Bowing to China’s Growing Power
Posted: March 21, 2018 Filed under: Communism, foreign policy | Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese, Taiwan, tariffs 1 CommentBowing to China’s Growing Power
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
When China’s Xi Jinping first gained leadership of the huge Asian nation in 2012, he faced a term-limit provision in the Chinese constitution that would force his retirement in 2022. But that law no longer exists. Senior Communist Party officials quietly agreed in January to abolish the constitution’s term limitation policy. When the National People’s Congress (close to 3,000 members) met early in March, there was no doubt that they would follow the recommendation of their seniors. They erased the term limits clause in a grand show of docility.
.jpg)
Image from Wikimedia Commons, President of the Russian Federation, http://www.kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0.
Xi Jinping is now president for life in the country with the world’s largest population and an increasingly obvious status as an economic giant. Now able to dictate that it be treated with fawning respect by outsiders, China has nevertheless continued to be led by a totalitarian regime. Not only has it become an economic power, its leaders are creating a military capability that, before long, could challenge any other military power on earth.
If there are any opponents within China of Xi’s remarkable power grab, they have chosen – either wisely or reluctantly – to remain silent. Commentary within China on his bold ascendancy is virtually non-existent. The government has made impossible any discussion of the matter, and the people are well aware of this tyrannical prohibition.
Not only is criticism of anything about China discussed openly within the country’s borders, any opposition to any Chinese policy elsewhere is increasingly challenged. Intimidation resulting from China’s growing omnipresence reaches out worldwide. Ethnic Chinese waitresses in Australia can be told by fellow Australians to keep silent about their pro-Taiwan attitude. American firms have required employees to avoid registering even a hint of disapproval of China’s takeover of Tibet several decades ago. Similarly, no one shall be permitted to challenge Beijing’s frightening attitude toward Taiwan. Friends of this prosperous bastion of freedom and its 23 million citizens increasingly receive a scolding if the island is considered a free country.
Further, American firms have been quick to apologize and correct what China claims to be insulting or merely erroneous mention of Taiwan’s claims for itself. Columnist Jeff Jacoby has pointed out that Marriott corporate leaders prostrated themselves before China when a minor American employee in Nebraska posted his agreement with a pro-Tibet article he saw on the internet. He was promptly fired. Apple meekly blocked any possibility that China’s people could access the internet’s information about their country. After receiving a complaint from China, Delta Airlines quickly erased its reference to both Tibet and Taiwan as “countries.” All of this and more led Jacoby to conclude: “Every time a corporation kowtows to China’s outrageous bullying, it ensures that more bullying will follow.”
One truly remarkable instance of China’s growing clout surfaced recently when China obtained the Vatican’s willingness to abandon faithful Catholic clergy in the communist-led nation. Bishops loyal to Rome have operated underground for decades while others have renounced their ties to the seat of Catholicism and become members of the so-called “Patriotic Catholic Church.”
But bullying isn’t the only important concern. What if Mainland China decides to invade and occupy Taiwan as it did when it sent conquering forces into Tibet several decades ago? The U.S. has long been committed to defend Taiwan’s 23 million should China choose to recapture the island it has always considered to its property. Would the U.S. defend its ally, or would our leaders accept a Chinese takeover?
Further, U.S. leaders have never responded to the 25 percent tariff on U.S. autos entering China while our tariff on Chinese cars entering the U.S. is a measly 2.5 percent. American firms in China cannot exceed 50 percent ownership while Chinese firms in America are permitted 100 percent. No aware American has to be told of the presence of “Made in China” labels on an array of goods for sale here. And perhaps the most stunning indication of American decline and foreign ascendance is the fact that 97 percent of the clothing Americans purchase is made overseas, mostly in China.
President Trump wants to make America great again. He first has to assure that America reverses the almost daily slide away from its greatness.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Shouldn’t Ex-Communists Be Held Accountable?
Posted: December 5, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Slavery | Tags: communism, communist, Crime, Nazi, United Nations 1 CommentShouldn’t Ex-Communists Be Held Accountable?
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Recently, when an United Nations affiliated international tribunal convicted former Serbian General Ratko Mladic of genocide and sentenced him to life in prison, the New York Times commented with obvious glee: “No crime against humanity, no matter how long ago it occurred, should be immune to cries for justice.”
.svg)
Flag of the Communist Party of China from Wikimedia Commons, public domain by Ericmetro.
If that’s the case, how come there are no international tribunals putting ex-Communists on trial? Why is it that men like Mladic can be held accountable and not the leaders of China and the former Soviet Union? Over recent years, several ex-Nazi corporals have been hunted down, tried, and convicted of having a role in hounding and killing Jews during World War II. But putting ex-Communists on trial hasn’t happened and there surely are plenty still alive.
Twenty years ago, Europeans who lived under Communist rule published The Black Book of Communism. A review of the murder, imprisonment, and brutality inflicted on people who resided in what were termed “the captive nations.” The book points to a staggering total of 94 million deaths at the hands of Communist rulers. Many of these instances of brutality occurred during the very time period that Nazis were rounding up and killing Jews. But only ex-Nazis are prosecuted.
Stephane Courtois, the Black Book’s editor, claims 65 million victims of Communism met death in China and close to 20 million perished in the former Soviet Union. He noted that Communist regimes are responsible for far more deaths “than any other political ideal or movement, including Nazism.” These deaths did not result from war. Communists deliberately killed millions through organized programs involving executions, man-created starvation, forced labor, and more. A major reason for the bloody rampages was the terror forced on those who remained in silence and became totally unwilling to oppose their oppressors.
On July 16, 1971, the 92nd Congress of the United States published a 33-page document entitled “The Human Cost of Soviet Communism.” Issued by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, the report relied on the work of the highly regarded British historian Robert Conquest for its statistics. Conquest concluded that the number of deaths caused by Soviet authorities in Russia and other captive nations numbered 45 million. While many of these victims of Soviet terror met death in the first half of the 20th Century, millions perished at the hands of still-living Communist leaders and their subordinates.
Similarly, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published “The Human Cost of Communism in China” on July 29, 1971. It concluded that China’s leaders had ordered the slaughter of at least 34 million and possibly as many as 64 million innocent persons. A huge portion of these victims were slain during the reign of Mao Tse-tung. Many who carried out his death-mandating orders are alive today. And so are those who suppressed the student revolt at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square almost 30 years ago.
Why haven’t current leaders in China been prosecuted? Many played a role in China’s murderous past. The same question needs to be asked about Soviet leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev, a lifelong Communist who has never renounced Communism and, instead of being held accountable for his crimes, is given the privilege of addressing the U.S. Congress and being treated as if he were a reliable ally.
If Communists who are guilty of high crimes aren’t held accountable (ostracism at least would certainly be in order), the reason can only be that they are winning. Winning what? Winning control over mankind under the name of “socialism” rather than under the banner of “communism.” Gorbachev has written of his insistence that he will never cease being a Communist. He should be held accountable for his role in enforcing Communist rule with death-dealing gulags, crackdowns on dissenters, and creating terror throughout his nation and others where Soviet forces ruled for decades.
In 2007, a Victims of Communism Memorial statue was erected in Washington, DC. That’s a welcome gesture, but more is needed. Punishing ex-Nazis who are virtual nobodies and ignoring the crimes of many high-ranking Communists is hypocrisy gone wild. It surely does indicate who is winning in the battle that pits freedom under just law against dictatorial slavery.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Leftist Labor Unions Losing Clout
Posted: August 22, 2017 Filed under: Civil Rights, Communism, Entitlements | Tags: labor unions, Nissan, unionization, United Auto Workers 2 CommentsLeftist Labor Unions Losing Clout
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
During August 4-5, voting for or against unionization was heavy at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi. After lengthy campaigns waged by both sides that attracted national attention, the verdict rendered by Nissan’s 3,500 employees showed that more than 60 percent wanted nothing to do with the bid of the United Auto Workers (UAW) to be their bargaining agent. As expected, UAW president Dennis Williams accused the company of “intense scare tactics, misinformation and intimidation.” Company officials promptly denied each charge. Union organizers don’t like to lose. But losing has become their frequent fate, most prominently in the southeastern portion of the United States.
Image from Wikimedia Commons by Ralph Chaplin, public domain.
Earlier this year in a 3-to-1 vote, workers at a Boeing plant in South Carolina rejected a bid by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to unionize that facility. In 2014, the UAW narrowly lost out in its drive to represent workers at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant. Unionization did triumph in a few smaller plants but, generally, it has failed to capture the lucrative larger prizes.
Only days before the recent Nissan vote, opponents of unionization publicized the case of a Fiat-Chrysler official who was accused of pocketing millions taken from a union training facility for himself and a past UAW colleague. That bombshell has been credited with swaying some Nissan fence sitters to vote against the union.
However, most of the Nissan workers had already sung the praises of the company. Paint technician Marvin Cooke previously held a position at a restaurant where he wasn’t able to “have a 401(k) and only have one week of vacation.” Hired by Nissan 14 years ago, he said, “Now I have four weeks of vacation. I’m off on every holiday. Nissan has provided a great living for me.” Working at the Nissan plant has been a joy for many other area residents.
Nationally, the UAW and labor unions in general have seen membership decline precipitously over the past 50 years – down from one-third of workers in the manufacturing sector to 10 percent of workers in all fields. Many automobile and heavy manufacturing companies have chosen to build plants in Southern states where “right to work” legislation has been enacted. These laws bar compulsory union membership in any facility where a majority of workers may have already chosen unionization.
Where labor unions originally won acceptance at manufacturing plants, today’s union membership includes government employees (e.g. postal workers) and many employed in service industries (e.g. hotel and restaurant workers). But gains for the unions in those fields haven’t been enough to overcome losses in manufacturing, the former citadel of labor power.
One consequence of declining labor union membership is the loss of financial and voting power for the Democrat Party. Big Labor, not just the UAW, could always be counted on to swing leftward presidential and congressional elections and even state races. The days of UAW Founder Walter Reuther’s prominence as a Democratic Party kingpin using UAW to push hard for admittedly socialist goals are over. In 1958, Senator Barry Goldwater publicly characterized Reuther as a “more dangerous menace than anything Soviet Russia might do to America.”
Reuther died in a plane crash in 1970, and the parade of his successors as UAW leader and Democratic Party mogul has been just as leftist leaning. So the declining membership and waning political clout of unions is good for America.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Background of the Two Koreas
Posted: August 21, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Military, Unconstitutional Wars, United Nations, World Government | Tags: Kim Jong-Un, North Korea, South Korea Leave a commentBackground of the Two Koreas
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
When World War II ended in August 1945, Japan’s rule over Korea ceased. Forces from the Soviet Union quickly moved into what is now North Korea on August 14, 1945. Simultaneously, U.S. forces began occupying South Korea. Having a nation divided into communist and non-communist halves would later serve the interests of not only communists but also of the promoters of world government. This unique arrangement worked well for these twin enemies of freedom in Korea. And it worked its magic a few years later by similarly divided Vietnam. But with Korea back in the headlines, a look back at the Korean War is in order.
Do you know the history of North and South Korea? Original image from Wikimedia Commons by Johannes Barre and derivative from TUFKAAP (Patrick Mannion), CC BY-SA 3.0.
On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces armed and trained by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) invaded anti-Communist South Korea. President Harry Truman responded to a United Nations Security Council resolution requiring all UN member nations to send forces to oppose the Communist invaders. Ignoring the U.S. Constitution and relying on ties already made with the UN and its “regional arrangement” North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the U.S. responded. A few other nations also sent forces but the overwhelming number who served in this war were from the U.S.
Led by General Douglas MacArthur, the anti-Communist force – always under less-than-obvious UN control – defeated the forces of North Korea and even liberated the Communist-led northern half of the Korean peninsula. At that point, the war had been won and all of Korea was free of Communist dominance. But huge numbers of Chinese Communist forces soon streamed into North Korea and the second phase of the Korean War began.
MacArthur was refused permission to bomb the bridges over the Yalu River, the northern border of North Korea. Across those structures stormed waves of well-equipped Chinese forces. MacArthur’s complaints about having his hands tied irritated President Truman. And they bothered Council on Foreign Relations members Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk as well. MacArthur was removed from command in April 1951.
In his 1964 book Reminiscences, MacArthur cited the text of a leaflet widely distributed in China by Chinese General Lin Piao. It read:
I would never have made the attack and risked my men and military reputation if I had not been assured that Washington would restrain General MacArthur from taking adequate retaliatory measures against my lines of supply and communication.
U.S. generals who served under MacArthur and his successors would later state their bitterness about the rules under which they were forced to fight. General Mark Clark stated: “I was not allowed to bomb the numerous bridges across the Yalu River over which the enemy constantly poured his trucks, and his munitions, and his killers.”
General James Van Fleet said: “My own conviction is that there must have been information to the enemy from high diplomatic authorities that we would not attack his home bases across the Yalu.”
General George Stratemeyer added: “You get in war to win it. You do not get in war to stand still and lose it. We were required to lose it.”
After two additional years of heavy fighting, the war wound down to an uneasy armistice in mid-1953. American casualties numbered more than 50,000 dead and many more injured. Now led by youthful despot Kim Jong-Un, North Korea remains under Communist control.
Economically sound and generally stable South Korea benefits from 30,000 U.S. troops based within its borders. These U.S. forces are part of the United Nations Command, a totally unconstitutional arrangement known to only a very few but rarely known to the U.S. forces stationed there or to the American people. The real winner of the Korean War has always been the United Nations.
Will Kim Jong-Un attack his neighboring nations? Or U.S.-owned Guam, or the United States itself? Often described as a “mad man,” not even he would be that stupid. He and U.S. leaders will ultimately do what the UN wants done as the world body continues to acquire increasing world dominance leading to full control of the entire planet.
Stop it in its tracks! Join The John Birch Society today to help Get US Out! of the United Nations!
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Socialism: Sanders Compared to Lenin
Posted: August 8, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Healthcare, socialism | Tags: Bernie Sanders, communism, socialism, socialized medicine, Vladimir Lenin Leave a commentSocialism: Sanders Compared to Lenin
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Vladimir Lenin is likely found in any listing of mass-murdering criminals. He is also the founder of Soviet Communism, although he should more correctly be labeled a socialist. The founder of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Lenin knew that establishing socialism, which is government ownership and control of the major industries in any nation, is the surest way to gaining control of any nation.
Image from Pixabay, Open Clipart Vectors, Creative Commons CCO.
Lenin employed both persuasion and terror as his method of gaining power. Along the way, he frankly admitted a major element of his plan. It was that “socialized medicine is the keystone in the arch of the socialist state.” Impose socialized medicine on a population, he believed, and the path to total control has been irrevocably created.
For many years, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been considered a bit of a harmless gadfly, an outsider who affiliated with neither of America’s major political parties. That he represented tiny Vermont made that state the butt of a string of jokes. Some Americans believed Vermonters had lost their minds in sending an avowed Socialist to represent them in the national government. But that’s what they did, first electing Sanders as their lone member of the House of Representatives beginning in 1991, and since 2008, as one of their two senators.
Sanders became nationally well-known during the 2016 campaign he waged for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. His capability at presenting his views without rancor and with a degree of folksiness endeared him to many Americans who seem to have no idea how far from traditional Americanism are the now favorite socialistic preferences.
Beaten for the Democrat nomination by Hillary Clinton, Sanders has hardly returned to his former gadfly status. He is now a leader with millions of followers who like the sounds of his promise of more powerful and paternalistic government. On August 1st of this year, the energetic 75-year-old Vermonter (born and raised in Brooklyn, New York) made clear his intention to have Congress approve “a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.”
Sanders indicated that what he proposes will “require a political revolution.” In saying that, he is completely correct. The single payer that he didn’t identify in his August 1st announcement would be the federal government. If Sanders succeeds in getting his proposal enacted by Congress, the U.S. government would totally control 1/6th of the nation’s economy – a huge step toward Lenin-style socialism that would be nearly impossible to reverse.
Cleverly appealing for support among the American people, the Vermont socialist directed his remarks toward “men and women, gay and straight, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American … and the elderly, sick and poor.” He identifies the enemy of his proposal as “Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the corporate media, the Republican Party, and the Establishment wing of the democratic Party.” A typically socialist appeal? Absolutely.
The proposal he offers is not unlike one crafted during the administration of John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) though it would have covered only Americans of Social Security age. It was an undeniable step toward gaining the kind of control envisaged today by Sanders. But the American Medical Association (AMA) mounted opposition and it was aided in part by a commercial featuring then-actor Ronald Reagan who called the proposal “an imminent threat.” The AMA issued a widely-distributed pamphlet warning: “Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of American life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialization of medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”
That was more than a half century ago. The AMA has become so heavily entwined with government involvement in medicine that the alternative Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) arose several decades ago. The AAPS is dead set against socialized medicine and socialism in general. It would be helpful in the fight to retain American free enterprise if the AMA would speak out as before, and if a Hollywood favorite would give the American people a warning about socialized medicine just as Ronald Reagan did almost 60 years ago.
Let’s not let socialized medicine bring America down. Support a clean repeal of ObamaCare with no replacement today!
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Tiananmen Square Massacre Remembered
Posted: June 15, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Politics, Slavery | Tags: Beijing, Communist China, protests, Tiananmen Square Leave a commentTiananmen Square Massacre Remembered
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Details about the June 4, 1989, crackdown on student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square remain hidden. The massacre, overshadowed to a degree by the televised confrontation of a single man facing a row of tanks, is nevertheless still commemorated throughout China. In semi-autonomous Hong Kong (the former British colony transferred to Mainland China in 1997), the date of June 4 has become an occasion for annual protests of tens of thousands.
Image from flickr by David Holt, some rights reserved.
The Chinese Communist government has never published the number of the pro-democracy victims of its bloody clampdown 28 years ago. Estimates place the number killed somewhere around many thousands. These were idealistic students who met death at the hands of soldiers sent to cancel the peaceful demonstration. Government mention of what happened at Tiananmen Square admits only to “turmoil” created by the demonstrators.
The million who gathered in Tiananmen Square in 1989 weren’t the only Chinese protesting their government’s dictatorial rule. Demonstrators had gathered in scores (some say hundreds) of cities throughout China. In Shanghai, whose population exceeds Beijing’s, demonstrations grew even larger after news of the 1989 killings in Beijing had spread. Suppression of the protesters there did not face the bloody put-down occurring at the nation’s capital city.
Over many years, Tiananmen Square has been the scene of other noteworthy events. A 1919 student protest in “the heart of the Middle Kingdom” is a fairly well remembered bit of history. Even more widely known is the choice of the Square by Mao Tse Tung to proclaim the People’s Republic in 1949. Since then, the Square has been the site of parades featuring troops with their weapons and an assortment of military vehicles.
This year, a small bottle of liquor carrying the date 6/4/89 became a symbol for millions who want China to be a country where free speech and other basic rights are the norm. One bottle of the symbolically labeled liquor made its way throughout China and ended up in Hong Kong where it will likely be added to other reminders of the 1989 carnage.
Unwilling to let even small protests go unpunished, Chinese authorities have arrested four men in Chengdu for their role in producing and labeling the small bottles of liquor. The four have already been accused of “inciting subversion of state power.” A court decree ruling against them claimed that they were “dissatisfied with our country’s socialist system.” The court got that right.
The New York Times recently contacted parents of two victims of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Recalling his son’s death and the annual commemoration of the blood-drenched incident, Xiao Zongyou, a resident of Chengdu, said of his wife and himself, “If remembering June 4 is a crime, then the Chengdu Public Security Bureau should arrest us. Like my son, I want this country to get better.”
But freedom isn’t getting better in China. Free speech is prohibited and subject to monitoring by two million government censors most of whom diligently monitor the Internet. Attempts to obtain detailed information about what occurred at Tiananmen Square in 1989 by entering the word “Tiananmen” on a computer produces nothing. That word and others used to commemorate what happened 28 years ago have been erased.
China remains a totalitarian state ruled by the descendants of Mao Tse Tung. A hero to Communist Chinese, Mao and his Communist horde made it into the Guinness Book of Records as history’s greatest mass murderers. During recent years with vital help from the U.S., China has emerged as an economic powerhouse making and exporting millions of products for the West. But basic freedoms to speak, write, publish, practice religion, etc., are barred. And China’s leaders have never renounced their intention to defeat the United States. Credit Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and a lengthy parade of others for helping to empower one of America’s greatest enemies.
While understanding what those in China have to go through, Americans must realize that they still can prevent this extreme government overreach in the U.S. Join with the organization at the forefront of this battle, The John Birch Society.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Brzezinski’s Un-American History
Posted: June 2, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Conspiracy, World Government | Tags: Between Two Ages, communism, Marxism, world government, Zbigniew Brzezinski 1 CommentBrzezinski’s Un-American History
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the geopolitical favorite of a bevy of liberals and internationalists, passed away at 89 on May 26th. The son of a Polish diplomat, he was born in Poland and lived with his family in France and Germany before they emigrated to Canada in the late 1930s. There, the aspiring future diplomat earned ascending political science degrees at McGill University in Montreal. Off to Harvard University, he then won doctorate status in 1953 and a post as one of its instructors. When Harvard chose Henry Kissinger over him as its newest associate professor, Brzezinski moved to Columbia University in New York. He became a U.S. citizen in 1958.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin engages U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in a game of chess at Camp David. What other games has he played? (Image from Wikimedia Commons, public domain).
The author of numerous books and opinion pieces, he should be remembered mostly for Between Two Ages (BTA) published by Viking Press in 1970. Having become well-known as a foe of Communism, he demonstrated in BTA both his preference for Marxism and his less-than-positive view of the country he had chosen as his home. In addition, he promoted the cause of world government at the expense of national sovereignty. But he earned some anti-Communist credentials as a critic of expanding U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. How a man could be an anti-Communist but still a Marxist has never been fully explained. And his preference for world government prevented him from being regularly classified by many as a staunch American.
In BTA, his Marxism showed when he termed the destructive philosophy of Karl Marx “a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision [and] a victory of reason over belief” (page 72). He added that it “represented a major advance in man’s ability to conceptualize his relationship to the world” (page 83). And, “Marxist theory [is] this century’s most influential system of thought” (page 123).
About his adopted nation, he wrote, “America is undergoing a new revolution … which unmasks its obsolescence” (page 198). Instead of lauding free enterprise that helped the U.S. to become the envy of the world, he promoted “deliberate management of America’s future, with the planner … as the key social legislator and manipulator” (page 260).
Yearning for world government, he called for a “community of developed nations [brought about] through a variety of indirect ties and already developing limitations on national sovereignty. The first of these [ties] would involve the forging of community links among the United States, Western Europe and Japan. The second phase would include the extension of these links to more advanced communist countries” (page 296). His “more advanced Communist countries” were those that had renounced bloody revolution and practiced a more humane Marxism.
What Brzezinski wrote about became the Trilateral Commission, a world government in infant stages financed from its inception by David Rockefeller. The New York multimillionaire banker formed it exactly as Brzezinski had suggested; the two enlisted the formerly obscure Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter as one of its founding members; and they not only promoted his rise to U.S. President in 1976, they filled his most important cabinet posts with other Trilateralists: Walter Mondale, Cyrus Vance, W. Michael Blumenthal, Harold Brown, and more. Carter, who elevated Brzezinski to become the nation’s National Security Advisor with an office in the White House, would later state of his Trilateral credential, “Membership on this Commission has provided me with a splendid learning opportunity and many of the members have helped me in my study of foreign affairs.”
As for where all of this was intended to go, Brzezinski explained his desire for “the goal of world government.” For him to swear an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution amounted to a bold-faced lie. He was not an American committed to undiluted national independence and no-nonsense economic freedom.
Join with The John Birch Society to prevent this world government that Brzezinski played such a role in promoting and building.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Gramsci’s Plan
Posted: April 14, 2017 Filed under: Communism, Politics, socialism | Tags: Antonio Gramsci, communism, Lenin, Trotsky 2 CommentsGramsci’s Plan
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
The year 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Revolution. After a reign of terror, Lenin died in 1924, replaced in the Communist hierarchy by Josef Stalin. He and Trotsky didn’t get along, and Trotsky wisely fled Russia. Before too long, he ended up in Mexico where one of Stalin’s agents did him in with an axe to his head in 1940.
Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci (Image from Flickr by thierry ehrmann, some rights reserved).
With help from western governments and individuals thought to be anti-Communist, Stalin built the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into a world power with savage brutality that cost the lives of tens of millions. The tyrannical empire he built supposedly crashed in 1989 as Communist leaders in Europe’s Soviet bloc suddenly became democrats. The governments these puppets had been leading discarded the use of terror to rule the hapless millions in Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and all of the USSR’s satellite nations.
The above very brief recounting of recent history doesn’t include discussion of another Communist who wanted to achieve total power in a very different way. Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, born in 1891, disagreed with prominent Communists in his home country, and although he had been a founder of Italy’s Communist Party, he moved to Russia where he expected to find that Marxism really worked. It didn’t take long for Gramsci to realize, however, that Russia’s people were being held in check via Stalin-imposed terror. He thought this style of rule was unnecessary, even counterproductive.
Back to Italy in the late 1920s, Gramsci was immediately, though wrongly, considered a Stalin agent by the Mussolini government whose police sent him to prison. Over the next nine years (he died from tuberculosis in 1937), he assembled his thoughts on how a nation could be made into a “Marxist paradise” in nine volumes known as the Prison Notebooks. His strategy called for softening up the people by steering them away from their cultural foundations – faith in God, love of country, reliance on family, and attachment to the churches, schools, morals, and other anchors.
While there are numerous current propagators of the type of subversion advocated by Gramsci, Time magazine is surely one of the leaders. The magazine’s March 27, 2017 issue is filled with urgings to abandon traditional views regarding the once unquestioned field of gender identity. Example after example of deviation from basic morality fills seven of the magazine’s pages. No longer should members of the human race be known as male or female, now we are led to believe in the existence of multiple identities various individuals will choose.
According to Time, there should be wide acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. No need anymore to rely on a newborn’s identity (called “cisgender”), there are now 500 different categories where male or female were always the only choices. And, says one of the young deviants presented by Time, “Every different type of identity that exists should be supported.”
If you disagree with this undermining of such a cultural and moral foundation, expect to be labeled ”intolerant.” Everyone is supposed to back away from condemning even the most bizarre claims of young people who have been led to believe their aberrations are a new normal. Indeed, tolerance that is being forced on all who remain “straight” has become the silencer of the tradition-minded. Acceptance of whatever deviations can be dreamed up is expected and virtue is considered passé.
Were Gramsci alive, he would applaud this increasingly widespread development. His early years studying history, psychology, and philosophy equipped him to know how to tear a civilization from its roots. And if we examine which way the world is heading today, we should conclude that the Gramscian strategy is winning.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Is Socialism Worse Than Communism?
Posted: January 27, 2017 Filed under: Communism, neoconservatism, socialism | Tags: Bernie Sanders, communism, Irving Kristol, Karl Marx, Lenin, socialism, Stalin, totalitarian, Trotsky 6 CommentsIs Socialism Worse Than Communism?
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Six years ago in a speech exposing the scourge of neoconservatism, I startled some of the audience by claiming that socialism is more dangerous than communism. I knew that many fine Americans had long held the view that socialism was not good, but “at least it’s not as bad as communism.” I disagreed.
Both socialism and communism promoters claim Marx’s Communist Manifesto as their own (Image from ShopJBS.org).
My foray of this topic developed because acceptance of neoconservatism amounts to choosing socialism and internationalist meddling, even war. The self-described “godfather” of the movement, Irving Kristol, proudly announced in his 1995 book Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, that neoconservatism “accepted the New Deal in principle, and had little affection for the kind of isolationism that then permeated America conservatism.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal was socialism with a nice-sounding name. And the isolationism condemned by Kristol has always kept America from meddling in the world’s affairs, even going to war to dictate the way others should exist. In short order, Kristol and his allies moved into the Republican Party where they now exercise inordinate influence led by such neocons as Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
But what about socialism and its communist partner in crime? Honest adherents of both claim Marx’s Communist Manifesto as their own. Partisans on either side have even fought over ownership of the document while they were busily subjugating entire nations and peoples.
But there is an important difference that needs airing. Communists seek domination via hasty takeover and bloody suppression. Their success doesn’t destroy resistance. So they have to create such tyrannical enforcement groups as the NKVD, GRU, or some secret police outfit. The history of these enforcers is well-known.
On the other hand, the more patient Socialists work toward the same totalitarian goal, but they persuade their future victims to vote themselves into socialistic control. Their process destroys resistance. Rule over their hapless victims is more complete. But it will turn deadly if needed.
Lenin and Trotsky established communist control over Russia in 1917. Lenin died in 1924 and another murderous tyrant named Stalin took over. Trotsky worked alongside both, but he always preferred the socialist route to power. In time, he fled Stalin and ended up in Mexico where one of Stalin’s agents put an ax in his head. The brutality of Stalin’s Soviet-style conquests continued.
Taking control of America posed a problem for Stalin and his successors. Resistance to communism has always been strong in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” But bringing America under control with socialism grew dramatically throughout the 20th century and beyond. Socialistic takeovers in such fields as housing, welfare, education, health, and more, plus the combination of a United Nations police force has gained an increasing amount of supporters from coast to coast.
During the recent race for the presidency, millions of Americans cheered for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders. Very few of the Sanders supporters know where his program for their country will take it. Nor did they have any awareness of his years of affiliation with the Socialist International (Honorary Chairman: Karl Marx). Yet they cheered lustily for him to win the Democratic Party’s nomination. He came close to being the nominee and would have been a formidable candidate to become the next occupant of the White House. His manner of gaining control of the people and the nation through persuasion instead of the sword almost succeeded.
Where would complete socialism take America? Literary giant George Bernard Shaw was a proud socialist in England. In 1928, his “Intelligent Women’s Guide to Socialism” stated:
I also make it clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not the character and industry to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.
Should socialism triumph completely in America, the amount of resistance would be minimal – at least for a time – because the people voted for it. But it wouldn’t be too long before the George Bernard Shaw method would be used to keep socialism in power.
How many Bernie Sanders partisans understand this? Hardly any. And how many supporters of neoconservative politicians realize the ultimate goal of the followers of Irving Kristol? Another minuscule number. How many understand that socialism is truly more dangerous than communism? Next to none.
Many more Americans need to be awakened in order to preserve the great experiment in freedom given this nation in the late 18th century. Socialism isn’t the route to justice and progress. It’s the path to control – and it will indeed become deadly like its communist bedfellow.
Know thy enemy. Get your copy of The Communist Manifesto today.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
Share this:
Sanders the Socialist
Posted: January 18, 2017 Filed under: 2016 Presidential Election, Communism, socialism | Tags: Bernie Sanders, communism, Democratic Party, Presidential Election, Socialist Leave a commentSanders the Socialist
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
While chatting recently with a friendly technician who was repairing my copy machine, I got a taste of a very big problem facing our country. The man knew everything about the bulky machine. But he displayed a woeful lack of awareness about our nation’s fundamental principles. And he volunteered a political preference I fear is shared by millions.
Sanders is a proud socialist who wants to establish government compulsion over everyone (Image from Flickr by Gage Skidmore).
The technician, a patriotic U.S. Air Force veteran, volunteered that he didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. He had nothing good to say about either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. But he boasted that, if Bernie Sanders had won the Democratic Party’s nomination, he would have gladly voted for him. He added that Bernie would probably have swamped Trump. He might be correct about that.
When I suggested that Bernie Sanders would admit to being a socialist, he gave no response. Evidently being a socialist is OK with my technician acquaintance, not because he knows what being a socialist means and how un-American such a view really is, but because he doesn’t know what it means. Had I an opportunity to explain what socialism truly connotes, I might have cited an excellent warning given in 1974 by economist Percy Greaves. In his book Mises Made Easier, Professor Greaves wrote:
Following the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevist leader Lenin chose the name Communist Party for all those dedicated to the use of violence, revolution, and civil war to attain their final goal, and to distinguish his followers from the socialists, or social democrats, who sought the same final goal by democratic processes.
In other words, a convinced socialist is at least as dangerous as a Communist, maybe more so because his ultimate goal isn’t well known. My technician acquaintance surely has no awareness that Marx’s Communist Manifesto is the blueprint for both Communists and Socialists.
During the televised debates between the Vermont senator and Mrs. Clinton, I saw Sanders come across as genuinely honest and sincere. But he is a proud socialist, a man who has spent a lifetime favoring the same total government scheme, though not the same route to achieving it, as did the murdering tyrant Lenin. The man fixing my copy machine wouldn’t have supported Lenin, or Stalin, or any of their successors who murdered millions and enslaved those they permitted to live. But he would willingly back Sanders. And therein lies the big problem facing America today.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t advocate killing anybody; he just wants to establish government compulsion over everyone. But he never summarizes it that way. He will soak the rich, make health care and college education free, put government in charge of supplying everyone’s needs, and more. It all sounds so very good to anyone who has no awareness of either America’s fundamentals or the Marxian program. Yet, millions of young Americans flocked to his rallies and cheered him with great gusto. Lots of older Americans did likewise.
The socialism advocated by Sanders is a huge threat to freedom. The problem is that so few Americans understand the value of limited government or the worth of the Constitution, which is socialism’s polar opposite. America grew from a veritable wasteland to becoming the envy of the world, not because of government action but because of the Constitutional requirement for inaction. Millions of college-educated people today have never heard that view and, consequently, are ripe fruit for socialists to pluck. They see problems, most of which have been created by government, and expect government to solve them. The American way would be to get government out of the way and let enlightened self-interest do the solving.
Currently, there are 74 House members who hold membership in its socialist wing called the Progressive Caucus. Sanders is the only Senate member of this Caucus.
All of this presents a huge problem for America. The copy machine technician I encountered doesn’t want the socialism goal advocated by Sanders; he just wants the nice-sounding program the Vermont maverick offers. But it’s only nice-sounding, something even my acquaintance will discover if this nation doesn’t get back to the fundamentals that made it so appealing in the first place. Learn more about socialism’s impact around the globe.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
insidejbs 