White Supremecists Slay 49 in NZ Mosques

[Dill]

(03-18-2019, 06:14 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I fear we are in danger of delving deep into a semantic argument here.  That being said, I take issue with labeling anti-communism as an ideology on its own.  The opposition to this form of government is largely due to how it contradicts the basic principles of the free-market capitalist system that we operate under.  Consequently, you would be anti-communist simply by being pro-capitalist.  Additionally, the atrocities committed under every single communist government, to varying degrees, would hopefully provoke an anti-communist sentiment in anyone who believed in the freedom to have an opinion that differs from that espoused by the state. 

I will concede that, like anything, being anti-communist can be carried to an extreme as our friend Senator McCarthy did.  Even at that extreme it does not, in my opinion, qualify as a stand alone ideology.

There are actually several forms of anti-capitalism. The one rooted in Catholicism is much less exercised about the critique of capitalism and more about the materialism (in the philosophical sense).

I agree that there is potential for confusion when deploying the term "anti-communism."  I cannot think of anyone on this message board who is pro-communist or who would defend any Stalinist state which has existed.  I'm pretty sure that if I suggested we convert the US to that, everyone here would oppose me, thus becoming "anti-communist" regarding that specific goal, and not in favor of communism anywhere. But I would also say that most on this message board don't think much about communism at all. They would be less likely than a real anti-communist to see communism where others saw only socialism or social democracy.

Anti-communism as an ideology is something more developed, transmitted in schools and books, and deployed to political effect. People have made it their life's mission to "spread the word" and oppose communism. In the US, one can trace it to documents like the NSC-68, which set the terms for 40 years of U.S. foreign policy by defining the "logic of totalitarianism" which rendered (so they thought) the behavior of Stalinist states predictable. In the US, more so that other places, it is specifically opposed to capitalism (as if this were a political system), as well as an undefined, abstract "freedom" supposed to naturally permeate the North American air. Ironically, that document also mentions how, in the coming Cold War, the state must become ever more vigilant regarding the thoughts of its citizens and make a "case" to them about why Communism was bad--e.g. because it sought to control people's thoughts.  Nothing like this in previous history, really.

And historians and political scientists study anti-communism AS an ideology in part because of its systemic character, but mainly because of its policy consequences, which have not squared well with the values the US has claimed to uphold against communism. They can track how it affects policy, how it competes against other views of the world as presidential advisors debate whether to intervene in Korea or Chile or Guatemala, or to support the Bay of Pigs landing, or to get out of Vietnam or to open trade with China or to sign SALT II. 

It is valuable to study anti-communism today, long after the Cold War, not just because it is "history," but also because as a kind structure for organizing foreign policy around stark, binary oppositions (good/evil, freedom/slavery, them/us, rational/fanatical, democracy/totalitarianism, tolerance/intolerance), it has remained in place for some in the US foreign policy establishment, only now Islam is filling the functional nodes formerly occupied by Communism. (Anti-communist Islamophobe Sebastian Gorka comes to mind here.)