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“The towering presence, the empire that ascended to affirm a colossal footprint. The revolution that birthed one of modern history’s pivotal experiments. But if politics has long shaped our sense of who they are, it’s passion that endures. As a more reliable right to their collective heart. What they build in aspirations lifted by imagination. What they craft, through the wonder of every last detail. How magical the fusion of sound and movement can be. How much a glass of distilled perfection and an overflowing table can matter. Discover the Russian people through these indelible signatures. Discover what we share with them through the games that open here tonight.”

George Orwell, call your office. As he wrote in “Politics and the English Language,” in 1946, such euphemisms are “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,” and certainly describing Communism as “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments” fits the bill in spades. Or as Stacy McCain accurately described it this week at the American Spectator, “The Worst Idea in the World”:

Five years after the Bolshevik Revolution, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises predicted that the Soviet project was doomed to fail. In his classic work Socialism, Mises explained that the attempt to replace the market system with central economic planning could not succeed, because the planners could not possibly have the information necessary to make all the decisions which, in a market economy, are made by individuals whose needs and desires are reflected in prices: “The problem of economic calculation is the fundamental problem of Socialism.” “Everything brought forward in favour of Socialism during the last hundred years,” Mises wrote in 1922, “in thousands of writings and speeches, all the blood which has been spilt by the supporters of Socialism, cannot make Socialism workable. …. Socialist writers may continue to publish books about the decay of Capitalism and the coming of the socialist millennium; they may paint the evils of Capitalism in lurid colours and contrast with them an enticing picture of the blessings of a socialist society; their writings may continue to impress the thoughtless — but all this cannot alter the fate of the socialist idea.” Undeterred by Mises’ criticism, the Soviet Union spent the next seven decades proving his prediction correct. By the time the Communist utopia collapsed in bankruptcy and disgrace, it seemed that everyone with two eyes and a brain understood the lesson: The Marxist-Leninist project was a complete failure and, as historians documented in The Black Book of Communism, tens of millions of people had died for this mistake, deliberately starved or slaughtered by totalitarian Communist governments.

Not surprisingly, as Twitchy notes, numerous Twitter users are denouncing the morality-free brain-dead husk of the NBC television network:

As Greg Pollowitz notes today at National Review’s “Right Field” sports blog, Bob Costas and the rest of NBC appear to be going out of their way “to paint Putin in the best possible light.”

Pollowitz adds that former Soviet spokesman Vladimir Pozner is part of NBC’s on-air team, alongside Costas. As I warned in December, when news first broke that Pozner, who was a staple of American TV in the 1980s as a much beloved (among American chat show bookers, that is) apologist for the Soviet Union before that “pivotal experiment” was mercifully concluded, “NBC Goes Full Commie. Never Go Full Commie, Man.”

Update: “PUTIN PROPAGANDA: NBC’s Bob Costas portrays Russian leader as great peacemaker.”

Keep that in mind the next time NBC or MSNBC has an “anti-bullying” rant.

And one more Tweet:

I wonder if the next time the #Olympics are held in Germany the openiñg ceremonies will include a tribute to National Socialism? — Blaknsam (@Blaknsam) February 8, 2014

Hey, if any network could — other than CNN, of course.

Flashback: Back in 2011, when Keith Olbermann was given his permanent vacation from NBC’s spin-off network, I asked, “Chat Rock or 3CP1? Where Does MSNBC Go From Here?” I should have known the answer — but once again, Muggeridge’s Law strikes again — I had no idea their parent network would openly worship the former Soviet Union before its subsidiary.

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Update (2/8/14): Welcome those clicking in from:

As well as Instapundit readers. As Glenn Reynolds notes, If NBC thinks of the Soviet Union as one of history’s “Pivotal Experiments,” then “Viewed in that Light, So was the Confederate States Of America.”

NBC’s screwed up enough already these days. Don’t give them any ideas, Glenn…