Surviving Socialism
by Mark Tapson
{ frontpagemag.com } ~ Recent polls have revealed that a growing majority of young Americans view socialism or at least, their rose-colored conception of it favorably and capitalism unfavorably. We assume that these young people must be brainwashed Democrats, star-struck by celebrity activists like anthem protester Colin Kaepernick and Congresswoman socialist/commie/liar-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – and the great majority are. But shockingly, a new Axios/Momentive poll shows that, even among Republicans, the number of 18- to 34-year-olds who hold a positive view of capitalism has plummeted from 81% in 2019 to 66% today.
How did America get to the point where a passion for socialist revolution is spreading like wildfire among our youth? A brand new documentary addresses this disturbing trend and makes an airtight case that socialism inevitably and swiftly leads to widespread economic misery and loss of personal freedoms, while the free market leads inevitably to widespread prosperity. Surviving Socialism, produced by the Tea Party Patriot Foundation and Ground Floor Video, directed by Luke Livingston, and written by Jake Tower, premieres at the Anthem Film Festival in Rapid City, South Dakota on Friday, July 23. It will be shown alongside such projects as the Shelby Steele film What Killed Michael Brown?, the documentary Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World, and a sneak-peek presentation of the long-awaited Ronald Reagan biopic starring Dennis Quaid.
The poster for the film was designed by the anti-Progressive gadfly Sabo, the conservative street artist behind such brilliant campaigns as mock advertisements skewering race hoaxer Jussie Smollett, and billboards slamming Hollywood for shielding pedophiles within its ranks:
The 62-minute Surviving Socialism largely features attractive and articulate young patriots like Morgan Zegers, founder and CEO of Young Americans Against Socialism; star commentator Candace Owens; and Scott Presler, the gay conservative activist who took the initiative to lead volunteer cleanups in Democrat-led urban centers across America, to the tune of over 105 tons of trash. The documentary also features distinguished thinkers and courageous journalists like Antifa target Andy Ngo, as well as actual survivors of socialism who can attest from grim personal experience that socialism does not alleviate suffering but imposes it.
Zegers points out that left-wing young people today are fond of using distortions of the language, like the pleasant-sounding term “democratic socialism,” to convince themselves and others that their brand of communism-lite is not like the kind that has left as many as 100 million dead and countless more in utter misery, just in the last century. Idealistic young people who are attracted to the idea of creating a utopian society and to the idea of lots of free stuff magically provided by a caring, beneficent government think that this time socialism will lead to a world of perfect harmony and freedom from want.
In fact, as one victim of the failed socialist state of Venezuela puts it in the film, “We were promised the fair and just distribution of wealth, but at the end of the day what we got was the fair and just distribution of poverty.” As two other socialism survivors point out later in the film, socialism always ends the same way: in misery, food lines, and concentration camps.
“Democratic socialism views the wealthy and corporations as evil because they prey on the rest of the country… and the solution is higher taxes, higher regulations, and a bigger welfare state,” Prof. David Azzerod from Hillsdale College says in the film. Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs adds that young people too often don’t realize that “when you start talking about socialism, it’s regulation of virtually every aspect of every human life. That’s an authoritarian government.”
Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, notes that under socialism, “There is no private sector, no private property… no place for the free market.” He also explains, in response to the frequent argument that true democratic socialism has never really been tried, that it “has been tried, in three quite different democracies'': in the kibbutzes of Israel, in newly-independent India under Nehru, and in Labor Party rule in the United Kingdom after World War II. At the end of thirty years of collectivism, Israel abandoned the experiment and had to borrow $1.5 billion from the U.S. to pay its debt. At the end of its three-decade embrace of socialism in India, half the population was living in poverty. After thirty years of socialist policies in the UK, Britain had earned a dubious reputation as “the sick man of Europe.” But in a mere five years after conservative Margaret Thatcher took power there and privatized industry, Britain was one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Surviving Socialism addresses how the left indoctrinates schoolchildren with a sense of fear and urgency about saving the planet from evil capitalism, and exploits kids to agitate for socialist change. Candace Owens, mincing no words, calls this tactic “pedo-politics.” But under actual socialism, kids aren’t saving the world, but are reduced – as was Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who grew up in Communist Cuba – to serve as lookouts while their parents illegally exchange goods on the black market. “Everyone in a Communist regime understands they’re being oppressed,” Gonzalez states in the documentary.
The film then shifts to a discussion of how the left uses identity politics to divide and conquer, creating social tensions that lead to increased demands for the redistribution of wealth – like the racial agitation of the Marxist revolutionaries of Black Lives Matter. Journalists such as FrontPage Mag contributor Matthew Vadum and Andy Ngo appear in the film to discuss how the street thuggery of Antifa functions in this attempt to overthrow capitalism. And Prof. Azzerod identifies the intellectual influence of cultural Marxist Herbert Marcuse, whose 1965 essay on “repressive tolerance” provides today’s left with a justification for censorship of, and political violence against, the right.
Particularly powerful testimony against socialism is presented in the film by ex-Venezuelan Oskar Arreaza and his wife, who describe poignantly how swiftly their prosperous country collapsed under the late authoritarian monster Hugo Chavez – and how Americans shouldn’t think it could never happen here. “You realize that your country, your democracy, is starting to disappear, because you don’t have any right to fight for your freedom, for your values,” Mrs. Arreaza says. The couple fled to America while they still could. When people like this warn Americans about our future if the radicalism of leaders like socialist/commie/liar-Ocasio-Cortez and lifelong communist socialist/commie-Bernie Sanders isn’t curbed, we need to sit up and take careful note -- and action.
Packed with dynamic footage of America under siege by socialist revolutionaries, Surviving Socialism delivers an alarming message, but the film does end on an inspirational note, with footage of its young conservative commentators inspiring crowds about how the American Dream still lives for all who are willing to work hard for it, and for all who cherish their freedom. Activists like Zeger, Owens, and Presler, and films like this one, send young Americans the hopeful message they won’t hear anywhere else in our Progressive-dominated culture: that socialism is a corrosive lie, that free markets and private property are essential to personal freedom and prosperity, and that America is still the true land of opportunity.
Replies
Just maybe Capitalism has a few problems that we need to consider... Today's version of Capitalism is not what it was in our father's day. See below:
An Unjust Balance or Unequal Scale… is an abomination.
Properly functioning Capitalism requires a moral people; just as our Government requires a moral people to operate properly. Is the government in America functioning as it was intended? Why not? The moral compass that once directed our ship of state and sat at the head of commerce has been lost.
A moral people must be guided… by a set of tenants and percepts outside of their own nature; as man’s inhumanity toward man has clearly demonstrated there is no good or moral nature to be found within the man who acts alone. The ‘God of Creation’ and the Judeo/Christian ethic is the moral compass our forefathers chose and the one we need to follow in government and business. It is the Creator that bestows the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It follows, that God’s order (Word/Law) is necessary to the orderly maintenance of these rights.
When people deny the Creator’s Law… and reject His guidance, they abandon the Truth and suffer the ills of their own making. Whether, their abandonment be manifested in economic, political, or cultural decay; the sums of their calamity matter little, as the result is the loss of their liberty. Today, we see the result of a long and deteriorating relationship between God and America.
Can our Nation retain its founding principles without its Creator… It is not only the government that has strayed… It is the people themselves, and the damage is not only visible in government, but in our homes and CORPORATE BOARD ROOMS of America.
America must return to the standards of equity… and the balance that God demands in commerce. God’s precepts of equity and justice must once again be the rule for engaging others in commerce and government… In the home and at work… In our schools and organizations… America must return to Nature's Creator if she desires fruit from the Tree of Liberty.
Capitalism and Democracy are empty shells… which must be filled with the right measure of moral order and purpose to be instruments of righteousness and a blessing to the people. Without God at the helm, Capitalism and Democracy soon become shipwrecked in a sea of despair and hopelessness. Where is God in our government and Corporate Board Rooms today? Does God sit in a seat of honor, as Lord, or has Mammon, the love of wealth and power, become lord in America?
There is no such thing as the separation of Church (God) and State… One's government and religion are reflections of their faith… What they believe. What image does America reflect in its culture, commerce, and government? Is it the God of Creation? Can America separate God from its government and the engines of her commerce, and still claim to be Christian (God-like, Christ-like)?
Board rooms and businesses that use an unjust scale or weight… to conduct their commerce, don’t fool God… Equity is not blind nor is a just contract or balance derived by taking undue advantage of others. Godly capitalism EARNS reasonable profits based on value-added… not by the use of one's position, leverage, or raw power to exploit others.
A Godly people understand… what I’m speaking about. However, the ungodly will never understand that they are ‘their brother's keeper’. They consider windfalls and the exploitation of others justified as the tools of a free market. They don’t see them as an unjust scale or weight.
God doesn’t support slothfulness in labor… nor is he pleased when the Ox is muzzled. Labor and Capital must find an equitable arrangement where a just reward is earned by each… through an equitable exchange… just weights and measures. When Godly commerce is conducted, both parties are satisfied. This form of Capitalism results in prosperity for all.
A Capital market… that allows products manufactured at 2 dollars an hour to be marketed where labor costs are 8 times greater is a textbook example of the manipulation and exploitation of markets… geared to achieve an unjust return on investment. Profits earned under these market conditions are not earned through value-added… or a just weight. They are earned through the exploitation of unequal markets and are the tools of GREED and AVARICE. So, are many of the Free Market Treaties and agreements found in the world today.
It is hypocrisy for the capitalist to point at the socialist… to accuse him of robbery; when he is engaged in the very same act, but by another means. What difference is there between robbing the wage of the poor and unjustly taking the wealth of the rich? Both are WRONG and ungodly acts.
There can be no moral rationalization or argument that justifies slave wages… Capital that earns an exorbitant profit from labor, through market position, uses a form of unequal balances and weights in their commerce. God is not pleased and the result is a corrupt system of commerce for all.
The markets in America are no longer open or free… consumers, small businesses, and new enterprises are forced to compete with immoral businesses practices that exploit wages and the unregulated marketplaces of the third world. The unethical businessman takes advantage of market forces to achieve market share that is unjustly earned. This makes it difficult for small businesses and labor to obtain an equitable share in the market or just wages. At one time, such market exploitation was corrected through trade laws… and the use of tariffs, duties, and restrictions on imports. These were the champions of small business and labor… engaging a JUST BALANCE in commerce.
Tariffs, duties, and restrictions on imports are not immoral or anti-trade… they seek to keep commerce on a moral keel. They deny those who would seek to exploit labor and manipulate world markets unregulated access to US Markets. In fact, tariffs, duties, and import restrictions are Constitutional powers permitted to the Federal government… for the regulation of commerce. It is time to reinstate these provisions, to implement there use, wherever the exploitation of unequal markets is used to gain unfair advantages in the US Market.
These practices were considered both moral and necessary… for the regulation of commerce by our founding fathers. Tariffs, import duties, and restrictions need to be imposed once again; as safeguards against the exploitation of markets, and the destruction of American small businesses, and labor… Period
By:
RA Nelson
COL., U.S. Army (Retired)
Ronald
That is true. Its because of liberals wanting to change to their way of governing.