Re: Commendation for standing against Trump and North Korea, "Please, take our Marxists" Aug. 16, 2017
I would like to commend The Citizen for several articles and your editorial entitled "He (Trump) stands with the Nazis" of Aug. 16 that take a firm stand against Trump's acceptance of white supremacist behaviour in Charlottesville.
The article authors include Washington Post editorial
(Aug. 16), Tracy Summerville (Aug. 18) and Willow Arune (Aug. 19). In spite of the frequency of Trump's anti-democratic outbursts, it is so important that all of us do not normalize his abhorrent, oppressive and tyrannical ideas. Trump will never change, but we must oppose the spread of his hateful venom outside of his close supporters and across our border. We cannot be silent.
I would like also to comment on the Aug. 16 article of Right of Centre columnist Nathan Giede entitled "North Korea, please, take our Marxists."
Giede naively equates the bizarre, dictatorial reign of Kim Jong Un to the ideas of Karl Marx.
Marx believed in and promoted ownership by the working class of the means of production. He imagined a civilization operated by those who do the actual work to keep society running instead of by those who live off the labour of the working class. This idealistic state no more resembles the state of North Korea than the USSR under Stalin.
Granted, it has never been successfully implemented, but Giede should educate himself before making such silly comparisons.
To whom does Giede refer when he suggests sending "our own Marxists for 18 month field trips?" Perhaps Giede lumps all us progressive voters in, say, the NDP and Green parties, as "Marxists" and would like to ship us off to North Korea.
The notion to get rid of all who hold ideas "left of centre" sounds a lot more like an idea of Kim Jong Un than of Karl Marx.
Donald A. Fraser
Prince George
