But They Were Communists!
Nov. 29th, 2016 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chris_gerribOne of the many irritating features of the current conservative movement is that they frequently say American civil rights leaders and the civil rights movement was "communist." Communists ran the movement, funded it and generally got their fingerprints all over it.
Well, yeah. There's a simple reason. When the civil rights movement got started, both mainstream American political parties would not help the civil rights leaders. So, much like Stalin turning to Britain and America in WWII (and us turning to Stalin) the civil rights people went to whomever would help. Staying in WWII for a moment, the Resistance movement in Occupied Europe was started and, until fairly late in the war, ran by the local Communists.
Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, although both arguably left-leaning, went Communist because the US wouldn't help. In Castro's case, he was fighting against an American-backed dictator, in Minh's the US merely said "not our problem." The end result was the same - go with those who will help.
Saying "but they're communists!" doesn't prove anything. "But they're communists" doesn't equate to being wrong.
Well, yeah. There's a simple reason. When the civil rights movement got started, both mainstream American political parties would not help the civil rights leaders. So, much like Stalin turning to Britain and America in WWII (and us turning to Stalin) the civil rights people went to whomever would help. Staying in WWII for a moment, the Resistance movement in Occupied Europe was started and, until fairly late in the war, ran by the local Communists.
Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh, although both arguably left-leaning, went Communist because the US wouldn't help. In Castro's case, he was fighting against an American-backed dictator, in Minh's the US merely said "not our problem." The end result was the same - go with those who will help.
Saying "but they're communists!" doesn't prove anything. "But they're communists" doesn't equate to being wrong.
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no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 07:35 am (UTC)And y' know, you're right, and it is one of the most damning things about post-WWII US foreign policy - we turned our backs on our own founding principle and enabled the Communist Bloc way beyond whatever moles or old-guard Bolshie sympathizers could ever have done! If we'd taken Castro's hand and said, “Y' know, we did the same thing ourselves! Good on ya, mate - what do you need from us?” who knows how many lives would have been saved. Heck, Cuba might even have become a Puerto Rico-style US Territory. But noo-oo-oo… And look at Nicaragua, and Iran! The same story, again and again.
Now, SE Asia gets thornier. The Party was already running the anti-colonialist resistance, had been since Japan, and France was and is our oldest ally. So there was this double-whammy obligation to throw in with the French - who if I recall, asked for our help! - against the Reds.
Even so, if you look at The Pentagon Papers you see this same pattern of self-serving, destructive duplicity taking top priority, Hillary Clinton-style pathological lying - it's ghastly. US foreign policy was so screwed up, government agencies so corrupt, that it's a wonder we accomplished anything in the Cold War!
Now as to the “civil rights” movement, they spouted Marxist rhetoric as did (and do) militant feminists, but I remember the US government's concern at the time that “the enemy of our enemy is our friend,” and that the various emerging identity-politics factions would, as you say, turn to the Party for aid - specifically the black power movements. If they became a Communist Liberation Front we'd have a civil war that would immediately become a genocidal race war…
But it didn't happen, and not because the disaffected urban blacks turned red-white-and-blue. The real reason isn't amusing, but it's true: The ethnic Russians and the Chinese both believed American blacks to be little more than feral animals who could be taught simple tricks if caught young but were otherwise useless. Neither country had much personal experience with them, after all; they only knew what they saw every day in the Western news outlets. Blacks simply didn't have the discipline or the intelligence to be organized effectively into proper cadres; they were dissolute and shiftless and effectively worthless. The Soviet and Chinese Parties both weighed profit and loss, and decided against pursuing that idea.
[During detenté in 1976, the USIA set up an informational kiosk in Red Square, staffed with Americans in smart red-white-and-blue outfits. Some of them were black, and the Russian people looked at them like they were space aliens. Now and then someone would actually rub their skins to see if the color would come off! When I was in Russia in 1996, in the two weeks I was there I saw one (1) black guy on the street in Moscow.]
no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 04:54 pm (UTC)Thank 'ee.
One thing I know is that the pie-in-the-sky fantasy that if JFK had lived to a second term, “there'd have been no Vietnam War” is nonsense. He was already being fed comforting disinformation about the situation there. LBJ was simply carrying forward what had already been set up.
[McGeorge] Bundy was a strong proponent of the Vietnam War during his tenure,
believing it essential to contain communism. He supported escalating United
States involvement, including commitment of hundreds of thousands of ground
troops and the sustained bombing of North Vietnam in 1965. Studies of the
memorandums and policy papers since those years have revealed that Bundy and
other advisors well understood the risk but proceeded with these actions
largely because of domestic politics, rather than believing that the US had a
realistic chance of victory in this war…
- Wikipedia [emphasis added] +
- What that is, is the Paradise Lost syndrome: It all went wrong then. Arguably true, but why is relevant. I suspect that a second Kennedy term would have been messy - a lot of political and personal bills were coming due. “Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what Marilyn did for me!” *
On top of that, from what I understand - and you may know more about this than I do - he was actually intending to take the Moon Race to the UN and try to set it up as a joint US-USSR project. When that went bad - when he had it shoved into his face just how the Communist Party defined words we normally think of as meaning something positive (a practice carried forward today, in terms like “equality” and “diversity” and “privilege”) - it would have gone very bad indeed.
(The same thing happened when Zbigniew Brzezinski told President Peanuts that the Soviets had milked “detenté” for all they could get and were about to quit playing. A month later they invaded Afghanistan in patented Red Army Atrocity fashion, and Carter was furious. He'd dealt in good faith! - with the Communist Party. Smart, Jimmy, real smart…)
+ Consider what that is saying: This insulated Yale / Groton / elite wonk was perfectly willing to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, kill and maim thousands of Vietnamese, for a cause he had no reason to believe would win but that was irrelevant. “Domestic politics” - from that to Comrade Hillary sticking it to Obama in Benghazi over the bodies of more Americans, is a straight line of descent.
* As a teenager Bill Clinton met JFK, and it was a formative influence on him. It might have been even more so, as it's perfectly possible that the same “rebound” Republican gains as happened in 1996 would have resulted in JFK facing impeachment proceedings! The Kennedy Machine was good, but it may not have been good enough to prevent that.
[As an aside, I must admit that it would indeed have been history-making if Comrade Hillary had become Comrade-Queen Hillary I: Not only the first female US President, but the first President in US history to actually be removed from office by impeachment! It would only have been a matter of time.
(You do know that her minions rigged the primary, right? This has been revealed, tho' obviously it wasn't supposed to be: Barack Obama, now Bernie Sanders, oh no you don't either! Fool me twice, shame on me!)]
no subject
Date: 2016-11-30 07:21 pm (UTC)Bear in mind that when JFK decided to go to the Moon more than a few of his scientific and technical advisers weren't sure it could be done at all. Spreading the risk around a bit had a certain appeal.
Regarding domestic politics - Truman damn near lost in 1948 because China went Communist and our slap-hazard response to Korea did cost him and the D's 1952. America had been told we needed to Fight Communism Everywhere and by [Mc]George we were gonna!
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 12:19 am (UTC)a - the Communist Manifesto calls for total war against and the murder of all Bourgeois, everywhere. which is why Communist nations pile up bodies ... Marx demanded it.
b - Communism is completely antithetical to the principles of the Founders. you want to claim Communism, then i'm going to expect you to also admit that you advocate for the destruction of the Constitution
c - simple integrity would demand the reciprocal recognition of the EXACT SAME accusation against National Socialists likewise "doesn't equate to being wrong". Rhetorically, both phrases tend to be applied as Association fallacies to people who don't actually believe in Communism or Fascism.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 02:36 pm (UTC)The "EXACT SAME" accusation against National Socialists isn't that people have turned to a Fascist government for help. The accusation is that they want to create a fascist government in their countries. This is exactly the opposite of the Civil Rights movement, who merely wanted what "all men" were promised in 1776.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-12 06:37 pm (UTC)... this is so dumb it's almost beyond comprehension.
the Declaration doesn't promise anything to anyone. it's a statement of aspiration and a listing of grievances.
even then, it has NO POWER to affect anything, anywhere, AT ANY TIME. the US didn't even have a Confederation at the time that the Declaration was issued.
IF you are going to assert that the Declaration has made a "promise" to the whole world
THEN, of necessity, the whole world *must* be ruled by the Declaration ( and it's attendant documents ) in order that the instruments of the Declaration ( the US government ) can bring these supposed 'promises' to them.
and this doesn't even get into the problem of populations ( Islam and it's desire for a Caliphate and universal submission to Allah, for instance ) who vehemently DO NOT WANT the principles of the Declaration enacted.
i see that you have neatly side stepped the primary issue though:
that the accusation of Communism ( as with the accusation of Fascism ) is almost always argument by fallacy; Guilt by Association.
it is telling that you are so desperate to defend those being accused of Communism but that you have nothing to say of those being accused of Fascism.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-12 07:11 pm (UTC)that the accusation of Communism ( as with the accusation of Fascism ) is almost always argument by fallacy; Guilt by Association. - No, the current argument about Fascism is not guilt by association, it's guilt by guilt. It's guilt by those advocating certain policies that are fascist.
You will note, for example, that the civil rights movement never argued that we should all live on communes, or for worker's ownership of factories.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-13 05:04 pm (UTC)if you admit that it's not "binding" then you admit that it promises nothing and that your choice to use that word ( "promise" ) to characterize the Declaration was inept for someone with pretensions to being a writer.
You will note, for example, that the civil rights movement never argued that we should all live on communes, or for worker's ownership of factories.
still dodging by pretending to agree with me. my first post noted that most accusations of "Communist" or "Nazi" are inaccurate, amounting to nothing more than Rhetorical attacks.
a warning: i'm not stupid enough for you to be able to distract simply by repeating my own words back to me.
do you OR DO YOU NOT disavow Foz Meadows slanderous and cowardly attacks upon Vox, falsely characterizing him as a "Nazi"?
YOU are the one who asserted the principle.
now WE see whether you have the personal integrity to adhere to the principles which you purport to espouse.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-13 06:03 pm (UTC)The typical Civil Rights activist was no more a Communist than was Winston Churchill. They both made common cause with somebody.
Vox Day certainly looks like a fascist to me, and I've stated as such to him on his blog. So, no, I'm quite okay with Foz Meadows.
Vox is not making common cause with fascism, he's advocating specific fascist ideas, such as rabid nationalism, rabid anti-immigration, restriction of the vote to women because "women don't vote in the interest of the state" as he told me on his blog.
Lastly, this is my blog, not the comment section of a newspaper. Please keep your tone civil.
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Date: 2017-02-25 12:09 am (UTC)education advice (http://www.educationhints.eu/) www.educationhints.eu
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Date: 2017-02-26 02:08 am (UTC)http://www.educationguide.eu