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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 9, 2023 at 12:13 am
On May 13, 2012, Forbes magazine ran an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York angrily disagreed.
Chuck Shumer
“It is scary. It is a scary, absurd place where even a tax dodger who renounces America for his own 30 pieces of silver is celebrated as a patriot and an American hero.
“It is perverse. I am appalled by making heroic a man who renounces citizenship to escape a tax rate of capital gains of 15%.
“No one gets rich in America on their own,” Schumer said. “And when people do well in America, they should do well by America. I believe the vast majority of Americans believe this, too.”
From that Op-Ed piece:
“Saverin’s flight from the U.S. is yet another reminder of the superiority of a national consumption tax that in a perfect world would be implemented in concert with the abolition of the I.R.S.”
It’s tempting to imagine a world without an agency to collect taxes. But it’s nightmarish to contemplate a world where there were no taxes to pay for
- A powerful military to protect us;
- An FBI to combat terrorism and organized crime;
- An FAA to safely regulate airline traffic;
- Agencies to repair roads;
- Agencies to erect public buildings (such as schools, courts and libraries) and
- Agencies (such as the EPA and FDA) to protect us from predatory businessmen.
The Op-Ed piece further asserts that “you cannot limit the power of the Federal Government if its officials hold the power to tax incomes.”
Every nation in history—whether a democracy or a dictatorship, whether capitalist, socialist or communist—has understood the absolute necessity for collecting public revenues. And it has created means by which to do so.
“When individuals resist governmental hubris, we should exalt their actions.”
We should, in short, celebrate those who come to the United States to make fortunes they could not make anywhere else—and then, when they do, turn their backs on their adopted country.
We should rejoice that they have stuffed billions of dollars more into their already-fat pockets and left their supposed fellow countrymen to shift for themselves.
“In an ideal world the Federal Government should implement a consumption tax. And if, as a result, poor people suffer because they’re taxed at the same level as rich ones, fine.
“Everyone should know how much it costs to run the government.”
Of course we should have a “regressive” tax that “hits low incomes at the same percentage as high ones.”
Of course, those who are barely able to feed their families or can’t afford medical care should pay as much in taxes as a rich parasite who, like Mitt Romney, throws out $10,000 bets like so many dimes.
“If the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs because rich people like Saverin refuse to pay taxes, then U.S. taxpayers generally will have to make good for the missing taxes. It’s the fault of Congress that it cannot put an end to any program.”
For billionaires like Saverin and the well-heeled types who subscribe to Forbes, it doesn’t matter whether “the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs.”
San Simeon, estate of William Randolph Hearst
Greed-obsessed “swells” like Saverin:
- Don’t depend on Medicare—they can easily afford the best doctors money can buy;
- Don’t have to depend on Social Security to see them through old age;
- Don’t have to worry about standing in food bank lines;
- Don’t need to rely on police departments—if they’re threatened, they can easily afford round-the-clock bodyguards;
- Don’t need consumer protection agencies; if they’re victimized by unscrupulous businessmen, they can hire platoons of lawyers and private detectives.
A contemporary writer who warned of America’s abandonment by its privileged classes was Christopher Lasch. In his posthumously published last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy [2005] he wrote:
“There has always been a privileged class, even in America. But it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.
“George Bush’s [the president who served from 1989 to 1992] wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed…the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”
Until recently, wrote Lasch, American cultural and economic elites willingly shouldered civic responsibilities. But in post-modern capitalism, a professional elite defines itself as entirely separate from civic concerns.
The new elites flourish through enterprises that operate across international borders. The rich in America have more in common with their fellows in Europe or Asia than with the vast majority of their fellow Americans who don’t share their comfortable surroundings.
Thus, the privileged class in America—the top 1%—has separated itself from the crumbling public services and industrial cities that are used and lived in by the rest of the country’s citizens.
Even worse, our society has condoned their exalted status. The dust jacket blurb for James Patterson’s crime-thriller, NYPD Red, says it best:
“NYPD Red is a special task force charged with protecting the interests of Manhattan’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.”
It’s time to protect the 99% of America’s citizens against the predators of its 1% wealthiest.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 8, 2023 at 12:10 am
Americans need to realize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons. It can also be sold out for economic ones.
On May 15, 2012, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship.
Born in Brazil, the then-30-year-old Saverin became a U.S. citizen in 1998 but had lived in Singapore since 2009.
Eduardo Saverin
Giving up his citizenship allowed him to avoid paying taxes on billions of dollars on capital gains when Facebook launched its IPO on May 18, 2012. Singapore does not have a capital gains tax.
And America’s extreme Right couldn’t have been happier.
Take Rush Limbaugh, the Right-wing talk-show host. The Rush Limbaugh Show aired throughout the U.S. on over 400 stations and was the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.
When Limbaugh spoke, his “dittohead” audience listened—and acted as he decreed.
Rush Limbaugh
“So if it’s a more favorable tax haven that you can find elsewhere and you go there,” asked Limbaugh, “why is it automatically that you are unpatriotic?
“Why is it automatically that you are a coward, that you are not paying your fair share? It’s this whole class envy thing rearing its head again.”
For Limbaugh, the villain wasn’t a billionaire who turned his back on the country that gave him the opportunity to become one. No, the villain lay in those who believe that even wealthy businessmen should behave like patriots—instead of parasites.
“But [Barack Obama is] out there demonizing successful people every day,” said Limbaugh, “targeting successful people every day, running a presidential campaign based on class warfare, trying to get the 99% of the country who are not in the top 1% to hate the 1%, to literally despise ’em.”
Consider the implications of this:
On November 1, 2011, Forbes magazine reported that, in 2007, the then-richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country’s total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%.
Thus, the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country’s wealth and the bottom 80% of the population owned 15%.
According to Limbaugh’s philosophy, the bottom 80% of the population owning 15% of the country’s wealth should pay homage to the top 20% of Americans who own 85% of the country’s wealth.
In short, they should “know their place” and not expect the moneyed few to pay their fair share of taxes.
Of course, this was to be expected of Limbaugh—whose own wealth made him a multi-millionaire.
In 2001, U.S. News & World Report noted that Limbaugh had an eight-year contract, with Clear Channel Communications, for $31.25 million a year.
And according to a July 2, 2008, Matt Drudge column, Limbaugh had signed a contract extension through 2016 that was worth over $400 million.
And Limbaugh wasn’t alone in his praise for Saverin.
Another right-winger who defended those who run out on their country was anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.
On May 7, 2012, two Democratic Senators—Chuck Schumer of New York and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania—introduced legislation designed to tax expatriates even after they have left the country.
Their “Ex-PATRIOT Act” would have imposed a mandatory 30% tax on American investments for those who renounce their citizenship and would also prohibit individuals like Saverin from re-entering the country.
But the bill died in committee.
In 2013, Schumer and two other Senators added similar provisions to a major immigration reform bill. But their amendment was not included in the version of the bill that passed the Senate.
“Saverin has turned his back from the country that welcomed him, kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire,” Schumer said at a press conference. He added that it was time to “de-friend” the Facebook co-founder.
Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATF) said that targeting people who turn in their passports reminded him of regimes that had driven people out of the country, only to confiscate their wealth at the door.
Grover Norquist
“I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this,” said Norquist. “It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the ’70s and in South Africa as well. He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German.”
On the floor of the Senate, Schumer denounced Norquist in return:
“I know a thing or two about what the Nazis did. Some of my relatives were killed by them.
“Saying that a person who made their fortune specifically because of the positive elements in American society, in turn, has a responsibility to do right by America is not even on the same planet as comparing to what Nazis did to Jews.”
Chuck Schumer
Schumer added that he found it troubling that conservatives would lionize someone like Saverin, who was called “an American hero” by Forbes magazine.
On May 13, 2012, Forbes—which describes itself as “The Capitalist Tool”—had run an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”
“Can you believe it?” asked Schumer. “An American hero? Renouncing your citizenship now qualifies as heroic for the hard Right-wing?”
“This has gone so far, this idolatry they have taken to such an extreme end, they make Eduardo Saverin into their patron saint. In the name of low taxes for the wealthy, they have lionized an inherently unpatriotic person.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 7, 2023 at 12:10 am
Fifty-five years ago, Robert Francis Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort from those aroused by Donald Trump.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
Kennedy himself remained haunted by the assassination for the rest of his life. He had spent most of his adult life in service to his brother’s ambitions—first as Congressman (1946), then as Senator (1952) and finally as President (1960).
For the last five years of his life (1963-1968) Robert Kennedy had to chart his own course and find his own voice.
As Attorney General, he had waged an unrelenting war against the Mafia. But he also championed civil rights and guaranteed protection of James Meredith, the first black student who entered the all-white University of Mississippi (1963).
In October, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, his wise counsel had helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
As a U.S Senator he continued to support civil rights and urge greater Federal efforts to fight poverty. Like his dead brother, he called on Americans to improve their own lives while aiding the less fortunate.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished—while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4—when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6, 1968. He was 42.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates appeal to negative emotions—hatred, greed, fear. They constantly seek new “enemies” to frighten their voters: Asians, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, liberals, “socialists.”
They constantly attack the Federal Government as a source of repression—especially when it reins in predatory businesses or levies taxes on the rich. And they try to convince their voters that if only “government gets out of the way” of these businesses and doesn’t tax billionaires, wonderful riches will “trickle down” to those far below.
They champion “law and order” when they control law enforcement—as governors or Presidents. But when the Biden Justice Department started investigating former President Donald Trump for illegally withholding classified documents, Republicans demanded the defunding of the FBI.
And Democratic candidates try to appease the Right by supporting its foreign and domestic agendas. In 2003, liberal Democrats—such as then-Senator Hillary Clinton—supported President George W. Bush’s unprovoked attack on Iraq.
Democrats have aided Republicans in opposing anti-poverty programs and efforts to combat pollution and climate change.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia—and the compassion to fight poverty. He called on Americans to act on their best qualities, not their worst.
At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2023 at 12:12 am
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany:
“Destroy all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants!”
If implemented, it would deprive surviving Germans of even the barest necessities after the war.
Opposing him was Albert Speer, his favorite architect and Minister of Armaments.
Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans
But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.
The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”
“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.
“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”
Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.
By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.
Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.
From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”
In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.
Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.
“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.
“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”
Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler.
* * * * *
As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, Adolf Hitler blamed the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.
His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”
Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.
Albert Speer
Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocked such destruction and persuaded influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.
As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.
* * * * *
Fast forward 75 years: Facing the end of his Presidency, Donald Trump desperately sought to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he now fought to make that a reality.
Unlike his 44 predecessors, he rejected the will of the voters and for almost three weeks denied his successor access to the resources he needed to launch a smooth transition.
Donald Trump
Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claimed to love, Trump sought to relentlessly destroy those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:
- The Pentagon
- The CIA
- The FBI
- The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
His attitude clearly was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.”
Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughtered about 1,000 Americans a day.
Even Republicans who privately admitted the Trump era was ending realized that 70 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly awaited the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.
They would also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dared break with the man they worshiped like a cult leader.
For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—was their top priority.
On November 25, 2019, CNN political correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Representative Adam Schiff on Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
What would it mean if Republicans uniformly oppose any articles of impeachment against Trump? asked Tapper.
“It will have very long-term consequences, if that’s where we end up,” replied Schiff.
“And if not today, I think Republican members in the future, to their children and their grandchildren, will have to explain why they did nothing in the face of this deeply unethical man who did such damage to the country.”
In the end, only one of 53 Republican Senators—Mitt Romney—dared to vote for impeachment. And he became an instant pariah for it.
On March 18, 1945, Albert Speer, opposing Hitler’s plans to destroy Germany’s infrastructure, addressed a memo to his Fuhrer, in which he wrote: “No one has the right to take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people is tied to his personal fate.”
The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive intentions of its own would-be Fuhrer.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2023 at 12:32 am
President Donald Trump seemed poised to fire his handpicked CIA director.
He believed that Gina Haspel had stonewalled the release of documents supposedly exposing “deep state” plots against his 2016 campaign during the Obama administration.
[In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential candidate’s campaign.
[On July 9, 2016, high-ranking representatives of the Trump campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Gina Haspel
[The participants included:
- Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
- His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
- His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
- Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
- Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of “having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.”
[The reason for the meeting: To dig up “dirt” the Russians might have on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent for the White House.]
Trump was also angry at FBI Director Christopher Wray—who replaced James B. Comey in May, 2017. Trump had fired Comey for daring to investigate ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian Intelligence agents.
Christopher Wray
The reason for his anger at Wray: Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that
- “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
- Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, had quickly assessed Trump as an egotistical narcissist. By appealing to Trump’s vanity, Putin expected to sharply reduce the military and political threat the United States represented to a resurgent Russia.
So notorious was the role played by Russian Intelligence in misleading American voters in 2016 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.
The man ultimately tasked with this mission was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency run by DHS.
Chris Krebs
Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:
- Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
- Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
- Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.
As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments.
By all accounts—except Trump’s—the 2020 election went very smoothly.
On November 17, 2020, Trump fired Chris Krebs.
The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Trump fired Krebs by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:
“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”
In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:
“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.
“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.
“This includes falsely claiming during an election night address that he had already won reelection, that he had won states that were actually still up in the air at the time and that his opponents were perpetrating a fraud.”
* * * * *
Seventy-five years earlier, on March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.
Opposing him—at first openly, and later secretly—was Albert Speer, his former architect and now Minister of Armaments.
Speer argued that there must be a future for the German people: “If our enemies wish to destroy us, why help them? We must leave the people something.”
But Hitler refused to back down: “I don’t want to hear any more.”
He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.
Speer could not directly promise to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. So he gave Hitler a vague answer that essentially committed him to nothing: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 31, 2023 at 12:25 am
On November 3, 2020, Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 79,658,000 votes, or 51% of the vote, compared to 73,886,400 votes, or 47.2% of the vote cast for President Donald Trump.
In the Electoral College—which actually determines the winner—the results were even more stunning: 306 votes for Biden, compared with 232 for Trump. It takes 270 votes to be declared the victor.
Joe Biden
Despite this, Trump steadfastly refused to concede. He made a series of baseless claims that he was cheated of victory by
- Illegal aliens being allowed to vote.
- A sinister computer program that turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
He repeatedly filed legal challenges to the vote, claiming himself the victim of massive fraud. This despite the utter lack of evidence of it.
On November 13, nine cases meant to attack President-elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
In Michigan, Trump’s attorneys dropped their federal suit to block the certification of Detroit-area ballots.
By November 21, Trump had lost in 30 cases dismissed by judges or withdrawn by his own attorneys.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
Mitch McConnell
In a November 17, 2020 analysis, entitled “Donald Trump Doesn’t Seem to Want to Do His Job Anymore,” CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza wrote:
While Trump relentlessly asserted that he won the 2020 election, “he’s done next to nothing—at least publicly—to suggest he plans to continue doing the job in any serious manner through January 20.”
According to Cillizza, since losing the election, Trump had filled his days with:
- Golfing
- Tweeting
- Making controversial military decisions
- Firing people
Specifically:
Golfing: He played golf at his club in Virginia twice on the weekend of November 14-15. He was golfing the previous weekend, when Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 race by CNN and other media outlets.
Tweeting: He tweeted numerous lies and conspiracy theories, claiming he won a second term but was cheated by the counting of fraudulent votes. This led Twitter to flag a large number of his tweets as “inaccurate.”
Making controversial military decisions: The Pentagon signaled it was planning—on Trump’s orders—to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. [American forces had been warring with the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2001; they had been warring against Iraqi insurgents since 2003.]
And in a move that was truly frightening: The New York Times reported that Trump asked his top advisers for options to strike at Iran’s nuclear capabilities before he left office. This would embroil the United States in a war that could easily turn nuclear.
Firing people: On November 9, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Four senior civilian officials were subsequently fired or resigned—Esper’s chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence.
They were replaced with flunkies loyal to Trump personally.
[This was in fact how Adolf Hitler took control of the Wehrmacht.
Adolf Hitler
[Since taking command of Germany in the summer of 1934, Hitler wanted to replace two high-ranking military officials: General Werner von Fritsch and Colonel General Werner von Blomberg. Both were convinced that Hitler’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy was putting Germany on a collision course with war—a war the Fatherland could not win.
[Hitler, in fact, meant to go to war—and despised Fritsch’s and Blomberg’s hesitation to do so. He decided to rid himself of both men.
[On January 12, 1938, Blomberg married Erna Gruhn, with Hitler and Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring attending as witnesses. Soon afterward, Berlin police discovered that Gruhn had a criminal record as a prostitute and had posed for pornographic photographs.
[Marrying a woman with such a background violated the standard of conduct expected of German officers. Hitler saw the scandal as an opportunity to dispose of Blomberg—who was forced to resign.
[Shortly after Blomberg was forced out in disgrace, the SS—Hitler’s private police force—presented Hitler with a file that falsely accused Werner von Fritsch of homosexuality. Fritsch angrily denied the accusation but resigned on February 4, 1938.
[From that point on, Hitler was in de facto command of the German Armed Services.]
Eighty-two years later, on November 3, 2020, President Donald Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election to former Vice President Joe Biden.
But Trump seemed determine to inflict as much damage as possible on the agencies responsible for protecting the security of the nation.
Besides wreaking havoc on the Pentagon, Trump was reportedly preparing to fire CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Trump had accused Haspel of stonewalling the release of documents that would supposedly expose “deep state” plots against Trump’s campaign and transition during the Obama administration.
In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential campaign such as Trumps.
And he was furious that Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that:
- “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
- Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups.
For Trump, contradiction was the same as treason.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 30, 2023 at 12:10 am
Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled.
His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.
Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.
It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.
German soldiers invading the Soviet Union
Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.
Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.
On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.
All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.
If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.
Click here: Hitler’s “Scorched Earth” Decree and Albert Speer’s Response
Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.
Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.
“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.
“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”
Seventy-five years after Adolf Hitler planned the destruction of Germany, Donald Trump planned the same fate for the United States.
On November 3, 2020, Trump lost his bid to win another four years as President of the United States. In the early hours of November 4, 2020, he poured out his fury and self-pity in a televised address from the White House:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it, we will not stand for it.”
Donald Trump
For a man who had tried—often successfully—to deprive millions of their right to vote, Trump made it clear that he didn’t know what disenfranchisement means.
Sounding like a petulant child whose party has been called off, Trump continued:
“We were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off. The results tonight have been phenomenal…I mean literally we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote, such a success.”
It was Trump—not his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden—who was demanding that the electoral process be halted. And that those votes that had not yet been counted be, in effect, flushed down the toilet.
“The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers, this a record, there’s never been anything like it to support our incredible movement….Most importantly, we’re winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of votes. We’re up 690,000 votes.”
Owing to the Coronavirus pandemic—which Trump had refused to aggressively address from its outset in January—millions of Americans had voted by mail. This was especially true of Democrats, who didn’t want to stand in Coronavirus-infected lines.
But Trump had convinced millions of Republican voters that voting by mail was subversive. So they showed up at the polls or stayed away out of a secret fear of COVID-19.
Meanwhile, at the White House on Election Night, Trump continued to rant:
“These aren’t even close, this is not like, Oh, it’s close. With 64% of the vote in, it’s going to be almost impossible and we’re coming into good Pennsylvania areas where they happen to like your president. We’re winning Michigan…I said ‘Wow, that’s a lot’…
“And we’re winning Wisconsin…so when you take those three states in particular and you take all of the others…and all of a sudden it’s not like we’re up 12 votes and we have 60% left, we won states and all of a sudden, I said, ‘What happened to the election? It’s off.’ And we have all these announcers saying, ‘What’s happened’ and then they said, ‘Ohhh.’”
But this did not alter the reality that Joe Biden became President-elect of the United States by winning 79,106,010 votes, or 51% of the vote.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 19, 2023 at 12:16 am
On November 6, 2012, Ann Coulter, the Right-wing activist and propagandist, was devastated by the re-election of President Barack Obama.
“People are suffering. The country is in disarray,” she whined during an interview. “If Mitt Romney [the Republican Presidential nominee] cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.”
Mitt Romney
So, naturally, Coulter and her fellow Rightists felt dejected.
But by 2016, Coulter no longer felt dismayed. She felt rejuvenated—for she had found her perfect Presidential candidate: Donald Trump.
Appearing on the Right-wing radio program, “The Eric Metaxes Show,” she said: “It is like the fall of Rome but, thank God, and I am not using the Lord’s name in vain, I mean that absolutely literally, thank God for raising up Donald Trump and giving us a chance to save the country.
“What is the point of talking about abortion or anything else unless you get Donald Trump in to build the wall, deport illegals, end this ‘anchor baby’ nonsense, stop importing 100,000 Muslims a year, in addition to two million Third Worlders per year. It’s madness what this country has been doing.”
Donald Trump
Coulter not only spoke on Trump’s behalf—she sang his praises in a 2016 book: In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!
According to its dust jacket: “[Ann Coulter] argues that a bull in the china shop is exactly what we need to make America great again.
“In this powerful book, Coulter explains why conservatives, moderates, and even disgruntled Democrats should set aside their doubts and embrace Trump:
“He’s putting America first in our trade deals and alliances, rather than pandering to our allies and enemies.
“He’s abandoned the GOP’s decades-long commitment to a bellicose foreign policy, at a time when the entire country is sick of unnecessary wars.”
To Coulter’s delight, Trump defeated Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on November 9, 2016.
But by May, 2017, four months after Trump had taken office as President, Ann Coulter was ready to abandon him. Her chief complaint: He hadn’t built the wall along the United States-Mexican border he had promised to erect.
“We want the ruthless businessman we were promised,” she told the Right-wing website, The Daily Caller.
“I guess we have to try to push him to keep his promises. But this isn’t North Korea, and if he doesn’t keep his promises I’m out.
“This is why we voted for him. I think everyone who voted for him knew his personality was grotesque, it was the issues.”
And, on March 28, 2018, she had more choice words for him: “I knew he was a shallow, lazy ignoramus, and I didn’t care.
“I’d been waiting 30 years for someone to say all these things,” she added, referring to his promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
On April, 1, she—by her own account—had a shouting match with Trump in the Oval Office.
Ann Coulter (Gage Skidmore photo)
On the Right-wing “Howie Carr Show,” she claimed to have told him: “You’re not doing what you promised to do. Where’s the end of NAFTA? Where’s the wall? Where are the deportations? What are you doing talking about the DREAMers?”
Coulter (doing a Trump impersonation) claimed that Trump said: “I appointed Gorsuch.”
“And I said that doesn’t count. Jeb, exclamation point, would have done that. Rubio would have done that. How is your Presidency different than from Rubio would have done?”
“He’s failing right now,” Coulter told Carr. “The presidency isn’t over yet, he can still come back and do it. But people who voted for him shouldn’t be cheering for him every time he betrays them and this is a total betrayal for him to sign that [government appropriations] bill. It’s a total betrayal for him not to build the wall. And to pretend like it isn’t—yeah he can come back.
“And as I told The New York Times, if he does I’ll start a committee to put him on Mount Rushmore, if he builds that wall. But, right now, if you want to make a bet I don’t think we’re getting the wall.”
But Trump didn’t build that wall. And Coulter is still furious with him.
In an April 4, 2023 column, she wrote: “The left’s sole objective is to make Trump the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nominee. He’s already lost three election cycles for the GOP—why not make it four?”
Polls show Trump’s popularity surged following a series of lawsuits—both civil and criminal—that were filed against him.
Coulter is backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who has polled significantly better than Trump among crucial independent voters—for President in 2024.
“Against DeSantis’ smarts and energy, the Democrats would be running President Senile Dementia [Joe Biden] and a vice president whose sole credentials are that she is black and a woman,” Coulter wrote.
“They [Democrats] had only one hope: Get Trump the nomination.”
In short: She backed a monster to wreak destruction on those she hated. And now she’s upset with him because he didn’t act monstrously enough.
She’s hoping her next pick will live up to her monstrous fantasies.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 20, 2023 at 12:05 am
On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz found an unforgettable way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
The 19-year-old former student returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and allegedly slaughtered at least 17 people.
As in: “What are all these allegedly dead people doing here?”
The massacre has become one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history.
He carried out his massacre with at least one AR-15 assault rifle and multiple magazines.
Although he had posted “I wanna die Fighting killing shit ton of people” he didn’t have the nerve to shoot it out with police SWAT teams. Instead, he concealed himself among the hundreds of students fleeing the school.
Nikolas Cruz posted this picture of himself on the Internet
Investigators used school security videos to identify Cruz and found him in a nearby neighborhood in Coral Springs, Florida.
Cruz had posted “I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people.” But he was arrested without incident.
Like so many other mass killers, he didn’t have the courage to shoot it out with armed police. He could only prey on defenseless men, women and children.
As always, most Republican lawmakers believe the answer to halting such future attacks lies in giving everybody a firearm.
That, of course, is the standard mantra of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which lavishly bankrolls the GOP.
National Rifle Association headquarters
Bjoertvedt, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
But it it true?
(In 2016, the NRA spent more than $38 million on Federal elections. Donald Trump proved the largest beneficiary—netting more than $21 million.
(In 2020, the NRA spent $29,355,400 on Federal elections—over $12 million campaigning against Joseph Biden and $4.5 million for Donald Trump.”
On July 7, 2016, five Dallas police officers were shot and killed by a disgruntled ex-Army Reserve Afghan War veteran named Michah Xavier Johnson. Another seven officers and two civilians were wounded before the carnage ended.
The shootings erupted during a Black Lives Matter protest march in downtown Dallas.
Texas has long been an “open carry” state for those who want to brandish rifles without fear of arrest. And about 20 people wearing “ammo gear and protective equipment [had] rifles slung over their shoulder,” said Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings.
“When the shooting started, at different angles, [the armed protesters] started running,” Rawlings said, adding that open carry only brings confusion to a shooting scene. What I would do [if I were a police officer] is look for the people with guns,” he said.
AR-15 assault rifles
“There were a number of armed demonstrators taking part,” said Max Geron, a Dallas police major. “There was confusion about the description of the suspects and whether or not one or more was in custody.”
A 2012 Mother Jones article on “More Guns, More Mass Shootings–Coincidence?” offered a striking finding: After analyzing 62 mass shootings over a 30-year period, the magazine determined: “In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.”
So much for the ability of gun-toting, untrained amateurs to “stop a bad guy with a gun.”
But even highly-trained shooters—such as those assigned to the United States Secret Service—don’t always respond as expected.
On May 15, 1972, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace was campaigning for President in Laurel, Maryland. He gave a speech behind a bulletproof podium at the Laurel Shopping Center. Then he moved from it to mingle with the crowd.
Since the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, all those campaigning for President have been assigned Secret Service bodyguards. And Wallace was surrounded by them as he shook hands with his eager supporters.
Suddenly, Arthur Bremer, a fame-seeking failure in life and romance, pushed his way forward, aimed a .38 revolver at Wallace’s abdomen and opened fire. Before the Secret Service could subdue him, he hit Wallace four times, leaving him paralyzed for the rest of his life.
Arthur Bremer shoots George Wallace
Nor was he Bremer’s only victim. Three other people present were wounded unintentionally:
- Alabama State Trooper Captain E C Dothard, Wallace’s personal bodyguard, who was shot in the stomach;
- Dora Thompson, a campaign volunteer, who was shot in the leg; and
- Nick Zarvos, a Secret Service agent, who was shot in the neck, severely impairing his speech.
None of Wallace’s bodyguards got off a shot at Bremer—before or after he pulled the trigger.
On October 6, 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was reviewing a military parade in Cairo when a truck apparently broke down directly across from where he was seated.
Anwar Sadat, moments before his assassination
Suddenly, soldiers bolted from the rear of the vehicle, throwing hand grenades and firing assault rifles. They rushed straight at Sadat—who died instantly under a hail of bullets.
Meanwhile, Sadat’s bodyguards—who had been trained by the CIA—panicked and fled.
Sadat had been assassinated by army officers who believed he had betrayed Islam by making peace with Israel in 1977.
The ultimate test of the NRA’s mantra that “there should not be any gun-free zones…anywhere” will come only when one or more heavily-armed gunmen target an NRA convention.
It will then be interesting to see if the surviving NRA members are as quick to blame themselves for being victims as they are to blame the victims of other mass slaughters.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on March 31, 2023 at 12:13 am
Once he became the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump began undermining one public or private institution after another.
On November 3, 2020, 80 million voters decided they wanted a change—and elected former Vice President Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.
Trump refused to accept that verdict.
Speaking from the White House in the early hours of November 4, he said:
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it.”
For the first time in American history, a President demanded a halt to the counting of votes while the outcome of an election hung in doubt.
States ignored his demand and kept counting.
Next, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results, charging electoral fraud.
Specifically:
- Illegal aliens had been allowed to vote.
- Trump ballots had been systematically destroyed.
- Tampered voting machines had turned Trump votes into Biden ones.
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. And, one by one, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
For 20 days, General Services Administrator Emily Murphy refused to release $7.3 million in transition funding and Federal resources to the President-elect’s team.
Under the law governing presidential transitions, Murphy was responsible for determining the winner based on publicly available information before the actual Electoral College vote.
Finally, on November 23, Murphy released the transition funding and resources.
Losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House to persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
Nothing changed.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
Meanwhile, top Republicans—such as Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell—refused to congratulate Biden as the winner.
None of them branded Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as those of a tyrant.
Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”
Gaius Caligula was “the mad emperor” of ancient Rome. Like Trump, he lived by a philosophy of “Let them hate me, so long as they fear me.”
He ruled as the most powerful man of his time—three years, 10 months and eight days. And all but the first six months of his reign were drenched in slaughter and debauchery.
There are basically three ways America’s continuing slide into tyranny could have been stopped:
Congressional Republicans could have revolted against Trump’s authority and/or agenda.
They could, for example, have demanded that Trump accept the verdict of the electorate—as every other past President had. But they didn’t.
Invoking the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President in cases where he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It also allows the House and Senate to confirm the recommendation over the President’s objection by two-thirds vote.
The Vice President then takes over as President.
A case could easily have been made that Trump, emotionally distraught over his loss and determined to circumvent the will of the electorate, had been rendered unfit to continue in office. But, once again, Republicans let fear be their guide.
He had fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017 and publicly humiliated his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, for more than a year until firing him in 2018. Vice President Mike Pence in particular had set new records for sycophancy.
The “Caligula solution.” Like Trump, Roman emperor Gaius Caligula delighted in humiliating others. His fatal mistake was taunting Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
Gaius Caligula
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Trump had similarly behaved arrogantly toward his Secret Service guards. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. He also forced them to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them were stricken with this often lethal disease as a result.
During the 12 years that Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany, at least 42 assassination plots were launched against him.
The best-known of these literally exploded on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Count Claus Shenk von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in a conference room attended by Hitler and his generals. Hitler survived only by sheer luck.
By contrast, no similar plot was aimed at Donald Trump.
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RIGHT-WING AMERICA: MY WALLET–FIRST AND ALWAYS: PART TWO (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 9, 2023 at 12:13 amOn May 13, 2012, Forbes magazine ran an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York angrily disagreed.
Chuck Shumer
“It is scary. It is a scary, absurd place where even a tax dodger who renounces America for his own 30 pieces of silver is celebrated as a patriot and an American hero.
“It is perverse. I am appalled by making heroic a man who renounces citizenship to escape a tax rate of capital gains of 15%.
“No one gets rich in America on their own,” Schumer said. “And when people do well in America, they should do well by America. I believe the vast majority of Americans believe this, too.”
From that Op-Ed piece:
“Saverin’s flight from the U.S. is yet another reminder of the superiority of a national consumption tax that in a perfect world would be implemented in concert with the abolition of the I.R.S.”
It’s tempting to imagine a world without an agency to collect taxes. But it’s nightmarish to contemplate a world where there were no taxes to pay for
The Op-Ed piece further asserts that “you cannot limit the power of the Federal Government if its officials hold the power to tax incomes.”
Every nation in history—whether a democracy or a dictatorship, whether capitalist, socialist or communist—has understood the absolute necessity for collecting public revenues. And it has created means by which to do so.
“When individuals resist governmental hubris, we should exalt their actions.”
We should, in short, celebrate those who come to the United States to make fortunes they could not make anywhere else—and then, when they do, turn their backs on their adopted country.
We should rejoice that they have stuffed billions of dollars more into their already-fat pockets and left their supposed fellow countrymen to shift for themselves.
“In an ideal world the Federal Government should implement a consumption tax. And if, as a result, poor people suffer because they’re taxed at the same level as rich ones, fine.
“Everyone should know how much it costs to run the government.”
Of course we should have a “regressive” tax that “hits low incomes at the same percentage as high ones.”
Of course, those who are barely able to feed their families or can’t afford medical care should pay as much in taxes as a rich parasite who, like Mitt Romney, throws out $10,000 bets like so many dimes.
“If the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs because rich people like Saverin refuse to pay taxes, then U.S. taxpayers generally will have to make good for the missing taxes. It’s the fault of Congress that it cannot put an end to any program.”
For billionaires like Saverin and the well-heeled types who subscribe to Forbes, it doesn’t matter whether “the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs.”
San Simeon, estate of William Randolph Hearst
Greed-obsessed “swells” like Saverin:
A contemporary writer who warned of America’s abandonment by its privileged classes was Christopher Lasch. In his posthumously published last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy [2005] he wrote:
“There has always been a privileged class, even in America. But it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.
“George Bush’s [the president who served from 1989 to 1992] wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed…the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”
Until recently, wrote Lasch, American cultural and economic elites willingly shouldered civic responsibilities. But in post-modern capitalism, a professional elite defines itself as entirely separate from civic concerns.
The new elites flourish through enterprises that operate across international borders. The rich in America have more in common with their fellows in Europe or Asia than with the vast majority of their fellow Americans who don’t share their comfortable surroundings.
Thus, the privileged class in America—the top 1%—has separated itself from the crumbling public services and industrial cities that are used and lived in by the rest of the country’s citizens.
Even worse, our society has condoned their exalted status. The dust jacket blurb for James Patterson’s crime-thriller, NYPD Red, says it best:
“NYPD Red is a special task force charged with protecting the interests of Manhattan’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.”
It’s time to protect the 99% of America’s citizens against the predators of its 1% wealthiest.
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