Sunday, May 26, 2013

The "Communism" Comparisons and the Ushanka Image

The Language

As any Ushanka reader knows, our senses are sensitive to key words like "Socialism," "Tyranny," or "Communism."  We use these words and study their history.  We watch how others use them too.

The most prevelent use of these terms was during the 2008 election in political cartoons.  We have never seen these concepts used in such quantities before or since.  You can see this phenomenon in any of these three places here at Ushanka:


Since the 2008 election we have found the use of these key words mostly in articles and blog posts where the writer is arguing that President Obama is not a Communist or Socialist or Fascist or Tyrant.  We track these incidents as well under the Ushanka label:



Our Image

Our fascination with this language, and our blog header with a Hammer and Sickle are two reasons we are often spurned by the more mainstream conservative blogs.  It is easy to label us as extreme, or fringe, when the theme or our new media site is based on the ideology that killed over 100,000,000 people last century.  But to do so means one hasn't reviewed our work.

Other reasons to ignore us could be 1) some are limited to what they can say due to advertisers or owners, 2) intimidation with the depth of our research into the leftist mind (See the Library and Cinema sections to the left, read our book notes), 3) Envy - not wanting to trigger any Commie Obama hat sales (envy it isn't just a 'left' thing), 4) disagreement with our philosophy that, if liberalism continues unchecked, we'll reach a level of tyranny equal to that of the 20th century where human life is subordinate to the needs of the people, or 5) our no-holds-barred mockery of Libertarians.

Curious, we checked our email account to get a count of how many times we've written to one of the key conservative bloggers.  Would you believe we've sent him links to Ushanka posts, that fit his site's narrative, 45 times without one link back or the courtesy of a single reply?  Ah, to be the king....



While the lack of community among some like-minded conservatives can be frustrating, this also highlights the generosity and openness of those patriots who do communicate, partner and share.  We've updated our blogroll to show 1) who writes back (Comrades), 2) who wears our cool hat, and 3) who we've met in person. 


Anyhoo... as Zoomie would say... the driver for this post are two recent blog posts that use the words-we-do-not-speak-of language.

First, Comrade and hat owner Captain Capitalism wrote a post two days ago titled, Yes Jimmy, the Democrats are Socialists, where he shares his frustration with the common argument that emerges from such a statement:
So when you make any accusation of a politician or person being a socialist you are immediately dismissed as crazy or a right wing lunatic because you're essentially claiming that person is a fool-near-murderer.
Go read his short post for the full context.  Prepare yourself for this conversation.

Three days ago ZeroHedge presented this guest post by Brandon Smith, Is America's Economy Being Sovietized?

He starts:
The foundation of the Soviet model of trade and investment was centralization under the guise of "universal public ownership". The entire goal of communism in general was not to give more social and political power to the people, but to extinguish alternative options and focus power into the hands of a select few. The process used to reach this end result can vary, but the goal always remains the same. In most cases, such centralization begins with economic hegemony, and it is in our fiscal structure that we have the means to see the future. Sovietization in our financial life will inevitably lead to sovietization in our political life.

Does the U.S. economy’s path resemble the Soviet template exactly? No. And I’m sure the very suggestion will make the average unaware free market evangelical froth at the mouth. However, as I plan to show, the parallels in our fundamentals are disturbing; the reality is that true free markets in America died a long time ago.
No doubt, there is plenty of 'gray area' along the political spectrum between freedom and tyranny.

For every argument we could give that Obama is a Communist, a sane and reasonable person could give a compelling counter argument based in reality and fact.  In other words, it is not an absolute.

So, as we've suggested here in the past, one only has to know the following: in which direction within that political spectrum are we moving?  

Think about that while you wait in line for your doctor nurse practitioner next year.

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