Fighting corporate Americ

The left would have you believe that demonizing corporations (like Wal-mart) have nothing to do with any particular or historical socio-political agenda. Nay, when a liberal slips and praises, say, a communist dictator whilst simultaneously calling Bush a terrorist-- well, we are probably taking the quote completely out of context, aren't we?

American singer and human rights activist Harry Belafonte has called US President George W Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" saying millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including actor Danny Glover, Princeton University scholar Cornel West and farmworker advocate Dolores Huerta that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday and attended his television and radio broadcast on Sunday.

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people… support your revolution," Belafonte told Mr Chavez during the broadcast.

"We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution."

The 78-year-old singer, famed for his calypso-inspired music, including the Day-O song, was a close collaborator of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

He also has been outspoken in criticising the US embargo of communist Cuba. sbs.com.au

Surely Mr. Bellefonte cannot be representative of liberal thought in America? His outlandish and obviously radical leftist views must be completely out of step with the true left who would never praise a communist dictator or claim that socialism would be a great idea to implement anywhere there is injustice being perpetrated upon the working class by the greedy and slavish oppressors commonly referred to as the corporate-class?

When Mr. Bellefonte shouted, "Viva la revolucion!" he probably meant the non-violent peaceful and democratic kind of revolucion which has historically been associated with communist parties ascending to power. Surely he meant that Americans should learn from Venezuelans how to bring about a peaceful socialist revolution... to learn how to, "Keep up the candlelight vigils," and continue the [peaceful] protests against the terrorist Bush.

Belafonte suggested setting up a youth exchange for Venezuelans and Americans to learn from each other. He finished by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"

He and Mr Chavez embraced at the end of the show as Belafonte's song Matilda blared over the speakers.

I'm sure that, "Viva la revolucion!" is actually NOT a phrase with any historical significance. It must be a generic phrase applauding 'good works' everywhere. Something like when members of the paramilitary group, a.k.a. the boy scouts, help little old ladies across the street.

For instance, I assume this is what Cindy Sheehan is talking about when she calls Bush a terrorist and demands her apathetic compatriots to do more to overthrow the 'illegitimate pretender' in the white house. "Viva la revolucion!"

But my point is this, America: the longer we let the illegitimate pretender to the White House and his conniving and callous gang of co-conspirators to continue, the more our collective humanity is damaged. Apparently, candlelight vigils do very little to stop, or even slow down a little, the carnage committed by the war criminals in DC.

...Even if one accepts this very low guess-ti-mate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was.

...If I hear one more rendition of "We Shall Overcome" and then watch the vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TV's and crack open a brewsky content in the fact that they have done something for peace that day, I am going to scream! We can't overcome unless we take the proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!

...Change will not happen until we make it happen. We can't make change happen by wishing or praying that it will happen.

We actually have to do something. michaelmoore.com

Since candlelight vigils are useless against 'war criminals', I'm not sure what she is referring to. But perhaps the Venezualans are coming, eh Harry?

Common cause or common ancestor?

Ideology is seldom an all or nothing deal. Ask any two conservatives what they believe and they will disagree on some issues and agree on others. This is true of liberals and progressives as well. It's difficult to say any one group subscribes wholly to any complete agenda. But we can make generalizations about a body of thought, and about the beliefs of groups as opposed to individuals.

Progressivism, liberalism, leftism, whatever you want to call it, is, in essence, the inheritor of the estate of Marx. This is a historical fact which is undeniable. We may argue about the degree to which many progressives subscribe to the ideal egalitarian society, how much evolution has occurred in progressive thought, or even the diversity of progressive positions, but there can be no doubt that the underpinnings and moral basis of progressivism are directly descended from 19th century socialism.

I say this in the same way I say that conservatism is the inheritor of the Laissez-Faire beliefs from the 19th century. In fact, not all conservatives subscribe to economic libertarianism, any more than all liberals are socialist. (Face it; some people don't have a clue why they believe something much less where those ideas came from.) But the body of ideas, the general sentiment of those who call themselves progressive follow an ideal that was borne of the same general ideology codified by Engels and Marx.

Thus we have a panoply of progressive, liberal, and leftist groups whose primary goal is to defeat the bourgeois, i.e. 'corporate interests', a.k.a. greedy corporations. Nevermind that the system they insist is oppressive feeds billions who would otherwise starve, cures those same billions who would otherwise die, and generally makes the lives of even some of the poorest among us who live under it's shelter soft and 'civilized' in a way that fuedal royalty never dreamed was even possible.

There's nothing wrong with fighting for the underdog, that is, when there is actually a villain to fight against. But instead of fighting true oppression, many on the left seemed compelled to ally themselves with dictatorship and economic slavery.

[H]egemonic Word count: 1065

Powered By: BackLinkr

 

---