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Who Are the Rich?
NewsMax Commentary ^ | 7/31/02 | Phil Brennan

Posted on 08/01/2002 12:20:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

Who Are the Rich?

Phil Brennan
Wednesday, July 31, 2002

It was a strategy widely used by the Marxist-Leninists in the Soviet Union – the divide-and-conquer tactic of turning class against class. As a result of this state-sponsored class warfare, millions of Russians whose only crime was having a few more material goods than their neighbors faced firing squads or short, brutalized lives in Siberian prison camps.

Millions more whose crime was running independent farms – the so-called Kulaks* – were simply eliminated by starvation decreed by the Kremlin (and their murders covered up by ... you guessed it ... the New York Times).

The strategy survives, kept alive and well today by the National Socialist Democrat Party (NSDP), which learned its lessons well from the ruthless and demagogic acolytes of Marxism, who used it so successfully to enslave a large part of the world in the 20th century while posing as a champion of the common people against the "oppressive rich" (anybody, that is, who owned anything).

The NSDP relies on class warfare to further their goal of creating a socialist order here in the United States. Their principal weapon in their war against the productive segment of the population, which is responsible for taking America to the pinnacle of power and financial success by virtue of their labor and determination to make a better life for themselves, is the manipulation of the federal tax system and their ability to tell monstrous lies about that system.

As David Horowitz notes in his informative book, "How to Beat the Democrats – And Other Subversive Ideas," the NSDP portrays the Republican Party as the party of the rich who care "more about themselves than those left behind."

And they get away with it, Horowitz explains, because the NSDP has "rigged the game before it starts. Through their control of Congress, Democrats designed the tax code to make it an unfair system of economic plunder. Under their code, the harder you work and the more jobs you create, the more you are taxed. Under their code the bottom 50 percent pay only 5 percent of the government bill for services they are more likely to use." (Guess for whom these people are expected to vote out of gratitude.)

As a result of this NSDP-rigged system, whenever the GOP tries to provide a fair shake for every taxpayer, the tax cut is "maliciously" pictured as a tax cut for the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

Horowitz goes on to note that a tax refund for the very rich does not affect their lives at all, that not a single member of the super-rich will be able to buy a yacht, pay for a vacation or an education that he couldn't have easily afforded before he got his tax cut.

"He can already pay for all that without the refund," Horowitz writes. "Think about it – he's rich."

Horowitz emphasizes the obvious fact that what a tax cut really does for those in the upper income brackets is to increase their ability to invest – in other words, the ability to create jobs and wealth for all Americans, a direct result of those who invest their capital.

But since understanding this factor of economic life requires a knowledge of the "dreary science" of economics few Americans possess, the NSDP has been able to create the perception that an across-the-board tax cut is an unfair giveaway to the 'haves' as opposed to the 'have nots.' "This," Horowitz adds, creates "a pool of resentment and envy – powerful emotions – that Democrats convert into a political force."

The force? Marx and Lenin's class warfare.

Arizona's Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a courageous foe of the federal tax code and one of the American taxpayer's greatest champions, had this to say in his "The Truth About Taxes" written last February.

While noting that "to most people outside of Washington reducing taxes is a welcome idea ... for various reasons, special interests and their friends in Congress will go to great lengths to stop tax cuts, pinning their hopes to any number of faulty arguments that might accomplish that aim."

Opponents of tax cuts – the NSDP, which needs your taxes to keep itself in power by bribing the voters with costly government programs – deviously imply that tax relief is inherently selfish, because tax cuts imperil the funding of important Washington programs or threaten the future of Social Security, even though "income tax cuts have no impact on the financial health of Social Security, which is funded through payroll taxes automatically deducted from workers' paychecks."

These shamefully deceptive distortions, however, "pale in comparison to their most cherished attack: that Republican tax cuts unfairly favor the wealthy," Kyl charged, adding that "we've heard this one before. It is the same shopworn charge Democrats made against Ronald Reagan's tax cuts in 1981 – a myth they still cling to as the years have passed."

Kyl recalls that the NSDP's Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle "recycled that very charge against President Bush [in Januray 2002], declaring that Republicans 'have one unchanging, unyielding solution that they offer for every problem: tax cuts that go disproportionately to the most affluent.' Adding cryptically that 'Democrats support tax cuts that work,' Daschle then blamed the 2001 tax cuts, most of which had not yet kicked in, for creating deficits, jeopardizing Social Security, prolonging an economic recession, and a host of other evils."

Daschle's colleague, House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt, joined in the chorus of deception, calling the Bush tax cuts "biased" and "not fair" to the middle class, while Sen. Ted Kennedy warned he would oppose "another round of irresponsible tax breaks for special interests and the wealthy."

Noting that "President Bush's 2001 tax cut was geared to help the middle class [saving an average family of four making $50,000 a year nearly 50 percent in taxes]," Kyl asked, "Are the Democrats right in arguing that tax cutting has favored the wealthy while leaving a disproportionate tax burden on everyone else?"

Kyl cites "information given to Congress' Joint Economic Committee by the IRS" as proving that the answer to that question is "no."

"If there is good news from these statistics, it's that wealthy Americans aren't benefiting unfairly while the middle class is hit by taxes," says Kyl. "The bad news is that all Americans are getting squeezed by a tax system that drains too many dollars from family budgets."

The moral of this lesson: The NSDP "shouldn't add insult to such injury by being dishonest with the facts. If they think Washington deserves a bigger share of tax dollars, they should say so, rather than trying to turn their lust for dollars into a groundless declaration of class warfare."

NOTE: I've been asked if my use of the initials NSDP is a veiled allusion to that other former National Socialist bunch, the National Socialist German Workers Party - National Sozialistische Deutcher Arbeiter (NSDAP), Nazi for short. Perish forbid, how can anyone suggest I'd do such a thing? (giggle)

***

*Class Warfare, Soviet Style – The Hang the Kulaks order of Nov. 18, 1918

"Send to Penza to Comrades Kuraev, Bosh, Minkin and other Penza communists

"Comrades! The revolt by the five kulak volosts must be suppressed without mercy. The interest of the entire revolution demands this, because we have now before us our final decisive battle "with the kulaks." We need to set an example.

"You need to hang (hang without fail, so that the public sees) at least 100 notorious kulaks, the rich, and the bloodsuckers.

"Publish their names.

"Take away all of their grain.

"Execute the hostages – in accordance with yesterday's telegram.

"This needs to be accomplished in such a way that people for hundreds of miles around will see, tremble, know and scream out: Let's choke and strangle those blood-sucking kulaks.

"Yours, Lenin

"P.S. Use your toughest people for this."

*****

Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute.

He can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com. –

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: leninist; marxist; nsdp; poor; rich

1 posted on 08/01/2002 12:20:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
Kulaks=Corrupt CEOs of [/insert company name here] ?
2 posted on 08/01/2002 12:22:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
The rich consists of anyone who is wealthier than you. And when you're dirt poor, that's everybody. Add a dash of envy, and you could have a riot on your hands.
3 posted on 08/01/2002 12:56:48 PM PDT by Skwidd
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To: Skwidd
They did a survey a while back and found that Americans consider "the rich" to be anyone making $10,000 per year more than they do.

We've got a large hole to dig ourselves out of.

4 posted on 08/01/2002 2:44:43 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves
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To: NormsRevenge
Socialism is a religion of peace. ;^)
5 posted on 08/01/2002 3:36:10 PM PDT by headsonpikes
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To: Skwidd
I tend to think of the rich as those like the Kennedys who inherit their wealth and never have to work, the middle class are all those who depend on a pay check they worked for, the poor class as those who like the rich never have to work but depend on taxdollars instead of inherited wealth.
6 posted on 08/01/2002 10:12:25 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: NormsRevenge
Kulaks=Corrupt CEOs of [/insert company name here] ?

you did not really mean this, did you? kulaks were actually working and keeping the people fed in the soviet union. they did a wonderful job, especially when compared to the collectivist farms that followed.

the corrupt ceos of [/insert company name here] deserve the punishment that stalin gave the kulaks.

7 posted on 08/02/2002 12:34:37 PM PDT by mlocher
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To: headsonpikes
Socialism is a religion of peace. ;^)

you learn quickly. socialism, especially as defined by the democrats, thinks of themselves as a religion, with the elected officials playing the role of the various gods, who are above the laws that they define for mere mortals like you and me. more specifically, the democrats/socialists want a healthy piece of your wallet so that they have some fun to go out and get a piece themselves...

8 posted on 08/02/2002 12:37:04 PM PDT by mlocher
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To: mlocher
I know that. I am implying the corrupt CEOs deserved the stalin spa treatment or whatever stalin inflicted on the kulaks .. not that the Kulaks were bad guys, they weren't.
9 posted on 08/02/2002 12:38:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: FITZ
I tend to think of the rich as those like the Kennedys who inherit their wealth and never have to work, the middle class are all those who depend on a pay check they worked for, the poor class as those who like the rich never have to work but depend on taxdollars instead of inherited wealth.

Damn, that's good. I'm going to wear that one out. =)

10 posted on 08/02/2002 8:46:25 PM PDT by Skwidd
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To: NormsRevenge
I want a bumper sticker that says "ENVY IS JUST FRUSTRATED GREED."

And race-baiting is just the new face of class warfare... but that doesn't have the same bumper-stickativity to it, somehow...

11 posted on 08/02/2002 8:52:09 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: headsonpikes
Socialism is a religion of peace. ;^)

Oooooh.... I think I love you. Oh ew, you aren't a girl are you?

12 posted on 08/02/2002 8:53:15 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: NormsRevenge
My mother doesn't understand why a country would deliberately try to keep its people stupid - doesn't it want scientists? Doctors? Inventors? Progress?

The government schools have done their job superbly. Americans' phenominal ignorance about liberty and the financial benefits therein, the realities of economics, and the ludicrous argumentation fallacies of both politicians and the media that the uneducated fall for time and again serve the interests of the state in a big way. How else can a doofus like Sen. Barbara Boxer get away with both "setting aside" land for "future generations" in California (meaning your tax dollars bought it and you are not allowed on it), guaranteeing that the cost of housing and property taxes will increase, and in the next breath attempt to create "affordable" housing? Anyone with an ounce of economic knowledge, which is precious few people these days, would see right through this Alice in Wonderland double dealing.

Contrary to what the average person thinks, stupid people are actually very good for government.

13 posted on 08/02/2002 9:04:57 PM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: Lizavetta
It takes a significant mass of sheeple to run a country into the ground the way ours have been the last 20 to 30 and more. It is true that the govt schools have apparently glossed over what it means to know one's history without spin.

Just curious, Where is your mom from?


14 posted on 08/02/2002 9:23:32 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: Lizavetta
My mother doesn't understand why a country would deliberately try to keep its people stupid - doesn't it want scientists? Doctors? Inventors? Progress?

Only if the can be regulated.

15 posted on 08/02/2002 10:40:46 PM PDT by BradyLS
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To: NormsRevenge
Just curious, Where is your mom from?

Socialist Denmark.

16 posted on 08/03/2002 1:18:49 PM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: Lizavetta
I have never been there. The word that comes to mind is decadent Denmark... :-)

I hate socialism , Don't You?

Was she there during the war?
17 posted on 08/03/2002 4:55:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
Yes, I hate socialism. Yes, she was there during the war when the Germans came to town.

And yes, she's watching rampant liberalism (child porn, hordes of immigrants draining the welfare system) wreck her tiny little country that has up till now been so proud (I'd say arrogantly so) of being so tolerant of whatever. It makes her cry. And she sees Denmark as a precursor of what's going to happen here.

18 posted on 08/03/2002 6:51:36 PM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: Lizavetta
Not if we can help it. We at Free Republic are strong in our resolve to turn back the tide of hatred that has lapped at our shores for years and now has landed.

19 posted on 08/03/2002 8:02:33 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
Ping.
20 posted on 08/05/2002 6:21:04 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
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