Americans who have lived in countries controlled by Communist totalitarian regimes

Armando Simon writes,

People such as myself who have lived in countries controlled by Communist totalitarian regimes are thoroughly acquainted with their characteristics: censorship, divide-and-conquer tactics, fraudulent elections, mutilation of the arts and science, forbidding books, sadistic repressions, absence of comedy, snitching to authorities by friends and family members, constant propaganda, rewriting history books, toppling statues, relentless fanaticism, the rule of law jettisoned, political prisoners, self-censorship, propaganda posing as news, ruining the country’s economy, distorting the meaning of words. We can smell the stench of Communism, the plague of the 20th century, a mile away.

Simon then quotes Americans from other countries:

A Russian mother [name was garbled] in Bedford Central, New York: “The proposed ‘anti-racist program’ is just a prettier name for racial Marxist teaching. You don’t need to sugarcoat it for me. I lived it. Same methods, same vocabulary, same preferential treatment to certain groups. That’s why equity is packed with good causes like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion,’ so nobody can challenge it. But I know. Ask me how I know? I was born in Soviet Union and my family has seen it all. Suffering first from Nazi and then from tyrannical Soviet ideology. Back there, what started was ‘equity for all,’ quickly ended with nothing to eat for my people.”

Poles: Marlena Pavlos-Hackney, a small business owner in the state of Michigan, ruled by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), defied the irrational mandates over COVID (which the media assured us a year ago would kill millions of people in a matter of months) and kept her restaurant open. “We, the people, small business owners, like I told you, we have to fight, and I will fight for freedom, for American people. I encourage everyone: business owners, other people: stand up, and fight for your freedom before it’s going to be taken away.” For her defiance, she was taken away, arrested, jailed, and slapped with massive fines. “Marlena did not violate a law that the legislature passed,” said state Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland. “Marlena violated an order issued by an unelected bureaucrat. No one should be able to go to jail because one unelected bureaucrat makes an order.” A GoFundMe account has been set up to help her.

Poles: Artur Pawlowski: “In Canada to this day, prayer is illegal. But you can go to IKEA and abortion clinics and marijuana stores. I could bring my whole church to IKEA and have services there. But if one person comes to my church, I can be arrested. This is not about a virus! It’s about control.” And: “This is your destiny, America, if you don’t fight back,” warned Pawlowski. “If you don’t rise up like I did and say, ‘No! Get out!’ you will not have freedom.” He was eventually arrested for holding church services. “They are doing this to me. They are going to come after you. It’s just a matter of time.” To my knowledge, a GoFundMe has not been set up to help out Rev. Pawlowski.

Vietnamese: Rep. Quang Nguyen: “You know, I just recently heard someone say that white nationalism, oh, actually, that communism is not the enemy, but white nationalism. So let me tell you something about white nationalism. White nationalism didn’t drown 250,000 Vietnamese in the South China Sea. Communists did. White nationalism did NOT execute 86,000 South Vietnamese at the fall of Saigon. Communists did. White nationalism did not put me here. Communism did. So, don’t take it lightly. Don’t mock me. Don’t mock what I [went] through in life. It’s rough. I lost most of my cousins, my family members to communism. If we don’t stand up to teach [about] communism to our children, we’ll lose this country.”

Romanians: Andrei Codrescu: “Doesn’t it strike you as ironic that the only Marxists left are American academics?”

North Korean: Yeonmi Park: “At Columbia University, literally every professor was saying the problems that we have in today’s world is because of white men, how they colonized Africa, Asia, that’s how they mess up everything and they are the ones who needs to be blamed. And I couldn’t believe it. Am I sitting in North Korea’s classroom or in America’s classroom? I couldn’t believe why people were hating their own people that much. I literally crossed the Gobi desert to be free and now I thought I live in a country where I can say what I believe and have my freedom to think. However, now I have to constantly censor my speech because in the name of a safe place. Columbia told us [what] we can’t talk about, and I am so concerned if America is not free, I think there is no place else left that is free — that’s why it’s really alarming to me,” she added. Park is the only individual who has been given some publicity –by conservative outlets, not ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, or NPR.

Cubans: Máximo Älvarez: “I’m speaking to you today because I’ve seen people like this before. I’ve seen movements like this before. I’ve seen ideas like this before and I’m here to tell you, we cannot let them take over our country.” “When I watch the news in Seattle and Chicago and Portland, when I see history being rewritten, when I hear the promises—I hear echoes of a former life I never wanted to hear again. I see shadows I thought I had outrun.” “Listen to the media. They’re no longer objective. You can tell how much they hate this country. Look at our, our academia! Our kids are not being … they’re indoctrinated! They are taught that America is a bad country. That we’re a bunch of racists, that we’re bad people, and we have to pay back. If this country was racist, I wouldn’t be here. If this country was a racist country, most of us wouldn’t be here because even some people in your family came from another country.”

Ukrainians: Veronika Kyrylenko: “In business and academia, media, and sports, we see people holding opinions that deviate from the leftist discourse being attacked. Practically anything, any piece of fact, statistics, sentiments like ‘All lives matter,’ any picture, any opinion expressed as civilly as possible may cost you your job, reputation, and even life.” “‘Social justice warriors’ are torching traditional liberal beliefs about free speech and tolerance with ideas so toxic and destructive that they shut the debate down, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation — all while calling for a ‘discussion’ about race.”

Chinese: Jennifer Zeng: “I think in the early days when the Communist Party was just founded in China, they also talked about freedom, talked about equality, talked about everybody living in heaven-like communities and society. Many young people also got deceived. They went to … the sacred place of communism. If you look at the history, many of them ended up being killed by the party, and all their families, all their children, they all suffered for generations, after generations they suffer.”

Read more here: https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/02/refugees-from-communist-countries-are-the-canaries-in-the-coal-mine/