Little Green Footballs - Marching With Stalinists

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♻RetweetMarching With Stalinists

Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 9:43:08 am PST

I’m hard on the Washington Post, and most of the time they deserve it. But today Michael Kelly earns a big LGF “Bravo!” for this column telling the truth about the Stalinist group that organized last weekend’s Idiot Marches: Marching With Stalinists.

There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches in Washington and San Francisco were chiefly sponsored, as was last October’s antiwar march in Washington, by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference “the activist group International Answer.

”International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is a front group for the communist Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is, literally, a Stalinist organization. It rose out of a split within the old Socialist Workers Party over the Soviet Union’s 1956 invasion of Hungary — the breakaway Workers World Party was all for the invasion. International ANSWER today unquestioningly supports any despotic regime that lays any claim to socialism, or simply to anti-Americanism. It supported the butchers of Beijing after the slaughter of Tiananmen Square. It supports Saddam Hussein and his Baathist torture-state. It supports the last official Stalinist state, North Korea, in the mass starvation of its citizens. It supported Slobodan Milosevic after the massacre at Srebrenica. It supports the mullahs of Iran, and the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas.

This is whom the left now marches with. The left marches with the Stalinists. The left marches with those who would maintain in power the leading oppressors of humanity in the world. It marches with, stands with and cheers on people like the speaker at the Washington rally who declared that “the real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America.” It marches with people like the former Black Panther Charles Baron, who said in Washington, “if you’re looking for an axis of evil then look in the belly of this beast.

”The Times’ “mainstream” Americans marched last weekend with people who held signs comparing the president and vice president of their country to Hitler, and declaring, “The difference between Bush and Saddam is that Saddam was elected,” and this one: “I want you to die for Israel. Israel sings Onward Christian Soldiers.”

March on.

This is information that has been shamefully ignored by most of the Western media. But an even larger and more ominous story is still being ignored; the presence and influence of radical Islamic front groups at these demonstrations.

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Marc Poitras Wed, Jan 22, 2003 4:32:43pm

1
Ranbutan:

I am not rich, but I'd rather let the rich keep their money than let the government have it. We already have frightfully too much government. Hence there's no such thing as a bad tax cut.

Throbert McGee Wed, Jan 22, 2003 4:37:55pm

Why is there a building on Houston Street in NYC called Red Square with a 2 story tall statue of Lennin on top of it? Is it only me and my Russian friends that find that as sick as a statue of Hitler would be?

I dunno what life was like for your friends back in the motherland, of course, but I can tell you that when I was in Moscow in the early '90s, many of the younger Russians I knew regarded Lenin as perfectly suitable raw material for lighthearted camp-sploitation, of the sort you describe. Leninism lost, after all.

Possibly a Stalin-themed bar would've been seen as objectionable, though.

Ian Wood Thu, Jan 23, 2003 10:39:24am

The Red Squre building is an apartment building; I have friends who used to live there. In addition to the surplus Lenin statue on the roof, they have bowls of free Red Square condoms, matchbooks, and other paraphernalia in the lobby, along with various odd art installations donated by artsy-type residents in lieu of rent. The overall joke is that the red building is actually trapezoidal: there are no right-angled wall corners in any apartment in the whole place.

There's also more than one bar with a Soviet/KGB theme in NYC...

Ranbutan Thu, Jan 23, 2003 12:45:45pm

#1 Marc - I think your support of the very rich paying less in total taxes, and vastly more disposable income as a percentile of each dollar they get, vs. the lesser person in the middle or upper middle class - as noble.

Nobelisse oblige` to the very rich, that is.

Think of a company where the owner makes 1,000,000 a year in profits to himself. He has 20 workers that make 50,000 a year. What you are saying, is that in order to "hold down" government...you support him getting his taxes knocked down from 14 to 11%, whereas the middle-class workers, at a 18% tax rate, go to 17%. The workers, collectively paying 170,000 in taxes - cheer the owner...who pays 110,000 in taxes on the same 1 million in earnings.

That is such a nice thing to do for your betters!

Add in the dividend cut...which doesn't benefit the middle class other than an upwards increase in stock equity valuation...since their "dividend" revenue is locked up in 401Ks or pension funds, but the tax-free dividend revenue benefits the ultrarich hugely.

So you are willing to have the government take less out of a rich man's pocket than yours, for each dollar the two of you get...as long as the gummint gets less from someone?? (And remember that a rich person pays off FICA in a month or less, dropping to a lower total tax rate than us quickly...and also in that first month, makes enough to pay for utilities and life's bare necessities for their family...so that every month after that fisrt month..up to 80% of an ultrarich persons money is discretionary...free to spend or invest as they please...which is why the rich get richer every year compared to the average American or can buy the toys they want...and now days, typically have the income juice to do both. About 30% of the middleclass dollar is "free and clear" discretionary, in comparison.

We have the greatest wealth disparity of any modern nation. Not quite like medieval times...a beautiful castle surrounded by a few thousand peasant huts and small houses for a small middle class...or the Age of the Robber Barons...but if you look at the new 30,000 square foot McMansions...we are headed that way.

And, the economists are saying that the big hidden effect of the dividend cut aimed at the rich will be forcing tax-free Muni bonds interest rates higher, to compete with dividends...which will raise local and state taxes on all people. In other words, a wealth transfer from the average person, to the rich. Bush could have proposed something fair...like everyone getting payroll taxes cut...since that is double taxation...but that would Benefit Everybody - not just the people paying for 1,000 a plate dinners. Who do you think Bush cares most about? (And, I am a Republican..)

Now, some people have said that the richer you make a small class of people...CEOs, business owners, lawyers...the better off we all will be...because they create jobs. Omit lawyers...they are parasitic and extractive in how they obtain wealth - they do not create jobs.

The others though, have done a curious thing...as their ownership of the total wealth of this country for the richest 1% of us has gone from 21% to 43% in the last 25 years (approaching their cut of America at the start of the Great Depression)...we find that one key to how they have gotten rich is utilizing global labor payrates to farm out jobs or import workers to the US, rather than let scarcity raise wages. This maximizes their profits, and the threat of "foreign or immigrant labor is used as an excuse to hold down wages and cut expenses. Indeed, looking at the solution to a nursing shortage...it is not to raise wages to attract more people to become nurses and invest in 4 years of college...no it is to LOWER nurses pay AND import nurses because "Americans don't want the jobs (once we lowered pay & benefits)". They are recruiting nurses in 55 countries now. The next group is the American trucker...who has found out 5.00 an hour Mexican truckers will soon have access to drive all American roads. The millionaire truck company, wholesale, and shipping Co owners are very happy at this...more for them.

Indeed...don't expect the rich getting richer to mean more jobs...expect more companies to head for China. Remember, the coaching in the 90's was "high tech, dot coms are your future...not jobs a 60 cent an hour Chinese can do". And we saw the dot coms die, and software engineer, IT jobs stagnant in compensation or retreating under the Pak and Indian and Chinese brought in on H-1B visas, while CEO compensation tripled in the 90's.

Below is a link to a good writeup on this subject. THe author points out the only jobs that are safe from loss overseas or to immigrants here are the legal profession and gov't employee jobs. In the private sector Marc, the rich are sticking the knife in.

US Jobs Imperiled Except Lawyers, Schoolteachers

LesLein Thu, Jan 23, 2003 5:08:37pm

"Think of a company where the owner makes 1,000,000 a year in profits to himself. He has 20 workers that make 50,000 a year. "

"What you are saying, is that in order to 'hold down' government...you support him getting his taxes knocked down from 14 to 11%, whereas the middle-class workers, at a 18% tax rate, go to 17%. The workers, collectively paying 170,000 in taxes - cheer the owner...who pays 110,000 in taxes on the same 1 million in earnings."

Does this example have any grounding in reality? The owner is probably at an income level above the 14% bracket. The owner would almost certainly be taxed at a higher rate than the middle class employee (whose rate you peg at 18%).

"That is such a nice thing to do for your betters!"

It's a nice thing to do for yourself too! Your taxes are lower.

"Add in the dividend cut...which doesn't benefit the middle class other than an upwards increase in stock equity valuation..."

Which is a substantial benefit. Glad you've conceded that the dividend cut helps the middle class. I also thought that dividend payments help middle class recipients, but I spoke too soon...

"since their 'dividend' revenue is locked up in 401Ks or pension funds,"

I'm sure there are some middle class people who own stock outside of 401Ks or pension funds and will benefit from more dividend revenue. By the way, they will also benefit by dividend payments to their retirement funds.

"but the tax-free dividend revenue benefits the ultrarich hugely."

The dividend revenue isn't tax-free. This income stream was already taxed once when the corporation paid taxes on its profits. One of the benefits of this change would be to eliminate unfair double taxation. Even the rich are entitled to basic fairness.