17 July 2018: The United States of America is a Democratic Republic and sometimes referred to as a Constitutional Republic. The meaning of our words can matter greatly in particular in discussing what type of a country we are at this time in our history. The point of this blog is not to expound upon these terms, rather to explore this, please start with a 2016 opinion piece by Eugen Volokh in the Washington Post which is available here: https://tinyurl.com/ybnv9tsg.
For months the American public has been subjected to daily political discourse about Russian collusion in our 2016 presidential election. In fact, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has twice in the past year issued indictments for Russian intelligence operatives. The indictments accuse Russian spies of spying. The latest indictment is available here: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download
What is important about this latest indictment is that it (1) names the spies (which may prompt other individuals to make connections not previously made); (2) confirms that cyber attacks and cyber thefts occurred, and (3) reminds us why using non-secured email accounts and private servers for official government (including classified or sensitive information) is against federal policies. There is zero chance that any of the 25 indicted Russian spies will returned to the United States to face prosecution. Even if Russian law allowed this (which I understand it does not); the United States Justice and State Departments have been unable in 7 years to convince Denmark (a nation we have an extradition treaty with) to send Dr. Poul Thorsen back to the US to face prosecution for 22 counts of wire fraud and money laundering – related to theft from the CDC grant which produced the autism and vaccines are not linked studies (discussion for another day). If they cannot get a single doctor back from a friendly nation; they a not going to get two dozen Russian intelligence operatives back on US soil. There is an entirely other line of discussion about how if by some miracle this happened, the fact that the FBI destroyed devices for Secretary Clinton, returned others, and failed to take possession of the DNC or DCCC servers that lawyers representing the defendants could get the case thrown out because the devices could not be presented. The DOJ was clear in stating that the evidence did not show that any of the acts resulted in changing a single vote in the election. Which I’m pretty sure was intended as a taunt to the Russians.
Yesterday, John Brennan tweeted that he felt that President Trumps’ performance in Helsinki was treasonous. Setting aside the crazy place we are in as a society when a Former CIA Director is tweeting; and that he has become one of the most vitriolic political tv pundits against a sitting president; he also admits that in 1976 he voted for a communist in the presidential election. One has to wonder how he made it through Senate confirmation, and why he was even selected to be CIA Director in the first place given that he voted for a communist party candidate for president. An interesting article about Brennan in the American Thinker can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/y7fktjh8 . One might wonder who is working to destabilize our country more?
I digress from my original topic on purpose – to show how easily we can be distracted from what is really important – protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States and all that we as a People hold dear. Our lives, our liberties, and our ability to pursue happiness. Even before, but currently while all of this attention has been focused on whether the Trump campaign ‘colluded’ with the Russians to win the election; the real attack on the USA has been hiding in plain sight. Communist operatives have been chipping away at our liberty by influencing our thought process. Think about this – politicians and the media now frequently use the term ‘workers’ instead of work force or the word employees. The radio personality Chris Plante repeats it in his tongue in cheek remarks.
There is always a battle to protect our democratic republic – to protect democracy against communism. And yes, to protect capitalism. Why, because communism is an evil, like a cancer on liberty -it always seeks to grow and take over. In our civilized society, we shy away from using such strong language – but it is a truth we should not ignore.
So, what exactly is communism? It is a political theory espoused by Marx and Lenin (and Putin, the Castros in Cuba, Xi and the Politburo in China, the Kim family in North Korea, and the leaders of Laos and Vietnam) in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. (The Communist Party) In short, it is a way of life in which the citizens of a country have no liberty, no true control over their own destiny. The Communist party replaced a monarchy with a small group of people of their own choosing who make decisions about every aspect of the citizenry’s lives – from where you go to school, to career pathways, to what type of medical care you get, to where you live. There is no religious liberty, no freedom of speech, and neighbor is encouraged to spy on neighbor.
The US post World War II efforts to protect our nation and the planet from the evils of communism focused on ‘containment’. It is the very reason NATO exists. In recent years, the attempts to expand communist rule are present, Communist China is building new islands to expand its territory, after re-exerting its authority over Taiwan and Hong Kong; and Communist Russia grabbed Crimea. Russia exerts its power over Europe during the winter with threats to cut off their hearing oil supply. This manipulation has direct effect on activities at the United Nations and other global governing bodies.
Less obvious grabs of power have been happening for many decades. Socialism has its foothold around the planet. And why is that a problem? Because socialism is a stepping stone to communism. In fact, it is espoused in Marx’s theory as the transition phase between capitalism and communism. For decades we have heard for instance that we as a nation are wrong for not having a single payer health system, aka Medicare for all, or National Health Service (such as Canada and most or all of the Europe.). Nationalizing our health care would be a major mistake in my opinion because it will take away the freedom of Americans to select not just who delivers their care, but what type of care they will receive. For those of us who prescribe to a different philosophy of healing, or who promote the rights of those who choose a different path, these will be eliminated because only the dominate force (mainstream allopathic aka conventional drug centric) medical model. (This too is a topic for another day).
Nationalizing any sector of our society or industry is destructive to every other aspect. Government managed systems are notoriously inefficient, with bloated budgets and if they had to compete in the open market would fail. It is one of the reasons there is so great a discussion about how to provide better care for our veterans – because the VA as great as the mission is, have become inefficient because it is so big, with too many layers of management. Long waits, corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse – all symptoms of the greater problem – that government managing an entire sector of our society is not optimal.
As much as I was outraged at the manipulation of the Democratic National Committee to deny Senator Bernie Sanders a fair chance at the nomination; I was almost relieved, because Senator Sanders was never a democrat. He caucused with the democrats and was even given a chairmanship at one point. Sen. Sanders was always a socialist running as an independent to be elected to House and then Senate. He knew to have any chance at being elected President he had to join the democratic party. As soon as he lost the nomination, he quit the democratic party.
There is a lot happening in the US that we do not attribute to a promotion of communist ideals, but they are. Anytime religious liberty, journalism, freedom of speech are attacked, curtailed, or undermined, communism gains ground. When Democrats seeking public office compete against each other to be ‘the most progressive’, liberty is losing. When Nico LaHood, a democratic district attorney in Texas was defeated in the democratic primary in large part due to a million-dollar investment in the campaign by George Soros who felt Nico was not liberal enough, communism was the real winner.
In April, Franklin Bynum ran unopposed to win the Democratic nomination to become a criminal court judge in Houston. He is running as a socialist. This New York Times article lists many others running at all levels of government running for office. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/us/dsa-socialism-candidates-midterms.html
Rep. Joe Crowley, a top democrat in the House lost his primary to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is a ‘democratic socialist’, who promotes socialist/communist perks – guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing, guaranteed health care, etc. An article in the Washington Times took the gloves off a bit. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/27/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-socialism-makes-her-enem/
Democrats across the country were quick to jump on board and claim a little media time by being supportive of Alexandria including Senator Elizabeth Warren and New York City Mayoral Candidate Cynthia Nixon. The DNC sang her praises as the future of the democratic party. All of this before she had much media attention and before we learned that she misrepresented herself in the campaign. She did not grow up in the working-class neighborhood of the Bronx she will represent, but in Westchester County attending Westchester schools; going to Boston University and interning for Sen. Ted Kennedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5905247/Girl-Bronx-Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez-actually-grew-wealthy-Westchester-County.html She worked on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign before moving back to the Bronx and setting her sights on Congress. She gained further notoriety in bashing Israel on Front Line: https://www.jta.org/2018/07/16/news-opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-criticizes-israel-occupation-palestine . After getting tripped up in the interview, she back peddled a bit and claimed she was not an expert in geopolitics, which some call into question given her major in college was international relations.
The truth is that the Russians and other communist are laughing at us right now because we do not realize as a nation how much we have compromised our Constitution and liberty. When Congress takes away the rights of Americans to sue big companies when a child is medically injured, Communists laugh; when legislators introduce bills to nationalize health care, communists laugh; when there are protests in the streets calling for the elimination of ICE (and politicians join in) Communists laugh; when legislators across the country mandate medications as a condition of school participation, communists laugh; when government officials seek to control the free market system with price controls and crop subsidies, Communists laugh. When billionaires promote programs in which everyone gets a salary, Communists laugh.
Communists will not take over the United States of America through a frontal assault or direct invasion; rather they seep in like the dark, slowly. You may not notice at first that the sun is setting, you have to be listening to hear the changing songs of the birds and the bugs to be aware of the coming dark. The warning signs are there, but we miss them if we do not listen.
Communism is sneaking into our society and President Trump is not the one at fault. He is not the ‘bad guy’ in all of this. I think he could have handled himself better yesterday; but yesterday was nothing in the big picture of the communist proselyting in the United States to convert a freedom loving people to slaves of a communist politburo who promise free health care, free college, government jobs for all, mandatory minimum wages, and abolishment of the rule of law.
President Putin, I am sure is laughing with his communist cronies, the old KGB ‘intelligence operative’ knows President Trump knows the Russian cyber attacks and spying were sanctioned. He knows that we know they spy in the US and around the world, the same way we spy on Russia and around the world. (Didn’t President Obama have to apologize to Germany’s Chancellor Merkle for listening to her calls and the calls of her government ministers?) Putin is laughing at how fickle Democrats are about communism. In 2012 President Barrack Obama laughed at Mitt Romney about his concern about Russia during a presidential debate (as did Senator and then Vice President Joe Biden as well as Sen. John Kerry.). President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeking to play off a marketing campaign for a US office supply store took a ‘reset’ button to a meeting with the Russian, he laughed at the foolish ploy (and that her translators bungled the translation so badly did not help either). Some Democrats promote ideals of communism – with government management of so many sectors of society; but when President Trump doesn’t attack President Putin publicly, they go ballistic.
Putin laughs when billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who took a page out of the communist playbook to change the law to suit his own desires –so he could be mayor of New York City for a third term; begin promoting gun control. (He further showed his allegiance only to himself by changing political parties not once, but twice.) Why does Putin laugh? Because, when you take the guns away from law-abiding citizens, he knows the government can take control.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy stated, “There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.”
I have been to Berlin and to Russia. I understand with all my soul what President Kennedy meant.
Republicans are not free of the communist influence either. Republicans have and continue to participate in promoting programs and crafting new laws that chip away at the Constitution, at our liberty.
In 1980, President Ronald Reagan stated, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”
President Reagan also stated, “I’ve always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth who have a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave homeland and friends, to come to a strange land. And coming here they created something new in all the history of mankind – a land where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.
Our Constitution should be the ‘true north’ on our compass that directs our actions as a government and as citizens. Maybe it’s time to pause and study our founding documents and refocus our efforts as a nation to preserve and protect our ‘true north’. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution
To paraphrase President Reagan, Communism denies the God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on the planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.
Please do not let yourself get too distracted by the bright and shiny objects (ie news stories) distracting you from what is really important.
Always,
Beth Clay