The Long Red Road from Marxism to Communism

A three-minute video from a military academy lit the fuse for a bigger question: how did ideas tied to Marxism and collectivism become so normal inside American culture, education, and even the armed services? 

STARRS & Stripes host CDR Al Palmer, USN ret, sits down with a panel of veterans, scholars, and former Soviet bloc survivors to follow the trail from slogans to systems, and from institutions to everyday life. 

• STARRS President Col. Ron Scott, PhD, USAF ret, USAFA '73 who served a long career in the Air Force, is a retired college professor and served as a Principal Scientist with Applied Research Associates
• James Atticus Bowden, a retired Army officer, writer, 1972 West Point graduate and member of the MacArthur Society
• Stan Ridgley, PhD, a college professor and author of "Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in Our Universities" and "DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education"
• Mihaela Fletcher, who grew up under brutal communist Romania, but escaped. She is a doctor in nursing practice and is a STARRS ambassador
• Alex Markovsky, an emigre from the Soviet Union who holds degrees in economics and political science from the University of Marxism-Leninism, and is the author of "Anatomy of a Bolshevik: How Marx and Lenin Explain Obama's Grand Plan" and "Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It"

What starts as a conversation about activism quickly becomes a blunt look at power, legitimacy, and how “soft” language can hide hard outcomes.

We wrestle with the definitions that trip people up: socialism vs communism vs Marxism, and why the wording matters if you’re trying to persuade ordinary Americans, not win an academic debate. 

The panel digs into the long march through the institutions, critical theory, and why campuses often treat “social justice” as a moral good while avoiding the economic and historical record. 

We also examine the vacuum created when K-12 stops teaching the American Creed clearly, leaving younger generations to inherit a story about America that is mostly grievance and very little civic literacy.

Then the conversation turns personal and practical. Guests who lived under Romanian and Soviet communism describe ration cards, bread lines, surveillance, propaganda, and the slow tightening of control over food, housing, transportation, and speech. 

We end by asking what actually works: rebuilding culture upstream of politics, reforming education and teacher pipelines, and re-articulating the founding principles of individual rights and limited government in a way that makes sense in today’s economy and media environment. 

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For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which works to eliminate the divisive Marxist-based CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Department of Defense and to promote the return to a warfighter ethos of meritocracy, lethality, readiness, accountability, standards and excellence in the military.

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Transcript

Welcome And Panel Setup

Al Palmer 0:11

Well, hello America. This is Al Palmer, United States Navy commander retired. I'm here as a host of STARRS and Stripes. It's a podcast put on by STARRS, which is the organization that stands together against race racism and radicalization in the services. And we're here to talk today about a little bit about some of the the part that's radical today and the things that we face both in the military as well as in our society today. It's going to be discussing the communism and socialism and Bolshevism that exists and has existed for a while in our country. To do that, we've got a panel discussion today with five of the people I would call true experts in this subject matter. Colonel and Dr. Ron Scott is our president and CEO of STARRS, and he's an Air Force Academy graduate from way back in 1973. Uh and we're happy to have him here as an old fighter pilot, a pilot in the Air Force. He's done just about all you can do and still stay alive in the Air Force today. And another one is retired Army officer James Atticus Bowden. He's a military academy graduate, West Point 72. Jim has written notably about Marxism and all the isms as well. Uh and we're happy to have him with us as a part of the Martin MacArthur Society also. Uh Dr. Mihaela Fletcher is a she grew up in Romania and she became a diplomat in the country, managed to escape, got married to an army officer, , and then became a nurse practitioner nurse practitioner, and she teaches today in North Carolina. Dr. Alex Markovsky is an engineer, grew up in the old Soviet Union as a lecturer and a writer on the isms as well. And one of my favorites too, Dr. Stan Ridgeley, a professor at Drexel and an author, and he's written a really good book about brainwashing the students in Bolshevism. So anyway, welcome to all of you. It's good to have you here today. And with that, Dr. Scott, why don't you kind of lead off a little bit with us here and tell us what the issue it really is with the the continued emergence of socialism and communism in the country? Where does it come from? What do we do?

The Air Force Academy Wake-Up Call

Ron Scott 2:49

Thanks, Al, and I'm honored to be on this panel with these esteemed individuals, all of whom I know very well and respect. Um for me, the wake-up call was 7 July of 2020. That's when a friend of mine alerted me to a three-minute video put out by the Air Force Academy football coaches chanting Black Lives Matter. Two months after the George Floyd incident, so I could understand sentiment was running pretty high across the country that summer. But in trying to take that video down, because it really was not a good reflection on the Air Force Academy, I discovered that Black Lives Matter was actually fueled and advanced by trained Marxists. And so that became a discovery opportunity for me. Uh Lieutenant General Rod Bishop, Mike Rose, John Brockman, four of us got together and realized that we can't just sit by and watch this happen. We need to do something. And that's was the creation of stars. Uh, that three-minute football football coach video. Uh we are now sharing what we've learned across the nation in an American Creed presentation, what it is, why it's worth preserving, and the threat to that creed, which is essentially Marxism in its various forms. So that's how STARRS got started, and I look forward to a conversation here today with my senior colleagues here.

Where Marxist Ideas Come From

Al Palmer 4:20

Well, and and and Jim, , you had similar problem at the military academy, did you not?

Jim Bowden 4:28

Yeah, I do. First one, biocorrection. I I'm not a retired colonel. The the problem is there's this call cultural Marxism, but I'm gonna go ahead and cut to the chase if I can in terms of talking about Marxism and everything. So my background, I taught it at the Military Academy 40 years ago. That's a long time ago. Taught American government, mini public administration and research and methodology for the social sciences. And my last job in the Army, which was in 1992, was an Army Futures study that took the Army out the United States and the Army out to the years 2000-2015. And I followed that with 27 years of work in in military futures, primarily army and air force futures. So who are you gonna fight? Where are you gonna fight? Where are you gonna fight? That inevitably led to the the issue of ideologies and what happens. So I'm gonna cut the chase with this. Culture commands ideas motivate humankind for good and evil. And with ideas, you can think outside your culture, and ultimately cultures can change. They change over time. Ideas have genealogies. And where we are today, I go back to the ideas of the French Revolution being in con in contrast and in competition antagonistic to the ideas of the American Revolution and the worldview of the French Revolution, consequently being contrary to the biblical worldview of the American Revolution. And that that sets the stage. I know there's gonna say a lot more, but that that's where it all begins. It goes back to the French Revolution, American Revolution in our case, and it has evolved for it. So there's a lot more, but I'm not gonna I'm just throw that red meat out there for everybody.

Al Palmer 6:27

Well, we have lots of red meat here to talk about today. Uh and and Dr. Ridgley, , you teach about this and you lecture extensively. I love your book, by the way, Brutal Minds. And it it talks a lot about how that today exists within our academia. Uh can you talk a little bit about how that took root? Where where did it come from? I mean, back when I was going to college many years ago, we were all interested in girls in sports cars more than we were in politics, and somehow that's crept in since then. What what's your view of that?

The Long March Through Campuses

Stan Ridgley 7:06

Well, I think that you know, if you're looking looking for an origin point, I think the that motivates the infestation of socialism while communism um in the academy, whereas where I work, um it started a long time ago. It's intentional, it is per purposeful. It is the um realization of Herbert Marcusa's march through the institutions, the long march through the institutions, hearkening back to the terminology or the slogan used by Mao Zedong, the idea that for the left to win in a liberal democracy, a liberal republic like ours, you're gonna have to seize the institutions. And this is something that Vladimir Lenin understood extremely well, and it's something that the neo-Marxists, the critical theory Marxists of a neo-Marxist of the critical Frankfurt school of Adorno, Horkheimer, Eric Fromm, um, and others, is that you must seize the institutions, these organizations, um, the leadership of these organizations, and that is what is happening in America's academy. I see this all the time around me. Uh the idea that social justice, which is the null deplume of socialism or collectivism, one of the two great modus modes of organization of human humankind, which is collectivism versus individualism, you see on the campuses the embrace, the total embrace of collectivism in the form of social justice, which again is simply a placeholder for socialism. And I think that the book that I always hearken back to, of course, is is The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek, who really defined what socialism actually is and the great battle that we're engaged in. And that's what we're engaged in right now, and it's one we're losing on the campuses. And I hope that in my meager efforts can help to turn the tide with our young people who are not being, I can tell you right now, our young people are not reading Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom, and they're certainly not reading his Law, Legislation, and Liberty, , the Mirage of Social Justice. Instead, they're imbibing deeply the nostrums of of Marx and Engels and many of the their neo-Marxist pigani who have come along in the last decades or so, making socialism a lot more palatable and forgetting our its de execrable history. So that's where we stand right now. I wrote a book called Brutal Minds about this takeover of the institutions in the United States and primarily on the college campuses, and I hope that venues like this one, forums like this one can continue to expose this um this malady on our college campuses.

Al Palmer 9:56

And and yes, and and Stan, your book, by the way, copy here, excellent book. Uh and it's one of my favorite it's a read that you absolutely have to do. But now that you mentioned the the the the origins of this, going back probably into the 50s, 60s, post-World War II. You know, where but where did it come? I mean, this is like Waca Mole. You you have it come up here, it goes down, comes up somewhere else. You know, that didn't all happen accidentally, did it? It wasn't just the people all of a sudden coming to their senses one day and saying that socialism is better than capitalism. Somebody's behind this, something is behind it. You know, what what do you think that is, Ron? Do you have an idea?

K-12 Voids And Institutional Influence

Ron Scott 10:50

Uh who's behind it? Uh I don't think there's a single person that we can point a finger at. I think it's been a a collective effort. Uh people that the teachers' unions, for instance, are a big, a big force in this play. Uh and we have very wealthy billionaires. Obviously, George Soros, if we want to identify individuals, George Soros has been actively involved. Uh and so you have people that I think have become somewhat demi-gods that they don't believe in a god. They're only accountable to themselves. They take on the sense of power and they want to exercise it over other. It becomes very addict to a lot of these people. Uh, we're in a situation now because our K-12 educational systems have not been teaching our American creed, and so that vacuum has been filled by these ideologies, the socialisms, the Marxisms, the modern liberalisms, which is different from classical liberalism. So that that void has been filled. So we have a lot of young people, probably two or three generations of people right now that have little to no understanding of the American Revolution that Jim talked about and how that contrasted with the French Revolution. So it's it's been drip, drip, drip, and now here we are. Uh we listened to a presentation yesterday by T. Casey Fleming, who just authored a very best-selling book called The Red Tsunami, basically sounding the alarm of the efforts by China, the CCP in particular, in infiltrating the American institutions. Uh so we are on thin ice right now in America. And so fortunately, panels like this, where we can talk about what's at stake and what why it's dangerous and what can be done about it, , and then to educate the American people and Western Europe. Western Europe is in far worse shape than we are. But I I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't identify a single person as responsible.

Al Palmer 13:03

Well, I guess and and that's really the answer, isn't it? It's it's a it's a way of doing business that's spread and it's it's everywhere now. It's like cancer. It fantasticizes into other places. Well, so but that's but that's our our young people today, who have almost all of them grown up here in our country under the the tree of safety and pretty much everything that they want to have. But that's different if you grew up in a communist country somewhere. Uh Mahela and Alex both had the misfortune, I guess, of growing up under communism where they were young.

What Communism Looks Like In Real Life

Al Palmer 13:43

Mahela, can you talk a little bit about what that was like in in those days? But more importantly, what do you see today that exists in our country that rings bells with you when it comes up? Like the Palestinian protesters, the folks that want to live under communist or socialist management in cities like New York coming up. So, what do you see there as parallels?

Mihaela Fletcher 14:08

So, first of all, it's difficult. Unlike you lived in communism like Alex and I did, it's it's impossible to understand because you were not there. Uh, when I came to this country, I came in search of a land of opportunity. I came here to get away from communism to find freedom. And here I see it all coming back to life. Um so how is in communism the government has they started a socialist, that's the way they started. Uh we were a socialist republic of Romania, but the Communist Party was in charge. So um they got control, they had control of all aspects of of everything about what we eat, what do we do, where we go, total, absolutely control, like pre-runching of basic food, um strict surveillance. We all lived in fear and trauma. Um so um when I see here coming to this country, I remember when I came to this country and my husband who I had a husband who died um was in the military air forces officer, he I remember he told me that he said in this country we have sexual harassment and abuse alone, and we hold people accountable for what they do. And it's coming from a country where we've been everybody sexual, emotional, and physically abused into childhood is part of being boring. We are like Lemon and then we are indoctrinated. I see it infiltrating everywhere. I see it going to education, going to full military, to the healthcare. Um I see I see it in everywhere. It's um it's everywhere, unqualified people, and that's what they want to do. They want to find people who are ignorant, who don't know. That's what communists do. They find the vulnerable people who are ignorant, they put them into groups like Marx and Engels say that they're rich and poor. Now we have women and women who are again rich and poor. The income discrimination is black and women, they just make them feel like victims instead of um making them feel resilient, like I taught much how to be resilient. They um make them feel victims, they manipulate them, make them eventually they get poor, they'll get rid of them when they reach their agenda. So um I believe it's all control, then that's the best way to do it. Uh gets through the leadership in the um in a variety of services, um especially education, health, , , and military.

Al Palmer 16:52

And well, and and and and but growing up though, you day-to-day living was a problem, was it not, with services, things like transportation, you know, shopping, all those things were different and that our our young people don't experience today here.

Mihaela Fletcher 17:10

Yeah, they do not know what um free free transportation is. They do not know what grocery rent stores are that having a house assigned by you, by the government to you. Um they don't know how they've been segregated even then, like in New York City, for instance, it's the New York City, but not even in New York, just like in Romania, it was in Bucharest in the capital, and probably now it will tell you, probably in Moscow, not everywhere else, are not having the same thing. So we had nothing. We not too many times to believe we had everything, but we had nothing, and we're abused, there was nothing, no, we had durations, and what we got is actually we didn't get the supplies, we had the right to get the supplies, to get to that grocery store. You have a little commerce that have commerce like tells you how much you can use. It was like a full-time job. You have to stay there in numbers, memory to their time to be there, weight numbers, and then you don't even know if you find that food that you have, like um chicken feed or lard, , the water responsible quality of food that you can think about again, everything is only everything was relation, and everybody was controlled and indoctrinated to believe that they had everything and they're lucky. And I believe they believe like in the allegory of Plato. We were like in the cave, we were all prisoners in the cave, we saw the shadows of propaganda, and we were all whenever somebody got out, , realized how life, how time it was, but some people it's hard to adjust.

Al Palmer 18:54

So controlling the things in your daily life was a a way to get to all of the people and and control that rather than just pick out small groups and try and organize them. They had you, right?

Mihaela Fletcher 19:07

They had the only way to keep control of people is to to um get to people is to control them. They were absolute control, 100% control. We were all puppets, we were all controlled.

Al Palmer 19:22

So, what would you say to some young Gen Zer in New York City today about what could happen when they start controlling things like grocery stores and transportation, housing? It sounds like the same thing you're talking about. What would you say to that young person today?

Mihaela Fletcher 19:41

They have no idea what the reality is. They really think they the mayor, New York City Mayor Mandani, promises them paradise, but it's not paradise, it's all deceptions, it's all lies. They have no idea what it is, and when they'll find how bad it's gonna be, they are it's gonna be too late. It takes, and I'm looking at what is happening in Romania, I would say it takes like at least three generations to get somewhere. Once you get there, you never know when it's so they just don't know, they just need to get educated, read these books that you guys were talking about, um and be resilient and get a job and work, don't wait for the government to give you things, just do it for yourself, have they just don't see what it is. And my my child knows it because I taught him. But these people who are already here, they don't know what freedom is, they have no idea because the the what limitation of freedom is, because they had it, they were born with freedom and they were promised even more, which is actually just lies. They are gonna get violation of human rights, political repression, corruption, abuse, poverty. They're gonna be equal in their misery, in poverty.

What Socialism Really Means

Al Palmer 21:06

And so, Alex, , you you had a similar story growing up in the old Soviet Union. Uh, and and maybe even more to the point, your father and your family were involved in that as well. Uh, how do you feel about that?

Alex Markovsky 21:22

Well, we keep talking about what had been. And I'm really curious what that has to do with the United States? That average person would say, well, okay, it was terrible, but it was gone. And in America, socialism is democratic. It's different. So, where is the relevance what had happened in Eastern Europe 70, 80 years ago is what's going on in the United States. And I tell you what, where are we? have dealing in the United States is is completely different. And once I believe we talk about Russian socialist Labour Party where socialism was born practically and how they split between Bolsheviks and nationwigs. And what are you talking about totalitarian socialism that was established in Eastern Europe and that collapsed and as I said now they say it's democratic, it's different. Until we define what socialism is until we understand the problem with socialism and convey to the people we can talk a lot about what happened in the past and they will tell you well but now it's different. So it's irrelevant.

Stan Ridgley 23:00

So let's define we you talk a lot about that in using interchangeably Marxism, socialism communism whatever but what socialists really are fighting for what do they want and how it affects our life and how it may change the United States that's I'd like to turn discussion into that route instead of talking about what happened in the past and how bad it was can we define really I think I think what we don't want to lead way because I simply don't agree with you Alex Yanisagaska Alex because I think we if we do not learn from the past and the mistakes from the past then we're doomed as George Santayana said we are doomed to repeat those mistakes and I think that the framework of socialism slash Marxism slash communism has served as the avatar of human destruction for more than a hundred years. And I think that the mistakes that were made in the past whether it be Fabian socialism whether it be the nostrums of Karlkowski whether it be the um nostrums of Vladimir Lenin Stalin Fidel Daniel Ortega even the Kimel sung in North Korea it's all virtually different parts of the same nost the same nasty doctrine and I think the simply dismissing and ignoring the past is a mistake I'm not talking ignoring the past I'm telling you the problem has very little relevance to what's going on in the United States further what's great well has great relevance going on with what's going on in the United States I visited your Soviet Union and I visited East Germany at the height of the Soviet the Soviet domination of of East Germany and I think that you do us a great disservice by disclaiming your own past and not seeing the model that is laid out there for us okay with all due respect what is socialism can you define it why don't you define it you're the one who has a disagreement I certainly can define socialism as a form of attention okay you define it no Alex you define it you brought it up you have the disagreement with what's being said and you've called for this definition of socialism lead the way and I'll follow obviously no one of you can define it no obviously you refuse to define what you're criticizing right now you define it I asked you to define no what you did you brought it up you brought it up no no no no no no no alex you're acting like an old Soviet Talatish right now you define it okay you can't you can't jump in jump in well listen listen alex I'm a political science major a PhD in political science at Duke University in the country and I think that you are avoiding the question that you have indeed asked you are avoiding the question Alex well I will explain it to you but then I want to make sure well let's get another voice in here let me turn something real quick I feel like I'm back in grad school you got you got the mic jem okay I feel like I'm back okay let me talk okay I feel like I'm back in grad school can I one second you asked me to define it let me define okay all right well all right we're gonna go for us an hour go ahead it's yours okay go yeah real quick so I feel like I'm back in grad school I went to two of the most liberal grad schools in the country and I feel like I'm back there watching the academics so let's I want to narrow it finally can you let me do it just wait hold on hold on there's one definition social scientists political scientists can have academic discussions forever I think the point of this exercise because it's stars is what does this mean to quote unquote normies what does this mean to everyday folks who are not don't have a political science background who don't have a social science background who are will eyes eyes will roll back in their head when they start hearing these arguments not that they aren't important within academic circles so let me neck it down real quick I let off with something about culture commands and I just want to try and make this point the the ideas have genealogies so it is and they they have long genealogies and you can you can enumerate them they are the ideas are finite you can put them up on a whiteboard one to end this is what this ideology is this is what this ideology is etc and you can track them two times and my one favorite example is it's hundreds of years from Augustine to Aquinas to the Reformation with a simple idea of how do you know knowledge?

Jim Bowden 28:22

Does the church knowledge or do you know knowledge? And what's the relationship between the church and knowledge it's hundreds of years and it develops over time. So the ideas that we're opposing go back hundreds of years. Today they are expressed exactly as Mihala was describing where you break people down into identity groups you break them down into hierarchies you have grievances which then become a reason to take well they become something you have grudged which become grievances which then become far more sinister because for the left whether whatever you want to call them I call the left in order to have their way of living when when they're when they're they're all based on their I their ideas about history sociology and economics are all false and then when they try and force them on humanity and they fail they have to have an enemy to blame. So let me close it with this the cultures when I say cultures command within the United States there are four original founding cultures there are at least two since then ethnic cultures black urban and Jewish urban that came about in the late 19th century early 20th century. There may be some more developing like Tex Mex Tehanos and there and other groups if they stay in large enough populations those subcultures which are regional cultures and they've blended over time in the north especially they've devolved into there's a there's an urban rural split those subcultures which have a worldview are fundamentally what it's all about so the fundamental issues of who am I as a human being why am I on earth what is my life about what does when I'm born what are the opportunities that are ahead of me what what can I see we have to translate all this political science stuff and I'm a political scientist too we have to translate them into plain American English to say if you want to have a life if you want to have freedom here's what freedom means freedom means you're able to support your family. Well how do you do that? And we have we've got to translate those things in terms that people understand that who are pragmatic and not political that tracks any anywhere. And also I don't mean any disrespect to you two gentlemen who are making an argument because Stan I read your book and I love it. I am a huge fan you have nailed what's going on in in academic and Alex I'm I have not read yours and I I'm gonna buy it and read it. I have the greatest respect for you all I'm just saying we have to talk about what this means to normies.

Al Palmer 31:17

Let me flip it over to Angela you ask you challenged me to define it but you wouldn't let me do it I I would I would drop that I would just drop that and and move on because we're the the the audience won't care whom you're fighting if you do not understand their intentions if you don't understand what socialists are fighting for how can you defeat them well that's a very and Alex you make a good point and I'll leave it I'll offer this in in reading about this in all of your books and all too what I get is that socialism was the softer version of communism because Marx Marx and Lenin wanted to do something very different. They didn't want to just use a a a membership group from the proletariat they wanted to establish in Marxism communism an authoritarian form of government that was classless. Is that not true Stan?

Alex Markovsky 32:23

What is socialism? I ask you a simple question if you cannot define it let me do it for you but you don't seem to be even willing to let me do it I want to understand what you're fighting for how you can defeat I want to hear I want to hear what you have to say Alex okay can I speak yeah please okay well socialism consists two parts it is a philosophy of equality based on philosophy of egalitarianism of economic equality well just so socialism is about economic equality that's what all socialists tell us some people say socialism doesn't work well and I tell you why how it doesn't work if major political party in the United States adopted Marxism and promulgated socialism. So politically it certainly works economically it's a little bit different. You say if it doesn't work socialism doesn't work whether things work or not depends on their goals on their intentions and if they serve their intentions so socialism never promises you to create wealth socialism again promised you economic equality and here's the thing that's getting interesting because equality in wealth is axymorphic the only example of economic equality was during primitive communism by very much wealth is uniform so you equality in wealth can be only in poverty and that's where we're going with it let me offer this though Alex Alex let me offer this equality in equity are two different things equity is what you're talking about when everybody has the same outcome and I just don't think that's possible.

Al Palmer 34:54

That's not people are people people have varying degrees of ability of of interest and willpower they're gonna make of themselves different things along the way we can't all be the same.

Alex Markovsky 35:09

Okay again equality can only be in poverty therefore socialists very often say that we are for redistribution of wealth as Obama once said we have to take wealth created I'm quoting not exactly but that's what he said we have to take wealth created by private markets and distribute it more equally well no no no it's not about redistribution of wealth the ultimate objective of socialism is destruction of wealth that's the only way economic equality can be accomplished therefore we have to define socialism as ideal ideology of poverty and that will get to the brain of everyone so don't you think though that in doing that what you end up I haven't finished I have not finished okay so let me finish and and when you say that socialism doesn't work yes it does work look at every country where socialism become triumphant it creates poverty create economic equality so it does work because it's so there for so in order to defeat them we have to do we have to define them not let them to define themselves we define them now they say now and what I'm trying to say that socialism works and unfortunately democratic socialism will work even better because it guided by democratically elected leaders it carries the legitimacy of popular consent and will advance socialism equality through lawful transparent legislation unlike the coercion and mass terror that may mark the Soviet Union China Cuba and all other countries that's where the greatest danger is and if you look at it they are triumphant they are triumphant in New York they will be triumphant in Illinois and that they're triumphant in California and the reason they are triumphant because we are illiterate as a society we does not we do not understand whom we're dealing with by the way if we just look at the history it tells even Aristotle 2400 years ago said in democracy the poor will have more power than rich because they are more than the will of majority is supreme. Therefore Mensheviks were correct when they say the democracy is a road to socialism we have to look at our democracy that deteriorated over the years and now we have the whole party that promotes Marxism that's where danger is and you can talk a lot about what happened in Russia Eastern Europe of all the terrors this time we can say that Bolsheviks did not win did not win Mensheviks won who from the very beginning were advocated establishment socialism through democratic way they believe that democracy will lead them there and it does right now okay all right well listen I think that helps us a little bit there.

Al Palmer 39:19

Ron what is your take on some of this by the way when when we talk about what Alex just described we are talking about history we're talking about our history but a little bit about the evolution of isms and how that's important today. Don't you think that's right?

Ron Scott 39:38

Yeah I I do and and I I appreciate what Alex was describing and the question that it raises in my mind Alex is the destruction of wealth fully intended or is it just a natural outcome?

Alex Markovsky 39:53

Well if you don't take it from me take it from Lenin in 1919 2022 April 1919 was Lenin's 50th birthday he probably had a little bit more work than usual and he gave an interview to Morningstar British newspaper when he was saying we tried everything to destroy capitalism we expropriated their wealth we sent them to Siberia we executed thousands of them and couldn't defeat capitalism but eventually what we did we destroyed wealth we created enormous inflation we destroyed the money and that how we destroyed capitalism that's what Lenin said check Morningstar when I was writing my book I found that interview it was reprinted in New York Times in 1919 probably two days maybe after the 23rd something like this very teaching well the question I have for Stan is given that is while money ceases to be the currency obviously we destroy wealth doesn't the currency then become power and is that the ultimate objective of socialism I didn't get it I'm sorry if currency is destroyed the wealth is destroyed.

Stan Ridgley 41:25

I think that Alex makes some very good points and I agree with him 100% in terms of the wealth destroying capability of socialism as soon as a little bit of capital or surplus is created you pres you immediately distribute that you immediately seize that and you pay off your middle your middlemen bureaucrats and a little bit of it trickles down but what I think you just said to me what happens when you destroy money or you destroy wealth what becomes the currency you find ration cards becomes the currency okay if you decide you're gonna control you're gonna control um the production and distribution of goods but you're going to control the the currency as well anything that is worth anything finds its way onto the black market. I had the privilege rather unpleasant privilege of visiting Alex's country back when it was still the Soviet Union and visiting living in the city of West Berlin when it was still a divided city and a lot of visits over to East Berlin to see how the communist system worked in practice and when I was in Alex's country I actually stood in a bread line just to say years for that today that I stood in a Soviet breadline with the the illumination that you get from doing something like that. And I think that Mikhaila I think she mentioned that she you stand in line all day trying to find the goods that are worth standing in line for. And exactly what Soviet yeah that's what that's what the Soviet life is like you're trying to find out what's in the stores and if there's a line you jump into it because you don't know what's being sold but you know it's something good because people are in line for it. So I think that you know ration cards becomes your de facto means of dis distribution if you just if you control the limits of how much people can buy I think that the fact that 35 Copex was the price of a loaf of bread in the Soviet Union and stayed that way and the Soviets used to point to that as this wonderful example of of communism in practice but the problem was there was very little Soviet bread in the Soviet stores and number two the breads was the bread sucked full of sawdust um so Alex's point that it's an economic system it does not work political system it does work it works exactly as it's intended to work it creates misery I would say an equality of misery across um class and it destroys classes letting us all devolve into the the lowest class that that society is capable of supporting and along the way instead of having exceptionalism in behavior and in production in your country or having some diversity in that what Alex is right what socialism does is

Al Palmer 44:00

It succeeds, but it succeeds only in creating mediocrity, not merit, not wealth. It brings everybody down, so nobody really succeeds and nobody fails, right?

Mihaela Fletcher 44:14

Well, their own candidates succeed. They have just like in community, you have one candidate that's like pre-selected and play your game, so we are doing the same thing now, seems like. All control from the leadership.

Alex Markovsky 44:33

What is the back to the past? And then I want to drive you to the future.

Mihaela Fletcher 44:40

But the future the future is going back to the past. Like if you don't have competition, if you don't have opportunity for everyone, if you make everybody poor, we are going back to the horrible past.

Stan Ridgley 44:56

It was Winston Churchill that said the farther you can look back into the past, the farther into the future you can see. So I think that this artificial cutting off from the past is not going to be useful to anyone. It should inform any types of solutions that are that um one wants to propose.

Alex Markovsky 45:14

It's not what I'm saying. It has similarities. However, the way they're trying to do it is different. And we have to be aware of it and get certain education. Well, the number of ways we can try to stop it, , although we have to probably start to sell democracies that deteriorated over the years.

How The Ideology Spreads Today

Ron Scott 45:51

So, Al, if you could put up that slide, I think that brings us to today. We talk about history. Uh in 1963, Congressman Herlong entered 45 goals of communism into the congressional record. Uh, Herlong, a Democratic representative from Florida, 1963, 45 goals. And this slide lists some of those goals that have already apparently manifested in America here 60 years later. Uh I would also offer that Stan had mentioned a couple books by Hayek. Another one I think that is particularly relevant for this discussion is one titled Fatal Conceit, The Errors of Socialism. Uh very, very powerful book. It's parsimoniously written, i.e., it's very dense. Uh you read a sentence and you have to take a few minutes to digest it. Uh but anyway, it's I I am just really awed by the discussion because we've taken it to a level that most people don't really spend the time to think about, and that's the ambiguity of socialism, what it is, what it means, how it's playing out. Uh and then when you see elections like in New York with Mam Danny, an open socialist, and winning an election for the largest city in the world, it it tells you that socialism right now is attractive to a lot of Americans. Uh and I would submit that most of the Americans that voted for Mom Donnie were college educated from the white demographic. And so this is something that we need to take on. And so that's probably where we want to take the next discussion here is what can we do about it?

Al Palmer 47:54

So among those things that they were successful with were things like education. And education is a foundation for all the young people that come into our society, particularly in the military. So, how can you have a military that's got no education in our own creed, our own American values of individualism when there are people telling you that in order to do things that are successful, you've got to be part of a movement, you've got to be part of a group. Our values as Americans are still individual. All of our rights under the Constitution are individual, and our freedoms are individual. So I think that's one of the things that we need to get back in to education. Uh and any thoughts on that? Jim, what do you think?

Alex Markovsky 48:43

Well, I I I tell you what, we all know what to do, we just don't know how.

Al Palmer 48:53

Hal is important too, I guess, isn't it?

Ron Scott 48:56

Well, and that's yeah, I know Al is a pretty prolific writer, but I understand that recently many of the platforms that were happy to publish his analysis on current events are a little reluctant to do that now. You want to talk to that out, Alex?

Alex Markovsky 49:16

Well, look, I stopped writing. And I wrote to one of my editors. I said, I think my readers are too stupid. So I'm not gonna write anymore.

Al Palmer 49:32

No argument there.

Alex Markovsky 49:34

Well, because you see, we need some kind of organization. It has to be a party that has ideology, that has some kind of platform. We don't have anything any of any of it. We just talk here on I'm I'm glad we have, of course. I'm glad then that it was organized and we exchanged our opinions for but we need a lot more than that. You see, we have to talk about our democracy because our representative democracy is no longer represented with the people. It represents terrorists, illegal aliens, riots, habitual criminals, anybody but us. And we have to admit that current political environment is very conducive to the spread of socialism. Well, we witness intellectual stagnation present in American political dialogue. Americans thinking about socialism entailing behind of the Russians or Chinese, neither education, no upbringing, no life experience equipped Americans to grasp the magnitude of socialist assault on American institutions. Consequently, what we see, the ignorant electoral often elects individuals who are demonstrably unqualified and have failed to possess even a basic understanding of history, economics, or critical thought. A few even, I tell you what, earn notoriety for inconceivable stupidity. Did I lose did I lose you? Did I lose you?

Jim Bowden 51:36

No, no, no, no, after after after 30 some years in Virginia politics, I would say amen.

Al Palmer 51:44

Yes, okay.

Jim Bowden 51:45

I would say amen. But let me go real quick. Politics is downstream from culture. So in the same way in the in warfare, you have the strategic level, the operational level, and the tactical level. In like manner, there is a cultural war that is fought in the seven institutions that exist that shape this country. Primarily the first, the primary one being family, and second, religion. And then there's down downstream from that inside those institutions. There are the areas where Stan has written so clearly about education. And in education, it's gonna take the political movement that Alex just mentioned in order to change that. Because not only do you have to change what's being taught, you have to go back and change who's teaching. So go look at every like in Virginia, I've been trying to do my homework on what are the legal controls that the General Assembly has over every institution which grants an education degree in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Because until you change who's teaching what to get an education degree, you're not going to change the culture of Marxism that's being indoctrinated everywhere.

Stan Ridgley 53:11

I think the people versus process, people are dominant. Unless you begin to change the people that are actually in control of the levers of power in education. I'm referring to higher education now, and of course to a lesser extent to the the public education system, , you're not going to get much change of or reform of anything. These people are committed ideologues. We find on virtually every website of every university in America a nod and a pen to the idea of social justice. This is simply a proxy for socialism, I think, as Alex so ably described. Uh, social justice is nothing but a placeholder that you can say out loud right now for socialism. It's collectivism. And the idea that there's a collectivist um god, if you will, or a canon of works on the college campuses that are being genuflected to in disparagement of the type of works that we've talked about with regard to Friedrich Hayek and the economist Thomas Soule, economist Milton Friedman, , economist all the way back to Carl Menger and and Adam Smith. As long as there is this fealty to this socialistic collectivistic God, then we are going to have real problems because we can we can enact surface reform all we want to. The president can issue executive orders all he likes. Um, and then you'll find, as it is in my campus, people and the bureaucrats nodding and saying, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, but the people are still in place, the people who actually have enacted this structure on the college campuses whereby collectivism is exalted. Unless we begin to tackle that problem and recognize that problem, we every solution we come up with will be the equivalent of a band-aid, I think.

What To Do About Education

Al Palmer 55:03

So if that's the case and and and the group behavior is exalted, how do we stop the exaltation process? Do we remove money? Do we move power from that? Because the people we're talking about, especially politicians, are gonna like something or not like it based on their perception that they're gonna get votes out of that, or if they're in business, they're gonna get money out of it. So isn't that the intersection there that needs to be broken? Money and power?

Alex Markovsky 55:36

I would say it's a lot more complicated than that. Uh Lenin once said, you give me a child, five years old child, and I put the seeds in his brain that will never be uprooted. So you see where I'm going, where I'm going when you have a generation that's been already indoctrinated in socialist ideas, difficult to uproot it. But first of all, you have to define your enemy clearly and what and offer some kind of alternative. Uh I've been thinking of learning alternative. What happened here? Okay. Okay. I I I'm losing the vision, so I'm losing the picture sometimes. Oh that's the voice of truth book. Did you hear that? Okay. Yes, we did. Well, what I was saying, as I said, we need a political party. We have to have an ideology. You develop new ideology. One of your ideas like an authority. Umce I read essay by Andrew Carnegie. Uh he wrote it in 1980, 80 something. Okay. I called the Gospel of Wealth. When he advocated entrepreneurial society seeking glory in economic prosperity and philanthropy. You see, we allowed our government to get in the business of making money. That is a big mistake. Government is in the business of spending money, and when government gets in the business of making money, he creates a monopoly. And perfect example of it: infrastructure. We can't build anything in this country anymore because government controls it. So we have to just follow our founding fathers who advocated for smaller government. And my thinking, why they advocated for smaller government? Because government is an institution of corruption. The bigger government, the greater corruption. And we see it right now in the United States. As I said, we can't build anything. We spend billions of dollars to build a rail in California, and we can't build it. I wrote an article, I don't remember the name of it, but I wrote it in American Infrastructure magazine. When I talk about American corruption and infrastructure, I had numbers, I had projects, I had everything. I was advocating for privatization of infrastructure. Get government out of it. Uh you know, in 1930s, for example, government could not build Hoover Dam. So government step in. Uh but today, private enterprise can build anything. We don't need government data. Uh they they build they build private roads, the government builds a road and charge a fee, and there is no competition to it. So they every time they raise tolls, more and more. As a matter of fact, they take something that builds with taxpayers' money in the 30s, 40s, and 50s and now charge it tolls for it. So we have to bring government to its knees, and we have to create a new ideology that would confirm that ideology of poverty. We have to create ideology of wealth. And I think Carnegie probably had something when he wrote that article. Very interesting article, it's very short, but very interesting. Uh so bring back capitalism into infrastructure, into building anything, capitalism can do it. And most important again, I can emphasize even more and more we need some kind of a party or society or something that will have a new ideology. Republicans have no ideology, unfortunately. Democrats have, they got Marxism.

Al Palmer 1:00:32

So, Ron, what do you think?

Restoring The American Creed

Ron Scott 1:00:34

Yeah, let me build on what Alex just talked about. Uh and Jim had mentioned earlier that politics is downstream of culture. Well, in 1915, Antonio Gramsci wrote, Socialism is precisely the religion, and we know it's more of an economic type thing, as we just discussed, but religion takes on another dimension. Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. In the new order, socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society. Now, nowhere in there did he mention government. And Alex mentioned the importance of government. Well, government is downstream of politics, and so we have to address those enablers of politics and subsequent of that our government by getting into our institutions and restoring them. And I would submit that because religion tends to be the overarching moral arbiter of political decisions, that we need to reform, refresh the importance of our Judeo-Christian grounding in America. Now that's another to a lot of people, especially in the universities. But when you look at the Declaration of Independence and the inspiration for our government via the Constitution, it was clearly grounded in an understanding that there are natural laws and that there are inalienable rights given to us by a creator. And so at some point, I really think we need to have the courage to be a little bit more open about that and to refresh that part of our institutions.

Jim Bowden 1:02:39

Combine two things here. Alex, I I appreciate what everyone's just said. Alex, I don't think we need a new ideology as in a separate, distinct one. I think what we need to do is take an existing ideology, and again, the ideas and the worldview of the American Revolution, which still exist today and are still held by about half half the country I still believe has this has the exact same worldview. You can if you listed the ideas, we think the exact same thing. So you take that ideology, that worldview of the American Revolution, the biblical worldview of the American Revolution, but you had it has to be adapted for the realities of what's going on in the world, what's going on in our place in our economic era and technology and adapt it so that it can be articulated to kids in high school, like one of my grandkids who just graduated from high school, to articulate here's what your future is and can be if we do the following things, and to show them that there are opportunities. So I I believe you're I I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Republican Party is not an ideological party, and that you do need an ideology. I would offer that there it exists, and there may be I can think of one champion. I don't want to this is not a political broadcast, but I can think of one person who probably grasped that, who's in power, not national power, but other power. And I believe it's adapting that to the economic realities of today, and then talking about what needs to change to create greater opportunity, greater freedom, and greater agency, individual agency.

Al Palmer 1:04:40

But it's also the notion that our country still to this day is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. That's who makes the government, not the other way around. And so that's contrary to national as institutions and of communism, Marxism, or whatever. You know, they're either going to try and tell all the people how to work or they're gonna eliminate classes and tell everybody how to live. Those are not things that go with our American values. And that's exactly what we're teaching that Ron is so up to his eyeballs in the American creed. What are we about? How are we the antidote to some of those things that do exist? And that may be the avenue we're talking about here. So, Ron, what do you say about that? Is that a bigger role for stars then?

Ron Scott 1:05:34

Well, just an amplification. Uh right now we're capacity limited, and so the more audiences we can reach, , and the sooner the better. Um we've been given this since March, and all of the audiences have have responded in a very positive way. Uh and a lot of people in the audience, you know, we were just reminding them of what they learned in school, but we're talking people that are 70, 80 years old. The energy generation is not so much. So we've got a great story to tell, and you know, the American people deserve to hear it so they can embrace what we have and and protect it.

Al Palmer 1:06:22

Knowing that we are indeed an exceptional country, and we stand out among all others, and you you balance that against the countries that have adopted some form of an ism, , who have not succeeded, as Alex points out. They've been very successful at what they do, but what they do, unfortunately, doesn't produce positive results.

Ron Scott 1:06:45

Well, and we need more Stan Ridgley's. Stan has the courage to write what he's been writing as a professor at Drexel University, a prestigious university. We need more voices like that on our university campuses. We do.

Final Takeaways And Next Steps

Al Palmer 1:07:02

I'm grateful that we've had the opportunity to listen to Stan today, as well as Jim and Alex and Mahala, you've all got important pieces of this story about the isms that are on the rise today. And I'm happy that we've had the opportunity to hear all of you. It's been a lively discussion, gang. Uh, and I hope that people will listen to that, that they'll also go out and read your books that you've written and things also like Jim does on on our website, stars.us. You can find a lot of writings there that support all of this from the folks you heard today, and also from the leadership of stars, who are all amazing people. And I'm happy to have had you here today. And for our listeners, stay tuned. We're gonna talk more about this. This is a new front for stars, and we're gonna be actively following this coming up in the future. Again, thanks to our panel for being here today, and we'll see you next time on STARRS and Stripes.