Comment by Anonymous

Entered on: 9/10/2008 6:33:13 AM

Lendman's long article makes a lot of assertions, mixing factual claims with ideological conclusions to produce a stew of confusion. The energy of anger and resentment in the article, however, does nothing to promote the freedom philosophy -- but Lendman's neo-Marxist critique is demonstrably not about freedom.

Consider just one example. Lendman first wrote angrily about the local mayor's response to Hurricane Gustav:

"Over the weekend, nonetheless, Mayor Nagin was insistent and suspiciously over-eager to evacuate the city. Those staying behind, he said, were making 'one of the biggest mistakes' of their lives because no emergency services were offered and no 'last resort' shelters arranged like for Katrina - inadequate though they were."

Here (as elsewhere in his article) Lendman is attacking the city government for telling people to evacuate.

Then Lendmen celebrates the triumph of the communist workers' paradise in Cuba -- precisely on grounds that it forced people to evacuate:

"Cuba was best prepared the way it always is with tens of thousands evacuated in time. No deaths were reported (nor in the Caymans), but widespread damage from wind and flooding in the western part of the island near Havana."

The reader versed in logic would ask: "Why does Lendman castigate Mayor Nagy for urging evacuation from a hurricance, while Lendman cheers the authoritarian Cuban government for doing the exact same thing under the threat of the exact same hurricane?"

The answer lies in Lendman's ideologically-driven critique. His whole article is a smear of anything America does, evidently calculated to arouse hatred and fear of American government and business. Lendman's position is not anti-authoritarian government, however -- as evidenced by his cheers for Cuba -- it is just anti-American government.

Lendman's Marxist critique outcrops all over the article, reminding me of the Socialist Workers' Party newspapers, wherein everything is bad and it is all capitalism's fault -- even if capitalism isn't involved at all.

Referring to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Lendman writes: "New Orleans is a metaphor for capitalism's most savage form - outside of war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan."

Huh? First, capitalism didn't produce the hurricane. Second, the government response to Katrina was a government response, not a "capitalist" response. Third, the philosophy of private property, free trade and limited government that underlies capitalism had nothing to do with the war efforts overseas.

If Lendman were pro-freedom, he'd be calling for free market responses to hurricanes. His article instead suggests that the government has not given enough money to the enough people to do ... well ... whatever it is (he doesn't say).

Then, as the 20th Century Marxists always did, Lendman injects the shopworn claim that everything that happened after Katrina, and during and after Hurricane Gustav, was all about oppressing racial minorities and the poor. Broadly invoking race and class warfare language is among the top 3 or 4 propaganda tactics of the old Marxists, and Lendman draws that same arrow from his quiver. (I know this from witnessing the tactic repeatedly whilst I was attending college.)

As you finish reading Lendman's piece, you realize he has offered nothing but hate and fear. What exactly would Lendman have done different and better in the aftermath of Katrina or Gustav?

Without using the word, Lendman charges "fascism" as he rips into police and national guard efforts to thwart looting -- but what would Lendman do? Would Lendman declare looting legal? Would Lendman conduct talks with high level gang members to discuss differences in cultural responses to weather disasters?

Lendman angrily paints a picture of doom: "A total city makeover with billions in federal and local funding to assist."

So -- Lendman is against using federal and local money to rebuild a weather-blasted city. He is against efforts to stop looting. Yet he bemoans that the "poor" are being "neglected and abandoned." What in hell does Lendman want?

As Thomas Sowell, Friedrich Hayek and so many others have pointed out: the Leftist ideology is about maximizing power into the hands of self-appointed experts. Under a rule of experts, all problems will be solved correctly or at least optimally. Private decision making by non-experts must necessarily be outlawed. Money and resources will be gathered and employed according to the experts' plans. Lendman presumably thinks he will be one of the ruling experts.

It remains gravely disappointing that Freedom's Phoenix posts articles like this one from Lendman. His article is not pro-freedom and it is not even helpful to any debate about policy options. It mongers hate, fear and resentment. And the Marxist verbiage, long discredited, is tiresome.

America needs some serious reforms to return to a pro-freedom nation. Lendman's screeds, and others like them, take us in the wrong direction.