From the Pen of David Horowitz: December 18, 2009
How many poor people have progressives starved since 1917? It’s a good question and somebody should do the research and publish it.Russia was the breadbasket of Europe until progressives seized power in that year and started instituting policies to “share the wealth.” For the next 70 years until socialism collapsed, Russia was a net importer of food always on the brink of famine. In the 1930s, Stalin instigated a calculated famine in the Ukraine to rid himself of approximately 10 million political enemies.
His crime was protected by the progressives at the New York Times and on the Pulitzer Prize Committee (they control both institutions to this day). Because soft progressives cover for hard-line progressives like Stalin, Castro and other political monsters — preferring to demonize George Bush and John Ashcroft instead — these atrocities continue.
The left’s inability to understand the most basic economic fact — that people need an incentive to produce — has caused the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions of people — mostly poor — in the last 75 years. But thanks to a politically corrupted media and educational system, their pig-headed pursuit of socialist fantasies goes on.
– Present from Progressives: Starvation
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It wasn’t until 1974 that the Soviet grain harvest surpassed the 1913 grain harvest under the feudal system of the Tsars. Socialism is simply another, worse form of serfdom.
Also, you need to remember that Russia had been industrializing for decades prior to the Russian Revolution. The serfs had been freed in 1863, and many had become landholders. Things really did begin to take off economically after that. In 1914, Russia was at least the fifth most industrialized country in Europe.
Ask the master himself: “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” (1899 and 1908 2nd edition, Vladimir I. Lenin.
The Holodomor in the Ukraine was well researched and well published, so I’m assuming you are suggesting that the same research should be done for the entire world.
Here is a book that documents what happened in the Ukraine:
Robert Conquest (1987), The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051807
Cuba used to be the fourth most prosperous economy in the western hemisphere. Where is it today?
Has Viet Nam’s GDP surpassed its per communist GDP yet?
Communism/Socialism is such a waste of time. In all human history have there ever been two more harmful books written than the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital?
Its time to understand that socialism and its close counterpart nazism are religions based upon a belief that man is ‘god’ – see Genesis 3 – “If you eat of the tree…. you will be as gods knowing good from evil”.
Socialists (and national socialists) define their own good and their own evil and pretend (wish!) that these are rational. When shown to be irrational and murderous, socialist history is quietly rewritten such that the left can always take the ‘moral’ (good and evil) high ground. Any opposition is shouted down before any opinion can be expressed.
Darwin paved the way for humanism by introducing a possible way for mankind to have come into existence as the highest (and, curiously, the only) form of rational being, except that mankind has consistently shown itself to be irrational in that it takes something that works reasonably well, like the US constitution, and tears it apart (change!) in order to try and make it better (more socialist good and less conservative evil), ignoring the inherant risk because the great high priest (of socialism)has deemed that ‘the end will justify the means’. And so the people die…….
As I have heard you say, Mr. H…When the United States pulled out of Viet Nam and left the region (Cambodia et al) to its’ own devices, millions were killed. Where were the student demonstrators and progressives then? As you have always added, they did nothing, they were silent as the murderers went about the business of murdering.
The military draft was over. They, the students, no longer cared.
Many of those progressives had few qualms with what was going on in those places. The few who did kept quiet, or at best only criticized the tactics, rather than the programs of such regimes. Mr. Horowitz has previously described the group pressure one undergoes to conform in such circles. Max Elbaum has gone over this in his writings, even though he is sympathetic.
But thanks to a politically corrupted media and educational system, their pig-headed pursuit of socialist fantasies goes on.
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See no evil
Hear no evil
Report no evil
20th century was the best of centuries and the worst of centuries
21st – there should be little to no death due to starvation. the global cropland base is well established, and there are still quite a bit of efficiency gains left in the system
we should identify what might cause a reversal, and seek to prevent these factors from emerging, some examples might be:
1. bad government policies which create unintended effects
2. using trade embargoes of food as a weapon
3. trying to expand organic production beyond a niche market
4. promoting environmental policies that constrain agricultural
production
Uh, Stalin, a ‘Progressive’? David, check your definitions. And while you’re at it, look at the ‘Breadbasket’ of Russia in 1905 before the Revolution, and its management by your good buddies the Romanovs, who kept the country in relative darkness for years. And in reference to the NYTimes, don’t forget the US made the Soviets allies in WWII. And while you’re at it, why don’t we talk about the conservative support (Henry Ford and Bush, for starters) for Hitler and his band of Merry Men. Why don’t you tell the truth? Or does it hurt that much?
Stalin was supported by people like David Horowitz’s communist parents who identified as “progressives.” If you’re going to style yourself as a “Truthteller” you should at least have the courage to tell the truth about the dictators who “progressives” have defended throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
Don’t be snide, dear Swindle, it is not I who has a major website online, so the onus is not upon me. Furthermore, please show me and the world where I have denied the existence of ‘dictators’ around the world ’supported by the Left.’ Furthermore, because you are an intellectual of sorts, you can’t conflate the existence of Stalin, on the one, and so-called progessives in America, on the other. Progressives did not institute famine producing measures and gulags in the USSR, Stalin did. Concerning the ‘breadbasket, I suggest people look at their friends the Romanovs, and look at the cause of the Russian Revolution of 1904-5. Massive agrarian uprisings in 60 districts were the direct result of leftover feudal property relations, famine in some areas, Czarist policies, and a stupid imperialist war with Japan over the warm water port of Port Arthur, in China.
And finally, when one mentions ’support’ for dictators around the world, there’s quite a gap between Horowitz’s poor parents walking around a cold sidewalk with a stupid sign that accomplished nothing, and formal (or clandestine) U.S./CIA support for dictyators around the globe. One quick example, among others, was the CIA war against Allende in Chile, who was democratically elected, resulting in his overthrow, and the subsequent torture regime of Augusto Pinochet. so please don’t just say ’support’, but rather define the nature of the support, its efficacy, how it was funded (Horowitz’s parents had the right to privately support whomever they pleased, regardless of how meaningless; the CIA, on the other hand, uses YOUR TAX DOLLARS). So really, surely you can do better. Why don’t you tell the truth?
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/01/hate-mail-of-the-day-understanding-the-crypto-religious-mentality-of-the-left/
I’ve talked with plenty of people like you before. Your ad hominems — calling me a liar and self-righteously lecturing me about not “telling the truth” will not serve you well if it’s your intention to continue commenting at NewsReal.
You’re the one not “telling the truth” about Allende/Pinochet. Horowitz and Collier lay to waste this leftist talking point in “Destructive Generation.” You’re using it as an attempt to slur America — just as leftists always do. It’s such a boring cliche.
Hey Truthteller, the President of the USA at the time of allying with Russia in WW11 was a “Progressive” who’s redistribution of wealth policies extended the great depression for years beyond where recovery would have been if it had been left alone !! Then He used WW11 to extend his “Progressive” hold on American Buisnesses. Does this remind you of what the “Progressive ” President of today is doing?
Dearest Laura, Thanks so much for your interest in the truth. Indeed, the USA (and FDR in particular) did indeed ally with the USSR during WWII. But I’m not sure how this proves anything on this site. In fact it’s more like a ‘Leftist’ rebuttal to the Right when the rage against Communism. Concerning your point about redistribution of wealth – your claim that FDR’s policies resulted in a lengthening of the Depression is worth pondering. Economists, in fact, are split on the issue. You can’t say categorically that Depression was lengthened by the introduction of Social Security. It’s at least as likely that the Depression was lengthened by Hoover’s (a ‘conservative’) passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs, which affected 20,000 consumer items, and clearly resulted in punitive responses from other nations. But to avoid cheap political points, I WILL NOT argue that that was the definitive cause of the long Depression. Concerning Obama’s policies, I will only say that I predicted the Crash, that the Crash happened during Bush’s presidency, that Bush implemented a bailout for the wealthy corporations that were responsible for the CRASH, and that Obama has largely followed in Bush’s footsteps and worked to bail out capitalism and protect the wealthy. I don’t see any redistribution of wealth, only a continuation of the decline of the Middle Class of the last 25 years. Of course, the Right complains about CASH FOR CLUNKERS, and calls it COMMUNISM, but this again is childish. In terms of Government spending, I personally believe Obama should have left the businesses to fend for themselves ( I don’t believe in Bush/Obama’s theories of ‘too big to fail’. If they’re too big, they should fail). Please don’t automatically put me in some ‘liberal’ box. The fact is, rich capitalists flew in their private jets to Washington BEGGING FOR BAILOUTS. It’s not the ‘Communists’ who had Obama’s ear. Why doesn’t someone tell the freaking truth around here?
It is interesting how ignorance continues to prevail… Having spent 18 months in Vietnam int he late 60’s has caused me to give a lot of thought (research) in regards to that war. People need to realize that this war made a huge statement to communism and had a part in the fall of communism in the the USSR. It was not, we lost – they won, it was the West will fight for freedom.
The students who led the Vietnam protests are now the professors. So current students are getting a lot of indoctrination into leftist dogma.