The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 as the “bible” of Communism.
“Progressive Values” are listed near the bottom of the Communist Manifesto as goals Communism must achieve in order to take over a society. The only difference between Marxism and Progressivism is the strategy and tactics they advocate. Marxist tactics are to instigate armed revolution for violent overthrow of a government while Progressivist tactics are to infiltrate and subvert an existing government system. See the quote from the Communist Manifesto at the bottom of this and you’ll see that the objectives are the same in both cases. You might be surprised at how much progress they have made in the last 100 years.
Progressives like to call their opponents “radical”, “right-wing extremist”, or “radical right”. Radical right means Christian, Conservative, or Constitutionalist. If you’re more conservative than the heros of the Progressives (Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Castro, Che G, Kim Jung-Il, etc), then you’re part of the radical right.
The following is from “The Communist Manifesto”, 1848, by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels:
“… We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:”
“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”
DONE: If you think you own your land, try growing wheat on it for your own use. If you own your land you have complete control over it. If someone else has control over it, they own it.
“2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
DONE 1913 IRS
“3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.”
on-again, off-again “Death Tax”
“4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”
Check the “War Powers” act
“5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
DONE 1913 FED
“6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”
IN-WORK: On-again off-again Fairness Doctrine, proposed “Net Neutrality”, proposed “Internet Kill Switch”, GPS locators in vehicles & cell phones (and who knows what else), various regulations, fees, licenses, and permits
“7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.”
abandoned or FUTURE???
“8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”
sounds like chain-gangs for political prisoners to me.
“9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.”
Forget about living where you want to, you will live where you’re told to.
“10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.”
Children’s factory labor in a new form, huh? I’m sure that will be a big improvement over its present (in 1848) form. Old Karl should have done it like we did it. We just abolished child factory labor in all forms.
“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”
Bullshit. The only way the proletariat can “have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally” is if they kill all the bourgeoisie during their revolution. That has actually been done, Mao killed approximately 60 MILLION Chinese in taking over China. Otherwise you just swap who is bourgeoisie and who is proletariat. You still have class warfare and you work your way up to another revolution.
Marx was a fool. History has shown that as soon as a revolutionary force has firmly established itself as the ruling power the first thing to be swept away is Democracy. Neither Democracy nor a Representative Republic can co-exist with any form of Communism, not even if you call it Progressivism. The appearance of a Democracy can be faked by holding elections but what good are elections when the only candidates permitted come from the ruling dictatorship?
” In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all…”
Actually, the Constitutional Representative Republic we have in the United States is the only government that has ever accomplished such an association. We have accomplished what every attempt at Communism has promised and failed to deliver and did it while protecting the God-given freedoms we all enjoy. If we are not free as individuals we can never be free as members of any kind of group or association. The only association or group in which individuals are free to develop and conduct their own lives is the association of Citizens of the United States.