Socialist Regimes Use Brutality (VIDEO)

It's Gloria Alvarez, at Reason TV:

Who Is Karl Marx?

Here's Paul Kengor, for Prager University:



And flashback, "Bicentennial of Birth of Karl Marx, the Man Whose Ideas Killed Untold Millions."

Jamie Glazov, United in Hate

*BUMPED.

At Amazon, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

Bicentennial of Birth of Karl Marx, the Man Whose Ideas Killed Untold Millions

From Paul Kengor, at WSJ, "Marx’s Apologists Should Be Red in the Face":

Opinion: Marx’s apologists should be red in the face, writes @DrPaulKengor https://t.co/diNstXSF9T

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 5, 2018

May 5 marks the bicentennial of Karl Marx, who set the stage with his philosophy for the greatest ideological massacres in history. Or did he?

He did, but deniers still remain. “Only a fool could hold Marx responsible for the Gulag,” writes Francis Wheen in “Karl Marx: A Life” (1999). Stalin, Mao and Kim Il Sung, Mr. Wheen insists, created “bastard creeds,” “wrenched out of context” from Marx’s writings.

Marx has been accused of ambiguity in his writings. That critique is often justified, but not always. In “The Communist Manifesto,” he and Friedrich Engels were quite clear that “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.”

“You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property,” they wrote. “But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population.” And this: “In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”

Marx and Engels acknowledged that their views stood undeniably contrary to the “social and political order of things.” Communism seeks to “abolish the present state of things” and represents “the most radical rupture in traditional relations.”

Toward that end, the manifesto offers a 10-point program, including “abolition of property in land,” “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax,” “abolition of all right of inheritance,” “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly,” “centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state” and the “gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.”

In a preface to their 10 points, Marx and Engels acknowledged their coercive nature: “Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads.” In the close of the Manifesto, Marx said, “The Communists . . . openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

They were right about that. Human beings would not give up fundamental liberties without resistance. Seizing property would require a terrible fight, including the use of guns and gulags. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and a long line of revolutionaries and dictators candidly admitted that force and violence would be necessary...

More.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

This book is great.

Solzhenitsyn is an often hilarious novelist, all the more interesting given the gravity of the subject matter.

At Amazon, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle. (Linked is the translation by Harry Willets.)

So, Totalitarian Leftists Want the Vanity Fair 'Hillary Knitting' Writers Fired?

I hate politics more and more, especially since you can't say anything anymore without risking your entire livelihood, if not your very life.

Elizabeth Bruenig's a radical leftist who's blocked me on Twitter, but I agree with her here.

At WaPo, "No, the Vanity Fair staffers behind the Clinton video shouldn’t be fired."

"The next time you get upset online, keep this in mind: You’re gonna be okay." - @ebruenig with the radical argument that people ought to consider the potential real world consequences of their online rage https://t.co/8olkMQBbe0

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) December 29, 2017

China’s Cover-Up

From Orville Schell, at Foreign Affairs, "When Communists Rewrite History":

Even experts on Chinese history find it difficult to keep track of all the lethal “mass movements” that shaped Mao’s revolution. https://t.co/0JqaEyXvY7

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) December 26, 2017

The Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong’s “permanent revolution” destroyed tens of millions of lives. From the communist victory in 1949 in the Chinese Civil War, through the upheaval, famine, and bloodletting of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, until Mao’s death in 1976, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) set segments of Chinese society against one another in successive spasms of violent class warfare. As wave after wave of savagery swept China, millions were killed and millions more sent off to “reform through labor” and ruination.

Mao had expected this level of brutality. As he once declared: “A revolution is neither a dinner party, nor writing an essay, painting a picture, or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely, gentle, temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”

Today, even experts on Chinese history find it difficult to keep track of all the lethal “mass movements” that shaped Mao’s revolution and which the party invariably extolled with various slogans. Mao launched campaigns to “exterminate landlords” after the Communists came to power in 1949; to “suppress counterrevolutionaries” in the early 1950s; to purge “rightists” in the late 1950s; to overthrow “capitalist roaders” during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s; and to “rectify” young people’s thinking by shipping them off to China’s poorest rural areas during the Down to the Countryside Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The ideological rhetoric obscured the extremism of these official actions, through which the party permitted the persecution and even the liquidation of myriad varieties of “counterrevolutionary elements.” One of Mao’s most notable sayings was “the party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the party.” Long after his death, his successors carried on in that tradition, most visibly during the Tiananmen Square massacre and the ensuing crackdown that the CCP carried out in response to peaceful protests in 1989, which led to untold numbers of dead and wounded.

Today, China is enjoying a period of relative stability. The party promotes a vision of a “harmonious society” instead of class struggle and extols comfortable prosperity over cathartic violence. Someone unfamiliar with the country might be forgiven for assuming that it had reckoned with its recent past and found a way to heal its wounds and move on.

Far from it. In fact, a visitor wandering the streets of any Chinese city today will find no plaques consecrating the sites of mass arrests, no statues dedicated to the victims of persecution, no monuments erected to honor those who perished after being designated “class enemies.” Despite all the anguish and death the CCP has caused, it has never issued any official admission of guilt, much less allowed any memorialization of its victims. And because any mea culpa would risk undermining the party’s legitimacy and its right to rule unilaterally, nothing of the sort is likely to occur so long as the CCP remains in power...

More.

Professor Jordan Peterson on the Lindsay Shepherd Affair

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Pronouns professor Jordan Peterson on the Lindsay Shepherd affair."

And more, at the Rebel:

Lindsay Shepherd

This is really troubling.

Best thing is, she recorded her inquisition, ha!

At Inside Higher Ed, "The Interrogation of a TA: University president apologizes after recording reveals how a graduate student was questioned over use of a video, which offended at least one student, of debate on nontraditional pronouns."

And the National Post, "Wilfrid Laurier University's president apologizes to Lindsay Shepherd for dressing-down over Jordan Peterson clip."

And watch Ezra Levant, at the Rebel, with excerpts from her recording. It's good:



And at tweet from Jordan Peterson on the abuse he's enduring. It's bad. Really bad:

Those who consider themselves my enemies have been posting these all around my home neighbourhood. pic.twitter.com/zF3Mc7Imsy

— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) October 26, 2017

Masha Gessen, The Future Is History

*BUMPED.*

Out October 3rd, at Amazon, Masha Gessen, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

Also, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.

Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine

At Amazon, Frank Dikötter, Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962.

Otto Warmbier Has Died

This makes me sad and angry.

I generally don't "hate," but I hate North Korea. I wish the boy never went there in the first place.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Otto Warmbier, the American released by North Korea last week, has died":

Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was in a coma when he was released by North Korea, has died in Ohio. He was 22.

His family said in a statement that Warmbier died Monday afternoon.

The family thanked the University of Cincinnati Medical Center for treating him but said, “Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”

Otto Warmbier was held for 17+ months in North Korea. Doctors said he returned with severe brain damage https://t.co/fcoM9CVM32 pic.twitter.com/8ZycvYHFeX

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) June 19, 2017

Oh my god. https://t.co/DPevP6UgeV

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 19, 2017

God damn it, Obama. This is on you. https://t.co/oTMRfRSWmE

— Kim Priestap (@kimpriestap) June 19, 2017

Statement issued by the family of #ottowarmbier on his passing pic.twitter.com/0loUSdBmrM

— Bret Baier (@BretBaier) June 19, 2017

Today's Deals

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, New Deals. Every Day. Shop Our Deal of the Day. Lightning Deals and More.

BONUS: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Yale Awards Student 'Truthtellers' Who Bullied Faculty

The cultural revolution in America.

We're in bad shape, and it's not just on campus.

Here's Jamie Kirchick, at the Tablet, "YALE CEMENTS ITS LINE IN THE ACADEMIC SAND BY AWARDING THE STUDENT ‘TRUTHTELLERS’ WHO BULLIED FACULTY."

Yale awards racial reconciliation prizes to 2 students who harassed professor over Halloween costumes @tabletmag https://t.co/tjNlfs4wFf

— Jamie Kirchick (@jkirchick) May 26, 2017

Orwell's Animal Farm

I just read it.

I've had a copy on my shelf for probably 30 years and never read it.

I have an even earlier version of this, an old Signet mass-market paperback, at Amazon, George Orwell, Animal Farm.

The latest, cheaper Signet paperback is here. It's a great little read, heh.

Intelligence Leaks Wound America

From James Dobbins, at USA Today:

#Russia intelligence leaks aim at #DonaldTrump, but wound America: https://t.co/WphFv2QMCU

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 17, 2017

#PresidentTrump's Fans Shrug Off Oval Office Leak.

I'm shrugging, although I'd expect folks at the White House to get their stuff together, and fast. It's a little too exciting over there.

At Politico:

Trump's fans shrug off Oval Office leak https://t.co/cJRfVOZ71M via @POLITICOMag pic.twitter.com/9rhdsV9MWp

— POLITICO (@politico) May 16, 2017

Trump Administration's Tempers Flare

It's a little off message these days, I'll admit.

It's not what you want, actually.

But, who're you gonna trust?

FWIW, at the New York Times, "At a Besieged White House, Tempers Flare and Confusion Swirls":

One other thing to bear in mind - Trump is dreading the overseas trip https://t.co/FoEfQGlOrZ

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 16, 2017

WASHINGTON — The disclosure that President Trump divulged classified intelligence to two high-ranking Russian officials was a new blow to an already dispirited and besieged White House staff still recovering from the uproar and recriminations from the president’s firing of James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director.

Mr. Trump’s appetite for chaos, coupled with his disregard for the self-protective conventions of the presidency, have left his staff confused and squabbling. And his own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark, turning against most of his aides — even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — and describing them in a fury as “incompetent,” according to one of those advisers.

Even before the latest bombshell dropped, reports swirled in the White House that the president was about to embark on a major shake-up, probably starting with the dismissal or reassignment of Sean Spicer, the press secretary.

Mr. Trump’s rattled staff kept close tabs on a meeting early Monday in which the president summoned Mr. Spicer; the deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders; and the communications director, Michael Dubke, to lecture them on the need “to get on the same page,” according to a person briefed on the meeting. Even as Mr. Trump reassured advisers like Mr. Spicer that their jobs were safe at the morning meeting, he told other advisers he knew he needed to make big changes but did not know which direction to go in, or whom to select.

Later, reporters could hear senior aides shouting from behind closed doors as they discussed a defense after Washington Post reporters informed them of an article they were writing that first reported the news about the president’s divulging of intelligence.

As they struggled to limit the fallout on Monday, Mr. Spicer and other Trump aides decided to send Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, to serve as a surrogate.

They realized that selecting such a high official would in some ways validate the story, but they wanted to establish a credible witness account exonerating the president from wrongdoing — before the barrage of Twitter posts they knew would be coming from Mr. Trump on Tuesday morning.

The White House counsel’s office worked with the Army general on framing language, producing a clipped sound bite: “The story that came out tonight as reported is false.”

As he was working on his statement, General McMaster — a former combat commander who appeared uncomfortable in a civilian suit and black-framed glasses — nearly ran into reporters staking out Mr. Spicer’s office.

“This is the last place in the world I wanted to be,” he said, perhaps in jest.

As the general approached microphones on the blacktop in front of the West Wing, one of his deputies responsible for coping with the fallout, Dina Powell, could be seen peering behind the reporter pack to see how her boss’s statement was being received.

On Capitol Hill, there were signs that Republicans, who mostly held the line after Mr. Comey’s ouster, were growing alarmed by and impatient with Mr. Trump’s White House operation.

“There need to be serious changes at the White House, immediately,” said Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican who wants Mr. Trump to appoint a Democrat to head the F.B.I. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called on Mr. Trump to operate with “less drama” on Tuesday....

*****

There is a growing sense that Mr. Trump seems unwilling or unable to do the things necessary to keep himself out of trouble, and that the presidency has done little to tame a shoot-from-the-hip-into-his-own-foot style that characterized his campaign.

There is a fear among some of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers about leaving him alone in meetings with foreign leaders out of concern he might speak out of turn. General McMaster, in particular, has tried to insert caveats or gentle corrections into conversations when he believes the president is straying off topic or onto boggy diplomatic ground.

This has, at times, chafed the president, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation. Mr. Trump, who still openly laments having to dismiss his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has groused that General McMaster talks too much in meetings, and the president has referred to him as “a pain,” according to one of the officials...

Democrats Look to 2020

Well, this oughta be good, heh.

At NYT:

New 2020 names:
- national donors prodding GARCETTI
- MOULTON not ruling it out in private
- and LANDRIEU! https://t.co/aEAUaXtvHC

— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) May 1, 2017

The Real Outrage Over James Comey's Firing

Heh.

A righteous piece, at NYT:

For Trump supporters, the real outrage is the left's outrage over Comey's firing https://t.co/fOI6ZSUEC5

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 11, 2017