RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/09/trump_harris_and_communism.html

What does “full communist” even mean to generations of young people who have no idea what communism has wrought in the world?

Kamala Harris has “vowed to lower prices at the grocery store with price controls and open up the increasingly out-of-reach housing market with tax subsidies for homebuyers.” Harris asserts that she “will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food. Her plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules.”

As a result, Donald Trump said that Harris has gone “full communist.”

But what does “full communist” even mean to generations of young people who have no idea what communism has wrought in the world?

At the American Institute for Economic Research a reader learns that:

Most people in [communist] Cuba are skipping meals [.] These shortages of food are intimately linked with socialist governments, related economic policies, and, in particular, price controls.

In July, Cuban authorities imposed a new round of price controls on powdered milk, chicken, and pasta, among other goods. Vendors in Cuba are now not allowed to sell chicken parts above a price of 680 pesos, whereas market prices are typically around 700 pesos. 

Price controls are huge red flags. These are not red flags celebrating socialism. Price control’s reddest flags relate to the nature of exchange, morality, and freedom [emphasis mine].Price controls increase poverty and hunger. Contrary to the utopian dreams of policymakers, price controls distort market activity in perverse ways.

And they always lead to shortages.

Recently, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson commissioned a study looking into creating grocery stores operated by the city of Chicago. The move “by Mayor Johnson is a step to implement a communist system where the city or state owns the production and distribution of food, which history shows us [always ends] disastrously.”

As goes Cuba — so goes America?

https://amgreatness.com/2024/09/07/nazis-marxists-and-the-history-of-ideas/

In light of recent events and discussions attempting to rehabilitate the historical reputation of Germany’s Nazis, it might be worthwhile to re-examine the foundations of the ideology that underpinned National Socialism and its close cousin fascism. Those who embrace the revisionism that excuses the Nazis’ crimes appear to believe that by doing so, they are defending themselves and their ideological brethren from unfair and ahistorical attacks by the broader left. They think—or at least seem to think—that because fascism is considered a “right-wing” ideology that was specifically pitted against both Communism and Western liberalism, it can hardly be as awful as has been assumed and that its association with unvarnished evil is mere propaganda.

They are wrong. Indeed, the very foundations of their sentiments are mistaken and result from the radical mischaracterization of history and the evolution of ideas in the two centuries after the Enlightenment.

The simple truth of the matter is that the standard depiction of National Socialism and fascism as right-wing ideologies is inarguably false. While Hitler and Mussolini both expressed their opposition to and hatred of “Marxists,” they nevertheless embraced a leftism that was only marginally different from that embraced by Lenin and Stalin. Their hatred was a practical matter, a question of power rather than ideas. Both economically and socially, the Nazis and their Italian cousins were inheritors of the leftist traditions.

Almost from the moment he put pen to paper, Karl Marx’s enemies, as well as his friends, set about explaining why his theories about and solutions to the conflict between capital and labor had no serious application in the real world. Marx was a fantasist, and everyone—save perhaps his occasional partner in crime, Friedrich Engles—knew it.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/alan-dershowitz-leaves-democratic-party-cites-dnc-i-disgusted

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz announced his departure from the Democratic Party, citing several “anti-Jewish” lawmakers that make up the ranks of the party and the recent Democratic National Convention in which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential nominee. 

Speaking with radio host Zev Brenner on “Talkline with Zev Brenner,” Dershowitz cited the DNC, which he said gave legitimacy to anti-Israel speakers, and anti-Israel protesters outside the gathering. 

“It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I’ve experienced,” he said. “I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted.”

“I am no longer a Democrat. I am an Independent,” he added, noting that he wouldn’t reveal whom he was voting for president until possibly after Nov. 1. “I want to see how they deal with Iran. I want to encourage the current administration to support Israel.”

The Harvard Law professor emeritus said his departure from the party was a long time coming and that he gradually resigned over time. 

“Alot of things pushed me in that direction,” he said. Dershowitz noted Harris’ failure to preside over a joint session of Congress during an address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played a big role in his decision. 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/05/how-ai-will-embolden-the-tyranny-of-big-tech/

The emergence of artificial intelligence marks the latest acceleration of the digital age. Like any revolution, this one has winners and losers and will likely transform the relationship between people and machines. It could also lend yet more power to Big Tech and their technocratic elites in government.

Just as the Industrial Revolution elevated manufacturers and their financiers over the old aristocratic classes, the current shift erodes the power of the large industrial, often unionised, corporations and hosts of smaller businesses, in favour of a small coterie of elite firms, which are aggressively anti-union and have an unprecedented hold on both the capital markets and increasingly the human consciousness.

In the past, a major tech breakthrough would have naturally created a market for upstarts. The first phase of the digital revolution in the early 21st century caught many larger players, like IBM and AT&T, flat-footed as firms like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook (now Meta) emerged, eventually well surpassing them in market value. These firms have now secured quasi-monopolistic control of everything from mobile browsers, operating-system software and online advertising sales. They also control two-thirds of the world’s cloud service infrastructure, which is critical for AI.

These Big Tech companies drive the economy, and with them the fortunes of the three-fifths of Americans invested in the stock market. About 60 per cent of the S&P 500’s gains for the year have been driven by just five tech companies – Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet (the parent company of Google). Altogether, seven tech stars, adding Tesla and Apple, account for a remarkable 30 per cent of the index’s total value, a domination almost unprecedented in market history.

These same companies are uniquely positioned to raise the trillions of dollars that are needed to develop AI capacity – at a time when cash for startups is at the lowest ebb in five years. Among the AI superpowers, there is only one relative newcomer, Nvidia. It started out mostly selling chips to the videogame industry, but its hardware has since become essential to the AI boom. Overall the field is utterly dominated by the top giant interests.