From the February 1999 Idaho Observer:

Communism in the USSA

The red scare comes home to roost

While your parents and grandparents were sleeping, those scheming reapers were at work stealing this once-great country from its rightful heirs.

Spread over generations and injected through a public education system we have become accustomed to a government which reaches out and touches nearly every aspect of our lives.

Through controls placed on virtually everything, especially the information systems that provide the foundations of your thinking, the land of the free and the home of the brave is now neither.

It's only natural. Most people prefer the security and convenience of the paternal state. Personal responsibility in our modern age of socialism is headed out to sea along with respect for the president, faith in Congress and honor among judges.

In the 1950's we were taught to fear the red hordes of communism. Evil people were at work in our land spying for Russian and Chinese enemies and subverting the minds of our youth. One of the first great congressional tribunals became known as the McCarthy hearings.

Did the witch hunters of the McCarthy era miss the mark? Aren't our own federal, state and local governments the greatest communist threat we Americans face today in the United Socialist States of America (USSA)?

In the December, 1998 edition of The Idaho Observer we ran a “Citizenship Pop Quiz” contest which sought the correct answer to the trick question: “Which one of the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto has not yet been fully implemented in the united States of America?

The good news is 60 percent of The Idaho Observer readers who entered the contest correctly answered the question. There's hope for us after all. ~DWH

by Hari Heath

Karl Marx and the Ten Planks

In 1848 Karl Marx proposed a new system of government which he expounded upon in his Communist Manifesto. Among his primary complaints was that a wealthy elite class were unfairly enslaving the masses. By controlling the instruments of production, capital assets and holding much of the land ownership, the elite class could dictate to the poorer classes what would be their condition in life.

Marx's solution was to impose a governmental system that would break down the class structure, thereby forcing equality upon us and, essentially, place all assets, property, means of production, communication, transportation and education into the hands of the government. It sounded good at the time to many impoverished peasants, but it didn't get very far. Or did it?

America was founded on individual rights and an independent self-reliant spirit, but what are we now? The pull your self up by your bootstraps, start in the mail room and work your way up mentality has been replaced by the government grant and the credit card; “community” has been replaced by “agency.”

The ruling powers of Marx's time opposed his “communism,” because it threatened the very foundations of their power structure. But the principles, or planks upon which it is founded eventually became quite useful to our modern day ruling powers. Let us see how our once-free nation adopted this socialist methodology and became a communist country:

Communism Implemented in America

The First Plank: Abolition of private land ownership and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

Do you really own your land? Stop paying “your” land taxes for three years and find out. Where does “your” tax money go? Public purposes?

With allodial title (land patents) effectively eliminated by the communist court systems and your local county “recorder (many of whom refuse to record land patents because it would take 'your' land out of 'their' tax base)” we have been relegated to the status of renters with color of title “deeds” to “our” property. Absolute property ownership was a fundamental right when our country was founded, but now with communism...

The Second Plank: A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Ever heard of the IRS? State Tax Commission? Are they fully implemented in America? Do you have any further questions? First control the peoples' land, then control the money that they earn...

The Third Plank: Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Key word “rights.” Rights are not things permissively granted by government, like obtaining a probate court's permission to acquire your inheritance. Rights are what you possess independent of government. When private matters are routinely controlled by public forces they cease to be private matters. Yes, you can inherit the option to “rent” your father's farm after he passes on. After you pay the inheritance tax -- and if you have a farm left...

The Fourth Plank: Confiscation of the property of emigrants and rebels.

Ever heard of the word forfeiture? Did you know that the U.S. Department of Justice is a self-funding operation that is maintained with the proceeds from drug forfeitures? Did you also know that 80 percent of federal drug forfeitures are not prosecuted criminally? If someone is involved with drugs during a declared “war on drugs” are they not a rebel?

What other “rebellious” acts result in confiscation? “Illegal” gun possession? Environmentally related takings? IRS seizures? Planning, zoning and building code violations? Driving “your” car on “your” highway without a license -- you rebels...

The Fifth Plank. Centralization of credit by the creation of a National Bank.

In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was passed which turned over our constitutionally-mandated, congressionally-controlled economy of substance to the whims of the privately held “Federal Reserve Bank.” It took only 20 years for this private consortium of mostly foreign bankers to bankrupt America. With private gold ownership prohibited in 1933, our substance-backed economy was replaced with a credit economy. We now trade these private bank “notes” as virtual money or write checks from “accounts” which are nothing more than digital memories in the bank's great computer. Credit cards, loans, and our entire economy is now rooted in a privately-held, national banking system which enfranchises nearly every bank. The jaws of Wall Street hinge on the words from the Federal Reserve Board...

The Sixth Plank. Centralization and control of communication and transportation by the government.

Have you ever heard of the press referred to as the fourth branch of government? Can you start a radio or TV station without an FCC license? Did the food on your table come to you because a truck driver with a federally-controlled commercial drivers license drove it to the store under a myriad of rules and regulations with on a truck that is licensed to engage in interstate commerce? Is your car controlled by the government? Damn commies...

The Seventh Plank. Government control of factories and the instruments of production; cultivation of the soil in accordance with a common plan.

OK, so you have an idea for a new product and want to manufacture it. Fine. You acquire some land to build your production facility. Then you get the property re-zoned, conduct an environmental assessment, get a building permit, insurance, a bond, public health compliance certificate, water, sewer and electrical permits, hire a licensed and bonded contractor and a duly authorized architect, a surveyor, file incorporation papers with the Secretary of State, issue stock in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission, comply with OSHA, EPA, state and local regulations, sign up with workman's compensation insurance, get state and federal tax numbers, a business license, and..., and..., and... ad nauseam.

Government control of the instruments of production? Try farming. Subsidies to grow some crops, sometimes payments not to grow any crops. Recently, some farmers in California were fined for putting back seed from their own crops to plant next year. It is now a regulatory violation for farmers to keep and plant their own seeds. Mandated by law to use only patented, hybrid seeds, farmers are at the mercy of government authorized-seed sources to get their next crop planted...

The Eighth Plank. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies.

As “colored” landowners reduced by “color of title” deeds to tenant status, we must pay rent.

When the majority of people were producers, as it was at the beginning of this century, there were goods to trade in an economy of substance. Now that we have become mostly consumers, passing debt transfer “notes” between us, we must work, or conduct some business in the system to obtain these credit instruments that are traded for the sustaining components of our lives. Add a tax burden of 55 percent of the average person's income (including the hidden taxes), and we must work. One out of three people work for the government (socialist reapers) so those of us who produce have to pay their share.

Have you ever been on an urban freeway at rush hour? Industrial armies...

The Ninth Plank. Consolidation of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between rural and urban dwellers for a more equable distribution of population.

Agribusiness? Highly mechanized farming methods? Family farm foreclosures? Suburban sprawl? Mall culture? The conversion of farmland to housing developments?...

The Tenth Plank. Free education for all children in public schools. Conform education with industrial productions.

Can your children attend school without tuition? Will school vouchers soon further implement this plank of the communist manifesto? Have you heard of the school to work program? Goals 2000? Are we communist yet?

Falling for the Socialist State

How did we get here from there? Water takes the path of least resistance. People are much the same. Provide the proper channel and people will fall for it with their gravitation towards security, comfort, convenience; the good life.

Few people seek new frontiers, fearlessly face difficult challenges and fewer people still are willing to rebel against tyrants. The many will only watch, or wait until the way is paved. The road to socialism is paved with good intentions.

America began as a Constitutional Republic. Separation of powers, limited government, checks and balances -- all that good stuff. Once the socialists (communists) found the channel in our Republic they began to open it up. Little by little. A slumbering population leaves government in charge of itself. Who checked the balances? A little benevolence here, some emergency relief there and, after a time the conduit was opened and the flood of socialism began rushing in.

People, at least the many, prefer the easy path. The easier the better. The more good life the socialist reapers could provide for the people, the more room at the top they made for themselves.

Frederic Bastiat pointed out the fallacy of socialism in 1850, just two years after Marx published his communist manifesto:

“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State. They forget that the State lives at the expense of everyone... The State is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.”

Have we abandoned our Republic and its limited form of government so we can climb the great pyramid scheme of socialism? How many former producers will become reapers before the ugly truth is revealed and the socialist empire crumbles?

Is there anyone to blame but ourselves for following the easy path of socialism while allowing the founding principles of our nation to fall in ruin?

Grover Cleveland, during the reconstruction era following the War Between the States, saw the emergence of the American socialist state and offered the following warning:

“I can find no warrant for such appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.

"A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly, that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people.

"The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated.

"Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood."

As we continue to depart, agency by agency, from the constitutional form of government laid down for us, and fall for the ruse of socialism, believing somehow, that what is taken in taxes will somehow be returned in benefits, we give new meaning to an old adage -- Red Blooded American.

The Russian Communist leader Nikita Khrushchev said it best: “When the American people will wake up, they will be communist.”

Congratulations to Jim Jackson of Coeur d'Alene because he is the one who correctly answered the contest question with “all planks have been fully implemented” and won the drawing for One Real Silver Dollar.

Mr. Heath is a perpetual pro se litigant logger from Santa whose case load seems to be winding down as it appears that the judicial system is not really interested in being confronted with silly inconveniences such as the law.