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Last Tuesday, I had the pleasurable task of being Master of Ceremonies for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation dinner in Washington, D.C., that celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Founded in 1981, the Atlas Foundation assists the formation of free market think tanks around the world to spread the ideas of personal liberty, private property rights and limited government. So far, they have been successful in at least 70 countries. Attending the two-day celebration were think-tank representatives from many of these countries, including those from Croatia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Mozambique, South Korea, Russia and Brazil.
Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening’s keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that’s equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here’s the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.
Professor Kors asks why are the horrors of Nazism so well known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime.
It’s acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR’s hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it’s acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama’s communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao Tsetung was one of her heroes. Whether it’s the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism — a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.
Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.
Professor Alan Kors did not say this but the reason why the world’s leftists give the world’s most horrible murderers a pass is because they sympathize with their socioeconomic goals, which include government ownership and/or control over the means of production. In the U.S., the call is for government control, through regulations, as opposed to ownership. Unfortunately, it matters little whether there is a Democratically or Republican-controlled Congress and White House; the march toward greater government control continues. It just happens at a quicker pace with Democrats in charge.
You say, “Come on, Williams, there will never be the kind of socialist oppression seen elsewhere here!” You might be right because Americans have become very compliant with unconstitutional and immoral congressional edicts. But what do you think would happen if some Americans began to rise up and heed Thomas Jefferson’s admonition “Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” and decided to disobey unconstitutional congressional edicts?
Must not be that boring. Because I am telling the truth.
Well, not everything is so black and white. It also depends which side you choose to be on.
Why are you so obsessed with a tiny country called Israel?
No, I am not kidding. It is no longer funny – just plain boring.
It is useless to argue with an ideologue. People were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan during Bush presidency. He was blamed and demonized. People keep dying – and more so in Afghanistan right now – when we have B. Obama in the White House. Somehow there is silence and hope in the air. Some hope, isn't it?
I choose to be against piracy. I choose to be against gangs who stand or fall together defending, with guns, the fruits of their robbery. I'm very much in favour of democracy – unless the electorate is composed of criminals!
and this has what to do with the thread?
The first poster wrote: “We are already witnessing the beginnings of what will happen when Americans rise up and challenge the usurpation of power by the federal government. We are villified and marginalized. Laws are being passed or pushed to shut us up. As we get louder, the government will get more forceful.”
And I asked what specifically she meant. Coyote said healthcare, some possible revoking of the patriot act, and just law in general because in his mind everything is unconstitutional. Not only is he just being a jackass for answering for her, his answers are stupid. You don't seem to have anything to add either.
Bush was blaimed for the war in Iraq because he started it. His administration said it would be quick and easy and pay for itself. They declared victory years ago.
Obama is trying to wrap things up and get us out of those wars, but it's very complicated. The media establishment is currently beating him up because he is “dithering” on Afghanistan and won't just send in 40,000 more troops. What exactly should people be protesting? If Obama sends in more troops and gets mired down in Afghanistan, then you will see protests soon enough.
The official caption to most of FPM photos is:
BE AFRAID…BE VERY AFRAID
Because they're the only people who have credibly threatened to blow up me and the Vatican – do you have a second question?
Oh, and of course, they're the only people in the world to have been granted possession of territory they took by force (UN Resolution 242) and they've come came back for a second bite of the cherry – they seem to want the entire West Bank as well. (I thought sending your armies to seize “living room to the East” had gone out of fashion, but one can never be sure).
And they're the only country in the world to have legalised torture.
And they're the only country in the world to still be operating apartheid.
But most of all, I'm obsessed by Israel because, in places like this, I find people defending quite obvious criminal behaviour. Nobody defends what's happening in Darfur or Tibet or Chechnya, gun-law reigns in those places but the UN isn't yet ready to take on and fight big nations to enforce its decisions. But Israel is the UN's own creation, and its tiny. I want the UN to enforce all the dozens of resolutions that Israel is defying as a first step to dealing with other gross injustices in the world.
Is that somehow difficult to understand?
Imgood – accusing your ideological opponents of being “Western professoriate and academicians in general are sympathetic to communism and socialism” is no explanation whatsoever.
Nor does knocking Noam Chomsky, one of the giants of scholarship, do anything for your case whatsoever.
Most importantly, the backwoodsmen talk about the “Lessons of Vietnam” and yet seem completely incapable of learning them.
Remind us – what lessons did the US learn from the horrors it perpetrated in Vietnam? That nations other than the US could be re-united by force? Well, Vietnam doesn't suit your cause – it's one of the only nations in the world ever to have been divided by force!
As best I understand it, Norman Finkelstein is a main-stream Zionist who believes in Israel within the pre-1967 borders.
He is hated because he believes that Holocaust survivors have been deliberately robbed of their compensation and because he's probably correct. It's not because he's anti-Israel!
It looks to me as if Paul Sheldon Foote has interesting points of view that he's keen to share with us. It looks to me as if you have nothing to add.
Looks to me as if you're antidemocratic. Obama could not do as much damage to the US as Bush succeeded in doing even if he tried.
The interview “Norman Finkelstein: Israel is a Satanic state” provided details about why Israel will not permit him to visit Israel or the West Bank.
http://revisionistreview.blogspot.com/2009/01/n...
Paul Sheldon Foote
Democracy is often defended with guns as well. How do you judge one to be a criminal?
Bush did not exactly start the war in Iraq. That war started back in 1990 and was never finished. Bush actually tried to put an end to it by a forceful military action, which itself followed a string of military/terrorist attacks on the U.S. interests both within the country and abroad, by moslems, in the name of Islam, to which the U.S. never properly responded, and which then culminated in 9/11 massacre.
Many things went awry. But, looking back in time, no conflict in human history, followed the perfect line. So, it is too early to pronounce a judgement on the events.
On the other hand, many catastrophic failures were caused by indecision and bickering in the higher echelons of the government. One example which comes to my mind was the Gallipoli campaign fought in the middle of World War I.
In fact, from the way things look at the moment, Obama is not trying to wrap them up – he is neither here nor there, he is indecisive at best. There will always be enough people to protest no matter which line the government decides to tout. But the leader must have some backbone and be capable and not afraid of making decisions. There will always be risks involved. But grand speeches and apologies won't make up for it.
AndyFree, man – the wrld Jew also wants to have you by the balls and eat you up alive. You are an idiot, dude. And this is all there is to understand, I am afraid.
Both you and Paul Sheldon Foote are cavemen. I am sorry, but I find it challenging to counter your “truths” just like it would be pointless to argue that wine is preferrable to piss.
The little, vain, inane charlatan, pseudo-scientist Chomsky – a giant of schiolarship?! What a travesty.
Whatever gets you through the night….
Mr. Free, I was simply answering the question why commies get a free ride here; the most reasonable answer is that the academics–and their cohort in the media–are overwhelmingly sympathetic to radical, typically anti-American movements. Describing their attitudes is doing nothing more than stating a well-known fact.
Whatever success Chomsky may have had in putting forth a philosophy of language (and even that has some significant critics; see Professor Paul Postal, among many others), his political writing barely merits serious consideration. His enthusiastic, and lonely, support for the Khmer Rouge even among the hard left, even after the revelations of mass murder had come to light, reveal Chomsky to be not only a thoroughgoing moral reprobate, but also less than impressive as a scholar.
The chief lesson from Vietnam is that military and moral superiority are insufficient to win a war. A nation needs the will to do so as well. Had we prevailed and kept South Vietnam free, it might well have been the economic success story that South Korea is today.
Good point, Manhattanite
Abusing the critics of Israel is all you have left. All the “truths” are against you!
So when you've comprehensively lost the argument, you'll announce that “the world Jew” is now my enemy and that attempting sensible discussion will simply get me ignored. I wonder what feelings you seek to arouse with such a bizarre and ridiculous statement and which particular antisemitic libel you are determined I should believe.
I am not abusing the “critics” here. I am responding to a libel being presented as a critique.
No sensible discussion may be attempted with a bigot. Arguing with one is a stupidity of the highest order and a total waste of time. I do not seek to arouse any feelings in you. I was hoping for a rational argument as opposed to an encounter with something resembling an abridged Mein Kampf.