Annals of Imperial Sociopathy: Bringing Up Baby in Perfidious Albion (or, The Adventures of the Tufthunters)

OpEds

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Daniel Wirt

I am submitting the following case to the Annals of Imperial Sociopathy as an outstanding case for teaching purposes.  The role of academia in the Military-Industrial-Media-Academia complex is well known.  The academic institutions of the imperialists produce the compliant workers and propagandists for Western (Atlanticist) hegemonic imperialism, necessary to justify and maintain the militarism and fascism inherent in and required by late-stage capitalism.  These academic institutions and their associated think tanks produce thoroughly indoctrinated courtiers of the corporate oligarchy/plutocracy which is the controlling force behind the puppet politicians and the governments in the United States and the several lesser imperialist lapdogs of the U.S.  In exchange for the juicy bones thrown to them by the plutocracy, these courtiers and puppets are faithfully compliant, deviating from the script only rarely — and the punishment for deviation is severe.

Here is an outstanding case of bringing up baby courtiers of imperialism, not at Harvard or Yale or Brown University in the U.S., but in Great Britain:  bringing up baby at the University of St. Andrews in Perfidious Albion.  Why is this an example of imperial sociopathy?

Sociopaths have the capacity to harm others without being restrained by a sense of conscience or with a defective sense of conscience.  They variably lack empathy.  They employ several defense mechanisms to avoid taking responsibility for their harmful behavior, including denial, rationalization and projection. They are unburdened or insufficiently restrained by conscience and empathy because of these defense mechanisms.  The lower class of sociopaths includes the street thug who mugs old ladies, snatching their purses, knocking them down, causing femoral neck fractures, even blaming the victim (“if she had just given me the dollar I asked for… but she called me a thug…”).   The upper class sociopaths include imperialist thugs trained at prestigious academic institutions in the West.

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In order to play French resistance fighter, one must have the proper accoutrements.

 

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Observe imperialist shills-in-training at one of those academic institutions — the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, members of the St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Society, writing  for their student publication, Foreign Affairs Review (http://foreignaffairsreview.co.uk/about/).  There are numerous specimens here to examine under the dissecting microscope — young courtiers of imperialism in intellectual short-pants tottering along on their two-wheelers with training wheels, earnestly learning their Orwellian craft.

For example, go to The Foreign Affairs Review website and put “Putin” in the search engine.  One is treated to the following (and these are just on the first page of the search results):

•  “The Beginning of the End for Putinism” (http://foreignaffairsreview.co.uk/2015/11/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-putinism/)
• “Coming to grips with the Soviet past: Donetsk, Stalin and Putin” (http://foreignaffairsreview.co.uk/2015/11/coming-to-grips-with-the-soviet-past-donetsk-stalin-and-putin/)
• “From Stalin to Putin: Turning the Clocks Back?”  (http://foreignaffairsreview.co.uk/2013/04/stalin-putin/)

My initial response to these pieces is to refute the errors of omission and commission, the claims unsupported by evidence and counter to abundant evidence, the outright falsifications —- but to do a comprehensive job of this would require a lean 10,000 word article.  Theirs is an amazing job of intellectual laziness and dishonesty.  These short essays are a confused tangle of faulty premises and non sequiturs.  No doubt these students pleased their professors, however, regurgitating the standard, worn falsifications of the western Russophobes and anti-communists, in that long line of liberal fascists reacting at a spinal cord reflex level to any socialist ideology threatening the hegemony of their viciously exploitative capitalism, mandatorily married to imperialism and fascism like a conjoined twin joined at the head, chest and abdomen.  Virtually every sentence is a monument to intellectual dishonesty and disregard for evidence, a Mobius strip of Orwellian Doublethink.  I’ll forego the detailed deconstruction of the gems cited above and just mention a few of the clinkers:

-“Nonetheless, the tentative winding down of the conflict in Ukraine and the simultaneous ramping up of conflict in Syria should be seen as presaging the final desperate chest-thumping of  the Putinist ideology… War and propaganda are the political solutions that Putin provides to the country’s economic problems. For most of his fifteen years in power, Putin has been able to garner support by creating the perception of Russia as locked in inextricable conflict with the West. Cultivating a siege-mentality has enabled the Kremlin to present sanctions and a declining economy as an international conspiracy against Russia… With a tumbling economy and a  violent quagmire in Syria, Putinism may finally run out of money and options.”

-Characterization of the response to Pussy Riot’s desecration of an Orthodox Church as evidence of “increasing repression”.  No mention of the massive harm done to the Russian people in multiple spheres after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, engineered by Gorbachev, in the Yeltsin era of grand theft by predatory capitalists — Yeltsin, a corrupt, alcoholic stooge for US imperialism (for example, see here, here, here and here).  Then there is the obligatory, standard demonization of Stalin with no context.  “Sixty years ago Stalin died, putting an end to twenty-seven years of terror, disappearances and arbitrary killings.”

-And the uncritical propagation of the Holodomor (deliberate famine) myth, a proven hoax to a high degree of historical certainty.  “Since 2006, Ukrainians have commemorated the Holodomor on the fourth Saturday of November. This year will mark 82 years since the 1932-33 famine that occurred, in the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, ‘without drought and without war.’ The commemoration comes with the knowledge that the devastating famine was more than a naturally occurring event – it was a deliberate policy of the Stalinist regime to exterminate the Ukrainian population. The Ukrainian government recognises that the famine was caused by state practices and this view has been widely accepted by historians. More than two thirds of the Ukrainian public subscribe to this view of history, according to a poll in October 2013 carried out by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Democratic (sic) Initiatives Foundation and the Ukrainian Sociology Service.”

It is not surprising that these students are content with simply parroting and regurgitating the lies of rabidly Russophobic Ukrainians, ideological descendants of Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, and the falsifications of historians such as Robert Conquest and Timothy Snyder.  After all, these are not history students — they are not interested in how an appropriate level of historical certainty is derived from the weight of PRIMARY source evidence.  As shills-in-training for imperialism, they are not interested in historical accuracy or context — they are interested in propagating the most effective lies to maintain the momentum of mass brainwashing, as required by the masters of the corrupt system to which they aspire to become privileged and comfortable members.

The test of intellectually honest historians is reliance on evidence and data from PRIMARY sources to support an appropriate level of historical certainty.  Conquest repeatedly failed the test.  Like Timothy Snyder, Robert Conquest was not intellectually honest in his use of sources, and thus produced falsifications, not history.  Conquest was a political prostitute, in the service of some very unsavory anticommunists — a very prolific imperialist shill, an Energizer Bunny serving the imperialists.  A good student would check all the source footnotes of Conquest and Snyder (which would require fluency in Polish and Russian).  In fact, Dr. Grover Furr has done just that and published a book about it, “Blood Lies:  The Evidence that Every Accusation Against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands is False”.  What Dr. Furr has found is very revealing.  Dr. Furr has done an incredible job peeling away the scandalously cynical crust of lies deforming the history of Russia and Stalin, not to mention staining the very idea of socialism.

I seriously doubt if any of the St. Andrews students writing these shoddy essays would have the intellectual curiosity and integrity to even read “Blood Lies”, let alone have the gonads to challenge the imperialist propaganda line — I’m sure they have a keen sense of which side their bread is buttered on.  Thus, these “tuft-hunters” of St. Andrews will probably never understand the lies vs the truth regarding:  the Famine of 1932-33, the “Polish operation”, the “Great Terror”, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the “Soviet Invasion of Poland”, the “Katyn Massacre”, the Warsaw Uprising and “Stalin’s Anti-Semitism”.  Their livelihoods require that they regurgitate the lies and disregard the truth.  Historical truth (via intellectually honest evaluation of primary source evidence) need not apply.  “…but at the length truth will out” (1-4)

But the sociopathic pièce de résistance among these intellectually shoddy essays is that of Jon Morgan Barth, titled “Microcosm of Radicalism: Foreign Volunteers in Donbas”
(http://foreignaffairsreview.co.uk/2015/10/microcosm-of-radicalism-foreign-volunteers-in-donbas/ and copied in the sidebar below).  This is truly an epitome, a perfect teaching case demonstrating all of the defense mechanisms of denial, rationalization and projection in the service of imperial sociopathy.  Barth argues that the foreign volunteers fighting in Donbass pose a terrorist threat to their home countries and deserve to be prosecuted in their home countries.  He is dismissive of the claim that the struggle in Donbass is against fascist aggression, without providing any evidence about the etiology or nature of the conflict or identities of the fighters.  His Russophobia is evident.  He is also dismissive of the parallel between the international volunteers in Donbass with the international volunteers assisting the Republican side against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War — I get the distinct impression that he does not view the latter as a noble effort.  He certainly does not mention the international volunteers assisting the Republican side against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War in any positive light or context.  Ironically, if Barth had studied his history with the same care that he devoted to his French Resistance costume, he would know that “Some Maquis bands that operated in southwest France, were composed entirely of left-wing Spanish veterans of the Spanish Civil War.”   In other words, foreign volunteers helped the Republicans fight the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and Spanish volunteers returned the favor by volunteering in France to fight the Nazis — further historical documentation of the important role that foreign volunteers have played in the fight against fascism — a role that continues to the present (in Donbass…).

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Sidebar:  Read here M. Barth’s essay, in toto.  Click the bar below.  IF FOR ANY REASON YOU CANNOT OPEN THE BAR WITH JON MORGAN BARTH’S ARTICLE, PLEASE READ IT BELOW, ON PAGE 2.

END OF SIDEBAR

The evidence regarding the identity and nature of the aggressors in Donbass is massive and incontrovertible — many tens of thousands of witnesses and pieces of documentary evidence.   In light of that evidence, the failure to clearly identify and distinguish the victimizers and the victimized is an exercise of denial and rationalization — effectively excusing the victimizers and avoiding the true explanation.  This then allows the projection of the terrorist threat from its true source — the fascist and neo-Nazi-riddled Kiev junta and its supporters and handlers in the U.S. and Europe — onto the victims and defenders of Donbass.  This complete Orwellian inversion of victimizer and victim, terrorists and terrorized, aggressors and defenders is a standard tool in the toolbox of the imperialists and fascists — those attempting to defend the victims and even the victims themselves are identified as the terrorists in the propaganda of the imperialists and fascists.  Barth is clearly projecting when he identifies the defenders of Donbass as a terrorist threat and ignores the real terrorists — the Kiev junta even calls their assault on Donbass the “ATO” (“Anti-terrorist Operation).  Donbass has not moved heavy weapons to Kiev.  It is the Kiev junta that has surrounded Donbass, the separatist southeast and ethnically Russian region of Ukraine, and relentlessly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure with heavy weapons, killing and horrifically injuring thousands and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees (5).

The Atlanticist West has a long history of apologetics and support for fascism, and this essay by Barth fits in this genre (in the subcategory of ignoring who the fascists are and identifying those actually resisting and fighting against fascism as terrorists  — employing projection).  Prior to the University of St. Andrews (Class of 2019), Barth was a student at the Hotchkiss School (Class of 2015), a private college preparatory boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut in the New York metropolitan area, with tuition of about $50,000 per year (6).  Barth is apparently from Alexandria, Virginia, and is likely a U.S. citizen, but it doesn’t matter where Barth holds citizenship.   After graduating in 2015 from this exclusive private college preparatory boarding school in the Northeast U.S., he wrote his essay as a freshman student in a prestigious university in Perfidious Albion, the oldest university in Scotland (7).  It is not difficult to identify strong support (currently and historically) for fascism and Naziism in both the U.S. and Perfidious Albion.  Many Americans and Brits [including Churchill who urged this position as official policy] supported the Nazi scourge as long as it was pointed east, and only belatedly fought against it when it veered west (8,9).  Regarding international volunteers fighting on the side of the Republicans against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, it is understandable that apologists for and supporters of fascism would be hostile, but for anti-fascists, their actions were highly moral, noble and courageous (10,11).

I note Barth’s dishonesty in his citation of the El Pais article.  Barth says,  “A number of Spanish volunteers who served in the separatist forces attempted to return to Spain, and are now facing terrorism charges.[7]” (emphasis added).   In fact, the El Pais article DOES NOT say that these Spanish volunteers are “…facing terrorism charges” — it says, “The eight detainees are suspected to have participated in armed conflict in the Donbass region, and will be facing charges of compromising the peace and interests of Spain, homicide, and possession of arms and explosives.”  The issue of whether it is illegal for American volunteers to fight in Donbass is complex and an issue that Barth, as an undergraduate (class of 2019) is undoubtedly not qualified to analyze definitively (12,13).

However, perhaps the biggest contradiction in Barth’s essay is to fixate on the MYTHICAL terrorist threat of a few brave souls with a strong sense of empathy for the victims of fascism in Donbass, who are volunteering there to fight the fascists — instead of addressing the REAL terrorist threat of ISIS, which has resulted in a flood of refugees fleeing ISIS Takfiri terror in Syria and a long string of terrorist bombings, both significantly antedating Barth’s essay — the ISIS bombings in Beirut and Paris and the Russian Metrojet bombing being only the most recent examples in a long history.  This is particularly ironic given that Perfidious Albion, France and the U.S. in particular bear great responsibility for the genesis and support of Takfiri terrorists in the Middle East.

 

Furthermore, it is particularly ironic (and distasteful) that Barth should produce this defamatory hit piece about courageous antifascist volunteer fighters in Novorossiya (Donbass), risking their lives to protect ethnic Russian civilians from savage attacks by fascists and neo-Nazis.  It is dangerous and unpaid, but highly moral and noble work.  Russell Bonner Bentley is singled out by Barth.  Bentley is in his 50s and has sacrificed a great deal in order to volunteer as an anti-fascist fighter in Donbass.  Why do I say, “particularly ironic”?  Because it turns out (as earlier images illustrate) that Barth likes to dress up and play French Resistance fighter — and let’s see…  Oh yes, now I remember — the French Resistance were fighting against fascists and Nazis.  So it turns out that Bentley is a real anti-fascist fighter, Barth plays anti-fascist fighter, and Barth defames the real anti-fascist fighter.  And the real fight is dangerous indeed.  “Owl” was only a couple years older than Barth when he was killed in action recently, but obviously the moral antithesis of Mr. Barth (https://www.greanvillepost.com/2015/11/28/texacs-chronicles-donbass-front-no-9/).

Prior to playing French Resistance fighter against the “Bosch” [Germans; (14)] at the “Tank Farm” (15) in 2013, Barth was playing war games in 2011 at the “Tank Farm” as documented at “Red Alliance, Eastern-Bloc Airsoft, Militeria and Reenactment” (16).

But who is M. Jon Morgan Barth anyway?  Perhaps Sir Walter Scott’s line from his epic poem Marmion applies:  “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive!”  How can his essay for the St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Society  be reconciled with his posts in the Facebook groups “North American Support for Donetsk and Luhansk” and “Communist Discussion” (in 2014) which indicate sympathy for Donbass, even suggesting “…help(ing) to channel material aid to Donetsk…”?  (See images below).

Was Barth just acting as a mole in these groups?  Did he write this essay in 2015 to please new professors, trying to match the ideological bent of a professor or department and not really believing what he wrote?  Or did he have a profound ideological epiphany shortly after beginning studies at St Andrews, and this essay accurately represents his ideology?  Or was the epiphany not ideological but practical and realistic — a surrender to the reality of which side the bread is buttered on in academic institutions such as St Andrews, suppressing his previous idealism and ideological path as self destructive and impractical in terms of academic and career advancement, an inner split that might manifest itself in various ways depending on the level of suppression?

(I suspect this is the psychological mechanism behind the “balance” that many in academia and the mainstream media advocate and manifest in their analyses and reporting, a function of the cognitive dissonance that results from these inner and external forces. Perhaps we will see additional exercises of “balance” in future essays from  Barth…  But, to borrow from “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”, we don’t need no stinkin’ balance.  Bias is desirable and necessary if it is supported by good evidence.  We need to go wherever good evidence leads.  We need evidence, not “a curse on both your houses” balance in the service of career advancement.)

CLICK IMAGES FOR BEST RESOLUTION


ABOVE: Wherein M. Barth appears keen on helping the Donbass resistance!  Allons-y, brave maquisard! (Click for best resolution)

No matter what the explanation, Mr. Barth owes the international volunteers resisting fascist aggression in Donbass, as well as the victims of that fascist aggression, an unequivocal apology.  His essay defames and disrespects both the anti-fascist fighters and the victims of the fascist aggression by the Kiev junta, supported/directed by the U.S. and E.U.

Considering his obvious gifts, what happened to Barth?  A year or two before beginning studies at St Andrews, here is what he thought about Cuba:

According to Moon, Cuba is safe and comfortable, with a low crime rate. Jon Morgan Barth ’15, who also traveled with Moon to Russia in 2012, said the Cuba experience was “incredibly powerful.” The two saw Lenin’s tomb together, then two years later, the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana.

Happy traveller in Cuba. Screengrab from posted video of the school trip to the island. Barth is second from right. Hotchkiss has a reputation for intellectual integrity.

“It was a joy to see a place I had read so much about,” says Jon Morgan. “What astounded me most was the fact that the whole country seemed to be on track. Too often we, as Americans, think of Cuba as a Caribbean backwater, ruled by an outdated and flawed system. The Cuba I saw was instead one where the people honestly embraced a system that has benefitted them as individuals, and as a nation. There was genuine affection for the Castro brothers and the other heroes of their Revolution who helped turn an exploited pawn in the international game into a prosperous nation with a thriving culture, a system that provides for those who work, and freedom from exploitation.”

The acquisition of imperialist/fascist ideology in Western academic institutions is analogous to the process of malignant transformation, progressing through dysplasic, in situ and invasive phases, and then finally to a lethal metastatic stage (graduation?).  Or perhaps there is some virulent moral/intellectual hemorrhagic fever virus infecting academic institutions in the West, a kind of moral/intellectual Ebola.  Whatever it is, neoplastic or infectious, I think the student essays cited above are a relatively early stage in the disease process, although it is certain that these students come to university primed (burdened) with the indoctrination of the Media element of the Military-Industrial-Media-Academia complex.

“Bringing Up Baby” is a comic masterpiece (17), but the indoctrination and acculturation of students in Western educational institutions to the dominant culture of imperialism (with its conjoined twin of fascism, driven by end-stage capitalism) is no laughing matter.  The features of the case described are consistent with an early step in the evolution of that acculturation in a prestigious university.

POSTSCRIPT

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The disconnect between Jon Morgan Barth’s essay in Foreign Affairs Review and his previous expressions of sympathy for Donbass is further evidenced by the following messenger conversation in June 2015 between Mr. Barth and Russell Bentley.  The real nature of Barth’s ideology regarding Western imperialism/fascism and the reasons and motivations for the obvious disconnect between his essay and his previous various expressions of sympathy and support for Donbass are uncertain at this point in time.  Perhaps Mr. Barth did travel to Donbass as “…an independent photojournalist… trying to capture the stories of the international volunteers and citizens of Donetsk… (to) tell the REAL story of what is happening to the people of Donbas…”  If he did travel to Donbass, he did not meet with Russell Bentley (and thus he wrote his essay without interviewing Russell Bentley either electronically or in person).  If he did travel to Donbass, The Greanville Post invites him to submit a report of his trip for consideration for publication at The Greanville Post.

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Dateline: Jun 9th, 9:28am (2015); situ: Facebook

(https://www.facebook.com/jon.m.barth )
Hello Mr. Bentley, Sorry for taking down your post! While the sentiment is appreciated, keeping my support for the donbas on the down low is pretty important. I’m sure you know ho well the government treated the Americans who came back from Spanish Civil War, and in these day and age, they can get paint you as anti-American for being anti-fascist. I’m an independent photojournalist who will be in Donbas later this summer, trying to capture the stories of the international volunteers and citizens of Donetsk. While I am still working out logistics, I would love to get to meet you. I’ll be in Donetsk as a guest of the Interbrigada group, who are a branch of the Other Russia party. Good communists, and anti-fascists! My major concern at this point is getting to Donetsk. I’ll be coming from Ukraine, and crossing into Donetsk, rather than flying to Russia and going from there. While the Ukrops instinctively love Americans, I’m worried about getting through checkpoints manned by NAF troops. Do you know anyone I could contact to help with that? Stay safe, and best of luck, Jonathan

(Russell Bentley)
No. If you want to cone to Donetsk, you would be foolish not to come via Rostov. To come here and have not made arrangements with Ukrop gov to be a spy, THEY will give you trouble. If you are planning to come here as an American, that’s already one strike against you. Your named after a Confederate general who was also a Freemason. I know history, and mos Russians and Novorussians know history better than me. Or you. If you come through the Ukrop lines, you will find it very hard to earn their trust. Or mine.  Which interbrigada group? There are several. I will tell you now, not all the guys fighting the Kiev fascists are good guys, It is Big Boy Rules here, and you have to be creful who you trust.

Jun 9th, 2:37pm (2015)
(https://www.facebook.com/jon.m.barth)
I’ll be registering as a journalist with the Kiev authorities, and have spoken with other American journalists who have done the same. They were all solid guys who were sympathetic to Novorossiya, but still got through. My contact in Interbrigada is guy named Valeriy Kolotsei, who painted himself as a moderate member of the Other Russia group, which was an evolution of the National Bolsheviks following Alexander Dugin leaving and the party losing its radical right branch.  The issue with going through Rostov is that I’d need a visa to get to Russia in the first place, then papers allowing travel.  The visa process is really daunting, from my understanding, and not cheap.

(Russell Bentley)
You will not be trusted by anyone here, including me, if you come through Kiev. PERIOD. You are obviously from a rich family, so the cost is a bullshit excuse. Visa takes about a month, and 3 or 4 hundred bucks. Americans who come from Kiev side are not liked or trusted by anyone here, including me. Like I tell volunteers, getting here is the easy part. It is serious business here. If you are on the up and up, come through Rostov. If you are thinking about being a junior James Bond, DO NOT COME. We do not play games here. I hope you understand and make the right choice. удачи.

Jul 14th, 12:06am (2015)

(https://www.facebook.com/jon.m.barth)
Hello again. After a lot of soul searching, I have decided to come to Donetsk, to serve as a photographer and journalist, and most importantly, tell the REAL story of what is happening to the people of Donbas. I have plane tickets to Rostov and will be getting my visa back in two days. My flights in Rostov on the 22nd of July and fly out on the 5th of August.

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APPENDIX

What is this tribe we call “tuft-hunters”?

“toffee-nosed”  

“If it’s a lady and gentleman, then we cries, ‘A toff and a doll!’

It is widely agreed amongst etymologists that ‘toff’ was a corruption of ‘tuft’, which has a clear aristocratic pedigree, being the ornamental tassel on an academic cap. Specifically, a tuft was the gold tassel originally worn on academic caps at Oxford University by the sons of those peers who had a vote in the House of Lords. They were worn on the celebratory ‘Gaudy Days’, that is, the university’s twice-yearly feast days (which sound a good deal more fun than ‘Dress-down Fridays’). The wearers of the prestigious tufts became known as tufts themselves, even having their own sycophantic crowd of wannabees, known as the ‘tufthunters’.”

[“The meaning and origin of the expression: Toffee-nosed: See the full explanation here.]

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Additional example of a toffee-nosed imperialist-in-training elsewhere in Perfidious Albion:  Durham University (https://www.dur.ac.uk/about/)

And here, Harpal Brar (Indian-born communist politician, writer and businessman based in Britain, who is the Chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain) deconstructs the anti-communist / anti-Soviet propaganda, including intentional famine

BELOW: This lecture by frequent correspondent Caleb Maupin also does an excellent job of combatting long-implanted lies about communism as a viable alternative to a bankrupt capitalism.

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