Tuesday, December 18, 2001 --  He said it again, right there on that PBS program.  He spoke of the 90's boom economy that didn't repair the great gap between the rich and the poor.  It was the same old baloney he uses when talking about the Reagan 80's.  That explained the Dickensian appelation for his new book, the second half of which is implied.
     The Best of Times and the Worst of Times.
     The ultimate title for a redistributionist's book.

     Haynes will win a Pulitzer for this one.  Its very title castigates capitalism and leads toward his socialist solution.  The Pulitzers, like the Nobels are normally given to communists-in-spirit, if not in fact. 
     Let's blast the crap out of Haynes Johnson's moronic economic postulate -- that all would be well if we closed this gap between the rich and the poor in America via a Robin Hood government..

     I want you all to go to any nearby place in America where poor people live.  I want you to offer them a free one-way ticket to emigrate to Bombay.  You can pick other destinations if you like.  If you live close to Appalachia, offer your local poor a one-way ticket to go and live in Macedonia. They have lots of jobs for sheep herders, there.  If you live close to the South Bronx, offer them a one-way ticket to go and live in Gabon. The AIDS rate in western Africa is rather high,  but there are good jobs in the Sudanese slave trade network.  If you live near Miami, stand on the beach, and when a rubber tube boat washes up, offer the passengers a one-way ticket to go and live in Havana.
     You won't get many takers.  This is because you are offering travel in the wrong direction.

     The poor people of the world are, sometimes literally, dying to get here.  This is because being poor in America is like being rich in most of the other nations of the world.   Except for a few nuts like that Moslem from Marin County, nobody is dying to get away.
     How could I say the poor here live like kings compared to billions around the globe? Read on.
      The nature of the gap between the rich and the poor in America is different than the nature of the gap between the rich and the poor in other nations for two reasons.

     Difference number one: A lavish support structure..  A poor family in Appalachia lives in a trailer of their choosing, owns a pickup, has free basic medical care, food stamps and free education for their kids through 12 grades,at least.  A poor family in the People's Democratic Republic of the Congo has no home, no car, no medical care, no food and no way to educate their children. 
     And, that's just for starters.

     The Appalachian family has at least two radios, at least one color television, a washing machine, a refrigerator, electric lights, and indoor toilets connected to a city sewer or a septic drain system. Because of the public health system in America, diseases that to this day ravage the populations of other nations are literally gone from this land.  Measles, smallpox, malaria, tuberculosis and dozens of other killers are so rare here that they are news.  The safety of the food supply is the best in the world.  The highway system is the best in the world.  The firemen and policemen are the best in the world.  The emergency medical assistence system is the best in the world.  Because of all of these, the lifespan of the poor in America is twice that of 90% of the nations of the world.  Because of all these facts, the next item is a fact.

    Difference number two: capitalism is disinterested in class:. In this country, you can work your way off food stamps and out of the trailer.  There's always a way up.  That's not true in other places.   India and Cuba, for example, operate under the caste system.  India with dozens of societal castes, is trying to fix that problem, but for the time being if you're born in one of the lower ones you are locked out of the good money, period..  With Communism's two castes, you can't fix that problem.  It's the nature of the beast.  In Cuba, as in the old Soviet Union and present day North Korea, if you're in with the Party bosses, you live well.. If not, you join the 99.99999999% of the rest of the nation in gray bureaucratic poverty, jail or a grave.

    As zillions of Asians, Cubans, South Americans and eastern Europeans have proven, nobody is trapped in any economic class, here.  Last year, America had between10,000 and 20,000 new millionaires.  The vast majority of them did not fit the pattern portrayed so often by Haynes and his pals: white, Ivy league men from an old-money, east coast family.  (The famed WASP from the right boarding schools and the right colleges, whose family vacations in the right Hamptons next to the right neighbors.)
     Most of the white folks who made it last year were, in fact, the first in their family history to even start a business.
     Anybody can make it here if their health holds up, they don't throw their money out the window on dumb purchases like drugs, and they are willing to work their butts off.

     Asians love this system. The only economic barrier they face here these days is the race-based bias of liberalism.  Until Ward Connerly, a rich black man, almost single-handedly brought the practice down, the hard-working, highly-intelligent children of Asian immigrants were being shut out of the top schools in California.  Blacks with lower test scores and lower secondary school grades were given "points" for being black -- and were awarded entrance into the best colleges while better Asian students were denied opportunity.
      That is racism, folks. A degree from Stanford is worth more in terms of post-college income than a degree from the University of Lodi.

          That quota system, by the way,  proved that Affirmative Action isn't a corrective for past discrimination via slavery.  I can't find mention of any Asian from California or anywhere else who owned a slave plantation in the South before the Civil War.  A few black American farmers had black slaves back then, it seems.  But that's logical when you look at the history of slavery.  Black slaves working for black masters was probably standard procedure in Africa before Caucasians or Asians appeared on the planet..  In fact, it's a widespread practice in Africa to this day

       Haynes' liberal pals aren't happy about Equal Opportunity for Asians in California schools.  They spend lots of time scamming ways to get around the Connerly initiative, so are still shutting off educational opportunity for some Asians.  But,  they can't stop Asians from opening businesses.  Haynes and his redistributionist pals can't stop them from working night and day, from teaching their children to study hard and stay out of trouble, from watching every penny until they save enough to open a store, a service station, a repair business or a restaurant. 
       Haynes and his redistributionist pals can't stop them from making true the dream of America.  The dream that caused them to leave their homes and travel to a foreign land where they didn't know the language or the customs, then just like my Irish ancestors in New York, fight to get jobs in the sewers or as servants or yard sweepers to the rich folks -- and so begin their journey towards a better life for themselves and a better future for their kids.

       Haynes and his redistributionist pals will never get it.  They will continue writing books about the income gap in America.  With their press activities they will support redistribution of wealth instead of creation of wealth.  They will praise the liberals who daily steal the job-creating private wealth of America to use as bribes to buy the votes of the people who have been convinced by this same media that they haven't a chance. 
       When you see the words "economically disadvantaged," that's Haines or one of his redistributionist pals. It's a very different message than if they simply said "poor."  Disadvantaged is a word that means unequal.  Poor merely means you don't have much money.  Disadvantaged is a class war word.  It blames the low income of the poor on the unfair, suppressive tactics of the rich. Poor is a word that is useless to redistributionists because it doesn't make anybody into a victim and then blame somebody rich for the problem.

        Johnson's The Best of Times is intended as an ironic title that points toward what he sees as the worst of times. He apparently wants a French Revolution in America.  Off with the heads of the rich!  What we need is socialist change!  
        Ask a first-generation Asian about that.  Somebody who came from a place where he had to eat rats, live in a ditch and could be jailed for looking at the wrong guy.  Go to his prosperous store and ask him why Asians love America.  I know why.  For them, America is truly a land of opportunity. 
       God love 'em, they put the lie to claims that people who aren't connected to the WASPS can't succeed.  They prove that attitude, not fairy tail barriers,  is what keeps people from prospering, here.  They're a far, far better brand of American than Haynes and his redistributionist pals. Unlike them, Asians know a good thing when they see it.  (LL)