Obama even more socialist than Mao tse Tung, how can we as a nation tolerate this?

China: Reshooting History in 'Founding of a Republic'

By ZOHER ABDOOLCARIM Zoher Abdoolcarim – Wed Oct 7, 12:40 pm ET

It's early 1949, China's in the endgame of its civil war and Mao Zedong's communist forces are poised to take Beijing. South of the Yangtze, in Nanjing, Mao's archfoe, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, holds court as the leader of the Republic of China and its Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government. But Mao believes that winning Beijing first will deal a mortal blow to the morale of the KMT. En route to what will be the future People's Republic's capital, he and his top lieutenants pause in a town that has been deserted by shopkeepers and merchants fleeing the revolution of the proletariat. As Mao laments being unable to buy even his favorite smokes, he soberly says to his comrades-in-arms: "We need the capitalists back."

It seems improbable that Mao would actually have expressed such a revolutionary sentiment at such a heady time. His was a movement driven by the cause of the exploited worker and peasant. Yet the scene appears... in The Founding of a Republic, a slickly produced (though ponderously paced) state-backed film to commemorate this year's 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. (See pictures of China's 60th birthday bash.)

The docudrama-style film begins in 1945 with the then temporarily allied communists and Nationalists celebrating the defeat of the Japanese and culminates with the declaration of the People's Republic by Mao at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It purports to tell the true and full story of the tangled dance between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT to forge a new, unified China. As you'd expect, many - but surprisingly not all - elements of the KMT are portrayed as malevolent and capricious, and the CCP justly triumphs (of course!). Yet Founding goes beyond routine propaganda. What's striking is how the film exposes - intentionally, we would assume - some of the thinking of the Chinese leadership today. (Read "China at 60: The Road to Prosperity.")

China's past 60 years can be divided into roughly two halves. First came the period of ceaseless revolution, with all the widespread turmoil and suffering it perpetrated. Then the time of gradual reform, which has brought greater prosperity and freedom than China has ever known, but which is still characterized by grave corruption and terrible injustice, under a stern authoritarianism. Today, China is many things, often contradictory: rich and poor, open and closed, liberated and oppressed, confident and insecure. But it decidedly isn't Marxist or even Maoist. (See pictures of modern Shanghai.)

Because the CCP now gains its legitimacy almost solely from the material wealth it has created, and is communist only in name, it has to recast the past to justify the present. Thus, in Founding, class struggle is hardly depicted or mentioned. Mao not only needs a capitalist to provide him with a cigarette; he and his cohorts admit they are ignorant about economics, which they acknowledge is essential to running the country. The message: Mao was great at consolidating the nation under the communist banner, but he was clueless about development; it's today's CCP that made the new new China - modern, strong, feared.

With the civil war practically won, Mao is also shown to be assiduously wooing assorted Chinese politicians, most notably intellectuals who saw the revolution as a chance to usher in democracy. This way, the CCP can be promoted as a party with roots in a broad-based political movement and not just in the spoils of war - thus further boosting its authority. Taiwan figures, too. Mao tries to persuade Li Jishen, an influential southern China figure aligned with the KMT, to join the communist government. Li confesses to Mao that he is responsible for the deaths of many communist cadres. Mao’s reply: Let’s forget the past and begin a new future. That’s directed at Taipei - part of Beijing’s ongoing charm offensive toward Taiwan, once relentlessly denounced as a renegade province.

Then there's the Sinophile John Leighton Stuart, son of missionaries to China and U.S. ambassador to Chiang's Nanjing government. At the time, the real-life Mao vilified Stuart as an agent of American aggression toward the communists. In the film, Stuart, as well as the U.S. State Department, is lukewarm toward Chiang and the KMT - reflecting, perhaps, Beijing's desire to maintain the momentum of its improving diplomatic ties with Washington. (Last November, the Chinese acceded to a four-decades-old request by Stuart's family to have his ashes buried in a cemetery in Hangzhou near Shanghai.)

Political rulers everywhere rewrite and use history for their ends. But as China looms ever larger in the global consciousness, anything we can glean about its leadership is especially valuable. There's one moral in Founding, however, that Beijing probably did not intend. Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek' s son, is briefing his father about his fight to rid the KMT of corruption and injustice. Chiang praises his son's idealism - and gently advises him to desist so as not to undermine the KMT at a critical juncture in the civil war. "If you go ahead," says Chiang, "you lose the party." But, the Generalissimo quietly adds, "If you don't, you lose China." That's a message China's present leaders would do well to heed.

 

Obama is a Marxist ideologue. He's an ABHORRENCE to freedom loving, self-reliant capitalistic Americans.

He did, however, apparently receive the majority vote from the "want something for nothing" crowd by promising free ice cream.

As it's human nature to want to exercise influence and control over others... and now that he and the Libtards have full power in the Congress, they are likely to cram many unfortunate and distasteful laws down our collective throats... just because they can.

 

yes, not sure how they let a black be president. I hope Cheney's daughter runs for president so we can get the white house back. We need this economy to stay bad for the GOP to get back in power to fix things. Obama needs to fail or people will start to look up to him.

 

Nice try. You are definitely a Liberal posing as a conservative, saying rediculous things in order to make the Republicans look bad.

GOP_trader......LOL

 

When you're hoeing a field of weeds at the point of gun then get back to me.

 

You guys need a dictionary. Find out what socialism and communism mean before misappropriating the terms. Clearly if anything we are closer to fascism. Obama, like any president republican or democrat is meaningless. Party squabbling is not helpful, and in fact only serves the purposes of those interested in maintaining the status quo. Both sides are crooked. Corporations hold the reins.

 

You're an idiot. There is nothing about Marxism that precludes 'freedom'. Marxism is an ECONOMIC term; Freedom is a political term. Not only are they NOT mutually exclusive, you CANNOT have a Marxist (Communist) government WITHOUT Democratic freedom.

Stop using the authoriatarian governments of the Soviet Union and China as examples of Marxism. Both of these societies were/are authoratarian for many thousands of years: you CANNOT move from authoratarian to Communism without going through DEMOCRATIC processes.

The USA is socialist whether you want to admot it or not. Public education, interstate highways, Medicare, Social Security and other common endeavors are a testement to that. We (progressives) have to fight tooth & nail for each bit of progress we make but, in the end, these policies ALWAYS become accepted standards.

 

False

 

Oh yeah, I see the light now, it didn't work anywhere, ever, but it could work here, this time... LOL

Your public education is a sure fire example of what progressives can do... we had 99% literacy before you brought us the tender mercies of communism, a hundred years go by and people are graduating that can't read their diplomas... and Medicare is broke way ahead of schedule and SSI is right behind... and you assclowns are what got us public roads? Jeez, get your meds adjusted....

 

Ah, many leftists have seized power permanently, after being voted in democratically.

That is very hard to do in the US, but I have no doubt that Obama would love to do it if he thought he would get away with it.