60 Minutes Finds A Way To Criticize Red China

Fashionista Vladimir Lenin

Socialists (National, International, Liberal Leftists, etc) really have no core values beyond fashion.  It was true under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Владимир Ильич Ленин) and it is still true today.

60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl

In this installment, witness what has 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl all a twitter (aired Jan. 8, 2012).  Is it how 'unfair' it is that the poorest children in Africa or Detroit cannot afford a succulent Italian truffle?  No.  Is it unfairness to pigs that they no longer get to munch on Italian white truffles, being replaced by slave dogs?  No.  She and her producers are upset that Chinese white truffles do not taste as good as Italian truffles:

In the video you can see a Red army of Chinese slaves raking up truffles, digging the ground with bamboo rakes, to find any truffle for their masters to sell in the free world.  The 60 Minutes team does not complain about the working conditions of the Chinese slaves, they only complain that the product flooding Europe is inferior in taste and aroma to Italian truffles.  Those evil, crafty Chinese, messing up the plates of wealthy White Liberals around the world!

The story centers around a truffle mafia, mean people who go about stealing good truffles from honest truffle merchants.  Of course, stealing is still against the law in all of Europe, but they bandy about more laws to cure the problem.

Folks, there has been a cure to this problem throughout the ages and it involves very little government involvement.  The Europeans even invented a phrase for it: Caveat emptor ( /ˌkæviːɑːt ˈɛmptɔr/) or buyer beware.  It does not only apply to purchasing real property, it is especially valuable for the purchase of personal property, like truffles.

Even the libertarian philosophy allows for remedies to such skullduggery as passing off Chinese truffles for Italian truffles.  Misrepresentation of product is a libertarian sin that should land anybody practicing it in court.  The type of court is always a subject of debate in libertarian circles, criminal vs. civil, but there is no argument that it should be illegal to do such things.

Italian truffle babe Olga Urbani with Leslie Stahl

In the 60 Minutes piece there is not a mention by the attractive, fur coat draped, Italian truffle distributor about how she plans to stop buying from shady sellers.  No, she wants some sort of government solution to parachute in so that she does not need to examine her purchases.  National Socialism is still alive in Italy and France, coming soon to a truffle near you.

National Socialists Are Keynesian

Sexy Nazi

The title should be no surprise to anybody who knows what National Socialists are or what Keynesian Economics is all about.

Let me qualify that a bit. The Italian and German National Socialists rose to power with the use of Keynesian Economics before John Maynard Keynes finished explaining his vision of the economic world. Of course, as with all massive government programs, the Nazis and Fascists took off in completely different directions from any that resembled what brought them to power. Here is Hitler in his own words via the American Nazi Party:

As you can read in the subtitles, Hitler tells corporations that they will be left alone as long as they play along and do as they are told. Don't take my word for it, look for yourself.  Everything in his speech is Keynesian and Socialistic.  If you think the Hitlerian National Socialists of today are any different, guess again.

John Maynard Keynes

As far as the German National Socialists go, what did they do when they took over the country?  They started big public works monuments to government, like the Autobahn.  Here is a WikiPedia passage that highlights a few of them:

Nazis came to power in the midst of the Great Depression. When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%.[18] Before World War II, Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party, as President of the Reichsbank in 1933 and Minister of Economics in 1934. [18]

At first, Schacht continued the economic policies introduced by the government of Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 to combat the effects of the Great Depression. These policies were mostly Keynesian, relying on large public works programs supported by deficit spending — such as the construction of the Autobahn network — to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment. There was major reduction in unemployment over the following years, while price controls prevented the recurrence of inflation. The economic policies of the Third Reich were in the beginning the brainchildren of Schacht, who assumed office as president of the central bank under Hitler in 1933, and became finance minister in the following year. Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits.[18] The consequence was an extremely rapid decline in unemployment—the most rapid decline in unemployment in any country during the Great Depression.[18] Eventually this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by rearmament and swelling military spending.

The last sentence in that passage is quite misleading.  Military spending is government spending and really is just part of a Keynesian framework, especially in an era where the Left found militarism appealing.

Socialist Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini

So, what of the Italian National Socialists, Mussolini's Fascists?

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)  - Mussolini, Benito. My Autobiography. New York: Scribner’s, 1928 (via econlib.org)

Remember, whenever anybody tries to tell you that National Socialists are/were something other than  collectivist socialists, they are lying.

The same folk will try to tell you that it was the 'corporations' dishing out the power to Mussolini and Hitler.  Think for a moment, just who had the police power?  Mussolini or Fiat?

World Freedom Day

This year, 23 JAN 2012 happens to be both Chinese New Year and World Freedom Day.  If you thought World Freedom Day was in November, then you may be as new to this celebration of freedom thing as is president Obama.

For my fellow Americans, it is easy to be unaware of the day when China and South Korea celebrate the 1954 repatriation of 14,000 Chinese prisoners of the Korean War.  22,600 Communist soldiers total refused to return to Communist People's Republic of China or to Communist North Korea and instead requested repatriation to the Republic of China or to South Korea.  14,000 of them were Chinese and they formed the "Anti-Communist League" after arriving in free Taiwan. (Note: 86 chose India over China)

People like Noam Chomsky may toss out the true but still misleading trivia that soldiers of both sides refused repatriation to the countries they were fighting for, just like he did in his famous 1960s "Firing Line" appearance that I like to call his "which way did those refugees go" moment.  During the first installment of the Korean War, 22 American Soldiers and on British soldier refused repatriation too.  Thus, to folks like Noam Chomsky who say "refugees went both ways" later in Vietnam, the 1,000-1 ratio is meaningless.  Just as the 7-1 ratio of those fleeing North Vietnam to those leaving the South is no issue.  The issue to them is that somebody went to the Communists.  A list of the 22 from WikiPedia is copied at the bottom of this post.  Not the fate of each, when they were returned to freedom.

Here is a video about the UN forces who refused repatriation, known as the Turncoats, that passes itself as a documentary. Any reasonable assessment is that it is modern Communist Chinese propaganda. One of the keys is their referring to the Chinese Red Army as volunteers, when in fact they were conscripts.  The propaganda so preposterous that the truth shines through the lies, especially in clips of the Turncoats who spoke of how things changed in China after their propaganda value ended.  I add it in the interest of fairness. Speaking of "fairness," the video notes the Courts Martial and sentencing of two Americans who returned and were convicted of Treason.  The video mentions their sentencing, but not that they did not serve a single day in jail after their trials.  See the Wiki information farther down.

See more in parts two, three, four, and five.  This series of videos will be the subject of another post and this general issue will be covered in great detail in Would You Like Borders With That Socialism?


On the other hand, people like president Obama seem to have deep seated reasons for not recognizing the free zone of China.  In September, 2009 the Communist Chinese were celebrating the 60th anniversary of Maoist Stalinism on the Ellipse,with the White House as a backdrop.


Since the 1954 POW exchange there has been the occasional American service member who defected to North Korea, not unlike college students and others who decide to get involved with terrorist causes, Communist or not.

Six American servicemen are known to have defected to North Korea after the war:

• Larry Allen Abshier (1962)

• James Joseph Dresnok (1962)

• Jerry Wayne Parrish (1963)

• Charles Robert Jenkins (1965)

• Roy Chung (1979)

• Joseph T. White (1982)

United Nations Service Members who defected during the first installment of the Korean War (via WikiPedia):

American

Adams, Clarence (Cpl.)

A soldier from Memphis, Tennessee. Adams cited racial discrimination in the United States as the reason he refused repatriation. While a prisoner, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling black American soldiers not to fight:

You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.

He married a Chinese woman and lived in China until the increasingly anti-Western atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution led him to return to the United States in 1966. Adams was charged with treason by the House Un-American Activities Committee, but charges were dismissed.^[2] He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis. Clarence Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.^[3]

Adams, Howard (Sgt.)

From Corsicana, Texas.^[4] He worked in a paper factory in Jinan, China.^[4] He refused all media requests for interviews.^[5]

Belhomme, Albert Constant (Sgt.)

A native of Belgium who immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He lived in China for ten years, working in a paper factory in Jinan, before returning to Antwerp, Belgium.^[5][4]

Bell, Otho Grayson (Cpl.)

Originally from Olympia, Washington.^[4] In China was sent to a collective farm with William Cowart and Lewis Griggs (see below). Bell described himself, Cowart and Griggs as "the dummy bunch", saying they were sent to the farm because they could not learn Chinese. They returned to the United States together in July 1955, were arrested, but were released when it was found that the military no longer had jurisdiction over the defectors after they were dishonorably discharged. Bell died in 2003.^[5]

Corden, Richard (Sgt.)

A native of Chicago, Illinois. He returned to the United States on 19 January, 1958. He was reported to live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1961 and moved to Chicago in 1962.^[4] He reportedly continued to favor communism even after returning to the United States.^[5] He died in 1988.

Cowart, William (Cpl.)

Returned with Bell and Griggs. Later the three soldiers sued for their back pay. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which held that Bell, Cowart and Griggs were entitled to their back pay from the time they were captured to the time they were dishonorably discharged.^[6]

Douglas, Rufus (Sgt.)

Died in China a few months after arrival in 1954. The manner of his death is not certain but is believed to have been from natural causes.^[5]

Dunn, John Roedel (Cpl.)

From Altoona, Pennsylvania.^[4] He married a Czechoslovakian woman while in China and settled in Czechoslovakia in December 1959.^[4][5]

Fortuna, Andrew (Sgt.)

Originally from Greenup, Kentucky.^[4] He was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Korea before he was captured.^[5] He returned to the United States on July 3, 1957. He worked in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1958, in Detroit, Michigan from 1963-64 and Chicago in 1964. He was reported to be in Gary, Indiana as of 1964.^[4] He died in 1984.^[5]

Griggs, Lewis Wayne

Returned with Bell and Cowart in 1955. He was listed as a senior majoring in sociology at Stephen F. Austin State University, graduating in 1959.^[7][8] He died in 1984.

Hawkins, Samuel David (Pfc.)

From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He married a Russian woman in China and returned to the United States in February 1957, shortly before his wife was permitted to come to the United States. He successfully petitioned the government to change his discharge from dishonorable to other than honorable. He raised a family, and has given interviews to the press on the condition that his location not be disclosed.^[5]

Pate, Arlie (Cpl.)

Worked in a paper mill before returning with Aaron Wilson (see below) in 1956. He died in 1999.^[5]

Rush, Scott (Sgt.)

Married in China. After living in China ten years, he and his wife moved back to the United States and settled in the Midwest.^[5]

Skinner, Lowell (Cpl. )

His mother begged him to come home over the radio at the time of the prisoner exchange, to no avail. He married in China, but left his wife behind when he came back to America in 1963. Later he would have problems with alcohol and spent six months in a psychiatric hospital. He died in 1995.^[9]

Sullivan, LaRance

Came home in 1958 and died in 2001.^[5]

Tenneson, Richard (Pfc.)

Came home in 1955. He went to Louisiana a few months later to welcome home fellow defector Aaron Wilson (see below). He settled in Utah before dying in 2001.^[5]

Veneris, James (Pvt.)

From Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. ^[4] He stayed in China and became a dedicated communist, taking the Chinese name 'Lao Wen'. He worked in a steel mill, participated in the Great Leap Forward, hung posters during the Cultural Revolution, married three times, and had children. He visited the United States in 1976 but returned to China, where he is buried.^[10]

Webb, Harold (Sgt.)

From Jacksonville, Florida^[4]. He married a Polish woman in China and moved to Poland in 1960, reportedly settling in Katowice.^[4][5] In 1988, he was given permission to settle in the United States.^[5] He is the subject of the Youth Defense League song Turncoat about rejection of a Korean War defector seeking a return to America.^[11]

White, William (Cpl.)

Married and got a bachelor's degree in international law while in China. He returned to the United States in 1965.^[5]

Wills, Morris (Cpl.)

From Fort Ann, New York.^[4] He played basketball for Peking University and got married in China. He came back to America in 1965 and got a job in the Asian Studies Department at Harvard University. His autobiography, Turncoat: An American's 12 Years in Communist China, was published in 1966. He died in 1999.^[5]

Wilson, Aaron (Cpl.)

Originally from Urania, Louisiana.^[4] He came home from China 06 December 1956^[4]. Wilson married an American girl and worked in his Louisianahometown's mill.^[5]

[edit]British

Condron, Andrew (Marine)

Scotsman of 41 (Independent) Royal Marine Commando, was the only Briton to decline repatriation. He returned to Britain in 1960, and faced no disciplinary action.

Asians For Sale! The New York Times Suggests A Price For Asian Women (And Men)

Updated 12 JAN 2012 with video (at bottom).

The price that the New York Times is urging the Obama administration to sell the people of Taiwan to mainland China for is $49,793.8708 per person. The only thing Leftists, including their Communist faction, care about is money.  In this case, the New York Times agitates for selling almost 23 Million people into slavery for the  sum of $1.14 trillion.  If you think the NYT is trying to deflect criticism by sticking a former Marine on this topic, you are probably right.  That is another favorite tactic of the Left, see John F. Kerry (he served in Vietnam) and others.

Slaver Paul V. Kane

Op-Ed Contributor
To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan
By PAUL V. KANE
Published: November 10, 2011

 . . .  There are dozens of initiatives President Obama could undertake to strengthen our economic security. Here is one: He should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.

This would be a most precious prize to the cautious men in Beijing, one they would give dearly to achieve. After all, our relationship with Taiwan, as revised in 1979, is a vestige of the cold war.. . .

The NYT vision of Taiwan's future.

That was just the money quote.  More at the link. So the New York Times, along with this former Marine of indeterminate rank, have placed the price of $49,793.8708 on the lives and livelihoods of 22,894,384 living people, with a proposal to sell them into the slavery of Communism.

Yes, the same New York Times that employs Thomas Friedman, regular agitator for the mainland Chinese version of "capitalism", which resembles most closely the National Socialism of Adolph Hitler, with a higher death toll.

What has happened since the days of 1863 when Henry Raymond manned a Gatling Gun to defend the paper against rioting pro-slavery Democrats?  Nothing good, I assure you.

Update: I do not recognize Paul V. Kane in this video, allegedly of Marines urinating on corpses in Afghanistan.  I am not yet convinced that it is authentic either.

If you want to piss on corpses, piss on these.

Newt Gingrich: The Liberal Fascist H.G. Wells Was Waiting For

The original Progressive laughing.

Reason had a good article the other day tracing Newt Gingrich's ideas on how to manipulate the US court system to those of the Progressives of the past.  It is worth the read.

A Liberal Fascist laughing.

An even better read is from a little earlier than that at National Review.  Mark Steyn spends four wonderful pages recalling Gingrich's comments about himself and plots involving massive government expense.  High speed maglev rail is kid stuff compared to what this National Socialist superman has in mind for the federal treasury ant your hip pocket.  This in particular Romney quote about Gingrich caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Vote for Newt and work with me in the mines.

With his numbers sinking, Mitt was driven to go negative. Asked where his policies differed from Gingrich’s, Romney cut to the chase: “We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon.” You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, folks. Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon. To be fair to Gingrich, he’s generally sounder on economic issues than Romney: Mitt’s reforms would leave us with a corporate-tax rate twice as high as Newt’s, and, in contrast to the Gingrich abolition of taxes on capital gains, Romney is proposing to end them only for those making under $200,000 because it would be wrong to “spend our precious tax dollars for a tax cut.” When “conservatives” think tax cuts are government “spending,” who needs Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank?

If you think Steyn and Romney are puffing a bit, let's cut to the video of Newt defending his moon mining idea, straight from a Jules Verne novel:

Of course, now it is "for the children".  Children who saw the original Star Trek, or the reruns, and thought that the government could send rescue workers through a transporter to the Louisiana Superdome in the aftermath of hurricane Kartrina can dream of working beside sexy moon maidens, or for them.

Mining the moon with the technology we have today carries with it an incredibly negative return on expenditure, especially as a public works project.  If government would just get out of the way (including their habit of picking favorites with tax dollars), then the free market will find a way to visit heavenly bodies and extract marketable material for use wherever people want to use it, when it is practical to do so..

In the 1930s, H. G. Wells coined the term Liberal Fascism:

H.G. Wells's ‘Liberal Fascism’

Philip Coupland

Abstract

During the 1930s H.G. Wells's theory of revolutionary praxis centred around a concept of ‘liberal fascism’ whereby the Wellsian ‘liberal’ utopia would be achieved by an authoritarian élite. Taking inspiration from the militarized political movements of the 1930s, this marked a development in the Wellsian theory of revolution from the ‘open conspiracy’ of the 1920s. Although both communist and fascist movements evinced some of the desired qualities of a Wellsian vanguard, it was fascism rather than communism which came closest to Wells's ideal. However, in practice, despite the failure of approaches to parties of the left and centre as possible agents of revolution, Wells rejected the British Union of Fascists. The disparity between Wells's theory and his actions when faced by the reality of fascism echoes the unresolved tension between ends and means at the heart of the concept of ‘liberal fascism’.

Jonah Goldberg of National Review rediscovered the phrase and used it to title a book about the liberal roots of both fascism (National Socialism) and Progressiveism.  I now own the domain Liberal-Fascism.Com.

The more Newt Gingrich talks, the more he fits the mold of the Wellsian Liberal Fascist Superman to swoop down and save us all with technology, backed by massive monuments to government.

Interestingly enough, Newt Gingrich is quoted as commenting on Goldberg's book here:

Of the book former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says: 'Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism will enrage many people on the left, but his dire thesis deserves serious attention.... Goldberg will lead you to new understanding and force you to think deeply.' Following Goldberg's remarks, a panel of experts will present their commentary on the book.

Maybe if he actually read the book he might have used different words.

See the video of Jonah Goldberg on  Fora.tv: