Labelling Arroyo's Lefty critics as Communists

Uso na naman ang McCarthyism tactics. From the PDI Editorial:

LAST Saturday, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales urged that left-leaning party-list candidates be labeled as communists to caution voters, particularly soldiers and policemen, against electing what he called “democracy’s enemies” to Congress. “It is important to show soldiers and police what groups are being used by the communists to continue their bad intentions on the public,” he said.

We thought the Cold War was over, but here we have the national security adviser smearing leftists as “communists.” There was a time when labeling someone a “communist” or “leftist” practically set him up as a target for assassination by government forces. Now it seems, the time is coming back, no small thanks to the national security adviser.

WHAT??? the Lefties, who were once Arroyo's buddy buddies and helped her overthrow erap, are now "democracy's enemies"?

I guess the administration just want to divert people's attentions from the people who actually did screw democracy, Arroyo and her dagdag bawas operators at the COMELEC and the military.

And these statements are nothing unusual for this administration. We've heard them before from Arroyo's Butcher, Gen. Palparan.

more:

In the 1980s, the moderates and anti-communist politicians reached out to Left. “In an odd way,” Abinales said, “what happened in the 1970s and early 1980s was that being communist … was becoming acceptable to many, especially in the urban areas. To be Left was hip, and respect for the Left grew as the dictatorship began to weaken.”

Thus, to be “leftist” became politically acceptable. Leftists were encouraged to go above ground, and the culmination of the “legitimization” of the Left was the inclusion of a provision in the new Constitution for the election of party-list representatives who would constitute 20 percent of the total number of congressmen.

The party-list provision gives voice to the under-represented sectors like labor, peasants, urban poor, indigenous cultural communities and the youth. Since 1998 left-leaning groups have been getting more seats in the House of Representatives: two out of 13 party-list representatives in 1998, seven out of 20 in 2001 and 10 out of 24 in 2004.

Now Gonzales would set back political progress, shut out leftist groups and individuals from Congress, and worse, set them up as targets for assassination for being “democracy’s enemies.” This is the sort of rhetoric that legitimizes the unabated killing of activists and militants. Such rhetoric should have no place in a free, democratic and civilized society.

That's what secretary of injustice Raul Gonzalez wanted too after saying na he hoped the leftist party list members "go back to the mountains" because "that's where they belong" raw.

Ako, i'd rather see the NPAs and hardline commies give up their arms and join the political arena. And I don't want to drive leftists underground to become armed rebels.

Related: Anong purpose ng "War vs. the Left" ni Arroyo?