Category: ANTI-COMMUNISM - The Greanville Post

By Larry Everest

Why we should reject putting America and American lives first – and how we can make a bold statement for the planet on July 26.

Don’t get me wrong, I love most sports. But I’m going to have my TV remote (with mute!) at the ready for the upcoming summer Olympics. You know the drill–soaring, beautiful feats of heart, talent and skill by athletes from around the world will be twisted into training people in flag-waving “USA, USA, USA” jingoism and rooting for “our” country–with the occasional “human interest” bit on non-U.S. athletes thrown in to help the chauvinist poison go down. No matter where the U.S. ends up in the ever-present medal count, all this will prove–once again–that this imperialist system works to turn everything it touches–no matter its human potential–into something oppressive and ugly.

Of course, Olympics chauvinism is hardly the worst of it: America and Americans No. 1 are the ideological underpinning and justification for countless crimes, from extraordinary violence to everyday exploitation committed by this empire against millions upon millions across the planet–not once every four years, but each and every day.

So I was thrilled when I heard of the July push to spread two quotes from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian–“American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’ s Lives” and “Internationalism–The Whole World Comes First”–far and wide (with an exclamation point on the 26th–more on that later). Organizers say this is part of the BAsics Bus Tour, now rolling through the streets of New York and nearby areas, with volunteers who have come from across the country going out to the neighborhoods to connect Bob Avakian’s leadership, vision, and works with the people.

And on further reflection, I realized just how unique and unprecedented the spreading these two quotes from BAsics is, and why it’s an effort anyone who cares about the planet should join or support.

I’ve covered and opposed U.S. wars and imperialism for years–from Vietnam “back in the day” to reporting on Iran’ s 1979 revolution against the U.S.-backed tyrant and torturer, the Shah; investigating the poison cloud that spewed from a Union Carbide plant massacring 10,000 to 15,000 people in Bhopal India; seeing the made-in-USA tear gas and rubber bullets used by Israel to injure and kill Palestinians in Gaza in the 1988-89 Intifada; helping document the murderous impact of U.S. sanctions on Iraq, which killed over 500,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s; and writing about the imperialist agenda behind the U.S. “war on terror,” the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the current threats against Iran.

Over these years, many have protested and spoken out against U.S. wars and interventions, and there have been some bold stands against U.S. chauvinism, including raising the Vietnamese National Liberation Front flag during Vietnam War protests, and standing with the Iranian people and declaring “It’s not our Embassy!” during the 1979-1981 “hostage crisis.” And the sentiment that it’s wrong to value American lives over the lives of others has spread (although it must be said that far too often opposition to U.S. crimes is framed in terms of the cost to America and Americans, thus reinforcing the very ideology used to justify these crimes).

But because the capitalist-imperialist system has remained in place, the U.S. continues to rain death and destruction across the planet–via ecological damage and climate change, wars, and imperialist-driven impoverishment and dislocation. And with their system facing new challenges and stresses, the U.S. rulers–whether Democrats or Republicans–are even more stridently promoting America No. 1 exceptionalism and the baseless notion that American lives are worth more than others. Let’s be clear–this poisonous idea is one reason there is way, way too much silence when Obama illegally assassinates people in Yemen, Pakistan, or Somalia. Or when Afghans are massacred, tortured, or brutalized by U.S. troops. Why does Mr. Barack “change-you-can-believe in” Obama end every major speech with “May God bless America”? Every issue–from jobs to manufacturing to the environment–gets filtered through “what’s good for America,” and how “we” can keep America No. 1. All this is sickening and immoral.

As U.S. chauvinism grows ever more hideous, going straight up against the America uber alles mentality and broadly popularizing the outlook and morality expressed by those two BAsics quotes is right on time! The quotes plant a radically different pole, and call for a radically different morality and imagination. If you really start thinking about what putting the world first and not valuing American lives above others actually means, the implications are deep and far reaching.

You start thinking in terms of facing and working on the problems of humanity and the planet as a whole–not just America’s (or your own). You start thinking about how the vast majority of people around the world–billions of people–are forced to live and the unspeakable abuses they suffer. You think about the war being waged in one form or another on women–half of humanity! You follow what’s happening to the planet’s ecosystems. You learn about and face the fact that a very small handful of people centered in a few powerful imperialist countries are exploiting and strangling millions upon millions. And you start thinking about what it’s really going to take to end these needless nightmares–not just being “sorry” or “concerned” about them.

Tour organizers report that the BAsics Bus Tour is raising just these kinds of questions right now in the New York City area–the empire’s financial headquarters and ground zero for unending war, stop-and-frisk, and targeting of immigrants and Muslims. And, together with others across the country, the tour is distributing tens of thousands of palm cards with these internationalist quotes–including by putting this effort right in the hands of the people most cast off by the system.

They explain that this is part of a broader effort to introduce many, many more people to Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and BAsics. This book not only calls out U.S. chauvinism and the system’s myriad abuses, but lays out a vision and strategy for making revolution and getting to a communist world without exploitation, imperialism, national oppression–or national boundaries–and the chauvinism that these divisions foster. Connecting people with Avakian’s leadership and work is crucial for building a movement for revolution right here in the belly of this imperial beast.

Tapping into Deep Aspirations

The two quotes are tapping into the aspirations of many, many people for a better world–aspirations they very rarely have the chance to express.

A middle-aged Black man outside a Wal-Mart in one city said, “I like these quotes. The President says ‘God bless America and nowhere else.’ That’s selfish! The U.S. does many, many bad things to people of other countries. Like wars. The U.S. does these to keep its power over others. No more of this.”

A Black woman said, “I really think every person’s life should be equal.”

“Even though some Americans think they themselves are superior and treat people in other countries, including immigrants, as second-class people, that’s wrong,” a middle-aged unemployed Mexican immigrant worker whose son was murdered by police a few years ago said. “Because America oppresses other countries, people there have no way to survive except to come here to find jobs. I think everyone’s life is precious and everybody should be equal, and there should not be someone’s life being more important than others.”

Tour organizers have issued a call for creative expressions around the country on July 26 around the two BAsics quotes: “Imagine”a big brass band and a crew with beautiful signs in the city center or town square”a flash mob with people shouting out the quotes one by one”a big globe balloon”poetry and spoken word performances inspired by the quotes”dramatic and colorful giant banners””

They’ve also called on people to “Make posters with these quotes with space for people to write what they think of the quote,” and then send photos and videos to tour organizers.

Anyone with a conscience, who cares about the planet and everyone on it, who opposes war, global exploitation, and injustice and who wants to shake up and reshape the whole discussion in this country should take part in spreading these quotes all over and in the creative expressions on July 26.

Submitters Bio:
Larry Everest is the author of Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (Common Courage 2004), a correspondent for Revolution newspaper (www.revcom.us) where this first appeared, who has reported from Iran, Iraq and Palestine, and a contributor to Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney (Seven Stories).

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By Stephen Lendman

The photogenic Mr. Capriles: America’s man in Caracas. Will the mafiosi in Washington try to pull a Libya/Syria-type “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela? Maybe. If they do, “vendepatrias” like Capriles are sure to play a prominent role.

Editor’s Note: The Greanville Post editors, while comprising several independent leftist positions, do not endorse any particular Marxian current: Trotskyst, Maoist, etc., nor any specific Marxist formation. We utilize and respect, however, Marxian analysis. The essay below is part of our continuing reportage on the ongoing debate (and sometimes polemics) within the Marxian and non-Marxian left in the Western world.—PG

Photo: Literacy Rally held in 1961 in Havana, Cuba.

By Steven Argue, Revolutionary Tendency

The International Socialist Organization and the League for a Revolutionary Party tell us that Cuba is capitalist. The following was written in response to a member of the LRP who defended their organization’s position on Cuba. This strange “third camp” ideology is now promoted among several groups calling themselves Trotskyist including the ISO and LRP in the United States. Their idea that Stalinist led countries were actually capitalist was invented by Max Schachtman who led a petty bourgeois opposition within the then Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party 1939-1940. At that time, Trotsky wrote an entire book in opposition to Schachtman’s ideas called, “In Defense of Marxism”.
Cuba is capitalist? This is where eyes roll and you lose everyone. Capitalism was overthrown as a result of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The repressive U.S. backed capitalist dictatorship of Batista was crushed. Capitalist owned industries were seized from the parasitic capitalist class. Production for capitalist profit was eliminated and, instead, production went largely towards meeting human needs. Socialized medicine, literacy campaigns, and nutrition became priorities through the planned socialized economy. Important gains were made for women’s liberation, black liberation, housing, and the environment. Homosexuals, however, were persecuted as an ugly influence of Stalinism in the USSR. A good and meaningful sweeping land reform was also carried out.

Counter-revolutionaries who missed the days of the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship, with CIA backing, waged a terrorist war against the Cuban Revolution. This has included CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles who, among other acts, blew-up Cubana flight 455 in 1976 murdering all 73 people on the airliner. The U.S. continues to shelter Posada from justice. Trotskyists, defending the Cuban Revolution against internal and external counter-revolution supported / support measures by the Cuban government to crush this counter-revolutionary movement.

The USSR provided meaningful aid to the Cuban Revolution, in part by buying sugar from Cuba above the capitalist world market price. When the capitalist counter-revolution took place in the USSR the former USSR began carrying out trade in the fashion that capitalist countries do. This hurt Cuba. Combined with the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba and Cuba’s historic underdevelopment as a result of U.S. and Spanish imperialist control, Cuba was put in a very tough spot. Yet, due to Cuba’s socialist food distribution a humanitarian disaster was averted that would have otherwise happened in any capitalist country under similar circumstances. Likewise, Cuba, with its socialist emphasis on education, has a well educated and creative people who were able to put their heads together and come up with solutions to the lack of pesticides and convert Cuban agriculture to organic production. Urban gardening was also widely developed to feed the people.

Trotskyists do not, as you claim, “raise the illusion that the bureaucracy is wed to nationalized property and will defend it.” Many layers do defend it, others, who see opportunities with capitalist counterrevolution don’t protect socialized property relations and instead seek to overthrow it. Yeltsin was a good example of that. If you read Trotsky’s “Revolution Betrayed”, Trotsky did predict this. Trotsky said in the “Revolution Betrayed” that without a political revolution the Stalinist bureaucracy would move towards capitalist counter-revolution.

Still, predictions aren’t nearly as important as the need for Trotskyists to defend socialized property relations. A simple defense of the national rights of the Cuban people against U.S. imperialism is not enough. This means first and foremost, unlike the LRP, recognizing that capitalism has been overthrown in Cuba. And from there we can differentiate between political revolution and counter-revolution. Counter-revolution destroys the existing socialist property relations. Examples include the Yeltsin and Solidarnosc counter-revolutions. Solidarnosc, with its capitalist program and CIA support, brought 50% unemployment to Poland where there had been none and outlawed abortion where it had been free and legal. Yeltsin’s capitalist counter-revolution brought a drop of life expectancy by 10 years in ten years and many other disasters to the working class.

Political revolution, in contrast to capitalist counter-revolution, preserves the existing socialist economy while overthrowing the repressive Stalinist bureaucracy and implementing a workers democracy. Important revolutionary movements held this potential. These include the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the Prague Spring, and the Tiananmen square uprising. Trotskyists supported those movements and today would support similar movements in Cuba, China, North Korea and Vietnam while at the same defending those revolutions from imperialist attack and internal capitalist counter-revolution. And yes, we do recognize that the Stalinist bureaucracy is playing a major role in allowing dangerous capitalist inroads into the economies of these countries. This heightens the urgency of the need for political revolution to protect and extend the gains of these socialist economies.

This author is a member of the Revolutionary Tendency, Check out our Statement of Purpose:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/07/18704314.php

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free (not associated with the Stalinist PSL who stole our name)
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Also see:
Why The Russian Revolution is Still Important
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/03/18708611.php

AFGHANISTAN: MISOGYNISTIC HELL HOLE MADE IN THE USA
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/07/16/18717635.php

In Defense of Marxism (Trotsky’s opposition to Schachtman’s ideas)
by Leon Trotsky
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/index.htm
§

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By Patrice Greanville

Ms W’s specialty in the deliberate confusionism that clogs America’s mind is to add to it by selling the public the idea that since Hitler was a socialist (sic), any leader, like Barack Obama, for example, putatively dragging the nation kicking and screaming toward “socialism” (sic sic sic) must be a new Hitler in sheep’s clothes. Of course, anyone familiar with the Nazis’ ascent to power knows that they chose to use the word “socialist” —their party’s name was officially the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei —National Socialist Workers Party, NSDAP—precisely because of that label’s popularity among the workers. It was a conscious attempt by the right and the establishment powers behind it at stealing a march from the left, to attract clueless, fearful people to the notion that this strain of rabidly nationalist socialism could be embraced after all since it was patriotic. The ruse worked and the rest is history, as they say, and please forgive the oversimplification.

At any rate I must admit that this line of propaganda by the wing nuts is perhaps one of their best vehicles yet to mislead the clueless—and thereby mobilize them—in the direction of their “solutions” to America’s multitude of self-inflicted political wounds.

Communism and fascism are one and the same

The idea that polar opposites can actually march in the same direction, beholden to the same goals (in this case abominable ones), is one of the oldest fraudulent equations in the American political marketplace. It never seems to go out of fashion because it appeals to simpletons, and it also traps an inordinately high number of victims among the perennial low-info types that abound in America. (Yes, I know, it’s shocking to hear it: ignorance still reigns supreme in America.)

The confusion and hypocrisy start when wing nuts matter-of-factly equate communism with fascism, and profess to hate Hitlerism, the very incarnation of monstrous fascism, but now curiously defined as any form of amorphous government “interference” with an individual’s “right” to do as s/he damn well pleases. Further, consistent with their crypto-racist hyper individualist canon, their most resented intervention by the state is that designed to help the weakest sectors of the population. Or the environment. As natural-born dominionists, most wing nuts and radical Christians regard nature as a passive, inexhaustible resource to be exploited ad nauseam by “man”.

As is customary in most propaganda, especially of the right, the lies and mangled historical facts are so thick as to constitute a near impenetrable puzzle that few souls can negotiate with their minds intact.

More dangerously, the manmade fog does not only attach to facts, but to proto-facts: the scaffolding on which wild claims are pegged.

Consider for example the vaunted credibility of “firsthand witnesses to history”, the chief platform for Ms. Werthmann’s claim to be paid attention as a witness to history, to wit, how Hitler came to power and the implications thereof. While simpletons in every latitude tend to believe intrinsically that an eyewitness to something is the pre-eminent source on whom to base one’s opinion, I beg to differ, and I’m certain that many of TGP’s readers share my skepticism.

People who reside or find themselves in a given country or area when important events take place are not to be automatically credited with a proper understanding of what they say they saw.

First, there’s the blinders of existing prejudices, the ineradicable subjective in all personal accounts. Then, another important hurdle: the level of political maturity and education to judge such events. While more education does not automatically translate into reliable accounts as class prejudices cut deep and deform what is “seen”—in general, the more educated the individual the higher the probability that a broader perspective will be used to filter impressions.

Take for example a simple and recent historical question: Was Ronald Reagan a great guy and worthy leader of the American people, or a hypocritical, warmongering shill for the corporate imperial plutocracy?

If you took a poll today, probably close to half of all living Americans would reply that Reagan was a great guy and a great leader who “defeated communism, restored faith in ourselves,” and many other pearls in a rosary of high-handed baloney that propaganda spin masters wove around his image. For only through such subterfuge was Ronnie, in actuality a vile anti-communist imperialist and FBI informer, sold to the public and posterity as a Great Man worthy of a place on Mt. Rushmore. (As it is Reagan has been ludicrously memorialized in far too many venues, from airports to aircraft supercarriers,

USS Ronald Reagan in the Straits of Magellan in 2004.

and the usual combination of cretins and prostitutes in Congress and elsewhere continue to press for more honors). Yet, weren’t these untold millions of clueless Americans right here, on American soil when the “Great Communicator” lied his way for eight unbroken years? When he ruthlessly skewered the working class and conducted secret, unauthorized wars? Weren’t these Americans “firsthand witnesses”? What’s more, hard as it may be for liberaloids to swallow, no less than one-third of the American population still has a high opinion of George W and his shameless war criminal accomplice, Dick Cheney (both still very much at large and benefiting from a slow but sure “image rehabilitation” courtesy of the feckless Democrats and Barack Obama in particular). For them these guys represent the truest values that make America great, “numero uno” in the disheveled family of nations. Such people, with prejudices and obtuseness reinforced every day by active misinformers like Fox News and passive misleaders throughout the rest of the American media, understand little or nothing to this day. As a result they keep going in circles, increasingly prey to the insane interpretation of the day for all that is wrong with America and their lives.

This remarkable group idiocy is not confined to the right: something similar can be said of the legions of Obamabots whose faith in Wall Street’s Trojan horse, while slightly shaken at times, has recently received a new lease on life as their favorite hypocrite stumps the nation spewing all kinds of populist rhetoric to put some badly needed heft in a still flaccid campaign. Granted, Obama represents a far smoother level of deceit than Bush2 and his cabal, but doesn’t his practically unbroken record of class collaboration with the superrich signify that this time the pied piper is not to be believed? My guess—which I think you share—is that once again lesser evilism will triumph. Big time. To that end, and fulfilling their mission, the Republicans, as befits the true, horrid face of a decrepit criminal capitalism (I’m speaking here in terms of ethics and popular representation, not muscle) generously provide the wind under the wings of the Democrats in what is in essence a quadrennial farce devoid of actual democratic substance.

Many will say: you are asking us to put the Democrats aside, to do what? Deliver the election to the Republicans? This is not the place to discuss in detail what needs to be done, but, as I have repeatedly said, Americans need to step out of the LOTE game, leave behind the system-injected delusions, and develop far more original, tough, and disciplined electoral and non-electoral tactics and strategies to wrench real power from the entrenched usurpers at the top. It won’t be easy; that much we can be certain. But to do that successfully, not to defeat ourselves at the starting gate, the people must also bypass and dismantle all the false options crowding the political field. On the right and on the faux left.

That’s the purpose of these exercises.

It’s time someone took Kitty Werthmann down a peg
FROM THUMPANDWHIP.COM

toma

[Originally Jun 25, 2011]

Hullooo, it’s me! Tell me — are you sick of propaganda? Have you grown tired of hysteria? Do you feel like slapping the next fool who compares Obama to Hitler?

Get ready to knock an old lady off her rocker. Kitty Werthmann is a shriveled wingnut with a great gig. An Austrian survivor of Hitler’s Third Reich, Kitty speaks to conservative throngs. She wows them with first-hand accounts of life under Adolf. Which, I’ll admit, is pretty interesting stuff, if only it stopped there.

But the actual tortured past is not enough for Kitty. Today’s glorious right-wing offers too much money and adoration. So she appears before Tea Party crowds, talks about how Hitler employed millions, built freeways and ass-fucked humanity, and the teabaggers turn to jelly. They go home and start breathless internet threads about Obammunist Fascism, or they send you annoying e-mails featuring this wrinkled wizard of doom.

Like her, Kitty’s routine is old and lazy. A gift of the lottery of long life, her eyewitness schtick is: you Americans, I’m warning you, your Socialist president is Adolf Hitler. You can’t argue with that. Bet me. She was there! Fuck off, and buy some breath mints.

“In 1938, the media reported that Hitler rolled into Austria with tanks and guns and took us over. Not true at all. The Austrian people elected Hitler by 98% of the vote by means of the ballot box. Now, you might ask, ‘How could a Christian nation, almost 100% Catholic, to elect a monster like Hitler?’ The truth is, at the beginning, Hitler didn’t look like or talk like a monster at all. He talked like an American politician.”

. . the crowd breaks into applause, the jig is up, and Kitty’s off and running. You see? Barack’s a mere couple months from gassing you.

Sadly, she has no gift for haute entertainment: Kitty doesn’t know when to let a crowd off the hook. She is Adolf and overkill, nothing else. After the opening, she smashes the bank of right-wing hot buttons with everything she’s got: politicians, speeches, child care, centralization, Bella Jesse Boxer Abzug, nationalization of the car industry, nationalization of the banks, nationalization of churches and farms, the ERA(?), abortion, Mexicans, communists, political indoctrination, euthanasia, Deutschland Uber Alles, and gun control. And thus the point: it’s all the same!

But Kitty’s pathetic. Wanna know why the idiot historians said “In 1938, the media reported Hitler rolled into Austria with tanks and guns and took us over”? Because, in 1938, Hitler rolled into Austria with tanks and guns and took the country over.

Under growing pressure from German-supported Austrian National Socialists and Hitler (who was born in Austria), Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg felt his nation could soon be consumed by its aggressive neighbor. Schuschnigg called for a national plebiscite on the question of remaining an independent nation. It was so effective a ploy, the vote likely resulting in a rejection of Germany, that it catalyzed the end of free Austria: the home-baked Nazis rose up, and Hitler threatened a Guernica-style attack. Seeing bloodshed in the offing, Schuschnigg and his cabinet resigned. The tanks rolled in the next day, and Hitler swung by a couple days later. That’s when they held a second sham plebiscite where (whaddyaknow!) the Nazis won.

Werthmann starts her talks by citing that vote — which Hitler’s minions claimed they won by not 98%, but 99%, never verified — as the dishonest way to warn you how easily the decimation of America, the death of you and the initiation of genocide could happen.

I’d call her preposterous, but watch the video distillation for yourself. She’s more than that. What do you say about the purposes of someone who, in 2011, is telling you the witnesses lied in 1938? That it was Hitler who told the truth? What do you note of someone who warns that liberals are crazy, murderous lunatics? “Keep your guns! Keep your guns and buy more guns!” Kitty’s living proof a krotchet-munch can outlive the Third Reich.

________________

ADDENDUM
(Common sense, politically incorrect newsletter to 15,317 subscribers)
Our mission is to get our readers thinking about current events.

DON’T ALLOW AMERICA TO
FOLLOW HITLER’S SOCIALIST
STEPS TO DICTATORSHIP.

Hitler’s Demands Were Stifling,

Government Owned Big Business,

Small Business Hardly Existed,

Free Healthcare Overwhelmed.

America Truly Is the Greatest Country in the World
By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to istory. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide — 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.

In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.

Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people — about 30 daily.

The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz , and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria.

We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.

After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service. Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home.

An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.

Hitler Targets Education – Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:
    Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told
the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles”, and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.

The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.

My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun — no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it.

Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.

Equal Rights Hits Home:
    In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.

Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps.

After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:
    When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:
    Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything.

When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best
doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.

As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.

We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

“Mercy Killing” Redefined:
    In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful
and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were
required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

The Final Steps – Gun Laws:
    Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles.

The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little, eroded our freedom. After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either.
When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn’t, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.

America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World
    It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.

Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away. After America, There is No Place to Go. Please forward this message to other voters who may not have it.

–The author of this article lives in South Dakota and is very active in attempting to maintain our freedom. I encourage everybody to read this article and pass it along. I see so many parallels in this country —are we going to sit by and watch it happen? Spread the word; also contact your congressional reps; vote them out if they don’t do what they
should. If you don’t want to be bothered, then you’re part of the problem! Google Kitty Werthmann and you will see articles and videos.
http://www.calltodecision.com/kitty.htm
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Editor’s Note: The value of any theory is proved by the accuracy of its predictions and its ability to describe reality. On both counts Marxian theory continues to prove far superior and reliable to bourgeois social science (the latter often an oxymoron if not a hoax when dealing with the political economy, sociology and the rest of the disciplines that profess to track social reality). After more than a century of badmouthing, of being declared irrelevant, obsolete, and even dangerous by capitalist apologists, Marx and Engels stand tall, fully vindicated and more relevant than ever in this time of global crisis triggered by capitalism. As many true socialists have warned over the years, the choice for humanity is clear: it’s socialism or barbarism. —P. Greanville

By Brian P. Stetten

When on Earth are we going to wake up and begin questioning the very nature of our economic and political systems? In June of last year, Conservative Member of Parliament Cecil Parkinson on BBC made the surreal statement, “The capitalists are destroying capitalism.” He stated this with a certain amount of surprise, as if he was saying to himself, “Why are they doing this? Eventually, they will only hurt themselves.”

Karl Marx warned of this over a hundred years ago. He predicted that capitalism would destroy itself through liquidity crisis, through competition driving down workers wages to the point where they could not afford to buy the products or services they produced, that competition would lead to powerful monopolies that would destroy small businesses.

et the collapse of capitalism never happened. As the worse of abuses and exploitation took its toll on workers, the workers found ways of pushing back. Recently, Times Magazine in its early July issue, in an article “The American Dream-has seen better days-much better”, the author makes it clear that the income inequality between the rich and the poor is even greater than it was during the Great Depression. In actuality, the income inequality has never been this bad throughout America’s entire history. During the Great Depression, labor movements and far left parties united and pushed the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration towards the New Deal. Government regulations were put in place to prevent some of the worst abuses of capitalism. Unions gained more prominence and power. After this period, we had the growth of the middle class.

So, Karl Marx’s prediction was proven wrong, or was it?

As the New Deal apparatus was dismantled over the past four decades, the measures that once saved capitalism are no longer there to protect the system from abuses. Karl Marx is currently being proven correct as a huge transfer of wealth has shifted from 99% of the population, into the hands of less than one tenth of one percent of the total population. A highly class conscious war has been waged on the majority of Americans, and yet we stand by apathetic, hoping that if we just happen to elect that right person, perhaps it will all go away. Ever since the beginning of the Washington Consensus, wages have been stagnant to down for the majority of Americans while those of the elite have increased by nearly three hundred percent. The middle class itself is effectively becoming a dream of days past. Yet the system experiences financial crisis after financial crisis, and each time it becomes far more expensive to bail out the system. However, as Professor Colin Crouch points out in his book, “The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism”, as the current economic system benefits the top elite so well, they will do anything in their power to make sure it stays in place.

At this point, we have to realize that we are a primarily a society run by transnational corporations, which are effectively tyrannies, with a CEO/dictator at the top, that are only accountable to their owners and no one else. The investor class behind these corporate entities makes key decisions that influence our politics, and their demand for profits completely subordinate human rights and basic human needs. Indeed, the extreme nature of this economic inequality has led to extremely corrupted moral and spiritual values that has distorted the very moral fabric of our society. Chris Hayes in his book “Twilight of the Elites” refers to Desmond Tutu’s observations of the white ruling class during the period of South Africa’s apartheid, and how it dehumanized that very ruling class. However, this is nothing new, but the old maxim of how power corrupts. As the rich elite can buy their way seemingly through anything, there is one set of laws for us and another for them. So for instance, as Jon Corzine was CEO of MF Global, he apparently took $1.5 billion from customer accounts before the firm collapsed, and no one is on the TV screaming that he should go to jail. I found it rather ironic that at the time this was out in the news cycle, a homeless man in Florida was arrested and jailed for stealing a soda from a McDonalds.

It is becoming apparent to more and more people, that the ruling elite have become a mafia. In the robo-signing scandal where documents where fraudulently signed, no one went to jail. CEO Mike Duke of Wal-Mart was involved in covering up bribes to the Mexican government for store locations, and no one is fined or threatened. Bob Diamond of Barclay Bank was involved in a scandal fixing the Libor interest rate that impacts millions of people and literally trillions of dollars in transactions, and you can be sure, he will not be facing any jail time.

The influence of the elite on the politics and the media, has led to what Chris Hayes refers to as a ‘Post Truth Politics” period, where a politician can state absolute nonsense, and it goes by unquestioned. President Obama is described as going on ‘apology tours’, while he is waging brutal wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Obama is described as a socialist, while corporations are at their most profitable in over 50 years and the stock market is up 60% since the beginning of his administration. At a Republican debate, the audience gives a standing ovation as the presidential candidates raise their hands to the answer of ‘who would bring back torture?

As the moral fabric of our society ends up in shreds, you can see it filter down through the media, and then to our people. Who can forget the behavior of youthful Americans hitting the streets and cheering the death of Osama Bin Laden? What Americans would cheerfully send in donations to George Zimmerman adding up to $150,000 for killing a black youth? Who can forget Tea Party members marching with extremely racist signs? At another Republican debate, audience members cheering on the idea of a fellow citizen dying due to lack of health insurance coverage. This is not surprising if one refers back to C.W. Mills who states that the higher immorality of the elites becomes accepted and essentially a feature of our mass society. In other words, the mass society itself is also left without any moral standards to hold on to, or even rise against.

To the joy of the ruling elite, the conservatives pander to the religious right and use falling moral values as an excuse to attack gay rights or women’s reproductive rights. A type of divide and conquer strategy to keep people’s eyes off their own worsening economic positions. When Barry Pateman interviewed Noam Chomsky in 2011 in a discussion over anarchism, Noam pointed out that the elite have used the corporate controlled media to create a consciousness of subordination among the population that is deliberately intended to suppress normal human emotions of sympathy and solidarity. Noam Chomsky, states, ‘Why threaten Social Security? It’s a normal feeling to care if the disabled widow that lives across town has enough food to eat. However, they are trying to drive that idea out of our skulls. They want you to think, if that disabled widow that lives across town does not have enough to eat it is her own fault because she didn’t save up enough money in her lifetime. Why should you care?” This bizarre Ayn Rand type of morality represents the values of the corrupted elite as they become part of the rest of our society. It is also deeply ingrained in our system of capitalism. Our economic system rewards greed and self-centered behavior and depends on it to thrive. As the economic inequality worsens, the morality declines and the inhumanity floats to the surface. Do we truly want to become a society of backstabbers?

Worse yet is the total failure of our institutions of democracy, as the elite easily buy the politicians through campaign donations, heavily lobby and write their laws, or define their character through the media. Just this past June 15, former Prime Minister Tony Blair of the U.K. admitted that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., pressured him into joining the Untied States in the war on Iraq. Just recently, it has been reported a number of times, that casino billionaire, Sheldon Adelson wants a war with Iran, and he is willing to pay for it. He will donate up to $100 million to former Governor Mitt Romney to get that war at all costs. Sheldon Adelson is the same character that funded the Clarion Project to produce the film ‘The Third Jihad’ with the deliberate intention of promoting Islamophobia.

What right do the elite have to impact our foreign policy to such an extent? What right do they have to influence any of our policy to an extent that benefits their greedy needs or sick desires? They have made a complete mockery of our democracy, and effectively the capitalism itself destroys democracy. With our variant of capitalism, you have a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and that automatically converts to political power. China has managed to create a very highly effective system of state sponsored capitalism that requires no democracy at all. The notion that capitalism and democracy go hand in hand is simply a myth. Matter of fact, the notion of ‘economic freedom’ those on the right like to push as equivalent to personal freedom is also a false equivalency. Economic freedom for corporate America is the freedom of the rich few to exploit the poor masses. Many deep Marxist thinkers believe that our current form of capitalism is heading toward barbarism. In other words, a world where workers are enslaved to the rich elite who live in gated communities completely out of touch with the rest of society. I think we are already part of the way there.

What should wake up everyone once and for all is that our current system of capitalism may very well drive the human species to extinction. The system simply is not sustainable as you cannot assume infinite economic growth when the world has a finite amount of resources. More to the point, we are a mere five percent of the world’s population, and yet we consume about a third of the world’s resources. We may have only five years to stop carbon dioxide emissions to prevent conditions that will not be survivable by humans, assuming it is not already too late. Once again, the greed of the elite and their control over the political system and media completely controls the discussion and destroys all political will for effective action. As the average global temperature increases and more energy is placed into the system, water vapor content increases in the atmosphere and we have far more energetic storms and unusual storm activity like tornados in Brooklyn or western Pennsylvania. Areas that tend to be dry have increased rates of evaporation and heat waves, areas that typically have precipitation have harsher storms. The results are major wild fires and floods that haven’t been experienced for hundreds of years. Yet the news media will not even connect the increasingly volatile weather with the phenomena of global warming/climate change. The precious profits of the greenhouse gas emitting coal and oil companies are far more important than the future of the human race. Tens of millions are spent on programs to convince the public that global warming/climate change is a mere liberal hoax. Glaciers are disappearing before our eyes while anywhere from a third to half the public is in a state of denial as to what is actually happening. As the glaciers melt, massive amounts of water enter the oceans and that weight is redistributed over the surface of the Earth. Think of squeezing a balloon at one end and seeing the other side bulge. This effect, called glacial rebound, shifts tectonic plates and increases seismic and volcanic activity. Should one be surprised that we have a natural disaster of the month?

It doesn’t get any better, a recent report from the United Nations Environmental Program also warned of the following: about 20 percent of vertebrate species are under threat of extinction, coral reefs have declined by 38 percent since 1980, greenhouse gas emissions could double over the next 50 years, and 90 percent of water and fish samples from aquatic environments are contaminated by pesticides. The oceans are particularly becoming impacted by the increase in carbon dioxide which dissolves in the water and chemically reacts to form carbonic acid. The acidity or pH of the ocean has increased by 30% over the past two decades. Kill the oceans and we kill the well spring of life from whence we originally came. Over half of our oxygen comes from phyto-plankton in the ocean and the rest coming from land based vegetation. That is particularly bad news as we may have killed nearly half the ocean’s phytoplankton. British astrophysicists Sir Martin Reese gives the human race a 50/50 chance of survival over the next 100 years. There are some scientists that believe that is optimistic.

Now, here is the issue. The failure of the Democratic Party to be able to seriously even breach the surface of the above issues is a clear indication that there is no third way possible between neo-liberal policies and a radical anti-capitalist alternative. As both parties have moved so far to the right, you have Republicans acting as fascists and Democrats acting as capitalism apologists. The Marxists are proving that they were right all along as we face barbarism unless we move to a socialist alternative. The very fate of the human race hangs in the balance of whether we can actually change the underlying nature of our economic and political systems. So the question remains, can social mobilization break the resistance of the dominant rich elite class and seriously contest the neo-liberal order? As past experience tells us, it certainly will not come from dependence on the electoral system.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As Brian himself will probably agree, for a man who sees clearly the bankruptcy of the capitalist system, and is so determined to remedy the situation, he shows some curious and interesting incongruencies in his background and even present. With an early start in physics, he eventually switched to a career right within the bowels of the monster, as an equity trader for The Vanguard Group, the second largest mutual fund company in the world. He then used that background to provide stock market commentary on MarketTalk chats for America Online and Multex.com where he was chief market commentator and equity analyst. After that Brian focused on the alternative investments arena, providing consulting services and capital introduction to hedge funds via HedgeCo.net, as well as offering commercial mortgages for investment properties through Capstone Funding.

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Yes, audiences applaud us. But do you?If yes, then buy us a beer. The wingnuts are falling over each other to make donations…to their causes. We, on the other hand, take our left media—the only media that speak for us— for granted. Don’t join that parade, and give today. Every dollar counts.

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Chavez Riding High in Polls

Cuba Capitalist? A Trotskyist Response to the ISO and LRP

PROPAGANDA DISSECTION: The far right in “moderate, common sense” clothes

DON’T ALLOW AMERICA TO FOLLOW HITLER’S SOCIALIST STEPS TO DICTATORSHIP.

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DON’T ALLOW AMERICA TO
FOLLOW HITLER’S SOCIALIST
STEPS TO DICTATORSHIP.