Week of 06/28/2010

The GOP: The Real Party of Lenin
– by David Matthews 2

I’m sure this is going to make some old Cold War fighters blanche when they read this… but it seems that the GOP, formerly the Party of Abraham Lincoln, the Party of Ronald Reagan, and the Party of the Bush Family, apparently has a new patron figure, and they have been quick to adopt his tactics.

I’m sure some of you might think that their new figure would be someone like Rush Limbaugh, or maybe even Glenn Beck. Maybe someone historical like Senator Joe McCarthy or General Douglas MacArthur. You’d be getting warm, but you’d be off by about forty years.

On the surface, the GOP’s ongoing insurrection and political sabotage may appear to be nothing more that stubborn sour grapes over losing power, but historically, this tactic was successfully carried out by someone that the GOP would publicly condemn and castigate, but would be considered by many in his time to be a great idealistic leader. That is… if you lived in Russia.

That leader’s name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov… although he would later change his last name to Lenin.

Lenin was a revolutionary. A student of Marxist leader Georgy Plekhanov, whom he met while in Siberia for plotting against Czar Nicholas II. He spent many years in exile, hiding from the Czar’s forces, trying to spread the word of Marxism, trying to get support for getting rid of the Czar, and yearning for the day when his fellow Russians would stand up and get rid of the old ruling system and pave the way for (what Marxists considered) “the future”.

Then one day, Lenin’s wish came true. The people DID stand up and revolt in 1917. They finally had enough. They forced the Czar to go into hiding, to abdicate his power.

Lenin got his revolution.

Unfortunately he wasn’t there when it happened!

Yes, the revolution that removed Czar Nicholas II from power happened in February of 1917, when Lenin was still in Switzerland. Worse yet, it started not from some grand scheme of political idealists or military leaders. It was started by a bunch of people complaining about the lack of BREAD!

When Lenin managed to return to Russia a few months later, the country was already under the control of a new government, one that promised to ease the misery that was responsible for the uprising in the first place. Obviously that would not be acceptable for Lenin or his supporters. How dare the people of Russia make change without them!

So what Lenin and his supporters did was they stymied that recovery. He venomously opposed the new provisional government, called for strikes and protests, especially when the provisional government decided to continue support of the war against Germany (which we today call World War I). When the provisional government condemned Lenin’s activities, when they finally moved to have him arrested, it only served to generate even more support among the people, who saw the provisional government as being nothing more than following through with the failed policies of Nicholas II. They believed they had just traded one failed government for another just like it.

In the span of just a few months, Lenin and his Bolshevik supporters created a social and political environment that was so toxic, so poisonous for any kind of progress, that by October of that same year, they were able to overthrow the provisional government and put themselves in charge.

Lenin finally got his revolution… and this time around it was on HIS terms.

Ninety-one years later, the circumstances are the similar, but the names and the country are different.

The country in dire social and economic straits now is the United States. Torn by not one but TWO wars, depleted by an economic recession not seen in generations, cities and states are strained to the breaking point to provide needed services and to help those in need.

And there even was a “revolution” of sorts by the people. The people were upset at the misery they were being force-fed and they chose new leadership. Unfortunately, this time around, the GOP are both the Czars AND the Bolsheviks. Thus they didn’t just “miss out” on the “revolution”… they were the victims of it.

The GOP are prepared to take over… but first they have to deal with the government already in charge.

And thus their grand scheme is to do what Lenin did… venomously oppose the new government, call of its ouster, and do everything within their power to continue the economic misery, to keep the masses so riled up that they would welcome that “second revolution” that would be on the GOP’s terms.

Let’s get brutally honest here… the GOP is engaging in the same tactics as the founder of the Soviet Union, the very enemy that America pledged to destroy for three generations! They are engaging in these tactics to keep Americans miserable. To keep them in pain and torment. Because they know that Americans will instinctively blame the people in charge, and will turn to anyone who promises to end it… much like the Russians did in October of 1917 when they turned to very people that were secretly keeping them miserable.

And to top it all off… the instigators of our continued misery are using their cohorts in talk radio to cover up the tactic by throwing about words such as “socialist” and “communist” about, to continually paint their opponents as being Marxists and communists, all the while they are employing those same tactics to keep the misery in the United States going. The wars that are not popular continue. The banks continue to screw over America. The businesses continue to screw over America. The help that Americans in trouble need is not there. And all the while dropping in little subtle hints of needing a “new revolution”. And the more those in charge condemn the talk of insurrection and the talk of “revolution”, it only serves to hurt the ones in charge, because the masses now start to believe that they have traded in one failed governing body for another one just like it.

This commentator certainly does not wish to see history repeat itself, especially when the architects of America’s misery have managed to paint themselves in both the roles of villain AND savior.

The best way to prevent history from repeating itself lies in the current administration not making the same mistakes as the Russians did for those few brief months in 1917. Their continual demand for compromise and consensus, their continual failure to prosecute the instigators of our misery, the continual failure to actually enact meaningful change to alleviate this misery that has plagued America for two years now, these are the things that are destroying their own credibility. These are the things that will compel Americans to turn to someone, anyone, who can promise to end their pain.

And right now, President Obama… right now, Democrats… YOU are not seen as the solution. YOU are seen as the continual problem. We have seemingly traded one failure for another, and that is not acceptable.

And that is exactly how the GOP… the REAL Party of Lenin… wants it!