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When many of us were growing up in the 50s and 60s the word communism was looked upon as the replacement of democracy by the totalitarian state; the loss of individual freedoms. Today the term communism has been pushed aside by references such as radical Islam. But sadly communism is alive and well and on the march again and its a word that our lame stream media avoids.

For those of us who spent our youth in New York City its hard to believe that at the helm of Americas greatest city sits a communist supporter; a sympathizer. But thats exactly whats happened.

Mayor Bill De Blasio was considered just a run-of-the-mill liberal until the New York Times on Sept. 23 ran a profile of the candidate, disclosing in a matter-of-fact manner his travels to Cuba and Nicaragua, involvement in a communist solidarity movement, and embrace of Islam as an emerging political force.

Bill de Blasio spent time as a left-wing supporter and activist for Nicaraguas ruling Sandinista party at a time when the Reagan administration characterized it as tyrannical and Communist.

Today he is at war with the NYPD over his initial support of the street demonstrators after meeting with race baiter Al Sharpton and ending in the death of two of New Yorks Finest. Its also not surprising that members of the Revolutionary Communist Party are in among those demonstrators holding pre-printed signs with RVCOM at the bottom.

A name you wont hear is that of co-founder of RVCOM Carl Dix, who in October 2014, called for a month of resistance to mass incarceration, police terror, repression and the criminalization of a generation. A search under the name of Carl Dix found that Carl Dix is a longtime revolutionary and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. In 2011, he co-issued a call for a campaign of civil disobedience to STOP stop and frisk which proved effective in New York City and contributed to lowering the crime rate.

In the city that never sleeps, as in other big cities across our nation, the cancer of communism continues to grow following the words of the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel who said, Never let a serious crisis go to waste ... its an opportunity to do things you couldnt do before.

It illustrates what happens when so many uninformed voters go to the polls and give no thought to the outcome of their actions.

But there is hope now that a new Congress has been sworn in and its our job to see that they take their oath of office seriously when they raise their right hands and state that, I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;

And its our job to raise our voices when an executive order is used to do an end run around our Constitution. We are a Republic and as such it is the Congress that carries out the will of the people, not one man in the oval office.

Read more:
Letter: Little-used word

Long walled off from world trade and modern technology, Cuba has developed a robust culture of DIY engineers who turn household items into useful inventions. Water pump motors propel bicycles, clothes dryers are repurposed into coconut shredders. Cuban artist Ernesto Orza has spent the last decade photographing and collecting many of these creations. Read more about Cuban inventions in our Science Wednesday piece, How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers.

Lamps made from household items like glass jars and toothpaste tubes. Photo by Ernesto Oroza & Penelope de Bozzi

LEFT: Cuban inventor Yolando Perez Baez demonstrates his engine-starting device which can work in the place of a starter motor-a component that frequently fails. A large weight is hoisted up and dropped to spin a flywheel to start motors around the farm. Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters RIGHT: Farmer Carlos Frachi invented a crop irrigation system using soda bottles. Photo by Enrique De La Osa/Reuters. Read more about Cuban inventions in How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers.

The electric engine from the widely-owned Soviet Aurika washing machine is commonly repurposed. Clockwise from left, in the photos above, the motors have been repurposed as coconut shredder, a key duplicator, a grinding wheel, and a shoe repair tool. Photos by Ernesto Oroza. Read more about Cuban inventions in How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers.

Childrens toys built from glue bottles and plastic bottle caps. Unfortunately, all of this creativity is motivated by profound poverty and desperation. For this reason is it hardly enjoyable for anyone involved, Oroza says. Photos by Ernesto Oroza & Penelope de Bozzi. Read more about Cuban inventions in How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers.

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Photo essay: The bizarre, brilliant and useful inventions of Cuban DIY engineers

Just outside Havana, in the childhood bedroom of illustrator Edel Rodriguez, a washing machine engine welded to a boat propeller has become a makeshift fan. This kind of cobbled-together contraption is common in Cuba. So are stoves that run on diesel from trucks, satellite dishes made of garbage can lids and lunch trays, and taxi signs consisting of old fuel canisters.

Cubans are masters of invention. They have to be. In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower slapped the first trade embargo on the country, and in 1961, just before leaving office, he broke off diplomatic relations. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the loss of oil imports, shortages got worse. The country lost about 80 percent of its imports, and the economy shrank by 34 percent.

A market started with people who can rig things up, said Rodriguez, who was born and raised in the small Cuban farm town, El Gabriel. In 1980, at age 9, he fled to Miami with his family on the Mariel boatlift, and he now lives in New Jersey. Its what Cubans have been in the last 60 years just really inventive with things.

Ernesto Oroza, a Cuban-born designer who now lives in Miami, said several factors played a role in the DIY phenomenon. A high percentage of Cubans had engineering degrees, thanks to a system of free education. Many became intimately familiar with the mechanics of the standardized socialist products found in most homes the Soviet-designed Aurika washing machine, for example, and the Orbita fan. Plus, no one was untouched by the crisis.

Musicians, medical doctors, workers, homemakers, athletes and architects all had to dedicate themselves to making their own things and meeting the emerging needs of the family, Oroza wrote over email in Spanish. The Cuban home became a laboratory for inventions and survival.

Oroza, who has spent decades collecting, studying and writing about these objects, has a name for the phenomenon: technological disobedience. Cubans, he said, werent deterred by complexity or scale, and they learned to disrespect the authority of objects. That meant rethinking their original purpose and life cycle.

People scoured the city for plastic objects and industrial discards and swiped garbage from city dumpsters, which theyd grind up and inject into molds to make toys, dishes, electrical switches and footwear. The magazine Popular Mechanics was a hot commodity on the island.

Industrial products were tinkered with and examined by hand, Oroza said. Cubans dissected the industrial culture, opening everything up, repairing and altering every type of object.

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How communism turned Cuba into an island of hackers and DIY engineers

Religion vs. Communism | In Praise of Christianity!
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By: Stefan Molyneux

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Religion vs. Communism | In Praise of Christianity! - Video

WASHINGTON Theres an old Cold War joke pre-pantyhose that to defeat communism we should empty our B-52 bombers of nuclear weapons and instead drop nylons over the Soviet Union. Flood the Russians with the soft consumer culture of capitalism, seduce them with Western contact and commerce, love bomb them intofreedom.

We did win the Cold War, but differently. We contained, constrained, squeezed and eventually exhausted the Soviets into giving up. The dissidents inside subsequently told us how much they were sustained by our support for them and our implacable pressure on theiroppressors.

The logic behind President Barack

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WASHINGTON Theres an old Cold War joke pre-pantyhose that to defeat communism we should empty our B-52 bombers of nuclear weapons and instead drop nylons over the Soviet Union. Flood the Russians with the soft consumer culture of capitalism, seduce them with Western contact and commerce, love bomb them intofreedom.

We did win the Cold War, but differently. We contained, constrained, squeezed and eventually exhausted the Soviets into giving up. The dissidents inside subsequently told us how much they were sustained by our support for them and our implacable pressure on theiroppressors.

The logic behind President Barack Obamas Cuba normalization, assuming there is one, is the nylon strategy. We tried 50 years of containment and that didnt bring democracy. So lets try inundating them with American goods, visitors, culture, contact,commerce.

Its not a crazy argument. But it does have its weaknesses. Normalization has not advanced democracy in China or Vietnam. Indeed, it hasnt done so in Cuba. Except for the U.S., Cuba has had normal relations with the rest of the world for decades. Tourists, trade, investment from Canada, France, Britain, Spain, everywhere. An avalanche of nylons and not an inch of movement in Cuba towardfreedom.

In fact, one could argue that this influx of Western money has helped preserve the dictatorship, as just about all the financial transactions go through the government, which takes for itself before any trickle-down crumbs are allowed to reach the regime-indenturedmasses.

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Charles Krauthammer: Nylon strategy for Cuba a pure giveaway - Sat, 03 Jan 2015 PST