Tea party as the new 'kulaks'

WND ^ | 8/22/2011 | Jack Cashill

[Qbert]

The oddball media slander of the tea party, now routine, shows more than a little calculation along a rather perilous historical line.

In the 1920s, in advance of the collectivization of private farms, Soviet leadership stigmatized as "class enemies" a productive set of landowners known as "kulaks."

[Snip]

In the beginning, the Soviets attempted to turn peasant farmers against the kulaks by denouncing them, in Mr. Lenin's illiberal words, as "bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine."

[Snip]

Before he was through, Stalin and his progressive pals killed off at least 5 million of these people either though starvation, ruthless deportation or outright murder.

If you think the analogy between tea party and kulak a bit extreme, allow me to share a few recent quotes, the first from Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times (whose ace reporter, Walter Duranty, covered up Stalin's terror-famine and won a Pulitzer for it):

"Tea Party budget-slashers … were like cannibals, eating their own party and leaders alive. They were like vampires, draining the country's reputation, credit rating and compassion."

[Snip]

Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson weighed in as well, her mangled prose not quite obscuring her unhinged contempt:

"There's a nihilist caucus which is, 'Listen, we want to burn the place down.' I mean, they're not, they've strapped explosives to the Capitol and they think they are immune from it."

Steven Rattner, MSNBC's economic analyst, extended the jihadi metaphor on Morning Joe:

"It's like a form of economic terrorism. I imagine these tea party guys are, like, strapped with dynamite, standing in the middle of Times Square at rush hour and saying, 'Either you do it my way, or we're going to blow you up, ourselves up, and the whole country up with us.'"

[reefdiver]

We have Guns because the founders of this Nation could see into the future. They knew the M Carlson, M Dowd and A Gores would be comming because they had their kin right there with them.
They did not give us the right to have them just for wall art either.

[Qbert]

"We didn’t love freedom enough."

That has to be one of the most chilling sentences ever written.

[DaxtonBrown]

I wrote “Surviving Civil War II” to point out that we are already in a Civil War, just that our side hasn’t awakened to that fact yet. Besides the propaganda calling us terrorists, hobits, teabaggers (ugh!) etc., the left uses a proxy army of illegal aliens, criminals, union brownshirts and anarchists to intimidate us.
http://www.futurnamics.com/civilwar.php
There’s a new youtube there I just posted.

[Yardstick]

Like government employees today, kulaks were vilified simply on the basis of their occupation,

They were not vilified on the basis of their occupation. They were vilified on the basis of belonging to a particular socio-economic class. They were vilified as exploiters of the peasant class. It was their relationship to another class that was exploited.

Furthermore, government employees are not demonized by the government, as the kulaks were. That is a huge difference. It's odd that you've overlooked it. Perhaps you got lost on your way to the DUmpster?

[tomkat]

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

[tomkat]

gmta  

[Route797]

<[>They (kulaks) were not vilified on the basis of their occupation. They were vilified on the basis of belonging to a particular socio-economic class. They were vilified as exploiters of the peasant class. It was their relationship to another class that was exploited.

Government employees are considered by some to be a separate socio-economic class, They are vilified as exploiters of the private sector. The so-called governmental class is attacked on the basis of their relationship to a supposedly separate private class.

Furthermore, government employees are not demonized by the government, as the kulaks were. That is a huge difference. It's odd that you've overlooked it.

Government employees are demonized by people who may have an influence upon the government.

Perhaps you got lost on your way to the DUmpster?

I've been a conservative my entire adult life but it's odd how some seem to want to write people like myself (a retired postal employee) out of the conservative movement simply on the basis of who we happened to work for. That sort of guilt by occupation reminds me of the guilt by social class/occupation of the kulaks.

[kennyboy509]

My county government in washington only hires leftist environmentalist.

I refuse county personnel access to my property which they believe belongs to them.

A few years ago the county created a secret list of land owners. A revenge list or a $hix list.

This was discovered via foia.

Tell me how wrong I am again.

[Route797]

Your county government doesn't represent every single governmental employee in the nation, There are good and bad in all groups. Aren't Sarah Palin’s parents and brother current or retired public school employees?

[elcid1970]

The next step: Obama’s minions will deounce Tea Partyers as “enemies of the people”.

But this isn’t Solzhenitsyn’s Russia. The `class enemies’ are armed. And if local LEOs start kicking in doors, recall frightened Soviet subjects didn’t have cell cameras and twitter, either. The next `flash mob’ might well consist of networked armed citizens in their homes with nothing left to lose when that loud knock comes.

[Qbert]

"Government employees are considered by some to be a separate socio-economic class, They are vilified as exploiters of the private sector. The so-called governmental class is attacked on the basis of their relationship to a supposedly separate private class...Government employees are demonized by people who may have an influence upon the government.

I've been a conservative my entire adult life.."

A pro-Big Government "Conservative"?...

[Fightin Whitey]

The kulaks were industrious.

They were also isolated, insular and remarkably independent. They farmed, worked and traded amongst themselves.

My (admittedly limited) reading suggests that their wealth wasn’t predominantly in money, or gold, but rather land in some instances and raw materials and simply a willingness to work and advance.

They were wealthy in their freedom and self-sufficiency and that is why Stalin—much like the vile Steve Rattners of today—could not tolerate them.

[Route797]

A pro-Big Government "Conservative"?..

What exactly is big government? I was forty years old before I heard the first thing about the Postal Service being a supposed affront to the idea of limited government. Most people who are working in government are just trying to make a living, playing the game by the rules now in effect. They aren't trying to make a political statement. They're just trying to survive. They aren't trying to exploit their fellow citizens. Those citizens that they supposedly exploit are their friends and relatives.

One can make an argument that their jobs are unnecessary or counterproductive, but I don't see a need to portray all civil servants as traitors to decent society. They are people who are no different than anybody else, not an alien force that seeks to oppress their fellow Americans.

The real argument should be with the people that wrote the rules of the game, not the people who must play by those rules.

[Qbert]

“One can make an argument that their jobs are unnecessary or counterproductive, but I don’t see a need to portray all civil servants as traitors to decent society.”

Where have I said anything remotely resembling that claim?

[familyop]

"My county government in washington only hires leftist environmentalist.

I refuse county personnel access to my property which they believe belongs to them.

A few years ago the county created a secret list of land owners. A revenge list or a $hix list.

This was discovered via foia.

Tell me how wrong I am again."

You're right, and those things are happening all over our country, including some of the most sparsely populated, Republican majority counties in the USA. They patrol private properties in fishing expeditions without cause and at will. When there are no dupes trying to build anything on their own nearly worthless properties ("impact fees," always regulatory problems requiring "engineering," etc.), the officious spread lies and fabricate crimes in order to steal more.

One County "police officer" (deputy in a Republican Sheriff's Dept.), only because of my specialty in prior service to my country, told me that I was "like Timothy McVeigh" (even though McVeigh was only infantry). Also, my religious belief is more opposed to any kind of neo-Nazi belief than his (something that he didn't know). Others have run car stops on me at random with poor excuses and no real cause. And I'm pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

The only answer is to be nonpolitical, refuse to cooperate with any immoral deed, even under fear of officious reprisal, to avoid any unnecessary personal spending, and to become as self-sufficient as possible.

[Route797]

Sorry. I get carried away sometimes. Maybe it’s old age kicking in.

[familyop]

"Like government employees today, kulaks were vilified simply on the basis of their occupation, not for their political activism. "

That's a very dishonest argument.

* Kulaks were deprived of their properties and terrorized by government criminals. People with government positions/incomes in nearly every locale are doing the same to property owners now with obvious intentions to intensify their campaigns.

* Government employees are using both their positions and bipartisan political activism to subjugate, steal from and violate the property rights of other Americans.

[Route797]

Some government employees do those things but not all. Saying every public employee is like that is like saying every American soldier in Vietnam was like William Calley.

I'm sorry that you've had problems with government officials. I had nothing to do with that. I worked for the Postal service and wrestled containers of mail. Most government employees are low level functionaries who would be horrified at the thought that they were doing harm to others. You might say that their positions are unnecessary, or that they are overcompensated, but they aren't trying to hurt you.

Sorry if I'm getting carried away again!

[familyop]

You were a postal employee and provided a welcome service. Most other local government employees with federal funding do not (social workers, “us against them,” lifelong civilian cops casing others for revenues, planning/zoning and building regulators, public education employees and more).

[Publius6961]

The Jackasses are masters at namecalling, posturing and projection.

The best defense is to go through the arrogant behavior of the 111th congress and their particular version of "our way or the highway." I can hardly wait until the current House majority lock out the opposition party, literally, and rewrite a gutted bill all by themsleves. Remember that one?

Remember the Democratic idea of "compromise?" Let the opposition into the building and ridicule them as they passed bill after bill down the Citizen's throat. If a little socialist abuse is good, a lot of marxism is better.

Without exception, every name, every disparaging behavior real or metaphorical that they mindlessly employ describes their own behavior perfectly. Their jihad against the Constitution, against the rule of law and against ethical behavior will forever be discussed in the future, as a low point of the Republic, perhaps as bad or worse as the Civil War.

And the taxpayers are the new slaves.