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AR15.COM
1/10/2010 12:19:00 AM EDT
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/forgetting-communisms-evils/

Forgetting Communism’s Evils










Memories are fading not only in America, but in Eastern Europe as well.





January 10, 2010 - by Mary Grabar



















The non-appearance
by the president of the United States to celebrate the 20th anniversary
of the fall of the Berlin Wall marks but one of many worldwide
incidents of deliberate forgetting about the ravages of communism, an
ideology that has killed over a hundred million people. We could have
predicted during the campaign that President Obama would not think such
an event important. The zeitgeist that rocked the vote ushered in a
president who told a plumber that we should “spread the wealth”; in Stalinist fashion an Obama supporter / government official then used her powers to persecute him. A Rasmussen poll
in April showed that only 37% of those under 30 favored capitalism over
socialism; 33% favored socialism and the rest were undecided.




Voters have been educated for decades now on the standard of “social
justice,” a Marxist concept but an oxymoron according to the founders
of this republic. But our own president has taught such courses under
the name of critical race theory. He did training and legal work for an organization that basically agitates the proletariat, ACORN. The year saw revelation after revelation about the socialist ties of his appointees.




So logically Chairman Mao
graced the White House Christmas tree. This comes after the interim
White House communications director was recorded as saying that Mao is
one of her political heroes. The Chinese flag flew next to the American close to the White House, and the iconic Empire State Building lit up in China’s colors to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the communist regime. This all comes 20 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre.




The iconic Empire State Building is recognized by those around the
world as a symbol of American freedom and prosperity. It, like the
Statue of Liberty, has been recognized by immigrants, like my parents
who escaped Marshal Tito’s communist regime with me in their arms as an
infant. Such displays of tribute to communism are a slap in the face of
those who lived through such murderous regimes.




The forgetting is happening in my native Slovenia, where it’s not even two decades since independence
was won with the support of 95% of voters. Old peasant farmers still
dare not speak of what they witnessed in 1945 when Slovenian refugees
forced back home were shot and left to die in pits. Still a proposal
came up to name a street in Ljubljana after Tito. Protests by those who remember Tito’s tyrannical rule
may have led to a proposal to name instead a ramp connecting two
highways after him. Pavle Borstnik, who follows politics in Slovenia,
says that even the ramp name is an “abomination”; he is one of those
who remember. In an article for a Slovenian-American newspaper, he writes about leaving Slovenia during his last visit:








Zbogom, Slovenia, I murmur to myself, farewell,
you land of my youth. … I have spent only 20 years in your bosom and
then people, who usurped the “powers,” slammed your door in my face.
Forty-two years have passed before I saw you again and now, 65 years
later, I am leaving you for the last time.




In the meantime, Slovenia grew up: it lived through a bloody
catharsis and reached its independence, joined the circle of free
nations, and then threw all of this to the wind, re-embracing the same
criminals that disfigured its face.







Like most dictators, Tito had streets and towns renamed after him
when he took power. After independence they were changed back. Borstnik
laments in an email that the ramp renaming is likely to pass without
notice, for “under [the] present government there is a tremendous
pressure to reintroduce all kind of ‘old-time’ venues into the daily
life of Slovenia.”




I saw evidence of this forgetting and denial when I attended the meeting of the Society for Slovene Studies at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS)
conference in late 2008. A couple of survivors of Tito’s prison camps
sat with me as we listened to young scholars and journalists advance
the fashionable academic ideas that spring from Marxist ideology. While
much needs to be done to wrest power from the old communist party
bosses controlling much of the media and industry in Slovenia and in
the old Soviet states, the organizers of the conference thought that
gender should be the main concern. Academics parsed out such things as
gender identities (they came up with a count of nine) and expounded on
the insecure “masculinities” of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.




In the meantime, former KGB agent Putin has been working to rehabilitate Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whose birthday
is celebrated by Russians, who by a majority of 54% hold a high opinion
of him. Here in the U.S. Stalin was included in the lineup of the D-Day Memorial, as Candace de Russy wrote in these pages. In the Czech Republic
the communist party is the third largest; only now are there calls for
outlawing it because of its advocacy of violence. The article points
out that most other communists of the satellite states have melded into
center-left parties. The communist criminals now “re-embraced”
throughout the world often have a Ph.D. or J.D. after their names.




Our own communist indoctrinator and Obama pal Professor Bill Ayers
appeared on Russia Television to give his opinion that we should
withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and close down all our military
bases around the world. “The idea that we have been a force for good
for the last six decades is nonsense,” Ayers opined.




We can thank those like Bill Ayers who have ensconced themselves in
positions of power in education for the revision of history and the
change in attitudes towards socialism. The onetime bomb-setter Ayers is
doing his damage by using the schools to advance the communist idea of “social justice.”




The denials, however, have real consequences. While the
intellectuals look in the other direction to count the number of
genders or “investigate” trumped-up charges of “right-wing extremism,”
our president meets with and accepts money from the communist group Code Pink that has explicitly called for our defeat at the hands of the Taliban.




There is evidence aplenty that the Obama administration and Democrats support worldwide socialism. While the mainstream media harps about the mental fragility of our soldiers, a jihadist
openly plans and executes the slaughter of fellow soldiers. The
director of homeland security begins her tenure going after law-abiding
citizens and soldiers as right-wing extremists, and then denies there were security breaches after a Christmas Day terror attack. “Fall of Capitalism and Rise of Islam,” in this light, is an apt name for a conference.








 

 
1/10/2010 12:53:18 AM EDT
[#1]
Impressive article

1/10/2010 1:38:57 AM EDT
[#2]
I was participating on an international discussion board yesterday afternoon when some of the members from EU nations began touting communism.  They believed that one day soon, the EU and China would form an alliance and annihilate the U.S., allowing communist rule to once again emerge.  After a decent laugh, I wished them the same fate as their last go 'round when they titled themselves the Warsaw Pact.  That didn't sit well with them at all.  

1/10/2010 1:41:48 AM EDT
[#3]
It wasnt so bad.   If Communism was so evil, America and the UK would have fought against Russia with Germanys help.  

Joking aside, I hate communism.
1/10/2010 1:42:53 AM EDT
[#4]
"Those who do not learn the lessons of history..."
1/10/2010 1:43:32 AM EDT
[#5]
Animal Farm should required high school reading
1/10/2010 1:44:26 AM EDT
[#6]
what do you expect when you let communists take over your education system?

1/10/2010 2:01:55 AM EDT
[#7]
Quoted:
I was participating on an international discussion board yesterday afternoon when some of the members from EU nations began touting communism.  They believed that one day soon, the EU and China would form an alliance and annihilate the U.S., allowing communist rule to once again emerge.  After a decent laugh, I wished them the same fate as their last go 'round when they titled themselves the Warsaw Pact.  That didn't sit well with them at all.  



I've come across those people

The DPRK even has Spanish and Greek citizens working as it's agents in Europe
1/10/2010 2:19:08 AM EDT
[#8]
Quoted:
Animal Farm should required high school reading


funny that the author of that book was a socialist. I guess he just thought the soviets weren't doing it right or something.