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My Socialist Past
The American Thinker ^ | March 15, 2009 | Jeffrey Folks

Posted on 03/15/2009 2:46:56 AM PDT by Scanian

"Socialism, a luxury of the wealthy. To the poor, a suicidal creed ..." --David Hare, A Map of the World

Anyone who has lived inside the demoralized, unproductive, gray prison of a communist state, as I did in the mid-1980s, knows to what depths of impoverishment the egalitarian fantasies of socialism inevitably lead. They lead to decades of frustrated poverty and lifetimes of untreated illness culminating in early death. I remember the columns of death notices for men and women in their forties and fifties that appeared in the local newspaper. Gradually I learned to associate those death notices with the lack of fresh foodstuffs, the travesty of state health care, and the pervasive demoralization of an enslaved population drowning itself in cheap alcohol and cigarettes.

Gradually I came to understand that the condition of life under communism, so filled with repression, suspicion, and hopelessness, dragged one down into an early grave. Gradually I saw that within the communist state everyone-everyone except the leadership of course-subsists in a cage of gnawing bitterness and permanent defeatism.

Unnumbered lives were sacrificed on the ungodly altar of communism in the last century, not only in my temporary abode of Yugoslavia but throughout eastern Europe, Russia, and much of Asia, Africa, and South America, and now the American Left wishes to revive this monstrous ideology on our own shores. Every totalitarian regime begins with the same heartfelt promises of justice and equality, just those promises of fairness that Barack Obama has made the fixation of his political career. What tyrant, one might ask, has not risen to power on promises of benevolent change?

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: bho2009; bho44; communism; fascism; liberalagenda; marxism; obama; socialism
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To: InterceptPoint; yankeedame

Goes back even further:

“...and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal....”


21 posted on 03/15/2009 5:40:47 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: Scanian

save...read later


22 posted on 03/15/2009 5:44:42 AM PDT by Rumplemeyer
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To: PeaRidge; InterceptPoint; yankeedame
Goes back even further: “...and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal....”

Lincoln was a Marxist? News to me...

23 posted on 03/15/2009 5:50:03 AM PDT by Old Sarge ("Remember, remember, the Fourth of November, the Socialist treason and plot...")
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To: InterceptPoint

It goes all the way back to Cain and Able. Cain who figured he could get all of his brother’s gain, just by bumping him off.

...and prior to that, one “son of the morning”, called Satan, who figured he could bump off God and collect all the glory.

The more things “change”...both of the above got their reward.


24 posted on 03/15/2009 5:52:00 AM PDT by wita
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To: Scanian

Just goes to show once again that Communism/Socialism is a concept that works on paper, but not in human nature.


25 posted on 03/15/2009 5:57:34 AM PDT by autumnraine (Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose- Kris Kristoferrson VIVA LA REVOLUTION!)
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To: SE Mom
This piece should be required reading by every member of Congress

26 posted on 03/15/2009 5:59:48 AM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: livius

“aristocratic titles”

Class divisions and aristocracies have been implemented in america already. That was what most came to America to get beyond.


27 posted on 03/15/2009 6:00:01 AM PDT by mo
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To: Scanian

Those who have lived it see the Obama program for what it is.


28 posted on 03/15/2009 6:05:09 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Obama: Carter's only chance to avoid going down in history as the worst U.S. president ever.)
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To: Scanian

Excellent and poignant article.


29 posted on 03/15/2009 6:05:37 AM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: PeaRidge
Goes back even further:

“...and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal....”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Absolutely a false comparison!

All men are "created" (i.e. born) equal: we enter life naked, squalling, and totally unable to care for ourselves.

The difference between socialism and freedom is what we choose to make of ourselves from that time forward.

30 posted on 03/15/2009 6:09:55 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...!!)
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To: Scanian
Excellent article.

What I fear more than Obama's "redistribution of wealth" is his "redistribution of rights."

What God has given us, the government wants to take away.

31 posted on 03/15/2009 6:13:54 AM PDT by Jess Kitting
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To: Scanian

Recommended reading: the chapter in Atlas Shrugged where the bum recounts the story of the Starnes heirs and what they did to Twentieth Century.


32 posted on 03/15/2009 6:36:47 AM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast (American Revolution II -- overdue.)
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To: Old Sarge; PeaRidge
Groan. It's the equality of rights (US Constitution); not the equality of condition (Karl Marx).

Please, please, please learn the difference or find another forum on which to substitute Marxism for Constitutionalism.

33 posted on 03/15/2009 6:49:16 AM PDT by Justa
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To: Scanian
Indeed, the American Left has extended all sorts of cover to Chavez, not least of which aid is a determined effort to remain mum about the massive abuses of personal liberty and property rights under his rule. Not a word of reproach was uttered when Chavez seized the production of American oil companies, costing American retirement funds billions of dollars. Perhaps nothing was said because so many Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have publicly expressed the same desire to seize the profits of oil companies.

This was during Bush's term wasn't it? The Democrats wouldn't have said anything of course, but how about Bush and the Republicans? I don't remember them saying much of anything either.

34 posted on 03/15/2009 6:55:14 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: TXnMA

Very good comment, but I think you misunderstood my point.


35 posted on 03/15/2009 7:05:44 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: Justa

Exactly.


36 posted on 03/15/2009 7:07:54 AM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: Scanian

A horrifying glimpse at the future that Obama wants to force on us all.


37 posted on 03/15/2009 7:09:12 AM PDT by behzinlea
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To: Yardstick

Bush probably didn’t say anything because this was an ongoing legal case at the time (the oil companies sued to get their assets back). However, in general, he was very timid on Latin America. After the VZ coup, where he congratulated the Venezuelan people and then it turned out that our State Department was busy working away to make sure that Chavez didn’t get executed or even deported, and in fact got restored to power, he was subjected to very harsh criticism for having publicly opposed Chavez. Once the Dems got power in Congress, they attacked both Bush and the conservative opposition in Latin American countries and made it clear that they were supporting not only Chavez, but any leftist nut who rose to power in the other countries down there.

The only thing Bush held fast on was supporting Colombia, which did pay off, although the Dems fought tooth and nail to take away the funding for that and it’s unlikely that we will continue to support Colombia in the future. They’ve already pretty much killed the Colombian Free Trade pact, and will do everything they can to bring that country down because it is a symbol of the successful anti-left in Latin America.


38 posted on 03/15/2009 7:23:04 AM PDT by livius
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To: Yardstick

The Republican meekness and silence in the face of Chavez’s bombast and bellicosity remind me of the line in “The Second Coming” by Yeats: “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full passionate intensity.”


39 posted on 03/15/2009 7:27:29 AM PDT by behzinlea
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To: Scanian
....there exist in all the world only three true bastions of faith in the state-planned economy. Those three diehards are the totalitarian rulers of communist North Korea, the aging dictators of communist Cuba, and the left wing of the Democratic Party of the United States.

Fantastic!

The new (or current) axis of evil.

Just about every sentence in this article is a gem. It should be a mandatory semester in high-school or college, with every sentence occupying a single day's class.

Sadly, only a few people will get to read this article, and of course, that's why and how the democrats are able to get away with their dastardly ideology. The dumbed-down masses are the allies of socialism and communism.
40 posted on 03/15/2009 7:38:50 AM PDT by adorno (<br><br>)
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