ARE WE TURNING COMMUNIST?

Comment from the candidate: I know it 'sounds' absurd, but compare the ten planks of the Communist platform laid out by the architects of communism with modern America. The following excerpt is taken from the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. Read the entire Communist Manifesto here. How many planks of the Communist platform have been implemented in the United States? How many are being proposed or are under way? Comments will be enclosed in square brackets '[  ]'

The Communist Manifesto (10 measures)
By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
From the authorised English translation by Samuel Moore of 1888

" The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations ... The proletariat will ... centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state ... Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production ... These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. "

• 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
[Property forfeiture and confiscation through taxes, eminent domain and the war on drugs; Wetlands, Endangered Species Act, Wildlands Project and similar legislation; prohibitive zoning ordinances; more...]

• 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
[16th Amendment, US tax code]

• 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
[Inheritance taxes]

• 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
[Property forfeiture and confiscation; freezing of assets; warrantless searches and seizures]

• 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
[Federal Reserve (a private, non-government entity)]

• 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
[Media consolidation owned by fewer and fewer sources]

• 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
[Government and environmentalist land acquisitions and proposed federal zoning programs]

• 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
[Are there examples of this?]

• 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
[This is actually going in the opposite direction. Populations are being concentrated, not dispersed.]

• 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
[Government 'Public' school (K-12) monopoly of taxpayers' education tax dollars; Goals 2000; School to Work; Outcomes based education;

" Class ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy. Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are the following: the schools, colleges and universities will be coordinated and grouped under the National Department of Education and its state and local branches. The studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeoisie ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism, and the general ethics of the new socialist society ... Science will become materialistic ... God will be banished from the laboratories as well as from the schools. "
-- William Z. Foster, head of the Communist Party USA 1932, cited in the book 'Toward Soviet America' --

" Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching? "
-- Charles Francis Potter, " Humanism, 1933, A New Religion " -- ]

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