Post-Gazette Editorial – 12/19/06

This page was last updated on December 19, 2006.

Zimbabwe’s burden: The ravaged nation gets two more years of Mugabe; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; December 19, 2006.

Since I agree with most of this editorial, I won’t do a point-by-point critique. The purpose of this critique is to point out an example of bias by omission.

Throughout the editorial we read about the damage done to Zimbabwe by President Robert G. Mugabe and his Shona party. In his 403 words, however, the editorial author couldn’t find room for a description of the economic/political ideology of Mr. Mugabe and the Shona.

Does anyone care to guess why?

I believe the editorial omitted mention of ideology because Mr. Mugabe and the Shona are Marxists. This is a trend by the PG. A search of the PG website found 16 articles since January 2005 mentioned Mr. Mugabe. Though most of the articles correctly referred to Mr. Mugabe as a despicable dictator, none of them acknowledged Mr. Mugabe’s Marxism.

Toward the end, the editorial states, “Zimbabweans’ only hope is that Mr. Mugabe will die soon. If he were overthrown, it would likely be by the military, which he tends, and its members are almost entirely Shona and have no knowledge of economics.”

I disagree with the opinion that the Shona “have no knowledge of economics.”

The truth is, I believe liberal leaders regardless of denomination (communists, fascists, Marxists, Nazis, progressives, socialists, et cetera) have a complete grasp of economics. After all, conservatives and liberals have the same educational opportunities and experience. The problem for liberals is that real world economics conflicts with their economic/political ideology. For liberals, when ideology conflicts with reality, ideology always takes precedence.

For example, I heard an interview of a famous actor who still believes the Soviet Union could have been a “success.” When asked why he believed the USSR and the rest of the Soviet bloc failed, the actor gave two reasons. First, the actor claimed we simply didn’t give the Soviets enough time. Second, the actor blamed the United States (naturally) and a few of its true allies. You see, the actor believed the Soviets could have “succeeded” if they didn’t have to compete/keep up with the free world.

It’s no coincidence there are no examples of successful communist or Marxist economies and the economies of heavily socialist countries always lag more capitalistic economies. Even Red China acknowledged reality when it decided to move from its purely communist economy to one more or less based on capitalism and free markets. It will be interesting to see what happens in Red China over the long run. It’s my opinion a capitalism-based economy and a communist government cannot coexist over the long term. Though not its intent, I believe the communist government took the first step toward a democratic government when it started down the path to reform its economy.