One puzzlement for me has been why so many Americans--especially young people--are completely unconcerned with Obama's communist, anti-American connections.  I think I'm beginning to get it.  Paraphrasing the Santayana aphorism, "Those who've not been taught about history are doomed to repeat it."  And, our schools are steadfastly failing to teach our kids what communism is and the horrors it has visited on the world over the last 100 years. 

 

Hitler is, of course, (and deservedly so) reviled by history.  He and his regime are responsible for the murder of somewhere around 10 million people in a matter of about 15 years.  However, communist regimes around the world, by most estimates are responsible for over 100 MILLION deaths.  Why then has this been almost ignored by our education systems?  The answer lies in just who it is that controls our public education systems these days.  They are the far-left ideologues of the 60's "counter culture," who were financed in part by money from the KGB in an effort to subvert the U.S.--especially during the Vietnam War, which was, after all, about a communist country's effort to take control of a basically capitalistic neighbor which happened to be the very heart of Asia's "rice bowl."  These young people discovered that it was relatively easy to obtain teaching credentials--using government financing or money from Mom and Dad--and thus spread their far-left ideologies to our most vulnerable minds at no cost to them except for a little time and study.  Left out of today's curricula, of course, is anything negative about communism in general and the USSR or Communist China in particular.

 

Part of the result of that attitude is an almost universal ignorance on the part of today's youth about what a soul-killing political philosophy Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao proposed and put into practice. 

 

One stark difference between liberals and conservatives in America is that both sides of the political spectrum hate fascism, but ONLY conservatives have the same disdain for communism.  The left actually embraces it.  If all you know about communism is Marx's Communist Manifesto, that's understandable.  However, EVERY communist-controlled country on the planet is a moral, ethical, economic and cultural basket case, because, in practice, the political practice of communism destroys incentives for achievement, upward class movement, innovation and economic progress.  If one is going to be paid exactly what everyone else in one's profession is paid, regardless of productivity or excellence of performance, why strive to do better?

 

One characteristic of communism is "central planning."  In other words, some bureaucrat is charged with responsibility for estimating how many washing machines or cars are going to be required in the coming year and setting production goals accordingly.  The expected and inevitable result ALWAYS turns out to be a shortage of washing machines and cars.  When the same philosophy is applied to food production, the result is long lines waiting to be able to buy a loaf of bread or a pork chop.  Of course, such commodities are cheap because the prices are centrally controlled, too, but what good is a 50-cent loaf of bread when there is no bread or a $10K car when you have to wait 5 years for one?  Even Russia has abandoned communism, although Vladimir Putin seems to be trying to re-institute it, flush with all that oil money. 

 

However, none of that seems to matter to those whose only understanding of communism comes from making Marx and Engels "required reading" in our schools.  The philosophy SOUNDS fine and dandy--a "workers' paradise," to coin a phrase--where everyone is "equal"...except that, like in Orwell's The Animal Farm, "some are more equal than others."

Communism inevitably degenerates into despotic rule by a ruling elite class so the "classless society" Marx envisioned simply doesn't exist.

 

Obama's "plans" for us seem to be predicated on devolving us from a capitalist society into a communist one...or, at best, a socialist one (which is virtually the same thing.)  This has been pointed out time and again, both by the Clinton campaign during the primaries and by the McCain campaign lately, but to no real avail.  I believe that it just doesn't resonate because for the last 40-odd years our school systems--both K-12 AND at the university level--have systematically refused to teach the horrors of past stabs at communism, such as Mao's China, the USSR, North Korea, Cuba and, of late, Venezuela, where individual rights are subordinated to the needs and desires of those aforesaid ruling elites.  Obama believes in it, in large measure because he envisions himself as the top dog among those "ruling elites."  But, until our young people learn exactly what they're in for with a communist-style government and society, it probably isn't going to do any good to keep pointing out that Obama IS a fan of Marxism.  Not knowing what that is, they simply don't care.

 

Here's hoping there are still enough of us who lived in the shadow of the USSR's communist threats to reject this guy and his plans for the destruction of the United States.