Thursday, March 5, 1998
U.S. mustn’t emulate Socialism’s spotted record
From Cuba to China, nations without democracy abuse citizens
By Ryan Donlon
Leave it to the Daily Communist, oops, I mean the Daily Bruin,
to print an article such as Michelle Oberman’s anachronistic
"Social rebellion could right wrongs of U.S. conquest" in Monday’s
Viewpoint section. Michelle, your naivete is almost cute in a
certain way – but alas, your profound asininity makes me nauseous.
I will attempt to address your rambling diatribe of the United
States, but hopefully in an effort to do so, my response won’t
sound as disconcerted as your vitriolic manifesto.
You begin by referring to Desert Storm and the subsequent
economic/ military embargo as "U.S. Imperialism," but answer this
simple question: what does the United States stand to gain from an
embargo of Iraq? The sanctions are not self-serving, but instead
are aimed at ridding the Middle East of a destabilizing factor,
namely Saddam Hussein. The United States doesn’t benefit
economically by sanctioning Iraq; on the contrary, it is at great
cost that the United States maintains its presence in the Persian
Gulf region.
Next, you refer to imperialism as "a stage of capitalism," etc.
(Blah blah blah, fill in your own acrimonious tirade here.) It’s
good to see that you’ve been reading your propaganda literature,
specifically Vladimir Lenin’s "State and Revolution," in which he
describes the method for attaining the perfect communist state
through overthrowing the bourgeoisie capitalists. Sounds very
romantic until you see what really happened. Lenin’s successor,
Joseph Stalin, kills millions and places millions more in Siberian
work (read: death) camps because they might pose a threat to his
authority and the security of the Soviet Union.
If you truly believe that a socialist revolution is the answer
to the world’s ills, I have a couple of friends who survived the
first socialist movement whom you should speak with: Miklosh Sule,
for example, who fled Soviet-occupied Hungary when he was 18 to
avoid conscription. Miklosh tells me about his aunts and uncles who
were relieved of all their earthly possessions; some were murdered
for their political beliefs. He left all he had behind and spent a
year in a corrupt, Austrian refugee camp before obtaining a visa to
enter the United States. Or how about my friend Andrei Verona,
whose parents fled Romania after witnessing their neighbors being
rounded up from their homes and taken away, never to be heard from
again.
How can you subscribe to such an ideology which, upon even
cursory examination of its history, is filled with murder and
subjugation? Just look at the nations who remain communist: Cuba,
North Korea and China. People flee Cuba on small rafts rather than
remain in those dismal conditions. North Korea can’t feed its
population and is in absolute shambles, and I need only two words
to describe China: Tiananmen Square. Of course, I would not attempt
to claim that democracies have perfect records either, but the fact
is that communist states survive based on state-sponsored
oppression and tyranny.
While writing this letter, I have tried to remain detached from
emotion, but your utter ignorance and disregard for facts or
realism absolutely staggers the mind.Donlon is a second-year
student majoring in political science.