Monthly Archives: November 2011

Che Guevara calling for dictatorship

open quoteThe vanguard group is ideologically more advanced than the mass; the latter is acquainted with the new values, but insufficiently. While in the former a qualitative change takes place which permits them to make sacrifices as a function of their vanguard character, the latter see only by halves and must be subjected to incentives and pressures of some intensity; it is the dictatorship of the proletariat being exercised not only upon the defeated class but also individually upon the victorious class.close quote

–Che Guevara, Man and Socialism in Cuba (page 27)

Big labor is real enemy of the 99 percent

open quoteSince the class-warfare message of the Occupy Wall Street protests started nearly two months ago, the two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have taken every chance possible to stand in solidarity with the group of mostly underemployed college students and left-leaning activists. With AFT President Randi Weingarten joining in protests and state affiliates taking part and organizing protests of their own, the teachers unions are quick to point out that “public education, teachers and unions have increasingly come under attack from the one percent,” as Leo Casey, spokesman for the AFT’s New York City local put it.

The union support is pouring in state after state. For example, in the union stronghold of California, California NEA affiliate President Dean Vogel called on the rich to pay more taxes. “It’s time to put Main Street before Wall Street, and for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes,” he said. Meanwhile, the union rank and file are resorting to taking the fight into the classroom with lesson plans titled “Who are the 99 percent? Ways to teach about Occupy Wall Street.”

As the protests continue and the union rhetoric becomes more radical, one can’t help but find the situation ironic. While the teachers unions claim they are being persecuted by the wealthiest Americans, clearly it is the unions and union bosses themselves that have benefited from a system that takes advantage of taxpayers at the expense of our students.

An examination of the staggering amount of money accumulated by the teachers unions puts the situation into perspective. The AFT collected $211 million in dues in 2010, while the even larger NEA pulled in $397 million. Taking into consideration affiliated state groups, the unions collectively take in about $1 billion, more than half of which is taken by force in states with compulsory unionism. If you take into account their vast budgets and revenue streams forcibly collected from teachers, the NEA and AFT numbers align nicely with those of the corporations they so vehemently criticize.close quote (Read more from washingtontimes.com)

A story about the redistrubution of wealth

“Seems like the economy functions better when there are less gross inequities.” Really?

No society in human history has ever made itself richer by taking money from some people and giving it others. Many, on the contrary, have turned into gigantic meat grinders following Marx’s vision of equality.

Rich people already reinvest and redistribute their wealth. In the 90’s, for example, rich people gave a lot of their money to working class yacht builders. This, obviously, was despicable.

Why should some people have yachts and not others? Furthermore, what role was there for this country’s considerable political talent?

Happily, America’s yacht building industry was taxed to death. Hurray equality! Working class people still got money from rich people, but instead of building yachts (hard work) they just had to sign a statement of uselessness and failure — i.e. welfare application (much easier). The intelligence and talent of the politicians became indispensable in facilitating the transaction. And the politicians lived happily every after — some of them even purchased European-made yachts for themselves. (the end)

Maybe the 99% are right

Maybe the 99% are right. Maybe we should take all the money from the richest 1%. Perhaps, however, the protesters don’t go far enough. We should then find the most beautiful 1% and scar their faces with box cutters. Then we should find the smartest 1% and damage their brains. We should find the most athletic 1% and break their legs. We should find the healthiest 1% and feed them poison.

Equality for all! Of course, we’d need to appoint some bureau and give them absolute power to decide who is and who is not the 1%.

Edit: In response to a friend’s objection, I’ll acknowledge that protesters might not be calling to take all the money from the richest 1%, but the comparison still stands. I’m not calling to take all the beauty from the most beautiful 1%, only some of it. Their faces should be scarred just enough to knock them down into that meaty part of the bell curve.

Russia Restricts Abortions As Population Dips

I would like this headline to read: “Parasites terrified as host is dying.”

open quoteRussia’s parliament has adopted a controversial law restricting abortions in an attempt to tackle the country’s population collapse.

The UN predicted that, by 2050, Russia’s population will shrink by a fifth to 116 million.

Critics of the change in law said limiting women’s choice is the wrong way to tackle the problem, in a country where women are almost twice as likely to have an abortion as a live birth.

Getting an abortion in Russia is not difficult. Sky News secretly filmed a Moscow clinic which admitted frequently performing illegal operations over the 12-week limit.

Posing as a woman seeking a termination at four months, Sky’s producer Julia was told it would not be a problem. Anything was possible for an upfront fee of £100.close quote (Read more news.sky.com)

Historian of Decline?

open quoteThe memoirs of the indefatigable economist Ludwig von Mises, written from his exile in Geneva in 1940, contain this moving, even tragic, passage:

“Occasionally I entertained the hope that my writings would bear practical fruit and show the way for policy. Constantly I have been looking for evidence of a change in ideology. But…I have come to realize that my theories explain the degeneration of a great civilization; they do not prevent it. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline.”

Reading the whole of Mises’s works, it is clear what he means by decline: the deliberate wrecking of civilization itself, through the rise of the total state. close quote (Read more from mises.org)

Former Federal Reserve Economist Likely Next Prime Minister of Greece

open quote“Lucas Papademos will be as of tomorrow the new prime minister of the country after the agreement that the outgoing Prime Minister George Papandreou and the opposition head Antonis Samaras reached last night,” reports the Greek daily Ta Nea.

Papademos is a 100% bankster tool. There will never ever be even the suggestion of a referendum on any program the banksters want passed. It will simply be passed.

Papademos is currently a visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was previously a vice president of the European Central Bank and also served as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

He is a Trilateral Commission member. close quote (Read more economicpolicyjournal.com)