'Socialism' and 'Communism': Do we need a history lesson, a dictionary or a reality check?

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

It's 'silly' to talk about Socialism and Communism, though history informs the informed that there is nothing particularly funny about any of these totalitarian means of governance and their collectivist principles.  There is a powerful, unquestionable narrative - as undeniable as Climate Change or, as Gerald L. Schroeder puts it, the "leap of faith with only the vaguest of foundations upon which to base that leap [underlying the]...saga that unguided random reactions produced life...".  And the narrative includes these unstated understandings: Socialism and Communism aren't that bad.  Socialism and Communism are systems that are largely misunderstood by the ignorant Conservatives and Republicans who dare utter the names, Socialism and Communism.  President Obama isn't a totalitarian; and his administration is not littered with current, former, and admitted Socialists and Communists.  Even if he is and it is; Socialism and Communism are both unappreciated.  How can this not be the message when it is apparently en vogue to "turn to most" a dictator like Mao Zedong.  In part, the article,
"White House Communications Director Anita Dunn Praises Mao" states:

The Black Book of Communism, which was edited by Stephane Courtois and a number of fellow French leftists, is the best resource for the crimes, terror, and repression of communism. It is widely respected and viewed as authoritative because no one can impugn the motives--or the careful research--that supports this great work of truth. Here's just one short passage: 'Excluding the deficit in births... the loss of life linked to the famine in the years 1959-1961 was somewhere between 20 million and 43 million people. The lower end of the range is the official figure used by the Chinese government since 1988.'
Even the communist regime in Beijing acknowledges that 20 million of their fellow Chinese died under the dictatorship of Mao Zedong. Twenty million starved to death in just two years.

Why is this narrative able to survive such damaging facts?  An integral attribute of the narrative's immune system is a complicit media.  But more important is nescienct citizenry.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Selling an agenda
Take a moment and recall - if you watch television these days - if you've noticed any especially obvious product placements in your favorite shows.  Any interesting advertising?  What about suggestions that you 'go green'?  Have you heard anything about conservation, saving the environment and doing your part?  Okay, well, if you haven't heard any of the above, what about health care reform?  Do any of your television shows feature an illegal alien who can't afford to get hurt for fear of the costs of his health care treatment?  (Read more about this here .).
If not, you're lucky.
You're also lucky, if you're able to continue to get your annual mammograms.  
When Former Governor, Sarah Palin suggested that under government controlled health care, you would be subject to the authority of death panels; she was sharply criticized.  However, you've likely heard about the government's recommendations in this regard:

At the Brown Cancer Center, Dr. Lane Roland said if the recommendations [of the 'U.S. Preventative Services Task Force']are adopted by the public and physicians, it will result in the loss of lives... The government task force making the recommendations consisted of 16 government-funded physicians and scientists. None was an expert on breast cancer detection and prevention.

And though there is only supposition behind the concern that insurance companies will stop coverning annual mammograms; it is not a great leap of logic to suppose this will be the case.   And if the supposition bears out, wouldn't this be "government control of health care decisions..."?  Even "HHS Secretary Sebelius [is doing] her best to ride the wave of incredulous opposition to the new government-sponsored guidelines advising women to hold off on regular mammograms til age 50.   Perhaps anticipating that opponents of the President's health reform efforts will argue that this is a glimpse of the future under Obamacare."
A more recent and direct example of media complicity is Climate-gate.  To be more specific:  Media complicity is well-illustrated by the fact that this scandal has yet to create a clamor for answers by the complex meant to stand in as skeptic to all for its viewers.
In his blog post, "ClimateGate Totally Ignored By TV News Outlets Except Fox," Noel Sheppard, on November 24, 2009, says something you may have heard Glenn Beck say recently on his Fox show:

Despite last Friday morning's bombshell that hacked e-mail messages from a British university suggested a conspiracy by some of the world's leading global warming alarmists -- many with direct ties to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- to manipulate temperature data, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, and NBC through Monday evening have completely ignored the subject.

In spite of the fact that Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) will call for hearings into Climate-gate over the "...surprise revelation from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) e-mails over the past few days, especially in how they manipulated data and deliberately hid contradictory information while building their 'consensus' on anthropogenic global warming." .  

Socialism
–noun
1.     a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2.     procedure or practice in accordance with this theory.
3.     (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
Communism
–noun
1.     a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2.     (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
3.     (initial capital letter) the principles and practices of the Communist party.
4.     communalism.

AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel

The ideas are often confused or conflated, maybe because they share connective tissues.  Socialism and Communism build one upon the other.  

In the Marxist theory of history, changes in methods of production lie behind mankind's progression through certain predictable stages. In the recent past there has been feudalism, which has now given way to the 19th-century triumph of the bourgeoisie. In the future there is the imminent Dictatorship of the Proletariat, after which an interim period of Socialism will give way to the final achievement of Communism.This progression is not, as liberals would wish, a gradual evolution. It is a series of violent upheavals in the struggle between the classes.[]The proletariat (a word used by Marx for the industrial working class) will smash the bourgeoisie and will appropriate their accumulated wealth for the common cause.
In the subsequent Dictatorship of the Proletariat all other considerations will be subordinated to safeguarding the revolution. []The next and penultimate stage is Socialism.
In the classless society of Socialism it is anticipated that mankind will live in harmony[]. Now it will be possible for the apparatus of state gradually to wither away. The final Marxist paradise of Communism will operate on a simple and just distribution of work and wealth - in Marx's words, 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'.

A bit of history
Our President of these United States, Barack Obama, has talked a great deal about collectivism.  Using community organizing as a vehicle, President Obama has talked about what he sees as the overwhelming benefit of collectivising the efforts and institutions of worship, the 'African-American community' and America itself.  President Obama was reported in the Chicago Reader to have discussed these notions:

Another strong supporter of Obama’s work—as an organizer, as a lawyer, and now as a candidate—is Madeline Talbott, lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization, a group that’s a thorn in the side of most elected officials.[][One of his] favorite [topics is] the lack of collective action among black churches.[]'In America,'' Obama says, 'we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.'

(Read the very interesting article here .).
And while the notion of organizing churches is not easy to critcize, President Obama's former White House communications director Anita Dunn (Dunn) took her admiration of collectivist principles too far - "drawing a lesson from the specific actions and thoughts of a mass murderer as they pertain to mass murder...".
The fact is that Dunn is not the only concern in President Obama's administration as it pertains to the issue of displaying admiration for systems and leaders of systems of government that have killed approximately 100,000,000 people.  Green Jobs czar, Van Jones resigned. FCC Diversity czar, Mark Lloyd (Lloyd) writes about the freedom of speech as an "exaggerated" issue raised as a "distraction" to important change.  Lloyd describes the Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez as leading a "democratic revolution".  Seton Motley writes:

Lloyd views the freedoms of speech and the press as just two of a number of 'communications policies.' Ones that he appears to view as less than equal - and in fact impediments to - the others he seeks to see implemented in the interest of promoting 'democratic governance.'
Note Lloyd's use of the word 'democratic' to describe the 'governance' he seeks to promote.  It's the same word he uses to describe the work Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela.[]
What Lloyd says about Chavez is more than a mite frightening:
'In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution - a democratic revolution.  To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela.
'The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled - worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government - worked to oust him.  But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country.  
'And we've had complaints about this ever since.'

The danger
If an elite leader and his administration acts as a totalitarian leader supported by his regime - all the while driven by the belief that you don't know what's best for you, that you'll strangle yourself if you're given too much of that rope called liberty - you can find yourself at the pointy end of sword built of his principles.  You don't like the spin offered in a set of particular newspapers and stop purchasing those papers; but the elite leader and his administration decide that there is a value in those papers that you do not comprehend (in your ignorance).  Thus, acting in the capacity of totalitarian leader supported by his regime, the specter of a potential newspaper bailout is raised to save those that are sinking under the weight of their own tone-deaf and ideological reporting is advanced.  With neither the internal motivation nor the expertise that successful entrepreneurs require to run profitable and efficient businesses, an elite leader and his administration can step in to make recommendations that lead to the rationing of your health care; he can ask CEOs of car companies to step down, if he sees fit; and he can give bailouts to banks, so they are able to cover promised bonuses.  (Read more about this here.).  He can act like a doctor who doesn't understand how an old, ill man would want to go on living:

Charlie Haggart is 68 years old and suffering from liver and kidney failure. He wants a double transplant, which would cost about $450,000. But doctors have told him he's currently too weak to be a candidate for the procedure.
At a meeting with Haggart's family and his doctors, Dr. Byock raised the awkward question of what should be done if he got worse and his heart or lungs were to give out.
He said that all of the available data showed that CPR very rarely works on someone in Haggart's condition, and that it could lead to a drawn out death in the ICU.
"Either way you decide, we will honor your choice, and that's the truth," Byock reassured Haggart. "Should we do CPR if your heart were to suddenly stop?"
"Yes," he replied.
"You'd be okay with being in the ICU again?" Byock asked.
"Yes," Haggart said.
"I know it's an awkward conversation," Byock said.
"It beats second place," Haggart joked, laughing.

(Read more about this here.).
In this way and in every way, totalitarian communism sounds a death knell; it is a harbinger of the end of life - for the elderly being counseled not to fight for life; it is the harbinger of the end - for economic growth; it is the harbinger of the end of opportunity - for the creative, driven entrepreneur.  And taking hold of policies to begin a walk down a road that many peoples have walked down before without success is the beginning - of the possible end:

But policies don't have to be as bad as totalitarian communism to make people poor. Consider the case of Argentina. In the 1920s Argentina's was one of the largest economies in the world, with an average income about the same as France's. Rich as an Argentine was a catch phrase often used in Paris cafés to describe an especially wealthy person.
Since the 1940s Argentina has embarked on a series of policies—nationalization of industries, expansion of state services, and vast overseas borrowing—that has eroded its rank in the world. In recent years, Argentina's per capita income has collapsed, falling from $8,909—double Mexico's and three times Poland's—in 1999 to $2,500 today, roughly on par with Jamaica and Belarus.

Think whether you want your motto to be:  From every productive citizen of the responsible culture according to his creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and drive, to every unproductive citzen of the victim culture according to his real or imagined inability to contribute.