greytrek.com

Seeking Veracity

bauto@greytrek.com

I thought about "Marxism in America" by Lt. Gen. Boykin seriously, and am providing my perception of trends in America.

Someone once said that there is no one more ignorant than an expert speaking outside of his area of expertise. Gen. Boykin was most likely an excellent Green Beret -- at least I hope that he was -- and he undoubtedly served his country well. For that he is to be commended. But I believe that his perception, offering some facts but mostly opinions, that we are on a trend toward Marxism/socialism, is highly flawed. He identifies six factors that, he believes, supports his theory. I hereby offer a rebuttal point-by-point. 

First, he states that the march toward Marxism entails nationalizing major sectors of the economy. That is correct. But then he goes on to state that that is what the bailouts were. Wrong. The bailouts were made to strengthen the private sector -- banks, wall street, the auto industry, etc. Where the govt. took partial ownership of a company, that was a temporary measure, and the stock was to be sold off as soon as possible. The govt. loaned GM $50B and took a 60.8% stake in the company. To date, to the best of my knowledge, GM has paid back $6.7B and the govt. has sold 75% of its stock holdings. Other than the Obama stimulus package, there have been no other movements made by the national govt. to nationalize any industry. But there is a trend under way by local and state governments to sell off govt. assets to private interests. So the overall trend is away from govt. nationalization of economic sectors.

Second, he states that Marxism includes a redistribution of wealth. Again, that is correct. But he then uses health care -- specifically Medicare and Medicaid -- as examples of Marxism in America. Medicare is an insurance program that is paid for by users, albeit not sufficiently to cover the entire bill, but that could be fixed. If, for example, everyone bought into Medicare, including the young and healthy, it would be more financially viable. That approach would be single-payer insurance. "Obamacare" is not even that, as it requires the client to use private insurance companies. A balanced economy socializes those aspects of life that should be socialized, and leaves to private industry those things that free-enterprise does best. We have a socialized military (including health care), police, homeland security, infrastructure, parks, education and welfare, to name some. Programs such as Social Security and unemployment benefits are insurance programs which, for the most part, are paid by the users. There is always a push-pull between the minority wealthy folks who want lower taxes, less regulation and reduced government and the more needy majority population who are often on the short end of the stick. Finding a proper balance -- a middle ground -- is healthy for all. We are now drastically out of balance. According to new census date, the top 10% of U.S. households in 2009 had 56% of the wealth -- up from 49% in 2005. The disparity among racial/ethnic households is very bad, with median wealth for whites at $113,149, Hispanics at $6,325 and blacks at $5,677 -- the worst in 25 years. (Pew Research Center) This imbalance is not healthy, and could lead to increased unrest and violence if not improved upon. Every country in the world has a mixed economy that has some capitalism and some socialism, including such countries as Russia, China and Cuba. The only difference is the degree of socialism vs. capitalism, regulation vs. no regulation, taxes, etc.

Third, he says that a Marxist govt. discredits the opposition. True, but all forms of governments also do that. Political parties always label the opposition as having bad policies. The extreme left attacks right-wing religious groups, Tea Party groups and 2nd Amendment supporters, and the extreme left even attacks returning veterans. The extreme right-wing attacks anything it considers "progressive", such as pro-choice folks, etc. But Gen Boykin is wrong when he sees no criticism of Islamic terrorists. Everyone I know takes a strong position that we must be on guard and root out all terrorists, whether Islamic or home-grown crazies.

Fourth, Gen. Boykin sees an increase in censorship, using hate crime legislation as an example, which he believes was targeted at pastors to silence them. While I don't like the hate crime legislation, as I believe it is too broad and general, I believe it was aimed at the population in general, not simply a subset of the population. He then states categorically -- and falsely -- that most mainstream media are on the left. In fact, the statistics show that 90% of talk programs are conservative. Further, most media is owned and controlled by big money, and that is hardly leaning to the left of center. If liberal reporters wrote news stories that were biased toward the left, they would soon find themselves reined in or on the street. I do agree that "political correctness" has run amok and should be curtailed. A free society must allow open discussion of all viewpoints and, for the most part, we the people have that right without harassment.

Fifth, he brings up the gun control issue, claiming that the current President and Secretary of State support more control over weapons -- buying and selling them-- citing their support of the United Nations Small-Arms Treaty, which he believes would limit our 2nd Amendment right. According to both FactCheck and Snopes, this is false. The UN proposal is only a concept, and no language has been drafted. But even if drafted and signed by the United States, it would not and could not limit our citizens' constitutional rights under the 2nd Amendment. Gen. Boykin's statement is irresponsible; he had a duty to research this issue before falsely making his claim.

Sixth, and finally, Gen. Boykin believes that Obama wants to develop a constabulary force, apart from the military, that can control the population -- a national civilian security force -- like those that exist in societies he cites-- Cuba, Russia and China. To support this, he states that there are paragraphs in Obama's health care legislation that allows the commissioning of officers who would work directly for the President in a time of national crisis. This sounds to me like a paranoid conspiracy theory, as I have never heard of this before, so I would have to see a lot more evidence for this claim to be credible. If such language is there, what would constitute a national crisis, and how would a force be put into effect? After all, a president, any president, and already call out the National Guard in any major crisis. This has been done in the past, such as when Ike called out the forces during the school integration issue in the south.

It is my opinion that a much greater threat to our country than Marxism is a movement toward fascism, which can be seen in the increased influence by big money interests, working with govt., to manipulate and control we the people. The Citizens United ruling opened the floodgates of big money influence, including hidden money, that poses a major long-term threat to our system of govt. Even without Citizens United, there was a trend in that direction. For an interesting read on this subject, I am attaching an article on fascism in America, written over a year ago. Things have only gotten worse since then.

Here's the general's video presentation