According to one of his students, during their 1995 trip to China, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz sought out copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book to give to American friends.
Anyone who, in 1995—two decades after the Great Helmsman’s death and the truth about his unconscionable tyranny over the Chinese people had become widely known—wanted to pass on copies of the Little Red Book is not intellectually fit to execute the office of vice president under the Constitution of the United States.
For those who did not live through Mao’s Cultural Revolution or who don’t remember his Little Red Book, let me fill you in.
I have a first edition of the Little Red Book from 1966 with Lin Biao’s introduction, purchased in Hong Kong. The book contains quotations from Chairman Mao’s many writings. The small book of 311 pages, each 3X5 inches, had a plastic red cover. Millions were printed and handed out. The purpose of the book was to indoctrinate all Chinese with correct Maoist thinking, to make them “Red,” as the saying was, in mind, heart, and spirit, dependent on the Chairman and his Chinese Communist Party as their thought leader.
As Lin Biao wrote in his introduction to the Little Red Book (before he turned against Mao and died when his airplane was shot out of the sky as he was trying to escape to Russia): “The most fundamental task … is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong thought and to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it.”
A Chinese student of mine in the early 1980s described how the Little Red Book was used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Liu Pei had been sent from Beijing to work as a field hand in a rural cooperative to learn how to be a model “Red” Chinese. A Red Guard would come up to him and verbally pounce with a number, say “36” or “114.” Liu Pei was expected to recite every word of the Chairman printed on that page.
If one word was forgotten or mispronounced, it was taken as evidence of not being sufficiently “Red” and patriotic. Therefore, discipline was administered and more right-thinking education imposed to help him self-correct and eradicate the non-proletarian tendencies of his personality.
The author of the book, by the way, is credited with causing the deaths of at least 30 million Chinese, which puts Mao way ahead of Adolph Hitler as a killer of people.
So, we might consider the Little Red Book as the Chinese counterpart to a mini Mein Kampf setting out the thinking of the leader—Fuhrer in German and Lingxiu in Chinese.
With this parallel to Hitler in mind, we might say that the key sentence in the Little Red Book is this: “Every Communist must grasp the truth, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’”
Thus, the Little Red Book instructs us to impose our will, our ideology, on others through force, never taking “Let’s talk about it” for an answer.
Did Tim Walz really think we needed this in America back in 1995? Is this the socialism that Walz thinks of as just friendly and nice “neighborliness?”
The Little Red Book says too, “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.”
The Little Red Book was also famous on the American Left for passing on Mao’s dictum that “a revolution is not a dinner party.”
Other dicta of the Chairman quoted in the Little Red Book include:
“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”
(I wonder if Walz had this in mind when he spoke of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis as pardonable given past wrongs done to African Americans.)
“The masses have a potentially inexhaustible enthusiasm for socialism. … those who are utterly incapable of seeing this enthusiasm are blind and all is dark ahead of them.”
“In a class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.”
“Our present task is to strengthen the people’s state apparatus—mainly the people’s army, the people’s police, and the people’s courts—in order to consolidate national defense and protect the people’s interests.”
“The people’s democratic dictatorship is based on the alliance of the working class, the peasantry, and the urban petty bourgeoisie.”
“We must conscientiously get rid of every unhealthy manifestation in any link in our work that is detrimental to the unity between the Party and the people.”
“The Revolutionary War is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses.”
“Revolutionary culture is a powerful revolutionary weapon for the broad masses of the people. It prepares the ground ideologically before the revolution comes and is an important, indeed essential, fighting front in the general revolutionary front during the revolution.”
How could any of these dicta have been inspiring or relevant to Americans in 1995 (or to the Chinese for that matter)?
And in 2024, they don’t feel like the politics of Joy either.
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Stephen B. Young is the author of Kissinger’s Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War
As an instance of the ‘stopped-clock’ principle, consider Mao’s quote:
“The masses have a potentially inexhaustible enthusiasm for socialism…”
Substitute ‘authoritarianism’ for ‘socialism,’ which is what the word really means and certainly what Mao meant, and it is very difficult to argue that this is not true. The present state of the human condition, not to mention pretty much all of human history, confirms it. The Framers of our Constitution recognized this and took great pains to create a system of government that would check this enthusiasm and those who would try to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, over the years, their work has been pretty much undone.
I’m an old white guy who’s been in China many times, from 2007 up to 2012. I married my wife in mainland China in 2007, got her to the U.S. in 2008, & she did the work & became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2011. We were in China again last Fall for several months and, as usual, living in the homes of relatives. We love China and the Chinese people, but as for the government …
Now, note that the “Chairman” from 2002 to 2012 was Hu Jintao. He ruled with a very light touch, and is fondly remembered by most Chinese to this day. In the 90’s & up to 2002, however, the Chairman was Jiang Zemin, a nasty s.o.b. Mao Zedong wannabe. China now is not as open as it was under Hu, but it’s not so openly oppressive as it was under Jiang. His memory is roundly despised. Look at the movie “Red Corner” to get a feel of China under Jiang.
The point of this is that Walz was taking kids to China during the “administration” of Jiang! There is absolutely no way in H*ll he could have gotten permission for that many excursions unless he had been thoroughly vetted & approved by someone rather high up in the government, and that should be a warning!
Good to have you “Phredd”. Hope you’ll stick around.
Well, there is that.
The fact that Walz has embraced the depravity of Mao of an ideology that is systemically inseparable from every horrific and monstrous depravity and perverted aberration known to man - as all totalitarian ways of thinking are?
Is evidenced in the fact that his actions - as Governor - bear scant evidence of being consistent, rational or intelligent in any way, shape or form.
Of course when one is insane - as all the Left are?
Meaning living in a separate reality world of “ideas” that are based in heartless, wanton desires for power over others and the world - a divorced from reality, barbaric ideology - espoused by a serial killer, mass murderer like Mao?
Well, to expect coherent, integrated thought patterns would be, is enough to have whoever is stupid enough to think such is sane? That they should be categorized as categorically dumb as a post, bereft of rhyme and reasoning - just plain beyond all hope - stupid.
Walz is - in a word - like his idiot, word salad partner, Kamala, is evil.
Sadly, evans, too true but…
What is also true is that there has also always been a small percentage who weren’t enamored of eschewing responsibility for their minds and what their hearts told them was true and who were prepared to fight for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”!
The American Way not necessarily having any direction connection per se to America the Beautiful - except that it was in a country named America where the ideal came - more or less - into its own and fruition.
I believe that approximately 97 percent of humanity are more than happy to be as sheep passively lead into the abattoir for slaughter - to take up residence in the charnel house of despotism. Blithely thinking “No my problem, let the other guy do it.” with little thought for the morrow.
Thus, the situation you aptly described that’s been the bane of existence since time immemorable.
Yet? Somehow at the last minute, when all hope seems lost, when the point of no return sign is in sight, the last chance to turn around announcement has been made?
Then, enough people do wake up and smell the reality roses and just “in the knick of time” something of great moment “happens” that wrests, dashes the Machiavellian plans and control wantonly desired - from the gnarled, craven hands of the evil ones and
That’s life!
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