Communism, illusions of progress, from China to Ireland.

I mean people like to disrespect my
truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know you I'm gonna start by reading you a short passage from a New York Times article and I choose this article partly because it is unusually well written China's leaders confront an unlikely foe ardent young communists who I Joe of China they were exactly what China's best universities were supposed to produce young men and women steeped in the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party here we have a photograph of the students sharing an apartment an apartment that rented just have a space to help organize their struggle for labor unions and workers rights and here's a somewhat confused and confusing photo of the police in communist China showing up to shut that down the caption reads on August 24th the police raided the apartment the young activists and workers were sharing in hueco crushing their campaign for workers rights these are young people who became sincere communists just as the system was encouraging them to do and for that reason inexorably and inevitably they became enemies of the system what the system really wants our silent conformists people who will not question whoever's in charge not people who will actually read and understand the lessons of history being presented them in the textbooks not people who will ask obvious questions there's the one pose in the the sign being held up in this protest this is basically asking why doesn't the government support the factory workers instead of corrupt government officials um that's the sort of question you dare not ask so we'll come back to this but there's an update on this article is an even more more recent article this one is January 21st 2019 and it is obviously following this same group of university students as the Chinese government forced them to make confessions on videotape interrogated them put them in prison and it's really even too flattering the situation to say they were put in prison in the parlance of our times we would just say they disappeared their locations are unknown they never got a trial they never get a lawyer it's observed that in the videotaped confessions they seem thin and tired and seem to be reading from a script' you know the same type of punishment and repression that the communist government uses against anti communists they also use against Pro coffee mists that's the fundamental point here the same type of repression used against people who were actually part of for example the the Tiananmen Square protests or their pro-democracy movements of the democracy wall movement people who want freedom of speech democracy liberty or capitalism or Parliament or what they're going to say those people are oppressed the same way sincere believers in karl marx of repressed and that is itself really the ultimate indictment of communism that's the ultimate proof that communism is a filled ideology both in theory and in practice now what do I mean if you go to Saudi Arabia everyone knows what the government ideology is and if you sincerely believe in and practice the government ideology of Saudi Arabia which is a certain form of Wahhabi Islam following a certain political career and so on and so forth if you followed the rules and you check all the boxes you're in and you're safe and you could be self confident in China nobody is ever safe nobody is self confident people who are themselves members of the Communist elite for example university professors who I knew face-to-face they live in constant fear you can never conform enough any other repressive regime you want a name China is worse I mean that sincerely and China is worse because communism is worse China is a country where only one man has freedom and today that man is President Xi Jinping so I continue reading from this article they the students read Marx Lenin and Mao and form student groups to discuss the progress of socialism they investigated the treatment of the campus proletariat including janitors cooks and construction workers they volunteered to help struggling rural families and dutifully recited the slogans of presidency Jinping then after graduation they attempted to put the party's stated ideals into action converging from across China last month on wage Oh a city in the south to organized labor unions at nearby factories and staged protests demanding greater protections for workers now again I made the comparison already to Saudi Arabia if you are a citizen of Saudi Arabia and you try to put the ruling party's ideals into actions you'll be embraced and accepted by the party it's very straightforward plenty of people do if you conform and keep up that let me ask Canada or the United States or even England what would it even mean for young people to get inspired and get together and try to take the party's ideals and put them into action whether you think of the Liberal Party or the Democrat Party or the Republican Party or the conservative party any mainstream party it actually becomes observed at a much earlier stage because these parties don't really represent any ideals of whole by the way I have I have Bernie Sanders book on my desk at this moment I'm gonna make some videos talking about the air SATs ideologies that Bernie Sanders presents to the new generation which you know for better enforce as advantage the disadvantages that might be an interesting exception but for the most part in the West we've gotten used to our political parties representing absolutely nothing other than a culture of complain whether the complaint is that taxes are too high and you want lower taxes it's the Republican Party or the complaint is you know you want free education for universal free University or something like this like Bernie Sanders is offering or better health care whatever the case might be um but yes you know the Communist Party of China represents an ideology it represents an economic theory it represents a philosophy the economic theory has been debunked the philosophy has proven to be murderous and disastrous the ideology became the laughingstock of the whole world back around 1989 to 1995 that was really I think the lowest point for communism and I am old enough to remember 1989 through 1995 1997 I was in University and every day there were communist organizations handing out magazines and leaflets and propaganda on campus I didn't see for my generation I didn't see Hari Krishna's doing that you know like I didn't see like religious cult groups doing that maybe once in a while Jehovah's Witnesses you see them on the streets so no but even and 1997 they were a complete laughing still you know and they were still out there still trying still trying to build the future that they inhabit today the authorities move quickly to crush the efforts of the young activists detaining several dozen of them and scrubbing the Internet of their calls for justice but not before their example became a rallying cry for young people across the country unhappy with growing inequality corruption and materialism in Chinese society quote you are the backbone of the working class close quote the protesters chanted at one rally addressing workers at an equipment Factory we share your honor and your disgrace I got email from a longtime viewer the channel a young man who has been influenced by this channel to get more involved with the Democratic parliamentary political process he's trying to make the world a better place as best he can and he found to his horror that the party he started supporting in Ireland which is a new party called people before profits the candidate in his writing the candidate in his County was openly calling for the abolition of capitalism and invoking the name of Karl Marx now I thought about whether or not I should take the time on camera here to actually read through the emails sent back and forth between these people because he sent me the emails which is quite appropriate in this case this is a public figure this is someone standing for election being questioned like you know a member of his own party who canceled his membership over this but way though you know why the question that was put to him was why do you still invoke the name of Karl Marx why do you rely on the authority in the philosophy of Marxism given that Marxism is linked to the deaths of millions of people given that it's such a terrible failure so on and so forth but I think maybe the most important thing of all is to zoom out and look at the big picture here he comments this is him writing to me not to his member Parliament he said I wanted to know about Irish politics and get involved but now I'm even more disillusioned and I haven't a clue who to vote for in future elections this is the kind of ultimate outcome of the revival of communism and I'd say it would be the same with various parties that have revived fascism and neo Nazism what they tend to rely on what this politician relied on is the blanket claim that communism and Marxism specifically are ideals that cannot be impeached by the world of real empirical experience he says as his excuse here he claims that communism has never actually been tried that it's never existed in the real world whenever you offer this kind of justification of all Vics pause and ask yourself if you'd accept that from the other side would you accept the neo-nazi party that made the same excuse and said well Nancy ISM was never really tried it was never implemented it's an ideal it's not so in the system and therefore Nazism isn't discredited by the real-world experience of what happens when the Nazis were power no no you would not um would you accept that even from liberals purveyors of liberalism would you accept them saying you oh well really a liberal economy has never existed because the liberal economy is something that's ideal and here's the definition the deal so there's never been a perfectly liberal economy or it's like that no obviously communist judge the real history of capitalism and liberalism and Nazism from the reality of what happened in the real world when those ideologies were put into practice and yes it's painful for me to behold this you know Irish politician again he's not a famous or powerful person he's a small example from a small county in a small country and it's you know it just happens to be someone who wrote in to me complaining of the local politician who's clutching at communist propaganda and telling this young man who joined his party and volunteer with the party he tells the joke man oh no no in order to understand Karl Marx you should look up these communist propaganda sources and actually took a minute to Google some of them are uniquely Irish communists profit sources but it's again it's just as sad and sick as if I'm how would you accept this from a neo-nazi would you accept a neo-nazi you says no no you can't understand the real history of fascism by reading these objective sources they're all propaganda just read this source written by our side written by some extremists written by some partisan that's the real truth unlike the and if I never rolls you wouldn't find it credible whether it was the neo-nazis of the Liberals or anyone else presenting this to you so communists are far left wingers you have to yet we wanted to to examine yourself in this light what is the final outcome of all this in China you've just seen when people try to sincerely practice communism they are shut down and snuffed out by the Communist Party itself and it's an absurd irony that in a Western parliamentary democracy like Ireland in pluralistic capitalist countries that really believe in freedom of speech we protect your right to propound and debate communism in a way that Communist Party ruled countries do not so we live in Taiwan most of the time homework back up right now in Taiwan the the Communists have more freedom than they have in communist China so you weren't homogeneous and for why eating a lot Shinjuku da da da Vinci Melissa's been with me you've seen this although they're small and number there were literally communist protesters pro-communist protesters on the streets in Taiwan exercising democratic freedom and privilege that they would not have in communist China even though Taiwan is at all times on the knife's edge of being conquered by Congress journey even though they really do have to deal with subterfuge and you know spies frankly coming over from Garmin's Tran despite that the principle of democracy of freedom of speech and pluralism is so important that they protect that right even for communists and with the in communist countries they do not not even for sincere young university students who want to put those ideals into practice who want to do things like helping poor in downtrodden factory workers the ultimate price for this illusion is precisely the disillusionment it brings everyone who would possibly be worth participating in politics with I think that was a poorly structured sentence the point is this these ideologies they are going to attract and solicit conformity from some of the stupidest and most vile people in the whole world and I speak from experience because many members of my own family were devoted passionate communists their whole lives long they never out of it they never stopped making excuses for the massacres and Tiananmen Square and the massacres in Tibet they never grew out of it they never let go of those excuses not even after the Berlin Wall fell on it for them it never ends and that is every bit as pathetic as growing up around neo-nazis of keep making excuses for fraid of Hitler it really is it's no better I've seen that and those people are still out there and those people some of them they don't even know who they are yet but they're gonna see something that appeals to them in this simple solution that's proposed for complicated problems when I was living in a communist country Laos I was being questioned by my girlfriend at the time who was low shouldn't grow up in laws she was asking me what it was my parents found appealing about communism because of course for her country communism has just been a disaster everyone everyone just it's just a crummy system of government and Laos I mean it hasn't been a disaster the way Cambodia was as a minute a bit disasters where Russia was but nevertheless it's a long term slow burn disaster everyone there knows they'd be better off government more like Japan for example in whatever terms they think of that she said what what was it that your parents found so appealing about communism and I said to her you know what has a lot to do with Vietnam there's a lot to do with Laos as well do with this country from my parents generation they grew up with so much hatred against the United States of America that all they cared about finding in communism was an ugly fist that threatened the power threatened the agenda of the USA and they would believe in and support any ideology that just offered to put a stop to to put some kind of threat or counterbalance against the United States of America I said I think for them that was the first step that's the first motivation within a course it's not the last step they take it further and further from there and there are people who have that same kind of hatred in their hearts today and I think it mostly is hatred against American imperialism whether that's because they've they've seen film footage of people being you know burned to a crisp in Iraq or Afghanistan whatever the war is in our times that you know breaks their heart and turns them against you know the the never ending wars that sustain American hegemony whether it's in you know the Middle East or South America or what have you so for many people still today that is the first step so there are going to be those people who buy into the illusion with whatever mixes motivations and keep on clinging to it forever and ever and ever but as I said before my poorly structured sentence the real cost of this illusion precious though it may be to those people some of the worst people in the world the real cost is the disillusionment of those for precisely the most of inclusion in the democratic process and he wind up like this young man feeling that they don't know where to go they don't know who they can talk to they don't know who to trust after they got involved with mainstream parliamentary politics and found out that a seemingly sincere quote-unquote Socialist Party and pursued the same objectives as Bernie Sanders really was a front for Marxism really for communist I mean really people like to disrespect my truth but the fact is that you know my name is I don't know