Leftists Love The "Bad Boys" Of The World

   

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Why The Left Loves Totalitarians Like Fidel Castro

I pity people who celebrate the life of Fidel Castro in a knee-jerk reaction to salve their consciences for having committed themselves to failed and morally bankrupt ideas.

By Paul Bonicelli

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Progressives’ and leftists’ outpouring of praise for Fidel Castro at his death was to be expected, although it has been more fulsome, tone-deaf, and cloying than I expected. For just a few examples see President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Rational and moral people, however, will rightly ask, “How would anyone aware of Castro’s more than 50 years of human rights abuses mourn the death of a tyrant who was both an intellectual and moral idiot, much less praise his legacy?”

The Left Loves Collectivism

I have a few possible answers. First, many people on the Left sold their intellects to socialism and statism long ago. Great numbers of academics, politicians, and entertainers embraced Castro as he rose to power then ruled for decades as a socialist dictator, because he represented the practical application of their ideas.

Also, he clearly irritated the same people who irritated them: conservatives, Republicans, Cold Warriors, etc. Every human rights violation, every social and economic disaster that resulted from his foolish socialist policies, and every military adventure he launched with his oversized Soviet-backed military, was forgiven if not outright praised.

As a graduate student in the early 1990s I marveled at highly educated, decent, and kind men and women in academia forgiving Castro every sin and justifying everything he did because, I suppose, “He’s our guy.” It seemed so childish to me. After all, I thought Gen. Augusto Pinochet was better for Chile than a Soviet-allied Marxist politician would have been, but I hardly excused Pinochet’s human rights crimes or pretended he was perfect. I also wasn’t confused about who was better for U.S. national security interests.

Pretending Science Can Govern Is Attractive

Second, many on the Left seem to have an affinity for any leader—dictator or democrat—who claims to govern according to science, whether that be “scientific socialism” or just plain old numbers-based public policy. Rather than work out a view of anthropology and seek to truly understand human beings according to our nature, it is far easier for some to default to the materialist view of humankind.

Assume “economic man,” and then crunch numbers. That way you can avoid moral judgments and just keep stressing that the right amount of technical tweaks and educated guesses will produce economic viability and social peace. Above all, ignore the “moralizers” who keep harping about all those eggs being broken without the appearance of an omelet.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Third, and this is a more immediately relevant reason for celebrating Castro, maybe the Trump derangement syndrome that affects so many on the Left has enhanced their desire to praise whatever they think is the opposite of the people and ideas that just won the 2016 presidential election.

Remembering how Trump galvanized the Cuban-American vote with his articulation of views that lined up with Castro’s critics, and knowing who his advisors are, the Left was ready for his statement at Castro’s death on Friday. Sort of a “If he’s for it then I’m agin’ it!” attitude prevailed upon them.

Add to that their innate understanding that Castro always represented the leftists’ elitist ideas about the paramount role of the state and that Trump’s victory represents the uprising of their opponents, they had to over-praise and ignore any failings of their champion. Take your pick, but these answers probably cover most of Castro’s fans.

The Cold War Is Back

Finally, Castro’s death and the outpouring of praise from his fans should remind us about the essence of the Cold War: it will never really be over, because it was always more than a geopolitical struggle between two nation-states. It was and is a struggle between those who value the liberty of the individual above all else versus those who embrace utopian dreams of a state than can solve all problems and make everyone happy, as long as the “right people” are in charge.

I pity people who celebrate the life of Fidel Castro in a knee-jerk reaction to salve their consciences for years of having committed themselves to failed and morally bankrupt ideas. They are not ignorant or stupid: they know Castro was a murderous tyrant who built a slave-state and ruined his country and has handed on that legacy to his brother who is even now planning to leave it to their heirs, helped along by the foolish policies of the American president and others in the West who always think their goodwill gestures and magnanimity will bring everyone around to a better way. Pity them or not, however, we cannot absolve them of accommodating the Castro brothers’ crimes.

I hope that the Cuban democracy movement will be emboldened and that with a new U.S. administration we can return to policies and declarations that support what has always been the North Star of the morally and intellectually correct side of the Cold War: individual human liberty.

Paul Bonicelli serves as director of programs at the Acton Institute. His career includes a presidential appointment with Senate confirmation as assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development; as a professional staff member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives; and as an official delegate to the United Nations General Assembly.

The The American People Are Quickly Approaching A Decision. Will They Go Toward Freedom And Smaller Government Or Towards A Powerful Bigger Government With Significantly Less Freedom.What Is Your Choice?

The French Revolution comes to America

POSTED AT 4:01 PM ON MARCH 2, 2016 BY TAYLOR MILLARD

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American voters are angry. They see both parties as corrupt, unstable organizations which care nothing about their constituents, and only about staying in power. Voters see the parties only interested in handing out favors to their rich friends, and not doing things which would help everyone. They’re doing their best Bruce Banner imitation by turning into The Populist Hulk after warning politicians, “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” for years. This isn’t just Republicans flocking to Donald Trump, but Democrats seeing Bernie Sanders as a possible alternative to Hillary Clinton (super delegates aside). Voter angst isn’t anything new, but the size of the anger has really caught a lot of party leaders and commentators off guard. It’s allowed Trump to win nine primaries and one caucus because voters see him as an expression of their own rage. Trump is even reveling in the fact supporters idolize him as the best way to “stick it” to the Republican Party.

The fury and fervor is why the 2016 election is as close to the French Revolution as America will ever get. The conditions are similar with people being out of work, a mostly stagnant economy, rising costs of health care and other products, and a country which seems weaker than it has in the past. People are desperate, so they’re throwing their lot in with the one guy they believe will get them to the next level. It doesn’t appear anyone will be physically led to the guillotine, but the anger certainly has the chance to send the Republican Party to the chopping block. One graphic proclaims Trump as executioner to lop off the heads of the GOP Establishment. What’s interesting is that Michigan Congressman Justin Amash seems okay with political landscape falling apart, as long as it correctly sorts itself out.

He has a point, but the question is how does that realignment happen? Is it going to be free markets vs. more government interventionism or will it fall along some other kind of line? Will those who prefer liberty over the police state be willing to team up with others on this issue, even if they don’t agree on the economy? How will those who care more about social issues feel about the realignment, and will they ally with traditional leaders or be willing to team up with people who put other issues first? Will the conditions destabilize such that other countries decide to call in their debt markers to make sure they get some kind of money? The center cannot hold, but it will be curious to see how the realignment happens, IF it happens. There are a lot of variables, and there’s a chance liberty will be killed in the chaos. But there’s also a chance a realignment will allow liberty to flourish and give everyone the chance (but not the guarantee) to rise and thrive. Amash certainly has an idea of what the short-term alignment is going to look like, but it doesn’t mean that’ll be long-term.

So what do those in the freedom and liberty movement do, now that it appears the populists are running amok? There are two options: give up or keep fighting and educating those who are willing to listen. The former is obviously the easiest, and the idea of “Going Galt” is certainly extremely appealing (especially to those who believe in a far weaker government). But even the heroes in Atlas Shrugged didn’t completely separate themselves from the world. They waited for the right time to come back and start educating people on the awesomeness of free market capitalism and more limited government. Everything had to truly go to Hell in a hand basket, and hopefully that won’t happen in the real world.

This is the harder, but potentially more fulfilling road. Freedom and liberty advocates have to keep trying to educate those who are willing to listen. This means waiting until the anger dies down and people stop being drawn in by either Trump or Sanders. It also means figuring out the best way to tailor the message because it’s not worth talking to someone about the lofty goals of “freedom” or the Constitution without providing clear examples of why it matters to them. It means being able to describe on a basic level how the plant worker is being choked out by government regulations decreeing how or where he can install certain parts. It means telling the college students up to their eyeballs in debt that the government is partially to blame for college being so expensive because they’re the ones sending cash to universities, and the “tuition free universities” don’t really exist. It means going to black and Hispanic neighborhoods and saying, “Yes, the government is to blame” for causing the disparities of drug arrests, then explain why it’s important to do justice reform, get rid of mandatory minimums, and (possibly) decriminalize marijuana. It means coming up with an actual solution on health care (that’s not government controlled or directed) and suggesting maybe it’s best to allow people to buy their own health insurance or to point them towards cash only doctors who don’t take insurance. This is a responsibility freedom and liberty advocates HAVE to take on for themselves if they want to advance the idea of smaller, weaker government. There’s plenty of anger out there, but which ideas are going to fill the void once it dies down? Will it be the ringing bells of freedom or the death toll of slavery and statism? This is what the French struggled with in the late 1700s and early 1800s and what the U.S. is struggling with today.

From The Mouth Of A Former Communist--America At A Pivotal Point

EX-COMMIE SPYMASTER WARNS OF RAPID 'AMERICAN DESCENT'

U.S. progressives ‘concealing the road to Marxism,’ says top defector

Published: 14 hours ago

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Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa was the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West. He exposed the massive crimes and corruption of his former boss, Romanian President Nicolae Ceauescu, giving the dictator a nervous breakdown and prompting him to post two different million-dollar bounties on Pacepa’s head and send assassination squads to the U.S. to find his former spy chief and kill him. Pacepa, at 85, today lives in the U.S. as a “proud American citizen.”

Gen. Pacepa teamed up with Prof. Ron Rychlak to write “Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism,” which was published last year by WND Books.

In this WND interview, Pacepa was interviewed by William McIntosh, producer for Miami-based national talk-show host Bill Martinez.

WND: In your most recent book, “Disinformation,” co-written with Ronald Rychlak, you wrote from your conviction that the socialist transformation of a society happens thanks to its effective waging of a campaign of disinformation and fooling people, often involving labeling things a certain way and even changing names. Help us to understand this and illustrate how this can happen.

PACEPA: Hiding the ugly face of Marxism has become a science – remember Lenin’s phrase “useful idiots” to describe those in the West who naively promoted Marxism without knowing what it really was? Stalin perfected this Marxist science. At his request, all East European countries “liberated” by the Red Army at the end of World War II began their march toward Marxism by donning socialist masks. Just months after the Red Army “liberated” the Kingdom of Romania, Stalin merged that country’s Communist Party with the Social Democratic Party, producing the Workers’ Party. East Germany went the same way. Overnight, the old Communist Party, which had become infamous after being accused of setting the Reichstag on fire in 1933, was renamed the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The Hungarian Communist Party, which had created the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, was quietly re-christened the Hungarian Working People’s Party. Most East European governments similarly concealed their road to Marxism by posting innocuous nameplates at the door, such as People’s Republic or Popular Republic.

Pacepa’s best-selling “Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism” is available at the WND Superstore

WND: And this disinformation continues now in 2014 in America?

PACEPA: Indeed. For example, who will now dare mention socialism? That term has become a scarecrow as well, and so we now have “progressivism” and, of course, its adherents – the “progressives.” I hope you’ll help to open America’s eyes that progressivism and progressives are code words for socialism and socialists, whether or not those who use such benign terms to describe themselves are even aware of this.

WND: So how do we frame the debate in this war being waged on all media fronts, and in living rooms, social gatherings and even boardrooms?

PACEPA: In my view, America’s infection with undercover Marxism should be the most important political topic of our day. In every country that became Marxist, the transformation process began with undercover Marxism, disguised as various kinds of free lunches.

I walked in undercover Marxist shoes over many miles and for many years, and I am convinced that if the Democratic Party has its way, it will use undercover Marxism to transform the United States into a socialist country in all but name.

WND: Gen. Pacepa, you are known for making some dramatic statements from time to time. Your perspective as a former high-level Marxist with knowledge of the inner workings of communist methods and notions of progress can be eye-opening for us. What do you have to say concerning recent political and economic trends in the U.S.?

PACEPA: Listen, I will answer by simply taking a quote from an article titled “American capitalism gone with a whimper” that was written 10 years ago and published in Russia’s Pravda, a new newspaper with a famous Cold War name, which learned from the past because it says it all: “It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.”

WND: Who is sounding the alarm in American society today about this development?

PACEPA: A few conservative commentators, like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, have warned that Marxism is infecting the United States, and Whistleblower, a small but courageous magazine, dedicated a whole issue to “Marxism, American-style.” But almost never do the Republican Party or even the tea party even mention the danger of Marxism in America.

WND: And why not?

PACEPA: Well, as I was recently quoted in an online publication called “Mourning for America”: “I would only say that a new generation of Americans who have reached voting age and who have no longer been taught real history in schools, along with most of the people belonging to the 47 percent of households paying no taxes that Mitt Romney mentioned, became fascinated by Marx’s utopia – ‘to each according to his need.’ Millions of Americans cheered. Some electoral gatherings looked like Ceausescu’s revival meetings. … They were galvanized by the prospect that a new administration would force rich Americans to pay a part of their own health care, mortgages, loans and school tuition.” The Republican Party and the tea party movement have not engaged these 47 percent; they have not seriously tried to affect their thinking. Apparently they thought that they had 53 percent solidly on their side last November.

WND: Do you ever think some sinister cell of the KGB had a role in this unbelievable transformation?

PACEPA: No, it is not the KGB hand. No, we do not need to ask the Kremlin to help us. It is our problem.

WND: What is the trigger behind all this? And what should now be done?

PACEPA: People love free lunches, and undercover Marxism is threatening to become a U.S. national policy. People who love free lunches will certainly vote for them again, unless our conservative movement will explain to them with stunning clarity and power that the redistribution of wealth is stealing, and that the sudden economic collapse of the Marxist Soviet Union dramatically proved that stealing does not pay, even when committed by the government of a superpower.

WND: One senses that you really want to tell America something, to shout it from the rooftops even though, at 85, some would wonder whether you have the type of energy you had in 1987 when you wrote “Red Horizons: The True Story of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption.” What do you want to shout to the USA in no uncertain terms?

PACEPA: The last century has proven beyond doubt that, in the end, the only thing that results from Marxism is countries that end up looking like trailer camps hit by a hurricane and Marxist leaders roasting in Dante’s Inferno.

WND: Strong words! Who made it, in your view, to hell?

PACEPA: All Marxists who have ever risen to lead a country have ended up in hell – all, from Trotsky to Stalin, Tito to Enver Hoxha to Mátyás Rakosi, Sékou Touré to Nyeree and Hugo Chavez. All had their days of temporary glory, all tried to transform their countries into monuments to themselves, and all ended in eternal disgrace. Some, like Khrushchev and Ceausescu, were initially even found unworthy of having their final resting place marked by any gravestone.

Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa

WND: Anyone else headed there, in your opinion?

PACEPA: A few remnants, like Fidel Castro, are still hanging on, but they certainly have a place in hell reserved and waiting for them.

WND: Do you think Americans are cognizant of the consequences of their political choices?

PACEPA: I have my doubts. This brings to mind an August 5, 2012, article published in the New York Times about a group of 21 people in San Jose, Calif., who were treated for burns after walking barefoot over hot coals as part of an event called “Unleash the Power Within,” starring the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. I really liked the unvarnished comments the article’s author, Oliver Burkeman, made when he wrote: “If you are anything like me … a cynical retort might suggest itself: What, exactly, did they expect would happen?”

I also ask this question to America: What did you expect to happen by voting to bring Marxism to power in the United States? I also hope that President Obama will abandon his craze for Marx’s utopian creed, “to each according to his need.” The first black American president should have a place of honor in our country’s history, not disgrace.

WND: Your life since defecting to the U.S. has seemed to return to its initial leanings. Despite your long sojourn in the orbit of Marxist government activity and service to that cause, in your younger days you also had a great regard for America.

PACEPA: That is true. I grew up with picture of the U.S. president hanging on the wall of our house in Bucharest. My father, who spent most of his life working for the representative of General Motors in Romania, loved America, but he never set foot in this country. For him, America was just the place of his dreams, thousands of miles away. For him, the American president was its tangible symbol. At the end of World War II, we had President Truman on the wall. For us, and for many millions around the world, he had saved civilization from the barbarism of Nazism, and he had restored our freedom – for a while. From the Voice of America and the BBC we learned that America loved Truman, and we loved America. It was as simple as that. Overnight, however, communism triumphed in my Romania and such sentiments could then earn you a jail cell or a firing squad. Those of you who love America had better wake up and act now.

WND: Does the political right in America need to change its strategy at all?

Next November the voters will decide whether to preserve America as the undisputed leader of the world, or to transform it into a permanently debt-ridden socialist realm based on Marx’s utopian precepts. Unfortunately, our conservative movement has so far focused this critical electoral campaign almost exclusively on an anti-Obama strategy. I fear our conservative movement will dramatically lose the 2014 elections if it focuses them exclusively on bashing President Obama rather than on defending our country from the noxiousness of Marxism – that is, effectively exposing the entire “progressive” agenda” – which is stealthily infecting the United States.

Robert Kennedy – not one of my favorite people – once said: “I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done.” Kennedy understood what the presidency was all about, whatever we may think of what he planned to do if given the mandate, and he seems to be even more right today than in his time. Marxism has set our country on a very perilous course.