My Musings on Bolshevik Confiscation

Holodomor genocide

When the Bolsheviks started coming around the farms in Romania, the farmers met them with suspicion and refused to listen to Russian agents who spoke marginal Romanian.  Some fell for the ruse and the empty promises of socialism. Those who did not were eventually shot in front of the village as an effective terror tactic and their priests, who often preached against the Bolsheviks, were thrown from the church tower and killed, again in front of the entire village for maximum effect of brutality.

The city people did not have much to lose, of course, as you know, there were sweat shops everywhere and the lure of getting something for nothing, of getting even with the rich and stealing their stuff was too much for such poor and famished people. They fell for Bolshevism quite quickly. By the time they realized that the Bolsheviks had no intention of dividing what they stole but kept it for themselves, it was too late - guns had been confiscated, land, personal property, etc., and villagers had been moved by force into grey concrete block apartments in the city, built quickly and unsafely to house as many of them as possible.

The more prominent useful idiots such as journalists, doctors, engineers, teachers, professors, and other boot-licking lackeys had been killed too in order to frighten into compliance what was left of them so that they would become good little socialists and then communists if the communist party agreed to take them in.

My grandfather had buried a small tractor in his back yard but the neighbors told the Bolsheviks and they dug it up. They stole even his mantel clock so he could not tell time. The smirking Russian hanged it around his neck with a thick farm chain.

The Bolsheviks slaughtered his cow, the pig, the chickens, and all other domesticated animals that could have made a meal for the angry Russian soldiers who were the "liberators" at the end of WWII. They took the family jewels and all the money.

During WWII, the Germans had been garrisoned at the edge of the village (Romania was allied with Germany in World War II, Ploiesti had rich oil reserves and several refineries to process it into gasoline) and they seldom took anything from a farmer without asking and without just compensation.

I have no sympathy for the Nazis and their evil war machine and empire, but their doctors took care of the village sick according to my grandfather. One skilled surgeon stitched the face of mom's best friend (10 years old), who had been bitten by a horse that had ripped her entire right cheek off. There was no cost to the family and minimum scarring. In other words, the Russian soldiers and the Bolsheviks that followed in their footsteps were worse than the German soldiers during WWII and at the end of the war.

Hitler conquered his people through total bribery at first. When he took over the Social Democrat Party, they had a little over three dollars in their treasury and argued whether they should spend it to buy a rubber stamp or save it; the Weimar Republic was a total disaster and people were suffering economically. How hard was it for him to promise economic reforms and a better standard of living and actually delivering on those promises? He was a charismatic speaker and he became a "Gott" overnight. He promised a Volkswagen for every family. Germany prospered under his rule but then he showed his real face and started demonizing certain groups of people, confiscated their businesses and wealth, invented the faux superior race, and the rest is history.

You already know what Stalin did to his people and the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainian farmers at Holodomor in 1932-1933..

The Deliberate Misconception of Socialism

Meme found on Facebook

If you do a Google search of the definition of socialism, you will find a progressive definition of socialism and a progressive definition of socialism in history, both of which are historically incorrect. Both definitions bear a glaring discrepancy to reality and embody the progressives’ utopian dreams.

The first progressive definition of socialism is a “political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.” This could not be further from the truth. No community could regulate or own anything under socialism.

The definition of socialism in history is also factually incorrect. It defines socialism as a “range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers’ self-management.” Workers never self-managed under socialism. They may have hidden at work in a warehouse to take naps during the workday but that would be the extent of self-management.

The real definition of a socialist society is the government’s ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Not at any point could the proletariat self-manage, they were told what to do by apparatchiks under the strict guidance of the Communist Party. Socialism was and still is a pre-cursor stage to communism.

The aggressive mass media, academia, and social media controllers’ agenda of indoctrination of the population is obvious at every corner by those of us who studied real (not manufactured) history and have lived under socialism.

The handsomely paid agents of indoctrination know what they are doing, and it seems to be working well with the low information voters and their fellow travelers who use Facebook and other social media as a source of information via memes cleverly designed for maximum misinformation/disinformation.

For example, a recent meme designed by Uncle Jack states “Republicans want you to be afraid of socialism! ‘Socialism’ means that we pool our resources to provide things for everyone! In America today, that includes: fire departments, police departments, public schools, public hospitals, veterans benefits, national weather service, roads and bridges, unemployment insurance, drinking water, military, NTSA, Medicare, Social Security, FEMA, G.I. Bill, Food and Drug Safety, CDC, NASA, sewers, bank deposit insurance, hazardous waste disposal and clean-up.” It continues by asking in boldface lettering reminiscent of Halloween, “So which of these current SOCIALIST programs scare you?”

For starters none of those listed represent socialism, they are services provided by the local, state, and federal governments with taxpayer funds accumulated from taxation, dues, fees, etc.

Schools are paid by property taxes in the U.S.  Under socialism, nobody owns property because the government controls everything. Schools are indoctrination tools run by the government and their indoctrinated teaching agents.

Police departments in the U.S. can apply for grants from the federal government under strict guidelines from agencies such as the USDA’s Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program. Tax dollars from citizens pay for police and firefighters and each state is vastly different. Under socialism, the government controls the police and its funding under different levels of monitoring in order to keep the population under control.

Public hospitals are funded by the Department of Health. Patients pay a small nominal fee.

Health care is paid for by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, private health insurance, and by out-of-pocket expenditures.

Developed countries except for the U.S. have partially or fully, publicly funded health care systems. They are not free; they are either financed by heavy taxation or via compulsory health insurance. Nothing is FREE.

In the U.S., state and local health departments receive their funds from grants (taxpayers’ money) given by the Prevention and Public Health Fund established under the Affordable Care Act passed by Obama in 2010 at Christmas time, with only Democrat input.

Medicare is financed through payroll taxes, premiums, and federal tax revenues.

Medicaid is tax-funded and administered by the individual states which operate the program with federal guidelines. Some individuals get free medical care while others must pay a nominal fee. Illegal immigrants and asylum refugees receive free care from the moment they cross our borders unlawfully.

In 2017, the U.S. spent about $3.5 trillion or 18% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health expenditures more than twice the average among other developed countries.

According to taxpolicy.org in 2018 the federal government alone spent $1.1 trillion on health care; $583 billion on Medicare, $399 billion on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP) and $70 billion on veterans’ medical care.

Medical organizations are funded by credit, venture capital, donations, grants, savings, subsidies, and taxes. Such medical organizations did not exist under socialism.

Veterans benefits was approved by Congress’ $86.5 billion in discretionary funding. The money comes from federal taxation which all working Americans pay. The U.S. Department of Veteran affairs requested a total of $220.2 billion in fiscal year 2020, a 9.6 percent increase over 2019.

Veterans were promised benefits for their service for their country and active duty in peacetime and wars. Their salaries are much lower and are not commensurate with their sacrifice. These veteran benefits are not welfare, they have earned them. They pay health insurance premiums for their medical care.

The national weather service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government and is funded by taxpayer dollars. We did not have a national weather service system under socialism. We were on our own when disaster struck, and nobody warned us beforehand. The government did not see fit to invest in such endeavor because nobody paid ANY taxes. We were serfs to the government’s whims.

Roads and bridges are funded through federal grants to state and local governments via taxation. One-quarter of spending on roads and bridges comes from the federal government, the rest financed by state and local governments. Gas taxes, tolls, user fees, license plate taxes, income, sales and property taxes are used to maintain infrastructure which varies from state to state. The Highway Trust Fund for highway and mass transit programs awards grants to localities and states. Under socialism, paved roads were scarce and deficient because there were no taxes levied by the government or paid by the proletariat.

Unemployment insurance is paid by employers and is not a feature of socialism.  It is a tax collected by state and federal governments. It is part of payroll taxes. The employer payroll taxes include: Social Security taxes (6.2%), Medicare taxes (1.45% of wages), and federal unemployment taxes (FUTA).

Drinking water is controlled by the Safe Drinking Water Act which authorizes the EPA, a federal agency supported with taxpayer dollars of those who pay taxes. The act establishes minimum standards to protect tap water and requires all private, public owners or operators of public water systems to comply with the standards. Water infrastructure includes systems of water supply, treatment, storage, water resource management, flood prevention, and hydropower. Different private and public owners and agencies control the water infrastructure. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary.

Under socialism, the government controlled the water supply and delivery. Rivers and canals were polluted, water was substandard, and it was delivered whenever the government rulers decided to do so. A few hours during the day cold water flowed, but hot water was in short supply or non-existent, and, in summer time, there was no water at all as the mighty government had to do maintenance for three months and the people were supplied drinking water via cisterns that combed the neighborhoods.

Sewage treatment is the responsibility of each municipal wastewater treatment plants. It is a service provided to the citizens for a monthly fee. It is not socialism either as these are owned by various towns and even private companies that have invested in the wastewater treatment facilities.

The four branches of the military, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force are funded by Congress through the federal budget. The money comes from taxation and again, it is federalism, not socialism. For FY 2019, the Department of Defense budget is approximately $693 billion.

Social Security is not socialism, on the contrary, it is welfare for the federal government which dips into the fund to transfer money to other agencies, for other spending as they see fit. The Social Security program is funded by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, a payroll tax. The tax is assessed at a rate of 6.2% of income paid by employer, and another 6,2% paid by employee. The self-employed pay the full 12.4% tax. “The money that employees and employers pay into the fund through taxes is not the same money that you will receive later in life.”

FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency established by executive order by President Carter in 1979 which merged many disaster-related responsibilities at the federal level. It is funded by taxpayer dollars. It is not socialism at all. Socialist governments usually leave their citizens to deal on their own with natural disasters and wait on capitalist nations such as the U.S. to donate food, water, blankets, medical help, and other resources when disasters strike. I know because we survived a terrible earthquake in 1977 and we went hungry, cold, and homeless for days, and had to find our own sources of water.

G.I. Bill is a term that refers to any educational benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to members of Active Duty, Selected Reserve and National Guard Armed Forces, and their families. The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning WWII veterans. The G.I. Bill is part of their otherwise low military pay, for their service, sacrifice, and putting their lives on the line, it is not an entitlement and not socialism as the lefties imply.

Food and Drug Safety falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration (a taxpayer funded bureaucracy) which “protects the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, and by ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” There is no socialism there.

CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is a federal agency (taxpayer funded) under the Department of Health and Human Services and as such it receives federal funding from Congress with funds from taxpayers.

CDC Foundation receives charitable contributions and philanthropic grants from individuals, foundations, corporations, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other organizations to advance the work of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is not socialism. Socialist governments do not have the equivalent of the CDC.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civilian space program. It is funded by research opportunities with other government agencies, private, and non-profit sectors. It has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it benefits from the existence of capitalism. Socialist governments did not have money for such research or even other types of research. There is a reason why most discoveries came from capitalist economies, never socialist ones. Barack Obama defunded NASA’s shuttle space flights and research in 2010. Since then, NASA bought seats on the Russian space flights.

Bank deposit insurance protect deposits of individuals covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This is a private corporation with shareholders even though the name federal implies ownership by the U.S. government – it is not. The deposit insurance fund is mandated by law for each Federal Reserve Bank to set aside money and to pay back up to $100,000 per depositor in case of failure of a financial institution.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) does not receive Congressional money, it is funded by insurance payments made by banks. So, it has nothing to do with socialism, on the contrary, it is capitalist finance. Socialism has one bank only, that which is owned by the central government and they do whatever they want with the depositor’s cash. They often confiscate at whim the funds of citizens they don’t deem socialist enough or who have offended the socialist government in some way.

Hazardous waste disposal and clean-up funding comes from taxpayers; states pay ten percent of cleanup costs, fifty percent if the state operated the facility responsible for contamination, and the company which polluted is responsible for cleanup. By law, the parties responsible for use, transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous substances/waste and oil are liable for costs. This is not socialism at all.

As we can plainly see, the disinformation of the Left is quite insidious and unfortunately millions and millions of low information voters and illegal aliens who vote but don’t speak English, fall for the Left’s inflammatory, misinformed, deceitful rhetoric and memes which are generously funded by billionaires who stand to profit from their deception.

A Comforter for Comfort

Photo wikipedia

An unknown grandma in her winter kitchen that looked 

just like grandma Elena's

The temperatures dropped overnight to almost freezing. I added another snowy white cotton blanket on the bed and, as the soft material flurried to the bed surface like pristine snow, a flashback from my childhood hit me – grandma Elena’s heavy comforter, “plapuma” as we called it, maroon on one side and dark blue on the other. It was stuffed with plenty of wool for warmth, extremely heavy, and just big enough to cover the full-size bed.  I had no idea how she washed it, I never saw her do it, I only saw it hanging on the fence, airing it out from time to time. It had a duvet soft cover which was washed periodically.

The comforter was hand-quilted on both sides with heavy wool and a very large and long needle that managed to penetrate all the layers of wool batting. We had to sleep in fetal position, cuddling for warmth, lest feet and hands dangled outside and got cold during the night in such low temperatures that often frosted the windowpanes.

The pillows were stuffed with the chicken feathers we sacrificed for protein from time to time when the hens stopped laying eggs. Feathers were still attached to quills that would poke us through the pillowcase fabric and sometimes made their way out floating to the ground. The inner cases were made of thick and heavy fabric meant to contain the feathers. The outward decorative pillowcases were a work of art, hand-embroidered with flowers and intricate stitchery, starched and pressed with love and perfection. Such pillowcases and matching embroidered sheets were part of a bridal trunk dowry. Nobody had fitted sheets for their mattresses or a box spring for that matter.

If we were lucky the mattress was stuffed with seaweed or shorn wool, washed, combed, and dried. Many in the village had rough jute mattresses stuffed with straw and were glad to have it.

In summertime the beds were adorned with thin woven blankets with intricate patterns and quite colorful. Aunt Ana was a master weaver who made such beautiful blankets in her loom which occupied a small room in her home. I still see her sitting in front of the threads of the looms, feeding wooden spools of thread through, one row at a time, a work of art that took months to complete. It was fascinating to watch her work so fast, never missing a string in the complicated weave. Row after row she had to change the spools with colors that completed whatever complicated patterns she was working on. She never used a paper blueprint, it was all in her head, her eagle eyes, and her hands.

I am looking at my comforter, silky synthetic material probably woven and manufactured in China by skillful hands. The cleaners will dry it on their racks or driers, no exposure on the fence or pooping birds while drying it fully. It is comfortable, light, warm, and useful but it is not a work of art made by aunt Ana’s skillful hands.

I remember grandma Elena making small rugs from hand-woven strips of old clothes, rugs just big enough to step on when we first got out of bed and the room was just above freezing temperatures. She did not want us to step on the cold floor. And the ever-present chamber pot was hidden under the wooden bed which grandpa had fashioned in his little shop attached to the house, a modest lean-to that was absolutely frigid in winter.

The communists did not bother to produce comforters, it was up to a few skilled hands in the city or in the village who produced enough to sell to other people for a modest fee. I was always in awe that the Communist Party allowed such home-artisans to make something. I suppose since it was such an unprofitable endeavor, if you took into account the number of hours devoted vs. the actual price, they did not bother to censure its existence.

If Socialism and Communism Are Great, Why 100 Million Victims and So Many Freedom Fighters

The mainstream media outlets inform us, reading from the daily Democrat Party briefings, that 7 in 10 Millennials are burning to vote Socialist even though they are not sure what Socialism is and 1 in 3 Millennials think Communism is great even though they’ve heard nothing about the millions of victims of communism around the world, many buried in mass graves which are still being discovered.

It is clear to those of us who escaped communism that Millennials and their assorted fellow travellers have been asleep in history classes or were reading the radical Howard Zinn’s “nuanced” social justice history book from the 1980 which is widely used in America’s schools.

Rostislav, who escaped Soviet oppression, said the following regarding the Millennials and the low information voters. “I remember a really heroic story which was secretly told to me in Arctic Siberia by Moldovan exiles. It was about Toma Arnautu group of simple peasants, who had more than enough ‘high-information’ to fight against Communists ten long years from their wild hideout deep in the mountains, until some greedy ‘compatriot’ sold them out to be tortured and shot by the Securitate henchmen. So, what I’d like to say? I’d like to say that, whatever any modern voters for theoretical Socialism may say, I don't care about their cheap reasons and justifications: I do know the horrible practices of their precious theories only too well. Hence the memory of great freedom fighters like Toma Arnautu is always helping me to be true to our mutual ideals of freedom.”

The anticommunist resistance in Romania was a popular uprising against the communist dictatorship and the Soviet occupation; it started in Bucovina in 1944 when the Soviet Red Army invaded North Bucovina and lasted through the very repressive Ceausescu years of the 1980s.

The first act of resistance against the Bolsheviks was organized by the Romanian monarchy itself which established a special battalion in Bucovina to fight against the Soviet invasion. Armed partisans organized as well shortly thereafter. After the partisan support ended in 1946 the partisans took to the mountains and organized a resistance there where it was harder to track and capture them. But the traitors among them enabled the communists to take control in the 1950s of most of those who mounted an armed opposition to communism and executed the leaders and the followers.

When the Russians “liberated” Romania, they robbed and disorganized the country. I remember grandpa telling me that the Russian liberators of their village stole everything that was not nailed down. He had a precious mantel clock stolen; the Russian soldier hung it with a chain around his neck as he was departing.

The two hundred or more Russian communist community organizers, who spoke broken Romanian, appeared overnight and fanned out around the country to spread anarchy and to install people to power who were foreign and did not care about the laws of the country, they only cared about the spread of their ideology – communism. https://despredemnitate.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cicerone-ionitoiu-rezistenta-anticomunista.pdf

Records released after 1989 show that the resisting armed partisans called themselves “haiduci,” causing disruptions to the Communist Party dictatorship. Dispersed but ever-present around the Carpathian Mountains, they caused constant headaches for the communists who presented said “haiduci” as ordinary isolated thieves in the employ of the evil capitalists.

Any “structural opposition of the cultural and intellectual elites” was eliminated with the help of the Security forces and the Soviet agents working in Romania. The state, with centralized power in the hands of uneducated and ignorant Communist Party apparatchiks, was in shambles due to the inability of the communists to plan for a successful economic outcome. The extraordinary numbers of informers among the population propped up the pillaging communists who remained in power through coercion, fear, and population starvation.

The intensive surveillance, repression, and oppression started with Teohari Georgescu, “the head of the Ministry of the Interior between 1948 and 1952. That period was a stage of adjustment of the Securitate’s leaders to the staff policy of the newly created institution.” Georgescu’s Securitate goons became the weaponized arm of the Communist Party. He used the Securitate police forces to maintain the power and control of the Communist Party and of the oppressive state. http://www.cnsas.ro/documente/caiete/Caiete_CNSAS_nr_7-8_2011.pdf

There is a long list of doctors, engineers, teachers, priests, lawyers, painters, farmers, even socialists themselves who were deemed not socialist enough, and other professionals who were executed by communists because they dissented and refused to be oppressed by the Russian Bolsheviks and their new communist recruits in Romania. http://www.procesulcomunismului.com/marturii/fonduri/ioanitoiu/morminte2/docs/morminte2p_7.htm

Cicerone Ionitoiu wrote, “For 12 years (1946-1958) anti-communism fighters, supported by the population from the villages nearby, resisted heroically to attacks by Securitate troops. Thousands of people were involved in this fight. The population of villages at the bottom of the mountains who provided them [patriots] with food and clothing, if not executed themselves right away, filled the jails and concentration camps.” Cicerone memorialized events, names, and villages.https://despredemnitate.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cicerone-ionitoiu-rezistenta-anticomunista.pdf

The resistors fought hard against the Soviet-aided communist theft and confiscation of property, arrests and crimes committed by Bolsheviks and their newly indoctrinated recruits. These communist crimes lasted for forty years. The Romanian people never collaborated with the dictatorship, but traitors existed who sold their families for extra food and other privileges. https://despredemnitate.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cicerone-ionitoiu-rezistenta-anticomunista.pdf

By the time communism “fell” in 1989, few dissidents were still alive, and the former communists regrouped into a liberal class of entrepreneurs who stole funds from the former communist regime, a class of prosperous men and women with no scruples and a conscience. http://www.cnsas.ro/documente/caiete/Caiete_CNSAS_nr_7-8_2011.pdf

Executed in front of their families, thrown from church towers, or shot en masse in front of the entire village or neighborhoods in order to make an example of them and stifle any possible future resistance, these victims deserve to be remembered in a memorial dedicated to their sacrifice in the fight against communism. The victims of the communist regimes around the world over decades have grown to 100 million.  When will they have their museum and a Nuremberg-style trial to reveal the horrors of communism?

Unfortunately Millennials in America will never understand what socialism and communism are because their history textbooks gloss over that part of history and glorify murderous individuals like Che Guevara, Castro, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ceausescu, and other communist dictators who were responsible for the death of millions of dissenters to communism.

In a positive step, President Klaus Iohannis of Romania inaugurated in May 2016 a monument dedicated to the communist resistance and had it placed in front of the Free Press House, the very place formerly adorned in 1960-1990 by a huge statue of Lenin. https://cersipamantromanesc.wordpress.com/tag/securitatea-si-miscarea-anticomunista/

Social Justice Politics Have Made Their Way into Romania

President Klaus Johannis and his wife

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2018

Politics in general have always been dirty, hard to grasp, and corrupt, but lately it has been irrational, based on the current low information electorate who, although bombarded with more information than ever, is more easily swayed or bullied into submission to a predetermined result.

People still vote based on their own preconceived notions, interests, the candidate personal charisma, their philosophy, and misinformation from the MSM they accept as absolute truth, without bothering to check on their own either because they are either too busy or too lazy. Electioneering by volunteers or by paid individuals further muddies the waters. People know that politics make strange bedfellows.

Some individuals promise their votes for empty promises, a drink, a chicken in every pot, a cheap cell phone, walking around cash, higher salaries, government contracts, or a sought-after position – it depends how high the voting stakes are.

The political atmosphere in Romania is as frustrating as that in America, involving many parties in Parliament, with a vast cadre of uneducated people, characters in a reality show composed of “red herrings” – misleading puppets and distractions from the larger picture in which the real global movers and shakers perform their acts of social engineering in an effort to destroy statehood and distinct historical nations with boundaries.

One of the global movers, the European Union, has appointed Laura Codrut Kovesi to one of its higher posts of European Chief Prosecutor, in an effort to show Romanians that their voices matter in the EU’s overall globalist effort. Nobody can accuse them of not being inclusive, they now have another rubber stump for their plans. She is much beloved by young Romanians and by Transylvanians who are much more cosmopolitan and globalist inclined.

In the name of the law and anti-corruption, she was chosen to create an institution in which orders are followed in order to introduce the desired outcome.

Politics and loyalties are upside down in Romania. The global #resisters who work for NGOs (non-governmental organizations) claim to be liberals on the right. Those on the left, who tend to be nostalgic for communism, are quite dumb as politicians go and are very nationalistic which infuriates the #resisters.

Communists allegedly no longer exist as the party has been ruled out of existence, but all children of important former communists, of Securitate personnel, of the Communist Party enforcers, and of the old torturers under communism, have cleaned up their image and have become “hashtag-ers” and big pro-Europeans.

PSD (The Social Democrat Party) with 158 seats in the Chamber of Deputies is the governing party in Parliament. PSD was founded by Ion Iliescu, the first president of Romania after the “revolution” of 1989, himself a former communist and member of the nomenklatura.

Following the “fall” of communism, Ion Iliescu served as Romania’s president until his retirement in 2008, which proves that communist indoctrination is hard to eradicate. PSD’s current leader is Viorica Dancila, Prime Minister, replacing Liviu Dragnea who was accused of “abuse of service.”

PNL (the National Liberal Party) holds second position in Parliament with 69 seats. Founded in 1990, PNL is the “conservative” liberal party, the social liberals of the party by the same name that existed in 1875-1940s under the Kingdom of Romania.

D. Roby explained that politics is very complicated in Romania. “PNL is the party of the mainstream, PSD is the euro-skeptic party, and USR (Uniunea Salvati Romania) is the sort of the Soros-educated party filled with people who range in spectrum from globalists, to Hungarian nationalists, to young people in Cluj [western Transylvania] who hate Bucharest [the capital] and dream of getting autonomy for Transylvania and one day separating from the rest of Romania.”

President Johannis, a Transylvanian from Brasov and a Romanian of German heritage, was a potential successor to the European Commission President but he did not make the cut to replace Junker. President Johannis may or may not be a globalist but he sees Romania’s success in the future tied to its participation in international institutions such as the European Union. Romania became EU member in 2007.

D. Roby said that “Romania imports more consumer goods than it exports” and, as a result, the majority of people in Romania, who are still poor by European standards, are paying for overpriced imports from Western Europe, sometimes produced with inputs purchased cheaply from Romania, (i.e. native berries which grown abundantly in Romania are made into an expensive berry preserve in Germany) when Romanians could have produced such consumption goods cheaper on their own domestic market.

Additionally, many consumption goods are inferior in quality, produced specifically for the Romanian market. Roby cited a recent scandal in which Milka chocolate bars made in Germany for export into Romania allegedly tasted different than the chocolate bars made in the same factory for the German market due to the use of cheaper ingredients.

Certain aspects of the reality that existed under Ceausescu’s communist party dictatorship, are still found in 2019.  “A hard-working person who makes an honest living is branded as a thief while a smart-alecky individual who lies, cheats, steals, misrepresents, and forces others to pay him/her bribes is idolized as a hero who beat the system.”

Workers are still expected to venerate the low-paying jobs and never complain when they work long hours as if they were in a labor camp. Foreign national companies are still paying skilled Romanian workers low wages and expect them to deliver stellar performance.

An article by Valentin Busuioc in Lumea Justitiei (World Justice) magazine described President Trump speech at the U.N. on September 24, 2019 as “explosive” and meant to “shut up all the propagandists from the #resist crowd in Romania who “agitate to destroy the national values in the name of globalism, no matter what the price.” Busuioc wrote that politicians in Romania should not allow themselves to be influenced by “the [globalist] dream of national traitors.”

Busuioc also touched on the political issue of the “growing industry of radical activists and non-governmental organizations that promote human trafficking. These groups encourage illegal migration and demand the erasure of national borders.” The social justice rhetoric has transformed innocent humans into pawns of the phony social justice politics of the American left. Romanians have become victims themselves to the forced economic migration quota under the guise of refugees planned by the United Nations and enforced by the EU leaders in Brussels.
https://m.luju.ro/trump-le-a-dat-moarte-rezistentilor-presedintele-sua-donald-trump-a-avut-un-discurs-fulminant-la-onu-care-sa-le-fie-lectie-vanzatorilor-romaniei-daca-vrei-libertate-fii-mandru-de-tara-ta-daca-vrei-democratie-pastreaza-ti-suveranitatea-daca-vrei-pace-iubes

Swayed by corrupt politicians whose motives they barely understand, low information Romanian voters, not unlike some of our American voters, continue to turn at the polls to elect those who will eventually dissolve their borders and their own country for which their ancestors fought so hard to preserve.

Which Retailer Will Bite the Dust Next?

Another retailer bit the dust and filed for bankruptcy, Forever21. It’s not that people don’t have the money for cheap and disposable clothes with each season and don’t spend, we are a consumerist society and the economy is booming, with the lowest unemployment rate possible, 3.7 percent in August 2019.

But people are spending money more wisely and often from their computer keyboards and the comfort of their own homes, not having to spend precious time, wear and tear on cars, gasoline, or braving public transportation to shop.

Some even find great bargains in thrift stores, estate sales, and garage sales. Amazon is thriving thanks to low delivery costs provided among others, by the USPS. If such delivery costs should increase, then the online shopping habits of U.S. consumers may change away from Amazon.

People don’t want to take the time to go shopping in a mall anymore, or in grocery stores, as home deliveries for food are relatively cheap. Time can be spent on other activities because Americans are well off compared to most other nations and can afford to pay someone else to shop for their food. Few others in the world have that luxury; they also spend much more of their disposable incomes for food. Americans spend less than 15 percent of their after-tax earnings for groceries.

Fighting crowds and long lines for the cashier at the mall is a dauting proposition that most Americans have learned to dread and avoid. In large urban areas the malls have become the hang out place for foreign youth and sometimes their parents who congregate for their communities’ latest news and gossip as they did in the places they came from.

Americans have so many options that they have no idea how other people in the world live or shop. They don’t understand lines unless it’s lines to buy a concert ticket, a football ticket, Black Friday sales, or to get into a much-desired venue. Lining up for food or necessities is an alien concept to most Americans unless they are naturalized Americans like me who grew up under the communist boot and stood in lines every day in order to find food and other necessities to survive.

Who will be the last retailer standing when the war for the American pocketbook between them and online giants like Amazon intensifies?

Amazon will be one major winner, as it has already put out of business many small and large retailers which have not adapted well or fast enough to the Internet age.

Large retailers like Walmart are trying to keep up with Amazon but many of its customers are left out of online commerce as they do not have Internet access.

Costco’s e-commerce is thriving, having experienced “an increase of 20 percent year-over-year during the company’s second quarter 2019. Growth was seen in orders, profits and other metrics, in addition to digital sales.” People bought more “groceries, consumer electronics, hardware, health and beauty aids, tire and automotive, toys, and seasonal apparel.”

Many customers boycotted retailers like Target who made it their mission to force female customers and their children to use the same bathrooms with perverts of the opposite sex. That drove away many customers who did not feel safe in their stores. Some have not returned.

Boycotts of the Christian fast food chain, Chick-fil-a, have backfired, patronage of its restaurants has increased, and the fast food chain is expanding nationally and internationally.

There will be older Americans who would still want to try on clothing and feel the fabric before they buy. For them, ordering online is a technological inconvenience. They prefer to deal with a human being, but those human beings are scarcer in large department stores as they have cut back staff to the bare minimum.

Inventories and choice are down in all department stores. The associates who are available, hail from a foreign country where the concept of customer service does not exist, so customers leave the department store disgusted and disappointed with service. Even Nordstrom, long renowned for its customer service, has come down a few notches.

Higher end clothing and luxury items will always be available but most stores that will be in competition with Amazon will stock up essentials. Everybody needs household items, cleaning supplies, sheets, towels, and basics. In the makeup department, women will still prefer to try on things before they buy the right colors.

Many think that Walmart will probably survive because one cannot yet buy enough good groceries on Amazon. Perhaps if they refine their choices. But Walmart and Target are still cheaper for most consumers.

Eileen Johnson, who worked in the beauty industry, strongly believes that “cosmetics is succeeding online. The department stores now poach their in-store business by offering better cosmetics deals and gifts online. People come to the counter, try items, take pictures of what they want, and then order online. What is currently thriving and what will be the future are Sephora and Ulta. These are unique experiences that don’t require employee intervention. The downside is that no one is knowledgeable anymore on products, but the millennials and younger generations use YouTube and cosmetic blogs to get their info anyway.”

The old boutiques and seamstress style shops might make a comeback for the very affluent. Perhaps the more enterprising and talented among us will dust off their sewing machines and start making their own clothes again. With such a possibility, fabrics, sewing patterns and essentials would make a comeback as they were quite common in the 1980s America. Some small online retailers are already offering services where they can measure their customers for the proper-fitting shirts and blue jeans.

On the other hand, if we develop into the one-party state that we are slated to become, when equal pay will kick in, only the approved attire with limited choices and colors will be sold. With equal wages, few will afford nice things, just the elites in power. The rest will only need one dress, trousers, a few shirts, a couple of uniforms, one pair of shoes or sandals, and one pair of boots, no purse or makeup and other frillies.

In communist regimes like China, people who ran afoul of the “behavioral modification” program called social scoring of the Communist Party, have already been prevented from flying. An embarrassing ring tone warns others of the presence among them of blacklisted Chinese consumers who are “bad” and “untrustworthy” as defined by the chairman of the Communist Party. They are on an undesirables list of 13 million Chinese consumers so far. https://tinyurl.com/y26g6g5m)

In a totalitarian, central government-run economy, most income will be spent for taxes, survival basics such as rent, utilities, food, bikes, and monthly fares for bus/train. There will be no disposable income for extras like entertainment, vacations, and luxury goods as the economic police would not encourage such bourgeois accumulation of goods.

Excerpts from the Voice for Private Physicians, AAPS News*

Vaccines. Adults who refuse vaccinations in hospitals, may still be forced to be vaccinated if they signed an agreement to consent to biogenics or biologics. Since vaccines are biologics, if a patient wishes to opt out, he/she must specifically state so on a consent form – no biologics or biogenics. (https://tinyurl.com/y23lekho)

Brain Death. A perfusion system called BrainEx enabled researchers to restore certain structural and metabolic functions four hours after pigs were slaughtered and their brains removed from their skulls. This contradicts previous belief that brain cells die when deprived of oxygen for just a few minutes. This new discovery might make some patients candidates for brain resuscitation efforts and thus may open a potential conflict between potential donors and recipients of live organs. (Nature 4/18/19)

A procedure used by some U.S. and Taiwan organ recovery team about s involves the insertion of a thoracic aorta occlusion balloon which prevents perfusion of the brain when using extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, thus raising the question about a physician complicity in a patient’s death. (Younger S, Hyun I, Nature 4/18/19)

Social Credit Score System in China. This behavioral modification or “morality restoration” in China has not yet been fully implemented but has already been exported to Venezuela. An embarrassing ring tone warns others of the presence of 13 million already blacklisted Chinese in their midst who are “bad” and “untrustworthy” as defined by the Communist Party Chief. (https://tinyurl.com/y26g6g5m)

Monitoring of Mental Health by the Big Tech Giants. “The Trump administration is reportedly considering a proposal to use Google, Amazon Echo, and Apple Watch to collect data on users who exhibit characteristics of mental illness that could lead to violent behavior.  This is part of the initiative to create a Health Advanced Research Project Agency (HARPA).” Privacy will be safeguarded, and profiling avoided. (http://tinyurl.com/y4yz6gvp)

Michelle Malkin wrote about Google data mining our school children through Google email and Chrome when students access their homework, schedules, and classroom discussions. The E-Hallpass app even monitors them how much time they spend in the bathroom. Students are rated on how they “cooperate and share ideas and materials in socially acceptable ways.” And who defines what is socially acceptable? Malkin believes we should de-platform Google and other data-mining raiders.

Scandinavian Socialist Role Model for Democrats. Political scientist Daniel Schatz, a Swede by birth, explains to Socialist Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her guru Bernie Sanders that Nordic countries, with a population size of metropolitan New York City and not much diversity, follow social norms based on a strong work ethic, social trust, and individual responsibility. “Their success preceded the social welfare state. Sweden tax burden peaked at 52.3% in 1990 and had to be rolled back. Public monopolies had to be replaced.” (Commentary, Jul/Aug 2019, https://tinyurl.com/yyqu43y4)



*NOTE: These topics and more can be found in the AAPS News, The Voice for Private Physicians, Vol. 75, no. 9, September 2019)