Knowledge is power: We need to know what we don’t know
30th November 2020 · 0 Comments
Black Americans know that the education levels playing field and generation after generation in Black communities have passed down this knowledge and urged their offspring to secure the highest education possible.
Taking this sage wisdom to heart, The Louisiana Weekly has always believed that education is the pathway to success.
We also believe that to be educated does not mean you have to have a whole lot of alphabets behind your name.
It does mean being curious and being open to listening and understanding and knowing when you don’t know something and not being too stubborn to admit it to yourself. The Book of Proverbs in the Bible tells us, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
To that end, the elites in the world have an ally in COVID-19. This pandemic has gone a long way in accomplishing what they strive for, a populace that settles for not knowing what they don’t know and who are blindly loyal to those in authority.
If Donald Trump and the Republicans have taught us nothing else, they have taught us that we need not seek the truth but believe whatever they say is gospel.
They use buzz words that we’ve been taught to believe are bad words. And we automatically believe they are bad without knowing if they are or not. Republicans have used a form of subliminal seduction on Americans for centuries.
For example, beginning in the 20th century, Republicans made “liberalism” a bad word and “conservatism” a good word.
In reality they are just the opposite.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law. Conservatism is a political and social philosophy characterized by respect for American traditions, republicanism, limited government, support for Christian values, pro-business, opposition to trade unions, strong national defense, free trade, protectionism and anti-communism.
Recently, the Republicans have weaponized the words socialists, communists and anti-fascists and have thrown them at us every day all day to describe their Democratic opponents. We hear these words and automatically think negative.
And we’re not here to say they are or aren’t – we’re here to tell you what they mean – because lately we’ve heard them used all in the same sentence to describe people.
The question is, can someone really be all of them? We were curious, so we did a deep dive into the meaning of these words.
To begin with, socialism and communism are both economic and political ideologies. There are different types of socialism, but we wanted to understand the way the Republicans used both words to instill fear in voters in this past presidential election.
Basic socialism is defined as an economic and political system. It is an economic theory of social organization. It believes that the means of making, moving and trading wealth should be owned or controlled by the workers.
Communism is defined as a political and economic ideology; a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed and it is based on a theory that advocates for the elimination of private property.
The main difference between the two is that socialism is compatible with democracy and liberty, whereas communism involves creating an “equal society” through an authoritarian state, which denies basic liberties.
During the 2020 presidential election, Republicans branded Democratic presidential candidates as socialists.
“Biden, Harris and their socialist comrades will fundamentally change this nation,” Trump campaign adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle warned. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, asserted that Biden would be taking orders from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the four congresswomen known as the “Squad.” “Their vision for America is socialism,” Haley said. “And we know that socialism has failed everywhere.” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said, “Democrats have chosen to go down the road to socialism,” National Public Radio reported.
The “S” word is a charge Republicans have leveled against Democrats for decades,” says Thomas Alan Schwartz, a Vanderbilt University history and political science professor. “Democrats have tended, through regulation and other ways, to be more empowering of the federal government and in regulating the economy than the Republicans,” Schwartz says, “and this has been called socialism.”
In 1945, when President Harry Truman, a Democrat, first proposed a national health insurance program, which evolved to what we now know as Medicare; Republicans opposed it, arguing it was socialist. And earlier New Deal programs, including Social Security, were similarly labeled.
In 2016, the Republicans’ full frontal attack and misbranding of the entire Democratic Party as socialist began with their criticism of former presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), a self-described “Democratic Socialist.” In 2020, the Republicans accused the Democrats of being socialists and communists; and singled out Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who also identify as Democratic Socialists.
In doing so, the Republicans followed the destructive “Red Scare” playbook of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) who stirred up fear in the United States of communists infiltrating the country by saying that communist spies were omnipresent, and he was America’s only salvation, using this fear to increase his own influence.
However, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib’s vision of democratic socialism is more aligned with Scandinavian nations such as Denmark and Sweden where universal health care and a wide range of social benefits – and higher taxes – are the norm, but capitalism still prevails, rather than with the socialism practices in countries such as Venezuela and Cuba, where the state does control major industries, and authoritarians rule.
Democratic socialists advocate for redistribution of income and wealth through a progressive tax system and welfare state; ownership of key public sector utilities, such as gas, electricity, water, and railways; private enterprise and private ownership of other industries, free health care and free public education provided by direct taxation; support for trade unions, minimum wages, and labor market regulations to protect workers; and government regulation of monopolies, housing markets and the environment.
The United States operates on capitalism.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism is the extent of government intervention in the economy. A capitalist economic system is characterized by private ownership of assets and business. A capitalist economy relies on free-markets to determine price, incomes, wealth and distribution of goods. A socialist economic system is characterized by greater government intervention to re-allocate resources in a more egalitarian way.
Finally, we come to Donald J. Trump Sr.’s mischaracterization of the Anti-Fascism Movement.
Trump demonized the term “anti-fascism.” On the campaign trail, Trump railed against “Antifa,” and accused anti-fascists of violence and domestic terrorism. Trump referred to “Anti-fa” as if it were an organized group, but it isn’t. It is a movement of people opposed to fascism.
Exactly what is fascism? Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler the leaders of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were both fascists.
“Eluard Luchell McDaniels traveled across the Atlantic in 1937 to fight fascists in the Spanish Civil War. The 25-year-old African American from Mississippi commanded white troops and led them into battle against the forces of General Franco, men who saw him as less than human. It might seem strange for a Black man to go to such lengths for the chance to fight in a white man’s war so far from home – wasn’t there enough racism to fight in the United States? – but McDaniels was convinced that anti-fascism and anti-racism were one and the same,” according to a June 24, 2020 article published by Smithsonian Magazine.
Looking back, one can see that fascism and racism are intertwined. Hitler took racism to new heights, having learned hate from the example set by the U.S. Confederacy and slave-masters. Hitler enslaved the Jewish people and exterminated them in the name of creating an Aryan Nation (composed of a pure race of white people). Hitler believed in white superiority, white privilege and white supremacy.
Now we know what many of us may not have known. When the terms of socialism, communism, and antifa are thrown in our faces by Republicans, we now have the knowledge to understand their motives and to discern what is true and not true. Class dismissed.
This article originally published in the November 30, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
