23 May 2009

The Communist Debacle.

The CPI (M) is meeting to discuss its poll debacle.

Well, not bad for a discussion that is behind its time by about twenty
five years.

What a laugh that the Left sees itself as the saviour from all our
problems, the ills of our rotten, capitalist, selfish, greedy ways.
Nepal can be forgiven for their democratic innocence in voting the
Maoists to power and wondering why they haven't made any progress one
year later.

India, thankfully, has never taken communism seriously, although we
have our respect for socialism while implementing our own brand of
capitalism. The fact is, capitalism is closest to human nature.
After centuries of evolution, experimentation and enterprise, we
humans love to hoard, we take advantage of opportunity, and we want to
be powerful and wealthy. We also want to be benevolent and insanely
philanthropical when we want to. Capitalism allows all this.

Communism on the other hand tells us we should avoid being rich in
order to help the poor, avoid being strong in order to help the weak.
It appears we should also be advised to remain stupid so we can help
others who are more so. It is so inimical to the growth of the
individual that even the Soviet Union gave up on the idea.

But the fools in the Communist Party of India, just like the
Republican party in the USA, are looking inward in the wrong
direction! They still think they made some mistakes that cost them the
election! Much like a wife who looks within for a reason for her
husband leaving her, it never occurs to the victims of pure choice
that there really IS a choice out there, perhaps.

That's what democracy is all about. Choice. We have choices,
options, ideas, perspectives, and our own personal takes on all of
these. We do not choose communism because it is passe. The results
in Kerala and West Bengal should convince our Communist brothers and
sisters that they are stuck in a mindset that is not quite keeping up
with the rest of the country. To debate on what they did wrong is
about as useful as wondering what sin we committed for the tsunami to
hit us.

To make us choose communism would take a LOT out of us. We have to
stop believing in all the good that capitalism has brought upon us.
Communists have told us for a long time that capitalism breeds greed,
forgetting quite conveniently that communist countries have had some
of the biggest wealth hoarding leaders, provided for dictatorial,
oppressive regimes, and not produced ONE success story!

Prakash Karat doesn't inspire any confidence in me. His mates don't
do much for me either. They all sound so humdrum, out of touch with
today and really, really boring. Imagine having one of them for Prime
Minister. Not happening, Sir.

We don't live our lives worrying about the collective on such
philanthropic terms that we would avoid being rich in order to "help"
the poor. We don't think of what we can do for the whole nation,
until we are okay ourselves. And even then, what is wrong with
selfishness, what is wrong with taking care of ourselves before we
care about others? It is amazing how only apparently frustrated, "not
rich enough" kind of people are the ones that join the Communist
Party!

The poor in our country aren't poor because our rich stole from them.
There just hasn't been enough opportunity. The way to create
opportunity is not through freebies, but through enterprise, education
and encouragement of ideas. For any of this, we should nurture and
celebrate individual success, focus very clearly and unabashedly on
creating opportunity to become insanely wealthy.

Only in a climate of abundance can we really contribute to an
ecosystem capable of creating economic wel being and eventually create
a flourishing country. Communism is busy playing the politics of
prevention. I'm glad we've prevented them from showing up on the
national political landscape. Let's now leave them to analyze their
failures if that is what it takes to keep them out of the way. Here's
a hint - this is not a debacle at the polls, it is a debacle at the
idea level.

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