You have undoubtedly heard the phrase “the pot calling the kettle black.” We use this little expression to put a person back in their place when she or he speaks hypocritically; in days gone by, our forefathers cooked over a fire which blackened cookware with soot. So while a pot might accuse the kettle of being black with soot, it too was caked in the same blackness from years over the same fire.

I would like to suggest another use of the phrase. The pot, knowing it is totally caked in soot, is an expert on what black is and is better able to recognize similar blackness in others. So when the pot accuses the kettle of being black, it is essentially saying, “I see we have a lot in common. I’m black as night and I see that you are too. You have obviously spent your life in service over the open fire as I have.”

With this in mind, two different voices spoke out publicly this week, saying “Having personal and deep knowledge of Marxism, it is obvious that the US is speeding down the road to Marxism.” While this is my own paraphrasing, both individuals made this accusation unambiguously.

First: Committed Marxist and aspiring communist dictator, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has nationalized (government confiscation of private businesses) most of Venezuela’s key economic sectors. Recognizing a kindred spirit in Obama, Chavez paused during one of his infamous paternalistic lectures on his favorite subject (the scourge of capitalism and the glories of socialism) to opine: “Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama!”

He continued with a warning to fellow Marxist and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro: “Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his (Obama’s) right.” Imagine!  Communist dictators expressing concern that an American president might be more socialist than they are. Clearly, the pot is seeing something in common with the kettle!

Second: The official newspaper of the Soviet communist party was Pravda. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the same publication was resurrected as an independent news organization, which employed most of the same journalists as Pravda. This week Pravda Online published an
editorial written by a man quite experienced with life under Soviet rule. This gentleman’s insights and reasoning are worthy of our attention. His thesis: “It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.”

1. The author then lists four critical events that led to American’s blind acceptance of the collapse into corruption and socialism.
   “First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the [political] drama in [Washington D.C.] that directly affects their lives. They care more for their ‘right’ to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights.”
2. “Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different ‘branches and denominations’ were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another.”
3. “The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year … America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe [both noted for their hyperinflation and economic collapse].”
4. “These past two weeks have been the most breathtaking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look like little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the sheer volumes.”

Most poignantly, though, the author recounts how Russians did not embrace Marxism, but were violently forced to submit to it. “The initial testing ground [of Marxism and communism] was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.”

While I and most conservatives share the sentiments expressed by both Hugo Chavez and the Pravda editorialist, so many of our fellow citizens are either 1) incapable of understanding what is happening to our country, 2) willfully and dangerously ignorant, 3) traitorously indifferent, or 4) complicit in the imposition of socialism and Marxism upon the populace. My question is whether Americans will roll over and give up the freedoms dearly won in the blood of our martyrs, thereby abandoning the vision of our founding fathers. Or, will we stand up like the Russians, the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Vietnamese and say “Enough is enough! We will allow no one to destroy the divine miracle of America!”