Inexplainable Paradox

Russian Communism = evil gulag

Cuban Communism = benign Eden

Flaws

Flaw in Islam: Too Intolerant

Flaw in Hinduism: Too Tolerant

Flaw in Buddhism: Too Mystical

Flaw in Scientology: Too Militant

Flaw in Climate Religion: Unproven

Flaw in Christianity: Socialism

Flaw in Socialism: Human nature

Flaw in Capitalism: Greed

Flaw in Democracy: Tyranny of the Majority

Flaw in Communism: Too Authoritarian

Flaw in Feminism: Too Bombastic

Flaw in Diversity: Nonjudgmental

Flaw in Inclusion: Judgmental naïveté

Headlines

Trump impeachment  witnesses leave a trail of tantalizing clues

S&P 500 jumps to record high on strong earnings, trade-deal progress

Trump greeted by boos, chants of ‘lock him up’ at World Series game ...

Impeachment witness Bill Taylor led Ukraine delegation for group advised by Hunter Biden

Brown: California fires show ‘the horror’ world will face from climate change

Chart analysts say new record gives investors the green light to jump back into bull market

Russia ‘doubts’ it [Baghdadi takedown] took place ...

Report: Democrat [Rep.] Kate Hill to resign

Trump says phase one of China trade deal is ‘ahead of schedule’

Cramer on stock record: We need apologies from trade-war naysayers who said US would be damaged

Survey: 1 in 3 millennials see Communism as favorable ...  70% likely to vote socialist ...

FNC’s Wallace presses Pence: ‘Why didn’t the president notify’ Pelosi

May Day

A gambol of mixed-up millennials celebrating the joys of communism.

History Lesson

The persistence of Socialism (and its evil twin, Communism) is one of the best examples of mankind's stubborn inability to learn from the difficult lessons of history. This, of course, advantages those who can fathom the counterintuitive nature of Capitalism -- Greed creates Wealth, whereas Charity creates Poverty.

Cuba No, Yankee Si

President Obummer travels to Cuba Sunday to prostrate himself in front of this decrepit monument to Communism. He, of course, has taken this opportunity in his last months in office to try to burnish his tarnished legacy by emulating Nixon's opening to China. This bit of capitulation would make some sense if there was any indication that the Castro brothers were inclined to relax their iron grip on this island nation. Unfortunately this seems not the case. Even Obummer's meeting with dissidents while there seems to be a staged production with very little chance that he will encounter the genuine articles ... see: L. A. Times Story.

In his last debate appearance in Miami, Marco Rubio excoriated Obummer for this Cuban trip saying:

Nothing will change for the Cuban people … In fact things are worse, than they were before this opening. The only result of “the opening” was that the Cuban government had more sources of money.

See: The Guardian Story for more details.

Lastly, do not be surprised if Obummer, while groveling in Havana, does not cave in on our relinquishing of the U.S. Guantanamo Bay naval base ... much like the then-President Jimmy Carter caved on returning the U.S. Canal Zone to Panama. This of course would force Congress to allow his clearing this prison of Islamist combatants ... which would be another sour taste of Obummer's egotistical rule.

Afterward: See: USA Today Story.

Tinfoil-Hat Time

An astrophysicist at CalTech claims to have found possible evidence of a parallel universe ... see: USA Today Story. Supposition of one or more parallel universes, with different rules of existence, have kept science fiction writers busy for decades. But, if this new evidence bears fruit, all types of new fanciful suppositions should now come bursting forth into the tinfoil-hat kook-a-sphere. For instance, how about the thought that, in this parallel universe, people can self-identify as black even though they have no African DNA. Or perhaps, men with penises can claim to be females and demand to be given access to women's locker rooms. Or perhaps one religion in this parallel universe can crucify apostates, burn them alive, enslave them, or demand tribute payments from them ... yet still be called a " religion of peace."

There, there might even be beings who chop up their unborn claiming that they are only hunks of protoplasm. Or, perhaps the prevailing economic rule states that "to each according to his need ... and, from each, according to his ability." In this wonderful parallel universe, the gas that is the fundamental basis of all life, such as our CO2, can be government-labeled a "pollutant." And there the wife of a former supreme leader might feel she should be the next supreme leader only because she lacks the equivalent of a Y chromosome.

This alternate universe surlely has a lot of strange goings-on.

True Colors

Pope Francis has come out of the closet ... finally revealing that underneath all that white silk and ecru satin his true color is red. His "holiness" is on a trip to the radical-left countries of South America (Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador) and, in a speech in Bolivia, he let loose with both papal barrels ... calling global capitalism "the dung of the devil" and said that it is a "subtle dictatorship ... that enslaves men and women" ... see: New York Times Story/ Wow! Pretty heavy stuff from a man who lives in a wealth-filled castle surrounded by supplicants whose only purpose is to serve his slightest whim. And this is even heavier hypocrisy when this man can look around him in South America and see what communism invariably brings to its followers ... abject poverty and a loss of their basic freedoms.

Can this man not see what communism has produced? If he were to take just a few moments to understand how China's embracing even the wisps of capitalism has changed this country from a bunch of bypassed beggars into a nation of potentially untold wealth. If capitalism is the engine of wealth creation, then its opposite, communism, is the engine of penury which constantly enslaves people ... causing them only to envy the wealth next door wrought by capitalism. That is, except for the communist party elites who are not a subtle but a true dictatorship ... yet still enjoying what little wealth that they can suck out of their oppressed subjects. It is not capitalism that destroys countries, it is that perennial Utopian dream of pure communism ... which somehow is never achieved ... but still, after untold failures, it is this demagogic carrot that propels poltroons to power.

Are the downtrodden of Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador risking life and limb to emigrate to communist Argentina? I don't think so! No, in their naivete, they are striving to find a home in the capitalist United States. This should tell the pontiff something ... if he were only to listen.

What’s in A Name?

Would a rose still look so red?  Hillary Clinton wrote her mini-opus, It Takes a Village,  propounding her political meme that self-determination is bad and collectivism is good. And I just re-read the poem, “No Man is an Island” by John Donne (see: The Poem ) in an e-mail by a “progressive” thinker of a close friend … as a way of showing the way to his nirvana (“It tolls for thee”).  

Now Van Jones, one of Obama’s original Socialist henchmen (and now a MSNBC contributor no less) has coined a new portmanteau term “communitarian” as a way of camouflaging his hard-leftist theology … see: Breitbart Story.  Even Obama’s inaugural address dances around the notion that rugged individualism in the United States is now passé:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all societies [sic] ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character. [Hey, sounds good!} 

[But, wait!] For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. [The ideological curtain is raised]

I am constantly awed by how persistent a failed political movement can be.  Thirty years ago, we thought Communism was dead.  It had proven itself to be a precursor to totalitarianism over and over again (Pol Pot, Stalin, Castro, Mao, Sukarno, etc.).  Yet on-the-make politicians seem continually to trek back to drink from this tainted trough so as to rally their naive proletariat to a cause that seems so magnanimous and Christ-like.  And, only when the hook in firmly planted in the tender mouths of these fish, do they realize, too late, that they are not to be fed, but to feed.