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Pushback on High School Editorial: “‘Communism’ isn’t a dirty word” 

The editorial that CJ Haberbush from Foothill Technology High School wrote in the Los Angeles Times HS Insider is a curiosity. Haberbush urges Americans to get over their “irrational fear” of communism, an ideology that, in practice, “does not function” and “no longer exists … in the modern world.” Haberbush says not to worry – Stalin and the Iron Curtain are long gone, and China and North Korea are communist in name only. Haberbush urges that we stop discriminating against self-professed communists and give our fellow Americans the space to belong to communist political parties and freely express their communist views.

Taken at face value, it’s a straw-man argument. Nobody is prevented from joining the Communist Party USA. No one is stopped from expressing their communist views on the street corner or on the Internet - or in Democrat presidential debates, for that matter. There is no Joe McCarthy engaged in a communist witch-hunt. (McCarthy was right, by the way. There WERE communist agitators in the government, as M. Stanton Evans’ book Blacklisted by History and others amply document.). One of the major parties now embraces socialism (nobody booed openly self-declared socialist Bernie Sanders off the stage; frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s policies are virtually indistinguishable). In 2010, 36 percent of Americans polled had a positive view of socialism. Joe McCarthy has been dead for 60 years. So where is all this supposed persecution coming from? The editorial doesn’t say.

Thus, Haberbush’s editorial, and the motivation of the media outfit that published it, may not really be directed at winning more space for the free expression of political ideas. Why is this editorial appearing, and why now? Why does Haberbush in effect exhort us to move along – there’s nothing to see here and nothing to be afraid of?

Before we all go to sleep, let’s examine the possibility that the true motivation of the writer, or of the media outfit that published the piece, is not to promote free expression, but to win adherents to the communist cause by sugarcoating what communism really is and minimizing the mortal threat it still represents today. It would be naïve not to consider the possibility that the piece is an influence operation run by the radical Left to put people to sleep and neutralize political resistance to the radical Left’s agenda. The editorial may be a clever piece of propaganda written, not by a high schooler, but by a professional to disarm the populace while the Left burrows further into the American psyche.

In any event, there is plenty of power left in the idea of communism, a bad ideology that refuses to die. The grassroots Anticommunism Action Team, which has many survivors of communism among its members, and others who remain concerned about communism, are not just suffering from a Cold War hangover. The editorial is dismissive of the historical record and neglects present-day threats.
 
There are still five captive nations – Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea. There, ‘communists in name only’, as Haberbush would have it, still imprison their people. Haberbush admits that Marxist doctrine is utopian, but fails to make the connection between paper utopia and real-world terror. Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot, among others, all believed they could not remake society and get to a perfect world without terror – killing the best 10 percent of the population to lessen resistance here, engineering famines to starve people into submission there. Real-world practice may have diverged from Marxist theory, but 100 million people are still dead and others remain imprisoned today in the name of communism –their organs harvested for profit in China and Vietnam; their homes and land confiscated leaving them no alternative but begging on the street; their dignity shattered in North Korea where women look across the porous border for rescue and find it in prostitution; religion the cause of persecution and displacement by state religions surveilled by secret police; their educational and employment opportunities doled out from on high; and, yes, their free speech and free press rights, which Haberbush rightly finds important, strictly curtailed or nonexistent.

Does it really matter that the perpetrators of these atrocities are ‘communist in name only’ or that Marx’s theory is beautiful on paper? That is cold comfort to those being killed or persecuted. Communists-in-name-only are still terrorizing their people, jailing political dissidents, and blasting officials who have fallen out of favor to smithereens with anti-aircraft guns in the public square. Today. Now. The inextricable link between utopia and terror is still there and will never be broken.

Those who seek to install the communist model end up murdering, starving, and enslaving millions because their utopia runs counter to human nature and can only be imposed by force. Haberbush writes of communism’s “violent and indiscriminate purges” but apparently doesn’t mind playing with fire.

Communism is often defended on the grounds that it has never really been tried or implemented properly. The wrong people have always gotten their hands on it, and that is why it has never worked properly in the real world – so far. But the time has come to realize that the idea itself must be defective. Marxists cannot name a single instance where communism, once imposed, came close to its self-professed lofty ideals, or any case where a communist dictator willingly gave up power to end the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and usher in the next phase of communism. Isn’t there something wrong with a doctrine that is so susceptible to ‘gross misinterpretation’ and is not only occasionally but uniformly misapplied? This is not just a case of bad people implementing a good idea. It’s a bad idea that cannot be fixed by ‘the ones we’ve been waiting for’. The centralized power needed to curb human nature breeds oligarchs, then dictators, something George Orwell wrote about: “You can achieve nothing unless you are willing to use force and cunning, but in using them you pervert your original aims.” (Collected Essays, Vol. III, p. 237)

There has never been an extended example of a successful communist experiment. Communism has never worked and it never will. That’s the only thing ‘inevitable’ about communism. Communist apparatchiks must have total control to determine who wins and who loses under the Marxist formula `from each according to their means, and to each according to their needs’. Once total control is attained, it is never relinquished. The lofty-sounding ideals on paper always translate into perpetual terror and coercion in practice. Thus, we arrive at Kim Jong-un who recently – not back in Cold War days – said that inherited rule is best for a socialist state.

Yo, Marxists! Tell us the part again about where the state withers away – IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL!

The truth is communism cannot compete with Western liberal democracy, i.e., limited government under the rule of law. Democracy and free enterprise have produced more equality – both under law and economically – than communism can or ever will. Representative government where the People, not a tiny elite, are sovereign has no need to dupe the gullible or control the people through a police state. Things work quite well without liars and thugs at the top. Liberal democracy is humane and sustainable; communism, invariably finding its expression in a Soviet-style state, is not.

What is there to commend a political philosophy that has, in the real world, produced more murderous dictators than any other philosophy? A philosophy that has produced 100 million corpses in 100 years? What will communism do for its next trick?

Not only does the Left always deny its own history, it tells us to ignore fresh evidence staring us right in the face. The Left goes right back to making empty promises about a perfect egalitarian future, skipping right over the terror needed to attain it and the coercion needed to maintain it. Communism is the best excuse for tyranny ever invented. Whatever Marx may have intended, communism in practice concentrates wealth and power into the hands of a tiny elite. Can you name a single communist dictator who willingly gave up power? Communism is a pathology that calls for constant vigilance and pushback.

Communism isn’t a ‘dirty word’? Tell it to the 100 million corpses communism has produced in 100 years. Tell it to the Vietnamese boat people who risked high seas and attacks from Thai pirates to get to freedom. Tell it to the Czechs whose hopes for freedom were crushed when communist tanks rolled into Prague. Tell it to the homosexuals imprisoned persecuted in Castro’s Cuba. Tell it to the students who survived Tiananmen Square where their friends were liquefied into a pulp by the Red Army on orders from their communist leaders. Tell it to any of the other survivors who actually lived under communism and experienced it first-hand, not just from an armchair in a faculty lounge. Ask the survivors if they think communism is a ‘dirty word’ and see what answer you get. Anyone tempted to place the country under communist rule because of what they read in a book should live under it first. Let them experience first-hand all the ‘social justice’ and ‘compassion’ their communist masters will give them, before seeking to impose communism on the rest of us.

The Left knows full well ‘communism’ IS a dirty word. That’s why they keep changing it: ‘social justice’ today, ‘progressivism’ tomorrow, ‘sustainable development’ next week. Mikhail Gorbachev’s aims did not change when he went into the ‘green’ movement; virulent environmentalism and ‘climate change’ are perfect cover for the pursuit of centralized power. Communism possesses a unique quality, a chameleon-like character that enables it to take on new labels as old ones become discredited. It’s a deliberate propaganda technique that succeeds in confusing students and politicians in too great a number. But communism is still pursuing its aims – today – through, among other means, “fundamental transformation”, a Democratic Party that openly embraces socialists, and the United Nations’ new sustainable development goals (Agenda 2030) which are heavy on redistribution and short on freedom. The name may change but the goals of communism remain the same: global conquest and the subjugation of all people for the benefit of a tiny few. ‘Communism’ will be washed as many times as necessary, until the Left gets to where it wants to go. At every new washing, what Lenin contemptuously called ‘useful idiots’ will appear, unwittingly helping the communist cause. Is CJ Haberbush one of them?

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Scenes from the Xi Jinping Protest
 - #ChinaRightsNow

A couple hundred pro-democracy activists gathered in Lafayette Square on Friday September 25th, across from the White House, to protest Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s official state visit.

Noisy chanting went on for hours. Protesters demanded independence for Tibet and the Uyghurs. A large contingent with Vietnamese flags demanded an end to China’s aggression in the South China Sea. Others protested the continued detention of Chinese prisoners of conscience (see China18.org). One prisoner was sentenced to 7 years in the Chinese laogai for writing a poem about democracy.

Falun Gong practitioners sat on the ground, praying.

Several of the scheduled speakers agreed repression in China under Xi Jinping is worse now than at any time since Mao Zedong was in power. Xi Jinping is mimicking Mao’s words and deeds, observers said. Religious persecution is on the rise, some noted, leading to continued self-immolations in Tibet. Others discussed China’s new laws directed at corralling sheepherders in Tibet and nomadic peoples in Mongolia. China aims to ‘resettle’ a million of them this year, in violation of their basic human rights.

Many ‘T.S. 1989’ sweatshirts were in evidence. While you might think this refers to the horrific events of Tiananmen Square, the shirt was actually created for a Taylor Swift concert tour. The shirt was banned in China, showing how insecure the government is about its legitimacy, a speaker noted.

The police tried to push everybody into a far corner of the park, away from the White House, but they did not succeed.

The entrance to the White House was draped off. To keep us from looking in? To keep Xi Jinping from seeing the protesters?  

ACAT asked a young Chinese woman, one of a couple dozen people in red t-shirts carrying P.R.C. flags, why she was there. She said, “To welcome President Xi Jinping.” Next, ACAT asked if she was being paid to be there and she said no. At this point, her friend got upset and asked ACAT, “Why are you asking all these questions. Are you a journalist?” ACAT’s answer: “Because this is America and we get to ask questions here.”

Laogai Research Foundation Presses for Whereabouts of Human Rights Lawyers Detained in China
More at Laogai.org
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Protesters outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of Commerce Dallies with Vietnam’s Murderous Tyrants
from the Anticommunism Action Team
July 2015
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the de facto leader of Vietnam, at a gala dinner earlier this month. Trong was in Washington to discuss the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. 

Trong joined the Communist Party of Vietnam in December 1968. He worked for the Communist Review, the Party’s theoretical and political arm, on and off from 1967 to 1996.  He is one of the Party’s leading political theoreticians and has been a member of the Party’s Central Committee since 1994.

By feting Trong, the U.S. Chamber has implicitly endorsed the actions of Vietnamese Communists in:

  • Threatening the lives of anyone who did not fight for them in the war
  • Throwing hundreds of thousands into ‘reeducation camps’ after the war where 165,000 political prisoners were executed or died from malnutrition or disease, with hundreds more killed in the jungles while trying to escape
  • Imprisoning, starving, and torturing people for protesting the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979
  • Confiscating land of poor peasants making them homeless and forcing them to live on the streets. Thousands of people displaced in New Economic Zones died from a variety of causes.
  • Producing millions of ‘boat people’, of which at least 500,000 lost their lives from starvation, illness, storms, drowning, sharks, and piracy
  • Arresting or ‘disappearing’ democracy activists
  • Misappropriating homes, orchards, and rice-lands for the benefit of powerful Party members
  • Reducing academic levels of teachers and students by shutting out disfavored ‘classes’ and restricting advancement to Party members, and
  • Squelching religious liberty by outlawing religious observances, occupying houses of worship, and imprisoning or killing high ranking Buddhist leaders

Today, Vietnam’s Communist leaders live in more luxury than monarchs of the past, while the majority of people are dirt poor, and can't make enough money to have plain rice daily.  As a former Viet Cong soldier put it: "The national wealth and resources were being unpardonably wasted and misappropriated. A combination of a bankrupt economy and an unbridled waste of national resources have contributed to make VN one of the five poorest countries of the world. The war booty had gone into the hands of the powerful, the high and the mighty, the various government offices, and some rank-and-file."

All of this – for what?  Just so a small gang could take over and hold on to power.  The ideological pretense has been dropped.  The Communist government of Vietnam has embraced capitalism as the only way forward, economically.  Before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce goes further down the road with Vietnam’s leaders, it should consider the endemic corruption the Communists have wrought.  High government officials have embezzled millions in government property and resources. Siemens pled guilty in 2008 to paying bribes to sell medical devices in Vietnam. 

The U.S. Justice Department has been very aggressive in recent years about investigating and prosecuting violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

We call upon the Justice Department to investigate Chamber of Commerce members for violations of that Act arising from their activities in Vietnam.

We call upon the Chamber of Commerce to support such an investigation.  Otherwise, it will be plain for all to see that the Chamber sides with corruption. 

We also call upon the Chamber to show that it stands for more than just making a buck, by distancing itself from Vietnam’s leaders until such time as the people of that country are free once more.

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