Is America really turning "red"?
All Power to the Soviets!
For those who don’t know this is an old Soviet statement that highlights the strength of communist ideas that were, as we all know it, Soviet Union and other socialist states proclaimed, showed, and promoted.
Why I am telling you this, my dear Americans, or, because of the following trend, that I am about to discuss in five-second, shall I start to call you my American comrades?
The thing is that now American youth is more than ever considered socialism as an effective alternative to capitalism according to the Fox News article Millennials, Gen Z increasingly comfortable with socialism, Marxism, activists say.
How on earth America is turning red after the victory in the cold war over USSR and its allies?
I promise – it’s either me, Vodka, nor Vladimir (yes, the one you thought about, and it’s not Putin but Lenin). Vladimir Illyich Lenin!
Ironically, the end of the Cold War rather sent them underground than buried Marxist and other leftist ideas.
But do Americans need to consider this seriously?
Historian Lee Edwards, Ph. D., says that:
"What most millennials mean by 'socialism' seems to be a mix of our welfare state and what they perceive to be Swedish democratic socialism. But Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries including Denmark favor the free market and are content with private rather than government ownership of their major industries."
While historian is right in his observations, we all see that left ideas are becoming popular in the USA.
However, don’t get afraid, my dear Americans. Neither socialism nor communism would hardly become a dominant ideology in the USA. No businessmen, no CEOs, white-collar workers won’t want to lose their money and property for the sake of building a “world free of exploitation”. It's impossible the same way I will stop drink Vod… which is another big peer-reviewed topic to discuss.
I think that many millennials sympathize with these ideas because they proclaimed social equality. Thus, BLM, feminists, LGBTQ, and other organizations adopted Marxist ideas in their fight – or rather they believe they are fighting – against racism and other forms of oppression. This is certainly great, but consequences of these protests, like material damage worth millions of dollars, street anarchy, reversed racism, and aggressive rhetoric towards white people (yes, it does exist) once again confirms that leftist populism still dominates over real Marxist ideas that aimed to destroy oppression of any kind. Unfortunately, part of the American youth perceives and practices these ideas in a very superficial, one-sided, and distorted way.
Neither Karl Marx who was concerned about social inequality and nor Martin Luther King who was fighting against racism and racial prejudices would hardly accept the modern manifestation of the ideas they believed in.
Let me quickly speak about the manifestation of socialism. You’d be surprised, but the USSR, People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, Romania, and even Scandinavian countries that shared a lot of socialism traits had and have different views of socialism. I won’t go into details about these distinctions (there is a big number of books about it) but sometimes these approaches turned socialist states into foes. For example, China and USSR had a hostile relationship (so-called Sino-Soviet split) at the end of the 1950s. Modern China is a half-capitalist country and Scandinavian socialism is paired with a free market.
So, who is the real commie here?
Even USSR didn’t have “clear” socialism but rather had government capitalism. However, and despite Western Anti-Soviet propaganda USSR had a lot of benefits of socialism. For instance, the Soviet government gave its citizens free flats, free cars (though it took a lot of time to get it), free education, and medicine both of whom were considered one of the best in the world. USSR may not have product variety, but Soviet people didn’t bother themselves to struggle to find a job after graduation – a big issue millions of American millennials must deal with to some level.
Indeed, if we take growing national debt, expensive rents, employment problems, and the increasing gap between rich and poor in America we can see that capitalism is not great. However, American citizens of all generations and races remain a consumer society that won’t turn this country into the Socialist States of America.
Takie dela.