I’m adding another fellow to my hero list. You may have run into this video, in which a Wall Street Occupier explains how great things are in North Korea. I thought it had gone more viral, but it’s only at 38-thousand-and-change as of today.
Thanks to Judge Napolitano, we learn that the videographer is Vladimir Jaffe: Russian-born American, small businessman, and Tea Partier. The combination of a Russian accent with the swift exposure of his subjects’ ignorance gives Jaffe’s videos an amusing Borat vibe.
Mr. Jaffe has been steadily uploading new clips for several months, and I have enjoyed following him on his journey to educate the lost leftists of New York City. Some clips are on the long side, so I’ve culled and annotated a few of my favorites for your expedited viewing pleasure.
Skip right to 2:00 in the next video. Two young leftists inform Mr. Jaffe that Cuba has the highest standard of living for all the nations in the Caribbean. “That I’ve heard,” the young lady adds as a bit of an escape clause.
Then, at 3:00, the young lady declares with a straight face that a doctor should not necessarily be paid more than a street sweeper if that doctor’s education was free (I have to assume she means free to him–somebody has to pay for that education). A person’s hard work, time, dedication, brains and talent mean nothing, apparently.
At about 9:20, the young lady says well, I don’t defend the system that existed in the USSR, so Jaffe asks, then why is the hammer and sickle on this table then?
On to the next clip. Start about :50, when an old commie guy defends Trotsky. Then at 2:05 he claims that Lenin’s revolution was bloodless. (Note to all you Occupiers out there: don’t try to school a Russian on Russian history, it makes you look really dumb.)
He tries to blame first Stalin, and then the isolation of Russia for the failings of that particular glorious revolution. Then, at 4:25 he is forced to fold: “Alright, well, you are welcome to read through the books that we have . . . .” Just leave me alone, you horrible man with your facts and your logic.
Mr. Jaffe presses: “You are promoting all of this. It’s my country you want to change.” At 5:34, he asks Old Commie Guy for an example of a successful socialist country.
Cuba.
Old Commie admits that he couldn’t set up a table and promote capitalism if he were in Cuba. Yet, he refuses to back down. Having revealed his totalitarian core, he walks away. What more is there to say?
A pattern emerges in these video clips: through language or imagery the subjects associate themselves with the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Che, Castro, until they are called out by an actual victim of one such regime. Then, they distance themselves. They claim that “wasn’t really communism/socialism.” They insist that they are in the vanguard of a new system.
I have to applaud Mr. Jaffe for his patience. Unlike Borat, he never descends into simple mockery. He is actually reaching out to these maddeningly misinformed malcontents. The folks above remain unmoved, undeterred. In other clips, however, he may actually be making a lasting impression. Watch as this poor fellow runs out of talking points. Skip to 4:00 for the best part:
The awkwardness is palpable as the interviewed fellow admits “he doesn’t know which companies we invest in.” Mr. Jaffe points out, well, since you are sitting at this table as a representative, I assume you are familiar. He presses the young man on the question of what is so wrong with coal, and the man folds completely. He lamely refers Mr. Jaffe to the “research department” in a brochure and gives up on the conversation.
The next video clip is the longest, because the subject interviewed is actually willing to listen. Skip to 7:50, where the young man makes an outlandish claim about Israel. Mr. Jaffe then leads him by the proverbial hand down a path of logic and history. Watching his discomfort as he tries to wiggle off this path is both comical and gratifying. Because he can’t. He can’t escape the logic.
“I think there’s a lot of sh** behind that, that we have no idea about,” he mutters lamely at 12:09, but Mr. Jaffe rolls his eyes. “Why are you rolling your eyes at me?” he says reproachfully. Look, Mr. Jaffe says, these are simple facts. If you don’t believe the facts, then I don’t know what to else to say.
The last clip is short and sweet. A representative of the Freedom Socialist Party dives into a helpful explanation of socialism, until Mr. Jaffe asks her whether Che was a socialist.
Immediately uncomfortable, she refuses to answer. At 1:50 he asks, how are you going to make socialism different now? “Russia and the movements in the past also lacked international support,” she offers. Jaffe runs through a long list of countries with which Russia had relations, both the friendly and the forced, and asked her to help him understand why socialism didn’t work in those places, but will work here.
“I’m sorry, are you filming this? I would prefer that you didn’t.”
Yep.
Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed these videos. Aside from the amusement factor, they serve as an important lesson for me: go ahead. Call them out. It feels like a waste of time, but it isn’t.
What would happen if we all got out and pressed the loudest propagators of Leftist Lunacy? As Mr. Jaffe demonstrates, they quickly run out of words. If leftists were confronted by an Army of Jaffes and Breitbarts and other assorted Davids every time they stood up to bleat something stupid, how many of them would finally, and at long last, shut up?
Hmm. I think I’m off to Facebook to see if I can pick a fight.
