Posts Tagged → communism
We actually saw a movie
The other night, the Princess of Patience and I actually went to see a movie. Like the kind of movie that used to entertain, inform, and inspire Americans, instead of the dreck Hollywood has been excreting, lo, these past thirty years or more.
We saw “Oppenheimer,” a Hollywood movie that is based on fact, based on historic events, based on real people who did and said real things. It is not based on the vomitous Woke PC corrosive nonsense that Hollywood has specialized in for decades. We were entertained and informed by this movie, and inspired about the greatness of America. What a treat! This makes four movies we have seen in the past…five years? Or longer?
Oppenheimer is about a man named Robert Oppenheimer, a genius and socially inept physicist who is considered “the father of the atomic bomb.” Aside from all the sciency stuff about the why and how of developing the bomb, the movie also delves deeply into World War II, the ensuing Cold War with communist Russia, and the very real threat that communists living in America posed to a free America itself.
There is no spoiler alert here, because we all know that the atomic race against the Nazi Germans and the communist Russians resulted in The Bomb being dropped on a fascist Japan, thereby signaling America’s ability and willingness to use the Mother Of All Weapons. Genocidal Japan’s well-earned come-uppance in Nagasaki and Hiroshima also demonstrated how easily the entire blue planet we live on could be destroyed in a tit-for-tat use of atomic weapons, thereby ushering in the “Mutually Assured Destruction” doctrine of mutual atomic deterrence that shaped American, European, and Russian foreign policy for fifty years.
This strange conundrum of “I won’t blow up Planet Earth if you don’t blow up Planet Earth” became a strategic stalemate between superpowers, thereby forcing them to fight their battles in low-intensity conflicts around the globe.
I digress. But such is the force and pragmatic usefulness of such a movie as Oppenheimer that it naturally results in discussing all that came before, during, and after the film’s historic time.
The other important thing that this movie focuses on, but does not follow up on, is the communist takeover of the American universities. That really did happen, despite the Hollywood oh-so-sad depictions of meanie anti-communists trying to stop real communists from infiltrating American institutions. Today, sending your dear child to college is not likely to get them a real education, but rather an expensive indoctrination in (failed) cultural and economic Marxism at the hands of the successors to Oppenheimer’s fellow leftists.
Professor Oppenheimer was like not only a lot of his fellow Marxist academic intellectuals at the time, that is, exceedingly generous with other people’s money in order to vaguely “be nice to everyone,” but he was also like the many non-religious European Jews who had landed in America, abandoned their faith, and then embraced various degrees of Marxism in its stead. Some had already made this transition in Europe. This is a whole other subject, but it is very much threaded throughout Oppenheimer because a) so many of his fellow genius physicists and scientists on the Manhattan Project were former European Jews and b) so many of them were various shades of pink to bright red Marxist, and thus intrinsic threats to a free and democratic America.
While these brilliant minds were needed to make The Atomic Bomb from 1942-1945, they subsequently were very real security threats because of their….divided loyalties…or, said another way, their commitment to genocidal international communism rather than to the well being of their wonderful host country, our beautiful America. And Professor Oppenheimer captured this split or dual personality disorder very well. And so the Father of The Atomic Bomb ended up losing his security clearance in a ridiculous, procedurally deficient, dog-and-pony shadow kangaroo court proceeding that nonetheless had at its core the very real need to protect America from its own openness.
I could say more about this particular subject, but I am saving it up for an essay I have been writing for three years. Maybe longer. It is forthcoming here, because when I read yesterday about the ADL’s fascist Jonathan Greenblatt excoriating his political enemies for calling out American leftist fascism for what it is, I know I have to say whatever I can say to stem the tide of genocidal leftism that began in America in the 1920s, gathered steam among Professor Oppenheimer’s fellow academics in the 1940s, and is today utterly destroying America as a free and democratic country.
So…Oppenheimer. If you have not seen it, it is worth the nearly three hour watch and the ten bucks. I give it two thumbs up.
We saw Oppenheimer in a quaint old-time theater in rural America. Note the diametrically opposed movies: Puke -woke ninja turtles and Barbie vs. very real and important Sound of Freedom and Oppenheimer. Pretty good summation of where Americans are at right now.
Shen Yun thumbs up review
Somewhere in the time frame of 1971 to 1974, a troupe of Chinese acrobats and dancers put on an incredible performance at Penn State University’s Recreation Hall. Despite having been a wee lad up in the bleachers that evening, I can still now recall moments of their performance with shocking clarity, such were the amazing skill and feats of strength they brought to the American public.
Lots of male and especially female displays of traditional weapons mastery – spears, swords, knives – whose choreography defies even an aged and highly skeptical intellect decades later, as well as incredible and frankly unbelievable balancing + acrobatic + martial arts acts with tea cups and people, bending iron bars that the audience members were invited to try etc etc.
And now looking back, I realize that those early 1970s Chinese performers must have been the last of their kind, or maybe they were exiles, such was the crushing tyranny of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” aimed at stamping out through murder, torture, and literal destruction of every single thing that had made China China for the past five thousand years. In any event, in Rec Hall that night I had witnessed history.
Well, fast forward about fifty years, and into the intervening gap steps Shen Yun, a modern show about “China Before Communism.” That is, before all that Mao Cultural Revolution communist crap that has destroyed one of the world’s great nations and culture. Begun in 2006, Shen Yun performances have been evolving and growing for the past sixteen years, and now boasts eight geographically dispersed troupes regularly impressing audiences around America. The Princess of Patience and I saw one such troupe in Pittsburgh, PA, this past Sunday, at the historic and beautiful Benedum Theater.
Looky here, I am no theater or musical show kind of guy. So don’t go on reading further here and expecting to encounter the usual aphorisms and adjectives “professional” art and theater critics regularly provide through their Pez dispensers.
What you are about to read is my own unvarnished layman perspective, as told from the guy who almost always falls asleep as soon as the lights go out and the curtain rises, and who is then awakened either by the sharp elbows of the theater goer to my left or by the Princess of Patience to my right. Apparently I think I am not snoring when I sleep in a theater, but in fact I do snore.
Apparently one play was stopped mid-scene while an actor asked someone to stop me from snoring, such was the distraction. What can I say, few theater performances are memorable to me. Men singing…bad. Men dancing in tights and playing dress-up…really bad. Theater and especially musicals and most especially opera are all a refined form of torture. If a play is any good, it will become a movie, which I might see and during which I probably will not fall asleep. My highly educated and experienced opinion here.
But, such is my love for the Princess of Patience, that I bought tickets and took her to see this updated version of whatever it was I had been mesmerized by fifty years ago.
To its credit, Shen Yun kept me awake. We can joke, but that is actually an achievement.
Shen Yun’s scenes or performances are relatively brief, each probably five to seven minutes long, and also varied. That constant change helps keep the audience’s attention focused. The subjects are about traditional Chinese culture, love, war, good vs. evil, history, spirituality, chivalry, family, and the performers wear culturally appropriate dress in each scene. They also have an act about forced organ harvesting, the current real-time inhumane insane crazy can’t believe this is happening actual action of murdering political prisoners and transferring their healthy organs to the unhealthy bodies of Chinese citizens who are “more equal”* than the 99.99% of the Chinese socioeconomically beneath them.
*(George Orwell, author of dystopian novel and a foreshadowing message about the present political situation in both China and America 1984, coined this phrase more equal than others in his other dystopian novel Animal Farm, where the political leader pigs betray the farm animals’ revolution against the humans and go on to corrupt the original commandment that all animals are equal in order to keep their pig selves in unintended, constant, never-ending more equal than others tyrannical mastery over all the other animals)
Something I had not seen before is Shen Yun’s use of a digital screen as the stage backdrop, instead of the traditional painted screen that would form the background for the stage in each scene. Shen Yun uses different digital backdrops, often several different ones, in each scene. They are crisp, clear, and bright. They also allow for cartoon versions of the actors to soar through the air or run away over the horizon. Maybe this is old technology, but it is a first encounter for me, and I liked it.
Things I liked about Shen Yun: The amazing dance, ballet, tumbling, and acrobatic abilities of the professional actors, the incredibly tight and perfectly executed choreography, the superior talent of the live orchestra members, and the bright and flowing costumes that must be a real b#tch to move around in. I liked all the subject matters. The simpler weapons handling wasn’t intended to be anything like the old days, but it adds a nice change to each story and act. The pleasant combining of traditional Chinese music with a modern European/ Western orchestra is very cool.
Things I did not like about Shen Yun: About a third of the acts are repetitious, despite using different costumes and some different choreography, with the same sweeping “windmill” arm motions of the actors in each one. Consider that the one act that brought the loudest applause was about a traditional Tibetan dance, complete with very different moves and costumes. Another thing that irked me was how MC/Announcer Perry’s suit crotch was obviously rumpled. Probably because I am not a regular suit wearer, my eye was immediately drawn to this unprofessional and uncomfortable anomaly. Come on, Perry, your suit must be cleaned and pressed before each performance. Even a knuckle dragging lug like me knows this.
In conclusion, I spoke with half a dozen members of the audience both inside and outside the theater, and everyone liked it. Some appreciated the simple artistic expression, despite not synching with the political, religious, or cultural messages. Others really liked the occasional blips of overt religious messaging, which if I had to guess is some sort of Bhuddist messianism that most Christians can relate to in one way or another. One audience member I spoke with said that she is politically liberal, but that she was not bothered at all by the political or religious aspects of Shen Yun: “I don’t have to agree with it to enjoy it. This is just their own artistic expression and I am here to see it and enjoy it as it is,” she said to me.
Amen.
Benedum Theater is worth visiting just to see the beautiful interior
Benedum Theater ceiling
Benedum Theater interior
If I had a big social function, I would have it at the Benedum Theater. Tons of cozy little nooks like this
If I can’t get front and center seats, I won’t go see an event that has a stage.
Shen Yun audience had everyone old, young, in between, Asian, black, white, purple…
Some parts of Pittsburgh have not been successful. Around the block from this ancient bar and hotel we encountered what had been a recently built very attractive state of the art Martin Luther King, Jr cultural resource center abandoned in an overgrown lot
Pittsburgh smartly employs vehicles powered by clean burning propane
The entire city of Pittsburgh is stunningly beautiful. This one column is representative of the beautiful hand carved stone buildings from the Victorian Age to the 1940s. Thanks to industrialists like the Mellons, Carnegies, Olivers, and Benedums, Pittsburgh is a world hub for architecture and science
collusion with Russia meddling is real and happening
No doubt about it, Russia has been meddling in America’s elections for decades. It is one of the weaknesses that an open society like ours has, and which a closed, authoritarian society like Russia (and China) do not have. The nature of our democratic process leaves America vulnerable to tampering from without and to treason from within. And in our universities, our corporations, and our news outlets. And so it is not news anywhere that some Americans have been colluding with Russia in its meddling since forever, like since the 1920s.
Looking back on the 1930s responses to open treason and the 1950s “Red Scare” and the resulting Hollywood blacklisting of Americans openly colluding with Russia in the attempted murder of America, it seems the problem’s surface was only scratched then. Groups like the ACLU, founded by open communists (Roger Baldwin – “Communism is the goal”), are still active and incredibly destructive today.
And even more so, we have a a political party whose leaders now openly identify as “Democratic Socialists.” They are not even hiding their actual allegiances any longer.
Yes, we see the American young people flocking to this Democratic Socialism Free Stuff banner. It is surprising and painful, because it is so at odds with the self-reliance and independence that marked American culture from our very beginning.
It is a fact that my wife and I have been complicit with others in our generation and the generation before us in absolutely spoiling rotten our kids, and priming them for this Free Stuff movement. Giving them everything, demanding from them very little. And sonofabitch, wouldn’t ya know it, when the little bastards grew up to teens and twenties, they actually expected everything for FREE. We trained our own kids to be this way.
Even though I had done my best to require from my kids home chores before dinner, or before fun time, I think I was like a lot of other old fashioned dads who also collided with our beloved wives on this.
As dads, we were boys once. And as boys, we in our generation were expected and often aggressively forced by our dads to work our butts off all the time, to do chores, in order to earn TV time, to earn a bicycle, to earn telephone time after homework was done, and so on. God bless our good wives today, they love our children so very much, they can’t imagine hurting their feelings by always backing us up on enforced chores. Making the children do chores gets in the way of their homework, ya know…hey, are you doing your homework or scrolling through endless humorous memes over there?
God help the dad who demands chores from the kids! Even my own son, my pride and joy, a good kid, the ‘mini me’ who is supposed to grow up to be smarter, stronger, faster than me, when tasked with helping fill our wood sheds with enough split firewood for the winter said “Well, that doesn’t sound like very much fun.” And then pouted about not being able to spend that time with his buddy.
So now America has one, maybe two generations of young people who really expect everything to simply be handed to them. Without having to work for it at all. Free participation trophies for everyone. Contrast this to the old days, a mere thirty or forty years ago, where young people expected to eventually inherit from their parents, but only after working very hard to achieve much on their own.
And so here we are, Crazy Bernie Sandals and every single other Democrat candidate for president, is promising free everything for everyone, like free college tuition, free income, free housing, free health care, including for law-breaking illegal aliens who illegally invade America and who have neither put money into the collective taxpayer pot nor will they. America’s own material success and wealth are being used as a weapon against America.
Obviously this free stuff movement is financially and socially unsustainable, because resources have limits and it is innately unfair. But that is not the point for the Free Stuff movement. The point is to use that lure and false promise to buy enough votes from gullible kids and illegal aliens to attain communism in America through our democratic process. That is, to turn America into a communist country.
Crazy Bernie Sandals honeymooned in the old Soviet Union Russia, because he was and still is a proud authoritarian communist. But he is not alone in this view; every other Democrat candidate has said more or less the same things he has said, sometimes differing by a few shades of grey.
Leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, which is when Russia became an authoritarian communist country exporting its cruelty abroad, there were two movements to achieve communism in Russia. One group was the Bolsheviks, whose belief in Bolshevism required a violent overthrow and replacement of the existing government. Their competitors were the Mensheviks. They believed in the eventual slow drip-drip-drip overthrow of the Russian government, one chip at a time, one government position at a time, one vote at a time, using the democratic process to slowly implement their goals until the government was dominated by communists. And only then they would use force to implement their authoritarianism.
Know what the Mensheviks were called?
The Russian Social Democratic Party.
Sound familiar to something happening today right here in America?
I am so post-socialism now
Socialism and its sisters communism, collectivism, authoritarianism, mass murder, and tyranny have never proven fun or beneficial for anyone but a chosen tiny handful, who lord it over the unfortunates below. Venezuela is the latest example of what socialism really is, no matter how many college professors tell you how wonderful it is: Violent poverty and no human rights. Socialist Russia and communist China have the worst environmental records and situations, because under socialism, there is no incentive to clean up the environment.
For the occasional Millennial who may accidentally be reading this essay, the words written above mean that under socialism, you don’t get to pick your healthcare system (like Obama promised when selling his not-free-for-all centralized healthcare system snake oil), you don’t get to keep your doctor (also like Obama promised), you don’t get to choose your friends (most will be carted off to jail and then disappeared), and you certainly don’t get an iPhone and a five dollar latte, ever. In other words, everything you take for granted right now is stuff you will never ever see in a socialist country.
And so, dear Millennial, you should know that after eight years of Obama’s effort to implement socialism at every level of America, which required him to lie a lot, and after three years of Trump’s fantastic economic revival, I find myself feeling so, so post-socialism.
I say this, even though it puts me at odds with a fad that has recently emerged on the left, where people loudly proclaim they are “post-capitalism.” While they simultaneously and shamelessly use capitalist medicine, drive capitalist cars, wear capitalist clothing, live in capitalist buildings, drink capitalist five dollar lattes, endlessly text on capitalist smart phones, and eat capitalist food.
So OK, aside from the clean abundant food, the best medicine, the nicest buildings, the clean water, the clean air, the clean environment, the fuel efficient vehicles, and the best clothing, yeah, I guess capitalism sucks…like that old Winston Churchill line that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others…or like that scene from The Life of Brian, where Monty Python’s cast members recite a litany of popular improvements the Romans brought to Judea…”but what have the Romans ever done for us?”
The fact is, capitalism creates the best situation for the most people out of all the alternative forms of government (free choice). Capitalism has its weaknesses, but compared to all the alternatives, it is the best arrangement. We have seen this proven over and over. And it is proven by the fact that none zero nada of the “post capitalism” advocates are actually living socialist lives.
And that is why this bizarre “post-capitalism” posturing and virtue signaling has always mystified me; you know, the Che Guevara tee shirt wearers using their parents’ credit cards to pay for everyday things that no socialist or communist country ever had or ever will have. Or the socialist child climate activist barking at adults about the choices they make, while herself jet-setting around the world using capitalist planes trains automobiles and boats, and leaving a one-week carbon footprint bigger than my entire lifetime will be.
So I am over it, that socialism thing. Too much hypocrisy, too many lies.
Socialism sucked during the Obama administration, and watching newly socialist Venezuela crash and burn now is painful. As we learned during the Obama years, it is not cool or hip to say you are socialist, it is actually very stupid. And if you have a college professor or three who tells you socialism is great, then ask them to prove themselves correct by immediately living the socialist lifestyle. You know, give it all up, practice what you preach. Push come to shove, when those beret-wearing fake educators are put on the spot, you will find that deep down, those Che-lovin’ professors are actually so, so post-socialism, too.
It’s natural to be post socialism, because socialism is naturally bad for you.
Photo of Chinese military summarily executing an unarmed civilian who has not had a fair trial, for some imagined crime that only threatened the power of the state. This is socialism, and you should be post-socialism
In a socialist country, you can earn the death penalty by simply speaking your mind, by disagreeing with the official government positions
Strangely, China makes pretty young women about to die get dressed up before they get on their knees and are shot in the back of the head. Who knows what this unhappy young woman did to earn such a violent death, but we know she had zero due process. Socialism
socialism
same lady who is kneeling in front of the soldier above. Socialism is cool, right? No?
Nice ladies in a socialist country about to be executed on their knees. Is this what young Americans think is just fine? Do you drink $5 lattes and watch your friends get executed for fun?
this is the lady kneeling above and then with her head blown in half, as she is being taken off the truck to her execution. In socialist countries, you can easily earn the death penalty for simply disagreeing with a leader’s opinions. Not in America! So why is America supposed to be turned socialist?
I love America. That is why I fight for her
I don’t doubt that the people on the left “love” America.
What I also know is true is that their definition of “love” of America is 100% the opposite of mine.
My love of country is frequently called “jingoistic” in online debates, a term once used by America’s arch-foe, the Soviet Union, and their treasonous allies planted on American soil.
The left’s “love” for America is for its rich opportunity to be turned into a fantasy utopia, the likes of which Marxists have been pursuing one way or another for over 100 years.
Leftists would take all of our material success until now, and convert it into state-controlled property, to be doled out sparingly to everyone equally. That policy failed awfully in the Soviet Union, but as someone once close to me used to say, “Communism failed only because the Soviets did not implement it correctly. It is otherwise a great thing and still ought to be pursued.”
The Soviets failed, and the Berlin Wall fell (25 years ago), because a tidal wave of individual hope for freedom and liberty continually corroded state power; eventually, the system just leaked throughout its faulty pipes.
The left would ignore all that and return us to those dark days. Oh sure, they don’t say the days will be dark. Neither did the Soviets, and neither do the Chinese or the North Koreans – they all say things are just rosy.
I love the America that was founded in 1776 and 1787 and 1794 and 1812 and 1867 and 1922 and 1948 and 1954 and 1964 and…….Yes, America as it was founded had the tools built into it to overcome the many challenges the young nation inherited (slavery and abolition) and later worked through (women’s suffrage, Negro voting rights, etc.).
America is not perfect – what nation is? – but America is perfectly designed and built to successfully process all challenges.
The challenge we face now is the same we faced when the Soviets had their agents working to damage us on the home front. We face domestic political opponents who really do not believe in the America as it was founded. They do not really love America, as it was created. They are like little Benedict Arnolds, riding through the countryside at night, doing their utmost to un-do all the goodness.
I and tens of millions like me, however, we do love America as it was founded and as it has progressed since its founding. And we will not sit idly by as our great nation is “transformed” into something unrecognizable. Our fight is as much with liberals in the Democratic Party as it is with liberals in the Republican Party, and there are plenty there, too.
Speaking of the traitor Benedict Arnold, he was caught by two ragamuffin Patriot soldiers, more militiamen than regulars, and he offered them huge sums of money if they would but let him go to his British handlers waiting for him not far away. Our two boys were destitute of money, but not of spirit, and in their ragged clothing they held him at the end of their loaded barrels and marched him back to patriot lines.
Today, people like me, no matter how much money is thrown at us, for or against us in supportive politics or opposition politics, we are going to keep on fighting to bring back the America we once knew – The America that offers full and equal prosperity to all who are willing to work hard and contribute to a society bound by Constitutional obligations and opportunities, and nothing more, or less.