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October 21, 2009
Proudly emulating the bold and imaginative attitude of Chairman Mao!
While a lot of attention has been paid to Anita Dunn's quotations from Chairman Mao, and there's been a lot of criticism for her praise for Mao as her "favorite political philosopher," I don't think that most people (either on the right or the left) have really had the heart to engage in a serious Maoist-style analysis of the thoughts of Spokesperson Dunn. I realize that Dunn's remarks on Mao are getting a bit stale, and I know it's not my job to get into serious Mao mode, but when I clicked on Glenn Reynolds' link, to Megan McArdle I was just, well boldly inspired! I thought that this must be some kind of grotesque conservative exaggeration, but no, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn really did tell a graduating high school class to emulate Mao Tse-Tung's bold and imaginative attitude during his takeover of China.This forced me to ask myself, who needs grotesque conservative exaggeration when you can emulate the bold and imaginative attitude of Chairman Mao? So, to hell with grotesque conservative exaggeration! It is time to boldly and imaginatively analyze the thoughts of Spokesperson Dunn according to the teachings of her favorite political philosopher, Chairman Mao! Let's take her recent criticism of Fox News: "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party," Dunn told CNN, adding, "let's not pretend [Fox is] a news organization like CNN is." Dunn also took her beef to The New York Times, saying in a Sunday interview that Fox is "undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House [and] we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."Well, from a Maoist perspective, it is very traditional. It fact, it echoes the central philosophy of the "the most important philosophical essay[s]" which Anita Dunn's favorite political philosopher, Mao Zedong, ever wrote! I refer in particular to the famous "ON THE CORRECT HANDLING OF CONTRADICTIONS AMONG THE PEOPLE" from 1957. What Mao advocated was to allow democracy for "the people," while treating enemies differently. As Mao made clear in 1957, the idea was not new, even then: Many people seem to think that the use of the democratic method to resolve contradictions among the people is something new. Actually it is not. Marxists have always held that the cause of the proletariat must depend on the masses of the people and that Communists must use the democratic method of persuasion and education when working among the labouring people and must on no account resort to commandism or coercion. The Chinese Communist Party faithfully adheres to this Marxist-Leninist principle. It has been our consistent view that under the people's democratic dictatorship two different methods, one dictatorial and the other democratic, should be used to resolve the two types of contradictions which differ in nature -- those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people. This idea has been explained again and again in many Party documents and in speeches by many leading comrades of our Party. In my article "On the People's Democratic Dictatorship", written in 1949, I said, "The combination of these two aspects, democracy for the people and dictatorship over the reactionaries, is the people's democratic dictatorship." I also pointed out that in order to settle problems within the ranks of the people "the method we employ is democratic, the method of persuasion, not of compulsion". Again, in addressing the Second Session of the First National Committee of the Political Consultative Conference in June two, I said:It may be 2009, but I think that today we see a similar application of Mao's time-tested method of handling contradictions. Just as there is a huge difference between enemies of the people are those who are with and of the people, we must recognize that there is a huge difference between CNN and Fox News. And they must be treated differently. The Fox News clique clearly epitomizes what Mao called "the U.S. imperialists and their running dogs -- the bureaucrat-capitalists, the landlords and the Kuomintang reactionaries who represented these two classes" who it almost goes without saying "were the enemies of the people" while CNN and the friendly news agencies can be counted among what Mao called "the other classes, strata and social groups, which opposed them" all of which "came within the category of the people." That such contradictions have to be handled differently should hardly surprise anyone who considers Mao a favorite political philosopher. Thus we see that Spokesperson Dunn's remarks about the friendly CNN and the enemy Fox are at once not only bold, but because they have been (as the Nation said) "a long time coming," they are also reassuringly traditional. "Two different methods, one dictatorial and the other democratic!" "Emulate the bold and imaginative attitude of Chairman Mao!" MORE: Whoops, almost forgot my favorite music! And for those who want more Maoist music to massacre millions, don't forget this favorite!
posted by Eric on 10.21.09 at 12:27 PM
Comments
Oh, come now, people. Mao was just some guy who showed the humble peasants how to make a really good Peking Duck! Wakefield Tolbert · October 21, 2009 11:17 PM
Veeshir · October 22, 2009 09:44 AM Post a comment
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Reminds my of the long gone days of my mis spent youth.
I liked The Last Emperor for a good look at Mao's China.
Enemies and the People were interchangeable.