Summary
It is one of the most breathtaking and romantic films ever made. A few may argue differently, but it is a must-see. California has a similar one-party rule, which displays the perils of unchecked power.
Article:
What unfolds in a country or a state under one-party rule? It’s a revolution in the minds of the tyrants, a tale of self-serving exploitation. California, with its echoes of the Russian Revolution of 1917, serves as a stark reminder of the perils of unchecked power.
There was too much truth stated in the novel and the movie about actions taken by the Soviet communist party to overwhelm and destroy the entire leadership of the country, including productive enterprises, to overtake and consolidate the power of the communist regime. The Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, or the Russian Communist Party, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov. They considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class and referred to their movement as Bolshevism. The Bolsheviks took control of Russia in a nearly bloodless coup, known as the October Revolution, in 1917 and established what became known as Marxism-Leninism ideology. The Bolsheviks executed Czar Nicholas II and the entire imperial family, bringing an end to the three-century-old Romanov dynasty.
The struggle was between the Czarist bourgeoisie, comprising entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, and manufacturers who hired workers, and the proletariat, the working class and peasant class, who lacked their own means of production and had to sell their labor to survive. This group was considered the lowest social and economic class of the community. Their collective view was that they were exploited and formed resistance groups to crush what they regarded as economic oppression under Czarism.
Here, we delve into a compelling account of the labor union’s role in the revolution, penned by Alexander Boscovich Lozovsky in 1920. This historical perspective is vital as we dissect the influence of labor unions on California’s political and economic terrain today.
According to Lozovsky’s written account from 1905, there were no formal labor unions, only workers’ factory support committees until 1917, when cooperative labor union membership grew to five million, and Bolshevik communist sub-factions grew to about 600,000. They worked together to topple the Czarist system and replace it with what they considered “Peace, Land, and Workers’ Control!” “All Power to the Soviets!” was their battle cry. They systematically dismantled the Czarist system, which had an emperor possessing absolute and unlimited powers. They replaced it with a communist Soviet regime by organized resistance, declaring strikes, street demonstrations, and active violence.
There were about 7-12 million people slaughtered, starved, or sent to Siberia between 1917 and 1925 as part of the consolidation of power by multiple factions of the communist Soviet regime. Fighting was not completed until 1934 when Joseph Stalin, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, finished the consolidation.
During the Bolshevik Revolution, personal and real property were confiscated and redistributed under the guise of a public good. The movie depicts how this occurred. The masses were relocated into well-maintained residential buildings, regardless of ownership. Rightful owners were left without rights of possession or compensation. Private property became socialized and given to the people according to their needs, a process overseen and enforced by the government.
How California Compares:
How does this historical narrative resonate in today’s California? The concept of the ‘public good’ often serves as a powerful motivator, until we follow the money trail and witness the expanding government control, public employee labor unions, and the erosion of our ownership rights. We must recognize these as a series of temporary rights, contingent on our continuous payment, masquerading as private property rights. We must understand these dynamics and take action to protect our rights.
Benefits for all only work in a socialist utopian illusion. The hard and indisputable fact is that to provide something for someone for free, you must first take it from another.
California has now elected to go down the path of declared socialism as the answer to most of the state’s problems, which were self-created. The brilliant leaders have elected to re-engineer almost every aspect of the way we live by declaring war on the middle and upper-middle classes of the taxpaying citizens of our state. This war is waged through property confiscation, whether immediate through force or gradual through regulation, onerous taxation, and state-sponsored litigation such as eminent domain. The threat to property rights is real and concerning.
The following are a few examples of problems intended to be solved by increased taxation, regulation, and dissolution of private property rights. The government must add a massive new bureaucracy of public employee labor unions as administrators to accomplish this task. The government does not intend to solve the problems but is merely trying to get votes from the “have-nots,” who are usually not property owners, and force the “haves” (you and me) to pay for them.
A few examples are:
· Homelessness and unsheltered are catch-all terms that include those without stable living quarters. They include sleeping in parks, on sidewalks, in abandoned buildings, in encampments, underpasses, and in cars.
· California has 30% of the nation’s homeless, approximately 187,084. Chronically, homeless people cost the taxpayers an average of $36,000 per person based upon their bundle of benefits, welfare, housing, medical, public-employee labor union support, etc.
· This constitutes 25% of the nation’s homeless population, which is because of the weather and lavish social welfare benefits.
· Over the past 5 years, the unsheltered population has increased 40%.
· California spends $42,000 per unhoused person for housing, rental assistance, mental health outreach, case management, funds to purchase motels, and temporary housing. The totals are $7.8 billion annually. Currently, 187,084 times $42,000= $7,857,528 annually.
· 35% of Americans are on welfare or government transfer payments. Although California accounts for 12% of the US population, its residents make up 33%, or approximately one-third of that group, all of whom are eager to benefit from the efforts of others.
· Forty percent of the voters in California pay little or no state income tax but happily vote to raise someone else’s taxes.
· Forty percent of Californians are enrolled in Medi-Cal, and 27% are not born in the USA. That number has increased by 40% over the last 5 years. The taxpayers pay the bulk of the premiums for Medi-Cal. The federal and state governments fund Medicaid out of tax dollars collected. The state has a Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) that the state will pay based on the participant’s income.
· California’s social programs are envied worldwide. They are magnets that will continue to attract indigents worldwide in search of generous welfare benefits, including free housing, health, education, and legal and nutritional subsidies. Many of the world’s population would like to move here and retire comfortably from these subsidies and expect someone else to pay for them all.
· Place rent control in the entire State of California (SB2) without a vote from the people. This is taking private property by limiting one’s ability to profit from assets. Taxation without a vote, no representation.
· California state leadership continuously accelerates all the above because this is how they expand public employee labor union membership numbers, power, and expense. Still, they place the responsibility on the taxpayers to pay for it all.
· Governor Brown confiscated the Redevelopment Agencies of 400 cities in California and gave the $1.2B a year income to the Public Employees’ Pension. He announced that he had solved the pension crisis, but he created the current housing crisis. Now, Newsom will try to be the hero by establishing rent control over the entire state to say he solved the housing crisis. Who pays for all of this? We must like it, or we must move.
The following is an active pursuit by California’s leaders.
· Eliminate Proposition 13 so property taxes may rise by 200 to 400%.
· Installing rent controls so you cannot pass on the increase’s expenses to tenants, squeezing your cash flow.
· Eliminating or changing densities and forcing property owners to replace their buildings with high-density rentals that must include affordable housing.
· Encouraging single-family owners to install accessory dwelling units (ADU) to increase the availability of affordable rental housing.
· Paying little attention to the infrastructure improvements, water flow from north to south, and fire prevention.
· Paying the highest state income taxes in the nation
· Paying little attention to the state’s 68-billion-dollar budget deficit
· Continuous consolidation of power and expansion by state bureaucracies.
· Monitoring and forcing people who have (ADUs)to rent to illegal citizens and the homeless, with rents to be paid by government agencies with your tax dollars.
If you refuse to place their chosen renters in your private property rental, someone will sue you for discrimination. Private property may be socialized according to the needs of the occupants.
Why, you might ask, do they do this to us? The answer is simple… power. How do politicians become wealthy? By selling out the public trust for ridiculous contracts ($100 billion for the train to nowhere) for their friends and relatives.