Poverty Induced by Socialism Is Hard to Shake

Empty meat market     Photo: Octavian Paul Draja

To say that poverty induced by socialist dictatorships is hard to shake would be an understatement. Ask Cubans and now Venezuelans what is like to live in the workers’ paradise that Fidel forced upon his people while he stashed away billions he has stolen with his cronies.

The socialist dictator Hugo Chavez left behind billions in personal bank accounts while Venezuelans struggle to survive under his socialist successor Maduro, who mismanaged the economy just as badly. One of the nations with the richest oil supplies cannot feed its people and provide basic goods that Americans take for granted, bread, milk, butter, diapers, detergent, just to name a few, and must spend hours each day in endless lines to find what they need if they are lucky.

Most people are confused about poverty and each person and economists define it differently. People, who desire socialism and are voting for either Bernie the borderline Marxist or Hillary the Socialist, complain endlessly how unjust and rigged the system is, how the Man keeps them down and there is no equality and social justice. Nobody seems to have any idea about personal responsibility and work ethic.

When compared to most countries in the world, American “poverty” is a bonanza from heaven paid for by government largesse with taxpayers’ money. This government largesse will eventually come to an end when it runs out of other people’s money and it can no longer print trillions once hyperinflation sets in.

According to many Romanians, including hundreds of thousands of poor gypsies who refuse to integrate into normal society and change their lives, Romanians are the citizens impoverished by the communist party and their Securitate successors after the revolution of 1989 when communism ended officially on paper.  Twenty-seven years later, not much has changed for most rural populations.

The online news expunere.com reported that fifty percent of Romanians are very poor and 54 percent of rural inhabitants do not have an occupation.  Most children raised in rural areas have one family member working or the family depends entirely on social welfare.  According to this source, 72 percent of rural families cannot provide their five-year olds a minimum acceptable diet, resulting in malnutrition and disease - 225,000 children go to bed hungry.

To make matters worse, 37 percent of people fifteen years and older are functionally illiterate – they either cannot read or cannot write correctly. In the rural area, 20 percent of children have only an eighth grade education. Citing Eurostat, the overall school dropout rate in 2014 was 18 percent. Unemployment in rural areas among young people, 18-24 years old, was 22 percent. http://www.expunere.com/jumatate-din-populatia-romanieie-este-afectata-de-saracie-in-mediul rural-54-din-localnici-nu-au-ocupatie.html

The standard of living, while vastly improved for people in most large cities, remained the same in the suburbs and rural areas where no significant progress in terms of infrastructure has been made. People live and die trudging through deep ruts in the mud of mostly unpaved roads, carrying water from the village well because nobody has running water or sewer pipes. Outhouses dot the landscape.

In a comment to the poverty news, Silvia Cristescu stated  that “all corrupt individuals who fall under the investigation of the National Directorate of Anti-Corruption (Directia Nationala Anticoruptie or DNA) were members of the former Romanian Communist Party and their heirs. All who defrauded the country, she said, are pro-Russian communists and their children. 

The more than four million Romanian citizens she believes, who left the country for greener pastures of economic opportunity and freedom, understood perfectly who robbed the country blind.  A large percentage of this diaspora voted anti-Ponta, anti-PSD (Social Democrat Party), and anti-socialism. “The enemy of the country is socialism, Marxist atheism of KGB origins,” said Cristescu.

In her view, those who sold the national forests, the land, the factories, and other items in the patrimony of the country, were the same individuals who rejected serious foreign investors under the pretext that they were not “selling the country” but sold everything they could in secret. After all, they knew all the ropes and judges, and, without accountability and fear of the law, pocketed the money, enriching themselves beyond belief.

When honest Romanians tried to replace these former Securitate members who were running for office or incumbents, their votes were stolen by those who were bribed to vote favorably or, not unlike here, mysterious boxes were discovered with hundreds of thousands of votes for the presidential candidate the people did not want.

The Russian KGB influence was so strong in Romania that overturning the disaster of socialism is still a daily battle that takes place today. Socialism will eventually die with the older people who grew up under the mentality of socialist dependency.

However, young people who have no experience, no historical knowledge or recollection of how bad it was under a socialist dictatorship, are lured today into the promise and blind belief that socialism is egalitarian and socially just, the same leitmotif running through the strident and eager-for-their-own-demise collegiate voting crowd, the very ignorant millennials.

Some Romanians take comfort in the fact that Christian America is on their side, that there is now a strategically placed American military base around Constanta, and that socialism will collapse in Romania. Unfortunately, there are many NGOs at work on the ground in Romania that interfere in its politics with loads of cash and grants that are hard to resist, given the stressed economic situation there.

 

 

Being a Conservative

When I was a young woman, my liberal academic colleagues would ask, how I could possibly be a conservative since I was a teacher, a single mother of two, and quite poor, way below the government-established poverty line.

I shrugged my shoulders and ignored the question every time. I knew I could not sway their basic core beliefs, no matter what I said. How could they understand what it was like living under a tyrannical Marxist government? Even people on welfare in this country, who consider themselves poor and whine about economic inequality, the greedy rich, and the “evil capitalism,” live better than 99.9 percent of people on the planet.

The current young and very liberal generations accuse their elders of not wanting change and not understanding the need to protect the environment at all costs. As a conservative, I embrace change that is meaningful, not change that would “fundamentally transform” who we are. I do not wish to become beholden to government for my every need.

I have certainly experienced my share of administrators in the academia who changed things to adjust curriculum to the latest teaching methods coming from the most liberal college professors in the nation who needed something to do in order to justify their huge salaries, their tenure, and to be published. “Publish or perish” liberal ideas was paramount, teaching was an inconvenience.

Others made changes because they could and were on a power trip. Absolute power is quite intoxicating to liberals. After the buzz wore off, when the student results were worse, we would always revert to the old tried and true teaching methods. In the meantime, students suffered.

The accusation from the most entitled generation of Americans, the Millenials, that we are too old to understand the need for protecting the environment is bizarre. We did more to safeguard nature in one month than they did their entire spoiled lives.

I never had a washer and dryer until my mid-twenties. Most of the generation I grew up with still does not have a washing machine much less a dryer. We used the clothesline, the very one the Home Owners Associations consider unsightly and forbid it.

A vacuum cleaner was a pipe dream. We beat the dust out of the old carpets with a wooden paddle, while hanging wool rugs on a metal bar or on the balcony. Refrigerators were out of reach for most people. We bought food every day or used the windowsill in wintertime. We never heard of freezers, hair driers, curlers, and other electrical household appliances Americans have and do not appreciate.

We did not have a TV until I was in high school, much less a TV in every room. The one person on the block who had TV first, held parties for everybody to watch a movie or soccer on weekends.

We did not feel entitled and did not demand reparations from the nationalities that invaded our lands, enslaved us, and confiscated our properties. We started over, worked hard, and saved what we could. It was shameful to steal from others.

We walked everywhere, took the bus, and the train, if we could afford it. No school bus picked us up and dropped us at the door every day. We walked. Nobody fed us free lunches at school or any lunches for that matter. The government was subsidizing the prices of our food so why would they also feed us free.

If we give food stamps to 43 million people, why do we have to feed the very same families’ kids three free meals at school? What happened to parental responsibility? Since when does the government become the sole provider for one’s livelihood? Is Uncle Sam now our family? Have we become so helpless?

The ignorant Occupiers who protest Wall Street and the rich, busy themselves with the latest electronic gadgets made possible by the opportunity found under capitalism to develop and market ideas that are forbidden in totalitarian societies. Instead of pointing fingers at the rich and demanding their wealth, why don’t they ask the President where the promised jobs are?

Difficult times are appropriate moments to accept welfare until one’s economic situation improves. However, to become a life-long welfare recipient of government dole while contributing nothing to society is not acceptable in a free society. Sadly, we are becoming entirely dependent on government. We have become a dumbed-down entitlement society. The ruling class encourages mediocrity, dependence, poverty, criminality, and laziness.

Our society provides ample opportunities for every citizen to become the best they can be, but it does not guarantee equal outcome. You must work hard to achieve your goals and you are not entitled to someone else’s labor just because you have made bad choices or you had bad luck. Life is not fair and we do not need government and liberals to make everything and everyone economically equal by punishing the achievers.

Conservatives think logically and are typically not ruled by emotion. Liberals, on the other hand, propose lunatic ideas such as establishing a BBC/PBS International University to spread Marxism, or banning the tourist and travel industries entirely because it is human collective madness to use energy in such a wasteful way. In the liberal illogical mind, forbidding mobility and controlling people with Marxist drivel and indoctrination are necessary in order to establish their envisioned global primitive and just society. The liberals’ hero, Karl Marx, was a bum.

I am a conservative because I take pride in a good day’s work and enjoy the financial and non-monetary rewards that come with hard work. My heart swells with pride that I can take care of my family. I am satisfied that I enlightened someone’s life. Perhaps I helped them understand a difficult aspect of economics; maybe I showed them how to edit a paper, taught them a few words in a foreign language, or instructed them on how to properly study for a test.

I will reluctantly accept help if I am too sick and unable to provide for my loved ones and myself. Nobody owes me anything and I do not feel entitled to someone else’s wealth, nor am I envious of someone’s good fortune, education, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, or hard work.

I will never be a liberal because I have too much pride, I want to be free, and I believe strongly that only God can take life away.