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Posts Tagged ‘Communism’
May 3rd, 2012 at 12:39 pm
In China, U.S. Abandoning Commitment to Human Rights
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The story of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese dissident who took safe haven at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week, should have been a cause for American pride. Chen, who has been an outspoken critic of the forcible sterilizations and abortions that accompany China’s one-child policy has served time in prison and, more recently, house arrest for daring to challenge the communist regime’s barbarism. By providing him refuge, the U.S. was fulfilling its traditional role as a defender of freedom throughout the world. Until yesterday, that is.

On Wednesday, Chen left the American embassy amidst coos of delight from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Here’s how Politico reported Clinton’s reaction:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her support for a deal with China that allowed activist Chen Guangcheng to leave the American embassy in Beijing without fear of arrest.

“I am pleased that we were able to facilitate Chen Guangcheng’s stay and departure from the U.S. embassy in a way that reflected his choices and our values,” Clinton said in a statement. “I was glad to have the chance to speak with him today and to congratulate him on being reunited with his wife and children.”

With apologies to the secretary, this hardly looks like a triumph of “his choices and our values.” Here’s the Associated Press report shortly after Chen’s release:

On Wednesday, after six days holed up inside the American embassy, he emerged and was taken to a nearby hospital. U.S. officials said they had extracted from the Chinese government a promise that Chen would reunite with his family and be allowed to start a new life in a university town.

Hours later, however, a shaken Chen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hospital room that U.S. officials told him the Chinese authorities would have sent his family back to his home province if he remained inside the embassy. He added that, at one point, the U.S. officials told him his wife would have been beaten to death.

“I think we’d like to rest in a place outside of China,” Chen said, appealing again for help from U.S. officials. “Help my family and me leave safely.”

If this is true, it represents nothing short of a moral stain on the State Department. This should come as no surprise, however. I noted over three years ago at RealClearWorld that this sort of amoral policy stance towards China looked to be a hallmark of the Obama/Clinton foreign policy:

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Beijing in February [2009], she told her Chinese hosts that “Our pressing on [human rights] issues can’t interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.” Translation: don’t think about standing in front of a tank anytime soon. While America’s economic dependence on China is undeniable given the profligate spending that we have indulged thanks to Beijing’s line of credit, voicing that reality out loud is destined to crush the spirit of the friends of liberty in the Far East. How many Tibetan monks will be able to take inspiration from the Declaration of Independence if they think it truthfully reads “all men are created equal … but some hold hundreds of billions of dollars in American treasury bonds”?

Of course, these days the Dalai Lama visits the White House (when he’s invited at all) through the back door, next to the trash heaps. That’s a not-so-subtle metaphor for what Cheng Guancheng is experiencing at our hands now. All involved from the American side should be ashamed.

April 13th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Greece: When Good Men Do Nothing

A sobering column by a Greek politician in today’s Wall Street Journal shows that Stalin-style Communism is making a comeback in a nation teetering on the edge of financial meltdown.  The breakdown in policing has led to countless acts of violence – including murder – that go unpunished:

Many argue that Greece’s disintegration is the unavoidable consequence of the government’s attempt to enforce fiscal austerity. This seems doubtful. This meltdown can be seen as the product of the totalitarian left’s open attempt to exploit the economic crisis and destroy Greece’s existing democratic and economic institutions. What we are witnessing is not a descent into chaos, but a descent into organized lawlessness. Sowing pandemonium and forcing Greece to default will, according to Greek Stalinists’ analysis, bring the revolution nearer.

What makes the situation worrisome is not so much the political strength of this movement. After all, the Communist Party and the Coalition of the Radical Left together claim no more than 13% popular support.

The problem, rather, lies with the political and ideological passivity of the parties that do represent Greece’s broader middle classes. The tolerance these democrats have shown toward their totalitarian counterparts has allowed the latter to play a leading role in shaping Greek public discourse. Do they imagine the favor would be returned if the Coalition of the Radical Left were in charge?

Unless Greece’s political elite realizes the seriousness of what’s happening and acts now to re- establish the rule of democratic law, their efforts to deal with Greece’s economic problems will have been in vain.

February 22nd, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Gorbachev Speaks Truth to Power
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As post-communist Russia has drifted further and further towards authoritarianism, one seemingly insurmountable obstacle has thwarted would-be reformers: the lack of an opposition figure who can challenge Vladimir Putin’s moral legitimacy without inviting swift reprisals from his government. That challenge is now coming from a seemingly unlikely figure: the final President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. As the UK Guardian reports:

Russia under prime minister Vladimir Putin is a sham democracy, Mikhail Gorbachev has said in his harshest criticism yet of the ruling regime.

“We have everything – a parliament, courts, a president, a prime minister and so on. But it’s more of an imitation,” the last president of the Soviet Union said.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of his 80th birthday, Gorbachev criticised Putin for manipulating elections.

In response to the prime minister and former president’s comments that he and his protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev, would decide between them who would run for office in March 2012, Gorbachev said: “It’s not Putin’s business. It must be decided by the nation in elections.”

He called Putin’s statements a sign of “incredible conceit”.

Asked how he thought the regime approached human rights, Gorbachev said: “There’s a problem there. It’s a sign of the state of our democracy.” He was echoing statements made by Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during a visit to Russia last week.

Gorbachev said United Russia, the ruling party founded with the sole goal of supporting Putin’s leadership, was a throwback.

“United Russia reminds me of the worst copy of the Communist party,” he said. “We have institutions but they don’t work. We have laws but they must be enforced.”

The aging Gorbachev won’t be the figure to lead the political opposition to Putin. But his authority can provide a beacon of hope where there was none before. Bravo, comrade.

August 16th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
The Unstoppable Bomb
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I’ve been writing in this space for months now that Western policymakers who believe Iran can be contained or deterred by conventional methods once it goes nuclear are deluding themselves. As I wrote in a commentary nearly a year ago:

In the 1930s, Winston Churchill – virtually alone – called for swift action to remove Hitler before he could wreak havoc.  What was the source of his clarity? Churchill simply understood that Hitler meant what he said in “Mein Kampf” and was developing the capacity to act on it. Meanwhile, the rest of Europe’s political sophisticates believed that Hitler’s rhetoric was purely for domestic consumption – a tool used to exploit the grievances of the demoralized Weimar Republic.
 
Today, a similar debate rages over Ahmadinejad and the mullahs whose regime he leads.  But the sincerity of their beliefs should be in doubt to no one.  The Iranian President is a man who, during his tenure as the mayor of Tehran, ordered the city’s streets widened in anticipation of the return of the Twelfth Imam, a figure who accompanies the apocalypse in Shiite Islamic theology. The American left would call for the head of any mayor in the United States who wanted to widen Main Street to prepare for the return of the Christ. Yet they apparently think a similar figure in the world’s biggest hotbed of religious fundamentalism can be expected to be a benign wielder of nuclear launch codes.

In the new issue of Commentary, the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens, in a piece entitled “Iran Cannot be Contained”, comes to the same conclusion from a different angle, rebutting those who think that because containment worked on the Soviet Union it can work on the Iranian regime:

… The most important difference between the Soviet Union and Iran may be ideological. A credible case can be made that Communism is no less a faith than Islam and that Iran’s current leadership, like Soviet leaders of yore, knows how to temper true belief with pragmatic considerations. But Communism was also a materialist and (by its own lights) rationalist creed, with a belief in the inevitability of history but not in the afterlife. Marxist-Leninist regimes may be unmatched in their record of murderousness, but they were never great believers in the virtues of martyrdom.

That is not the case with Shiism, which has been decisively shaped by a cult of suffering and martyrdom dating to the murder of Imam Husayn—the Sayyed al-Shuhada, or Prince of Martyrs—in Karbala in the seventh century. The emphasis on martyrdom became all the more pronounced in Iran during its war with Iraq, when Tehran sent waves of child soldiers, some as young as 10, to clear out Iraqi minefields. As Hooman Majd writes in his book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, the boys were often led by a soldier mounted on a white horse in imitation of Husayn: “the hero who would lead them into their fateful battle before they met their God.” Tens of thousands of children died this way.

The martyrdom mentality factors into Iran’s nuclear calculus as well. In December 2001, former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani—a man often described as a moderate and a pragmatist in the Western press—noted in his Qods (Jerusalem) Day speech that “if one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”

We are, quite simply, running out of time.  We can try to ignore reality, but reality won’t return the favor.

August 11th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Why Shock Jock Howard Stern “Will Never Vote for a Democrat Again”
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which seeks to impose big-government Net Neutrality upon America and its innovative Internet sector by whatever compulsory means necessary, has now offended even radio host Howard Stern to such a degree that he swears he’ll “never vote for a Democrat again.”  Stern, who in the past has supported Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry for president, said he reached his conclusion because of ‘the fact that these Democrats on the FCC are Communists – they’re for COMMUNISM.”

 

We don’t know that what Lyndon Johnson allegedly said about Walter Cronkite (“if I’ve lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America”) can necessarily be said about Howard Stern, but it certainly speaks volumes when even Stern begins to label the FCC “Communists” and accuses them of “gangsterism.”  We just can’t wait for MSNBC’s farcical primetime lineup to attack Stern in the same way that they targeted the Tea Party for speaking up.

May 12th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
World Cup Gives Insight into a Closed Society

For the first time in 44 years, Communist North Korea has qualified for the World Cup finals, joining 31 other teams in South Africa this summer for the biggest spectacle in sport. Entering the tournament ranked 106th in the world, the lowest of any team competing, the team is not expected to finish with any points, particularly since it has been drawn in a group with the best in the world, Brazil, and the immensely talented Portugal and Ivory Coast.

Then again, very little is known about the team sent by Kim Jong Il.  The Wall Street Journal has dubbed it The International Team of Mystery.  The last time the North Koreans competed in the Cup, equally underestimated, they managed to force a draw with Chile, then stunned perennial powerhouse Italy, winning 1-0 and advancing to the quarterfinals.  For this tournament, they had to navigate a qualifying season of 16 games, which included past Cup finalists, South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

But as the WSJ explores, the most interesting thing about this team is the insight we can gain about the most closed culture on the planet.  Only a handful of its players have ever played professionally outside of North Korea, and those that have play in neighboring Russia and Japan.  They provide the only glimpse we have of these athletes’ lives.  One such player, Choe Myong Ho, told Russian media about his training ethic amid reports he did not own a TV or refrigerator:

“What is a refrigerator for? It allows you to get cold drinks in the summer… And if you do that, you could catch a cold and not be able to train.”

Really?  Is that what Glorious Leader told you?  According to the players, Kim Jong Il personally monitors the team’s progress and development.  This includes sending an agent to monitor Hong Young Jo for six months as he joined the professional Russian side FC Rostov.  Mr. Hong leads a quiet life in an apartment next to the stadium.  He has no car.  The joke in town is that he has no idea what his salary is because it all goes to Pyongyang.  The local paper has quoted him saying, “All my thoughts are on football and the party.”

Hopefully, for the sake of competition the North Koreans are able to come out and put on a good show and not be the doormat that everyone expects.  But more importantly, as the team steps into a rare spotlight, hopefully the world is reminded of the oppression of communism.

April 30th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
L.A. May Day Protests Cost Taxpayers

Unfortunately, red flag waving organizations won’t be trying to disrupt local economies by staging walk-outs and marches on a work day.  This year, Communism’s “May Day” celebration falls on a Saturday, meaning that instead of counter-demonstrators shopping en masse to keep business profits high, the only reason to venture outside tomorrow will be to enjoy the virtual shutdown of urban life.

The Los Angeles Police Department is planning for up to 100,000 people to turn the annual march for grievance solidarity into a traffic congesting protest of Arizona’s new immigration law.  One wonders what organizers hope to accomplish since the LAPD has an illegal immigrant policy called Special 40 “which prohibits officers from initiating action against people solely to discover their legal status.”  Moreover, L.A. was the first to proclaim itself a “sanctuary city,” further complicating the logic for protesting another state’s law in a town that totally disagrees with it.

Since the only discernable economic winner in tomorrow’s L.A. area protests is the LAPD police union members who must be activated in order to monitor the participants, maybe this year’s “May Day” is serving a purpose after all: enriching a public employee union on the weekend.

H/T: L.A. Times