Jenny Beth Martin asks Sasha Gong whether the rise of socialism in America alarms her. Her answer is immediate: she is scared. Socialist communism, she says, is the worst combination of smart people and stupid people. The smart ones think they can control society and other people's lives. The others think they can get something without working for it. Put intellectuals together with people who are lazy and you have communism. She does not mean to be brutal, she adds, but it is that simple.
Gong was born in Beijing in 1956, grew up inside Mao's Cultural Revolution, spent eleven months in a communist jail at 20, and went on to a Harvard PhD and the directorship of Voice of America's China branch. She quotes Reagan's 1964 line about people who know so much that isn't so, and she presses on the word lazy: ordinary intelligence is enough to see that the promises do not work, so the failure is intellectual and physical laziness. Anyone who calls themselves an intellectual and only repeats what they read is not thinking; her dissident group deliberately hunted for evidence against everything it was handed, and she still does.
Her warning to Americans of any age who want everything for free: false hope is no hope, and hoping without asking who produces it is cheating yourself. Her advice: think with logic. American schools now teach students not to think, which is what the Communist Party tried on her generation. Communist theory runs on anger, and thinking hard, she says at 70, is the thing in her life she appreciates most.
This conversation is from The Jenny Beth Show, a production of Tea Party Patriots Action.
Call your senators and representative at 202-224-3121 and tell them America does not need a socialist experiment. Watch the full interview at jennybethshow.com and learn more at teapartypatriots.org.
00:00 — Does the rise of socialism in America alarm her? "I am scared."
00:19 — Socialist communism: the worst combination of smart people and stupid people
00:55 — Jenny Beth Martin: intellectuals who think they can control everyone's life
01:09 — Reagan in 1964: they know so much that isn't so
01:59 — The seductive promise: we will take care of you
02:22 — "Smart is not even a problem. The problem is they're lazy."
03:14 — Not just young people: adults buying into false hope
03:50 — "The false hope is no hope." Think with logic.
04:16 — Schools teaching students not to think; what the Party tried on her
04:36 — Communist theory runs on anger; thinking hard is satisfying
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