China's National People's Congress May Boast More Millionaires and Billionaires Than Any Other Legislative Body on Earth

An amazing piece, at the Wall Street Journal, "Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party":

When the Communist Party elite gathered last month to anoint China's new leaders, seven of the nation's richest people occupied coveted seats in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda Group, worth an estimated $10.3 billion and the recent buyer of U.S. cinema chain AMC Entertainment Holdings, took one of the chairs. So did Liang Wengen, with an estimated fortune of $7.3 billion, whose construction-equipment maker Sany Heavy Industry Co. competes with Caterpillar Inc. Zhou Haijiang, a clothing mogul with an estimated $1.3 billion family fortune, also had a seat. As members of the Communist Party Congress, all three had helped endorse the new leadership.

For years the Communist Party in China filled key political and state bodies with loyal servants: proletarian workers, pliant scholars and military officers. Now the door is wide open to another group: millionaires and billionaires.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal, using data from Shanghai research firm Hurun Report, identified 160 of China's 1,024 richest people, with a collective family net worth of $221 billion, who were seated in the Communist Party Congress, the legislature and a prominent advisory group called the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

For years the Communist Party in China filled key political and state bodies with loyal servants: proletarian workers, pliant scholars and military officers. Now the door is wide open to another group: millionaires and billionaires.

An analysis by The Wall Street Journal, using data from Shanghai research firm Hurun Report, identified 160 of China's 1,024 richest people, with a collective family net worth of $221 billion, who were seated in the Communist Party Congress, the legislature and a prominent advisory group called the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

China has been grappling of late with political and social tension over its murky policy-making process and its growing income disparity. The party has been especially sensitive this year during the leadership change about revelations about fortunes amassed by the offspring of political leaders, known as "princelings," by leaders of state businesses and by other politically connected people. Many ordinary Chinese blame high prices, poor quality food and pollution on guanshang guojie—meaning, roughly, officials in bed with businessmen.

As political families move into business, private tycoons are entering the political sphere—although precisely what is driving that isn't clear. Other Chinese business leaders have cultivated relationships with party chiefs without entering politics themselves. But the Journal's analysis showed that people appearing on Hurun's rich list who also served in the legislature increased their wealth more quickly than the average member of the list.

Seventy-five people who appeared on the rich list from 2007 to 2012 served in China's legislature during that period. Their fortunes grew by 81%, on average, during that period, according to Hurun. The 324 list members with no national political positions over that period saw their wealth grow by 47%, on average, according to an analysis the firm ran for the Journal.

The contradictions of communism. The Chinese political system is one of the world's biggest ideological frauds going. It's all about keeping the elite in power and suppressing the slightest bit of opposition to the regime.

'So Depressing and Communist!'

It's Milla Jovovich on Twitter:

Awww! Found this old baby pic if me from Russia in the 70's! So depressing n communist! Too cute! instagr.am/p/TpFRbkTMqd/
— Milla Jovovich (@MillaJovovich) December 25, 2012

And see London's Daily Mail, "Milla Jovovich shares adorable childhood picture from her days in Russia."

Amazing, isn't it?

Beautiful immigrants like Ms. Jovovich move to America to be free of communist oppression. And the damned progressives are doing their absolute best to foster and promote that same communist oppression right here at home.

Sigh...

When the immigrants stop coming, and they will, you'll know it's all over. The American dream will be over.

RELATED: "Stunning Picture of Milla Jovovich."

Is Obama Really Socialist?

Yes, he is.

From Peter Ferrara, at Forbers, "Is President Obama Really A Socialist? Let's Analyze Obamanomics":

President Obama says that income taxes must be raised on the rich because they don’t pay their fair share. The indisputable facts from official government sources say otherwise.

The CBO reports based on official IRS data that in 2009 the top 1% of income earners paid 39% of all federal income taxes, three times their share of income at 13%. Yet, the middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, paid just 2.7% of total federal income taxes on net that year, while earning 15% of income. That means the top 1% paid almost 15 times as much in federal income taxes as the entire middle 20%, even though the middle 20% earned more income.

Moreover, the official data, as reported by CBO and the IRS, show that the bottom 40% of income earners, instead of paying some income taxes to support the federal government, were paid cash by the IRS equal to 10% of federal income taxes as a group on net.

Any normal person would say that such an income tax system is more than fair, or maybe that “the rich” pay more than their fair share. So why does President Obama keep saying that the rich do not pay their fair share? Is he ignorant? Wouldn’t somebody in his Administration whisper to him that he is peddling nonsense?

The answer is that to President Obama this is still not fair because he is a Marxist. To a Marxist, the fact that the top 1% earn more income than the bottom 99% is not fair, no matter how they earn it, fairly or not. So it is not fair unless more is taken from the top 1% until they are left only with what they “need,” as in any true communist system. Paying anything less is not their “fair” share. That is the only logical explanation of President Obama’s rhetoric, and it is 100% consistent with his own published background.

Notice that Obama keeps saying that “the rich,” a crass term implying low class social envy, don’t “need” the Bush tax cuts. That is reminiscent of the fundamental Marxist principle, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Good tax policy is not guided by “need.” It is guided by what is needed to establish the incentives to maximize economic growth. The middle class, working people and the poor are benefited far more by economic growth than by redistribution. That is shown by the entire 20th century, where the standard of living of American workers increased by more than 7 times, through sustained, rapid economic growth.

But President Obama’s tax policy of increasing all tax rates on savings and investment will work exactly contrary to such economic growth. It is savings and investment which creates jobs and increases productivity and wages. Under capitalism, capital and labor are complementary, not adversarial, exactly contrary to the misunderstanding of Marxists. More capital investment increases the demand for labor, bidding up wages to the level of worker productivity, which is enhanced by the capital investment.

Continue reading.

FLASHBACK: See Jonah Goldberg, at Commentary in 2010, "What Kind of Socialist Is Barack Obama?" There are a lot of different terms at stake here. Ferrara explicitly places Obama's consistent redistributionism within the Marxian class-struggle paradigm. Goldberg sees Obama more in terms of the stagnant European variety of democratic socialism. Personally my sense is that the only thing holding Obama back from a truly Marxist public-ownership-of-the means-of-production model are the enormous liberty restraints in the American constitutional system and political order. Obama knows this, of course. He knows that the left must chip away at these liberty restraints piecemeal to bring about the socialist utopia. You bore through the institutions over the long haul, and it's working. The monstrous ObamaCare health collectivization is the tip of the iceberg. The November reelection provides the chance for Democrats to consolidate their gains and push FORWARD toward the communist future! More than ever before, it's all about class warfare and raising taxes, and the president barely hides his disdain for the free market anymore. It's really a lot.

PREVIOUSLY: "Ushangi Davitashvili Kisses Bust of Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin."

Ushangi Davitashvili Kisses Bust of Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin

In Tbilisi, Georgia, at the Wall Street Journal, "Photos of the Day: Dec. 21."

This Mr. Davitashvili might as well be a progressive Democrat in Atlanta, Georgia. Today's Democrat Party, the party of Barack Obama, sure loves them some communism. It's not speculation any more. The left under Obama is a neo-communist consortium of all the hardline factions. See: "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

FLASHBACK: "No Enemies on the Left? Progressives for Barack Obama."

First Rule of Defeating Leftists: Don't Call Them 'Liberals'

I'm 41 posted an excellent entry the other day, "The Blogger’s Rules For Defeating Liberals."

However, I cringed with all the references to "liberals." These goons are not "liberal." They're progressive collectivists (as the most hardened of them self-identify) or, frankly, simply radical leftists.

Zilla has more:

I can’t stand to see them called “liberals” because there is nothing “liberal” about them. Words matter, as they say. Call ‘em what they really are: LEFTISTS. The edit to the [blog] title is from me, because I don’t want to see the freaks called by their preferred misnomer at any place that I have editorial control over.

When referring to "liberals," the proper meaning makes reference to those early thinkers evoking the ideology of individual liberty and limited government, most importantly John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Adam Smith. The Democrat Party until roughly John F. Kennedy espoused a form of "modern liberalism" that by default drew on America's constitutional foundations in liberty but increasingly sought an expanded role for the state in promoting economic equality and social welfare. Yet, the left today is almost completely unrecognizable from the Cold War liberalism of Kennedy and Harry Truman. Today's left is a quasi-Marxist, state-collectivist ideological apparatus, intent to delegitimize private property and wealth accumulation and to elevate extreme ethnic tribalism as the blunt cudgel of radical redistributionist class warfare. President Obama is the chief class warrior and national divider in this mode, the perfect vessel of the vengeful fever swamp ghouls of the Democrat Party.

Zilla might not even be this charitable, although that's the pretty well-understood ideological bastardization of "liberalism" over the last couple of generations. Today's leftists are the Orwellian zombies who spout tolerance but practice extreme racism, anti-Semitism and viewpoint intolerance. These ghouls preach "peace" and "respect" as the highest principles but instead practice union thuggery and anti-speech bullying and lawfare as standard operating procedures. And more than ever, the left phantasmagorically operates under a false consciousness of objective lies as progressive truth. The "tent trutherism" coming out of Lansing is just the latest manifestation, but President Obama's 2012 campaign will perhaps be remembered by traditional historians as the most dishonest (and morally reprobate) in post-modern history, marked especially by a media empire in service to state power, with journalists effectively functioning as party apparatchiks for the endlessly voracious tax-and-spend regime of the soul-crushing collectivist machine.

That's why people should simply refuse to call these people "liberals." They are precisely the opposite of the great classical liberals, and are indeed the very kinds of tyrants for which the latter developed theories to frustrate, prevent, and destroy.

Marcy Wheeler and the Americans for Prosperity Self-Sabotage Tent Conspiracy

This is one of the more classic cases of partisan hatred blinding an otherwise intelligent person into abject imbecility, if not progressive insanity.

"Emptywheel" is Marcy Wheeler, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, which just goes to show that even high-powered credentials are no guarantee against epic self-beclownment.

William Jacobson reports, "The Epistemic Closure of progressives to their violent union thugs." At the screencap union thugs are taking down the AFP tent:

Even more pathetic is how many other unhinged progs jumped on board, at Memeorandum, "Breitbart Folks Appear to Fake Violence in Lansing." Hilariously, lame-blogger Steve M. at No More Mr. Nice Blog sucks it all up, downplaying the vicious union thug attack on Steven Crowder as insignificant.

It's too easy with these people. This is the left. This is what they do. Just own it people. You folks won last month. Let's see if you can keep your majority. As it turns out, it's not going too well at the state level.

Progressives Outraged That Kansas School Reforms Include 'American Exceptionalism'

Well, that's a shocker.

At Weasel Zippers, "Libs Outraged Nebraska Students to Be Taught … (Gasp) … “American Exceptionalism”…"

Following the links takes us to Mother Jones. The debate's also on the instruction of climate change theory, to which this commenter responds:

Climate change is real and its irrelevant who or what caused it. Get with the program and accept that regardless of time, we need to educate the next generation (the ones left to deal with it) on what we know about the science of weather and its global effects on their future living environment.

Get with the program. You'll be educated one way, the only way!

Besides, you'll wind up in a shallow grave no matter what happens, so shape up now and with luck the left's NKVD jackboots will give you some gravy with your rations before your number's up.

Michigan Madness: Thousands Plan to Lay Siege on State Capitol on Tuesday Over Right-to-Work

From Labor Union Report:

Oh brother. These people are freakin' anarcho-commies.

And there's more at Huffington Post, "Unions Vow Political Payback on Michigan Right-to-Work Legislation."

The Left's War on the Koch Brothers

I wrote on the Michigan union reforms earlier and didn't think too much of it at the time. But progressives are both shocked and angry that Republicans had the f-king temerity to give workers a choice about workplace representation. Gosh, that's horrible, horrible! Michael "Capitalism is Evil" Moore went so far as calling for a "revolt":

Still enraged by actions of Republican shock troops in the lame duck MI legislature yesterday. Revolt, anyone? shar.es/6EXO8
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) December 7, 2012

Some less generalized rage has also been spewed at the Koch brothers, for example, from John Nichols at the Nation, "GOP, Koch Brothers Sneak Attack Guts Labor Rights in Michigan."

And see William Jacobson's piece as well, "Koch not backing down, and neither should you."

We've Got al Qaeda on the Run Alright ... In Africa, Stronger Than Ever!

Oh yes, al Qaeda has been decimated, war is peace, ignorance is strength and freedom is slavery!

All hail Dear Leader Barack Hussein!

At the Wall Street Journal, "Terror Fight Shifts to Africa: U.S. Considers Seeking Congressional Backing for Operations Against Extremists":

WASHINGTON—Military counterterrorism officials are seeking more capability to pursue extremist groups in Africa and elsewhere that they believe threaten the U.S., and the Obama administration is considering asking Congress to approve expanded authority to do it.

The move, according to administration and congressional officials, would be aimed at allowing U.S. military operations in Mali, Nigeria, Libya and possibly other countries where militants have loose or nonexistent ties to al Qaeda's Pakistan headquarters. Depending on the request, congressional authorization could cover the use of armed drones and special operations teams across a region larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, the officials said.

The idea comes as the U.S. prepares by 2014 to draw down its remaining forces in Afghanistan, which were authorized by Congress in response to the country serving as base for the al Qaeda plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That authorization has since been applied to pursuing al Qaeda-linked groups as far as Somalia and Yemen, but the threat posed by militants has widened to include other areas and other alliances.

The discussion about seeking new authority underscores the growing U.S. alarm over Islamic extremists in North Africa, where an al Qaeda offshoot has seized control of territory following a coup in Mali to provide the group and its offshoots a working base for operations. The U.S. administration has called the Mali situation a "powder keg" that could destabilize surrounding countries and imperil Western interests.

"The conditions today are vastly different than they were previously," Gen. Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa command, said in an interview. "There are now non-al Qaeda-associated groups that present significant threats to the United States." He called the debate over new authorization a "worthy discussion."hreats to the United States." He called the debate over new authorization a "worthy discussion."

Really?

But I thought al Qaeda was "on the run"? "Decimated"? Dear Leader promised us: "Obama Has Touted Al Qaeda’s Demise 32 Times since Benghazi Attack."

Well, it's okay if President Hussein lies on occasion. The great left-forces needed Obama's reelection to complete our fundamental transformation of America. It's all about trade offs, and I trust Brother Barack to do his progressive best to keep pushing for the withering away of the state and the full achievement of communism. Honesty and integrity are bourgeois notions, hopelessly inadequate for the challenges of today's day and age. Besides, the reactionary forces of conservatism and tradition are too stupid to even handle the truth. And, added bonus, if terrorism's really still a problem Dear Leader can claim continued exigencies for his unprecedented expansion of the kill list citizens' elimination program.

It's all working out as planned!

More from Walter Russell Mead, "The War on Terror We Aren’t Fighting Shifts to Africa."

Black Bloc Anarchists

From Lee Stranahan, at Big Government, "VIDEO PROMOTING BLACK BLOC ANARCHISTS PROVES 'OCCUPY UNMASKED' GOT IT RIGHT":

This is the real Occupy: anti-capitialist and with an appetite for destruction. The leftist critics weren't outraged because Occupy Unmasked got the story wrong. They were panicked that the film got it exactly right.

Michelle Malkin Slams Ed Asner and California Federation of Teachers

Michelle's positively indignant:

And previously, "Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'."

'Socialism' is Merriam-Webster's Top Word for 2012

A news clip from CBS News This Morning, "Merriam-Webster's top ten words of 2012."

We have a socialist president leading a morally bankrupt collectivist party that took 52 percent of the electorate last month, so it's no surprise folks are saying WTF's now blindsiding the country. Suck it up, idiot Americans. You voted for these Marxist monsters. The bills are just now starting to come due. It ain't gonna be pretty.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'."

* "Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society."

* "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

* "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

* "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

* "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website."

Teachers' Union Propaganda Video Shows 'Rich People' Urinating on the 'Poor'

This is beyond stupid. It's pure evil, and indeed criminal if this clip's shown during public classroom hours at taxpayer expense.

At Exposing Liberal Lies, "Class Warfare Video from Teachers' Union."

Just when you think Big Labor could not sink any lower, they come out with something even more classless than you could imagine in your worst nightmares. Check out this latest teacher’s union video which features the ‘rich’ urinating on the ‘poor’.

The new video, produced by the California Federation of Teachers – which will actually be playing in some of California children’s classrooms, drums up the typical class warfare images we’ve come to expect from Big Labor.

“Tax the Rich: An Animated Fairy Tale,” written by CFT staffer Fred Glass and narrated by proud leftist actor (and 1 percenter) Ed Asner, advocates for higher taxes on the “rich” as the cure for government’s insatiable thirst for spending.

The video claims the rich got rich through tax cuts and tax loopholes and even tax evasion.

But when the 99 percent fought back, the “rich” apparently urinated on the “poor,” at least according to the video. What a classy way to frame an argument.

This indeed sinks to new levels. Outrageous isn't a strong enough word, but what's even more frustrating is how fundamentally stupid this is. Mindless. F-king. Drivel. But if there's been any doubt that American politics is now class warfare all the time, those have been blown to smithereens.

The world is a complicated place. A wide variety of factors is at play in any decent explanation of contemporary political economy, including changes in the industrial sector and the education system, as well as increasing instability in the housing and financial markets. To boil down the causal factors to a single variable ---- the rich seeking ever increasing profits ---- is to espouse a stupid fantasy world of extreme zero sum politics. This kind of propaganda that would be entirely at home among Soviet propagandists during the height of the cold war. It's even a bit frightening to consider how many young impressionable minds might be indoctrinated to these lies. And it's an historically sad commentary that this was produced by a California teachers' union, although not surprising, not surprising at all, considering the radicalization of the left during the Obama interregnum.

More at The Lonely Conservative, "Ed Asner Narrates Tax the Rich Propaganda Cartoon For California Teachers Union."

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society."

* "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

* "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

* "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

* "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website."

Marxists Seek Destruction of the Individual, the Moral Foundation of Society

And not just any old Marxists, either, but the ones we're facing right here at home.

From Bruce Walker, at American Thinker, "What We Should Care About" (via Maggie's Farm):

The debates in post-election Washington and the exhortations of conservative punditry seem focused almost entirely on economics.  But if our politics is built around economic concerns alone, we see the world through the same lens as Marxists.  Politics, like everything else in life, must be grounded in moral principles, but Marxists believe that morality is simply a function of economics: wealth, or rather the proper distribution of wealth, is superior to bourgeois ideas of integrity, decency, faith, and love.

That is profoundly different from the foundational ideals of America.  The Founding Fathers did not risk their lives and their fortunes to get richer, although that is what Marxist professors teach our kids.  Men like Washington hoped our new land would prosper over time, but their purpose in creating a new nation was liberty.

This liberty tends over time and over a large group people to produce general prosperity, but this is a very inexact process -- more like the messy statistical laws of physics in areas like thermodynamics rather than the clean results of arithmetic.  Sometimes hardworking and thrifty people grow poor, and sometimes unsavory wastrels grow rich.

What is true of individuals in a free land like America is also true among the relatively free and unfree nations of the world.  Free nations tend to become prosperous, and slave empires tend to slide into grinding poverty.  But this is just a tendency, not an iron law of history.

Many cruel tyrannies from Rome to Nazi Germany have been prosperous and comfortable (though more often than not, slave regimes have been like the Soviet Union: poor and miserable).  Culture, as much as liberty, seems to influence the wealth or poverty of nations, which is why the statist and socialist economies of Northern Europe are holding up better in the Eurozone crisis than the more chaotic, and slightly freer, economies of the Mediterranean regime.  This also explains why East Germany, though much poorer than West Germany, was much richer than the Slavic Communist regimes.

When our interest in government is really an interest in prosperity, then we risk losing everything, including prosperity, although that is the slightest of the losses.  We really don't need more stuff.  Our greatest health problems today are not hunger or overwork, but rather overeating and boredom.  The aching emptiness in our body politic is not material poverty, but a poverty of honor and moral purpose.  Not only are we Americans not poor, but even relatively poor Americans live better today than affluent Americans did in 1950.

This does not mean that we are wrong for wanting the latest model car or the nicest home or the best new smartphone, but it does mean that the more we focus just on the financial impact of leftism, the more we will think like the very folks who are so horribly wrong.  The horror of socialism is not that it hurts the economy.  The horror of socialism is that it lusts for the wealth created by the productive and the demonization of these people as a prelude to confiscatory tax rates...

Boy, does that sound familiar. See also,"Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Also, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

And see the rest of Walker's essay the link.

Socialism Surges Under Obama

The demonization of private property is the signature feature of Marxist economics, and this president is the master of vicious anti-capitalist attacks in the name of "fairness." It's completely un-American, but as the Obama regime tightens its grip on the culture, more and more Americans are abandoning our founding principles. Conn Carroll reported on Gallup's recent survey findings to that effect, "Obama voters love socialism."

And Sean Hannity discussed Obama's socialist surge with Sarah Palin last night:

See also,"Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Also, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years."

Who's Not Bargaining in Good Faith?

From Robert Samuelson, at RCP:

WASHINGTON -- Put Social Security on the table -- clearly and irrevocably. Protecting retiree benefits is the left's political equivalent of the right's "no new taxes" pledge. Congressional Republicans are abandoning their untenable position. Now it is time for President Obama and congressional Democrats to do the same. As long as they don't, they aren't bargaining in good faith, or in the national interest.

Supporting retirees is now the federal government's main activity. There's a huge redistribution from young to old -- a redistribution that will be made worse if retiree programs are largely excluded from deficit reduction, as many liberal groups urge. Either taxes will rise steeply or other federal programs (defense, food stamps, environmental protection) will be cut sharply. The young will pay more and get less. Or, given these unpalatable choices, true deficit reduction won't happen.

Doubters should ponder the numbers. In fiscal 2012, non-interest federal spending totaled $3.251 trillion. Of that, $762 billion went for Social Security, $469 billion for Medicare (insurance for the 65 and over population) and $251 billion for Medicaid (insurance for the poor -- two-thirds goes for long-term care for the aged and disabled). Altogether, that's 46 percent of non-interest spending. Defense, $651 billion and declining, was 20 percent.

As baby boomers retire and health costs rise, this spending will mount. In 2010, there were 40 million Americans 65 and older. By 2020, that number is projected to be 55 million; by 2030, 72 million.

All these trends are old news; I have repeatedly written about them. If we had begun cutting benefits years ago, changes could have occurred slowly. People would have received ample notice. Now we lack the luxury of time. Benefit cuts will be unfair to retirees; but avoiding cuts will be unfair to the young. That we have arrived at this juncture indicts our democratic system and many Democratic politicians, who have obstructed constructive change in retiree programs. Obama continues this short-sighted tradition.

What could justify it?

Well, nothing justifies it. But Democrat moral bankruptcy explains it.

Continue reading.

Socialists Outline Democrats' Agenda for Next Two Years

At New Zeal:

Contrary to popular opinion, the U.S. Democratic Party does not set much of its own policy.

Democrat policy is actually dictated by the labor unions and radical think tanks, such as the Center for American Progress, and the Institute for Policy Studies.

The unions are dominated by the U.S.’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America – which also works closely with the C.A.P. and I.P.S.

So, by a process of osmosis and deliberate orchestration, D.S.A., and their friends in the Communist Party USA, effectively dictate Democrat policy at state and national levels.

On November 16, the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee released After the Election: Keep Fighting, a blueprint for DSA action and priorities for the first segment of Obama’s second term.

It is basically a guide to action for long time DSA ally Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, over the next two years.

Diverting money from the military to social spending will be a huge part of the agenda. After all, a strong US military is the major block to world revolution.

The push will be towards universal socialist healthcare and an economy wrecking Financial Transactions Tax.

Ending poverty through massive re-distribution will be a big focus… capitalizing on the 50th anniversary of DSA founder Michael Harrington‘s famous book “The Other America,” which helped to launch Lyndon Johnson’s catastrophic and completely counter productive  “War on Poverty” in the mid-1960s...

So true. More at that top link.

I've been writing about this as well. See, "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website," and "Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare."

BONUS: "Rachel Maddow and the Left's Depraved Agenda of Unchecked Power Over the Individual."

Where the Real Money Is

Taxes are going up. Even if a deal is reached to avoid the fiscal cliff, Democrats will continue to push for more revenue to finance their never-ending spending binge, and the middle class will take the hit.

This editorial's from June 2011 but still as timely as ever. At the Wall Street Journal, "Where the Tax Money Is":

Consider the Internal Revenue Service's income tax statistics for 2008, the latest year for which data are available. The top 1% of taxpayers—those with salaries, dividends and capital gains roughly above about $380,000—paid 38% of taxes. But assume that tax policy confiscated all the taxable income of all the "millionaires and billionaires" Mr. Obama singled out. That yields merely about $938 billion, which is sand on the beach amid the $4 trillion White House budget, a $1.65 trillion deficit, and spending at 25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record.

Say we take it up to the top 10%, or everyone with income over $114,000, including joint filers. That's five times Mr. Obama's 2% promise. The IRS data are broken down at $100,000, yet taxing all income above that level throws up only $3.4 trillion. And remember, the top 10% already pay 69% of all total income taxes, while the top 5% pay more than all of the other 95%.

We recognize that 2008 was a bad year for the economy and thus for tax receipts, as payments by the rich fell along with their income. So let's perform the same exercise in 2005, a boom year and among the best ever for federal revenue. (Ahem, 2005 comes after the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama holds responsible for all the world's problems.)

In 2005 the top 5% earned over $145,000. If you took all the income of people over $200,000, it would yield about $1.89 trillion, enough revenue to cover the 2012 bill for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—but not the same bill in 2016, as the costs of those entitlements are expected to grow rapidly. The rich, in short, aren't nearly rich enough to finance Mr. Obama's entitlement state ambitions—even before his health-care plan kicks in.

So who else is there to tax? Well, in 2008, there was about $5.65 trillion in total taxable income from all individual taxpayers, and most of that came from middle income earners. The nearby chart shows the distribution, and the big hump in the center is where Democrats are inevitably headed for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks.

This is politically risky, however, so Mr. Obama's game has always been to pretend not to increase taxes for middle class voters while looking for sneaky ways to do it.

Well, he's a sneaky f-ker, that's for sure. We've got $268 billion in ObamaCare taxes about to kick in, regardless of what happens with the fiscal cliff.

The left's appetite for ever-increasing revenue is insatiable.

Communist Party USA Pulls Out the Stops for Democrat Class Warfare

If you know your Marxism-Leninism, it would seem impossible for the Communist Party to not only endorse but ally with the Democrat Party in the United States, as the latter ostensibly remains a party of free market capitalism. But we're not in the old traditional free market America anymore. In today's political realm, the forces of the far-left --- the forces of the proletarian revolution envisioned by The Communist Manifesto --- have made common cause with the party in power as the hegemonic institution capable of emancipating the working classes. It's frankly an astounding development, one that truly makes mockery of all those on the left who've ridiculed conservative commentators for their warnings of Barack Obama's communist roots. But there are no more Truman Democrats. The party is now officially the party of class warfare and the CPUSA is fully on board.

Here's this, from WND, "COMMUNIST PARTY USA: GO, OBAMA, GO!":

The Communist Party USA, which just days ago boasted of its celebration over the election victory by Barack Obama, now is organizing teleconferences and promoting rallies in support of Obama’s plans to raise taxes – and to demand full government funding for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid “and other basic human needs.”

According to a statement from the communists, it is the “will of the voters” that Obama be allowed to “end … tax breaks for the wealthiest.” And the party said no spending cuts should be allowed because they would be borne by the “working class families, starting with children and youth and the most vulnerable.”

Facing the nation right now is the fiscal cliff which was set up by earlier decisions from the White House and Congress not to address longterm budget problems then. The scenario now is that without new legislation immediately on spending cuts, sought by Republicans, or more taxes, demanded by Democrats and the Communist Party USA, automatic changes will create both spending cuts and new tax liabilities.

Many Washington observers say, in fact, that’s a goal for Obama, in order to allow him to blame the GOP for the nation’s ills, and for him to work on tax increases amidst the backlash from Americans facing huge new liabilities.

“The national legislative struggle is the first challenge to continue the deep organizing that resulted in the election victory, in order to win priorities that benefit the 99 percent,” the party said in a statement.

It has organized a teleconference on the fight at 8 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 4, at 605-475-4850 (1053538#) with Art Perlo, chair of the Economics Commission CPUSA. And it is promoting that the AFL-CIO and “hundreds of organizations” will hold a Candlelight Campaign against Cuts on Dec. 10, all in support of the “Five Weeks to Protect Our Future.”

According to preliminary reports from Washington, Obama already has picked up on one of the suggestions from the Communist Party USA National Committee, which wrote a week ago that there needs to be an “enhanced version of the American Jobs Act … as part of a green New Deal to create millions of jobs for infrastructure, renewable energy, education and support to state and local government services.”

As part of his demands to Congress regarding a compromise to avoid the “fiscal cliff” Obama has proposed $50 billion in new stimulus spending, reports said. He also wants $1.6 trillion in new taxes and the authority to borrow what he pleases.

“The will of the voters is being put to immediate test as the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations play out in Washington. Labor and the broad alliance that re-elected President Obama clearly supported an end to tax breaks for the wealthiest and keeping hands off Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other basic human needs,” the party statement said.

The communists noted that there already was a round of protests held two days after the election, “spearheaded by AFL-CIO and hundreds of organizations.”

The group continued, “Coming out of the election, the big fight is the crisis over the federal budget. Forces representing corporate power and the richest of the 1 percent are trying to achieve their long-held goals of looting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and cutting all government programs that help people or serve a public good.”

There's more at the link, and at the CPUSA website, from November 21st, "Defeat for the Right, Victory for the People & Democracy":

In January when the newly elected Congress convenes, it can give its full attention to the state of the economy. And again, jobs and a robust economic recovery should be at the top of its "to-do list."

In due time the nation's budgetary problems can and should be resolved, and resolved easily, if we go where the money is - the incomes of the wealthy, corporate profits, and the military budget.

Without stopping to catch its breath after the long election grind, the AFL-CIO and its allies are organizing for a working-class and people's solution along these lines. But organized labor can't do it alone.

The coalition that mined the country for votes over the past several months and the rainbow electorate that elected the President must spring back into action.

A broad appeal to many who cast their ballots for Romney is in order too. The division in the country that obtained on November 6 should not be seen as some sort of hardened divide.

Moreover, the popular movement must bring its political and numerical weight to bear on Congress - Democrats and Republicans alike.

Not least, President Obama needs to hear from the tens of millions who reelected him. The President is the most popular politician in the country. Nobody has the political and moral authority that he has. He isn't a radical, but by the same token to classify him as a run-of-the-mill capitalist politician doesn't fit either. Of the Democratic Party presidents of the 20th century, none had the deep democratic sensibilities that he possesses. It is crucial that he lead this struggle.

But he can't and won't do it alone. He needs a mass movement that will nudge him forward as well as have his back as he goes up against recalcitrant Republicans, big sections of monopoly capital, and wavering centrist Democrats in Congress in this and in subsequent battles.

Which is where communists, socialists, and left and progressive people come into the picture. Our main task is to build broad people's unity, guarantee the participation of the key social and class forces, counter the right-wing narrative with a working-class and people's narrative, and bring forward an alternative program.

See that? I've highlighted that key passage for good measure. The president "isn't a radical" but nevertheless possesses "the deep democratic sensibilities" needed to bring about the proletarian victory over the capitalist oppressors.

Really.

There is no other interpretation, for if the Communist Party will not attack this president as a tool of finance capitalism and the scourge of the working classes, who will? Just change the terminology around a bit and President Obama fits the bill as the mass leader of those "communists, socialists, and progressives" committed to the destruction of business and free markets, a process we've been observing close up in the weeks since the election.

This is the new reality.

PREVIOUSLY:

* "Campaign for America's Future, Top Democrat Activist Group, Launches Class-Warfare Website."

* "Socialism v. Capitalism."