Letters From Grandpa #150

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 150

Dearest grandchild,

Forgive me if mentioning politics puts a barrier between us, but I am shocked and surprised by how many young people in America think that communism is good. In particular, it seems that many college students feel this way. Kody Fairchild, writing in the Sept. 1, 2016 Libertarian Republic said: “The Communist forefather, and economics author, Karl Marx, who has been dead since 1883, still has appeal in United States higher education economic practices. It appears that Marx’s book The Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, is currently the most assigned economics book on US college campuses, according to a new syllabi database called the Open Syllabus Project (OPS), discussed in an article on MarketWatch.com.” While others state that the Communist Manifesto is the number three assigned book on campus, this is still an amazing statistic. It leaves those familiar with the track record of communism to ask: “How can this be?”.

Aye! There’s the rub. Many under the age of 30 are totally unfamiliar with communism. Invariably it brings economic disaster as in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc. Leaving aside the economic disaster, however, the “body count” is even worse. Here is a brief summary of the blood bath created by atheistic communist dictators: 65 million murdered in the People's Republic of China, 20 million in the Soviet Union, 2 million in Cambodia, 2 million in North Korea, 1.7 million in Ethiopia, 1.5 million in Afghanistan, 1 million in the Eastern Bloc, 1 million in Vietnam, and 150,000 in Latin America.

I still can see in my mind’s eye a photo from the 1951 World Book Encyclopedia. It showed a Chinese man on his knees with has hands tied behind his back. A rifle was aimed at the back of his head from about 12 inches away. His crime was owning one acre of ground and hiring someone to help him farm it. This was just one of the 65 million considered evil and doomed to death by Chairman Mao. The communists in Cambodia under Pol Pot felt the same way and were known as the Khmer Rouge. They didn’t just kill land owners, but also professional people like teachers. Those who tried to escape by disguising themselves as “workers” were often exposed and executed for developing blisters. To the communists having calloused hands meant the difference between life and death. Dith Pran, a Cambodian journalist, escaped this genocide and coined the term “killing fields” to describe the tragedy that befell his country. But that blood bath ended in 1978 and a blazing inferno doesn’t seem so hot when you are more than 30 years removed from the heat.

But perhaps a more relevant explanation for the popularity of communism on campus involves professors. Rather than destroy America with bombs, as many tried to do in the 60's, many sympathetic to communism have chosen to infiltrate the class room. Take, for example, Bill Ayers, and his wife Bernardine Dohrn. Bill helped found a communist revolutionary group known as the Weather Underground. They bombed many building including police stations, the U. S. Capital building, and the Pentagon. After bombing the Pentagon Bill said: “The bastards were finally getting what was coming to them”. Remarkably, he never spent a day in jail. He did, however, become a respected professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He was also a neighbor of

Barack Obama and opened his home to launch Obama’s presidential campaign. His wife did spend time in jail but this didn’t keep her from becoming an associate professor of law at Northwestern University. Professors like this would naturally recommend the writings of Marx. In 2001 Ayers was pictured in the Chicago Magazine stomping on the American flag. He told the New York Times that the notion that the United States is a just, fair, and decent place “makes me want to puke”. His radical wife was happy when Charles Manson, et al, murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and three others. She said: “Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!” In appreciation for such class warfare her Weather Underground cell made a three fingered “fork” gesture it’s official salute.

While there are many patriotic professors, unfortunately, these are not the only two anti- Americans on campus. Ward Churchill is another professor determined to destroy America. He was an ethics professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder from 1990 to 2007. During these years his anti-American bias was obviously well known. He was an impassioned speaker on the lecture circuit championing the rights of native Americans. Claiming to be a native American gave him credibility in decrying the evils of America. The Rocky Mountain News, however, did an in- depth study of 142 of his direct ancestors and didn’t find one Indian in the bunch.

In 2001 Churchill wrote an article “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” and argued that the Sept. 11th attacks on America were deserved and that the victims were “little Eichmanns”. In a later interview he said “it may be that more 9/11s are necessary is a “no- brainer”. Again, these views were apparently well known on campus, and deemed appropriate by the college. Four years later, however, in 2005, his outrageous views were noticed by those outside of academia. His views that were so well received on campus, didn’t sit well with the rest of us. While it took a while for the college to recognize that their cover had been blown, Ward Churchill was finally fired on July 24, 2007. Sunlight, as you know, is a disinfectant!

Someone said that if the communists took over the Sahara Desert in three years they would have to import sand. Communism has never worked! Please don’t let some liberal professor do your thinking for you. As always, think for yourself and follow the truth wherever it leads.

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce