Those Who Lived Under Communism Speak Out

Posted on January 13, 2021 by theartfuldilettante

In 1972, one of the most celebrated ballet teams Valery Panov and his wife Galina Ragozina, sought to leave Leningrad for Israel.

After his dismissal from the Kirov Ballet, Panov was jailed for ten days, placed under surveillance and repeatedly refused a visa, despite a 21-day hunger strike. In essence, he became a “living corpse.” His crime — the unquenchable desire to be free from a communist dictatorship.

He was denied any work as a dancer, had to deal with constant harassment, the rejection and treachery by colleagues, imprisonment, threats to break his legs, and even an attempt at poisoning. In 1972, he was imprisoned during President Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union. He was considered a parasite — the authorities would not let him work, but simultaneously punished him for not working. Fellow dancers would cross the street to avoid him and his wife.

Panov would spend his “days playing tag with the KGB.” But during the nighttime he would write his autobiography titled, To Dance. It was only with the help of an international campaign on their behalf by celebrities, artists, Western statesman and other supporters, that the Panovs were finally able to leave and settle in Israel.

Back then, it was clear that communism was the enemy of all people both in body and soul. In 1985, the 99th American Congress pledged support for Soviet Jews. Newspapers were eager to tell the stories of the dissidents who were confronting the evil of the USSR. Those in the arts inherently understood the danger to their vocational pursuits.

But today these same groups have fallen under the spell of tyranny. The Hollywood crowd has abandoned any pretense for protecting the arts. Thus, “one Hollywood producer told PEN America that suggestions for projects critical of China aroused the fear that ‘you or your company will actively be blacklisted, and they will interfere with your current or future project. So not only will you bear the brunt [of your decision], but also your company, and future companies that you work for. And that’s absolutely in the back of our minds.'”

The sports world has also been compromised by the communists. The “relationship between sport, politics and diplomacy in communist China . . . has been profound. Sport has assisted the acceptance, implementation and endorsement of ideology. What has happened on the sports grounds and arenas of China has clearly demonstrated that sport is vulnerable to political exploitation, since it is one of the most powerful ways of implementing political ideals, ideas and policies. Sport had proved extremely valuable, too, as a diplomatic resource. It has enabled communist China to make approaches to Western opponents through a medium with a non-political image [.]” Hence, sports figures ignore the connection between their endorsement of Nike sneakers and communist China’s slave labor and other atrocities.

But here in the USA, the PGA plans to move the 2022 championship away from Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf course as cancel culture is alive and well.

Moreover, one would think that the media would be daily headlining the horrors being dealt upon China’s minority in its far west, its Uighurs. After all, “the detainees, from the province of Xinjiang, are treated to a strict ‘re-education’ program that includes what one escapee described as horrific physical abuse, including forced organ removal, abortions and medical ‘experiments.'”

Yet, the Nazi-like behavior is only bandied about when referring to Trump and his conservative supporters.

In his memoir The Captive Mind, Czeslaw Milosz “grappled with how liberal intellectuals came to collaborate with and work alongside, Poland’s communist party. Milosz stated that: ‘It’s as if we all took a magic pill, became temporarily enchanted and went along with this ridiculous thing.'”

Milosz writes that [i]t’s very difficult, now, to think back into that time, when people had very limited choices. If you chose to oppose the regime, that might mean you couldn’t get medicine for your sick mother, your children couldn’t go to school and you might get kicked out of your apartment. We don’t have to face those choices.”

Oh really? Think again.

Americans across the country are now being fined, detained, and arrested for speaking out against lockdown restrictions, not wearing masks, and daring to operate their businesses. Professors who speak against the inherently racist critical race theory are being forced out. Teachers in Jefferson County, West Virginia who attended the rally in Washington, D.C. are now being threatened with termination.

But Marxist Black Lives Matter violent mobs are given a free pass.

As we enter a new era for America, many of us already attuned to the totalitarian bent of the Biden/Harris administration are acutely aware of what may await us. Thoroughly assisted by social media technology, the new administration will continue to ensure that we will suffer the “imperviousness of the tyranny” that is taking hold in this country.

In his book Madness and Terror, Rafael M. Madalozzo (p. 124) asserts that under Stalin “the goal was manifest: to make clear to everyone the helplessness of the individual vis-à-vis the omnipotent state, from which nothing could escape, not even time itself. The state could control the present, the past, the future, and even one’s thoughts, and everyone was conscious of the fact they could be executed, tortured, or imprisoned for life at any moment [.]”

With increasing surveillance of our lives will we become more like China, where “using a ride-hailing service in Beijing, such as Uber or local Didi Chuxing, won’t be possible without first scanning our health records?

We are, as Chris Farrell writes, “slouching towards the socialist states of America” where the Democratic Party “. . . will pack the courts, including the Supreme Court, with politically friendly judges, so that the judiciary will be an extension of one political party rather than part of a system of checks and balances [.]”

Democrats openly say “they will remove the Electoral College, so that sparsely populated, rural states would be totally outvoted by cities.” In addition, they want to “add more states, such as Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, to provide it with more senators to create a permanent one-party rule.” And finally, the Democrat leaders assert they will “reverse core parts of our Bill of Rights so we could be jailed for free speech, or for owning a gun to defend ourselves, as the Minutemen did, against ‘enemies foreign and domestic.'”

After all, Biden promises to “defeat” the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Recently, “Russian dissident Alexei Navalny offered a lengthy denunciation of Twitter’s decision to permanently ban President Trump [.]”

I think that the ban of Donald Trump on Twitter is an unacceptable act of censorship. Don’t tell me he was banned for violating Twitter rules. I get death threats here every day for many years, and Twitter doesn’t ban anyone (not that I ask for it).’

‘Of course, Twitter is a private company but we have seen many examples in Russia and China of such private companies becoming the state’s best friends and the enablers when it comes to censorship.’

In fact, Navalny “warns that authoritarian nations would look at the decision by Twitter and use it to justify similar crackdowns of dissenting voices in their own countries.”

Almost 50 years ago, Valery Panov wanted to

show the Russian people as an enslaved people on their knees. If you raise this mass, it begins to destroy everything. I am convinced the historical mission for the Russian people is a destructive one. You can’t arouse the people and expect calm. I am convinced destruction will come from within.

As we continue to see the clamp down of our civil liberties via lockdowns, the tech giants quashing speech, and the impending total control of our health care, the American people may soon find themselves in an enslaved state as well.

In fact, never have so few been bent on hurting so many in America.

The massive 75+ million vote for Trump is the mass that has been aroused. They may be the only firewall remaining to protect American constitutional values. Trump led the way. We must continue. Now is not the time to go wobbly.

Eileen F. Toplansky, American Thinker

Farewell to a Dreadful Year

Posted on December 31, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

The French writer Jean Raspail died this summer. It was somehow fitting that the man whose dark novel The Camp of the Saints foretold the end of western civilization should pass at a time when everything seemed to be falling apart.

As a summary of the state of the world at the time of his death, one could hardly do better than to quote a passage from Raspail’s prophetic book:

“Day by day, month by month, doubt by doubt, law and order became fascism; education, constraint; work, alienation; revolution, mere sport; leisure, a privilege of class; marijuana, a harmless weed; family, a stifling hothouse; affluence, oppression; success, a social disease; sex, an innocent pastime; youth, a permanent tribunal; maturity, the new senility; discipline, an attack on personality.”

Three major events intersected in the tumultuous year of 2020: the coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter/Antifa-inspired riots that occurred after the police killing of George Floyd, and the vigorous assault on free speech that became known as “cancel culture.” These all preceded a presidential election that degenerated into a calamity.

When the coronavirus first appeared, the neo-Thought Police in the media took pains to refrain from referring to the virus by its place of origin (the “Wuhan virus” or the “China flu”) for fear of being politically incorrect. Notwithstanding the fact that West Nile Virus, Ebola, and Lyme Disease, among other maladies, are named after the geographic origins of the disease, there was an exception made for this one. Using the term Wuhan flu was simply not permitted.

Starting with the contretemps over the name, the virus became entirely a creature of politics: a useful crisis that could serve as the springboard for the progressive agenda. During the first two months of the year, as the virus was spreading from China to the rest of the world, the progressives in the media minimized it.

In the early spring, the Imperial College of London model predicted 2.2 million deaths in the United States and 500,000 in Great Britain. This became the scientific basis for a large-scale abrogation of personal and economic liberty. The models were later adjusted and by May it had become obvious that the death totals would be far short of that forecast, but by that point it was too late. The lockdowns originally sold as a temporary expedient to “flatten the curve” remained a feature of much of the U.S. economy for the remainder of the year.

On dubious authority, numerous state governors and city mayors forcibly shuttered all businesses they deemed “nonessential” to society and enforced the edicts with penalties, including threats of imprisonment. “Safetyism” became the order of the day. By the end of the year, emboldened politicians were telling people how to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The lockdowns dealt a devastating blow to the private economy, causing the GDP to tumble and wiping out 14 years of job gains. “Never before had public officials required millions of lawful businesses to shut their doors, throwing tens of millions of people out of work,” Heather Mac Donald wrote. “They did so at the command of one particular group of experts — those in medical and public health fields — who viewed their mandate as eliminating one particular health risk with every means put at their disposal.”

To deal with the economic distress, the federal government approved spending of trillions of additional dollars, dramatically increasing the dependence of private individuals and businesses on government. But in practice the lockdown policy was ruthlessly regressive. It most adversely affected those in lower-income occupations and small business owners, those with limited capital and limited opportunities to borrow, and rewarded politically connected big businesses.

Then in the summer of 2020, the cities erupted. Following the death of George Floyd, thousands of people took to the streets (in the midst of a pandemic) to protest “systemic racism,” whatever that was. However, while “mostly peaceful protestors” ran amok, church attendance was strictly limited. George Floyd, who had a long criminal past, was practically turned into Mother Theresa. At a time when normal people couldn’t have funerals for their family members, Floyd managed to have four. The violence that fanned out across the country led to a huge spike in crime in New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and other major cities.

Meanwhile, cancel culture went from tearing down statues and public art to censoring speech. Suddenly, words or expressions innocently used for decades and centuries, were deemed to have “racist connotations.” These included, for example, “Peanut gallery,” “Eenie meenie miney moe,” “Gyp,” and “No can do.” The term “master” was viewed as problematic because it supposedly related to the relationship of master and slave. Did anyone ever think such a thing when praising a performance as “masterful” or conferring a “master’s” degree? Does it matter? Liberal writer Andrew Sullivan observed that the use of the term “white supremacy” to mean not the KKK or the antebellum South but American society as a whole in the 21st century is now routine on the Left. The word “women,” is now being replaced by “people who menstruate.”

Political commentator Yoram Hazony noted that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm had been taught in schools for decades. It was all in vain, he concluded: “Liberals never dreamed that when they opened their institutions to ‘Social Justice’ and ‘Identity’ politics, they were setting off down the exact road Orwell had warned against.”

Against this backdrop we held an unprecedented presidential election. COVID provided the pretext for the country to adopt a new system of voting. While it was deemed entirely safe for people to cram into a Wal-Mart, voting in person was deemed to be so unsafe that a new regime of mail-in voting was adopted, at the urging of the Democrats.

Hans von Spakovsky, an election law expert at the Heritage Foundation, previewed all of the potential problems with mail-in voting back in August: mail-in ballots are more vulnerable to being altered, stolen, or forged; they run the risk of being miscarried or not delivered by the postal service; and they run the risk of not being not being postmarked, making it impossible to determine if they were mailed on time. For the Democrats, of course, these irregularities were a feature, not a bug.

Moreover, Big Media and Big Tech, acting as official enforcers of cancel culture, censored and suppressed pro-Trump views and news stories that could be harmful to Biden.

It was little wonder that millions of Americans concluded that the election was a farce.

If the progressives’ cultural revolution is successful, Victor David Hansen predicted, “[t]he special targets will be the self-employed successful business class… those

…who run local insurance agencies, the store owners, salespeople, the successful medical practices, car dealerships, large family farms, the millions who keep the country competitive, innovative, and prosperous. All of them lack the romance of the poor and the cultural tastes of the rich, but for the most part, they are just too damn informed and stubborn to be tolerated.”

These were precisely the folks that Hillary Clinton called “the basket of deplorables.”

All year, these deplorables have been told: “Keep your heads down, your mouths shut, and obey the designated experts.”

Their New Year’s Resolution for 2021 must be to respond loudly and forcefully:

“No. Not anymore.”

You can follow Nicholas J. Kaster on Twitter.

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The Birth of Cancel Culture and the Death of Education

Posted on December 23, 2020 by theartfuldilettante

If today’s poisonous cancel culture is ever to be remedied, the cause must be understood.

When deliberating the origin, most just point to America’s universities and say, “they did it.” And, clearly, that’s where the programming occurs, but it doesn’t explain why.

Selwyn Duke recently noted that vanguard leftists have “indoctrinated the young in schools to transform them into foot soldiers in the leftist campaign of civilizational rape.” Those foot soldiers are today’s cancel culture warriors.

But why did old-time educators morph into purveyors of cancel culture hate? How did it happen?

The Vietnam War did it. Or, more precisely, the campus antiwar activities did.

Most are familiar with the undergraduate student deferments used to dodge the draft in the 1960s. Less well known were the ones for graduate school, in place until 1968. Those led to a 3-fold increase in Ph.D. degrees — men only — in the ‘60s compared to the previous decade. The increases prior to that were a couple percent per decade.

And where are most Ph.D. awardees employed? At universities.

Since their motivation was to avoid government service, it’s not surprising they would espouse principles not supportive of America. Their negative views undoubtedly spilled over into their teaching, thereby providing foundational cancel culture training — Woke Philosophy 101; Introductory Victimology 202; Mobology 303: Advanced Bullying — identified as such or not.

Perhaps even more concerning, though, was another draft dodging option — K-12 teaching deferments. Guys lacking the academic credentials or financial resources for graduate school could add the education courses necessary to become teachers just to avoid the draft. Obviously, more students qualified for that dodge than the Ph.D. route.

How’s that for the wrong motivation to “teach” … to instruct America’s youth?

That gets straight to the point Duke made about “indoctrinated the young in schools.” And, appallingly, this has been going on now for a half century.

Having anti-America messaging in the classroom at an early age would certainly make the kids more receptive to woke cancel culture programming in college. Since many draft dodgers probably taught for 30-40 years, that’s a lot of brainwashing of America’s hope for the future.

Not much hope there. Of course, these were males only; women weren’t eligible for the draft. Equal rights weren’t totally equal back then.

Nonetheless, woke proselytization — K-12 through terminal advanced degrees — likely met all prescribed equal opportunity parameters; i.e., both men and women imparted cancel culture loathing. However, on the female side, my analysis is more qualitative. I can’t explain why women were so vested in the cause at the time, despising America and all those who served.

My introduction to the female “hate America” mentality occurred soon after returning from Vietnam while I was finishing my undergraduate degree. Enjoying a beer in a college bar, a coed noticed the small American flag on my jacket. She pointed at it saying if I had any idea what war was all about, I wouldn’t wear it.

Considering I had (still have) a piece of shrapnel in my left lung, I suggested I might know a bit more about war than she did. Instantly, hatred burned in her eyes — she visibly despised my very being. That look has stayed with me 50 years.

How could someone hate me — in the blink of an eye — for being drafted and damned near dying in Vietnam?

If that was the only time it happened, I’d write it off as an anomaly, but there were multiple instances that same year. It even occurred two decades later at the university where I was a faculty member. I was having a cordial conversation with the head of human resources when she found out I’d been in combat in Vietnam.

Bam! It was as if I’d spit in her face; rabid rage flashed in her eyes.

Why?

Regardless, Vietnam draft dodgers and allied haters of those who serve assumed control of U.S. universities decades ago. They and their trainees vilify America and American patriots, making national pride an alien concept on most college campuses. The few remaining won’t hold out much longer.

Woke cancel culture is the haters’ venomous creation and developing an antivenin won’t be easy.

First, freedom-loving Americans must stand their ground and refuse to be cancelled. The hate-filled woke can only function in mobs; individually they’re cowards. Confront them and they’ll have no power.

Fixing America’s education system will be a long war of attrition at best, but knowing the cause is essential to achieving the desired outcome. And success will come down to basic supply and demand economics — education consumers not spending their money at grossly anti-America universities. All have anti-America faculty, but some fewer than others.

It’s the almighty tuition dollars, folks. You control those payments, so control them!

R.W. Trewyn, PhD has been a university faculty member for 42 years, working in central administration the past 26 years.