Mao and Mother Teresa

"The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before." Obama campaign adviser and now his White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn in a June 5, 2009 speech to graduating high school students at St. Andrews Episcopal School.

Glenn Beck of Fox News told all who'd listen about Anita Dunn's speech (video) about life's choices to high school students. Dunn talks about her "two favorite political philosophers": Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, and Beck is livid that people aren't marching in the streets about it. While Obamaphiles won't acknowledge that following Mao's political philosophy is wrong, according to Beck, Dunn's speech is more evidence that the federal government has been taken over by Communists. Why else would an inner circle Obama adviser claim Mao, who caused the deaths of millions during his life, as one of her favorite philosophers?

Find Your Own Calcutta

The part of Mao's wisdom that enamors Dunn is that he wasn't deterred from achieving his vision. Dunn continues:

"But here's the deal, these are your choices. They are no one else's. In 1947 when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, how can you win, how can you do this, how can you do this against all of the odds against you? And Mao Tse Tung said, 'You fight your war and I'll fight mine.' Think about that for a second, you don't have to accept the definition of how to do things, you don't have to follow other people's choices and paths."

Dunn is correct, Mao didn't follow other people's choices and paths; he followed his own and killed anyone who disagreed with him.

Dunn next relates an anecdote of Mother Teresa telling a woman who wanted to help change the world that the woman must find her "own Calcutta" to succeed. Mother Teresa uses Calcutta as a metaphor for some instance of human misery where that woman could serve others to improve their lives. Just as Mother Teresa did with her own life.

Taking the quote from Mao and the example of Mother Teresa together, Dunn seems to be saying that once you decide on your own Calcutta, it's doesn't matter how many people you kill getting there. What terrifies Beck and many Americans is that someone as close to Obama as Dunn is, could consider Mao, a killer of millions, as admirable a role model as Mother Teresa.

Dunn juxtaposes Mother Teresa and Mao, and while aware of the irony, she doesn't see the contradiction. Mother Teresa is worthy of emulation, not only because her vision was to do good, but because of how she went about it. Mother Teresa spent her life serving the most miserable of society: the disabled, diseased, elderly, alcoholics, and the poor and homeless. The reasons Mother Teresa is worthy of emulation are exactly the same reasons Mao is unworthy.

Mao Is Not Alone

Recently, the 60th anniversary of Mao's founding of the People's Republic of China was not celebrated in Changchun. In 1948, one year after he said what Dunn now finds so pithy, Mao's army blockaded Changchun and starved 160,000 civilians to death while battling Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army.

Historians calculate that over his life Mao was responsible for the deaths of 70 million human beings, more than Hitler and Stalin combined. While a prolific killer, Mao wasn't unique in finding "his Calcutta," just more impatient with the opposition. He's got company in the US:

• The siege of Changchun was three years after the Truman (D) administration incinerated as many people in Hiroshima and 70,000 more in Nagasaki.
• The US-led embargo of Iraq during the GHW Bush (R) and Clinton (D) administrations killed an estimated 500,000 Iraqi civilians.
• The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 by GW Bush (R) administration has killed approximately 100,000 Iraqi civilians.
• The Obama (D) administration hasn't let killing civilians prevent it from pursuing its vision of a "better world": the American share of the Afghan civilian death total is estimated by the UN at over 300 for US air strikes in the first six months of 2009. Isn't one life lost, one too many?

American citizens aren't marching in the streets to protest Dunn's kind of reasoning because it's business as usual in the US: the civilians killed by the US are just fewer in number and usually aren't citizens.

Robert Reich Finds His Calcutta

In another example of Dunn-like reasoning where the ends justifies the means, Robert Reich, former Clinton administration secretary of Labor and Obama campaign adviser, made an ad (video) shilling for the "public option" for healthcare re-form this year. Reich smiles, Red Riding Hood cringes, then Reich calmly and quietly explains the "public option":

"You've probably heard a lot about something called the public option for healthcare reform. But many Americans don't feel they know exactly what it is. Imagine you live in a city like say, Cleveland. Right now in most of the city you can choose from only a few plans.

"With the public option you'd be able to choose between these plans and the public option. That's it. It's that simple... The public plan would not be subsidized or have the government set the rules for anyone. If they aren't the best, they lose. That's not very scary or complicated at all. Is it?"

As Reich finishes you can picture a reassured grandmother or grandfather telling their representative to support the "public option" as the best thing. All that talk about rationing and death panels? Just more scare tactics by special interests, right? Or was it?

What Reich doesn't mention in his 2009 ad is what he said two years earlier on September 26, 2007 at Berkeley, where Reich described what an honest President would say about healthcare reform. According to Reich, "this is what the truth is...and what the candidate should say if we were in the kind of democracy in which citizens were honored in terms of their practice of citizenship" (audio):

"By the way, ahh, we're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive...so we're going to let you die." (Audience whoops and applauds.)

Reich obviously doesn't have any problem lying to accomplish his vision. For now it's socialized healthcare. He won't advertise that once the government controls healthcare, if you're old, "we're going to let you die."

How many of those who can see what's wrong with Mao causing the deaths of millions for his vision, cannot see that it's just as wrong when US troops invade and kill in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan for the US government's vision of what the world should look like? Or see that it's just as wrong when prevaricating bureaucrats and cheering college students decide when the old should die to support their vision? Both Rs and Ds seem to think that it's ok for others to die for a vision.

Does a good purpose ever justify any means taken to achieve it?

How about when you feed only your own children or grandparents into the fire to achieve it? Or like Mother Teresa, when you put only your own life on the line?