The Liberal Love Affair with Communists and Dictators

 

030413-sports-dennis-rodman-visits-north-korea-Kim-Jong-Un-powerIn response to Ricochet member Mark’s post about the failure of President Obama’s Cuba policyTitus Techera, who is Romanian, left a comment that too few people born and raised in Western democracies will fully understand:

I was a bouncing baby boy when the communist tyrant was assassinated. I’m not sure it would have happened without Reagan and his foreign policy. Maybe the USSR was bound to collapse. But when? I am assured by the free-market devotees that it was born dead. What an attitude … So many people were cursed to live that death. My young miss told me the other day about how Americans go as tourists to Cuba, then go online and complain about the amenities. … We had a strange moment, again. Will no one understand what fate awaited us? Into what fate our parents were born? I’m not expecting world peace, but ridding Cuba of its communist tyrants is long overdue, and a permanent sign of American shame, of the cowardice of Kennedy and his followers.

Now, I myself understand a bit about communists, although not from first-hand experience; the first four years of my life don’t count. What I know was passed down through my own family. My family endured two consecutive communist regimes. The first was Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, followed by the Vietnamese-installed regime in Cambodia. The second was a paradise compared to the first, but it was nothing cheery to talk about, either. My grandfather did his undergraduate studies in China in the 1950s, slightly before the Great Leap Forward. He used to tell stories about his time there. He had next to nothing good to say about China under Mao. My family said the same about the Soviet Union: My uncle and a distant relative did their studies in Tashkent in the 1980s. They pretty much confirmed to me that communism only produces misery, suffering, and death. This is why it’s so infuriating for me to see people who were born into a freedom they take for granted gallivanting around with dictators and old commies.

What is it about communists and dictators that gets western liberals so hot under the collar? The countless deaths? The starvation? It’s happening right now in North Korea, but Dennis Rodman has a glowing view of Kim Jong-un. The whole country is a death camp, but the New York Philharmonic thought nothing of it when they went on a grand tour of Pyongyang in 2008. Thomas Friedman writes love letters to the ChiComs every other day. Sean Penn lost a friend he was blessed to have when Venezuelan president-for-life Hugo Chavez died. How many people have been killed, tortured, and imprisoned by Castro and the butcher Che Guevara? But Michael Moore thinks the Castro brothers are generous dictators. The Democrats are having a love affair with a presidential candidate who honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Anita Dunn, President Obama’s former communication director, says Mao Zedong is one of her two favorite political philosophers I don’t want to know who her other favorite is.

Why do liberals remain enamored with communists and dictators? What would it take to end this love affair?

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  1. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Titus Techera:

    MarciN:

    You have a great story about Madame Chiang. I suppose everyone knows Chiang & Missus were Time‘s man & wife of the year in ’37–a horrible year for China. Also, she made the cover at least three times & was a friend of Henry Luce.

    She also spoke to the US Congress.

    Incredibly popular…

    Yup. I did not know my grandmother too well.  She passed away from heart disease–“hardening of the arteries,” but I don’t know what that is called today–when I was a teenager.

    But Madame Chiang Kai-shek was an impressive person in every way. I’m enjoying reading her letters to her American friends. :)

    • #91
  2. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    Twenty something years ago, a film of some success was made about her & her two sisters–one married even more famously, at the time. Her husband was Sun Yat-Sen. The third married a rich banker. It’s a Hong Kong movie. The Soong sisters, maybe? As I recall, it does a pretty good job of showcasing them & the troubled times…

    • #92
  3. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Titus Techera:Twenty something years ago, a film of some success was made about her & her two sisters–one married even more famously, at the time. Her husband was Sun Yat-Sen. The third married a rich banker. It’s a Hong Kong movie. The Soong sisters, maybe? As I recall, it does a pretty good job of showcasing them & the troubled times…

    Thank you. I’d be interested to see it. I shall look for it.

    My poor mother was in tears one day watching a PBS special on Chiang Kai-shek in which the case was made that he was a brutal dictator who had done terrible things to the Chinese people. I felt so sorry for her and said that there is limit to how much truth there is in these things. The communists’ version of events pretty much dominates the history books.

    • #93
  4. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Another area of two different versions of history being out there: The John Birch Society, which has always been an object of ridicule throughout my lifetime, is named after a hero (the story is relevant in that clearly the Communists were active during World War II):

    John Birch, our namesake, worked hard to serve God, family, and country. As a solo missionary in China, he brought God’s Word to remote villages.

    During WWII, John risked his life to rescue American prisoners and pilots, volunteered for spy missions, and transmitted enemy locations to Allied Forces. As a guiding strength to others, he never lost faith. Tragically, he was murdered by Chinese Communists 10 days after the war ended. John was only 27.

    • #94
  5. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    MarciN:

    Titus Techera:Twenty something years ago, a film of some success was made about her & her two sisters–one married even more famously, at the time. Her husband was Sun Yat-Sen. The third married a rich banker. It’s a Hong Kong movie. The Soong sisters, maybe? As I recall, it does a pretty good job of showcasing them & the troubled times…

    Thank you. I’d be interested to see it. I shall look for it.

    My poor mother was in tears one day watching a PBS special on Chiang Kai-shek in which the case was made that he was a brutal dictator who had done terrible things to the Chinese people. I felt so sorry for her and said that there is limit to how much truth there is in these things. The communists’ version of events pretty much dominates the history books.

    It could be true that Chiang Kai-shek was dictatorial.  I understand he was not loved by the native people of Formosa/Taiwan when he took over their island, and I think some of those resentments lasted for decades, down to some of the graduate students who studied at my former workplace. But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    • #95
  6. Lidens Cheng Member
    Lidens Cheng
    @LidensCheng

    MarciN:

    Titus Techera:

    MarciN:

    You have a great story about Madame Chiang. I suppose everyone knows Chiang & Missus were Time‘s man & wife of the year in ’37–a horrible year for China. Also, she made the cover at least three times & was a friend of Henry Luce.

    She also spoke to the US Congress.

    Incredibly popular…

    Yup. I did not know my grandmother too well. She passed away from heart disease–“hardening of the arteries,” but I don’t know what that is called today–when I was a teenager.

    But Madame Chiang Kai-shek was an impressive person in every way. I’m enjoying reading her letters to her American friends. :)

    I’ve heard the same thing said about her. Quite an impressive lady.

    • #96
  7. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    The Reticulator: It could be true that Chiang Kai-shek was dictatorial. I understand he was not loved by the native people of Formosa/Taiwan when he took over their island, and I think some of those resentments lasted for decades, down to some of the graduate students who studied at my former workplace. But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    I wish I could spend a year or two and get to the bottom of it.

    It wouldn’t matter to anyone at this point, I suppose.

    But it’s hard for me to put a monster together with his elegant and beautiful wife who spoke on his behalf everywhere she went, who was highly educated and a devout Christian. Anything is possible, I suppose. I also wonder sometimes if after the war with Japan, which would have been when he was on Formosa, if his mind was gone. What happened in Shanghai, which his wife describes in her book as she watched it happen, and then later the destruction of Nanking, the anger in him must have been difficult to contain. Not that that is an excuse.

    Some of the things I have heard about that period just don’t add up. I am open to any possibility at this point. I don’t think the whole story is out there yet. The Rape of Nanking has just come to light.

    • #97
  8. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    The Reticulator: But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    I think you mean mass murderers rather than just dictators here, don’t you?

    Leftists seem to be drawn to murdering leaders if they are Commies. This was the great gift that Marx gave to wannabe killers — his ideas helped keep them in power by support from intellectuals and other dupes all over the western countries.

    • #98
  9. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Larry Koler:

    The Reticulator: But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    I think you mean mass murderers rather than just dictators here, don’t you?

    Leftists seem to be drawn to murdering leaders if they are Commies. This was the great gift that Marx gave to wannabe killers — his ideas helped keep them in power by support from intellectuals and other dupes all over the western countries.

    Well, yes, if they want to be loved by American leftists it helps greatly if they are mass murderers. But it’s not a guarantee.

    • #99
  10. Larry Koler Inactive
    Larry Koler
    @LarryKoler

    The Reticulator:

    Larry Koler:

    The Reticulator: But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    I think you mean mass murderers rather than just dictators here, don’t you?

    Leftists seem to be drawn to murdering leaders if they are Commies. This was the great gift that Marx gave to wannabe killers — his ideas helped keep them in power by support from intellectuals and other dupes all over the western countries.

    Well, yes, if they want to be loved by American leftists it helps greatly if they are mass murderers. But it’s not a guarantee.

    No, I was saying that the guarantee comes from being Commies and Commies know this and even if they are killers they will still get this support — so why not start the killing early. The Bolsheviks blazed this trail.

    • #100
  11. Titus Techera Contributor
    Titus Techera
    @TitusTechera

    MarciN:

    The Reticulator: It could be true that Chiang Kai-shek was dictatorial. I understand he was not loved by the native people of Formosa/Taiwan when he took over their island, and I think some of those resentments lasted for decades, down to some of the graduate students who studied at my former workplace. But a huge grain of salt is required when listening to American leftists complain about dictators, since they are frequently best friends to dictators.

    I wish I could spend a year or two and get to the bottom of it.

    It wouldn’t matter to anyone at this point, I suppose.

    I always urge my fellow Ricochetti to not use the word dictator. Its popularity in your language owes nothing to Rome & everything to the horror that ended my world. Dictator only overcame tyrant as the term ot describe violent politics in the ’30s…

    There is no doubt that Chiang Kai-Sheck committed unspeakable crimes, not least the conquest of Taiwan. That was tyranny naked. Let us speak with manly clarity.

    But China was beyond constitutional politics or legitimate rule for reasons nothing to do with Chiang. (Like Spain with Franco, but even more so, & unlike Italy with Mussolini.) He came to hold military power in a time of chaos, but there is no reason to doubt his desire for justice & order. There was then no way to be nice & moral. Those are situations where Christianity falters–let God sort’em out, the mind says…

    • #101
  12. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Zafar: While the Right holds up people like Sisi as exemplars of Democratic reform, it’s a bit like sitting in a glass house and throwing stones. jmho.

    Protecting Christian minorities in Egypt is more important than free and fair elections. Liberty is more important than democracy.

    • #102
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