Worshipping at the altar of the Hammer and Sickle

I’m constantly amazed at the world’s ability to demonize (rightfully) Adolph Hitler, and still idolize Stalin, Mao, and Che. The global, and suburban, obsession with Communism baffles me. I mean, I guess I can see that people think it’s this ideal thing where no one is hurt and everyone is equal. Sounds fabulous. Except that no matter how much you want it to be so, not everyone is equal. Just like no one is perfect, as was Hitler’s ideal. These worlds do not exist. Both are antithetical to nature and human nature. They will never succeed. The implementation of either of these ideals results in nothing but murder of the weak by the powerful.

If it’s so incredibly wonderful, why do so many risk their lives to get out? Shouldn’t people be beating Cuba’s or China’s doors down to get into the splendor that is Communist society?

Here’s a tidbit, can you guess how many people have been murdered under Communism’s banner, in the ruling class’ efforts to enforce “equality”? Take a wild gander. 1 million, 2 million, 6 million (the number of Jews murdered under the Third Reich), 15 million, 21 million (all the people murdered under Fascism from 1933-1945)? Nope. All gross understatements. Not even remotely close.

100 million dead so far. And just remember that Castro, Kim Jong Il, the Chinese Government, and the Vietnamese are all still at it. So, please would someone tell me why it’s still fashionable to wear a damn Che t-shirt? It’s not a fashion statement; it’s a political statement that condones mass murder above anything else. Even worse, some people (probably most, actually) know exactly what has happened through Communism's rule.

Anyone remember the movie Max from a couple of years ago? Probably not. It was about Hitler's early years. Ah, but The Motorcycle Diaries? You bet. Oscar nominations and the like.

Thank goodness for The Killing Fields, but that was in 1984 when Communism was our biggest and most feared enemy. No longer. Now Communism is chic.

Bridget Johnson eloquently discusses this Hollywood love of Communism in a column in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Now that "Motorcycle" has ridden into the awards sunset--ironically,
considering the nature of communism, also picking up two Independent Spirit
Awards--the sequel to Che canonization is on the horizon. Filming is scheduled
to start later this year on "Che," a Steven Soderbergh ("Traffic") vehicle
starring Benicio del Toro as the famed Marxist. The plot line as listed on the
Internet Movie Database: "An epic about Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, who fought for the people."

Annoying as the Che adulation is, a recent comment by a 14-year-old on
an online movie message board was truly disturbing: "I just saw The Motorcycle
Diaries, which further made me question: Why is communism bad? . . .
Young people are told how bad communism is, but we are not told why.
. . . The Motorcycle Diaries showed me how Ernesto Guevara wanted to
help people. . . . But this did not explain why he was such a 'bad'
person and apparently deserved to be murdered by the U.S."

How about a film on the Soviet Union, beginning with Lenin and the 1917
revolution, droning on to Stalin's purges with hundreds of thousands executed by
firing squad, and millions forced from their homes or carted off to labor camps?
We'd see Soviet bloc countries strangled under communist rule, Berlin divided
with concrete and snipers, Nicolae Ceausescu destroying historic Bucharest. We'd
see Soviet terror exported with the scorched-earth policy in Afghanistan.
Red China would make a stellar film that lacks a happy ending--for now.
Viewers would see Mao Tse-tung turn the colorful Chinese culture into a gray,
bleak "worker's paradise" steeped in hunger and executions. We'd see the Great
Leap Forward to devastating famine, murder and destruction in Tibet, women
forced to abort their children, and the blood of student demonstrators spilled
on Tiananmen Square. Complete the Asian film series with the "re-education" by
terror in North Vietnam, the Maoist insurgency in Nepal that has killed
thousands, and the hellish nightmare that is North Korea...

Guevara oversaw executions at La Cabana prison; some of those executed
were his former comrades who wouldn't relinquish their democratic beliefs. "To
send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary," he said. He didn't
assuage his barbarity by being a brilliant statesman, either, helping drive the
economy to ruin as head of Cuba's central bank and minister of industries.
"Though claiming to despise money," writes Fontaine, "he lived in one of the
rich, private areas of Havana." Guevara told a British reporter after the Cuban
Missile Crisis that the nukes would have been fired if they were under Cuban
control--which would have wasted all of those future American suburban
revolutionary wannabes.

Thanks also to Slate.com for on of the few negative articles about The Motorcycle Diaries in a sea of adulation.

For more stories on the toll of misery and death that Communism has left in this world, check here, here, here, and here.