Karl's Weekend Reading

We are posting our Weekend Reading list early, as we'll be offline this Thursday and Friday.

The campaign is turning harsh, with the standard Republican accusation that the Democratic Party's nominee is a "Socialist" or "Communist". This drives the political discourse into the mud, especially when the accuser is wearing one of our incredible and furry Commie Obama hats! Get yours today for only $29.99 at CommieObama.com!

Silly conservative, it is not fair to call Obama a communist until AFTER he takes your property away. Remember, it has to be fair.

We saw two excellent articles this past week that expand on this topic:

Author Paul Kengor writes in the American Thinker, Why Obama's Communist Connections Are Not Headlines. He argues our education system has let down its students when it comes to the history of communism. Further, he addresses faculties' revulsion to anti-communist speech:

These professors glare at me as if the ghost of Joe McCarthy has flown into the room and leapt inside of my body. In fact, that's the essence of their criticism: It is not so much that these professors approve of communism as much as they disapprove of -- actually, utterly despise -- anti-communism. They are anti-anti-communist more so than pro-communist. Conservatives need to understand this, so as to avoid broad-brushing and losing credibility. Sure, a lot of professors are Marxists, and many more share the utopian goals of Marxism, but the vast majority are simply leftists.

They aren't communists. They are anti-anti-communists. Or as we say, they are "communist inspired". More Kengor:

What's more, aside from failing to instruct their students in the crass facts about communism's unprecedented destruction -- its purges, mass famines, show trials, killing fields, concentration camps -- these educators are negligent in failing to teach the essential, non-emotional, but crucial Econ 101 basics that contrast capitalism and communism and, thus, that get at the heart of how and why command economies simply do not work. Each semester in my Comparative Politics course at Grove City College, it takes no more than 50 minutes to matter-of-factly lay out the rudimentary differences. Whereas capitalist systems are based on the market forces of supply and demand, which dictate prices and production levels and targets, communist systems are based on central planning, by which a government bureau attempts to manage such things. Capitalism is based on private ownership; communism on public ownership. Capitalism thrives on small government and taxes; communism on large government and taxes, typically progressive income-tax rates and estate taxes -- both advocated explicitly by Marx -- and much more.

This stuff isn't rocket science. It is easy to teach, if the professor desires. The problem is that it isn't being taught. Consequently, Americans today do not know why communism is such a devastating ideology, at both the level of plain economic theory and in actual historical practice. It is a remarkably hateful system, based on literal hatred and targeted annihilation of entire classes and groups of people. (Nazism sought genocide based on ethnicity; communism sought genocide based on class.)

Good stuff. We read his book on Reagan - The Crusader
And we look forward to reading his book, The Judge
, about Reagan advisor William Clark.

James Lewis, also writing in the American Thinker, On Bill Ayers and Small 'c' Communists. He explains the difference between six million (holocaust deaths) and one hundred million (communism), and why those numbers matter. He begins this discussion:

I know goofy liberals who moan about all the good intentions demonstrated by Karl Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky. They're all Obama voters, for some reason. They are the same kinds of people who think Jesus was a communist, and that George W. Bush is Hitler. They are often the kind of people who try desperately to be completely nice in their lives, especially to designated victims. But often they harbor a belly full of rage -- against conservatives, or big corporations, or fundamentalist Christians, or anybody who challenges their belief in their own saintliness.

If you're interested - a related AFP article about the Communist Party USA's anticipation for the coming election.

"We can afford to be less on the defensive for the first time since Ronald Reagan, and we can say our word in rebuilding America on a new basis, rebuilding a better world, instead of one based on the greed of the few."

Go, Commie, Go!

We'll be back online no later than Sunday. Have a nice weekend.