I gather that Mike Riley’s campaign has decided it won’t comment to RIFuture. I find this shocking. Back when I had a column that appeared in the Narragansett Times, Mike Riley was one of my regular correspondents. As I’m sure you can imagine, much of the mail I received about my column was thoughtful material, the kind of missives that make a writer stop and reconsider his positions due to the unexpected viewpoints and hitherto unknown data points contained in them. Mike’s were no exception.
Herewith a sample of his fan mail:
Dr Mr Sgouros,
Your recent communist diatribe in the “communist times” revealed a giant gap in your knowledge of pensions and education. You couldn’t be more wrong or more communist. People like you need to be educated in some other country. Preferably Venezuela.
Michael G Riley
Dear Tom Sgouros,
I dont understand why the Narragansett Times prints any of your lunatic ravings.For a look at what a true intellectual might say and a capitalist newspaper might print ,I have attached a recent note from Brian Bishop.
Michael G Riley
Narragansett
Morning Hugo, that article on banks and hedge funds was truly pathetic
That last one is the entire note, except it also had a stirring quote from Friedrich von Hayek indicating that true freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes, even to starve.
Needless to say, his prose style and trenchant observations made him one of my treasured regular correspondents. His notes to me always arrived addressed to “communist” so I’d know who it was from. When he announced his run for office, he sent out an invite to join his network on LinkedIn:
A note to me from Michael Riley
A second, similar, note with a somewhat more traditional salutation arrived shortly after.
One time in 2009, I found myself at an event at a bar in Narragansett that turned out to be in the same plaza as Riley’s office. I happened to speak there with an acquaintance of his, who offered to go tell him I was in the area, and did. Sadly, Mike was apparently too busy to come meet me, so I still have never met him in person.
So that’s Mike Riley for you: tolerant of opposing viewpoints, humble about his own, committed to reasoned discussion as the route to moving our polity forward. I couldn’t be more sincere about my support for him.
Thanks for the laugh this morning. Did you confirm on Linked-in? Sounds less like an invite and more like he wanted you to confirm his opinion.
Let’s see if I get this right: Brian Bishop is a true intellectual. You are not. Friedrich von Hayek is a true economist. John Maynard Keynes is not. May I speculate that Ayn Rand is a great novelist and Gore Vidal is not? I look forward to watching Mr. Riley self-destruct in his “debate” with Jim Langevin but I won’t bother watching unless Abel “the Communist” Collins is admitted to the debate.
Rudy,
I won’t watch because it’s not my district but I’m curious why you wouldn’t watch because one candidate was excluded. Do you not care what the others have to say or is it out of protest?
I have known Jim Langevin for years and know where he stands. Seems pretty clear where Riley stands and also know Abel Collins and where he stands. I live in 2nd district and will be voting for Abel. I don’t think any of these candidates is going to surprise me with a shocking turnaround. And, “the debates” are rarely anything more than style contests.
And, yeah, DogDiesel, it would be out of protest.
“You couldn’t be more wrong or more communist.”
What an excellent line. It’s clear that Tom has reached the “maximum level” of Communism. You can’t help but laugh at this stuff.
Neo-Marxist/Progressive would be a better moniker for Mr. Sgouros and his ilk.
Langevin has done NOTHING for Rhode Island and he needs to be fired in November.
Abel Collins doesn’t have a chance of being elected.
Progressive = Neo-Marxist
That is a fact and easily measured by the actions (and words) of those that call themselves “progressive”.
Marxism, from which “socialism” derives its elements, in all its forms is abhorrent and in direct opposition with the ideals of what the US is all about and what our founders envisioned.
The fact that people have been “socially-engineered” into accepting it slowly, just proves that their efforts have paid off.
And what of the many members in OUR congress that belong to the “communist party usa”?
Anybody that has embraced marxist ideologies is utterly lost and deceived.
Written in 1871 by Albert Pike. Draw your own conclusions!
“The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the agentur” (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions.”
“The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm.”
“The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion…We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.” — Albert Pike August 15, 1871
“Marxism, from which ‘socialism’ derives its elements, in all its forms is abhorrent and in direct opposition with the ideals of what the US is all about and what our founders envisioned.”
OK, no peeking… Who said this? A Marxist or not?
“Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.”
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition”
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787
Hehe, at least you know who said it. He also said this…
“The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.”
Talk about not caring about the 47% (at least Jefferson didn’t sugar coat it)!
So, Marxist or not?
“I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.”
–Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1785.
btw, I looked up that section. Jefferson was talking about manufacturing (“The present state of manufactures, commerce, interior and exterior trade?”), not social welfare.
He was making an argument that the U.S. should be an agrigrarian society, “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.” You’re presenting it totally out of context. Surely there’s a better one than that!
Hi there, PHL. You beat me to the reply. Isn’t the world wide web a wonderful thing?
Hey, I can pull out-of-context random quotes from Jefferson too! Here’s one where Jefferson is arguing that Americans should all work in agriculture and leave that bad detestable endeavor of manufacturing to Europe. Extra bonus points for me because I pulled it from the same of his writings as you pulled your out-of-context random quote:
“While we have land to labour then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff . Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe.”
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 19, 1787
Spot on. To his credit he was nice enough to provide the citation for the quote (note the quote above about people in cities being like sores is also from “Notes on the State of Virginia”).
PinkHatLib? LOLZ!!!
Liberal = Progressive = Neo-Marxist
Every form of marxism, like a pure democracy, ALWAYS fails!
“Marx himself said that Socialism is a stepping stone to Communism. We are drifting far away from what the Founding Fathers of America established and our Constitution is being eroded before our eyes, the “Fundamental transformation of America” that President Obama promised it at our doorstep. ”
“Today we have an out of control government where our elected representatives meet with unions and other special interest groups and they have no desire, and feel no obligation, to meet with the people so that they can answer to us. They are making policies and laws without our consent and going against the vast majority of the people that they are supposed to represent! Using their power to trample ourConstitution with every step and defying our will with every new law and every new executive order!
Contrast the greivences that our Founding Fathers had with the British monarch and the words of Barak Obama…”
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments”
-Declaration of Independence-
“We are 5 days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America!”
-Barak Obama-
The History of Murder and Starvation in Communist Countries
Joseph Stalin
There are only 5 countries today that are considered fullycommunist countries:
China
North Korea
Cuba
Vietnam
Laos
The political system in China is considered Communist, but they are continuing to shift away from a Socialist economic system and closer to a capitalist system. While this is a very gradual shift, they continue to struggle for balance to bring incentive to the workers and the businesses, but still maintain the overarching power that is a Communist Government.
Past Communist Countries have committed the worst atrocities on their own citizens than any other form of government.
Here is a list of current and former Communist countries with a staggering number of their own citizens that they have either killed or starved to death. The sad thing is that the old saying goes, “better red than dead!” I can see that they are one in the same.
Communist Citizen Deaths:149,469,610
Communist Countries:
People’s Republic of China
Body Count: 73,237,000
Chairman Mao’s great leap forward starved almost 40 million alone (conservative estimate)
China- Maos Great leap forward
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Body Count: 58,627,000Murder and forced Starvation and genocide of the Ukraine, Kulaks, and others who disagreed with Stalin’s Communist vision
Stalins Forced starvation in Ukraine
Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic
Body Count: 3,284,000
Stalin’s execution and Siberian work camps for the Kulaksand the government created famine in theUkraine known as the Holodomor.
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
Body Count: 3,163,000
Cambodia
Body Count: 2,627,000
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Body Count: 1,750,000
Vietnam
Body Count: 1,670,000
People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Body Count: 1,343,610
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Body Count: 1,072,000
Chinese Soviet Republic
Body Count: 700,000
People’s Republic of Mozambique
Body Count: 700,000
Socialist Republic of Romania
Body Count: 435,000
People’s Republic of Bulgaria
Body Count: 222,000
People’s Republic of Angola
Body Count: 125,000
Mongolian People’s Republic
Body Count: 100,000
People’s Socialist Republic of Albania
Body Count: 100,000
Republic of Cuba
Body Count: 73,000
German Democratic Republic
Body Count: 70,000
Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia
Body Count: 65,000
Lao People’s Democratic Republic
Body Count: 56,000
Hungarian People’s Republic
Body Count: 27,000
People’s Republic of Poland
Body Count: 22,000
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen
Body Count: 1,000
So what is the final verdict?
I my humble opinion I would suggest that in the context of this blog and the State of Rhode Island Progressive = Neo-Marxist-Socialist-Statist-Communist. Let’s just call a spade a spade.
The governmental constructs of mankind are all woefully flawed. Since man is the author of these constructs what else could they be. The founders, for the most part, understood these flaws and accounted for them in the Bill of Rights and Constitution. We all live in a Republic. For the most part a lot of citizens vote for their representatives by popular vote.
But not in Rhode Island. We are special. We live in the equivalent of a monarchial republic. “Mon”-one, “Arch”-rule, or if you like one party rule. When one party rules, invariably, corruption follows. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Green Party, or any single party whatever its name might be. Until this changes RI will remain insignificant.
Two parties would be good but three or more vital and distinct parties would be better. These parties do exist. They are the extreme, moderate, and other factions within the two national parties.
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”JOHN ADAMS
After the drubbing President Obama took last night, who would have thought this would have been the thread of the day. I was just amused but when people start breaking out Jefferson, you know it’s serious business.
Communism (Marxist-Leninist/Soviet Union style) is defined as the ownership of the means of production by the state. Marxist communism is defined as the elimination of private sector ownership of the means of production, leaving it vague as to whether the means of production should be owned by the state or directly by the workers. In opposition to communism, and in alliance with the United States and in harmony with Catholic Social Teaching, most western European countries – certainly those most economically successful – adopted various forms of Social Democracy, which is defined as private sector ownership of the means of production combined with the use of taxation to eliminate or greatly reduce poverty, provide free or low insurance health care to all, provide free or low cost child care, provide free or low tuition higher education to all, and preserve social harmony and domestic tranquility.
How could you not love Rhode Island?
I enjoyed reading every syllable of this tripe.
Sh*ts and giggles forever.
(This correspondence has been forwarded to R.I. Future in the sincere hope that ALL OF THE ABOVE VERBIAGE, MINE INCLUDED, will be taken to heart in the most sincere fashion.)
Best Internationalist regards to Comrade Sgouros (Marxist-Leninist).
Abel Collins is a lot more electable than Mike Riley. The more people know who he is, the more supporters he has. Is WRNI secretly supporting Abel’s candidacy by giving him a great persecution story where he looks good and they look awful? Probably not, I suppose.
“You couldn’t be more wrong or more communist.”
That is precious.
ooops, I meant WPRI, not WRNI. PRI is the fox affiliate, RNI is the NPR news station.
Rumor has it that Abel will be featured on WRNI’s political roundtable next week.
Mike Riley is a lunatic who will get about 45 votes!!!! Everyone ignores a nut bag – Hey Riley – move to MIssissippi!!! More your style – NO one wants you in RI
@EDeCoucy-are you serious? Or are you just off your meds? Wow! Someone needs some serious therapy. Be sure to look under your bed tonight. There may be a communist lurking below the mattress.
Wow…first Bush revives the word socialism from obscurity in the US dialogue, the Riley comments ignite a fire storm of Marx, Lenin, more…maybe, like Occupiers chanted- another world is possible.
Riley posted a stupid picture with a group of protesters with a “where’s Waldo” caption to imply the Abel was a hiding in there even though he wasn’t in the picture.
Guilt by association even when you are not associated, that’s pretty extreme.
So just imagine if “your home town news” recants and let’s Abel in the debate. It could actually be good TV and boost their ratings.
It does make you wonder why Riley wouldn’t want Collins in the debate just so he could call him out.
Since no one has a crystal ball and there may be an “October surprise” that could shuffle the cards, let’s just agree that in the end the voters will have to decide whether to shake off the shackles of the duopoly and vote for the Independent just because or settle for the lesser of two evils which is pretty evil in and of itself.
And to Red baiting Riley, thanks for rekindling the debate about Marxism and socialism, apparently you have done Toms work for him -lol.