Image by Democracy Chronicles via Flickr
Empire Files on Oct 10, 2015
The Empire has a range of weapons to maintain its power: from its courts to its military. But it also has effective ideological weapons.
Everyone in the United States knows that “socialist” or “communist” is considered a bad word. How did things get that way?
Abby Martin explores the history of anti-communism in America, and the heavy repression of an idea that became an unofficial religion.
From the archives:
The Looting Class and its Hoarded Gold by Danny Katch
Socialism According to Eugene V. Debs by Elizabeth Schulte
The Brief Origins of May Day by Eric Chase
The Socialist Alternative to a World of Injustice by Danny Katch
Eugene V. Debs: Why You Should Vote For Socialism Recited by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad 
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Time to get ‘them’ panicking again!
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interesting video Abby Martin.
Brian Becker discusses the modern socialism as reality at your fingertips:
as a labor movement against inequality, towards the right employment
and income, the right to have a home, free education; even before
talking about it as an ideology. After all, the communism rested its
bases on fundamental social needs, giving special attention to disadvantaged citizens. But, history teaches us that a well- fixed,
pampered society has nothing for which fight (survival)…It’s the right
time to reconsider and reexamine the socialism without any historical redundancy or excessive proselytism. Americans have always been honored as heros and liberators from Nazism in Europe, since the
Second World War. Never associated with capitalism till the 70’s
and 80’s.The system based on private ownership (capitalism) has
always been seen like unreliable, deceptive and temporary (with “a
negative connotaton”, especially in central -south and eastern Europe).
I think that people need to look ahead instead of remaining mired
in the past. And, above all, that all the Constitutions were written
by the people and for the people.
I’m not trying to be mean here, but my compulsion compels me to tell you, the blogger, that your stuff would be more powerful if you learned to write the language, viz: The contraction ‘it’s’ means ‘It is’. The word ‘its’ is the possessive form, as in “The cat has hair between its toes. It’s going now to wash its feet.”
No offense intended. It’s just that this kind of stuff drives me absolutely wild.
Deke
It’s corrected now. It was a typo in the original and has since been corrected but not until I already copied it here and didn’t notice it. I try not to edit other people’s writing as you can see it is in a blockquotation.
You know what bothers me? Injustice, violation of human rights, death of innocent civilians and capitalism.
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Great work Abby, exceptional archival evidence! Awesome narrative. Immensely articulate interviews. Mega kudos to exec. producer Paul Jay’s team, incl. Roqayah Chasaddine and Mike Prysner (see credits.).
So what do we mean by “totalitarian?” Seems clear enough to me! Has the world changed? I think Sheldon Wolin captured the essence of the problem back in 2003, “inversion” as Chris Hedges has so tirelessly reiterated.
Fear is the supreme weapon of monsters. Every dictatorship, religious or secular, needs its devil to justify all measures to protect us from wickedness. A manufactured bogeyman that can be transformed at will into a “sycophant” of the state at the convenience of prevalent tyranny.
Once we dispel this insubstantial fiction of racist “supernatural” evil, what are we left with? Only humankind ~ sui generis. Our experience. The perennial buck actually stops with us, until “the extraterrestrial aliens” arrive.
That’s the whole story.
The quagmire for the individual is the present system of world power is a oppressive elite that enjoys power, war and cruelty to name just a few attributes, the problem of the mass population or possible socialist personnel is and difficult to know if this is a result of oppression throughout the ages? or a condition that is basic to the human condition? some may have had the generosity of heart directed to those who are not the highly privileged and often a spirited gesture having a repercussion of a unfortunate consequence for the generous.