What Makes Democrats Similar to Old-Style Communists?

© David Burton 2011

     Listening to and examining the policies and programs proposed and (sometimes) implemented by our Democratic leaders brings to mind the many similarities between what are sometimes referred to as “Liberal Democrats or Progressive Democrats” and that of the largely defunct and discredited Soviet-style Communism/socialism of Stalinist Russia and Maoist China. In the following paragraphs, let me identify some of these similarities.

     Communism is “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.”
     It is “a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party..” (Ref. 1).

     “The Communist Party in the Soviet Union and China viewed itself as the representative of the proletariat (the working class) and the peasantry. Based on Marxist-Leninist and Marxist-Maoist doctrines, the Communists envisioned their system as the inevitable successor to capitalism, a system they believed was plagued by internal contradictions resulting from the private ownership of capital and land. To Communists, the market system was chaotic, unstable, and inequitable. Markets bred inflation, unemployment, discrimination, and an unfair distribution of income. In contrast, the Communists viewed central planning as a way to organize the economy’s resources rationally, to meet basic human needs, to achieve macroeconomic stability, to provide greater equality, and to end exploitation of labour by capitalists” (Ref. 2). To these idealists, Communism was to be Utopia.

     "The problem with Communism, and to a large extent, socialism, comes from the failure of a centralized economy to function. Though socialists often attribute it to problems elsewhere, the simple reason behind this occurrence is the mathematic and physical impossibility of managing an economy from a centralized form.”
     “This great complexity provides the root of the problem that inherently dooms Communism and socialism from the start.”
     History has repeatedly taught us that “it is practically impossible to manage an economy through a centralized government and succeed in doing so (for as has always and will always happen, a non accounted for variable destroys any attempt to manage an economy).”
     Today’s proponents of socialism and a managed economy continually refuse to learn from the past and even the on-going lessons of history. They insist upon living the Utopian dream and ignoring the mistakes of the past. “Fortunately there is a system where all factors are accounted for by natural forces and are adjusted for by the forces of self interest working in check to each other. …The capitalist free market automatically does what socialist managing attempts and fails at doing … Natural forces of self interest drive a natural and efficient use of resources and natural compensatory adjustment when a change in one industry spreads through all others. The {Communist} Soviet Union and other socialist countries failed due to the physical impossibility of managing the complex relationships of industry and resources, yet capitalism has survived and thrived by naturally carrying out these tasks.” Placing overall power in the hands of a selected, but non-accountable, few has always been a recipe for disaster. These selected few have gone by the titles: administrators, bureaucrats, apparatchiks, commissars, tyrants, etc. But, in the end, the results have always been the same. The reason? "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton (Ref. 3)

     “Further evidence of failure was the poor quality of Soviet goods. In such vital manufacturing sectors as computers and machine tools, Soviet technology lagged some 7 to 12 years behind Canada, the United States, Japan, and Germany. Technology lagged even more in consumer goods, which were of notoriously poor quality and limited choice. Durable goods such as automobiles, large household appliances, and consumer electronics were primitive by Canadian standards. Also, widespread shortages of basic goods, interminable shopping lines, black markets, and corruption in product distribution characterized the consumer sector.
     “Not only were consumer goods of poor quality, they were also in short supply. In the early decades of Soviet Communism, the government established a ‘social contract’ with its citizens to the effect that, by enduring the sacrifices associated with rapid industrialization and growth, consumers would be rewarded with abundance in the future. The failure of the system to meet such expectations contributed to frustration and to deteriorating morale among consumers and workers. The rewards for past sacrifices never materialized” (Ref. 2).

     Socialism is “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.” “It is characterized by production for use rather than profit, by equality of individual wealth, by the absence of competitive economic activity, and, usually, by government determination of investment, prices, and production levels.” In Marxist theory, it is “the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to Communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.” In Leninist theory, it is “a transitional stage after the proletarian revolution in the development of a society from capitalism to Communism: characterized by the distribution of income according to work rather than need” (Ref. 4).

     “Many will tell you that socialism is a moderate form of Communism. Others claim them to be two distinctly different and opposite theories, Communism being a cruel and harsh failure and socialism being an enlightened and successful theory. Both of these notions are false though. A recent popular distinction defines one as government controlling the means of production and the other as "the people" controlling the means of production. This too is false considering that the pursuit of either such definition is prone to developing government management of human activity. Though theory may claim distinctions between the two, in practice they become one in the same. The idea of the sharing of incomes and government management of resources exists with little distinction from Communism and its euphemistic partner socialism. In practice though the same problems plague both as freedom becomes necessarily usurped and trampled on due to abuse of power, economic impossibility, and unforeseen and unintended variables among other things. Because of socialism's inherent failures, it tends to resort to extreme measures. Communism is essentially Marx's name for socialist like systems. The only reason Communism is equated with more extreme is mostly due to its acquaintance to the Soviet Union” (Ref. 3).

     While some people think that Communism is “socialism with force, others think it is socialism gone bad. A better definition is a utopian plan to enforce complete economic equality and achieve this by means of forced income redistribution and economic management. In short, it is the same idea of socialism operating most often under a smaller branch of the socialist following known strictly as the Communists. … Communism is, in essence and in practice, the same thing as its euphemized sister socialism” (Ref. 3).

     "Communism and socialism share much in common, including the following:

Both Communism and socialism have an end utopian goal of complete equality in their ideal state.

Both Communism and socialism employ the practice of centralized economic managing and
income redistribution as their primary means of working toward this so called ‘equality.’

Both Communism and socialism experience the same types of problems in accomplishing this economic managing - the unintended side effect.

Both socialism and Communism are structured in such a way that an inherent inequality develops from the administrative top of the power structure for such is necessary to enforce compliance. Such compliance must be mandated in a socialist system due to the fact that human nature creates skepticism, opposition to the control of others, and a desire for free will.

In both systems when this unequal elite inevitably emerges, the concentration of widespread power in a single space must intensify. This naturally attracts individuals seeking widespread power, or it corrupts individuals already in power with the lure of the same widespread power.

As a result of the government structures found in both systems, the intensification of power and control on the upper level necessarily translates into the usurpation of remaining personal freedoms during its expansion"
(Ref. 3).

     “Ardent {Liberal or Progressive Democrats} believe the rhetoric that a socialist/Communist state will bring Shangri La because it will be delivered by a community organizer who has a sonorous voice and reads speeches well. Is it futile to remind them that many countries who have tried the Communist model have failed miserably? Millions have lost their lives in re-education camps due to famine, persecution, or refusal to comply with the daily Communist indoctrination.” (Ref. 5)

     Is the Democratic Party socialistic? Read on! Norman Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. As a candidate for President of the U. S. in 1944, Thomas said:

     “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.’
     “He went on to say: ‘I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform’” (Ref. 6). ’Nuff said!

     Abraham Lincoln said, "You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

     What Abraham Lincoln said is as true today as it was 150 years ago. What he said then is as true for today’s Liberal Democrats / Progressive Democrats as it was for yesterday’s Communists / socialists, and still is for the vestiges of Communism that still persist in the world.

THE COMMON FAILURE OF COMMUNISM AND DEMOCRATIC LIBERALISM

     Communism and Democratic Liberalism strive “for the complete equality of all incomes, and therefore, everything. As income approaches complete equality, productivity disappears. For example: people work so they can make money to support themselves. They work, driven by the incentive of making more money and succeeding. In capitalist systems, he who chooses not to work suffers the consequences while he who works receives the incentives, money, which he is working for. Human nature includes a desire to ‘do better’ and, therefore, make more money or advance in a job. In an attempt to make more money, people are driven to naturally work harder and longer, seek further education for themselves, and develop skills which distinguish them as rare talents among that labor which is available as supply. Under true Communism {and socialism}, income is completely equal. When there is nothing to achieve by working harder or longer, people begin to become idle. People begin to work less or not work at all because there is no longer the incentive of making more money or advancing in {one’s} job. When there are no workers, production drops to nothing. It will then be true that all incomes are equal but this equal income will be zero” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 3).

     “Karl Marx made famous the phrase, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’ {Unfortunately, Communist countries} under-produced everything; the central Communist Party planning did not take into account supply and demand; these were elements of capitalism and the evil bourgeoisie. Communist operatives, organizers, and agitators, with no formal education or job experience, were telling the population what it needed. They were crass ideologues who carried the party line” (Ref. 5).

     Liberal or Progressive Democrats do not believe in individualism. Instead they believe in collectivism. They believe that “individualism is a chimera, that any individual’s achievements should be considered entirely derivative from society, so the achievements need not be treated as belonging to the individual. Society is entitled to socialize – i.e., conscript – whatever portion it considers its share.
     “The {Liberal Democratic} agenda is antithetical to America’s premise, which is: Government – including such public goods as roads, schools and police – is instituted to facilitate individual striving, aka the pursuit of happiness. The fact that collective choices facilitate this striving does not compel the conclusion that the collectivity … is entitled to take as much as it pleases of the results of the striving” (Ref. 7). The conclusive lesson of history is that individualism and capitalism, as developed and practiced in America, have proven to be the most successful economic and social system in the history of the world, while collectivism, as practiced in socialistic and Communist societies has proven to be an abject failure.

     Deep down in their hearts, Liberal or Progressive Democrats, like their Communist and socialist brethren, believe that only a few special people, i.e., they, are the only people capable of making up their own minds and of determining the path which the entire society should follow. “Many members of the liberal intelligentsia, … agree that other Americans {us} comprise a malleable, hence vulnerable, herd whose ‘false consciousness’ is imposed by corporate America. Therefore the herd {us} needs kindly supervision by a cohort of protective herders {them}. This means subordination of the bovine many to a regulatory government staffed by persons drawn from the clever minority {Liberal or Progressive Democrats} not manipulated into false consciousness.
     “Because such tutelary government must presume the public’s {the proletariat’s} incompetence, it owes minimal deference to people’s preferences. … This convenient theory licenses the enlightened vanguard, the political class, {the ‘beloved leader’, the commissars and the Party} to exercise maximum discretion in wielding the powers of the regulatory state. … {This} liberalism preaches confident engineering by the regulatory state” (Ref. 7).

GOVERNMENT CONTROL

Under Communism: Under the Communist system, the government made all the decisions and controlled all aspects of the economy, social life, and the political system. It was Do it my way, or else! In their case, the else could be ostracizing, the gulag, or even the firing squad. The Communists ruled by intimidation, threats, and brute force. The voices of the masses were irrelevant. According to the Communist philosophy, the leaders of the Party were more motivated, more intelligent and much better equipped to tell everyone else what to do. Their mantra was All power to the Party! Everyone else had to get in lock step and follow orders.

     “The central planners directed how inputs would be allocated among industries and firms, thereby determining the composition of output. The result was that planning directives, not a market system, served as the allocative mechanism.
     “Government, rather than the forces of supply and demand, set the prices of resources and products. Planners rarely changed the prices of consumer goods and, as a matter of social policy, set the prices of ‘necessities’ such as housing and food at low levels. Rents on housing in the Soviet Union, for example, averaged only 3 percent of income and remained at that level between 1928 and 1992. Government also set the price of resources and the prices of each firm’s output. The prices were used primarily as accounting devices to gauge a firm’s progress in meeting its production goals. The emphasis of the various five- or seven-year plans was on the quantity of output, not on its cost or price” (Ref. 2).

     “Central planning was fraught with serious problems that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet economy and to the market reforms in China.
     “As you know, the market system is a powerful organizing force that coordinates millions of individual decisions by consumers, resource suppliers, and businesses and, in so doing, promotes the efficient use of scarce resources. To substitute central planning as a coordinating mechanism creates a significant coordination problem” (Ref. 2).

     “In the capitalist system, profits and losses not only signal success and failure, they also act as incentives for firms to increase or decrease production. If there is a shortage of a given product, the price and profitability of that product will rise, and producers will be motivated to expand production. Conversely, if there is a surplus of a product, prices and profits will fall, and producers will be motivated to reduce output. Producers seek improved product quality and production techniques because both increase profitability. Workers seek to improve their job skills and to work harder in order to raise their income, which can be translated into a higher standard of living.
     “The reason such actions and adjustments do not occur under central planning is because there is an incentive problem. Central planners determined the output mix of the Soviet Union and pre-reform China. When they misjudged how many automobiles, shoes, underwear, and chickens were wanted at the government-determined prices, persistent shortages and surpluses of those products arose. But so long as the managers who oversaw the production of those goods were rewarded for meeting their assigned production goals, they had no incentive to adjust production in response to the shortages and surpluses. And there were no fluctuations in prices and profitability to signal that more or less of certain products was desired. Thus, many products were unavailable or in short supply while other products were overproduced and sat for months or years in warehouses.
     “The centrally planned system also lacked entrepreneurship. In market systems, the large potential monetary rewards to successful innovators serves as a stimulus to technological advancement. Moreover, firms that improve their products or production processes realize a profit, while those that do not eventually suffer a loss. Central planning does not trigger the profit motive, nor does it reward innovation and enterprise.
     “The route for getting ahead in the centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union and China was through participation in the political hierarchy of the Communist Party. Moving up the hierarchy meant better housing, better access to health care, and the right to shop in special stores. Meeting production targets and maneuvering through the minefields of party politics were measures of success in ‘business.’ But a definition of success based solely on political savvy is not conducive to technological advance, which is often disruptive to existing products, production methods, and organizational structures.
     “Indeed, in both the Soviet Union and pre-reform China, managers and workers often resisted innovation. Since enterprises were essentially government-owned monopolies, no private gain accrued to managers or workers for improving product quality or developing more efficient production techniques. Managers and workers actually resisted government-imposed innovations, because higher and sometimes unrealistic production targets usually accompanied innovations.
     “The lack of competition also discouraged innovation. There were no new startup firms driven by the profit motive to introduce better products, superior managerial techniques, or more efficient production methods. Similarly, the goal of economic self-sufficiency isolated Soviet and Chinese enterprises from the threat of competition from imported goods. Enterprises went on producing the same products with the same techniques, even as both the products and the techniques grew increasingly obsolete. Finally, workers lacked motivation to work hard because there were so few material incentives. Because of the low priority assigned to consumer goods in the production plans, only a limited array of inferior products and services was available to consumers. While hard work might result in promotions and bonuses, the increase in money income did not translate into a proportionate increase in real income. Why work hard for more income if there is nothing to buy? As a Soviet worker once lamented to a Western journalist: “The government pretends to pay us and we pretend to work” (Ref. 2).

Under Democratic Liberalism: In today’s environment, the President and the Democratic Party leadership have all too frequently taken an It’s my way or the highway!” position. As an example, Obamacare was enacted even though it was opposed by the majority of the American public and essentially the entire Republican Party. With respect to proposed budget cuts to reduce the federal deficit, we find that President “Obama has fenced off several programs from any cuts at all. One is Obamacare, even though majorities in polls favor its repeal.” [Emphasis mine] (Ref. 8). It has been charged that the American public is “now witnessing leadership by scare tactics. Instead of having an adult conversation about how to cut our national debt … Democrats, led by President Obama are trying to scare the American taxpayer into submission” (Ref. 9).

     One example of the It’s my way or the highway! attitude of the Democratic administration came about when President Obama pressed Congress to pass his $447 billion jobs program. “Seeking to gain political advantage, President Obama insisted yesterday {3 October of 2011} that Congress vote on his entire $447 billion economic program this month.” Note the words insisted and entire, i.e., It’s my way or the highway! The Republican House Majority Leader promptly stated that the, “House would not act on the President’s jobs bill in its entirety.” He stated that “This all-or-nothing approach is unreasonable.” Republicans had already indicated that there were ”pieces of Obama’s plan they could support”, but not the plan in its entirety (Ref. 10).

     That most Liberal of Democratic Liberals, Representative Barney Frank from that most Democratic state of Massachusetts, provides another example of the Democratic Liberals’ abhorrence of dissent. In August of 2011, 3 members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) had the audacity to oppose “an indefinite extension of the very low interest rates of the last three years.” The extension was proposed and supported by the President and Representative Frank. The extension was passed by the FOMC, 7-3. But Frank was appalled that the approval was not unanimous. So Frank submitted a bill to “strip the presidents of the Fed’s 12 regional banks of their right to vote. Frank stated that he was opposed to allowing the bank presidents to vote because they were “overwhelmingly representative of business,” and particularly the financial sector, therefore “they are not representative in any way of the American economy.” Wait a minute! Presidents of Federal Reserve Banks are not representative of the American economy? What Representative Frank was really saying was that dissent with Liberal Democratic policy was unacceptable. In his words, dissent “has now become a significant constraint on national economic policymaking.” Our Democratic Liberals clearly favor mandatory harmony. “One of liberalism’s steady aims is to break more and more institutions to the saddle of centralized power” (Ref. 11).

     What about governing within the context of the law? Well some Liberal Democrats have concluded that even this is not necessarily required. They have the prescience to know what is good for the unwashed and ignorant masses, even if they have to overstep the law. Here in the Democratic Republic of Massachusetts, the Democratic governor’s “top consumer advocate”, who “oversees the Division of Insurance”, stated, “We’re not stopping at the letter of the law because the stakes are much too high” (Ref. 12). This was in the context of the Democratic administration’s attempts to reduce spiraling costs within Massachusetts' Obamacare-like health care system. So, according to this Democratic administrator, they are above the law. In other words, our Liberal Democratic Big Brothers and Big Sisters know best, no matter what the law says.

OVERREGULATION OF BUSINESS

Under Communism: Communism is infamous for its total inability to manage business and industry. Soviet Communism tried to run its businesses with a series of 5-year and 7-year plans. Under this system of a managed economy, the products produced were of shoddy quality; product shortages were endemic; products were produced to meet government imposed quotas rather than customer or consumer demands – the result being either a shortage of product or an overabundance of product with no market for the overproduction and an inefficient system of production with little to no accountability for cost or quality.

Under Democratic Liberalism: With Democratic Socialism, the path to government control has not been through direct takeover and management of business, but instead it is through overregulation, red tape, and bloated bureaucracy. In addition, we have witnessed the failed attempts by the government to pick and subsidize businesses or business sectors. These failures include: federal government subsidizing and mandating the use of ethanol and federal government selection and subsidizing of the Solyndra Corporation. In the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts, the government's interference and results are the same. Witness the debacle of the Evergreen solar energy company that picked up roots and moved to China after receiving a $58 million subsidy from the state.

     Concerning the government’s subsidizing ethanol, we find that ethanol is the most heavily subsidized fuel in this country. “In fiscal year 2007, ethanol and biofuels received a subsidy of $5.72 per million Btu of energy – more than double the subsidy for solar (the nearest competitor) and more than 190 times more than oil and gas.
     “In absolute terms, American taxpayers have already spent $41.2 billion since 1980 on tax-based subsidies for ethanol, according to the Senate Energy Committee. And in fiscal year 2009, biofuels received federal subsidies of about $6 billion via tax credits, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If existing federal policies continue, taxpayers’ support for corn-based ethanol biofuels will reach about $6.75 billion per year by 2015 – or more than $30 billion in the next five years.”
     “Ethanol is a relatively inefficient source of energy. … It takes 1.48 gallons of ethanol to provide as much energy as a gallon of gasoline. Because of ethanol’s lower energy content, cars using blended fuels get fewer miles per gallon – and the higher the ethanol blend, the lower the fuel economy” (Ref. 13).

     “For the fourth time in our history the ethanol industry has come undone and is quickly failing nationally. … {The} fact that the ethanol industry is going bankrupt, when the only reason we use this additive is a massive government mandate, is outrageous at best.”
     Using “ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact.” Some “independent studies on ethanol … show that ethanol is a net energy loser.” All “fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%.” Also, “science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline” (Ref. 14).

     Why then is the government continuing to subsidize this fuel source?

     With respect to Evergreen Solar Inc., it was/is a clean-energy company that manufactured solar panels. The company received millions in Massachusetts subsidies from the state’s Democratic administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory and, in mid 2011, filed for bankruptcy. “The Massachusetts Republican Party called the Democratic administration’s $58 million financial aid package a ‘waste’ of money” (Ref. 15).

     In the case of the Solyndra solar panel company, the Democratic Obama administration chose to lend the company some $528 million which was lost when, in September 2011, the company declared bankruptcy. “American taxpayers are out $528 million. … In doing so it became the poster child for all that has gone wrong with the Obama administration’s so-called green jobs stimulus and the whole concept of the government picking economic winners and losers in the private sector” (Ref. 16).

     Like Communist and socialist regimes, the Democratic Party in the United States tries to determine which industries and businesses will be “winners”. As with Communist and socialist regimes, their selections are, at best, questionable and, in many cases, suspect. The reasons for these suspicions concerning many of their choices are the business and industry ties to labor unions that support the Democrats and the financial support of Democratic candidates by some of the businesses and industries that the Democrats have pushed and continue to foist on the American public.

     Consider the Democratic Party’s support of “the greening of America” policy whose goal is to provide renewable energy to replace American dependence on foreign oil. The Democratic administration’s program includes indoctrination (some would liken it to Communist brain-washing) of America’s school children in this eco-policy. “The U.S. department of Energy and the Democratic apparatchiks at the National Education Association are disseminating solar power propaganda masquerading as math and science curricula.”
     “The DOE/NEA curriculum encourages students to pressure pols to pour more money into supposedly underfunded green energy schemes. But the House Budget Committee reported last week: ‘The President’s stimulus law alone included tens of billions in new government subsidies for politically renewable energy interests … Two years later, the President’s promise of millions of jobs stands in stark contrast with reality.’
     “A more useful homework assignment would be to have these future taxpayers calculate how much their moms and dads are spending to prop up Obama’s green jobs industry and its elite Democratic donors/investors” (Ref. 17).

     “The government shouldn’t be in the business of picking any eco-winners or losers. ‘Too Green To Fail’ redistributes wealth from viable private projects to pipe dreams, forces higher taxes and energy costs on everyone, and rewards partisan funders at the public expense” (Ref. 17).

SUBSIDIZING THE MASSES

Under Communism: Under Communism, prices of basic consumer goods are held unrealistically low, below the actual cost of production. This is done to appease the masses in an attempt to keep them in line and to prevent them from rising up against an economic and (almost always) totalitarian regime that prevents them from rebelling.

Under Democratic Liberalism: The Liberal Democratic version of subsidizing the masses is that of providing food stamps and other benefits to the lower economic strata in the American society. “According to the Wall Street Journal, 47 percent of people in this country, both citizens and non-citizens, are receiving one or more federal payments. That is the highest entitlement percentage in U.S. history.
     “And that’s the way some in the Democratic Party want it. Get the folks hooked on Government benefits, and you’ll have their votes for life because those mean Republicans are so full of self-reliance that they’ll always oppose federal largesse. … Liberal Americans {read this as Liberal or Progressive Democrats} like to think of themselves as compassionate, championing a vast flow of public money to those who have not. But what is compassionate about wrecking an entire economy?” (Ref. 18) Just think about the results of Communism in the former Soviet Union and in today’s North Korea.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY/COMMUNISM AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY/LABOR UNIONS

Under Communism: Under Communism, the real power resided with the dictatorial head of the Communist Party. The party carried out the dictates of the party leader – or else! “Marx taught that after the proletarian revolution, the state would wither away. So too would the party, once its work was done. The Communist party as the ‘vanguard of the proletariat’ was only the instrument that would inspire the workers' resolve to make the revolution. Marx anticipated that the classless society after the revolution would be a loosely organized workers' democracy.” What Marx failed to anticipate was the rise to power of ruthless and power hungry tyrants that would usurp the power of the party and of the people themselves” (Ref. 19).

     “The reality of Communism in the USSR was pervasive presence of the Bolshevik-inspired Communist Party, an enormous organization that became a privileged society within a society” (Ref. 19).

     “The Communist Party of the USSR became a self-perpetuating elite with a deep investment in the system. It included a vast hierarchy of party militants which subtended a much larger system of clients: there were party members but they were tied to a nomenklatura, the families and clients of the party. The nomenklatura had its own: shopping, housing, vacations, medical care. The structure of the Communist Party meant that it would be: privileged, conformist, susceptible to manipulation by ambitious apparatchiks, increasingly conservative and inflexible about policy, and, over the long run, old. The party would become a gerontocracy” (Ref. 19).

     “Soviet industrialization favored heavy industry (armaments, factories, transport) at the expense of the production of consumer goods. As a consequence, the deficient quality of consumer products was an ongoing complaint of people living in the Soviet Union and its eastern bloc partners. People were obliged to shop in state-run stores, where there was little incentive to please or even serve the public. These stores were notorious for their high prices, short supplies, and indifferent clerks. The Communist Party created a special chain of better provisioned stores to serve party members and their families” (Ref. 19). So much for a classless society with equality for all!

     In Russia, the Communist Party “held sway, supposedly uniting its goals to that of the State. Party officials filled the state bureaucracy and essentially were in charge of much of the day-to-day governing and policing of the nation.”
     “The Communist Party in the Soviet Union essentially gave rise to the State, acting as the source of legitimacy and authority. Each of the Soviet leaders, from Stalin on was named first secretary of the Party, and it was from this position that they derived their power. Because the Party was ‘always right,’ dissent was impossible and Party members were expected to carry out all policy decisions without complaint or resistance. Loyal Communists called this kind of obedience, initiated by Lenin, ‘democratic centralism’” (Ref. 20).

Under Democratic Liberalism: “The Democrat party is an amalgam of special interest groups -- environmentalists, trial lawyers, minorities, college professors, and labor unions, for example. All of these groups, however, are not equally crucial to the survival of the party. Far and away the most important, of course, is organized labor.”
     “Where would Democrats be without unions, and vice versa? As much as they trumpet the value of diversity, Democrats are dangerously under-diversified.
     “Only labor unions have the ability to automatically and involuntarily extract campaign funds from their members. Unions have become the equivalent to a guaranteed income for the Democrat party.”
     “There is little or no difference between the goals of labor unions and the Democrat party. Their political philosophies are indistinguishable. Both, for example, view people not as individuals but rather as members of groups, all of whom are to have equal incomes, regardless of effort or merit. Although both Democrats and unions would vigorously deny being socialists, both are strongly sympathetic to socialistic ideals.
     “Much of the most destructive legislation of the past eighty years has been the products of the unholy alliance between the Democratic party and organized labor. Besides being far and away the greatest source of campaign funds, unions have provided a dependable army of disciplined foot soldiers for the Democrat party.
     “Their alliance has been a major factor in the success of both. The unions rely on the Democrats to bend the rules in their favor -- being exempted from anti-trust and restraint of trade regulations, for example. Everyone else and the economy end up worse off. Unions are rarely prosecuted for widespread corruption, threats of violence, and blatant intimidation. They have been allowed to play by a different set of rules.
     “Democrats need unions to deliver money and votes, unions need Democrats to deliver legislation that works in their interest. … Each side of the symbiotic relationship must have power and vitality in order to keep the relationship working” (Ref. 21).

     One example of the similarity in objectives between socialists/Communisms and Democrats/unions was an early 2011 union solidarity rally at the Rhode Island State House, which cast “a bright light on exactly who fuels the activism for the RI Democrat Party.
     “It may shock some old-school Democratic voters to be informed that a variety of Marxist organizations are invariably involved in rallies organized by Democratic partisans. This should, at the very least, raise suspicion regarding the kinship between Democrats and dedicated socialists.” (Ref. 22)

     At the rally were “were dozens of unabashed socialists, handing out copies of the Socialist Worker and holding signs that directed people to websites such as RISocialist.org. Many of them were holding materials that instructed, ‘Tax the Rich!’ Amidst a crowd of people wearing green AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) solidarity T-shirts, several union members held signs that also read … ‘Tax the Rich!’
     “To understand why ‘social justice’ advocacy groups such as Jobs for Justice, the RI Progressive Network, and Ocean State Action always stand with the unions, one must first understand that the term {Democratic} is merely a code word for ‘socialist,’ and that the term ‘social justice’ is code for ‘redistribution of wealth’” (Ref. 22). One can readily equate the Tax the Rich rhetoric with phrases such as redistribution of wealth and contribute their fair share.

     “But did it disturb any of the labor supporters … that the policies they were proposing were identical to those being advanced by the Marxist revolutionaries in the crowd? Or, that in order to spark a socialist revolution, the Communist Manifesto instructs anti-capitalists to ‘tax the rich’ … ?
     “The complete lack of concern over the clear philosophical camaraderie between Democrats and devout socialists {or Communists} is telling. Does it disturb union advocates that, according to the National Park Service, the permit to host another union solidarity rally in Washington, DC over the weekend ‘was requested by and issued to the International Socialist Organization’?” (Ref. 22)

     The alliance of the Democratic Part with labor unions in the U.S. could be best exemplified by the words of President Franklin Roosevelt just prior to the 1944 Democratic convention when discussing his preference for the Vice presidential nominee. Roosevelt said, “’Clear it with Stanley,’ meaning that Sidney Hillman was to have the final say – Hillman, who ... ran the CIO’s well-heeled Political Action Committee” (Ref. 23). The CIO was the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a former United States trade union federation that in 1955 merged with the American Federation of Labor to form today's AFL-CIO. What President Roosevelt was saying was that it would be the labor unions in the United States that would have to approve the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee - and, as it later proved, who would be President of the United States.

ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL – BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Under Communism: Under Communism, “street organizers and thugs convinced some people that it was bourgeois and selfish not to share and distribute the fruit of their labor with the rest of the population. The rich were evil and deserved to be thrown from power and stripped of their ‘ill-gotten’ wealth. …
     “It had never occurred to people that some individuals worked harder than others did and {things like farm} collectivization would not fare so well, especially after the Communists took their lion’s share … . It also never donned on people that the ruling elite would not include themselves in this clever scheme.” On the collectivized farms, what was left after the Communist elite took their share was then “equally distributed among the peasants. It was not enough to sustain a family. The men had to migrate to cities and seek jobs in factories. The women and youth were left behind to till the fields and grow the crops. Students were dragged from schools in the fall for one month to pick the crops. It was involuntary ‘volunteer’ work” (Ref. 5).

     “Communist Party members were insulated from … shortages because they shopped at specialized stores built and maintained just for them. Once a family ran out of rationing coupons, they were no longer entitled to buy in the store; they could go to the black market.
     “Stealing was common under Communism, from the factory director all the way down to workers. People were forced to steal from work and barter with other people in order to survive. A butcher would steal meat and trade with the baker from a bread factory. Gypsies stole metal and sold it as scrap. They dismantled railroad tracks, metal fences, manholes, cemetery crosses, pretty much anything of metal that was within public reach. A few were electrocuted trying to steal metal from transformer stations” (Ref. 5).

Under Democratic Liberalism: It’s the same with Liberal and Progressive Democrats – all men are equal but some are more equal than others. All workers are equal, but for Democrats, workers that belong to labor unions that support Democratic politicians are more equal than others. All people are equal, but when it comes to certain social programs like health care, Democratic leaders, i.e., Obama, Pellossi and Reid, are more equal than the rest of us. Let’s be honest. In reality, all men are equal only when everyone functions at the level of the least competent and the least productive.

REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

Under Communism: It has been said that socialism wants to redistribute wealth but Communism wants it kept within a small circle of ruling class. Communism was supposed to redistribute wealth evenly among everyone. It has never worked. The reasons – human nature and a system that has always become corrupt.

     Karl Marx said “From each according to his means, To each according to his needs." In practice, what has resulted under Communism is a philosophy “that all should work as hard as they can, and then the State will decide whose needs are greater, and will take from the more productive to give to the less fortunate. That is the basic tenet of Socialism or Communism - - the two ideologies are of the same stripe. Redistribution of wealth does NOT mean charitable giving. Redistribution of Wealth means the forcible taking from one person or persons, to be handed out to others. This ideology has failed in every society that has ever tried it. Take away the incentive to work, and production plummets.
     “The Soviet Union, with the greatest agricultural land mass on the planet, could not feed its people because the means of production {were} in the hands of the government, instead of in the hands of the people” (Ref. 24).

     Redistribution of wealth under Communism “essentially means that each member of a commune within a Communist society must produce what he/she can and then gets back what only fulfills his/her needs. That is as far as the individual identity is carried, because what is needed by he or she is not decided by the particular individual. Issues of individual liberty are central as the State endorses certain classes of society which it deems necessary to increase in status (distribute wealth to) while the people from which that wealth (private property) is taken have their status decreased. A societal process after revolution, summed up within Marx' slogan, demands that, when applied, redistribution of wealth be controlled explicitly by the State government” (Ref. 25).

     “Communism is a form of socialism. It puts control of all property into the hands of the government directly. The results have been impressive: over 100 million people killed in the last century.”

     “Because {Communism} destroys property rights, it makes the production of wealth almost impossible.”
     “Since the population gets an equal share of the wealth produced, there is virtually no incentive to produce, since one's effort is of negligible benefit. To compensate for this, the government must intimidate and force the people into working hard. Since self-interest is eliminated as a motivation for production, it is replaced by its cruder sort of self-interest in the form of fear of death. The government slaughters citizens to keep the rest in line.
     “This is encouraged because the government policies are failures. Communism is supposed to produce limitless wealth, making all of its citizens happy and rich. But with the ability to produce impaired, the success never happens. To distract the population from its failure, the government must blame it on others. And anyone guilty enough of harming everyone in society should be killed of course. Communism lives on scapegoats” (Ref. 26).

Under Democratic Liberalism: Our Liberal Democrats love to target the "Rich". They continually repeat the cry that the “Rich” have become wealthy off the backs of the people. They insist on fostering an atmosphere of class warfare based upon blame and resentment. They want people to want what others have – irrespective of whether the individual has worked to earn what others have. These Liberal Democrats want to take from the “haves” whatever they want under the cover of “redistribution of wealth” and making the “Rich” pay “their fair share”. They appeal to the public to grant them the power to take what they want by legal robbery perpetrated on the public’s behalf.

     According to a Gallup poll, 71% of Democrats want the government to redistribute wealth. What redistribution of wealth implies is “robbing some citizens so they {the Democrats} can ‘redistribute wealth’ to others. What others? Why, members of the Democrat voting base, of course! So where is the ‘fair redistribution’? The redistributing party in the legislature will always take money from people who don’t vote for them and dole it out to people who do. It’s how they plan to stay in power” (Ref. 27).

SCAPEGOATS

Under Communism: While Communism is supposed to produce limitless wealth, making all of its citizens happy and rich, in truth, this never happens. To explain away its failure to live up to its promises, the Communist party leaders must blame it on others, on scapegoats. Communism has to continually find others to blame. In Stalinist Russia, the scapegoats have been: the “old Bolshevists”, the Trotskyites, the counterrevolutionaries, Religion, the West, the United States, Jews, Jewish Doctors, Russian Kulaks, "anti-Soviet elements", Polish nationalists, etc., etc., etc. Of course, it was never the fault of the Communist leaders or of the Communist party.

Under Democratic Liberalism: Similar to the Communists, the Democrats, in order to explain away their failure to produce results and live up to their promises, have continually resorted to the blame game. Before and after assuming power in the 2008 elections, “President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership {blamed} former President George W. Bush and his Vice-President, Dick Cheney, for all the country's problems …
     “President Obama … blamed just about everyone except himself and his Democratic cohorts for all of the nation's woes. …
     “Obama's first scape-goats were Bush and Cheney, then the rest of the evil Republicans, then it was Fox Cable TV that was to blame, then the evil bankers, the lobbyists, the greedy people on Wall Street, the overpaid corporate CEO's and on and on and on” (Ref. 28).

     When the “President and the leaders of the Democratic Party fail{ed} to muster enough votes in Congress to pass the President's health-care reform bill without having to resort to political bribery, backroom deals, and questionable shenanigans and maneuvers, {they blamed} the Republicans for opposing a health-care plan … {They blamed} the Fox Network for having a vendetta against {their} health-care plan! {They blamed} the Republicans for not being willing to compromise … {They demonized} the health-insurance companies … {and they accused} the health-insurance companies of making obscene profits” (Ref. 28).

     More recent scapegoats are the corporations that avoid taxes because of the loopholes in America’s corporate tax laws, those rich folks who don’t pay their “fair share” of income taxes, and those health care providers who overcharge the sick and the government. Of course, it never is the fault of the Democratic Party nor of the Democratic Party leaders.

DOUBLESPEAK

Under Communism: Communists were perhaps the originators of doublespeak. The nations under their tyrannical and dictatorial control were often labeled “The Democratic Republic of … .” This was done to obscure the fact that democracy did not exist within these slave states. Another commonly used title for these Communist dictatorships was “The People’s Republic of … .” This, in spite of the fact that the people had little or nothing to say about how they were governed. Actual control was left in the hands of the politically elite - the Party and the Party leaders.

     Over the years, Communists have often used common everyday terms but these terms mean something else entirely to them. This is/was one way Communists fooled liberal "useful idiots" into thinking that they were great humanitarians instead of the tyrants and murderers that they really were. When the Communists used the terms: "Free and Independent," it should be interpreted as “subservient” and "Counterrevolution," should be interpreted as “reform and democratization”.

Under Democratic Liberalism: The Democratic spinmeisters cloak their agenda in terms such as “Liberal” and “Progressive” in order to hide their true objectives. They talk about “Social Justice” when they mean “Socialism”. They speak of “Redistribution of Wealth” and “A Fair Share” in order to avoid being unmasked as “Robbers Who Steal From Those Who Work and Give to Those Who Don’t Work” and “Make-Believe Robin Hoods”. The “Tax Loophole or Subsidy” for oil companies is actually a tax credit for royalties that oil companies are required to pay to foreign governments. This tax credit was put in place to level the international economic playing field for domestic oil companies.

     When Liberal/Progressive Democrats and teachers’ unions talk of “Narrowing the Education Gap”, it’s doublespeak for dumbing-down the educational system so that everyone receives the same education with the same result – academic performance that meets the lowest standards and expectations, performance and standards that the poorest achievers can meet.

     The term “Immigration Reform” has traditionally meant something to address the problem of illegal immigration, such as deportation, a border fence, punishing employers who hire illegals, etc.. Liberal Democrats have corrupted the term and now it means “Amnesty and Legalization ”.

     Other examples of Liberal Democratic doublespeak include the following:

Diversity which in actuality means Racial quotas, discrimination against whites, special rights and preferential treatment for protected minorities, and the exclusion of white males
Multicultural which in actuality means Includes few, if any, heterosexual male caucasians
Community Initiatives which in actuality means Services for minorities only
Deficit Reduction which in actuality means tax
Left Behind which in actuality means Anything that escapes the scrutiny, control, and taxation of the federal government
Sustainable Economy which in actuality means Socialism, Marxism and/or the redistribution of wealth
Balanced Solution which in actuality means Increased government power
Universal Health Care which in actuality means Socialized medicine