"Useful Idiots"

The term "useful idiots" is generally attributed to Vladimir Lenin, the commie leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.  (Oh, there he goes with that history stuff again!)  He used it to describe those in the West, living in the comforts provided by their distinctly un-Bolshevik countries, who blindly apologized and defended Marxism/communism.  Lenin knew how "useful" these "idiots" could be in helping to undermine the West, its capitalism and democratic governments.  And he also knew that they were "idiots."

There have been many over the years.  I forget the NY Times columnist, somebody Duranty (?), who reassured concerned Americans of the goodness of Joseph Stalin, that rumors of his cruelty and barbarity were just that, rumors.  This was in the midst of the Harvest of Sorrows, a period in which Stalin forcibly starved. murdered, millions of Ukrainians who opposed his policy of collectivization.  When, a couple of decades later, historian Robert Conquest wrote of the several million who Stalin killed, he was criticized as "right wing."  Stalin may have been a little harsh, but certainly Conquest was way off base.  Well, it turned out Conquest was wrong, quite wrong, but in the wrong way.  When Soviet files were opened up after the fall of the commies in the USSR, it turned out Stalin had starved millions more than even Conquest thought.  Yeah, Stalin was just a little harsh.

I'm trying to remember which Major League team owner, oh, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, asserted he'd never sign a player who came from Cuba.  He didn't want to embarrass Fidel Castro, another all-round nice guy.

I was thinking of this term the other day, in another similar context.  President Obama, with all the serious goings-on right now, has been attending a number of fund-raising dinners.  Oh, these dinners aren't for you and me, oh no.  They have been $30,000 and $40,000 a plate dinners.  (I thought, if Karen and I attended one of these, we'd have no money, zero, for the rest of the year.  That includes both of our incomes!)  Now, who can afford these?  (And if they can, more power to them; I don't begrudge anyone the amount of money one has or how one spends it.  It's the hypocrisy that I find grating.)  Those who can afford them are the ones Obama is out to destroy.  His are the policies that hurt the wealthiest.  (I know about the bailouts, the corporate-subsidies, the crony capitalism......)  So why would they give Obama--or any Democrats--all that money?  Maybe it's to assuage some sense of guilt, however misplaced or erroneous?  Maybe it's to make them feel more comfortable, that is, that they are doing something to help?  ("Help" what, I don't know.)  Maybe it's a sense of noblesse oblige?   Regardless of their reasons, Obama and the Dems must be laughing all the way to the bank, so to speak.  I doubt, since Obama and his administration/advisers have shown no knowledge of history, they know of Lenin's term, "useful idiots."  But even without the term, they must be thinking along those lines.