| November 11, 2007 |
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| Women’s rights are
human rights?
Stephen Henry Lewis,
United Nations’ envoy for HIV AIDS in Africa, 2006, said:
“[Women's rights have] never been made real, and so long as men control the levers and bastions of power… it never will be real. The demeaning diminution of women is everywhere evident… freedom from sexual violence, the right to sexual autonomy, to sexual and reproductive health, social and economic independence, and even the whiff of gender equality are barely approximated. It’s a ghastly, deadly business, this untrammeled oppression of women in so many countries on the planet.”
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A Tisket, A Tax It
Sweet 16th (amendment, that is) hogs the spotlight these days and has our nation in a quandary. As we exude bravery, we quake in our Pradas as to the reality of having to pay personal income tax on our wages and compensation for services.
Aaron Russo’s feature film, America: Freedom to Fascism (May 2007) is a taxpayer’s dream and the government’s emerging nightmare. For one hour and fifty-one minutes, Russo presents his case against the U.S. government’s farce upon the American people which began in 1913 (when Woodrow Wilson was president), and continues to haunt us to this day.
Everyone who’s ever earned a wage and received a W-2 form from an employer knows what personal income taxes are—whether they’ve filed a Form 1040 and sent in their money or not. The estimate stated in the film is that 67 million Americans don’t pay personal income taxes. Russo contends that no one has to, because there is no statute or law that has ever been ratified by a sufficient number of states requiring such payment. In fact, if there were a law, it would be against the Constitution of our country.
We, the people, have also long believed that our personal income taxes have been used (appropriated) in and for the public interest. Well, it seems interest is correct, but not the kind we’ve been led to believe.
According to Russo and other experts in his film, personal income taxes are used to pay the interest on the money our government borrows from the Federal Reserve Bank, which isn’t federally affiliated after all. The FRB was a scheme dreamed up by a trio (triad) of rich bankers, J. P. Morgan, Paul Warburg, and John D. Rockefeller.
The Federal Reserve Act that empowered these already powerful ‘triplets’ was voted upon by a paltry number of senators during the Christmas holidays, and they’ve been leaving coal in our stockings ever since.
The Code is Broken
Someone had to enforce the non-existing law upon those few who refused to oblige the hand outstretched to take our hard-earned income. And so the Internal Revenue Service was conjured up as the ‘strong arm’ of the FRB. Although ‘service’ is in its name, the IRS served not the people, but its culprit employers—the government and the FRB.
The IRS Code is approximately 27,000 pages long, growing fatter and fatter with each new tax. I worked for a CPA firm for a number of years, and my entry-level job consisted of filing new rulings that came in the mail about every two weeks. Tear out the old pages and insert the new pages. Boring as it was, I got paid for doing it and then paid taxes for having done it. Bah, hum bug!
Those pie charts we’ve seen once in awhile (that supposedly showed us where our tax money went) always seemed to have a slice designated as the military’s. Wrong-o according to Russo! It is plainly stated in his film that the money supporting our military is exactly equal to the amount of corporate taxes paid to the government. Well, what a surprise! We no longer need to wonder why the government and corporations are so friendly! “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours: We’ll give you money and you start wars. We’ll sell you war machinery and you charge us taxes. You tear down and we’ll build up. You get a slice, we get the recipe, and the rest stays in the pie.”
Russo provided a partial list of taxes that ‘users’ have to pay—about fifty of them out of more than 150. The poem below covers most of the ones we may be familiar with, and is much easier to understand than the official list in question. Cleverly crafted but not humorous, avail your self of the ditty, and then come back to the gritty truth that yet another monstrous misrepresentation has been plied upon us patriotic Americans. It seems to tell us that freedom is not free.
The Awful Truth Hurts
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries, then
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid.
Put these words
upon his tomb,
“Taxes drove me to my doom…”
When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
~ Author unknown
| fascism:
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
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Encore, Anybody?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt and had the largest middle income group in the world. Need we ask, “What the heck happened?”
Invest one hour and fifty-one minutes (tax free) of your time, and watch Aaron Russo’s film America: Freedom to Fascism. Aaron Russo, award-winning film producer, libertarian politician and activist. 1943--2007. Russo's Web site and legacy. Wikipedia's Russo.
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