Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently used the anniversary of the failed Cuban Bay Of Pigs fiasco as a photo-op for signing The Anti-Communist Bill, his latest school requirement for teaching the evils of Marxism K-12. Kindergarteners? Marxism? This right-wing directive includes a “Victims of Communism Day” and emphasizes personal freedom restrictions in communist nations. “The truth will set us free,” boasted Desanctimonious.
Not if you use his MAGA slanted version of the truth.
In Marx’s “Communist Manifesto,” communism can only succeed in highly developed capitalist countries. The reality is the total opposite. Primitive agrarian societies are the breeding ground for anti-capitalist propaganda, with Russia, China and Cuba as the poster children. Pay attention, Governor.
DeSantis, an Ivy League history and law grad with an Animal House mentality, will skip the main reason these countries fell into the communist trap, instead blaming liberal “woke” distortions. This triad was victimized by Western imperialist expansion searching for riches from the time of Columbus.
Russia, not colonized but backward and isolated by their corrupt Romanov dynasty, witnessed Lenin and his Bolsheviks overthrow and execute the czarist regime, promising “peace, land and bread” to the impoverished masses. Instead they got Stalin and now Putin.
China was ravaged for centuries by brutal warlords, then suffered British humiliation in the Opium Wars (1839-42) and further Western subjugation with the US Open Door Policy (1899). The Red Chinese under Chairman Mao promised freedom from Western hegemony, then enslaved the helpless populace.
The Spanish-American War (1898) liberated Cuba from Spain’s tyranny, only to find itself ensnared by the American sugar industry and later the Mafia, who made Havana their personal playground with casinos, brothels and other Mob pleasure trappings. Puppet President Fulgencio Batista was ousted by Fidel Castro, who then forced his communist yoke on the hapless island.
If DeSantis desires to show off his Ivy League credentials, he would have his Manifesto explain the native hatred to these past transgressions created by the Western powers’ colonial stranglehold on the locals, making them ripe for rebellion against their masters and easy prey to disingenuous communist promises. That would require a critical assessment of capitalist intentions. DeSantis, eyeing the White House in 2028, won’t risk offending MAGA loyalists.
Add this “woke” agenda and students would be much closer to the historical truth — even the kindergarteners.
ED ENGLER, Sebring, Fla.
Americans oblivious or indifferent to the staggering and approved US. military budget for 2025 would benefit from reading Daniel Ellsberg’s “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of A Nuclear War Planner.” Ellsberg’s book should be required reading for all Americans. It is indeed a hard book to read, as Ellsberg outlines with clarity the “acceptable” and civilization-ending ramifications of a successful US nuclear war.
A successful nuclear attack that we initiated would annihilate hundreds of millions of people, effectively ending life on Earth as we know it. It would be easier to digest or come to terms with this evil if the unimaginable horrors that Ellsberg outlined had been denounced, discredited, and abandoned with finality. Such is not the case.
The United States is currently spending billions of dollars on “Nuclear Modernization.” A key component of “Nuclear Modernization” is maintaining our steadfast commitment to nuclear first-strike options. Consider that one Ohio Class submarine in the Arabian Sea and Atlantic, within range of Russia, can unleash 192 nuclear missiles in one minute. Jonathan Schell was prophetic when he wrote, “The birth of Nuclear Weapons in 1945 opened a wide, unobstructed pathway to the end of the world.”
The Nuclear Clock is moving ever closer to Midnight. Regional wars like Russia’s attack on the Ukraine could easily escalate into Armageddon. The survival of humanity and Mother Earth should be the number one priority for all reasoned people. A first and needed step that deserves stand-alone prioritization is a critical review of US military spending — what Dwight Eisenhower called “The Military Industrial Complex” in his the most important presidential farewell address in world history. The U.S. military juggernaut has eclipsed anything that Ike could have ever imagined. Our greatest hope and strength are the collective and organized response of caring citizens globally. To say that this effort and work is a priority is indeed a profound understatement.
Our children, future generations, and all life on Earth deserve this effort.
JIM SAWYER, West Edmonds, Wash.
On April 23, NPR reported on-the-ground observations from Gaza. Rafah resident Ahmed Barhoum’s wife and 5-year-old daughter were killed when Israelis bombed his house. Saqer-Abd el-Aal’s wife and six children were bombed in their home.
What happens when a man loses all his possessions, his wife, and his children? His future taken, he has nothing to live for, nothing to build a future for. Perhaps the only thing giving his life meaning is dedication to revenge and retribution.
While Israel’s government contends it is destroying Hamas, it is also creating more enemies, dedicated with nothing else to live for, to Israel’s destruction.
One shouldn’t conclude, however, that Palestinians are innocent and only Israel is evil. Hamas’ extreme brutality on Oct. 7 sparked Israel’s over-reaction, by design. Now, more civilians are dying, along with some militants. Meanwhile, partisan protesters are polarizing our sensibility.
Can peace and empathy return? Yes! Starting with each of us.
BRUCE JOFFE, Piedmont, Calif.
You know, since Trump MAGA zealots believe that Trump was anointed by God as the new Jesus and sent to save America. I have a great idea on how Trump can prove his mettle about his newfound Christianity.
In order to emulate Jesus and have all of America’s sins be forgiven, Trump could volunteer to be crucified and die at the hands of the Woke Socialist Left, using divine intervention from God, mediated through Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, in order to secure God’s blessing and approval. Then, Trump could rise from the dead three days later and truly start to make America “really” great again.
Also, at the time of Trump’s resurrection, there will be souvenir crowns of thorns, miniature replica crucifixes and orange “I resurrected America” t-shirts, available for sale at $299 each, but only for 40 days, at which time Trump would then ascend up to Heaven and govern America from above forever, with absolute and total immunity.
MIKE EKLUND, La Porte, Ind.
“Malice sucks up the greater part of its own venom,” wrote Montaigne, “and poisons itself with it.” This incisive truism is patently obvious in our times, as we witness the vicious political divisiveness sweeping through our land.
Lacking the essential civility taken for granted in contemporary society, slogans are shouted instead of decent converse, and prejudice is enunciated instead of cordial converse.
There’s a dangerous drift toward fanaticism and spite in lieu of necessary dialogue and compromise. Such circumstances harbor potential mischief, lawlessness and widespread violence.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
“We” have regressed to a state of “mammalian origin,” with a state of violence imbued and a “cultisized mentality” that has historical significance that has been destructive to our humanity in every conceivable context imaginable. I’ve cited it in past writings regarding the ability of many amongst us to allow their biases to easily “stupidify” facts, truth and empirical information in lieu of emotional defiance that defies “logic and reason.” In retrospect, we can all look at our past “con men, cult heads,” like Hitler, Mussolini, Jim Jones, David Koresh and a litany of despicable, hateful characters who’ve “stupidified their flock of believers” who later in their lives admitted to their gullible “stupidity” after their purported “savior,” God’s chosen one and all the other falsified titles his/her bogus B.S. portended.
This is exactly where we are today (2024) with our politicians spewing lies and spending millions of dollars on useless wasteful taxpayers money for their “childish tit for tat, kids in the sandbox gotcha politics.” It’s an absolute disgrace and substantiation that our nation is long overdue for a 21st century Era of Enlightment, whereby centuries of lies, propaganda and feudalistic dictates associated with the aforementioned were exposed for their falsified “flat earthers) assumptions and propositions behaviors with the ability to instill fears and pillage at will. Those same lies (Genesis, “Superior Being” B.S.) still prevail today (2024) in greater ways than prior generations. Our purported demise by AI’s creators, inclusive of our greater world violence, mass killings and loss of democracies worldwide, is a definite threat to our own nation that requires expedited actions to thwart our purported demise, via “AI’s misinformation” pandemic that’s facilitating the hate, hell and harm the world is encountering dangerously.
FRANK C. ROHRIG, Milford, Conn.
How can “wars” be so easy to create, because armed conflict alone can start a “war” and then the “laws of war” give “all parties in a conflict defined as a ‘war’ the right to use appropriate force to achieve their aims.” This means you can get the freedom to kill from just killing people. You can acquire the legal right to kill people if you use “appropriate force,” from just provoking people into armed conflict.
This Gaza “war” is no different than the US-Dakota “War” [of 1862]; both “wars” are products of the same thing — encroaching upon indigenous people — but then how are the encroachers “in war,” where they can kill using “appropriate force”?
How does “war” become available to the encroachers who then use “war” to crush the indigenous people, so they can never rise up again. How do the encroachers acquire access to the “right to defend themselves,” why do the encroachers and their overwhelming firepower get to be in charge, instead of truth and logic? “War” cannot exist by itself.
How is “warring” using “appropriate force” at your disposal while you are in the process of committing the crime of encroaching, the “war” cannot be a “war” from just the violence.
And if Hamas is responsible for all the death and destruction in the Gaza “War,” because Hamas started the “war,” who’s responsible for all the death and destruction in the Iraq “war,” because the US started it.
FRANK ERICKSON, Minneapolis, Minn.
From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2024
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us