WHAT ARE ALL THOSE ISMs ANYWAY?

                                                                                              PART I

I have to chuckle whenever I see liberals use the word neocon.  Actually, the neocons are the old liberals — our founding fathers.  They were the folks who believed that individuals are more important than the dumb masses (yes, you’re reading the last two words correctly).   Seventy years ago the word “liberalism” was hijacked and used as a cover for Marxist communism.   It is no wonder that today’s conservatives feel insecure what with socialism, communism, fascism and Marxism, under one umbrella called liberalism, is competing for the hearts and minds of the American people…and winning.

With all these isms flying around, I decided to look into them in order to understand the differences.  Most of these definitions are from a college text book someone gave me back in the 80’s.

Socialism, communism, fascism, and Marxism are similar to each other, but there are some important differences.  Let’s look at the two ways in which they are alike.   First, all four deal with an economic system in which the mode of production of goods and services are controlled by the government.  Second, they all believe that the self-serving individual is evil and society should be self-sacrificing.  People should serve each other for the greater good.  In all of these societies, the individual cannot be allowed to exist in isolation from the others.  Individuals and community are considered to be one unit. The differences between these  forms of government have to do with how the combined individual slash community interrelates with the social/economic/political environment.

Socialism:  Since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, we find ourselves living in an increasingly socialistic America.  Republicans and Democrats alike have moved toward socialism.  We still have individuals who own their own businesses creating needed goods and services, and providing jobs to those who would trade their labor for wages, but this is soon going to be a thing of the past.  It would seem that full-blown socialism is the new zeitgeist of our society.  In a socialist society the primary concern is that everyone is economically equal and each has their basic needs provided for by a central government.  The socialist mind-set believes that making people work for  basic needs such as housing, clothing, food, transportation, and health care is degrading to the workers.  They believe that businesses motivated by profit will always take advantage of labor by their selfish drive to make more and more money.  We will still own our own small businesses and still be able to acquire private property, but more and more, the government under Obama will nationalize the major corporations for the “good of society.”  With increasing frequency, we see the gradual erosion of private property ownership as local and federal government programs confiscate it for the “good of society.”  Large concentrations of wealth will no longer be tolerated which will result in the wealthy leaving America for better opportunities abroad.  That leaves Joe six-pack (me) living off the dole where the only legal jobs available are low-paying, mind-numbing government jobs.  Everyone but the ruling class will be living in government provided quarters.  Drugs and gangs will become even more desirable to young people seeking to express themselves.  I could go on painting a gloomy future, but I think you all understand that socialism leads inevitably to communism.

Communism:  Those of us old enough to have seen the “hippies” living in their pathetic little communes have a pretty good idea of what communism is all about.  In fact, communism goes back to the early Christian days.  It’s been tried many times and in many ways and it just doesn’t work because people are naturally self-serving.  And some are downright evil as we’ve seen with communism under Stalin and Mao.  To some, this pre-Stalin, pre-Mao form of communism seems an ideal way to live with all forms of production and all property being owned by the “community.”  And for those who have no ambitions other than to live their lives in peace and harmony every day, communism seems the perfect Utopia.  How sweet the siren’s call of “from each according to ability, to each according to need.”  The communist mind-set believes that private property (by the way, that includes money) and religion are the causes of all the evils of the world.  Today’s Marxist communists (of which many are college professors and politicians) see America and any other freedom loving peoples in the world as the chief cause of the problems of the world.  They must either be eradicated or transformed for the “good of society.”  If you want to know how wonderful communism is today, ask any Cuban who risked his/her life and limb getting into this country.

Marxism:  Conservatives believe that anyone who is anti-capitalist is a Marxist.  That’s not true. There are others who don’t agree with capitalism.  That would be your everyday garden variety long-haired hippy-type commie-pinko, and the tattooed, trinket-adorned (leave-no-external-organ-unpierced) weirdo.  It's the eggheads that teach our children who bother me.  Our children are being taught by the eggheads K-12 through Phd that Marxism is far superior to capitalism.  They are taught that capitalism deprives  human beings of their ability to be creative.  How anyone can swallow that hog-wash is beyond my understanding.  How creative was capitalism to be able to repeatedly put men on the moon?  No other form of government has ever done anything like that.  What other government had the wealth to accomplish such an astounding feat?  Our children are also taught that when they sell their labor, they turn their productive activity into a commodity, and in so doing they damage their self-esteem.  Furthermore, individualism (capitalism) prevents human beings from achieving their true nature (whatever the hell that means).   From the college textbook I mentioned earlier: “Marxism is a respected philosophical system.  And as a rigorous analysis and alternative to [conservative] capitalism is unmatched.” (Neopolitics, American Political Ideas in the 1980s, Linda J. Medcalf and Kenneth M. Dolbeare, Random House, 1985 p 205)

Fascism:  We all equate fascism with Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, but in modern times this view is passé.  Obama, in his usual demagogic manner, used fascist solutions to “aid” capitalism.  By nationalizing GM and Chrysler, two major automobile producers, Obama has, in his eyes, protected and maintained a major corporation.  This is the classic definition of fascism.  Allow me to quote from the same book I referenced above in speaking of fascism: “Managing the population includes rousing patriotic and nationalistic appeals, calls to sacrifice for the good of the nation.  It implies an adept use of symbols in order to manipulate a gullible, sheep like citizenry. (Remember the “Office of the President Elect” symbol he used during his campaign?)  Though the population may be engaged in the beginning, skillful manipulation of crises, economic and political, gradually leads to almost religious patriotic fervor.  Suppression of any dissent becomes increasingly oppressive, though still within procedural, legal limits.  Eventually, all necessary roads are taken to maintain the governing partnership.” [Between business and government] (p 206)  parenthesis and brackets are mine. Fascism allows small businesses to flourish but maintains control of production of the major corporations.  I have to admit that the definition I found in the textbook doesn’t quite match what Obama is doing.  The religious fervor isn’t for the nation, it’s for Obama himself.  I believe that was Hitler’s downfall at the end.

This is by no means all of the isms that exist today.  There is corporatism, anarchism, totalitarianism, conservatism, and capitalism to name the ones I didn’t cover.  There are some surprising things about these isms that I want to discuss in a future posting.

It is apparent that Congress and our President and all his crooked cabinet folks believe that it is the rich who have caused and will continue to create more poverty in this country by virtue of the rich owing too much of the available money. This is a ludicrous idea at best, yet it is this thought that liberals base their economic theories on. They would have you believe that the economy is not a living thriving enterprise, but an inanimate, static thing like a pizza pie for instance. The pizza is finite and can only be split up in so many ways. If the rich have most of the slices, and those are large slices, then only a small portion is left for the rest of us. On its face this concept is utterly laughable, yet so-called intelligent and educated liberals seriously believe that in order to cure poverty is to confiscate the pizza then cut it into equal slices so that no one person gets more than the other.

The idea of the economy being something that can be equally divided among the people shows that ignorance about how a free market system works is alive and well among, not only the population in general, but its glaringly evident among our elected officials as well. The fact that most people do not understand a free market economy should not come as a surprise to anyone since this knowledge is purposely not taught in government schools. If it were, there would be little doubt in the minds of the public what a sham the government is perpetrating on them. It is infinitely easier to control an ignorant citizenry than an informed and educated one. 

For the last fifty years, maybe even more, our elementary, middle, and high schools have been the playground of liberal socialists. Our colleges and universities are producing scholars who have been steeped in Marxist theories of economics from kindergarten to the highest degrees of education. To expect America to turn around and understand the free market system in one or two elections is a pipe dream. We won’t wake up from this nightmare until we march in the streets, until we inundate our Representatives and Senators with letters of indignation and shame them into waking up to what is going on.

The recent peaceful Tea Party demonstrations caused the Homeland Security Czar, Janet Napolitano (little Napoleon) to create a supposedly secret document ("Right Wing Extremism:  Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.") defining Right Wing Extremists as domestic terrorists, then goes on to describe everyday Americans who took time from their jobs to protest Obama’s tax and spend policies as Extremists. Further, she warned that soldiers returning from the war zones should be watched closely lest they turn their knowledge of warfare on the government. This labeling of honest-to-God law-abiding Americans as terrorists, warning all levels of law enforcement officials to keep an eye on them, is a slap in the face to all of us. No such warning has been issued from her office about what might happen when the inmates at Guantanamo Bay are released within the next year. Not one word about Islam radicals and the Mosques and Madrassas in our own cities and neighborhoods actively teaching young boys and girls that all non-believers must convert or die.

To those active duty armed forces personnel and to all veterans, if you love your country, you will not be taken in by Obama’s recent and unexplained schmoozing of the military. Liberals hate the military and all it stands for except when it can be used to their advantage. He is up to something and I’m afraid, that in the paranoid state liberals are in today, he’s planning to use the military to discourage more large scale demonstrations against his policies. Go ahead, call me the paranoid one, but I’ve been preaching it would come to this for years. I’ve been sounding the warning that we are frogs in a pot of water that is gradually warming. No one listened so here we are, the water is about to come to a boil and people still aren’t listening.  

If you think it ends with Obama being voted out, you are sadly mistaken. Obama is not going to be voted out because there are too many of you who do not actively participate in your government. And even by some miracle, he is voted out, nothing much changes until you realize and make it be known on the Hill that this country does not belong to the government.  We are their masters, not the other way round. Once they control the economy, they control us.  Get off your asses and get involved before you find yourself part of a one-world government being ruled by people who don’t even speak your language.