Great Highlights in Marxist “Leadership”: Or, When Change Turns Malignant
Obama: Relish therapeutic yelling at others for the enormity of his own incompetence
By Kelly O’Connell
Presuming Barack Obama considers cursing himself an act of blasphemy, he will certainly relish therapeutic yelling at others for the enormity of his own incompetence (as he admitted wanting to do on Larry King recently).
What makes observing Obama’s on-the-job training more egregious is his determination to taste every conceivable failure. He’s like the moth that can’t resist flying into the candle, again and again, till both wings are reduced to smoldering stumps. Yet, Barack’s genius for falling-short merely puts him into the pantheon of other notable Marxist leaders. The curious suicide impulse of socialist leaders to stagger from one banana skin to another is the topic of this essay.
Each epic Marxist leader, such as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao caused suffering, chaos and destruction at an unimaginable level. American leftist leaders like the insufferably self-righteous ex-president Jimmy Carter also have wrought misguided havoc in the name of the poor, downtrodden, and unpopular, at the price of capitalism. And now Barack Obama joins this august list. But what most people don’t know, because they cannot conceive of such profound evil, is Marxism and socialism, are predicated upon the collapse of capitalism. This, then, might put into context the various strange elements of Obama’s ruling style, which seems to specialize in condemnation of the greedy, but puts very little stock in the virtues of capitalism and the American way of life.
I. Karl Marx, Prophet of Destruction
A. Marxist Overview
Karl Marx, who lived from 1818-1883, is the greatest name in the history of socialism. This is inconvenient for socialists given the bloody failures of the USSR, China, etc. It is quite important to understand that Marx demanded the destruction of Capitalism. This means communism is not just in competition with Capitalism, or a mere critic—but its mortal enemy. Therefore, the first goal of any committed Marxist is the evisceration of capitalism.
Marx taught human history was the story of “Class Struggle.” He believed wealth the only measure of human worth. Marx prophesied an inevitable economic cycle: After medieval feudalism was replaced by capitalism, it would then inevitably be overthrown by a Proletarian (ie worker) Revolution, resulting in a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This would eliminate the “alienation” caused by capitalist barons robbing workers of the fruits of their labors. The net result would finally be a classless society. Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” encouraged all global workers to unite for the worker’s historic mission. Marx taught religion was evil, and so his state becomes a god by default.
B. Hegel & Heraclitus
Patron saints of atheist Karl Marx were the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus and his near-contemporary George Hegel. Marx borrowed from Hegel his entire theoretical framework, simply replacing God with wealth, creating a closed atheistic system. Hegel’s philosophy does not differentiate between peaceful versus violent means. In Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, there are no civil rights against any state action. Therefore, all government acts are acceptable to Hegel, regardless how bloody. Marx wholly concurred.
Heraclitus’ “Flux” equals conflict and destruction, the source of all good things. His philosophy presumes violence, as he wrote, “War is the father and king of all, and has produced some as gods and some as men, and has made some slaves and some free;” and “We must know that war is universal and strife right, and that by strife all things arise.” He also said, “They say that it is unfitting that the sight of wars should please the gods. But it is not so. For noble works delight them, and while wars and battles seem to us terrible, to God they do not seem so.” Here one sees Marx’s intellectual forebears and the idea destruction is the father of all.
C. Destructive Tendencies
Marx claimed there is no God or human soul; only the group matters. Therefore, people are mere pawns in a game. In achieving classless society, does it matter how many persons are destroyed, if it helps the outcome? Most chilling, a Marxist leader will see only opportunity in catastrophe, whereas a genuine leader would view such strife, destruction and death with grief and a desire to help.
II. Marxist Leaders
This section describes disasters created by notable Marxist leaders. The first debacle is obviously embracing Marx’s nonsensical economics. Technically, there is no “Marxist economics” in that Marx only articulated a negative critique of capitalism. The most obvious reason is Marx’s ideas are unworkable in the real world. Every historical attempt shows them impossible.
The best explanation for continued global enthusiasm for socialism and communism, despite relentless failures, is need for religion in the lives of godless Marxists, as described by Eric Voegelin. Marxist’s mindless attacks upon capitalism are reminiscent of similar Islamic denunciations. Capitalism is simply human freedom applied to the marketplace, Therefore, totalitarianism is itself greatly disturbed by free-market enthusiasts attempting productivity without guidance from the mother ship.
A. Lenin
Vladimir Lenin lived from 1870-1922, establishing the first communist state after Russia’s 1917 revolution. There was no “Good Lenin” as Marxists now tell themselves, according to Robert Gellately in “Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler; The Age of Social Catastrophe.” Lenin fathered all subsequent devils, erecting the philosophy and machinery of tyranny, terror and death used by Stalin, then mimicked by Mao. Lenin was outside Russia for ten years when the Russian Revolution started. He took the famed “Sealed Train” back home with $10 million to fund the revolution.
Virtually every decision Lenin made after coming home was a disaster. Instead of playing peace-maker, he fomented civil war, knowing this would increase Bolshevik chances for power. He cared not about defending Russia in WWI, only that his Bolshevik’s would profit from the opportunity. After gaining power, he personally wiped out any chance for liberal democracy, jailing, torturing and murdering his principled opposition. He insisted Marx’s Tyranny of the Proletariat be installed, and set up the Cheka secret police and prison camps. While Stalin died relatively young, he didn’t achieve more evil simply for lack of opportunity.
B. Stalin
Joseph Stalin lived from 1879—1953. Many of his decisions rank among the worst ever. As Lenin’s colleague, he saw the birth of the USSR. He went on to become one of history’s most paranoid and bloody despots. His achievements included development of the police state to its logical conclusion, and murder of perhaps 70 million of his countrymen. Stalin’s Five-Year Plan to upgrade the economy failed so spectacularly it led to the largest drop in GDP in recorded history, according to Alec Nove. His subsequent war against the hated, defenseless Kulak peasants was preceded by Lenin starving 5 million to death. Stalin removed the Kulaks from the land, essentially making them indistinguishable from medieval serfs. His decision to sell all grain, not even leaving enough to keep the Kulaks alive, meant 6-8 million more starved to death in a year, according to Robert Conquest’s “Harvest of Sorrow; Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine.”
Stalin’s Great Terror was a bureaucratic decision to create chaos, destruction and death throughout the land so the tiny ultra-minority Bolshevik could better keep power. While Stalin used the KGB and kangaroo courts to remove enemies, after awhile the process began to feed upon itself. Stalin became convinced murder itself was life-giving. He demand each division send a raw number of persons—say 100,000—to be arrested, imprisoned or executed. Invariably, these people were often just unlucky folks randomly plucked off the street without committing a single crime. Stalin was so paranoid, ruthless and unfeeling, virtually every decision made by him debased the country, yet he was able to keep power for decades simply via sheer terror.
C. Mao
Chairman Mao Zedong lived from 1893 to 1976. He began as a rebellious boy and never gave up the mindset. After leading the People’s Liberation Army, he set up communist China. Initially trained by the Russians, he found their methods lacking. Mao went on to author some of the largest man-made catastrophes in history, including the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. In the Great Leap Forward, Mao tried to “supersize” his economy in a very short period of time by forcing the peasants to enrich the country’s treasury. Zedong demanded massive growth in both agriculture and technology. But his goals included no educated plans, so his scheme was a staggering failure. Seven hundred million peasants were moved off their farms into agricultural communes, but instead of increasing food production, it plummeted. Experts believe some 40 million Chinese may have starved to death during the man-made famine, according to Jasper Becker’s “Hungry Ghosts.”
Mao never got over the astounding failure of his Great Leap Forward. In time, he chose a classic Marxist maneuver, attacking society’s movers and shakers. His Cultural Revolution was a direct assault against the institutions of China—family, educators, politicians and artists. In fact, Mao even canceled university classes for a few years so students could properly assault the bourgeoisie. A crazy but typical outcome: In some hospitals, janitors were forced to switch places with surgeons, to predictable results. Yet Mao was more interested in settling scores, and he made sure long lists of his enemies were liquidated before it ended, according to “Mao, The Unknown Story,’ by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.
III. American Leftist Jimmy Carter
A. Overview
This is no attempt to place Jimmy Carter into the same league as Lenin, Stalin and Mao in terms of evil deeds. That would be absurd. But leftist commentators subtly insist there is no connection between US socialists and communist regimes, since Marxist leaders were mass-murders. But there is yet a transparent connection, nonetheless. All leftists draw inspiration from early socialist writers, such as Marx, Engels, Proudhon, etc—either directly, or indirectly. These form the backbone of modern leftist thought. But one can never escape Marx being at the center of the canon.
Yes, there are many intellectuals associated with world socialism, but not many core ideas. These notions include desire to see humanism gain permanent preeminence over religion; and the call for non-freewill sharing of material goods. Another includes the felt need for a strong, centralized government coordinating all life for society. Others beliefs include demand for socialized medicine, disarmament, blanket application of a welfare state, a one-world system replacing nation states and a generally non-competitive society. Overall, they seek a society built without reference to God, seeking total equity in sharing all things, ie attempting to erect a heaven on earth. Yet history show applying these ideas is cancerous.
B. Jimmy Carter Bio
Peanut farming President James Earl Carter was born in 1924, serving a single term as president, from 1977-1981. Carter was elected after the Watergate affair and so ran upon a platform of reform and probity. Yet Carter’s term came to represent the worst of personal vanity and self-righteousness, liberal naivite’, and poor strategic decisions, both home and abroad. In other words, his judgment and values seemed to mirror that of other socialists and communists, which is why the conservative Ronald Reagan was able to win office by a landslide in 1981.
Jimmy Carter was a self-declared “Born-Again” Christian of a liberal strain. His beliefs allowed for abortion rights and support of many leftist causes and politicians around the world. He has been identified as a Hegelian, aka Marxist in his thinking. According to Mike Evan’s study of the man called “Jimmy Carter; The Liberal Left And World Chaos,” Carter was the father of many poor, unethical and even illegal decisions putting America at grave risk.
C. Domestic Policy
Carter’s failed foreign policy affected his domestic agenda. After US hostages were seized by Iran, 6 million barrels of oil were removed from the US economy per day. This caused long gas lines and spiking prices, but his oil price controls oversaw a doubling in gasoline prices. Carter slashed the defense budget by $6 billion, including dumping the B-1 Bomber, to make the Soviets understand America was no threat to them and wanted peace. He increased deficits over his predecessor by twelve times and grew the government 42% during his four-year term. Carter had planned a national health insurance program which would have really ballooned government spending, but he was too weak to pass it. By 1980, US interest rates stood at 21%, inflation hit 13.5%, unemployment was 7%, and Carter’s own invention, the so-called “misery index”—measured over 20%. His albatross was stagflation, a combination of high inflation and unemployment.
During the energy crisis, Carter affected a strangely weak, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood styled persona that saw him wearing cardigan sweaters for fireside chats, extolling Americans to turn down the thermostat. The net effect was amplified weakness, and Carter became a worldwide laughingstock. He gave a speech called a “Crisis of Confidence” which became emblematic of his pessimistic political messages, chastising America for a selfishness consumerist mentality. This so-called Malaise speech projected his incipient socialist tendencies and the overall sense he was in over his head as president. This was best symbolized by Carter’s self-described encounter with a giant, menacing “killer rabbit” while fishing.
D. Foreign Policy
Foreign policy was truly Carter’s bete noire, given his many mistakes that still affect the West today. According to Dr. Evans, Carter gave four successive checks of $150 million each to the Ayatollah Khomeini while the Muslim cleric was living in exile in Paris. Then the Ayatollah returned to Iran, flush with cash, to overthrow the Shah, one of America’s closest allies. Carter double-crossed the Shah, believing the Ayatollah a religious freedom advocate, and a Gandhi-esque peace lover who wanted to create a liberal democracy. Carter also gave $500 million to the Muslim Brotherhood freedom fighters who later became the Taliban and al Qaeda. Late in his reelection campaign, sensing defeat imminent without a resolution, Carter wire-transferred $7.9 billion to buy-back hostages after 444 days of humiliation. But the hostages were not released till after Reagan was elected.
After Iran’s Shah fell, all hell broke loose. Many of America’s allies were scorned, such as Anastasio Samoza of Nicaragua, allowing the communist Sandinista Guerrillas to take over. Carter gave away the strategic, American-built Panama Canal for no clear reason. Because of Carter’s weakness, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and gave the North Koreans military aid. Mr. Carter opened the door for modern terrorism as we understand it today. His Camp David Accords pressured Israel to surrender land-for-peace to eternal enemies. Modern Western criticism of Israel finds leadership in Jimmy Carter. He personally and illegally funded radical Muslims who later attacked America. And this was all avoidable had he just not been so proud, self-righteous, and had exercised a little common sense. But there can be no doubt that Carter errs on the same side of the political aisle as the other Marxist leaders, sans the executions.
CONCLUSION
Why do Marxists always fail? Three reasons:
- A rebellious nature that first draws them to socialism, being a total opposition to capitalism, freedom and human rights;
- Normally, an utter lack of traditional leadership experience;
- Typically, being blinded by megalomania; ie manic self-love.
Before listening to White House advisers Anita Dunn and Van Jones extolling Chairman Mao Zedong, we ought to recall leftist dictators probably murdered somewhere between 150-200 million innocent souls last century. Does that stand for nothing? Can anyone argue, in the face of such pure evil, that Mao, Stalin, or Lenin ought to be described as role models in any conceivable scenario?
Where does Barack Obama fit in here? The answer is in the eye of the beholder. We know he has been surrounded by socialists and Marxists his entire life. His manifold screw-ups might all be explained by the above Marxist world view, that takes comfort only in the collapse of Capitalism, or the erection of a socialist state. Does not his Obamacare mania settle the question of his political orientation all by itself? If the man is as intelligent as advertised, and not an ideologue—as he claims, he may learn from his countless avoidable errors. Contra, if he really does have Marx in his heart, all bets are off, and we are on notice that anything could happen before he leaves office…
Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico. Kelly can be reached at: hibernian1@gmail.com
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