Red is the New Blacklist

“Corporate communism” is a phrase, which according to the Urban Dictionary, was first used by former MSNBC host Dylan Ratiger.

The two words essentially refer to a combined government and corporate system that generally moves wealth and power from middle class working folks to an elite group of individuals in order to exercise control over institutions and populations and to also eliminate competition and options in the process.

Economic policies that confiscate people’s earned income, coupled with lockdown impositions, false media narratives, and severe suppression of free expression, are just some of the indicators that warn of our nation’s rapid shift in the corporate communism direction of which Ratiger made reference.

In 2010 the former cable television host penned a piece in the Huffington Post. He offered an explanation as to why Americans of the last decade were inclined to reject communism.

“…it [communism] historically has allowed a tiny group of people to consolidate complete control over national resources (including people), in the process stifling competition, freedom and choice.”

Communist systems inevitably lead to a loss of freedom, a culture of exploitation, and a compromised group of leaders who obtain their positions courtesy of cronyism, nepotism, and treachery.

Elites who rule communist regimes are notorious for stealing wealth from their citizens in order to enrich themselves.

Hugo Chavez, the communist dictator of Venezuela, railed against the wealthy, while he himself lived an opulent lifestyle.

Chavez was not wealthy at the time when, as president in 1998, he took over the then-wealthiest nation in South America. However, before he died he managed to end up with a net worth of over $1 billion.

Communist Fidel Castro told the people of Cuba that he resided in a fisherman’s hut. But according to a book written by his former bodyguard, the despot owned a 90-foot yacht and over 20 luxurious properties, which were located throughout the country. Castro’s assets were reportedly worth about $900 million; this according to Forbes.

Perhaps it is the lure of monopolistic wealth that explains why multinational corporations nowadays seem to have forgotten the reasons for the decades-long cold war with the Soviet Union that our nation had to endure.

Billionaire co-founder of PayPal and member of Facebook’s board of directors Peter Thiel recently stated that multinational corporations in Silicon Valley do not consider themselves to be “American companies.”

Thiel’s viewpoint is that this lack of corporate loyalty is partially due to the embrace of “woke politics.” But there is also the factor that many of the companies’ employees are sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party, particularly those who happen to be Chinese nationals.

In December of 2020, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine wrote a piece titled “US companies riddled with members of Chinese Communist Party” (https://nypost.com/2020/12/13/us-companies-riddled-with-members-of-chinese-communist-party/).

In the article, Devine discussed a database that had been leaked, which revealed that American companies had been infiltrated by registered members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China severely restricts its citizens’ rights of free speech and expression. In fact, the CCP exerts tight control over its media by mandating that all published information be vetted by the regime.

The communist nation filters and censors the internet while being given an assist by multinational corporations that include Google and Yahoo. This requirement is enforced via a strict criminal prosecution system.

China’s attitudes are consistent with those of the international left who have no interest in the free flow of ideas or debate. Founding communists Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky viewed free speech as a bourgeois value and had no problem shutting down presses that were not controlled by the Party.

In reality, communist ideology of any kind is wholly incompatible with the concept of individual freedom. An individual’s best interests are always subordinate to the collective’s best interests.

In corporate communism, multinational conglomerates work in concert with the government to alter, affect, and/or abolish competition, free expression, and choice of employment.

Regimes of this type today also practice blacklisting.

Blacklisting is action on the part of an authority in which a roster is compiled of those who hold ideas, beliefs, or attitudes or who engage in practices or activities that are deemed unacceptable by the powers that be.

For years it has been commonly associated with investigations, which were instituted by the House Un-American Activities Committee back in 1947, in order to block screenwriters and other Hollywood professionals, purported to be supporters of communism, from obtaining employment.

Today’s blacklists contain the names of those who have fallen victim to what is now being referred to as “cancel culture.”

Those who are unfortunate enough to become blacklisted are exiled from digital and broadcast platforms because of past expression of ideas, which run counter to the contemporary narrative of the government-corporate regime holding the strings.

Communism by any other name is just as insidious. And just as deadly to freedom.