I had the rare opportunity to interview Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, president of the Crown Council of Ethiopia, and the grandson of Ras Tafari, Emperor Haile Selassie who was deposed in the 1974 Marxist revolution in that country. In my discussion, I saw a first-hand account of the mortal dangers of populations adopting socialist revolution that we should carefully consider in our own country.
Watch my exclusive interview with Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie here:
Emperor Haile Selassie was a pivotal figure for Ethiopia and the whole of Africa. He implemented several reforms such as a written constitution and land reform to accelerate agricultural development. He was world renowned for his defense of his people from Italian fascist imperialism. In 1963, his creation of the Organization of African Unity sowed the seeds for solidarity and liberation of African nations from colonial rule.
In a time during which corporate media look to act as self-appointed gatekeepers of African history, it is telling that so few young Americans are informed of Emperor Haile Selassie’s out-sized role in defeating fascism and colonialism in Africa. The answer lies in the fact that Emperor Selassie was a staunch defender of Christianity, a symbol of patriarchy, and was murdered by socialists promising democracy.
In a now-deleted statement of beliefs page on blacklivesmatter.com, the corporate press-lauded organization declared: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
As a devout Christian emperor, Emperor Haile Selassie was a symbol of fatherhood in Africa. Like all radical groups driven by envy and a hatred for boundaries, the Marxists who tortured and murdered an elderly Emperor Selassie in 1974 were simply living up to their global creed: kill strong fathers first, loot the rest of the people.
This was nothing new. The Soviets who backed the overthrow of anti-colonialist Selassie were operating under the same twisted religious playbook they used to gain power in their own country. Financed by western corporatists who benefited from preventing market competition at home and abroad, the Bolsheviks used the disaster of World War I as the animus to murder Czar Nicholas II’s family—not sparing a single young child—and take over Russia. Everything the revolutionaries complained about under the monarch—lack of food, stolen land, violent prisons, police abuse—they did tenfold in their never-ending transition to utopia.
In my interview with Prince Ermias Selassie, he recounts a similar formula for the revolutionaries in Ethiopia: “They closed all the churches, executions were very rampant, and it didn’t fare well for the Marxists. I mean, they never got the support of the people.”
Today, Western corporatists and their press organs continue to sell a whitewashed version of African history that diminishes the voices of African heroes like Emperor Haile Selassie. Outlets like the New York Times live up to their legacy of covering up the crimes of Marxists like the ghastly Holdomor genocide, which resulted in 12 million deaths. They amplify voices that celebrate the same anti-market, anti-freedom, anti-family sentiments that fueled the murder of Emperor Selassie.
The corporate press does all this under the guise of social justice. Yet the only slavery the New York Times crowd will condemn are instances that began 400 years ago in America and ended with our Civil War. Meanwhile, they openly campaign for a candidate like Vice President Joe Biden, who led the butchering of another independent African country, Libya, and yawn at the unleashing of a modern slave trade in that country. Indeed, the New York Times used its pages to push the public for war in Libya. As they did in Syria. Millions of people of color have been displaced, dismembered, and killed as a result.
Wherever we go in history, the problem with the corporate press and their violent revolutionary foot soldiers is that they suffer the same delusion that Jesus confronted in his own time from self-proclaimed authorities:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets. So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Media elites act as if they care about vulnerable lives. They act as if they only care about facts and fairness. But the record of history shows they cover up the voices that get in the way of their religious devotion to socialism. Just like Jesus was sacrificed by a leader named Caiaphas who proclaimed “it is better that one man die than the whole nation perish,” socialist revolutionaries and their would-be myth-makers in the press believe it is better that Emperor Haile Selassie die, and the truth of his impact with him, than the whole global project of socialism perish. They truly believe it is acceptable to sacrifice some, including millions in the poor and middle class, who stand in the way of their god—the all encompassing, all seeing, all knowing, all caring, cradle-to-grave state.
To the young adults who have been drawn into America’s acute bout with revolutionary anger, I will leave them with Prince Ermias Selassie’s warning about Marxism:
I would say to them that it’s very interesting to read and understand concepts but when you live and experience it you realize how complex it is and it’s not such a black and white issue. Idealism, I think, leads to a lot of fanaticism; it’s your way or the highway. That has led to a lot of problems: a lot of blind hatred, a lot of blind murders. All about . . . being the sacrificial lamb to justify your right and that man is God and is in charge of his own destiny, which I don’t believe in.
The Marxists who killed Emperor Selassie failed. Ethiopia’s churches and markets are open again and healing is underway. The revolutionaries attempting to overthrow family and faith in America will fail, too. The question is, will we learn from the lessons of the past and reject sacrificial revolution at its infancy or take the long, sad path of ignorant repetition?
Leftism’s appeal is to high self esteem, being certain of your own intellectual and moral superiority. A secular humanist religion worshipping human reason. The problem always is when we make a god of ourselves, we decide right and wrong, and being certain of ourselves, any act can be rationalized. Remember, pride is Satan’s greatest weapon.
Wrong, leftists appeal to people by giving them money. That’s how they do it. Republicans love to lecture others on abstract notions and past events that have absolutely nothing to do with reality whereas Leftists cut to the chase and just give people money. Republicans keep yapping about dead people like Roland Reagan and abstract notions like the free market, like that’s going to appeal to voters. Even if Trump wins come November 3, it will be the last time Republicans score any major victory. Republicans will burden you with obligations but won’t give you any help. Who in their right mind is going to vote for that? It’s a suicidal position that needs to be gotten rid off and never be thought of again. Of course, being the greedy, self-absorbed snobs that they are, Republicans won’t change a thing about their broken ways of approaching things.
The Republican obsession with Socialism is one of the main reasons the GOP has been losing battle after battle.
To put it bluntly; it’s irrelevant to talk about Socialism in 2020, at a time when nongovernmental organizations and privately owned companies are the main actors in the constant violation of your rights. At this point, the Government isn’t controlling anything; on the contrary, the Government is being controlled by private sector groups that are above the law since they are the ones determining the law. So it’s rather senseless to be talking about Socialism when the Government has been castrated by and submitted to nongovernmental entities.
But since the subject has been brought up, let’s talk turkey.
I’m not a socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but this article is echoing the same old Republican cliches by cherry picking the worst failures of Socialism and exhibiting them in contrast to the best examples of Capitalism.
Can we talk about the failures of Capitalism too?
Can we talk about, say, the Great Depression, which brought upon the Western world an economic disaster that extended for more than a decade and put millions out of work and on the street?
Can we talk about how capitalists like Hugh Heffner and Larry Flynt have managed to ruin the fabric of society by exploiting and normalizing sexual perversion, adultery and deviances like voyeurism, sadism and masochism, to name just a few?
Can we talk about capitalist countries that are poor, corrupt hellholes, like Guatemala and Bolivia, where Capitalism has failed miserably?
Nobody is denying that Socialism has an extensive history of being hijacked by very bad people and put to bad use, but the same thing can be said about Capitalism; you’re seeing it right now, Capitalism is being used to privatize everything you use, including your means of communication, which will render your freedom of speech useless inasmuch as the private sector may make its own rules and terms of service without any regard for your highly acclaimed First Amendment.
Another thing that I abhor about Republicans is the fact that they have turned Capitalism into a veritable religion that demonizes ALL socialists by portraying them as sinners. This article does exactly that when it equates socialists with the Pharisees, even though the Pharisees were in many ways capitalists themselves; for example, they had turned the Temple into a marketplace.
Because the Pharisees believed that it would be better for one individual to perish for the sake of the common good, this article equates every Socialist with the sinful, murderous Pharisees. By the same token, we can cherry pick various New Testament verses that can be interpreted as validating Socialism:
“And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it” 1Cor:12, 26
“…for we are members of one another” Eph 4, 25
“And all that believed were together, and had all things in common ” Acts 2, 44
It’s very easy to find and select certain snippets from the Bible and recast them as being validations of a certain point of view.
Another disingenuous thing about the article is its attempt to pin on Socialism the destruction of Libya simply because former President Obama, a leftist, was instrumental in ousting General Gaddafi, as if every socialist under the sun were a warmonger bent on turning the Middle East into a hellhole. Can we also talk about, I don’t know, the Bush administration’s destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq? Weren’t these military interferences carried out by Republican capitalists?
As for Sahle Selassie, from what I’ve read, his refusal to send enough Government aid either caused or seriously worsened the famine. The fact that the people who had ousted him turned out to be either just as bad or even worse is not an excuse for Sahle Selassie’s incompetent administration. Two bads don’t make a right.
It is my observation that the Capitalist fanatics on the Right always deflect away from the present failures of Capitalism by bringing up the past failures of Socialism. They like to portray Capitalism as a godsend, as being something perfect that fell out of Heaven together with holy manna. They also like to defend Capitalism by praising its past accomplishments (“Look man! Capitalism gave us smartphones and laptops! ) ignoring the fact that it was public schooling, in conjunction with many social programs, that educated and nurtured the intellect of Western people, thus enabling them to make progress and build the things we have now. Capitalists didn’t just snap their fingers and bring into being all the stuff we are using now; the process started ages ago and spanned many generations of different people of various political views, so it’s ludicrous to give Capitalism all the credit for the things we’re using today.
As long as Republicans keep obsessing over Socialism and keep acting as if Socialism were a virus created in a super secret laboratory in China through the collusion between Xi, Stalin, Fidel Castro and Mister Bison, they will never win the culture war, they will never appeal to younger voters and they will end up fading into obscurity, like their Libertarian friends.
In a last-ditch effort to put my point across, I’ll paraphrase Samuel Johnson: “Sir, go into the street and give one man a lecture on the free market and Socialism in Ethiopia, and then give another man food coupons and money for his medical bills, and see which one will vote for you.”