A Layman's Look At "The Communist Manifesto"

Philosophy Front Page Miscellaneous Keywords: DEMOCRATS, COLLECTIVISM, MARXISM, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO,
Source: LewRockwell.com
Published: 7 July 2001 Author: John Keller
Posted on 07/07/2001 23:24:36 PDT by BluesDuke

Partially Educated

The Communist Manifesto is one of those documents I was aware of, but had never taken the time to actually read. As a woefully undereducated product of the public education system, I somehow managed to slip by the class that required reading of the old Marx and Engels classic. So, in the course of continuing liberty self-education, I found a translation on the web in order to better understand this failed canon of anti-freedom. My reaction: wow. The Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, looks a lot like the Democratic Party Positions, written in 2000.

The Pseudo-History of Class Warfare

The first chapter of the Manifesto is a rambling pseudo-history that rails against the bourgeois as the historically re-incarnated oppressors vis-à-vis the continually oppressed proletariat. I was reminded of the slave reparations, minority oppression, women oppression, and other Democratic Party class based arguments. The second chapter is a lengthy list of "Bourgeois" complaints against the generally perceived Communist aims, and the communist response to them. Among the Bourgeois complaints the manifesto defends are: abolition of family, abolition of religion, socialization of education, and abolition of nations. Does this remind us of current complaints within the political system? Interestingly, the manifesto presents the following observation regarding the abolition of nations:

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

This is a fairly prescient assessment, given the franchise-ization of the world. As an aside, I spent 9 months in various cities as part of my job in 1998. The thing that surprised me most in my tour of 30-odd medium and large American town was the uniformity. Like Edward Norton in Fight Club, I found the same hotel soaps in the same hotels, next to the same Applebee’s or Chili’s. It was Generica, not America. That, however, is a different article; one that addresses how government zoning laws and tax schemes aide and abet big business in destroying small, local competition. Back to the original point, however, I wonder what Marx and Engels saw as the downside to the vanishing of "antagonism between peoples" that bourgeoisie and freedom of commerce had brought about. I suppose it was their follow-on predication, which is wrong.

The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them (national differences and antagonism) to vanish still faster.

The Tyranny of Democracy

Like any wacko manifesto, the Communist Manifesto has just enough facts, just enough history, and just enough lucid observations to cover the other 90% of it, which is utter crap. One of the lucid observations in the Manifesto, is that the proletariat constitute the majority of the population. The communists realized that by organizing the proletariat politically, they could just vote themselves more power. This is one of the two the real gems of chapter two. It explains a great deal about the tyranny of democracy, and the modus operandi of our current political parties.

The Politics of Jealousy

The other gem in chapter two immediately follows the observation that the proletariat must first seize control of "political supremacy". Once that is accomplished, well, Marx and Engels say it best: "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state…" The Democrats, like the Communists, realize that by dividing people into groups, all with a chip on their shoulder against the oppressor, they can vote themselves chunks of the oppressors’ property. Let’s call this the politics of jealousy and victimhood. I suppose this explains how communism could organize itself, at least initially. There will always be people of extraordinary talent running businesses, inventing new things, and generally pushing the boundaries of science, technology, and commerce. Let’s use Bill Gates as an example of this natural elite. For every Bill Gates, there are a thousand Joe Programmers at Microsoft who are smart and talented. They are the second line of the elite, in Marx’s view, the bourgeois. For every Joe Programmer at Microsoft, there are a thousand Mary Secretaries, a thousand Bob Lawnmower, a thousand Doug Factoryworker, and Susie Governmentbureaucrat; these are the proletariat in the Marxian view. None of them have the combination of mental ability, circumstance, and determination that Bill Gates has, and most of them know it. However, these thousands have a lot more votes than Bill and his programmers. Those votes are political power, and the Marxists know it.

The 10 Measures of Communism

And how will the proletariat use their political clout to wrest capital away from the capitalists? With the 10 measures Marx and Engels laid out in 1848. As the master communists aver, the exact implementation will vary slightly from county to country, but will follow the general thrust of the measures.

Here are the 10 measures the proletariat will use to bring about the full realization of the communist utopian dream, once they have the political power:

1.Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6.Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8.Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Take a second to compare them with the Democratic Party Positions. Note that the communists speak in terms of oppressed and oppressor, guilty rich, and noble worker, just like the Democrats. Solely by observing the title link of the various positions, you can see the Democrats place no value on Americans in general, but play race and class warfare by dividing people into ethnic, social, gender, and special interest groups.

Observations on The Communist Goals

Here are the 10 points from the Communist Manifesto again, with a few observations.

1.Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

The communist revolution is about half successful here. Private property rights are eroded daily in this country. Property Tax in most areas goes directly to fund the "public purpose" of public education. (confer #10). The US government is the single largest land owner, but instead of selling off "public" land, the government continues to acquire more under the guide of "protecting wilderness" or some other such nonsense. The land under direct federal control is not the only property held by the government. The use of executive branch regulatory edicts to put severe restrictions on private property has the effect of putting much more property in the hands of the government. Do you really own that South Florida beachfront property if you can’t build a beach house on it? As long as it’s to save the Red Mangrove, Loggerhead Turtle, and Brown Pelican, you see.

2.A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Can someone please explain how a flat tax RATE is not already graduated? A truly flat tax would be something like $500 per person per year. A graduated tax is 5% per person per year. A punitive tax on innovation and achievement is our current manipulative system. When historians look back at the United States, they will ask how, in this day and age of instant access to information and history, a people could fail to see the obvious parallels between the Gestapo, the KGB, and the IRS. They all use fear, intimidation, spying, and invasion of privacy to keep people in line. This awful agency should be abolished and replaced with nothing. The tax code is such an obvious tool of social manipulation that it absolutely disgusts me. Do you think its any coincidence that the tax code has a marriage penalty, and the number of unmarried couples living together has gone up? Check off one of the previously stated goals of the communists as partially achieved: abolition of the family.

3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Well, the current Estate Tax rate of 55% means we’re just over half way towards this one. Part of the communist goal of ultimate state power is the destruction of the family (outlined in chapter 2 of the manifesto). One of the ties that bind families together, as well as encourage parents to work for the betterment of their children is the promise of leaving an estate or inheritance. By legislating that the property owned and accumulated over a lifetime can’t be passed on, we help replace the idea of the parent and family with the idea of a benevolent state. Further, the idea of ownership of one’s labor and the property earned by it is undermined. One of the tests of ownership is the ability to grant a thing to another person. If you aren’t free to do that, you don’t really own something.

4.Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

The US has relatively few emigrants, but we have plenty of rebels. While assorted tax resistors and government regulatory resistors fall in the rebel category, the new favorite catch-all prosecutorial group is "suspected" drug dealers. Suppose I sell my 1986 Honda CRX for $800 cash, then drive to the bank to deposit it, get stopped on the way, searched (under duress, naturally), and the cop decides the cash might be used for drugs. Buh-bye cash. I just might be a drug dealer. I’m suspected, and suspicion is all it takes. No need to worry about due process or anything, kind of like Salem, circa 1692. This is the drug war. Police Forces can confiscate your entire house if they find one pot leaf in it. The same holds true for your car, or boat. Having a pile of money that could be used to buy drugs is suspicious.

The drug war has flown this one in under the Radar of most commie-fighting Republicans who roundly support the new prohibition, but as Marx and Engels noted "The forms these take will vary from country to country". The Communists are ends-justify-the means kind of folks.

5.Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Done. Don’t think so? Quick, who’s Chairman of the Federal Reserve? That’s right, our good friend, Alan Greenspan. He and the rest of the board set the prime-lending rate, and control the money supply. In my Keynesian slanted Macro Economic class, they called this "fiscal and monetary policy". After a good dose of Austrian economics, I now spot it as "Objective 5 of the Communist Manifesto – Government Command Economy" or "taxation via inflation". Control of the banking system by the fed is so complete that Wall Street, the supposed paragon of free-market capitalism, wags up and down to the mumblings of a single un-elected bureaucrat.

6.Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.

AT&T was a government sanctioned monopoly for 70 years. Thanks to the heroic Carter Phone Company making a phone other than black, and suing to break the government imposed monopoly, the communications industry has been making spectacular progress after begin stifled for three-quarters of a century, thanks to Uncle Stalin, errr, Sam. Jeremy Sapienza asks if we might not be online in 1950 if not for Intellectual Property restrictions. Given that the telephone took 67 years to get to 50% of US households thanks to the strangling effects of monopoly status, compared with 6 years for the World Wide Web to hit 50%, Mr. Sapienza may be right.

While the free market has broken the communications impasse electronically, the real world still has only one choice for "first class" mail, and the transportation system is still in the hands of the state. Think about this the next time you’re in traffic. When was the last time you went to a grocery store where the checkout lines were routinely so frustratingly long that the patrons started shooting each other. I would love nothing better than for a private company to start leasing tracts of land on the north side of Atlanta, build an outer perimeter based on profit sharing of toll revenue collected from wireless tags, and then watch the MARTA and highway planning goofballs tear their hair. What kind of organization actually plans 20 years down the road when traffic jams are driving people bonkers today? A government agency of course. Back to the communist aspects of this, the central planners love the idea that everyone has the same kind of transportation. How dare we express individuality, or class distinction based on the kind of car we drive.

7.Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

Governor Gray Davis of California has a few things to say about this: namely, he’s all for it. In fact, having wrecked havoc on California’s electric and utility companies through price controls, he’s proposed confiscating them and giving them to the state to run. Governor Davis, welcome to the pantheon of fellow communist confiscators: Mao, Stalin, and Castro.

8.Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Marx and Engels knew that growing food in a collective commune would require some of the very productivity advances brought about by capitalism and the industrial revolution in order to supply anything above a subsistence level. The solution for them was that everyone would work, and agriculture would use industrial techniques. In this analysis, they were correct: agriculture in the 21st century is often referred to as agribusiness. It looks a lot more like steel refining than the picturesque farmer of yore, tilling his fields behind an ox, or the post Great Depression family farmer on his tractor. Hurray for it. Getting food was the daily occupation for most of humanity for as long as we’ve been on this planet. In 1800, it’s estimated that 80% of the American workforce was involved in farming. In 1990, it’s estimated that 3% of the American workforce was involved in farming. 3% of the population provides food for the other 97%, of their own free will, without hoarding, price fixing, or the other bugga-bears of the free market.

The modern form of the industrial army is undeniably the union. Just like an army, unions use force to get their way. Sometimes its physical force, other times political force. I fully support the freedom of and freedom from association. If a group of workers wants to form a club and bargain collectively, so be it. If their employer wants to fire them all together, well, that’s fine too. Naturally, the unions, consisting of the democratic mob, have passed legislation making it legal for them to organize, but illegal for their employer to terminate them. Forward the communist army!

9.Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

The original aim of this communist policy seems to be melding the oppressor and oppressed classes: a mass of proletariat concentrated in the city, a countryside of peasant farmers, and a few aristocracy with massive tracts of hereditary land. Notice the reference to "equable distribution" of the populace. This can only be accomplished by land redistribution. The communists saw the distinction between city dwellers, townies, and country folk. They knew the city, filled with factory workers, was their natural base from which to mount an assault on the property rights conscious farmers and aristocratic landowners. While moving people into the countryside seems antithetical to today’s environmental movement, the two are actually after the same goal: reduction of property rights. The greens realize the communist goal by forcing the people out of the country, and into the city and suburbs. Think Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in reverse. Thus, the common thread in these nihilistic, authoritarian political movements is revealed.

10.Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Well, we’ve certainly reached the education camp ideal espoused in the communist manifesto. Instead of universal access to "free" education, we now have universal compulsory indoctrination. Look at the assault on home-schoolers for further proof. I asked a friend of mine who recently graduated with an education degree what she learned in her degree major classes. The response frightened me; she had learned how to control classroom behavior. She told me it usually "takes 3 or 4 years before children are broken in to the idea of a teacher in charge". She teaches 2nd graders. Stories of public school officials promoting political agendas are legion. Almost universally, that agenda takes its cues from the communist manifesto, and its modern keepers.

Back to point 10 of the Manifesto. The combination of education with industrial production looks exactly like the work to school programs that find such favor with our public education system. The abolition of factory slave labor, and the preservation of third world "habitat" are two verses in the same tribal chant of the neo-communist environmental movement. This is all in the name of preventing the third world country de jour in cahoots with Nike from wrecking the natural habitat of their beautiful swamps and deserts while exploiting the children, of course. The natural consequence that the now unemployed children will have to beg or prostitute themselves to stay fed is ignored by our enlightened watermelon (red with a thin green skin) protestors.

Conclusion

Am I suggesting some massive conspiracy to infiltrate the Democratic (and to a lesser degree the Republican) Party by the International Commune? No. What I am suggesting is that communists gravitate towards political parties that see no wrong in enforcing edicts via state control. I am also suggesting that people with authoritarian tendencies will never come out and directly say that they want to run your life. They’ll tell you to support some piece of legislation in the name of fairness, or the environment, or safety, or the children, or "our" future, or humanitarian intervention, or national security. Those who oppose are branded heartless, or selfish, or sadistic, or cowardly, or stupid, or greedy. The collectivists make the claim to the moral high ground based on the false assumption that they know what’s best for someone else, and how dare you get in the way. The worst part may be the fact that most Americans don’t realize the stated goals of communism, and the means to achieve those goals are at work in our society today. I suppose most people assume the communists will come out and say they want to run your life. No one can be enslaved all at once; no one would volunteer for it. But the incremental approach to control is insidious, and dishonest. It doesn’t speak its name, since detection would render people alert to it, and ready to destroy it. Well, folks, here’s your wakeup call. You will know the authoritarians are attempting to gain control by reading their Manifesto in their own words. It’s plain as day if you take the time to read it.

1 Posted on 07/07/2001 23:24:36 PDT by BluesDuke
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THE NAKED COMMUNIST

Culture/Society Extended News Miscellaneous Keywords: THE NAKED COMMUNIST, CLEON SKOUSSEN
Source: THE NAKED COMMUNIST
Published: 1958 Author: Cleon Skoussen, former FBI agent
Posted on 12/16/2000 08:41:26 PST by WSGilcrest

In 1958, Cleon Skoussen, former FBI agent, revealed in his book, THE NAKED COMMUNIST, the long term goals of the communist agenda. This information is also contained not only in the Congressional Record (August 1963), but also in the Communist Manifesto itself. For the sake of brevity, only a few of those goals are listed here:

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the U.S. would be a demonstration of moral strength.
3. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
4. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of communist domination.
5. Set up East West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.S.
6. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the United Nations.
7. Promote the United Nations as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.
8. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
9. Do away with loyalty oaths.
10. Capture one or both of the political parties in the U.S.
11. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
12. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Get control of the teachers associations.
13. Gain control of all student newspapers.
14. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
15. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures.
16. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them censorship and a violation of free speech and free press.
17. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures and TV.
18. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as normal, natural and healthy.
19. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with social religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a religious crutch.
20. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principles of separation of church and state.
21. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
22. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the grounds that it was only a minor part in the big picture.
23. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the communist apparatus.
24. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
25. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
26. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.
27. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American traditions; that students and special interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political and social problems.

2 Posted on 07/07/2001 23:33:56 PDT by WSGilcrest
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The Naked Communist sounds very old hat and corny. However, most of it is very true.

4 Posted on 07/07/2001 23:56:59 PDT by RLK
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Bumped and bookmarked

I also never read the Communist Manifesto (though I remember buying a copy in a used bookstore when I was in college). Instead, I lived under Communism, the Chinese version, for 7 years. Within one year, I had pretty much determined to never vote Democrat again.

6 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:18:54 PDT by Singapore_Yank
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First off, I would think that this were a joke if I didn't know better. It's so obvious that it makes you want to cry. Isn't it said that the best place to hide is right out in the open?

Like Edward Norton in Fight Club, I found the same hotel soaps in the same hotels, next to the same Applebee’s or Chili’s.

I know this is off-topic, but I must say that Fight Club is one of my all-time favorite movies. What a trip.

7 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:28:23 PDT by thecabal
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My reaction: wow. The Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, looks a lot like the Democratic Party Positions, written in 2000.

And that's where I stopped reading. You wouldn't know class warfare if it walked up and bit you on the behind.

What do you think the "conservative" vs "liberal" mess is? It's class warfare! Likewise, that's what the Republican vs Democrat parties have been about also: class warfare!

Go ahead and say that. I dare you. America's up to its eyeballs in the Communist Manifesto. The frog isn't boiling, rather, it's ashes. The frog should've hopped out of the pan a very long time ago.

8 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:47:24 PDT by alien2
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Excerpted from Hillary Clinton and the Racial Left…… Ever since abandoning the utopian illusions of the progressive cause, I have been struck by how little the world outside the left seems to actually understand it. How little those who have not inhabited the progressive mind are able to grasp the ruthless cynicism behind its idealistic mask or the fervent malice that drives its hypocritical passion for "social justice."

No matter how great the crimes progressives commit, no matter how terrible the future they labor to create, no matter how devastating the catastrophes they leave behind, the world outside the faith seems ever ready to forgive them their "mistakes" and to grant them the grace of "good intentions."

It would be difficult to recall, for example, the number of times I have been introduced on conservative platforms as "a former civil rights worker and peace activist in the 1960s." I have been described this way despite having written a detailed autobiography that exposes these self-glorifying images of the left as so many political lies.

Like many New Left leaders whom the young Mrs. Clinton once followed (and who are her comrades today), I regarded myself in the 1960s as a socialist and a revolutionary. No matter what slogans we chanted, or ideals we proclaimed our agendas always extended beyond (and well beyond) the immediate issues of "civil rights" and "peace."

New Left progressives-including Hillary Clinton and her comrade, Acting Deputy Attorney General Bill Lann Lee-were involved in supporting, or protecting or making excuses for violent anti-American radicals abroad like the Vietcong and anti-American criminals at home like the Black Panthers.* We did this then-just as progressives still do now-in the name of "social justice" and a dialectical world-view that made this deception appear ethical and the fantasy seem possible.

As a student of the left, Jamie Glazov, has observed in an article about the middle-class defenders of recently captured Seventies terrorist Kathy Soliah: "if you can successfully camouflage your own pathology and hatred with a concern for the 'poor' and the 'downtrodden,' then there will always be a 'progressive' milieu to support and defend you."* Huey Newton, George Jackson, Bernadine Dohrn, Sylvia Baraldini, Rubin Carter, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rigoberta Menchu and innumerable others have all discovered this principle in the course of their criminal careers.

There is a superficial sense, of course, in which we were civil rights and peace activists-and that is certainly the way I would have described myself at the time, particularly if I were speaking to a non-left audience. It is certainly the way Mrs. Clinton and my former comrades in the left refer to themselves and their pasts in similar contexts today.

But they are lying. (And when they defend racial preferences now-a principle they denounced as "racist" then-even they must know it).

The first truth about leftist missionaries, about believing progressives, is that they are liars. But they are not liars in the ordinary way, which is to say by choice. They are liars by necessity-often without even realizing that they are. Because they also lie to themselves. It is the political lie that gives their cause its life.

Why, for example, if you were one of them, would you tell the truth? If you were serious about your role in humanity's vanguard, if you had the knowledge (which others did not), that you were certain would lead them to a better world, why would you tell them a truth that they could not "understand" and that would hold them back?

If others could understand your truth, you would not think of yourself as a "vanguard." You would no longer inhabit the morally charmed world of an elite, whose members alone can see the light and whose mission is to lead the unenlightened towards it. If everybody could see the promised horizon and knew the path to reach it, the future would already have happened and there would be no need for the vanguard of the saints.

That is both the ethical core and psychological heart of what it means to be a part of the left. That is where the gratification comes from. To see yourself as a social redeemer. To feel anointed. In other words: To be progressive is itself the most satisfying narcissism.

That is why it is of little concern to them that their socialist schemes have run aground, burying millions of human beings in their wake. That is why they don't care that their panaceas have caused more human suffering than all the injustices they have ever challenged. That is why they never learn from their "mistakes." That is why the continuance of Them is more important than any truth.

If you were active in the so-called "peace" movement or in the radical wing of the civil rights causes, why would you tell the truth? Why would you tell people that no, you weren't really a "peace activist," except in the sense that you were against America's war. Why would you draw attention to the fact that while you called yourselves "peace activists," you didn't oppose the Communists' war, and were gratified when America's enemies won?

What you were really against was not war at all, but American "imperialism" and American capitalism. What you truly hated was America's democracy, which you knew to be a "sham" because it was controlled by money in the end. That's why you wanted to "Bring the Troops Home," as your slogan said. Because if America's troops came home, America would lose and the Communists would win. And the progressive future would be one step closer.

But you never had the honesty-then or now-to admit that. You told the lie then to maintain your influence and increase your power to do good (as only the Chosen can). And you keep on telling the lie for the same reason.

It is because America is a democracy and the people endorse it, that the left's anti-American, but "progressive" agendas can only be achieved by deceiving the people. This is the cross the left has to bear: The better world is only achievable by lying to the very people they propose to redeem.[End Excerpt]------ Author: David Horowitz

9 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:47:33 PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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Good post!

That's how it is.

The Marxist system is so ingrained in our lives, vis a vis Gramscian tactics, that most are Marxist to some extent without ever being aware of it.

Expect no great reversal in the near future.

10 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:51:03 PDT by laconas
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Instead, I lived under Communism, the Chinese version, for 7 years. Within one year, I had pretty much determined to never vote Democrat again.

I was a Democrat in 1983 when I migrated to Australia, and by 1988 had become a Republican after five years under a labor government (socialism lite). I have American friends who have been here as long as me, and they still vote Democrat. I ask them why, and they just shrug their shoulders. I tend to think it's because they believe evrything they read in the leftist press.

11 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:52:01 PDT by peabers
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Tell it to the actual author of this piece. I was merely passing it on as an interesting enough read.

12 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:54:19 PDT by BluesDuke
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Mr. Horowitz elaborates on such themes with his longtime friend and colleague Peter Collier in Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About The '60s, an excellent book.

13 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:55:30 PDT by BluesDuke
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I have always maintained that you almost have to have been a young collectivist brat to know what is so truly hideous about the left. I read all those Marxist-Leninist tracts because the high school senior who was hitting on me thought I'd be impressed and I was! I was 14, about the age for making real sound, rational comparisons. (sarcasm). Now when I say I cringe at the left it is certain I know what I'm cringing at. And your right, congress is crawling with commies.

14 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:56:40 PDT by Havisham
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Also, check which version you're reading. I don't know how many versions there are, but I can tell you for sure that there are at least two, pre 1948 and post 1948. One says "win the battle for democracy" and the other says "establish democracy." Check and see what your source is saying. If you want the real McCoy you need to turn off your computer and go to the library, that is before it closes due to lack of funds.

15 Posted on 07/08/2001 00:57:20 PDT by alien2
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If you haven't already seen this, you might find it interesting: Communists Should Not Teach In American Colleges - 1949

16 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:04:02 PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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Which part of Tell it to the actual author of this piece. I was merely passing it on as an interesting enough read. did you not understand?

17 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:14:57 PDT by BluesDuke
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Indeed, it is interesting. Thank you. I had previously heard something about that essay, but had not yet seen it for myself.

18 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:17:39 PDT by BluesDuke
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Yes, Cincinatus' Wife, from Lenin to Stalin to Mao, these god-figures of communism snuffed out millions upon millions of lives for the stunningly simple reason that they had the power to do it and the people had none to resist it. And for this reason alone I am neither a progressive, nor a liberal, nor even a moderate but rather an unreconstructed constitutionalist. Every night I say this prayer: Almighty God, spare us the harm that comes from the visions of mortal men.

19 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:21:51 PDT by Havisham
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One more link for your thread.

National Education Association Resource Text Guide In Regards To The Extreme Right - Where Do Your Kids Go To School?

20 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:24:00 PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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Bump!

21 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:25:13 PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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Somehow, I wasn't exactly surprised about that NEA screed. I'm taking a wild guess that anyone to the right of Friedrich Engels (which would actually include a few Democrats and perhaps even Ralph Nader in his periodic moments of lucidity) would classify to them as the extreme right...

22 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:36:44 PDT by BluesDuke
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"Which part of Tell it to the actual author of this piece. I was merely passing it on as an interesting enough read. did you not understand?"

Ok, so you're saying you aren't interested in knowing that there is/are later version(s) with things rewritten? And you don't ask why they're rewritten. Fine. Most consciencious researchers would tend to value such information that there are at least pre and post 1948 versions and want to know why, but if you don't, then fine. However, don't expect me to look to you as a reliable information source, because you've proven to me that you won't look deep enough and getting to the bedrock is not your primary concern.

Now go right ahead and give me another flippant comment. Be my guest. You've already lost credibility with me.

23 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:45:20 PDT by alien2
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I stopped reading this garbage after:
None of them have the combination of mental ability, circumstance, and determination that Bill Gates has

24 Posted on 07/08/2001 01:48:40 PDT by animus
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Slow down a moment. Pre-1948? The Communist Manifesto first saw the light of day in 1848. Between your inability to keep dates straight and your continuing apparent presumption that I am the actual author of the essay with which I opened this thread (my real name, I assure you, is not John Keller), credibility with you is about the last thing for which I should strive. (About the only thing in 1948 which might have approached The Communist Manifesto might have been the political platform on which Henry Wallace ran so ignominiously for the Presidency that year, but that is another story.) And, so far as "class warfare" is concerned, I know enough of class warfare to know that, in these United States, if there is anything such as class warfare it is first and foremost the political class versus everyone else, the political class determined enough to sustain power at the expense of freedom, of individual rights and sovereignty, and of properly construed government as opposed to the improperly consecrated State. The distinction between Democratic members of the political class and Republican members of the political class lie almost solely in the Democrats' eagerness to take us the shortest distance to hell viz the Republicans' determination to make sure we don't get there too quickly.

26 Posted on 07/08/2001 02:21:27 PDT by BluesDuke
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Slow down a moment. Pre-1948?

Yes, that's what I said, previous to 1948. There are at least two versions that I know of and have seen for myself. (Incidentally, the phrase "pre 1948" can include the date 1848, when it originally came out.) However, the earliest reprint (rarely does one ever get to read an original) I've seen and the one that I'm using for comparison is a 1911, a little red book, a supposed word for word reprint.

I find it interesting myself that someone changed what was written in the Communist Manifesto in 1948 for some reason. One (pre 1948) says "first we must win the battle for democracy" and the other (post 1948) says "establish democracy". So you see one (pre) says 'democracy is here' and the other (post)says 'democracy isn't here yet.' To me that's a significant change. Any changes are made for a reason. Then couple that thought with the fact that this post 1948 version is (c) 1948 International Publishers NY, 100th Anniverary edition, was picked up at a college bookstore, and one is really questioning.

I'm not saying that you wrote the article, and you've denied it several times now. I believe you. But whomever you are, IF you posted this article, it'd be reasonable for me to conclude that you at least have some measure of interest in the Communist Manifesto's contents. Therefore, I was simply passing on something that I think is important that I found concerning the Communist Manifesto's contents. Specifically, I know that they have been changed, and the change occurred at least in the year 1948.

"The Communist Manifesto first saw the light of day in 1848. Between your inability to keep dates straight and your continuing apparent presumption that I am the actual author of the essay..."

In spite of what you said, I am very far from being confused. The Manifesto has been altered from its original, and that altered version is being disseminated throughout America's colleges. Perhaps you might not see any usefulness in such information (even though this thread gives every appearance that it is supposed to "open eyes" to the Communist Manifesto), but I do, and it'd be reasonable to conclude that most conscientious researchers would find that useful information also. Specifically, they'd also, at least, want to know why. What's up with the year 1948? Someone changed it for a reason. What is that reason?

And as I said before, say whatever you want to me. It's water off of a duck's back at this point. You've proven to me that you aren't willing to go deep enough to find the truth concerning the Communist Manifesto and, therefore, potentially other things as well.

27 Posted on 07/08/2001 09:52:25 PDT by alien2
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Alien, read #25.. ----- You two need each other..

28 Posted on 07/08/2001 10:40:22 PDT by tpaine
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The fact is that, in 1848 when the Manifesto was written in German, most of those ten points were actively being espoused by many reform political movements in England, France, and other European countries and, by 1888 when the Manifesto was published in English, most of those ten points were already instituted in England, such as the income tax and the requirement of employment, and by such politicians that we would now consider stodgy rightwingers. Marx was very keen on me-tooism.

29 Posted on 07/08/2001 11:01:41 PDT by DonQ
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I probably should have clarified a point for you: For myself, I am interested enough in The Communist Manifesto to share the curiosity about a different version, but that question seems not to be relevant to this essayist's discourse. That is why I suggested it might be better that you take it up with him, and not with me. I wasn't exactly trying to be flip about it; I suppose I had in mind only too many instances (you've probably seen this happen as well) where someone would post an article here and people would crawl all over them - either to praise or to castigate - as though the poster had been the author, rather than the author cited by the poster. But I had thought that this author had offered at least an interesting read on the document's salient points.

The distinction you seem to think exists between though the distinction between "first we must win the battle for democracy" and "establish democracy" seems little other than a distinction of semantics. (If one believes the American Founders were looking to set a field for democracy - they were not, clearly enough - one could easily apply either locution to their labours and battles and either would say much the same thing about them.) To establish anything requires work, often arduous work, often as not a battle of one or another sort, whether we speak of pure war, political war, or any other kind of clash between different and conflicting intellectual or commercial interests, to name a few. If that is the critical distinction between one or another version of The Communist Manifesto, it seems almost a miniscule distinction.

I shall hazard one guess regarding 1948: Either a change was fashioned based upon some hitherto unknown (at least, to me; The Communist Manifesto, except as I have read it on a few occasions in my life, isn't exactly one of my passionate intellectual pursuits, except that it remains a classic and troublesome document written in a somewhat stultifying and bellicosely boring prose style, on behalf of a particular kind of State power, and with generous dollops of what would come to be called doublespeak) wish expressed by either Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels before their deaths; or, it was fashioned perhaps by someone (or a group of someones) seeking to soften or otherwise alter it a bit, in light of what was, in 1948, the beginning of an era in which Communism came under not just scrutinous question but downright attack around the non-Communist world, in the United States and a few other places as well, and surely those with more than a vested interest in stemming that attack might have included one or two who might have thought it a prudent thing to make a nip here and a tuck there on behalf of protecting what for all intent and purpose could be called the founding document of the Communist movement.

(I wasn't necessarily being flip, either, when I alluded to the Henry Wallace presidential campaign of 1948; it was probably the worst kept secret in the United States that Wallace ran on planks and an organisation, such as it was, well enough dominated by one or another extant of American Communists; indeed, one of Wallace's predominating campaign stances - it laced enough of his campaign appearances, to say nothing of his acceptance speech the night the Progressive Party nominated him - was how "it was the Red issue and not the Reds" who had, among other things, provoked a run of inflation at the time. Hell, for all anyone knows, the alterations, such as they were, which may have been made to The Communist Manifesto in 1948, if you are correct about that year's having seen them, might even have been done on behalf of softening the field for Wallace, directly or indirectly, anything was possible in American politics even then.)

I don't disagree that it would be useful to know for certain, if only from intellectual curiosity. But regarding the salient thrust of the Manifesto itself, I don't know the author whose essay prompted me to open this thread would necessarily think it that significant, if we are talking only about a matter of semantic as opposed to a profoundly altered thought, but that might be another reason why your original question might better be brought to him.

30 Posted on 07/08/2001 11:12:13 PDT by BluesDuke
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If you've read some version of the Communist Manifesto, then answer a question for me. Were Marx and Engels observers or advocates? What I mean is, were these men merely observing the world as they saw it to be, or were they advocating/promoting a set of guidelines for bringing into existence a Communist world?

31 Posted on 07/08/2001 11:24:18 PDT by alien2
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Both. They made observations, then advocated a communist solution.

32 Posted on 07/08/2001 11:57:33 PDT by tpaine
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With as much of the Communist Manifesto that is life in America today; and with as much as certain causes believe themselves right and have been around for a very long time (1860ish -- the political terms "conservative" and "liberal"); and with as much as there is claim to oppose Communism; I find it particularly notable that the Communist Manifesto -- where many "statesmen" today say "Communism" has fallen, and which many people repeat, whether by being influenced by either those "statemen" or the media -- seems to reflect what many are calling an America based on freedom today -- at least nothing is so bad that tomorrow will not be there. Then couple the known rewrite of the Communist Manifesto (1948???) with the fact that Americans repeatedly are hearing the thought "bring democracy to the world" even from the very people that they consider "the good guys"; and couple that with the fact that America 1948 and America 2001 are very different; and frankly, what you're calling semantics has much more impact, with me at least.

Only the blind would read the Communist Manifesto, read what it was talking about, and then not say it could in fact be the blueprint for the "world market" of today, the "world market" that the "good guys" actively promote, defend, and (based on the evidence) have shoved down the throats of all Americans -- "you will comply and fit in ...voluntarily, of course."

(...and no, I don't like Pat Buchanan (former CNN?) either! So don't go there and attempt to try to place my views in the establishment's mold. (Many in this forum have tried that angle with me. You are forewarned.) Pat Buchanan wouldn't stand a chance being interviewed by me. ...nor would Alan Keyes! I'm an alien with respect to anything publicly seen, heard, and argued, including on CSPAN! That's a heck of a lot of alienation. ...and I see that alienation as no coincidence either.)

33 Posted on 07/08/2001 12:06:16 PDT by alien2
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I'm going to throw another monkey wrench in...

Many today praise Ronald Reagan, the President that spoke out against Communism. But yet, this same Ronald Reagan came out of the Hollywood scene, a scene that most of those same people praising Ronald Reagan say is filled with advocates of Communism. How is it that such a "good guy" could lose his stripes? Then, couple that thought with the knowldege that Reagan did increase the national debt considerably; and couple the fact that the Communist Manifesto spoke of the very same economic structure that America lives today; and it makes for a very different viewpoint of the "good guys."

Just for starters name any "statesman" candidate who's been in the public's eye AND who has openly advocated leaving the Communist Manifesto's description of an economic structure that leads towards a Communist world. Name one, just one.

I see the blatant lack of opposition as no coincidence. Moreover, I see the praise for Ronald Reagan by the "good guys" as no coincidence either.

(Just what I've said here in this one post has likely alienated me from a very large portion of this forum. (I note that this thread you've made isn't blossoming too well at the moment.) Many here praise Ronald Reagan, but yet the evidence says he was an advocate for the creation of a Communist world. After all, who was it that is being praised for the "fall of Communism"? ...the same guy who did nothing to oppose and in fact used the increase of debt (see Communist Manifesto and central bank idea) to merge America with the "former Communists"! Evidence is evidence. Stone me all you (plural) want. Evidence is evidence. From where I stand, no "statesman" in the public light is actually opposing the creation of a Communist world. Once again, I see this as no coincidence. ...then America's got Red Chinese manufactured goods all over?? ...and no one's heard of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a government created and run agency for thirty years?? ...no, I see these things as no coincidence. "You will comply, but voluntarily of course.")

34 Posted on 07/08/2001 12:37:39 PDT by alien2
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5.Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

from your (passed on) article, is wrong. (I continued skimming it, and this error stuck out like a sore thumb.) It's "credit in the hands of the state," not banks. There's a big difference. Or should that error be considered semantics also? Are "hands" banks? Or are "hands" banks and other things? And since it is "hands" and not "banks", it can be concluded that there are other things. What might those other things be? Governments, corporations, and banks all united perhaps??? That'd be a heck of a state of affairs, wouldn't it? ...especially considering all the consolidation of wealth that occurred through the introduction of the "Great Depression." ...that same animal that brought us the good old Socialist Security System with its "number" among other things. ...the system that every "good guy" seeks to protect with every election, without fail. ...the system that one must comply with if one is to be hired in America AND be "legal", since all the "legitimate" employers just happen to comply. ("You will comply, voluntarily of course.")

Once again (I'm beginning to sound like a broken record), I see these things as no coincidence.

35 Posted on 07/08/2001 13:03:32 PDT by alien2
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...couple the known rewrite of the Communist Manifesto (1948???) with the fact that Americans repeatedly are hearing the thought "bring democracy to the world" even from the very people that they consider "the good guys"; and couple that with the fact that America 1948 and America 2001 are very different; and frankly, what you're calling semantics has much more impact, with me at least.

I do not demur from a sensible enough recoiling at the idea of "bringing democracy to the world"; if indeed it is to be brought to the world, it can be done only by what might otherwise be called a kind of organic process - no nation can enforce it upon another, particularly upon another where there is little enough suggestion in its own sociopolitical history of anything that could be seen as a strand of a "democratic" impulse. I would probably feel an awful lot better about an awful lot of things were there more nations or peoples around the world inclined toward that which animated the creation of the United States, but that is something entirely distinct from feeling an awful lot better about an awful lot of things if the United States were to jam "democracy" down the world's throat. Until or unless more around the world might be disposed to such as animated the creation of the United States, our best of possible worlds should be that nations simply do not trouble themselves to meddle in the internal doings and undoings of other nations, however nefarious such doings and undoings be, though certainly nothing prevents one or another nation from objecting good and strong to such doings and undoings. (You can protest all you like if you despise what a particular nation does, but that does not confer upon someone a licence to, let us say, move to overthrow the existing regime. We know freedom is better, but we ought also to know that it is very dangerous business to introduce our way of it, what remains of it, to another sovereign nation by force.)

Only the blind would read the Communist Manifesto, read what it was talking about, and then not say it could in fact be the blueprint for the "world market" of today, the "world market" that the "good guys" actively promote, defend, and (based on the evidence) have shoved down the throats of all Americans -- "you will comply and fit in ...voluntarily, of course."

You're not exactly wrong about that. But I would have amplified it to stress that The Communist Manifesto had very much in mind a controlled world market, as opposed to a free world market.

(...and no, I don't like Pat Buchanan (former CNN?) either! So don't go there and attempt to try to place my views in the establishment's mold.

Relax. It seems you and I are trying to keep the mudslinging to a paper-thin minimum and reduce it from there. Why should I thicken it by calling you a Buchananite?

I'm an alien with respect to anything publicly seen, heard, and argued, including on CSPAN! That's a heck of a lot of alienation. ...and I see that alienation as no coincidence either.

You could do an awful lot worse, of course! ;)

36 Posted on 07/08/2001 13:04:11 PDT by BluesDuke
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Workers of the world, unite!

BUMP!

37 Posted on 07/08/2001 13:08:39 PDT by ChadGore
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I'm going to throw another monkey wrench in...

I am actually rather fond of monkey wrenches. Useful implements, those, whether tending to the plumbing in my house or stirring up a pot which might provoke someone to think.

Many today praise Ronald Reagan, the President that spoke out against Communism. But yet, this same Ronald Reagan came out of the Hollywood scene, a scene that most of those same people praising Ronald Reagan say is filled with advocates of Communism. How is it that such a "good guy" could lose his stripes?

Bear in mind, Reagan made as many enemies as allies when, during his years leading the Screen Actors' Guild, he battled against the Communist contingency in Hollywood.

Then, couple that thought with the knowldege that Reagan did increase the national debt considerably

There is a very good analysis of this point, written by a conservative journalist, David Frum - a chapter called "The Failure of the Reagan Gambit," in his 1994-95 book Dead Right. Here is an excerpt:

(T)here is another way to look at the budget, and it suggests truths less comfortable to conservatives. In reality, federal spending rose explosively during the golden age of Reagan. Between 1983 and 1989, federal spending jumped from $808 billion to $1,144 billion (in constant 1990 dollars). The spending-GNP ratio sank because gross national product was then zipping upward even faster than federal expenditure. But booms do not last forever, and government spending programs do.

..."There turned out," notes former Reagan economic adviser William Niskanen, "to be relatively few consistent fiscal conservatives in the administration or in either party in Congress. Many of the smaller programs that constitute the American welfare state were created under Republican presidents and continue to be defended by Republicans in Congress. All too often, the conservatives in both parties were more protective of programs that served their own states and favoured constituencies than of their commitment to a responsible fiscal policy."

Foremost among those inconsistent fiscal conservatives was the president himself. In his memoirs, Reagan quotes from his personal diary from 1982: "The press is trying to paint me as now trying to undo the New Deal. I remind them that I voted for FDR four times. I'm trying to undo the 'Great Society.' It was LBJ's War on Poverty that led us to our present mess." Even if we take seriously Reagan's claim that he wanted to undo the Great Society, protecting the New Deal meant protecting the farm programs, the veterans' programs, the vast apparatus of government-guaranteed credit, and the biggest, costliest single federal expenditure of them all: Social Security. But of course Reagan's claim about the Great Society cannot be taken seriously. The spending program that above all others busted the Reagan administration's budgets was the most daring of all Great Society schemes - Medicare. (Emphasis added. - BD)

38 Posted on 07/08/2001 13:17:13 PDT by BluesDuke
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Hmm...I wonder if Orwell was playing with the date 1848, when he wrote 1984?

39 Posted on 07/08/2001 15:20:02 PDT by laconas
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Hmm...I wonder if Orwell was playing with the date 1848, when he wrote 1984?

It probably isn't impossible.

40 Posted on 07/08/2001 16:05:22 PDT by BluesDuke
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"I have always maintained that you almost have to have been a young collectivist brat to know what is so truly hideous about the left. I read all those Marxist-Leninist tracts because the high school senior who was hitting on me thought I'd be impressed and I was! I was 14, about the age for making real sound, rational comparisons. (sarcasm). Now when I say I cringe at the left it is certain I know what I'm cringing at. And your right, congress is crawling with commies."

Good points!

I also read the Communist Manifesto when I was about 15 years old, as in your case it was introduced to me by an older classmate. I thought it was the greatest little book I ever read in my life, at that time.

Now, more than 25 years later, I still consider it a classic. I would even advocate that every 15 year old be given a copy. I have trust in the youth that they can make the correct decisions, and judge this for themselves.

As you said in your case, when you see some new law being passed, you can immediately see from where their socialist ideas came from. I can really relate to this point, because, this is also the case, in my case.

The public education system has chosen not to introduce such literature to the young, but as you can see by your case, and my case, it's introduction would be a good thing. Yes, it should be read by all. The effect will be that more will be able see what the real agenda is. Primary sources should always be introduced to the young, even if all the content is not imediately understood.

The Communist Manifesto is truly a piece of great literature, measured by its influence-- not whether one agrees or disagrees with its content. And, for good or bad, one cannot deny it's overall influence in the 20th century.

41 Posted on 07/10/2001 19:59:45 PDT by laconas
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The Communist Manifesto is truly a piece of great literature, measured by its influence-- not whether one agrees or disagrees with its content. And, for good or bad, one cannot deny it's overall influence in the 20th century.

Do you have kids? When I was 14 I was recruited by communists. If I had had a proper education in the American Constitution and real-world economics I would have been immune from the destructive influence of the Left, which in my case was devastating. My Catholic early education, which taught me that my soul is mine alone, was the only thing that saved me from getting in way over my head. The 'Manifesto is taught in the public schools in clandestine ways through New Age-ism, Environmentalism, Multiculturalism, and on. I know because I have a young child in public school.

Believe me when I say that the K-12 system has no intention of teaching future adults anything except how to be good little socialists. What better way to achieve this than to steer clear from imparting core knowledge about the human toll of totalitarian economic sytems in 20th century? All of which operated under the Marxist-Leninist banner.

The schools today are all about teaching nothing. It's the NEA way-- and it's working.

42 Posted on 07/11/2001 10:26:17 PDT by Havisham
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"The 'Manifesto is taught in the public schools in clandestine ways through New Age-ism, Environmentalism, Multiculturalism, and on. I know because I have a young child in public school."

I could not agree more. That is why I would be for teaching the original text, rather than through "social sciences" that obscure its true intention. When people are aware of original sources it arms them with knowledge. If I may also add, most teachers who teach all the 'isms you speak of probably are not even aware of the Communist Manifesto. They are simply parroting the socialist line.

I also agree teachers are not there to teach, but indoctrinate the young ones into the socialist system.

43 Posted on 07/11/2001 11:25:21 PDT by laconas
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The Naked Communist was a TEXT BOOK at my High School from the 1970's through the mid 1990's when I graduated - and I believe it still is. Excellent source book, well documented.

44 Posted on 07/11/2001 11:33:51 PDT by FreeTally
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Is this what you mean?

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-oped-reese10071001.column

COMMENTARY

Public schools are beyond reform and redemption

Charley Reese

July 10, 2001

Public education, or, more accurately, compulsory government education, is a failure. It should not cost half a trillion dollars a year to teach people to read and write, especially when even that effort is far from successful.

Back in the late 1800s, when compulsory government education was still a topic of debate, R.L. Dabney, a great Southern theologian, remarked, "If all you mean by education is teaching people to read and write, then all you will accomplish is to create a mass market for trash literature."

Fairly accurate prediction, I'd say, because America is the largest market in the world for trash literature, trash television and trash movies. Some of the nation's highest paid heroes are barely literate, which can be verified by listening to almost any sports interview.

I have observed this process of decay since 1955. Certain things have always been constant. The cry is always: Give us more money and we will do the job. The educational bureaucracy has always been given more money, and it has a done a worse, not a better, job. Another constant has been that blame has been placed on everybody but the responsible parties -- students and their parents.

Learning, which is what students do or at least are supposed to do, is a subjective process. A child cannot be force-fed an education. If the desire is not there, if the willingness to work hard is not there -- yes, Virginia, learning is hard work -- there's not much the teachers can do about it.

Of course, the decay in the system is so pervasive that 60 percent of the college graduates in Massachusetts flunk the teacher-qualification exam. I have no doubt that Massachusetts will react in the typical way: either abolish the examination or water it down to the point that a moron can pass it.

I do not believe that compulsory government education can be reformed. I have long advocated that parents get their children out of it if they can find an alternative. I'm well aware that, in a nation with more than 15,000 separate school districts, there are some schools that do a fair job -- relatively speaking. Not one, I'm convinced, could stand a comparison with a typical school of 75 years ago.

The system today is a political system and, like everything else in our society, has been strangled by laws, rules and court orders. If you look at the areas left where a school-board member could actually make a decision, you find there practically are none. Hence, elected school boards have become, in effect, a cover for a bureaucracy that runs itself without any democratic input whatsoever.

Contributing to the unlikelihood of serious reform is the disunity in a country that is being destroyed by immigration and by a moronic native population conditioned to despise its own heritage.

Consequently, there is no consensus even on what education should accomplish. Business wants it to produce docile workers and mindless consumers. Various fanatics want it to produce cannon fodder for their respective ideological wars. Many parents just want public schools to baby-sit their brats so they can enjoy their soap operas in peace. In the meantime, colleges of education, better called institutions of no learning, are spreading the poison that education should be effortless and under no circumstances should any child have to earn self-esteem.

And, at the same time, in our litigation-mad society, teachers and administrators alike are paralyzed into inaction.

I have a friend, or at least an ex-friend, who is upset at my position on public education. He keeps sending me clips about good teachers. All he is doing is reinforcing my position.

The people in the gigantic educational bureaucracy who have the least influence on the system are the classroom teachers. There isn't a one of them who doesn't know that if they speak about what's wrong with the system, they do so at the jeopardy of their jobs. They will either be fired or exiled to some educational equivalent of Siberia, and every school district has such a place.

I wish I could just say: Put your children in a private school. Unfortunately, when a culture is poisoned, the poison spreads to all its institutions, both public and private. In other words, not all private schools are any better than the public ones.

In the meantime, don't be fooled by cries for more money or promises of more reforms. Unless you see colleges of education (the source of a lot of nonsense) shut down, the federal Department of Education abolished and the compulsory-attendance laws repealed, you will know the reforms are a sham.

There are simply too many people with a vested interest in getting their share of that half-trillion dollars. They aren't about to change the gravy train, and to hell with what it does to your children. Reach Charley Reese at 407-420-5315 or creese@orlandosentinel.com.

Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel

45 Posted on 07/11/2001 22:32:00 PDT by laconas
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It Takes A Village?

46 Posted on 07/21/2001 17:03:13 PDT by onedoug
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Actually, 1984 was a simple inverse of 1948.

47 Posted on 07/21/2001 17:40:02 PDT by headsonpikes
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I was aware that Orwell wrote or published his work 1984 in 1948, but I had never made the connection with the 1848 date.

Now we'll have to wait till 2048, to see if anything significant happens...

48 Posted on 07/21/2001 21:47:08 PDT by laconas
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To: laconas

I doubt that we'll have to wait until 2048!!!;^)

49 Posted on 07/21/2001 22:36:49 PDT by headsonpikes
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