Fashionable Communism?

Isn't this the perfect topic for the communist holiday May Day?

Tim Vincent, British BBC veteran and currently the New York correspondent for NBC's "Access Hollywood", has been seen twice now on TV wearing a shirt with one of Communism's most cherished symbols.


I'm sure he wouldn't be seen wearing a swastika, the totalitarian Nazi symbol; so why is it O.K., even fashionable, to wear a totalitarian Communist symbol? The Nazi's killed 21 million people, but the Soviet Union alone killed almost 62 million; communist governments in total have killed 100 million. So what is it that makes communism so fashionable and socially acceptable?

In the article "Totalitarian chic", Jeff Jacoby asks this very question. Here is an excerpt:

...communism rarely evokes the instinctive loathing that Nazism does. Prince Harry's swastika was way over the line, but Tim Vincent's hammer-and-sickle was kitschy and cool. Why?

Several reasons suggest themselves.

One is that in the war to defeat Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union fought with the Allies. World War II eventually gave way to the long-drawn Cold War, but America's alliance with Moscow left in many minds the belief that when it counted most, the communists were on our side.

Moreover, the Nazis didn't camouflage their hatefulness. Their poisonous rhetoric made only too clear that they loathed Jews and other "subhumans" and believed an Aryan master race was destined to rule all others. By contrast, communist movements have typically masked their malice and ruthlessness with appealing talk of peace, equality, and an end to exploitation. Partly as a result, the myth persists to this day that communism is really a noble system that has never been properly implemented.

Third, the excesses of Joseph McCarthy hurt honest anticommunism. In the backlash to McCarthyism, many journalists and intellectuals came to dismiss any strong stand against communists as "Red baiting," and conscientious liberals found it increasingly difficult to take a vocal anti-Soviet stand.

But perhaps the most compelling explanation is the simplest: visibility. Ever since the end of World War II, when photographers entered the death camps and recorded what they found, the world has had indelible images of the Nazi crimes. But no army ever liberated the Soviet Gulag or halted the Maoist massacres. If there are photos or films of those atrocities, few of us have ever seen them. The victims of communism have tended to be invisible -- and suffering that isn't seen is suffering most people don't think about...

(bold emphasis mine) Jacoby offers some good reasoning here, and also talks about some of the shocking venues and products that are making communism trendy and acceptable. Tim Vincent is just one small part of a larger movement. You can read the whole article HERE.


Hollywood values: Communism and fashion naturally go together. Could it also be that people who find Communism fashionable, also agree with totalitarianism, as long as it is politically correct; as long as it moves in directions they approve of? So many people in Hollywood embrace and praise one-party state communist dictators like Fidel Castro. I suspect totalitarianism is fine with these folks, as long as it's the "right kind". I find that attitude appalling. What ever happened to embracing freedom, multi-party democracy and the rule of law? Has it gone out of fashion? It seems to have among the American left and the Hollywood crowd.