the EU in particular for its failure to condemn the crimes of communism, which he believes can be traced back to the fact that, while an international military court passed judgement on the crimes of Nazism, after the collapse of communism representatives of the free world did not arrive at a similarly strict verdict.

In Central Europe, however, even after a quarter of a century we still remember the nature of tyranny the reminders of which are everywhere.

According toOrbn, it is those reminders which have enabled Hungarians to understand that they can only be free if they never again surrender their sovereignty a reference to his recent vow to stop the EU from withdrawing ever more powers from [its] member-states and centralising them in the Brussels bureaucracy.

Today in Hungary we live in freedom and safety; we have a bright future that we have chosen ourselves unlike communism, in which we had only stifled energies and boarded-over skies, he said.

We can only have a future if it is both free and Hungarian; only a country of free Hungarians has a future.

The number of people killed by communist regimes in the 20th century is estimated at 94 million. Survivingcommunist regimes such as China and North Korea continue to be noted for their use of censorship, political repression, and arbitrary detention often in Soviet-style labour camps to quash dissent.

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Hungary's Orbn: EU 'Still Making Excuses for Crimes of Communism' - Breitbart News

JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - It is largely agreed that the history of a nation helps shape the character and attitude of its citizens. From all the accounts that influence people's minds, horrible events of the past apparently play the most pivotal part.

For Indonesia, the alleged coup attempt on Sept 30, 1965, blamed on the now defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), is a past horror that has affected people's minds.

Many consider the incident a thorn in the flesh, which is why communism is listed among the subjects to be discussed in the amendment to the Criminal Code (Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Pidana or KUHP), which is now underway.

During the deliberation of the draft revision to the KUHP, both the House of Representatives and the government share the opinion that Marxism-Leninism is a serious threat to the nation's unity and integrity.

The decision to address communism in the bill is said to anticipate a revival of communism in the wake of China's growing presence as an economic force and due to a borderless world that gives Indonesians access to "foreign" ideologies.

This happens despite the fact that China is leading a global campaign for free markets, the antithesis to communism.

Not only have our policymakers ignored this phenomenon, they have also turned a blind eye to other thoughts that could potentially split the nation, such as radical Islamic ideology that wants to form a caliphate in Indonesia.

So serious is the perceived danger that opposition to state ideology constitutes a crime that can be charged under three articles, namely Articles 219 and 220 on the propagation of communism and Marxism-Leninism and Article 221 on attempts to replace Pancasila, the official philosophical principles of the state.

Legislators have argued that these anticommunist provisions are needed to prevent the reoccurrence of another 1965 tragedy, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and led to the stigmatisation of former PKI members, supporters and their families.

The communist phobia is indeed alive in Indonesian politics. One famous example of this paranoia was the massive campaign linking Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to communism when he ran for president in 2014.

Civil groups have ridiculed the idea that communism is the number one ideological threat. However, state institutions, the military and also some Islamic organisations remain steadfast in pushing their phobic narratives.

As part of precautions, the danger of communism and extreme thought must indeed be taken seriously. However, the extra attention against them must not justify oppression and abuse of power, such as happened in the past.

While we agree that democracy is this country's philosophical foundation, measures taken to prevent and counter radical thought must not go against democratic principles. Any legal action taken against the supporters and perpetrators of radicalism should follow the rule of law, or else the democratisation that we have all witnessed will move backwards.

The Jakarta Post is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 22 news media entities.

The rest is here:
Alert about revival of communism? Yes, Paranoid? No: The Jakarta Post - The Straits Times

Competition is surging in China, where local rivals are chipping away at (Apple iphone) market share.

While still a total police state, 35 years of somewhat free markets with their attendant innovation have lifted literally hundreds of millions out of millennia of poverty. While material lives remain modest by our standards, 88 percent of households have television and seemingly everyone is yakking on a phone of some sort.

By contrast, shortly after the death of Fidel Castro, our neighbor Cuba - which has the talent to have the highest Latin living standard - remains in the pit. There are no cell phones; about 5,000 have internet access (which does not even rise to 0.1 percent). Not that there is anything to watch, but the number of households with television is a state secret.

To rub it in a bit, a large part of that Cuban talent is here working hard and paying taxes. Castro is one of history's bad guys, although praised here as one of the most charismatic figures of the second half of the 20th century. He gets no points from me on that. Think of who might get the prize for the first half?

I would give some leeway for idealism of his revolution in the 1950s, but when everyone in the world outside North Korea realized it didnt work, he stuck to the failed model and his people continue to suffer.

Communism is cool, read the headline. A generation has been born and entered young adulthood since what Germans call Die Wende, or the turn. That wall and the Soviet Union are gone. Surprising numbers of millennials hold favorable impressions of Marx, Lenin and even Mao. It is time for a look back.

My experience started with a glorious college year in England. I met this girl, now wife, at the foreign student club from Dresden, then communist East Germany. She had been able to leave, but left close family behind. Then there was that spring break student trip overland by train across Europe and into Russia. It was Moscow, Leningrad and a stop in Warsaw, Poland, on the way back.

Of things the Russians did right, trains were up there, as well as city subway systems. Their good impression was well planned. The student guide was always with us. At each stop, there were always friends to talk with us. They did not pretend it was a workers paradise but things were going fairly well and they supported the system. We felt free and would occasionally meet people on the street who were less content with things. No one in our group spoke other than English except me and my German. Russians are good at languages and if one spoke German we could talk. I recall three times the guide came up and interrogated in Russian as to what we were up to. They seemed a little suspicious. No one of us wanted to trade for their system but the show they put on was well choreographed. Poland, though, was an easier-going place.

Planning a trip to Cuba? You will get the same show. Fairly content people living a simple life and while not in paradise letting you know things are better than in 1959. Same line in Russia: 1967 was better than 1917. Wow! What an accomplishment!

Three years after the Russia trip, it became the real thing, visiting the sister left behind. We grew quickly close. They laughed, they loved and there was enough to eat but somehow in a black and white film with a heavy hand on our shoulder. Everyone knew, as Cuba today, that slight criticism of communism or the leadership meant jail. In 1980, we wound up on the not wanted list but were able to make a one-day visit in East Berlin. Our goodbye was a wave from opposite sides of the Wall. Happy ending when our State Department helped bring them to freedom in 1984.

Then there was Renata, the communist cousin in Berlin. We could only see her when she was with her parents near Dresden and later, as she rose in the party, not at all. In 17 years, one letter signed as though it was from someone else. It was 1980 and she and her daughter were watching a hockey game from the U.S. (you know which one) and she said it made them feel close to us. Those few words had to go a long way.

When we reunited after the Wall went down, her first words were the people choose freedom." I didnt say but sure thought that people have a funny way of doing that.

Recently, I had a student from Cuba. He had been on the Cuban junior tennis team. They went to Mexico, he bolted and headed north, probably making an illegal crossing of our soon-to-be-walled border, and on to an uncle in Florida. He planned the escape when he was 12. Keep that in mind when people down there tell you how happy they are.

How to help? We believe in face to face. Forget delegations and orchestrated cultural exchanges. Tourists are the answer and by the millions. American can be loud and disrespectful of certain local norms. With cell phones and laptops, it wont long before the communist masters will feel that they are very uncool.

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Carson Varner is a professor of finance, insurance and law at Illinois State University.

Originally posted here:
Varner: Communism is cool 2/26/17 - Bloomington Pantagraph

In my desperate attempt to avoid the clich that is person-sitting-in-coffeehouse-working-on-laptop, I opted for a slightly different food and drink outlet to write in: a bar. Not very imaginative or dissimilar to a coffee shop, you may think. And youd be right. But this bar caught my attention for a very specific reason: it was a celebration of all things communism.

Its walls were adorned with communist iconography; posters of Lenin and Mao, images of Fidel Castro draped in Cuban flags. Even Stalins picture made an appearance on the front of the bar. The dcor was also rather peculiar, with the bar itself made entirely out of wooden pallets, and camouflage netting suspended from the ceiling acting as a room divider. Sandbags and oil drums were also placed at varying spots on the floor to finish off the pseudo-revolutionary feel.

As I ordered my drink and took a seat, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that there in front of me were pictures of the most vile human rights abusers, collectively responsible for the suffering, misery and death of many millions (granted, Stalin and Mao are in a league of their own in this regard). And yet, the members of staff and fellow patrons never batted an eye. The food menu, too, read like a list of crass jokes: The Mad Mao and The Totalitarian. What next? Goulag Goulash? Pol Hot Pot?

This whole experience provoked a serious question: given the great suffering communism has inflicted, why does admiration for this totalitarian ideology frequently go unchallenged?

These attitudes are in no way restricted to South London taverns, either. Communists and their apologists are found throughout society. Only recently, and to many peoples bemusement, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell read from Chairman Maos Little Red Book in parliament in an effort to goad the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and Conservative MP George Osborne. To be clear, thats a British MP, belonging to a major British political party, deeming it acceptable to read from a book authored by a man responsible for the deaths of at least 40 million people. Despite McDonnell receiving criticism for his actions, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington Diane Abbott sprang to his defence, stating: I suppose, on balance, Mao did more good than harm. McDonnell responded to his critics, claiming it was just a joke a rather unsatisfactory retort.

Other political areas such as the May Day trade union parades have also come under fire in their failings to deal with the Stalinist and Maoist banners that still feature in the march. One must wonder as to how onlookers would have reacted if Nazi or fascist emblems had instead been flown. I suspect passing liberal-leftists would have, quite correctly, openly expressed their disgust and contempt at the rallys participants, with arrests being made shortly after. But this didnt happen, so why the double standard?

These same hypocrisies seep into other spheres too, with music and the arts being particularly blind to the ideologys ills. LA rock band Rage Against The Machine, who performed at many anti-Nazi and anti-fascist events, frequently sported the red star, hammer and sickle, and other symbols synonymous with communism. Speaking as a huge fan of the band, I was always mildly confused as to how a music group could directly quote George Orwells 1984, a polemic against Stalinist totalitarianism, all the while decorating their equipment and clothes with Soviet iconography. Cognitive dissonance at its very finest.

Communism, like other totalitarian ideologies, is troublesome because it treats people as infinitely malleable lumps of putty. But, as any cognitive scientist will tell you, this isnt how the mind works. As the great Steven Pinker puts it, we arent blank slates that can be forever shaped and moulded. And it is for this reason that so many perished at the hands of these dogmatic ideologues.

So why, then, is communism let off the hook? Why in contemporary culture are communist leaders not despised in the way fascist or Nazi leaders rightfully are? There doesnt appear to be a simple answer. Clearly the overall death count of these regimes isnt a deciding factor in peoples minds, particularly as the communist dictators body count is far largerthan any Nazi or fascist government. The great WWII historian Roger Moorhouse suspects Nazi Germany is thought of in a more negative light due to the putrid, pseudoscientific side to the killings carried out by the Nazis. Furthermore, even in its Nazi guise, Germany was a fundamentally civilized and educated society, adding to the shock when such an advanced country slid into dictatorship and genocide. Others, such as renowned entomologist E. O. Wilson, said of Marxism: Wonderful theory. Wrong species. My guess is no one would ever say this about the repulsive ideological underpinnings of Nazism.

Personally, I suspect that to many people communism represents an anti-establishment and rebellious ideal. Can you imagine Rik Mayall portraying a comedic Nazi version of his poetry-writing, anarchic character in The Young Ones? Me neither. But while to some communism remains a symbol of rebellion or nonconformity, this doesnt make up for the masses of bodies it has left in its wake. Its time to cease the flirtations with this totalitarian ideology. The double standard must end.

Read the original here:
It's Time To End The Flirtations With Communism - Conatus News