First they came for the Communists...

WWI and WWII were against Fascism, which is what the Bush administration was rapidly approaching with the introduction of the Patriot Act. I am not a Christian Marxist but I do have a social conscience. We can’t obsess over Fascism to the point of ignoring Communism any more than we can obsess over Communism to the point of ignoring Fascism. We need to shun extremism.

Martin Niemoller’s poem starts off with First they came for the Communists. Then they came for the Jews. Then they came for the trade unionists. Then they came for the Catholics. Then they came for me. First they came for the Communists. Although old style Communists will exploit every socialist and trade unionist to accomplish their tyrannical goal, not all Communists support tyranny.

In fact the ideal of true Communism is to oppose tyranny. As I’ve said before, I had a friend at the Post office who thought I was a Communist for the same reason I thought he wasn’t – we both believed in democracy and free speech. Some obsess over Capitalism and claim that is a democratic society so we need to remove democracy to overcome Capitalism. Not so.

Capitalism is not Democracy it is a condition that rises in a democratic system. Not all Capitalism is bad. Prospering from the fruit of your own labour is good. Greed and exploitation is bad but Capitalism in itself is not. Likewise abandoning social justice out of a homophobic fear of Communism is equally insane. Just because someone wants affordable Medicare and has compassion for the elderly and the homeless does not make them a Communist. If it does, then yes I am a Communist. However, my definition goes beyond that.

Social justice is a Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh value. If Communism outlaws religion then social justice is bigger than Communism. Social justice is bigger than Capitalism because Corporate greed cares nothing about social justice. They obsess over profits above anything else. I would agree that Imperialism is wrong. That form of exploitation was practiced by England, France and Spain for many years.

Having said all that, notwithstanding the corruption in the CIA and the Bush administration, old style Communism still is a threat as well.

Corruption infiltrates good in many different ways.
That is the second law of thermodynamics.