Communism's Enablers and Excusers

Townhall.com ^ | November, 2009 | Cal Thomas

[Kaslin]

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was pulled down to the consternation of leftists, who still had faith socialism could work with the right leaders, and to the delight of conservatives, who believed that socialism and communism guaranteed mutually-shared poverty.

Two years later, the Soviet Union crumbled. Soviet communism might not have endured for 70 years had it not been for enablers in academia, religion and journalism. Lloyd Billingsley has written about them in "The Generation That Knew Not Josef," as in Stalin.

When the wall fell, leftists could not bring themselves to admit they had been wrong, much less apologize for their misplaced faith. So they did what they do best: they made excuses.

The Media Research Center (MRC) has compiled reports, editorials, articles and commentary that extend over the last 22 years revealing how the pre-Fox, pre-talk radio liberal media were the handmaidens of one of the greatest totalitarian evils to strike the planet. The underlying myth in much of their "reporting," notes the MRC's Rich Noyes, was that free market capitalism was a greater threat to human happiness than communism.

Reading these quotes, in light of history, resembles a "Saturday Night Live" comedy skit.

In 1987, before the wall collapsed, CBS anchor Dan Rather said, "Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy."

Strobe Talbott, then of Time magazine and soon to be an influential member of the Clinton administration, wrote on Jan. 1, 1990, "(Soviet leader) Gorbachev is helping the West by showing that the Soviet threat isn't what it used to be, and what's more, that it never was." How is it possible to simultaneously have been a threat, but not a threat? The millions who died in gulags, starved to death or were assassinated might have a different interpretation of Russian history under communism.

After the liberation of Eastern Europe, according to the MRC, some journalists attacked capitalism for "exploiting" the newly freed workers. A Los Angeles Times reporter touted "communism's 'good old days,' when the hand of the state crushed personal freedom but ensured that people were housed, employed and had enough to eat."

In fact, Soviet communism spread misery through its own 12 time zones and in many parts of the world, though NBC's John Chancellor refused to see it. In 1991, as the Soviet coup unraveled, Chancellor said, "the problem isn't communism; nobody even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages." Wait, according to the Los Angeles Times reporter, there were no shortages because everyone was housed, employed and had enough to eat? Both can't be true.

Ted Turner, the former CNN mogul, is always good for an outlandish quote and when it came to Soviet Russia, he offered a cornucopia of self-deluded statements, none better than this one: "(Gorbachev is) moving faster than Jesus Christ did." But Time magazine bested him with this howler when it described Gorbachev as both "the communist pope and the Soviet Martin Luther."

Never ones to admit failure for their favorite theories, the Left still refuses to acknowledge their errors. They simply moved on to new errors, in this case to Cuba. In 2006 an Associated Press story said, "For all its flaws, life in Cuba has its comforts. Many Cubans take pride in their free education system, high literacy rates and top-notch doctors. Ardent Castro supporters say life in the United States, in contrast, seems selfish, superficial and -- despite its riches -- ultimately unsatisfying." Is that why so many Cubans have risked their lives to reach America?

Again, Ted Turner on North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il: "I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving cars." An incredulous Wolf Blitzer replied, "A lot of those people are starving." Turner said, "I didn't see any brutality." (Read more at www.mrc.org.)

The point is not only to hold the media accountable for its past sins, but also to remind them they are making the same mistakes today with different enemies -- radical Islam and the Chinese brand of communism. No wonder the public trusts them about as much as they trust Congress.

[ETL]

"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism’s crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmY0MjI1MDgyYjg1M2UwNDMzMTk2Mjk5YTk0ZTdlMWE=
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"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

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[La Lydia]

What a perfectly complete column. Should be reprinted and distributed in the public schools. I am continually amazed at the drivel that comes from the MSM about communism and communist regimes. Twenty years after the Wall fell, they are still in denial. They were wrong, they were proven wrong, yet they persist.

[sickoflibs]

Obama didnt forget:

Sept 13, 1939 USSR (Russia) invades Eastern Poland
Sept 13, 2009 Obama betrays Poland to Russia

[wintertime]

While talk radio and Fox News are useful and were a welcome gust of fresh air, they too should not be fully trusted.

**Remember, please, that nearly all of these talking conservatives **never** called America's enemies by their true name: Marxists and fascists. Instead they persisted with the misleading terms of “liberal” or “radical leftist”. In fact, although it has improved somewhat, most still do this.

** None of the major guys and gals have covered the Obama’s eligibility. And...No, five minutes of jokes in two years does NOT count as covering anything. If having a constitutionally eligible president isn't important, then what in this great universe is?

** Few to none discuss any of the bullying homosexual lobby's tactics. These homosexual activists too are either tools of Marxists and fascists or are Marxists themselves who are attempting to demoralize the nation as Bezmenov warned.

** Except when too egregious to ignore, government school outrages are not covered. When they do cover government school stories, it is superficial and never to rarely ever point out government schools are one of the Marxist's most powerful weapon in the demoralization of the U.S.

So....When tyranny comes, yes, America will have its patriots, but it won't be from the conservative stable of media entertainers. They are posers who are using conservatives and their goals to further their own self-interested agenda. These talking heads are selling a product to conservatives. When the jack boots are on our necks these guys and gals will spit shine the boot.

[Sherman Logan]

conservatives, who believed that socialism and communism guaranteed mutually-shared poverty.

Except for the elite, who have always lived much like elites elsewhere.

[wintertime]

Should be reprinted and distributed in the public schools.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Do you understand that government schools **are** one of the most important weapons that the Marxists have against our nation.

No, distributing anything in the government schools is like fighting a forest fire with a water pistol. The government schools **must** be eliminated.

[La Lydia]

So, in your opinion, anything short of eliminating the government schools is wasted effort, and people shouldn’t bother? That is an interesting approach.

[bassmaner]

bttt

[SMARTY]

“...the Soviet threat isn't what it used to be, and what's more, that it never was.”

I guess no one ever told the Poles!

My favorite cartoon-during the ‘Solidarity’ uprising:

Soviet tank rolling into square with crowds of demonstrators in Warsaw... Brezhnev in the turret with his hands raised...

“Workers of the world.... DISBAND!!”

[popdonnelly]

But it’s all good for the enablers and excusers, because they’ve since become writers, university professors, and politicians.

[wintertime]

We must reach young people and educate them on conservative issues, but using the government schools to reach them would likely make the problem worse.

Please remember that any material distributed would get filtered through the biases of their Marxist teachers. The material would either be discarded before it could reach the students or it would be mocked and distorted.

As conservatives, if Harvard can have a 35 **BILLION** dollar endowment, conservatives, too, could have education foundations that could award private vouchers for children tuition-free private conservative schools. This would be **doing** something.

If we could get young people into private conservative schools we could raise up in just a few years mighty warriors who could stare down their Marxist professors in their colleges and universities. These young people would be taking their places in the media, arts, film, and entertainment.

If we do want to win this cultural and political war and defeat the Marxists and fascists who wish to turn us into slaves, we must disarm their most powerful weapon. We must get kids into a private conservative schools and work to shut down government schools. ( all of them!)

Oh...And please don't argue that private schools in your community have tuitions of $25,000 a year. Conservatives can ( if organized) establish endowments that would give grants to individual teachers willing to open tuition-free mini-schools, one room schools, or homeschool co-ops. Gee! If moms can have home-based day care, why not a small school? The children of this nation could be getting an excellent education at very low cost.

[Tallguy]

In communism there has always been a disconnect between the academicians (include the Media here) and the practicioners. The academy has a seemingly infinite capacity for self-delusion.

Stalin could tell them the sky was green & the Russian fields grew lollipops and Strobe Tallbot & Ted Turner would trumpet the inability of the capitalist west to do the same.

[sportutegrl]

The standard liberal excuse when presented with these great numbers of murdered people is, “to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs”. But, where is the omelette? Where is the utopia? For that many ‘broken eggs’, you should have created a paradise on Earth.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

The government schools **must** be eliminated.

I completely agree. Instead of prohibiting a nation religion, a new constitution must prohibit federal involvement in schools. Who has started the new constitution? How can we make it 'liberal-proof'?

[wintertime]

How can we make it ‘liberal-proof’?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

By raising up righteous generations...And..Again the best way to do that is in private settings ( home or private schools) directed by the parents.

[iopscusa]

Good post ETL...I’ve been reading a bit about the East German Stasi and how much they controled the day to day life of the East Germans by an enormous snitch program: See this account:
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrMAvy_Aoak
Journalist Anna Fundler notes: “In Hitler’s Third Reich it is estimated that there was one Gestapo agent for every 2000 citizens, and in Stalin’s USSR there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people. In the GDR there was one Stasi officer or informant for every sixty-three people. If part-time informers are included, some estimates have the ratio as high as one informer for every 6.5 citizens.” Fundler, Stasiland: Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall (London: Granta, 2003), p. 57.

[headsonpikes]

“By raising up righteous generations”

Eternal verities always bear repeating.

Thanks for your vigilant posts regarding “public schools”.

[lodi90]

Very little of wall remains in Berlin. The pinkos wanted to scrub the memory of what totalitarian socialists will do when they have power. And they will do it again if they are able.