Category: Americana

The bat-shit craziness of some people never fails to amuse me. A correspondent has sent me a list of the ten planks of the Communist manifesto, and how they have been implemented in the USA, at libertyzone.com.

They are, with my comments underneath each one:

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Americans do these with actions such as the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management (Zoning laws are the first step to government property ownership)

This seems to be a failure in the perception of reality. The doctrine of eminent domain does exist in the US, but it is not being used to take control of all the land of the US in the hands of the government. Nor has private property been abolished – tax is not abolition – and while there are land taxes, they are not the same as all rents of land (all the profit it produces, as I understand it) going to the government.

I’m not sure what the Fourteenth Amendment has to do with this, as it deals with electoral apportionment and debts during Reconstruction.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Americans know this as misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936.; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State “income” taxes. We call it “paying your fair share”.

There are six brackets for US income tax, so you could describe it as graduated. Given that the highest of these kicks in at US$373,000, it can’t really be called progressive. Given that the highest rate is 35%, it can’t really be called heavy.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Americans call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

There seems to be an ongoing confusion between the potential for something to happen and something actually happening. As people do actually inherit things in the US at the moment, this falls.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Americans call it government seizures, tax liens, Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF etc…).

This would have been to stop capital flight, which is not what it is used for today. I am prepared to accept that there are problems in existing legislation, but insisting on paying tax is not the same as confiscation as property, IMHO.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Americans call it the Federal Reserve which is a privately-owned credit/debt system allowed by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) another privately-owned corporation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue Fiat Paper Money and practice economically destructive fractional reserve banking.

Given that there is no exclusive monopoly on credit or a national bank or centralised credit, this fails. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems with the Fed; just that it’s not Narodny Bank.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
Americans call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver’s licenses and Department of Transportation regulations.

No, that’s regulation, not the means of communications or transportation. Regulation isn’t the same as ownership.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Americans call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture… Thus read “controlled or subsidized” rather than “owned”… This is easily seen in these as well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

As the original comment says, controlled or subsidised, which are different from ownership; there are not large, state-owned industries in the USA.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with our Most Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice via the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two “income” family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920’s, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

Equal liability of labor would be everyone having to work, not everyone who works having certain legal guarantees.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public “law” 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

Just doesn’t resemble the USA of today where there is, I’d venture, a major distinction between the great cities and small town America.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Americans are being taxed to support what we call ‘public’ schools, but are actually “government force-tax-funded schools ” Even private schools are government regulated. The purpose is to train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based “Education” . These are used so that all children can be indoctrinated and inculcated with the government propaganda, like “majority rules”, and “pay your fair share”. WHERE are the words “fair share” in the Constitution, Bill of Rights or the Internal Revenue Code (Title 26)?? NO WHERE is “fair share” even suggested !! The philosophical concept of “fair share” comes from the Communist maxim, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need! This concept is pure socialism. … America was made the greatest society by its private initiative WORK ETHIC … Teaching ourselves and others how to “fish” to be self sufficient and produce plenty of EXTRA commodities to if so desired could be shared with others who might be “needy”… Americans have always voluntarily been the MOST generous and charitable society on the planet.

Well if free education and the abolition of child labour is communist, sign me up. The third I would say has happened to some extent with the rise of vocational training, but this doesn’t count as socialistic when the industries remain in private hands.

A lot of this is based on the notion that any taxation is theft; as this seems to be the sine qua non of communism, this would make the vast majority of the world communist. Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t tax its citizens, wouldn’t be. I submit that this viewpoint is of minimal use.

xD.

From the Guardian:

President Barack Obama, who pledged to eradicate childhood hunger, has described as “unsettling” the agriculture department survey, which says 50 million people in the US – one in six of the population – were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy at some point last year, in large part because of escalating unemployment or poorly paid jobs.

From FDR’s second inaugural address:

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

There’s no doubt that the US in a much better position than it was after the Great Depression; still, all is a long way from well.

xD.

The Pennsylvania Republican party have run an advert where the ‘O’ of Obama’s surname is replaced with a hammer and sickle in a circle. Just for the avoidance of doubt, I thought I’d do a little list of ways in which Barack Obama is different from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

CPSU	Barack Obama
Ran a country through one-party rule	Has never run a country through one-party rule
Killed up to sixty million kulaks	Has never killed up to sixty million kulaks
Signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany	Has never signed any pacts with Nazi Germany
Crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia	Has never crushed uprisings in Hungary and Czechoslovakia
Ran a command economy	Runs a free market economy
Persecuted Christians and executed Orthodox priests	Is a Christian

Do I really need to continue? OK, Republicans, we get it. You think Obama is allowing the federal government to grow too large. This does not make him a communist.

xD.

I’ve been trying to work out why the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama.

Prima facie, it appears a strange decision.
The citation makes it clear that the award was made in expectation of future achievements –

“democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”

That is a precedent. Recent laureates – Martti Ahtisaari, Al Gore & the IPCC, Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank, the IAEA & Mohammad El Baradei, Wangaari Mathai and Shirin Ebadi – have received the prize after the achievement, following the logic that Al Gore & the IPCC raised knowledge and awareness of climate change. Jimmy Carter received the prize not for his presidency but his work thereafter. However, there are other comparisons to be drawn; Kim Dae Jung received the prize, although North and South Korea remain divided; Rabin, Peres and Arafat received the prize, although the conflict still goes on in the Levant.

The will of Alfred Nobel says that the prize should go

to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

I suspect that the members of the special committee of the Norwegian Storting, Thorbjørn Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five, Sissel Marie Rønbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Ågot Valle, opted for Obama on the basis that he had done work for building fraternity between nations – the Cairo speech – and the reduction of standing armies – or at least standing nuclear weapons. The President of the USA saying that the USA at least wants a world free of nuclear weapons or that there can be a better relationship between the Western and Muslim worlds probably means by default that he has done good work. Indeed, the citation says

“The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

I do not think that the members of the committee wanted to court such controversy, and so conclude that they must not have been aware that it would have riled a section of American society and so possibly made things harder for Obama, as well as raising questions about the prize. Perhaps when he had more concrete achievements under his belt, it would have been appropriate; as it is, the predictable, political fallout means that Obama should have been seen by the Committee as a poor choice – at least for now.

xD.

PS I’m currently in Kyiv at a conference with representatives of forty-two countries. The universal reaction to the news was ‘what the fuck?’

Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was “civis Romanus sum”. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner”.

I appreciate my interpreter translating my German!

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.

There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.

And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.

And there are even a few who say that it is true that Communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.

Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.

I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years.

I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin.

While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your mayor has said, an offence not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together.

What is true of this city is true of Germany – real, lasting peace in Europe can never be assured as long as one German out of four is denied the elementary right of free men, and that is to make a free choice.

In 18 years of peace and good faith, this generation of Germans has earned the right to be free, including the right to unite their families and their nation in lasting peace, with good will to all people.

You live in a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main.

So let me ask you as I close, to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the hopes of tomorrow, beyond the freedom merely of this city of Berlin, or your country of Germany, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind.

Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.

When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.

When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner”.