The True Heart of Communism

Here's a short but too-the-point posting on the BoingBoing site:

China Communist Party official who kept sex slaves in basement loses job

By Xeni Jardin at 12:36 pm Monday, Sep 26

A man who is accused of holding six women as sex slaves in a dungeon for two years and killing two of them has been terminated from his government post and stripped of his Communist Party membership.

I guess they are going to have to dig up Mao and strip him of his "party membership" since he was guilty of enslaving nearly a billion Chinese and killing 40 million Chinese. Sadly, we know they won't because slavery and killing people is at the heart of Communism. It has been there since the "communism" was founded when a minority split from the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and had the audacity to call themselves the "majority" (in Russian "Bolshevik").

Burying bodies is something that the political extremes of both the left and right love to indulge in. They both beat their chest over their "love of the people" but as best I can tell, they want robots not people and they are only too happy to kill those who don't fit their blinkered view of "the good life". The 20th century was the scourge of history because of political extremists on right and left indulged their fanaticism and left hundreds of millions of dead bodies littering that "stage of history".

Pierre Berton's "The Great Depression"

Pierre Berton is always a delight to read. His style is excellent. He melds broad history with personal detail to create a tapestry that maintains interest and gives a deeper understanding by blending policy with the effects of policy on real human lives.

This book is organized into chapters by years from 1929 to 1939 to tell the story of the Great Depression in Canada. It is a unrelentingly grim picture of the depression and the utter incompetence and indifference of political leadership to the savage effects of politicians that the rich elite on the lives of the 27% unemployed who struggled hard to keep body and soul together as year after year "hard times" ruined more and more of their lives.

The politicians simply never "got it". They never understood the depth of the pain and misery. They kept worrying about how to either deny relief benefits or to shuffle the costs from off their layer of government onto another. As well, the story shows how a weird ideological hatred for "commies" led the politicians to use the police to commit horrible crimes against the innocent. Even when they came down on real "commies" the brutal treatment by the police was all out of scope with any threat from the political agitators.

This is an ugly, raw, cruel portrait of a Canada so different from the Canada of today that I don't recognize it. This is a Canada that hates "ethnics" and paranoid about "commies". It is a state that is absolutely indifferent to suffering and a state that is never held accountable for its cruel treatment of those down and out through no fault of their own. It is a searing tale of political conniving to shred political rights in a mad hunt for "commies". The portrait of R. B. Bennett is one of a cruel rich man who simply refused to believe that the government should ever provide relief to the starving unemployed. Mackenzie King comes across as a cross between a crazed spiritualist/neurotic and a politician pettily scheming about his "image" while ignoring the real suffering of the people.

The only glimmer of hope is the bits about the founding of the CCF. But even here, the founder, J. S. Woodsworth, ends up being an idealist who fails to come to grips with the real evil of the Nazis and the need to face up to an impending world war.

Here are some bits from the book so that you can get a taste of the style and the focus on facts by Pierre Berton:

It is true that the Communists were using the unemployed for their own political ends.So, indeed, were the major parties. After his defeat, Mackenzie King viewed the unemployment crisis as a bonus for his own Liberals and a chance to get in a lick at Bennett. Although "sorry for the country's sake," he recorded on March 31 his satisfaction when told by Woodsworth and other Labour M.".s that things were far worse than they had been the previous year under a Liberal administration.

That the Communists were sincere is beside the point; after all, so was Hitler. The gospel according to Karl Marx made them just as blindly orthodox as their capitalistic opponents, who clung to the dogma of the balanced budget no matter what the cost in human suffering. Yet in the ranks of the Reds and, indeed, among the leadership there was also a sense of genuine outrage not unmixed with human compassion for those who had been felled by economic disaster.

Two topics covered by this book that I found especially interesting were laws used to suppress "dissent". One was Section 98 that banned "unlawful assemblies" and was wielded brutally. Even worse was the Padlock Law in Quebec that seized property when the police "found" communist literature, but was so broadly used that it was invoked to seize Protestant literature from an evangelizer. These laws were used in the most heavy-handed way and the broad public simply ignored the effect: rights and liberties were cast to the wind. Here's Berton:

Section 98 was in force for fifteen years. It was the government's big stick against radical thought because it made mere membership in an illegal organization convincing evidence of the political or economic system by force of violence, then every member was guilty. If you went to even one of its meetings, gave it money, spoke publicly in its favour, distributed its literature, or wore its emblem you were liable to twenty years' imprisonment. And contrary to British legal practice, you were held to be guilty until you could prove your innocence. Anyone who rented a hall to an illegal group was subject to a five-thousand-dollar fine. Anyone who printed its literature advocating violent political change, or who imported similar literature, could also go to jail for twenty years. In fact, anybody who advocated violence in this context, whether he belonged to an illegal association or not, could go to jail.

The treatment of suspected "commies" was brutal in Canada:

... it was not just die-hard communists who faced deportation from Canada under the Bennett regime. Anyone who had been in the country for less than five years could be deported as a public simply by applying for relief. That regulation covered not only the "undesirables" but also thousands of others who had been recruited to come to Canada in the twenties by a business-oriented community looking for cheap labour. The Canadian Manufacturers' Association had lobbied the government to broaden its immigration policy, and in 1926 the two major railways and the Canadian Bankers' Association quietly backed the campaign. In fact, until the Depression, Canada had not only welcomed newcomers, it had also wooed them and subsidized them with low rail fares and free land, especially in the West. The immigrants, in turn, had helped make the country prosperous. Now, with hard times returning, the government was callously prepared to throw them out.

Finally, this bit by Berton shows the priggish morality of Canada at that time. It is a story about William Aberhart, a teacher with fundamentalist religion, who rose to control the province of Alberta with his "Social Credit" philosophy:

Under the Canadian moral standards of the middle thirties, sex was held to be dirty and therefore not to be discussed in public, on the radio, or in the newspapers. William Aberhart had come up against the taboo in January when he told a joke in Calgary, in which he talked about the hard time he was being given by his critics.

"It brought to my mind," Aberhart said, "the story of the young lady in the maternity ward who was in agony. She asked the nurse if there was a young man in a brown suit and brown fedora outside in the corridor.

"The nurse said, 'Yes, I saw one there when I came in.'

"'Well,' said the girl, 'tell him that if this is anything like married life, the engagement is off.'"

That parable, inoffensive by almost any standards, got Aberhart into a heap of trouble. The Social Credit leader was assailed by complaints that he had told a "lewd" joke. Efforts were even made to take him off the air.

I highly recommend this book both for the sheer joy of the quality of the story told and for the history of Canada that it reveals.

Canada's Leader of the Opposition

Sadly Jack Layton, head of the NDP (New Democratic Party), died shortly after leading the party to its first election victory winning official standing as the opposition party. This victory un Layton is a bit like Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the shore of the river Jordan but not being able to lead the Israelites over. Instead, he was felled by cancer just months after his party's victory.

At the state funeral, here is the bit that I found to be the most moving:



Oddly, I think this Leonard Cohen song is very appropriate. It is a strangely politically appropriate song for a funeral for Canada's most successful democratic socialist politician. Layton won't replace Tommy Douglas in the hearts of Canadians. Douglas fought and won the battle for Canada's health care system. But Layton died as a great leader and will be beloved.

Leonard Cohen's oddly religious, sexual, poetic, and triumphant lyrics for Hallelujah seem appropriate for a normally a-religious socialist political funeral burying a leader who fell before he reached the mountain top of politics. It is a nicely "inclusive" Canadian compromise choice for a eulogistic musical tribute. Triumphant, but not bombastic. Hopeful, and decent. Reflective, but inspiring.

I do hope the NDP survives the loss of its leader. But even more, I want to see Canada continue with its three party politics. That puts the centre party in a position to cushion wild divergences to right or left, unlike the crazy politics of the US. I want to see Canada continue its history of compromise, pragmatism, and decency.

Sadly our political right party lost its "progressive" label (it was called the Progressive Conservative party, i.e. centre-right on social issues and hard right on economics and foreign policy). I fear that Canada is slowly drifting toward the US model of a two party system. That isn't good.

Update 2011aug29: And here is a bit from an opinion piece by Linda McQuaig in the Toronto Sun that highlighted the very un-Canadian moment when Stephen Lewis stuck it to the Prime Minister:

Allowing Layton a state funeral was probably Stephen Harper’s most generous prime ministerial act. But it led to a nationally televised scene that will likely haunt him and surely inspire progressives for years to come: Stephen Lewis, the iconic elder statesman of Canada’s social democratic movement, standing in front of Canada’s most right-wing prime minister ever, speaking truth to power.

Determined that the event be more than just a tribute to the goodness of one man, Lewis used the heft of the occasion, as Layton would have wanted, to drive home Layton’s social democratic vision for the country.

With the Conservatives’ new hammerlock on power — accomplished with a mere 40 per cent of the national vote — here at least was one joyous moment in which we could watch the country’s most powerful orator confront a prime minister who had no choice but to stand every time the rest of the room rose in rapturous pleasure at Lewis’s inspiring call for a more equal and generous Canada.

That message is exactly what those on the right have been trying to deny — that there is an alternative to the grim, slash-and-burn policies of austerity they want to foist on us, making this an ever more unequal society.

Data on Taxation and Economic Growth

Here is a bit from an excellent post by Lane Kenworthy showing that the high tax socialist economies of Scandanavia are just as vibrant as the US while being far better in terms of social justice with economic opportunity for the bottom 90% of the population:

Half a century ago, in 1960, taxes totaled about a quarter of GDP in Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. The tax take then began to rise in Denmark and Sweden, reaching half of GDP by the mid-1980s, where it has remained. In America it has barely budged, hovering between 25% and 30% of GDP throughout the past five decades.

...

Begin with GDP per capita. America’s is higher than Denmark’s or Sweden’s. But that’s a legacy of the distant past. Growth of per capita GDP in the three countries has been virtually identical, both in the five decades since 1960 when the divergence in tax levels began and in the three decades since the 1970s (shown in the chart) when the tax difference has been most pronounced.

... employed Danes and Swedes tend to work fewer hours than employed Americans — about 1,600 per year versus 1,800. This is due in large part to the fact that Danes and Swedes have more than five weeks of legally-mandated paid vacations and holidays, whereas Americans have none. This gap, in turn, is a function of historical differences in the strength of unions.

... the U.S. has not gained ground in recent decades. Household incomes in the middle of the distribution have grown more rapidly in Denmark and Sweden than in the U.S. (shown in the chart), and at the ninetieth percentile they’ve increased at about the same pace.

...

Have high taxes required a sacrifice of liberty? Not according to the Freedom House measure of civil liberties or the Heritage Foundation-Wall St. Journal measure of economic freedom.

Finally, consider two social indicators of well-being: life expectancy and life satisfaction. On both counts, Danes and Swedes fare, on average, just as well as or better than their American counterparts.

Go read the original post because it has excellent graphs that illustrate the points being made.

The propaganda of the political right in the US permeates the society and puts fear into people that if they don't keep lowering taxes for the billionaires and millionaires then the economy will shrivel up and topple over, that their freedoms will turn into chains, and that everybody's health will go to hell in a handbasket. All lies. All propaganda to keep the US on its current path of a new Gilded Age.

Fleeing Socialized Medicine in Canada

Here are some facts about Canadians and their use of the American health care system from the blog The Incidental Economist:

Based on the comments I’ve seen over the last week, many of you are still going with that well used meme in the health care debate that people in other countries – frustrated by wait times and rationing – come to the United States for care. These are almost always anecdotal stories and you should know by now how much stock I put in anecdotes.

As always, when we can we should turn to evidence and research, and on this topic it does exist. The most comprehensive work I’ve seen on this topic was published in a manuscript in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. That study looked at how Canadians cross the border for care. Most anecdotes involve Canadians, since it’s easy for those on the border to come here. And, the authors used a number of different methods to try and answer the question*:

1) First, they surveyed United States border facilities in Michigan, New York, and Washington. It makes sense that Canadians crossing the border for care would favor sites close by, right? It turns out that about 80% of such facilities saw fewer than one Canadian per month. About 40% saw none in the prior year. And when looking at the reasons for visits, more than 80% were emergencies or urgent visits (ie tourists who had to go to the ER). Only about 19% of those already few visits were for elective purposes.

2) Next, they surveyed “America’s Best Hospitals”, because if Canadians were going to travel for care, they would be more likely to go to the most well-known and highest quality facilities, right? Only one of the surveyed hospitals saw more than 60 Canadians in one year. And, again, that included both emergencies and elective care.

3) Finally, they examined data from the 18,000 Canadians who participated in the National Population Health Survey. In the previous year, only 90 of those 18,000 Canadians had received care in the United States; only 20 of them had done so electively.

Look, I’m not denying that some people with means might come to the United States for care. If I needed a heart/lung transplant, there’s no place I’d rather be. But for the vast, vast majority of people, that’s not happening. You shouldn’t use the anecdote to describe things at a population level. This study showed you three different methodologies, all with solid rationales behind them, all showing that this meme is mostly apocryphal.

Go read the original post to get the embedded links.

As a Canadian I can confirm that some Canadians go from Canada to get medical care in the US. They are sent by our health care system for specialized care which is either not done because our lower population doesn't justify having the expertise or because we have "line-ups" and the overflow is sent to the US in order to speed the delivery of care.

I can also verify that Americans in Canada sometimes jump the queue here by using their fame or dollars (e.g. movie stars and sports stars) to get to the head of the line in our "socialized" medicine. This is a scandal and the official position is that jumping the queue is "never done" but there are several well known cases. In my mind this is proof of corruption in the system here or stupidity, i.e. officials here are so "excited" about the needs of a big shot American that they temporarily forget the rules and rush the American in for treatment before the waiting Canadians. Chalk that up to a colonial mentality or a branch plant mentality. Yes, Canada has a long history of being subservient to the UK or the US. So a lot of officials here think their duty is to the "mother country" or "the defender of the Free World" and not to the citizens of Canada. Those officials are fools and should be fired.

Since my family is spread over both sides of the border I can attest to the following:

• My mother, a US citizen, had a knee problem and had to get emergency care in Canada. The wait time was about 10 minutes, the doctor drained fluid on the knee, and the hospital charged $50 for the treatment.


• My mother needed emergency treatment in the US and was forced to wait over four hours for a doctor. She finally left because she was fainting from hunger and it wasn't clear when or if they would treat her in "emergency".


• My brother had a kidney stone that was causing him excruciating pain. I took him to emergency in the US. He spent five hours in the waiting room at the US emergency room and passed the kidney stone (in horrible pain). When they finally took him in they x-rayed him and confirmed that he had passed the kidney stone. For this "service" of using the waiting room to pass a kidney stone and to get a few x-rays and see a doctor, they charged him $5,000. He is a Canadian. If this had happened in Canada, he would have gotten treated within half an hour (or less) and it would have cost nothing.

That's the reality of "socialized" medicine in Canada. That is why Canadians do not flock across the border to get medical care and that is why if they are traveling and get sick they will move heaven and earth to get back to Canada as soon as possible to avoid falling prey to the "non-socialist" medical system in the US.

Oh... and as for competence. We have the odd case of medical incompetence and cases where a hospital has a serious malpractice problem. But what are the odds of a couple both dying within a month of each other in a medical system that (a) operates on a brain tumour and doesn't properly monitor for a hematoma and kills the patient and (b) takes an emergency case of heart fibrillation and fails to treat the patient for 4 days because they have a rule that the family physician must first attend and their notification system failed to notice that the alert of the family doctor never made it there? Well (a) happened to my mother and killed her and (b) happened to my father and contributed to his death a month later. That a 100% malpractice rate in one family. I've never heard of that in Canada. But that is my personal experience with the US medical system, the "finest" in the world.

Sure, my examples are anecdotal. But they are not generalizations. They are specific instances with validity to puncture the balloon of "superior American medical services". It only takes a few cases to debunk a generalization. To prove a generalization using anecdotes is wrong-headed. But anecdotes can establish that a generalization is false. American medical care is not superior. And the above facts from The Incidental Economist put the lie to the idea that Americans are "fleeing socialized medicine" to get care in the US.

Our "socialized medicine" costs us a lot. One reason our taxes are higher here than in the US is that we pay for our medical care through our taxes. But because we use a rationalized system with a single payer, doctors and service providers here don't have to have collection agencies and they don't fill out reams of paperwork for insurance companies. Doctors don't have to worry about collecting from deadbeats. But our doctors do get paid less than US doctors because our doctors negotiate with the government for their salaries. In the US doctors can charge whatever the market will bear. Consequently a fair number of newly minted Canadian doctors head south each year because they got into medicine, not to help their fellow citizens, but to enrich themselves. Sure, they had to fill out application forms talking about their "love of medicine" and pretend that they want to help their fellow Canadians. But in reality, these are eager-to-become Americans who can look after Number One by charging whatever they can get away with. Yes, this small handful of Canadians truly are fleeing socialized health care in Canada.