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Friday, March 29, 2024 - 02:28 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Last April, a candidate for reelection to his House seat was asked during a town hall meeting to estimate how many in the U.S. Congress were “card-carrying Marxists or International Socialists.” Without hesitation, he responded, “There are about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.” He pointed to their membership of “the Congressional Progressive Caucus.” His frankness drew immediate attention, not only from media representatives locally, but some nationally.

The congressman who pointed the finger at this sizable number of colleagues is Allen West, the representative of Florida’s 22nd District, which is situated in a portion of southeastern Florida that includes Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. The response likely cost him his reelection. In the very tight 2012 race, he lost by a few thousand votes and didn’t concede defeat until almost two weeks after Election Day.

Allen West has always spoken his mind, and liberal opponents and media types frequently don’t like what he says. A 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army who retired as a lieutenant colonel, he described his combat role in the U.S. war against Iraq as another encounter in the centuries-old struggle of Western civilization against militant Islam. He protested the official display of a Palestine Liberation Organization flag flying in Washington. Of fellow Florida House member Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the national chairman of the Democratic Party, he opined that she was “vile, unprofessional and despicable.” He urged his constituents to read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals because Obama studied and used Alinsky’s organizational tactics. (Alinsky dedicated his book to the “greatest revolutionary of all time — Lucifer.”) But it was his comment about Marxists in Congress that drew the most intense condemnation, almost all of it from people who have little knowledge of history.

Most Americans have a deservedly negative view of the man known as Karl Marx. Many know that he authored the Communist Manifesto in 1848. The book is notorious for having given rise to the conquests of scores of nations and decades marked by murder, terror, and misery for millions. Today, sadly, most Americans have been led to believe that, as bad as communism’s triumphs were, they’re all in the past. “Communism is dead” is a popularly held attitude. Many Americans don’t realize that both communists and socialists still rely on the Manifesto, with each of these two partners in crime claiming it as theirs.

Awareness of some history, however, shows that West’s response was on target. After rising to prominence among the world’s totalitarian- minded criminals, Marx was named honorary secretary of the newly crafted Socialist International in 1864. While not terribly significant for a time, the group saw a rebirth in Paris in 1889, an attempt by its communist faction to consolidate in 1921 in Moscow when it was renamed the Communist International (Comintern), and still another try to unite all of Marx’s followers in 1923 at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany. More internal squabbling among the group’s violence-prone communists and more patient socialists continued to erupt. All of these conflicts notwithstanding, both factions were always united in seeking a common goal: socialistic world government. Anyone who recalls that the initials USSR stood for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not communist republics, can grasp the close connection prevailing among Marx’s descendants.

In our country, the principal affiliate of the Socialist International is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) based in New York City. DSA boasts of working hand-in-glove with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose recent list of members shows 78 Democrats and one Independent, Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders. In a 2010 report to the Communist Party USA’s National Convention, Party official David Bell called the Congressional Progressive Caucus “our allies in Congress.” Current Progressive Caucus co-chairs are Congressmen Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Raul Grijalva of Arizona. One of its vice chairs is newly elected Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. All Progressive Caucus members swear an oath to abide by the limitations in the U.S. Constitution, but all are more loyal to the DSA, their own Marxist caucus, and, ultimately, to the Communist Manfesto. They support increasing socialism here at home and are consistent backers of UN empowerment — both key goals in the drive for world government sought by communists and socialists.

So, Allen West was correct in linking many of his congressional colleagues to Karl Marx. He may have stepped over a small line when saying they were members of the Communist Party, but he was on target in indicating their favoritism for Marx. After West’s reelection defeat, the top Republican leader in Georgia contacted West and suggested that he relocate to Georgia (where West was born and raised) and run for one of its congressional seats. Whether he will do as suggested remains to be seen.

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John F. McManus is Publisher of The New American. Used by permission from The New American, Issue December 24, 2012.

 

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