A Trail of Marxist Breadcrumbs

In the real world Communism has been discredited as a system. When the USSR failed, it proved that ideological socialism coupled to the apparatus of state terror is no way to run a country, though it is an effective way to create Hell on Earth. And yet Marxist and Communist memes persist because there are still useful idiots lurking like parasites who continue to spread Marxist propaganda to people who never thought about it.

A Trail of Marxist Breadcrumbs

Min Lee, Communism Comment Costs Wang Investment

HONG KONG — Chinese-American director Wayne Wang says mainland Chinese investors backed out of his new movie, "A Thousand Years of Prayers," because he refused to cut one of the characters' criticism of Chinese communists.

Wang says Chinese investors who had offered to cover half of the movie's production budget asked him to cut dialogue where the father character says, "Communism is good. It just fell into the wrong hands (in China)."

Maggie's Farm, Antonio Gramsci and "the long march through the culture"

It is difficult to understand what has been happening politically in the US and in Europe for the past 30 years without understanding the influence of Gramsci (1891-1937) on Western Leftist thinking and strategizing.

Gramsci was a clever Italian neo-Marxist who realized that the West, due to its prosperity, its increasingly-wide access to education and opportunity, social mobility, and its readiness to repair injustices (due to its Judeo-Christian morality), would never be amenable to a violent proletarian socialist revolution.

So he came up with Plan B, which is often termed "Gramscian tactics."

Maggie's Farm again, Thinking about Gramsci

And then next I happened to stop by David Warren for my weekly visit and read Reconstructing the Family. Yes, it's about Gramsci again.

This stuff is everywhere. Am I a victim, a pitiful captive of counter-revolutionary Bourgeois Thought which causes me to believe that this stuff is utter, malevolent nonsense?

Speaking of that "Reconstructing the Family" article, David Warren, Reconstructing family

for several generations now, in its colossal arrogance, the Nanny State has been presenting itself instead as everybody's ultimate mummy and daddy, though allowing the institution of marriage to continue. The adult citizen was treated more and more as a child, incapable of making decisions autonomously. Over time, the citizen in turn has responded to this by manifesting many child-like qualities, leaving the government to clean up after him.

In the last few years, we have gone beyond this, so that now the government presents itself as the champion of various “alternative” ways to raise children. In doing so, it has taken upon itself the function of what Josef Stalin called “the engineer of human souls,” forging some post-modern variant of the “new socialist man” -- albeit without any clear conception of what that man/woman should be.

Yet on several fronts, the pendulum is finally returning, and governments themselves are beginning to realize, with some alarm, the scale of the disaster they have caused.

Moonbattery, Michael Bloomberg Echoes Michael Moore

Michael Moore is widely recognized as perhaps the most profoundly vile human being to acquire access to the public stage as a result of the abhorrent propaganda he spews. A particularly contemptible example is his infamous comparison of the terrorists killing our troops in Iraq with the Minutemen who helped found this country. Appallingly, we now hear this same obscene comparison from the Mayor of New York.

[...]

The difference from Moore is that Mayor Mike speaks from idiocy rather than malice. Fortunately the conspicuousness of this idiocy will spare us all from any serious threat of a Bloomberg presidency. If only Hillary were dumb enough to make public comparisons between Islamic terrorists and the Minutemen.

Times of India, Ex-King of Bulgaria was KGB spy, says leading opposition leader

"There are undisputed facts and documents proving that Simeon, the ex-king, was noticed by the Russian KGB in the early 60s and was later offered money to pay his gambling debts in exchange for his collaboration with the service," Yanev was quoted as saying.

The accusation comes as the country delves through its Communist-era files to discover the identity of former collaborators and informants, the daily claimed.

However, the 70-year-old former king has refuted all the allegations. He said that the latest accusations were only intended to smear him in the run up to upcoming local polls.

Megan McArdle, Losing weight the Castro way

1. Step one: impose a strict socialist regime.

2. Step two: Cling to said regime long after communism has failed in the rest of the world. The resulting economic collapse will force everyone to drastically reduce their caloric intake, and increase their activity level.

EarthTimes, Latvian premier: Gang of former KGB agents operating in Latvia

Riga - A criminal group composed of Soviet-era KGB agents and former and present special service agents is operating in Latvia, the country's prime minister said Thursday. "We know people, their names, concrete crimes, we have testimonies, but we haven't detained anyone yet," Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis said.

The criminal gang - allegedly linked to certain politicians - is believed to be involved in extortion and drug trafficking in the small Baltic EU country, he said.

Kalvitis did not disclose any names, but called on President Valdis Zatlers to hold a special national security council meeting "as soon as possible."

Lev Navrozov, Shostakovich and Stalin: Symphony as propaganda

The “new Soviet culture,” that is, totalitarian propaganda, wanted a Soviet Beethoven. In his last (9th) Symphony, Beethoven greeted a new era of mankind. And here this era came—originally into Soviet Russia. So the new live Beethoven was to hail it!

But Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, already in rehearsal, in 1936, was found by his owners just gloomy. Where is the Beethovenian joy of the new era of mankind?

Shostakovich withdrew his Fourth Symphony from the rehearsal and wrote his Fifth Symphony, which delighted “Pravda.” that saw in it Beethoven’s “grandiose vistas”! No, it was not gloomy, but “tragically tense”!

So far, so good. Shostakovich was a slave, and a slave has to do and be what his owners want him to.

But he overdid his fear by writing across the score of his Fifth Symphony: “Creative reply of a Soviet artist to just criticism.”

AFP, Bush says Castro rule near end, urges 'free' polls in Cuba

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — US President George W. Bush, in a speech to the UN General Assembly here Tuesday, called for "free and competitive elections" in Cuba, saying the long rule of ailing President Fidel Castro "is nearing its end."

"In Cuba, the long rule of a cruel dictator is nearing its end," he told world leaders gathered here, in a reference to Castro.

"The Cuban people are ready for their freedom," he added, stressing as the communist-rule island enters a period of transition, "The United Nations must insist on free speech, free assembly and ultimately free and competitive elections."

As Bush uttered those words, the Cuban delegation led by Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque walked out in protest.

Update

Beard of Wisdom, Why Communism Fails

the assumption seems to be that Communism establishes a communal set of goods which tempts people to take more than their fair share, so the system breaks down. But can anyone think of a Communist or socialist country in history that has ever managed to accumulate such a set of communal goods to be shared? I can’t. Because in order to get that community stock of goods, you have to confiscate them from their prior owners, which means you have to centralize power and probably use violence. Human nature being what it is, there will always be someone who will hijack this mechanism for his own benefit. So, long before the Tragedy Of The Commons or the Incentive Problem rear their ugly heads, there will be tyranny.

Thus the problem with Communism isn’t that it always breaks down, but that it will can never really begin.

Max Delany, An Inside Track to Putin's Kremlin

From his ground-floor office, at the end of a marble corridor lined with portraits of his Soviet predecessors Leon Trotsky, Felix Dzerzhinsky and Lazar Kaganovich, Vladimir Yakunin runs a state within a state.

As president of the country's second-largest corporation, Russian Railways, Yakunin controls an empire of steel and movement that spans 11 time zones, employs a work force bigger than the population of Estonia and has a budget larger than those of many developing nations.

Now, Yakunin is being touted as a dark horse contender for the Kremlin thanks to a resume with KGB-like gaps, links to Vladimir Putin's most intimate St. Petersburg circle and a post in an influential Orthodox organization.

Technorati Tags: Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Progressive, Leftism