David Rosen: Socialism in America? (2/7/2019)

(2/7/2019)

I would like to share my comment on New York author David Rosen's Counterpunch article: Is Socialism possible in America?


Hi David,

This is a very enlightening article for those who may be interested about socialism in the US and the rest of the world. I would add the Taft-Hartley Act as the ultimate stab in the back by the Democrats. The result of all these is of course Trump.

The revolutions failed because the enemy is powerful and ruthless. You can't take a bullhorn to a gunfight and expect to come out alive.

The illusion of money in capitalism is strong magic. It is the mirage on which all our beliefs are built. We know of no alternative. We're born into the bullshit. We breath it, we consume it, we regurgitate it, and we die in it without knowing there can be flowers. 

One revolution is however still standing. It is not strange that most in the West do not understand the Chinese Revolution. The established powers in fact exhibit great fear of the country transformed by the Chinese Revolution. What is China trying to do? They are in fact trying to beat the devil in its own game. Deng Xiaoping and the moderates did not say how they must achieve their goal (white cat black cat -- pragmatism rather than ideology) and they did not say when they must achieve it. Chinese civilization has a long and unbroken history of four to five thousands years. The people will be patient. There is no need to believe in the mainstream media's narratives that China is any more repressive than America. I lived in China as an expat for almost twenty years. Quite frankly, it opened my eyes to the dishonesty and hypocrisy in which I was born and bred. I will never take the words of any Western mainstream pundit on face value. 

Upton Sinclair commented on journalists: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Journalism under capitalism is the reason why we cannot afford the truth.

It may be worthwhile to study the Chinese Revolution to learn how they did it.

"The Revolution has not yet succeeded, my comrades.* You must continue to strive for it." -- Dr. Sun Yat-sen

For those who have not heard of Dr. Sun or who do not know his history very well, Dr. Sun is the Father of modern China. He was educated in America and founded the first Chinese republic based on the American system. But after being spurned by the West which gravitated towards the warlords, Dr. Sun received support from the USSR. He cooperated with the Chinese communists and accepted communists into his party. He died in 1925, after which Chiang Kai-shek took control of the Nationalist government known as the Republic of China (Taiwan is run by this government; Taiwan passport says Republic of China, not Republic of Taiwan), the Nationalist party known as Kuomintang, and the Nationalist army. Chiang purged the communists and started the Chinese Civil War, which was eventually won by the communist side. Dr. Sun is revered by both the Nationalists and the Communists.

Peter Man

* in Chinese, 'comrade' means those of like mind