‘Change’ and Marxism
Occupy Wall Street is an un-American movement generated by an un-American depiction of our country. In 2008, the leaders of the Democratic Party painted the United States as a “decaying, racist, capitalist realm,” unable to provide medical care for the poor, to rebuild her “crumbling schools,” or to replace the “shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race.”
A young generation of Americans, who had never been taught real history in school, became galvanized by the Democratic Party’s pledge to “change” that rotting America. Some eighty thousand of them gathered in front of the now famous pseudo-Greek temple resembling the White House that had been erected in Denver, shouting for “hope and change.”
Of course, people everywhere want their political leaders to be better than their predecessors. But “change” is also the quintessence of Marxism, which is built on the dialectical materialist tenet that quantitative changes generate qualitative transformations.
In my other life, when I was national security adviser to Communist Romania’s President Nicolae Ceausescu, I wrote the lyrics of his ode to “change.” Ceausescu pretended that his predecessor had devastated the country, and he pledged to change that change. In those days I heard that ode to change a thousand times, and today I am stunned by its similarity with the Democratic Party’s “change.”
“Change” is now the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. Capitalism is evil, and it should be changed. “Rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.” “Tax the rich! Redistribute their wealth.” “Occupy. Block. Strike. Take over!” “Change! Cuba is the future.” “Long live Che!” These are just a few of the slogans and signs dominating the Occupy Wall Street encampments.
Today it is not politically correct even to whisper the word Marxism. Nevertheless, there is a real and organic connection between Marxism, the Democratic Party’s “Change,” and the Occupy Wall Street movement’s calls for abolishing (American) capitalism. In his Manifesto, Marx portrays “America” as a “racist capitalist country” that generated “despotism and exploitation,” and he urges his followers to “eradicate [American] capitalism” by wresting “by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie.” Marx advocates ten “despotic inroads on the rights of property,” which became known as the Ten Planks of Communism. The first is the “abolition of property.” The next two are a “heavy progressive or graduated income tax,” and the “abolition of all rights of inheritance.”
The United States spent too many years fighting Marxism, and its free population of independent entrepreneurs will never succumb to that heresy. Be that as it may, Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party has endured to turn 162 years old this year, and the remaining Marxists of the world seem to be clamoring to see their fantasy finally come to pass: the eradication of American capitalism.
On October 6, 2011, in a broadcast in English, the Cuban radio station that calls itself “A Friendly Voice Around the World” announced that the Workers World Party (WWP) had decided to join the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations “against the capitalist system and in favor of a socialist future.” Radio Havana also reported that a WWP conference to be held on October 8 and 9 in the Bronx in New York City would debate, “from a Marxist perspective,” America’s current economic crisis and its “fight against racism and imperialist wars.”
On October 10, people carrying Workers World Party signs calling for the “Destruction of Capitalism” joined the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. “Behead bankers and the rich who won’t give up wealth,” a demonstrator stated. “Immediate across-the board debt forgiveness for all,” others demand. They also want a guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment, along with a minimum wage of twenty dollars per hour — for now.
The WWP is a Marxist party that was financed by the Soviet KGB during the days when I was at the top of its community. The KGB created the WWP in 1957, with the initial task of helping the Kremlin to generate a favorable impression of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary among the trade unions and the “colored” population of the United States. In 1959, the WWP got its own newspaper, Workers World, edited by the KGB’s disinformation department and at one time printed in Romania. To camouflage Moscow’s hand, the early issues showed both Lenin and Trotsky holding up a banner saying, “Colored and White Unite and Fight for a WORKERS WORLD.”
The WWP website now states: “We’re independent Marxists” whose “goal is solidarity of all the workers and oppressed against this criminal imperialist system.”
Currently, the WWP has a national office in New York and 18 regional headquarters across the United States, the addresses of which are posted on the internet. Now the WWP represents itself as a “national Marxist-Leninist party promoting socialism, supporting working class struggles and lesbian/gay/bi/trans liberation, organizing protests, and denouncing racism and sexism.”
On October 11, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) held a national teleconference to discuss the “Occupy” movements, and also to endorse them: “The movement reflects a new level of class-consciousness.” According to its communiqué, the CPUSA and Young Communist League (YCL) began “working in ‘Occupy Los Angeles.’”
“The bourgeoisie won’t go without violent means,” a CPUSA speaker shouted at an Occupy Los Angeles demonstration. “No, my friend. I’ll give you two examples: French Revolution and Indian so-called Revolution. … India, the result of Gandhi, is 600 million people living in maximum poverty. … Gandhi today is a tumor that the ruling class is using constantly to mislead us. French Revolution made fundamental revolutions. But it was bloody. … Long live Revolution! Long live socialism!”
Marxist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, still recovering from surgery, recently addressed the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators via Venezuela state TV. “This movement of popular outrage” is growing because “poverty’s growing, the misery is getting worse,” he said, referring to the causes of the U.S. protests. In response, crowds at the New York Occupy Wall Street encampments erupted in cheers of joy, raising a giant hammer and sickle in sign of victory. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on state TV, predicted that the Occupy Wall Street movement would ultimately grow “so that it will bring down the capitalist system.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seems to agree. “God bless them,” she said about the Occupy Wall Street movement. “It’s young, it’s spontaneous, it’s focused and it’s going to be effective.” Representative Barney Frank, minority leader of the House’s Financial Services Committee, welcomed “the Wall Street energy,” and expressed hope that it would be “translated into political activity.” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka congratulated the Occupy Wall Street protestors in New York, bringing them bagels and water. The Service Employees International Union and the Transport Workers Union joined the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations as well.
Former White House “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, who resigned after it was revealed that he belonged to the U.S. Communist Party, also announced his support for Occupy Wall Street, which he believes is the start of an “American Autumn.”
Vice President Biden also endorsed the chaotic Occupy Wall Street demonstrations: “The core is the American people do not think the system is fair.” Even the U.S. president stated that the protesters “express the frustration of the American people.”
I paid with two death sentences — from my native Romania — for the privilege of becoming a citizen of this unique land of opportunity, and I am incredibly proud to be an American.
On that fateful day of July 28, 1978, when the U.S. military airplane that brought me to freedom landed at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., I was exactly three months short of the round age of fifty, and I more than ever regretted that I had kept postponing that step for so many years. The joy of finally becoming part of this magnanimous country was surpassed only by the joy of simply being alive.
On November 9, 1989, when I watched on television as the Berlin Wall was being torn down, my eyes were full of tears. The whole world was expressing its gratitude to the United States for her 45 years of successful efforts to keep freedom, democracy, and law-abiding liberty alive in most of the world.
Is my adoptive country perfect? Of course not. Since 1792, however, elections have been the American way of correcting the past and improving the future. Fortunately, we still have free elections. Last November, an overwhelming majority of Americans expressed their disgust with some of the members of the Congress who wanted to “change” America, and they voted them out of office.
Let’s hope that in November 2012 the voters will restore American exceptionalism. For that to happen, let’s also hope that the candidates running for the White House will stop fighting with each other, and will start focusing on how they want to cure the country’s current economic and political ills.
ION, it is wonderful to have you aboard. Please don’t ever stop telling the truth about communism. I worked with a man whose parents stole him out of East Germany before the wall came down. I tell you there is no more patriotic American than he. Thanks.
Thank You Sir, for writing this article. I hope people take the time to read and pass it on! Also agree w/Ed, don’t EVER stop.
What our Marxist forget is that their only protection is the law they so hate. If it were not for that, they would have the expected life span of a fruit fly.
Except the law has been corrupted by the communists. Everyone uses the law as a weapon these days. It even has its own name – lawfare. We even have an administration that picks and chooses what laws it will enforce and obey.
agreed! that means then that we are the only ones to bring order. it may be bloody. but if we actually think that by standing back and following the rules our enemy sets for us and expect to win, then we are lost. thats why OWS is only in cities where there is a massive liberal govt. they know that if they took it anywhere that the real movement of the people would fight them and stop them by any means. but one thing is for sure! we cannot keep letting them continue. we need to mobilise real americans and force them out. that will be the only way to stop them. the cops with their rubber bullets are useless at best and are completly hampered by politicians who are trying to retain power. its time to arm ourselves. if that means civil war than so be it. but if we dont join together and stop them ourselves NOW there wont be a country at all in 2012
“Change” is now the slogan of the Occupy Wall Street movement as well. Capitalism is evil, and it should be changed. “Rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.” “Tax the rich! Redistribute their wealth.” “Occupy. Block. Strike. Take over!” “Change! Cuba is the future.” “Long live Che!” These are just a few of the slogans and signs dominating the Occupy Wall Street encampments.”
From day one I’ve called these idiots who have occupied public spaces in our country nothing but communists and criminals. In fact, many actual criminals are finding their way down to these places, content to not only stir up trouble but to also commit serious crimes such as rape, assault, and burglary. The major crime here is that the mayors of the various cities did not break up these “Obamaville” tent cities on day one. Everybody has the right to protest, but they DO NOT have the right to take over big portions of a city. You will note that the Tea Parties held their demonstrations on a specific day and then went home, usually leaving the places where they demonstrated cleaner than when they got there. Here we have open communists destroying public property, rioting, refusing to disperse, commiting terrible crimes like rape, and the police just stand by, following the orders of pathetic and spineless mayors who are afraid to be seen as being “Anti free speech.” These criminals should be borken up and sent home (if they even have one). Because the longer they wait, the higher the probability that you will have major riots like the one you just saw in Oakland, California, the other day. Nothing good ever, EVER, comes from a communist “demonstration,” and you are seeing that right now in cities around this country. STOP THEM NOW, before some innocent taxpayer gets killed.
Agree 100% – the situation with the police just has me heartbroken. I grew up to rely on and trust the police. But they were more like Andy Taylor back then. Now they’ve been militarized and they are union. They stand around when the right sort are being attacked and then arrest the victims. This same thing is the rule of law in Europe and Europeans have no one to turn to.
It’s not the police’s fault.
In Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan used to be just such a rabble-rousing protester in her own younger days. Check her bio.
And now she’s openly sympathetic to OWS. She actually sent a Twitter tweet to the protesters to reassure them that the cops would not interfere!
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/282260/disorganizer-chief-patrick-brennan
She is siding with them over the Port of Oakland, despite the revenue that seaport brings into an otherwise poor city. And she’s the cop’s boss in this. She wants them to give the protesters as free a rein as possible.
This is a reprise of the 1960s, when liberal politicians refused to condemn the left-wing riots sweeping the country–because those rioters were against the Vietnam War and “racism” and so were the liberals. So the liberals gave them at best a slap on the wrist.
That’s how Nixon got elected President.
I love this OWS movement revealing slogan “Redistribute the wealth!” It has a nostalgic value for me. I studied from 1949 till 1954 Russian brand of Marxism at Moscow University School of Philosophy.In 1918 Vladimir Lenin commented on the popular political slogan of the time “rob the robbers” – “I do not see anything wrong in the slogan ‘steal the loot’.” It certainly was not brand new – Marx and Engels used the expression “expropriation of expropriators”. Now it all inherited and used by Occupy Wall Street unrepentant students of history.
“It has a nostalgic value for me. I studied from 1949 till 1954 Russian brand of Marxism at Moscow University School of Philosophy.”
My wife studied there in the late 80′s- early 90′s and is sometime nostalgic for the old days. The waiting in lines for hours to buy basic clothing and food stuffs– if they didn’t run out– not so much.
Unrepentent repeaters of history.
But … but … but, true communism by real communists has never been tried comrades! This time we’ll do it right and there will be skittle pooping unicorns for all.
“French Revolution made fundamental revolutions. But it was bloody. ”
Interesting choice of revolutions to choose from. The French Revolution ultimately replaced a king with an emperor. Who sent his army all over the place.
Mr. Pacepa:
Thank you for this article. It will be required reading in my household this weekend.
ST
Ion, you did it again, great article.
Ion, something I never anticipated, after the wall came down, it seems just as much socialism flowed west as freedom went east. Creating a volatile cocktail of
opposing ideology.
Sir:(Ion) Do you think this a valid conclusion?
I’m wondering if the Soviet bloc was once the 800-lb bear in the room – the thing nobody could ignore as our homegrown communists tried to convince us that their way was best. Maybe the fall of the Soviet Union actually liberated our leftists. They can now preach communism without reference to Soviet despotism and failure. “That was then, this is now, we’ll do it right this time.”
That has been a big debate among the far left.
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in late 1991, Chomsky had argued just that point: That with the U.S.S.R. gone, socialists were no longer handicapped by the track record of Stalin and the GULAG and the KGB and the various Red Army invasions of various European countries. Now the far left could begin anew.
But others, like Michael Parenti (an unrepentant Communist), retorted that “Nothing succeeds like success.” And with the failure of the only major technological world power explicitly devoted to Marxism-Leninism, it would be hard to convince the masses that Communism could work in an industrial country.
Parenti had it right. Communist parties in Western and Third World countries never recovered from the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (What Parenti had left unsaid was that these parties had often received lavish support from the Soviet KGB, which had now stopped doing that.)
BTW, liberal politicians from FDR through LBJ had played the “good cop/bad cop tactic,” with the Communist threat as the “bad cop” and themselves as the “good cop.” That is, they argued that Americans had to accept some semi-socialist reforms like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, etc. Because otherwise the masses might turn to Communism to get these things.
The collapse of Communism killed that tactic. Now these programs had to succeed on their merits if any, not be accepted in fear that the masses might go Communist and demand even more.
I long for the day when anyone who claims to be a Marxist is viewed with the same scorn and disgust as those who claim to be Nazis. Both were fascist ideologies that led to the deaths of over 100 million people.
Funny you should mention this, considering that the Nazis are supporting OWS also.
The difference between Nazis and communists is that Nazis want their socialism to be national, while communists prefer it international. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism.
You reminded me of a scene in “Blues Brothers”, where they are being chased in their big, black, sedan and head toward a bridge where the local Nazis are marching in a sanctioned parade. They don’t stop, but ‘gun it’ across while the Nazis all jump into the river. If I recall, they were on a mission from God.
Symbolically, the TEA Party and regular conservatives represent the black Buick(?) while the Nazis are all of those ‘irregular, Abby Normal, leftists’ whose behaviors have been ‘sanctioned’ by our willingness to succumb to political correctness. My first choice for president will be the guy (or gal) who can find the accelerator and the guts to stomp on it.
We need the black and white words, the clear headed writing of your article.
…national security adviser to Communist Romania’s President Nicolae Ceausescu,In those days I heard that ode to change a thousand times, and today I am stunned by its similarity with the Democratic Party’s “change.”
Nothing like firsthand experience to get it right.
…the remaining Marxists of the world seem to be clamoring to see their fantasy finally come to pass: the eradication of American capitalism…The WWP website now states: “We’re independent Marxists” whose “goal is solidarity of all the workers and oppressed against this criminal imperialist system.”…Now the WWP represents itself as a “national Marxist-Leninist party promoting socialism, supporting working class struggles and lesbian/gay/bi/trans liberation, organizing protests, and denouncing racism and sexism.”
I don’t think many Americans understand the forces operating just beneath the radar, the organizations enabling & sponsoring the “occupiers”. For people like Frances Fox Piven, Billy Ayers and Van Jones, chaos in the streets marks the beginning (finally !) of the lifelong wet dream.
Marxist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, still recovering from surgery, recently addressed the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators via Venezuela state TV. “This movement of popular outrage” is growing because “poverty’s growing, the misery is getting worse”
I think Oogoe is aptly describing the situation in Venezuela. Reportedly, he just seized another radio station while his compadres in Cuba have undertaken a new campaign to seize private property.
I paid with two death sentences — from my native Romania — for the privilege of becoming a citizen of this unique land of opportunity, and I am incredibly proud to be an American.
And I’m incredibly proud you are
Any “lesbian/gay/bi/trans” liberationist who thinks the WWP cares about them is almost … almost, not quite … as crazy as the “Queers for Palestine” morons. The Commie splinter party tactic is to “build a mass movement” by sweeping up any group that may have some legitimate goals among its aims into that mass movement, then tell those people that before their goals can be addressed, “we have to build the socialist revolution.”
The Commies think they can leverage any LGBT activism into a social destabilization force. But, aside from an urban gay male party crowd and the self-consciously “queer” crowd, these folks are like anyone else, and like the “workers,” buying into middle class stability given the chance. The only thing is, there’s still a knee-jerk alignment with “progressive” politics that’s (1) left over from the identity group Democratic Party coalition politics of the 1970s and (2) an uncritical knee-jerk reaction to social conservative rhetoric and activism on any gay issue, exploited by the “progressives.”
Even a not officially communist outlet like the weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian seems to disproportionately push anything queer or alt sexual, and I suspect it’s to push a not-so-subliminal message that anyone counterculture must buy into the whole progressive politics package.
(There’s an interesting potential fracture in the LGBT coalition, with criticism that the trans activists pushing the appendage of T to LGB have their roots in the married heterosexual crossdresser scene and have an agenda in line with that. Occasionally there’s a brouhaha over L and B women wanting to keep their spas and social groups for women and not (male-bodied) transgenders, and the transgenders demanding access on the grounds of their “socially constructed identities.” Ain’t postmodernism grand?)
I’m hoping Mr Pacepa will next write about what happens to the useful idiots once the commissars sieze power.
The useful idiots will be exterminated once their usefulness has passed.
Just as the leftists who extol Islamists will be the first to be beheaded as their protestations of “solidarity” are laughed at.
“Solidarity” is the buzz word that gives away the mentality.
I’m not overly worried about these spoiled kids. They are just useful idiots. When the next iPhone is released they’ll flood out of these parks in droves so they can line up at the Apple store.
I have noted that throughout History, one thing stood out, whether Babylon, Persia, Rome, Islam, on to Lenin, Hitler and Mao: POWER and the quest for Power.
The antics in NYC, Oakland, Seattle, Atlanta and other cities hide the goals of the shadowy organizers and funders. Which is power. The power to shut down Oakland, the docks, part of NYC, the power to take over parts of cities, and shut out the taxpayers who would like to utilize their streets and parks. Their productive talents are nil, their obsession with power immense. The key word and salient feature of these mobs and gangs is…power. Stand back and take a good look.
yes, and totalitarian governments are the norm.
The United States and the western democracies of the last couple hundred years are the very rare exceptions to tyranny.
That’s why the struggle to defeat the progressives is so important. They are attempting to turn the clock back to the 99% norm of history…which will be very good for them, and very bad for the people.
Some ask why they would want to undo the absolutely clear and overwhelming lifestyle improvements of the post American Revolutionary period. The answer to that is easy. If they succeed, THEIR lifestyles will be no less, and their power will be far greater, which virtually insures their descendents will remain in power for centuries (or at least, will remain in the tiny percentage of humanity that has any chance at all to be in power). It’s the lifestyles for the other 99.9% that will revert to serfdom and slavery. Many of the progressives may not believe that, but history proves that is what always happens with even the best intentioned oligarchies. And frankly, many progressives / marxists / communists have no intention whatsoever of being benevolent at all. The personality type that is attracted to liberalism, et al, is the authoritarian type.
And the complement to what you’ve said is this: For the same reasons that the left believes that wealth is “gotten” from one person to enrich the other, Power is gotten as well.
These are not people who understand wealth CREATION and they do not understand that power is generated from within individuals. They are ravenous and their appetite cannot be sated. In concord with a lack of esteem borne of any accomplishments (or even by recognizing the miracle of their own existence) they think that by “taking” the power of of others that they can enrich themselves.
Any parent would weep at the sight of such a soulful loss in their children.
It is typical for those in power to demonize those who threaten them by trying to tie the opponent to some awful, evil movement in the past. The OWS movement has much more to do with a humanistic application of capitalism than it does with your former boss. To ignore, as your article does, the fact that “Wall Street” effectively runs our country and has gained and maintains power through corrupt political machinations is to pretend that the US remains the sort of haven of freedom and opportunity you’d like it to be.
The vast and growing disparity between the have-muches and the have-littles in this country is corrosive and divisive and cannot continue. The OWS protesters recognize that. The fact that groups you vehemently disagree with are now riding on OWS’s coattails confirms the power of the OWS movement; but it does not mean that OWS has adopted every tenet of every group that is now hitching a free ride on the OWS publicity wave.
I haven’t heard any OWS protesters calling for a “humanistic application of capitalism” (whatever that may mean in practice).
Rather, they’re openly calling for the end of capitalism and the ascent of socialism.
Maybe you haven’t looked at their signs and heard their rants as much as I have.
And what is socialism if not a humanistic application of capitalism? Narrow-minded people use labels as a substitute for rigorous thought. Our present system is far from a strict application of capitalism. There are degrees of each (capitalism and socialism), but immediately seizing on a label and using it as an epithet is not a constructive way to move society forward.
And what is socialism if not a humanistic application of capitalism? Narrow-minded people use labels as a substitute for rigorous thought.
Socialism is defined as the means of production being under government supervision and control instead of the free market. Per Websters, there is no private property and the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
The alleged distinction with fascism is that under fascism the government controls, but the companies have more of a hand in running their shows.
Obama (despite protestations to the contrary) thinks it’s cool for the government to run car companies and whatever else he might get his hands on, a government that can’t even run itself.
Anonymous said: “And what is socialism if not a humanistic application of capitalism?”
Socialism would be an outside agency such as a Federal Government telling me what I am allowed to do with my capital. Capitalism is the economic system that allows me to choose for myself what I will do with my capital.
Nice attempt to divert the discussion though. You’ll have to do better in introducing your red herrings.
As you originally referred to socialism as “humanistic”, it would seem you lean in that direction.
But it’s hard to tell what your point is.
I don’t understand what you call my red herring, since all I did was correct your definition of socialism.
Socialism
The vast and growing disparity between the have-muches and the have-littles in this country is corrosive and divisive and cannot continue.
Everybody has gone up. The highest paid people went up at egregious rates. (Have you seen those bonuses to Fannie and Freddie executives ? Fannie and Freddie just asked for billions more of YOUR tax dollars as they’re even more insolvent and poorly run than they thought.)
Around 40% for the bulk of the population ain’t bad.
CBO finds that between 1979 and 2007:
* For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent (see figure below).
* For others in the 20 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent.
* For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale, the growth in average real after-tax household income was just under 40 percent.
* For the 20 percent of the population with the lowest income, the growth in average real after-tax household income was about 18 percent.
And let’s not forget that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and their Dodd-Frank fan club) are not capitalist enterprises; they’re in the taxpayer-funded social justice business. They are the financial enablers of the Community Reinvestment Act scam and the housing price/trash mortgage bubble.
Our current economic mess is “social justice” allowed to run to its logical conclusion.
During the bubble years, I got three pieces of junk mail per day offering me a crappy, negative amortization mortgage. Ewwww!!!
The #occupy movement wants more “social justice” in more varieties. There was a protestor in Oakland who was out here from Denver to protest the foreclosure on her house. (She can’t make her mortgage payments, but she can travel to Oakland????)
I don’t believe a word of the bogus CBO report. It’s fun with numbers and another example of how bogus assumptions yield bogus conclusions. The opposite is the truth.
In 1979, a very substantial portion of income of wealthy people was sheltered because of the tax code and wouldn’t have been counted as income.
Real wealth disparities have always existed. What we have today is far LESS disparity than at any point in history. Look at the palaces of Europe. THAT was income disparity. Look at the mansions of the 19th centrury railroad and steel barons; THAT was income disparity.
Moreover, whatever income disparities that do exist today are exacerbated by the very politicians who seek to exploit them.
And the disparities that exist today can be overcome by almost anybody who wants to work at it and do the things necessary to accumulate wealth. As Ann Coulter often points out, #’s 1 and 2 should be not having out-of-wedlock children, and staying married. Maybe #3 should be not running up a 5 figure debt to get a degree in something ending in “studies” or “ology”.
The entire argument is not only bogus, it is an example of the media-created upside down bizarro world we live int.
My point in using those numbers is that, contrary to the claims of many, incomes have risen across the board in all categories of earners.
And they have.
In the past couple of decades at least, incomes in the very highest tier have leapt into the stratosphere, ridiculously so and far beyond anything resembling “normal” compensation.
The recent bonuses to 13 top executives at Fannie & Freddie are one example, even as they ask for another $7 billion or so from the American taxpayer to keep their insolvent institutions afloat.
General Pacepa, I am taking my hat off to your sacrifices, your articles and your efforts to light the lamp of realism and highlighting the dangerous path the democratic World is taking.
From your native Romania, the image is even worst. The “change”, the 1989 Revoultion replaced Ceausescu’s nomeklature with their deputies and political police/ securitatea and Communist Party members.
I can only hope US will be smarter and prevent even the perpetuation of neosocilism doctrines and measures to nurture a local form of socialsm or communist. Will be the end of the World when the most democratic country, the mother of the modern era democracy will enter under the left or neosocilist/ neocommunist umbrella.
THANK YOU for showing the truth and warning our generation too!
I first bumped into HOPE AND CHANGE in the first chapter of Eric Hoffer’s book entitled “The True Believer”. He said hope and change was the slogan of all true believers.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! If more people in conservative circles would read his book they would be much better prepared to deal with the mass psychosis of OWS.
“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’”
-Thomas Jefferson
The above is the foundation and legacy of our country. I have the privilege of observing elections all over the post-Soviet sphere. It is heartwrenching witnessing common people thirsting for a real democracy, putting forth all their efforts for “change,” alas, democratic change eludes them still.
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
-Thomas Jefferson
America is a continuing example of what is a beacon of freedom for the world. I believe we will continue to preserve what our brillant founders passed on to us.
God help us.
Body Scanners and Radiation Risks (EPIC FOIA Request)
http://epic.org/privacy/body_scanners/Body_Scan_Rad_Appeal.pdf
You can live in France for 30 years, become a French citizen, even learn to speak French fluently and still, you will never be French.
America is the only nation, in the history of humanity, which allows inclusion. Anyone can become an American; it is just a matter of opportunity, desire and effort.
For this, America is truly exceptional, despite what Barrack Obama says.
The Romans gave citizenship, and it was part of the reason they were so great.
Thanks for speaking up for freedom and sharing your experience. Despite having a leftist media, most Americans are smart enough to know we are the only country in the world founded on the individual rights of each. The guarantee of the freedom of speech means everyone can spout off to his heart’s content, despite how silly and wrong he is. We’ve always had fringes of society and in the 1960′s they got to be a nuisance, but when they started killing the police, they were stopped at Kent State, and crawled back into their ivory towers. Unfortunately for us, one of them slipped through the net and gained the presidency, but he did it by hiding his true agenda.
“…but he did it by hiding his true agenda.”
Not really. For people like Pacepa and myself, coming from similar backgrounds, even too close for comfort — my dad was a minion working under Mr Pacepa — the signs were all there, plain, unambiguous: “spreading the wealth around,” “fundamentally transforming America,” etc., plus the insufferable, odious demagoguery/dissembling oozing from every speech that Obama gave before he took power. After that it was more of the same, with the addition of shameless lying every time he opened his mouth, a prime feature of communist totalitarianism: if you can’t feed your family it’s because of the American imperialists and evil capitalists that are draining the world’s resources for their “arms race” meant to “conquer the world.”
Karl Marx & Fredrick Engels (1818-1883)/(1820-1895)
Founders of Marxist practice and philosophy. Established the ground work of Marxism through an examination of the rise of capitalism, the history of society, and critique of many prevailent philosophies. Established the First International Workers’ organization. http://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm
Read Mr. Pacepa’s book, “Red Horizons”, for an indepth view of Romania under the late, departed leader, Ceausescu.
I have read that book and it was an amazing tale. Extraordinary to think that it wasn’t fiction!!
And pretty frightening as a vision of what is very close to occurring now as the OWS/Marxist types have taken power in many countries and are workign to become new Nikolais and new Elenas.
Ceausescu’s first name was Nicolae, not “Nikolai.” In his later years, Ceausescu himself would have been mortified to be named by the Russian version of his name.
Mr Pacepa, your decision to inform us all of these Marxist machinations is a great contribution.
This is a nice piece of video you might also find interesting.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2307456730142665916&hl=en
Mr Pacepa:
I hope your daughter, Dana, doesn’t live with the same sense of shame as I do because of my dad’s employment under your directorate. His task was surveillance of phone tappings of “enemies of the state” and foreign correspondence from similar “enemies,” like the employees of Europa Libera in Munich and Paris, like Noel Bernard and Monica Lovinescu, who almost got killed by the Palestinians trained by you and General Munteanu.
No, Cristina. My daughter, Dana, does not live with the same sense of shame as you do, because I did not serve Ceausescu and his political police until their last day. I exposed their crimes 33 years ago, when both were at the top of their glory. I paid for that with two death sentences, and I was afterward hunted by your father and others like him who continued to serve Ceausescu, who had set a $2 million bounty on my head.
No, Cristina. My daughter, Dana, does not live with the same sense of shame as you do, because in April 1988 one of the superb contributors to this magazine, Michael Ledeen, at that time working for President Reagan at the White House, stated in a review of my book “Red Horizons” that Reagan called it “My Bible for dealing with tyrants.”
No, Cristina. My daughter, Dana, does not live with the same sense of shame as you do, because on March 13, 1989, Time magazine published a photograph showing my “Red Horizons”, which was dedicated to Dana, on the desk of President George H.W. Bush.
No, Cristina. My daughter Dana does not live with the same sense of shame as you do, because in 1988 a Romanian translation of “Red Horizons” was infiltrated into Romania, and samiszdat and Mao-style pocket versions of this book were secretly published in several Soviet bloc countries.
No, Cristina. My daughter, Dana, does not live with the same sense of shame as you do, because on Christmas Day of 1989 Ceausescu was sentenced to death in a trial where most of the accusations had come almost word-for-word out of “Red Horizons”. The next day, my book began being serialized in the new official Romanian newspaper Adevárul (The Truth), which replaced Ceausescu’s Scinteia. In its lead, the paper explained that the broadcast by Radio Free Europe of “Red Horizons” had been an inspiration to the rebels, and concluded: “The publication of this book played an uncontested role in revealing in all its hideousness the true face of a dictatorship, which with diabolical cunningness had managed to outfox a part of the world.”
If you, Cristina, would have just glanced through “Red Horizons” before writing your comments, you would have seen that I broke with Communism because I refused to be implicated in the assassination of Noel Bernard, whom I highly esteemed. You would have also found in that book a strong condemnation of Ceausescu’s terrorist operation against Monica Lovinescu. And, keep in mind, “Red Horizons” was published in 1987, when Ceausescu was in his full glory.
King Solomon once stated, “…a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;…” Ecclesiastes 3:7
It does my heart good to hear Mr. Pacepa articulate his defense, which I am convinced he only did on behalf of his daughter. Granted, a dedicated life once was pursued by Mr. Pacepa, but he offered that back on the altar of sacrifice for a greater good. I saw that greater good materialize in Romanians, so demoralized and wondering if the West even cared for their future. When Mr. Pacepa’s revlations were exposed, Romanians gathered their strength, pride and courage and fought for their destiny. Perhaps, not a perfect one, but one not gripped by such inhumanity and humiliation.
I don’t give a squat what anyone on this planet says about Mr. Ion Mihai Pacepa, because I was on the ground in Ceausescu’s Romania in his *glory days* and I witnessed what Mr. Pacepa’s words accomplished to a horrendously oppressed people. Never did I see such a spark of courage and fight…such excitement of a new future! No. I will never forget those beleaguered Romanians
glaring with such light and life in their eyes, when they heard Mr. Pacepa’s revelations broadcasted into their demented, closeted society.
Mr. Pacepa’s timely sacrifice was a godsend and I will forever stand on this fact.
Again, Thank You Sir.
If capatilism is left to itself, there will be a chance to pursue the American dream. If the “Socialists” get there way, there will be no motivation to excell. Why work hard to give it to others? If unions and the communist and socialists have their way, there won’t be anything to steal from those who earned it: read “Atlas Shrugged” and compare it to current events. Take from those who produce, and reap mediocrity. There is no reason to work if everything is given to you. However, if no one works, there is nothing to steal. In many, many cultures, if you don’t work and produce, you go hungry. Why should I work if it’s taken from me? Go hungry and blame the mirror!
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