Red Decade; Eugene Lyons; thug persecution of anti-Obama dissent

We have had more than a year to observe the religion that is Obama-worship and the Obama cult of personality. But worse than the unearned praise and unearned rewards are the personal attacks on those who refuse to worship Obama. Right now we are witnessing coordinated attacks upon "Fox News," the Chamber of Commerce, "big insurance," Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, etc.

This type of attack is nothing new. In the 1930's, American supporters of the Soviet Union would not tolerate criticism of their faith. Anyone who pointed out the brutality of the Soviet system was attacked [I am referring to attacks by American fifth columnists for the Soviet Union - not persecution by the Soviet government in Russia]:

People shut their eyes and their ears and their minds to anything which might reflect on their new religion. Supposed "intellectuals" were sure they were demolishing detailed reports on Russian realities by insulting the authors. I shall have more to say about the arts of character assassination as practiced against infidels. The process served essentially as a psychological trick for ignoring their views with a clear conscience.

One day an apologetic stranger came to see me. He told me a heart-rending tale. It seems that his wife, a high-strung and warm-natured woman, had devoted years of ardent effort to the communist movement. Several weeks before, she had heard me speak at a forum meeting at the Community Church of New York. What I had to report on Russia had shaken her faith. She came home that night and suffered a nervous breakdown. Now her husband came to plead that I go to the hospital and assure the woman that I had lied, that everything in Russia was lovely . . . .

I became familiar with high-pitched, hysterical hecklers; with insulting letters. As I came out of the auditorium after talking to a few hundred schoolteachers gathered at the Ethical Culture School on a Sunday afternoon, a wild-eyed, dark-visaged woman shouted obscenities at me and tried to scratch out my eyes. She was one of the "activists," I was told, of the communist local of the New York Teachers Union.

And my own experience was mild compared with those of dozens of others who dared to tell aloud what they knew of the bogus Utopia. Eye-scratching and name-calling and sneering were in the temper of the Red Decade. The methods seemed even less edifying when disguised as "literary criticism" in the New Republic or as "economic analysis" in the Nation, or as slapstick humor in a column by the late Heywood Broun.

Red Decade, p. 194

Only when we see the thugs through the eyes of history can we see them for what they really are.

Red Decade; Eugene Lyons; youth groups as cannon fodder.

Eugene Lyons 1941 book, Red Decade, described how totalitarians of the 1930's used "youth movements" as pawns much like the demagogues of today. Young people have become cannon fodder in political wars, much like other minority or pressure groups. They are reduced to pawns in the game of conquest played by the MSM/DNC:

The glorification of Youth is a modern development. It puts a premium on lack of experience, mental fuzziness and intuition as against intelligence and maturity. I watched both Italian Fascism and German Nazism at close range in their formative stages. It is not generally appreciated to what a large extent they were bothy Youth movements. Demagogues who knew what they wanted used the energies and emotional drives of young people who had not the remotest notion what they really wanted. In both these countries, Youth was deliberately mobilized to beat civilization into a pulp.

Watching the Youth movements in this country against the memory of Italy and Germany, I have been struck by the similarity of the procedures. American Youth was no longer descriptive of an age group passing through adolescence - its organized and regimented minority had become a sloganeering political lobby, a bigger and louder pressure group, competing with elders for handouts and privileges as though it were a permanent class rather than a period of biological transition. The more articulate and capable were making professions and careers as Youth leaders. Partly through sentiment and largely for political advantage, politicians flattered the Youth lobbies and catered to their pretentious self-importance. It was inevitable that the most rigidly organized, disciplined and purposeful minority would take over this Youth racket and use it for its own purposes - and for a long time the elders, from the President of the United States down, were content to applaud the antics instead of exposing the influences and motives behind the whole show.

Those who should guide young people are content to follow, leaving that function to crackpot "champions of Youth" or political demagogues aiming to capture the campus and the youth. A lopsided liberalism has led teachers to believe that Youth must be given complete independence, that its preferences are inviolable. The result is that young people are set adrift just when they need and crave steering; the first group with a plausible and exciting program takes them over.

[p. 205, 1971 edition]

Lyons has touched on many issues in this brief segment. Various youth groups (so long as they support leftists causes) are treated as oracles of wisdom instead of those with much to learn. They are accumulated as parts of "coalitions" in league with minorities, unions and others whose only value is their votes and their ability to intimidate political opponents .

It is the youth, themselves, that suffer the most. Generations have been lost as political ideology has captured and exploited youth for decades in schools and through television and popular culture.

Long ago someone should have pointed out that young people have much to learn and do not necessarily possess the wisdom that we traditionally ascribe to ethnic pressure groups. In fact, Eugene Lyons did point this out 68 years ago. We simply have to rediscover his words.

Eugene Lyons; Red Decade; Stalinists of the 1930's

Those of us who grow frustrated at the seeming contradictions of leftists' public positions should take comfort in the knowledge that this policy is nothing new for the leftists.

Today, we see leftists (1) demand different methods of counting votes depending on whether the method helps their candidate, (2) remain silent about DHS targeting of private, nonleftist citizens even though the left previously opposed the creation of this very Department, (3) oppose all anti-abortion religions except those whose operatives kill large numbers of Americn citizens, (4) honor national heroes only when a Democrat President can claim credit for their success, (5) support the very concept of public protest except when the protesters are against higher taxes, (6) arrange public protests to honor cop killers while smearing anti-tax protesters, (7) decry Hitler comparisons when a Democrat occupies the White House after supporting such comparisons during a Republican administration, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Eugene Lyons summarized these rapidly changing public positions during the 1930's:

In the same speech, on the same page, people defended executions and concentration camps in Russia and went purple denouncing the same phenomena in Germany. They condemned the burning of books in Hitlerland and hurrahed for the burning of authors in Stalinland. Hundreds among them denied vehemently that they were communists, though they were members under false names. Lying and cheating for the cause seemed to them noble and self-sacrificing. And in all this there was no contradiction and no trickery, since it was all on a plane way beyond logic.

Red Decade, p. 184

In the 1930's, the leftists had the excuse that they were taking orders from Stalin. Today, what possible excuse can the leftists claim? What lunatic could possibly order, benefit from or even conceive of the contradictions listed above?



When we are faced with leftist contradictions, it is right that we point them out at every opportunity. But we must do more. We must remember and discuss the history, context and goals of the leftist movement. The leftists are not simply forgetful. They know that they are lying and switching positions solely for political reasons. We must do more than simply point out the "hypocrisy." We must question their motives.

Eugene Lyons - Red Decade - socialized medicine in the Soviet Union

In 1941, Eugene Lyons wrote Red Decade - a chronicle of pro-Soviet activities among the American left during the 1930's. He described the willful blindness of visitors to the Soviet Union, who would avoid the painful reality at all costs and come home to America to spread pro-Soviet spin:

A number of American physicians looked at hospitals which, in their own country, would have been condemned as a menace - hospitals without cleanliness, order or elementary competence - and went home to sing hymns of praise to Soviet medicine. It was enough for them that the mess was labeled "socialized medicine." They never bothered to see the confusion underneath. One honest Russian physician, if he had dared talk and the visitors had dared to listen, could have set them right.

p. 94 [1971 edition]

The administration will, no doubt, parade a stream of "doctors" before Congress who will sing the praises of socialized medicine (although they won't call it by that name). When you see that dog-and-pony show, remember how a few "doctors" represented Soviet medicine to the American people during the Stalin era.

Phony criticism of Obama; whitewash journalism; Red Decade

Now that the luster has started to wear off of the Obama cult of personality (at least temporarily), we can expect "journalists" from the MSM/DNC to pretend to criticize the administration so as to appear fair. I wrote of this tactic in the list of bias categories in 2005:

14. Whitewash/Softball criticism of leftist public figures. Whenever the MSM/DNC is forced to acknowledge some scandal that reflects badly on one of their own, MSM/DNC pretends to investigate and criticize for all of the wrong reasons. The CBS/Rathergate report criticized CBS for trying to be first instead of for biased reporting. Some MSM/DNC spokesman eventually were forced to criticize Bill Clinton for committing adultery and lying instead of for trading high tech ICMB delivery systems to China. MSM/DNC hacks grudgingly admitted that Jimmy Carter was "naive" "inexperienced" or "lacked savvy" instead of pointing out his real fault - nearly losing the cold war. These softball whitewashes provide cover for the real crimes/faults of those on the left. They are the equivalent of the getaway driver throwing some of the robbery loot out the window to distract the pursuing police. We should rarely expect a real investigation from the MSM/DNC about one of their own. And we should never let the MSM/DNC investigation cause us to hold back our own criticism.

This tactic is as old as the leftists' support for Stalin during the 1930's. As Eugene Lyons wrote (of leftist Louis Fischer) in 1941:

If occasionally he [Fischer] implied that there were stains on Soviet perfection, it only served to fortify his standing as a neutral commentator. Once he suggested cautiously in an article that Joseph Stalin could be wrong. For months thereafter he boasted of that feat of daring, while waiting for the lightning to strike.

Red Decade, p. 116 (1971 edition)

Today's "journalists" have not yet reached the level of bravery of Louis Fischer.

The cult of Obama worship; The Red Decade; Eugene Lyons

In 1941, Eugene Lyons wrote The Red Decade, a description of American liberal Soviet worship during the 1930's. American leftists would travel to Russia, ignore the mass oppression and starvation that appeared plainly before their eyes and report back to the U.S. in glowing terms about conditions in Stalin's Russia. The Soviet government could do no wrong in their eyes:

I do not believe I am exaggerating the element of self-delusion in the process. I lived in Russia, close to its grim realities, precisely in the years when the strange Russia-worship overcame so many Americans. At the height of the tourist invasion, in the early 'thirties, as many as 85 per cent of the foreign hordes were from the United States. I watched literally thousands of my countrymen prostate themselves at the shrines of their new inspiration.

. . . . I heard them exclaim in hushed wonder over marvels that existed only in their quivering imaginations. I saw them stiffen in desperate resistance at the first contact with doubt. I watched them move like somnambulists among the food queues and horrors of a throttled and policed population, clapping their hands in glee over the lovely "sacrifices."

The Red Decade, p. 93 [1971 printing]

If this sounds familiar, it should. There is little difference between the dupes of the 1930's and today's "journalists," in whose eyes Obama can do no wrong.