A "Premature Antifascist" -- And Proudly So

Clarence Kailin, a son of the Midwest whose lifelong commitment to social and economic justice led him to become one of the first Americans to take up arms against the fascist forces that swept across Europe in the years before World War II, has died at age 95.

Kailin was one of the last survivors of the 2,800 American volunteers who fought from 1936 to 1939 as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in defense of the elected Spanish government against a coup engineered by Generalissimo Francisco Franco with the backing of Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini. His role in "the good fight" of the international volunteers -- as it was immortalized by Ernest Hemingway and W.H. Auden -- gave Kailin, a scrawny kid from Madison, Wisconsin's multi-ethnic Greenbush neighborhood, a place in an essential chapter of 20th century history.

Yet, for Kailin, "There wasn't any choice. If you were against totalitarianism, if you were against injustice, you had to care about what happened in Spain. Spain was where the fight against fascism was focused in 1936. So Spain was where I knew I needed to be."

The years that Kailin spent fighting in Spain prior to the start of World War II would eventually earn him international recognition and praise as an iconic figure on the American left – his courage and commitment were recently celebrated in song by folksinger Si Kahnand a section of the latest book by Democracy Now's Amy Goodman is devoted to him. The Spanish government made Kailin a citizen of the country, where his visits in recent years have been greeted with hero's welcomes.

But Kailin never wanted to be an old soldier telling stories of distant battles.

He remained politically active to the last days before his death on Sunday, one day after he suffered a stroke.

On August 23, hundreds of family members and friends celebrated Kailin's 95th birthday with a party at Madison's Gates of Heaven Synagogue that featured a hip-hop performance, international visitors and, of course, political speeches calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for single-payer health care and for a reordering of the U.S. economy that would tip the balance away from Wall Street and toward Main Street.

Quick-witted and passionate to the last, Kailin laughed with his friend and comrade Bob Kimbrough -- as only old socialists could -- at the notion that a centrist Democrat from Chicago named Barack Obama was somehow turning the United States hard to the left. "If only Obama was a socialist!" Kailin mused. "But, you know, real change never comes from the top. It comes when people get organized and decide that they're going to make the change happen – no matter who the leaders are."

That was not just rhetoric. Kailin lived his politics.

As soon as he returned from the fight in Spain, Kailin got busy organizing workers into union locals, marching to integrate schools and housing and pressuring the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to add African-American historical and cultural texts to the curriculum. (The department eventually published and circulated a teaching guide he developed.) Active for many years with the American Communist Party and then with the Socialist Party – he founded Madison's monthly "Socialist Potluck" -- Kailin was a classic homegrown radical who demanded that the United States make real promise of "liberty and justice for all."

That did not make his life an easy one. As his daughter Julie recalled in her 2002 book Antiracist Education, "My father, Clarence Kailin, has always been devoted to antiracist causes. He fought as an antifascist in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, one of the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a ‘premature antifascist' as F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover was said to have put it. After returning from Spain, my father, like other veterans of that war, was considered persona non grata by the U.S. government. He was harassed by the F.B.I.; his employers, friends and neighbors were ‘visited' by them; and they made a point of interfering with any job opportunities. For most of my childhood, my dad worked on and off as a free-lance janitor. When white men wearing suits came to our door, I knew they were not our friends."

Eventually, Kailin found steady work at the University of Wisconsin, using his skills as a photographer and photo technician. But his real work, especially in the last decades of his life, was the struggle to radically redirect U.S. foreign policy. A militant foe of the Vietnam War and of U.S. interventions in Central America in the 1980s, Kailin threw himself into the struggle to prevent the invasion of Iraq. After the war began, he was a stalwart backer of the successful effort to have the city of Madison go on record – in an overwhelming referendum vote – for immediate withdrawal from that conflict; at 91, Kailin spent hours soliciting sitting soliciting petition signatures to get the proposal on the ballot.

Kailin, for whom the Madison Veterans for Peace chapter is named, had no taste for war. But he was not quite a pacifist. He believed there were times when it was necessary to fight. What irked him was a sense that his country often fought the wrong battles, or came to the right ones too late. "The United States should have backed the Spanish people against Franco," he said. "The reason we had to sneak into Spain as volunteers was because the U.S. government refused to get involved. They remained neutral, even though it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that Franco was aligned with Hitler and Mussolini. We knew that if we didn't fight the fascists in Spain, they would keep grabbing other countries. And, of course, they did. It led to World War II. But even when we were proven right, the politicians in Washington never admitted it; they called us ‘premature antifascists.' Well, you know what? I can't think of a more honorable name that that one."

Kailin went to Spain as one of roughly two dozen Wisconsinites, most of them Jewish, all of them leftists, who traveled with passports stamped "not valid for travel in Spain" across the Atlantic, through France and ultimately over the mountains into Spain. There, they joined with the international brigades that fought side-by-side with loyalist Spanish forces in brutal battles with fascists who were armed by the Germans and Italians. Though they were outgunned and outnumbered on the battlefield, Kailin and his comrades relished the fight. "I was a member of the Communist party here (in Wisconsin), as many were. We understood the implications of the war in Spain," he explained in an interview years later. "We knew who Hitler was, we knew what fascism was. We knew what anti-Semitism was; I'm Jewish. Here was a chance to go over there and fight back."

John Cookson, a rural Wisconsinite who was Kailin's best friend, died in Spain, as did roughly half of the U.S. volunteers. Kailin was badly wounded in battle but made it home alive. And amid all his other activism, he dedicated himself to recalling the comrades with whom he fought. It was a lonely struggle at first, but over time historians began to reveal the story of the courageous "Lincolns" and their premature antifascism.

By 1999, when hundreds of fans cheered Kailin as he dedicated a monument in downtown Madison park celebrating the Wisconsinites who fought and died in Spain, he was lavished with praise. Madison's mayor issued a proclamation the memorial in James Madison Park. The Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate issued citations. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, entered a statement in the Congressional Record. A "Citation of Special Recognition" came from the office of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin.

It would have been easy for Kailin to rest on his laurels on that sunny Sunday in 1999. Instead, he reminded everyone that "they shouldn't see this as a memorial to old soldiers. They should see it as a reminder that the struggle we joined in Spain, the struggle for economic and social justice, goes on. We're still a part of it."

That was how Clarence Kailin saw himself, as a part of a movement for economic and social justice that began before his birth and that will extend beyond his death. But what a remarkable part he played.

The great Spanish radical Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, told the international brigades as they withdrew from Spain late in 1938: "You can go with pride. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of the solidarity and the universality of democracy."

Those words, uttered more than 70 years ago, when Clarence Kailin was a young idealist fighting fascism in Spain, were the ones he chose to emblazon on the monument to the Wisconsin volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade. They remain his most fitting epitaph.

Comments (48)

1. it seems the new lincoln brigade is being formed in chicago right now.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 08:38am

2. "We knew who Hitler was, we knew what fascism was. We knew what anti-Semitism was; I'm Jewish. Here was a chance to go over there and fight back."

   A pity he did not know who Stalin was. Or that perhaps he did, but didn't care. Or what recently released Soviet historical documents show the USSR's plan for a post-war Spain was. Another Soviet puppet state.

   But I respect this older generation of the Left moreso than anything that's been around since 1972. Those old Leftists at least went out and fought one form of totalitarianism, even if they knowingly looked the other way when in the service of the 20th Century's other and more enduring brand of it.

   This guy fought the Francos and Hitlers of his time. Today's leftists seemed more inclined to travel to Iraq and stand as human shields for the Franco of our time.

   Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 08:44am

3. "We knew who Hitler was, we knew what fascism was. We knew what anti-Semitism was; I'm Jewish. Here was a chance to go over there and fight back."

   A pity he did not know who Stalin was. Or that perhaps he did, but didn't care. Or what recently released Soviet historical documents show the USSR's plan for a post-war Spain was. Another Soviet puppet state.

   But I respect this older generation of the Left moreso than anything that's been around since 1972. Those old Leftists at least went out and fought one form of totalitarianism, even if they knowingly looked the other way when in the service of the 20th Century's other and more enduring brand of it.

   This guy fought the Francos and Hitlers of his time. Today's leftists seemed more inclined to travel to Iraq and stand as human shields for the Franco of our time.

   Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 08:44am

4. Big Pasture. Your comments (the ones that got erased) were very interesting. Do you have the ability to repost your finding about the Lincoln brigade's ties to the Communist movement and there alegience to Stalin's comintern?

   Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 10/26/2009 @ 08:45am

5. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/10/ capitalism-socialism-fascism-or.html

   "That could never happen in America, right?

   Consider:

   •• The government has given trillions in bailout or other emergency funds to private companies, but is largely refusing to disclose to either the media, the American people or even Congress where the money went

   •• Congress has largely been bought and paid for, and two powerful congressmen have said that banks run Congress

   •• The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and two top IMF officials have all said that we have - or are in danger of having - oligarchy in the U.S.

   •• Economist Dean Baker says that the real purpose of bank rescue plans was "A massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives" The big banks killed any real chance for financial reform months ago"

   ••••••

   those who dwell on history too much are condemned to miss what the fuck is going on right now!

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 08:49am

6. Today's leftists seemed more inclined to travel to Iraq and stand as human shields for the Franco of our time.

   Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 08:44am

   alan greenspan is iraqi?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 08:50am

7. I see the Nation is back to censoring anyone who dares to actually call a hardcore marxist exactly what they were- a G-d hater.

   Will the Nation censors repeat themselves? Foul language and incendiary name calling of conservatives is perfectly acceptable dialogue at the Nation website. But to accurately label a dead marxist as a G-d hating person is verbotten.

   Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am

8. "Foul language and incendiary name calling of conservatives is perfectly acceptable dialogue at the Nation website."----Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am

   "Since most liberals are mealy mouthed, they think that is a good trait. they resent strong authority figures. Pyschologists would say it's because they had no strong father figure when they were growing up."----Posted by antisocialist at 05/11/2009 @ 09:09am

   "We used to incarcerate and even shoot traitors. Today we just call them the "anti-war left"----Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/12/2008

   Posted by Mask at 10/26/2009 @ 09:21am

9. But to accurately label a dead marxist as a G-d hating person is verbotten.

   Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am | ignore this person | warn this person

   what's a "G-d"?

   Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 09:37am

10. Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am |

    So you prefer fascists to communists...because they agree with your spiritual beliefs?

    Posted by snowball777 at 10/26/2009 @ 10:06am

11. Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am |

    So you prefer fascists to communists...because they agree with your spiritual beliefs?

    Posted by snowball777 at 10/26/2009 @ 10:06am

    What an inane question. I dislike both.

    However the hardcore communist wants to eliminate the freedom of people of faith to pursue their faith.

    Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 10:15am

12. what's a "hardcore communist"?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:18am

13. Regardless of why Kailin entered Spain to take up arms, is he so different than any other American interventions in ANY other countries? He had his reasons, just as all other interventions had/have reasons.

    If he was a "premature antifascists", let's call Bush `43 and the rest of us who support the GWOT, the "premature" antiIslamists.......and proud of it, just as surely as Kailin felt about himself.

    Posted by Happy at 10/26/2009 @ 10:30am

14. what's a "hardcore communist"?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:18am

    a person dedicated to the principles of marxism and it's global implementation.

    http://www.revcom.us/a/ideology/3mp.htm

    Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 10:33am

15. "I was a member of the Communist party here (in Wisconsin), as many were. We understood the implications of the war in Spain," he explained in an interview years later. "We knew who Hitler was, we knew what fascism was. We knew what anti-Semitism was; I'm Jewish. Here was a chance to go over there and fight back."

    In a nutshell....hardly a fight for freedom and democracy.

    Ribbentrop-Molotov.

    Who pioneered Gulags (concentration camps)? It wasn't Hitler.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 10:36am

16. what's a "hardcore communist"?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:18am

    a person dedicated to the principles of marxism and it's global implementation.

    http://www.revcom.us/a/ideology/3mp.htm

    Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 10:33am

    --you're a christian. what label would you self-apply before christian?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:44am

17. Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 10:36am

    Another "interesting" comment from OneVote. Gulags more destructive than concentration camps, OV???

    Posted by Mask at 10/26/2009 @ 11:12am

18. --you're a christian. what label would you self-apply before christian?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:44am

    secular libertarian.

    Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 11:12am

19. what's a "hardcore communist"?

    Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:18am

    A communist is a guy who goes to meeting hoping to find daffy chicks to bang.

    A hardcore communist is a guy who goes to the meetings because he actually believes the crap.

    Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 10/26/2009 @ 11:13am

20. But to accurately label a dead marxist as a G-d hating person is verbotten. Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 08:57am | ignore this person | warn this person what's a "G-d"? Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 09:37am | ignore this person | warn this person

    It's a secret code, a club handshake, and likely subliminal virus to the non-initiated.

    Likely another straw-personage mainly intended to administer control over the masses than to share wisdom. the tell is in the prerequisite conflict with not killing their preferred straw enemy.

    Unaware as anti-humanity is that most religions and philosophies have similar sayings and quotes by their straw-personages as well.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 10/26/2009 @ 11:36am

21. Another "interesting" comment from OneVote. Gulags more destructive than concentration camps, OV???

    Posted by Mask at 10/26/2009 @ 11:12am | ignore this person | warn this person

    You take my property and send my family off to Siberia to die in your slave labor camp, I am going to return the favor to your family. Funny how the world works.

    Action/Reaction.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 11:58am

22. 'And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf."

    Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women.

    Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the "first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 11:59am

23. Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist.

    In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. They too, of course, were gradually eliminated in the next purges. In a fascinating lecture at a Tel Aviv University convention this week, Dr. Halfin described the waves of soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history.

    The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things.

    Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.'

    Stalin's Jews

    We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish

    Published: 12.21.06, 23:35 / Israel Opinion

    Ynetnews.com - Excerpt

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 12:00pm

24. Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 11:58am

    Almost got into a debate, OV...over the "slight" difference between a gulag and a death camp.

    Right upto to Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 12:00pm ....when you outted yourself.

    The charge of anti-Semite for anybody opposing anything Israel does is too freely flung around...by guys like Larry. But it's HELPED by guys like you...who are anti-Semites.

    Posted by Mask at 10/26/2009 @ 12:09pm

25. capitalism becomes communism,

    communism becomes capitalism.

    stupid humans.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 12:24pm

26. And yet, Mask, so many Hebrews harbor bitter resentment towards those who say they're Jewish, but fairly obviously are NOT Hebrew...... So if the JEWS can't agree on who is Chosen and who is tagging along for the ride, how the HELL are us lowly, stupid goyim supposed to know when we can or cannot express a view regarding the obvious and incessant racism of "the tribe" or "tribes".....? Give me a break.

    And the selling out of some Jews by other so-called Jews in the 30's and 40's is not exactly news, pal.

    Posted by DejaVu at 10/26/2009 @ 12:28pm

27. Republican Spain with all its factions of the left had to deal with the same elements that will ultimately require attention in this country. After an awakening of the slumbering & misguided, there will hopefully be a new direction accomplished through the ballot box.

    The aristocratic/plutocratic, military/industrial & church domination of the people led to the birth of the Spanish Republic. Land reform & unionization were priorities.

    The fascist Nationalists used assassination, execution & terror aided by a couple classic dictators, who are viewed today by the right as allies in the war on "International Communism."

    Reform the sick, unregulated, top heavy Capitalist system or suffer blowback & its attendant radicalism, down the road.

    Posted by Sorelish at 10/26/2009 @ 12:29pm

28. The charge of anti-Semite for anybody opposing anything Israel does is too freely flung around...by guys like Larry. But it's HELPED by guys like you...who are anti-Semites.

    Posted by Mask at 10/26/2009 @ 12:09pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Truth hurt Maskie?

    There you go....out from under your rock......

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 12:35pm

29. Although I can't say that I agree with much of Kailin's politics in general, he deserves a lot of respect for his willingness to risk his life to fight against Franco in Spain. My entire family is from Barcelona, proud Catalan loyalists who defended Spain against the fascists. My grandfather was killed while my father was in the womb...other grandfather was captured and held in a prison camp before getting permission to come to the United States in 1947. Two uncles seriously wounded...one of which recovered and then came here to win the flying cross as a B29 and B17 ball turret gunner for the U.S., flying two missions on D-Day and later shooting down two German fighters over Berlin. These were brave guys, who fought in a war that few seemed to care about, even though it served as a harbinger of things to come....WWII, in which an estimated 50 million people lost their lives, many of which were innocent civilians.

    Unfortunately, it seems that Kailin may have never figured out the difference between Communism in practice vs. the Communism in theory, which is why he didn't view the need to stop the spread of Communism as a noble, or even justifiable, pursuit...while he DID feel that way about fascism. But he did get it right back then, in general, when he stood up against totalitarianism. His fight for democracy, freedom, and justice is the same thing we've fought for in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, regardless of whether or not one agrees with the timing, location, or execution.

    Posted by jimmylove at 10/26/2009 @ 12:36pm

30. meanwhile,

    on the moon:

    "Rich Germans demand higher taxes

    Germany could raise 100bn euros with the wealth tax, say the petitioners

    A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.

    The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery. Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say."

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 12:46pm

31. Bono, Preacher on Poverty, Tarnishes Halo With Irish Tax Move

    By Fergal O'Brien

    Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bono, the rock star and campaigner against Third World debt, is asking the Irish government to contribute more to Africa. At the same time, he's reducing tax payments that could help fund that aid.

    After Ireland said it would scrap a break that lets musicians and artists avoid paying taxes on royalties, Bono and his U2 bandmates earlier this year moved their music publishing company to the Netherlands. The Dublin group, which Forbes estimates earned $110 million in 2005, will pay about 5 percent tax on their royalties, less than half the Irish rate.

    Posted by HonestLiberal at 10/26/2009 @ 12:58pm

32. who gives a fuck about BONO?!?!?

    arrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

    NO MORE BALLOON BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 1:05pm

33. what's a "hardcore communist"? Posted by urmygyro at 10/26/2009 @ 10:18am

    a person dedicated to the principles of marxism and it's global implementation. http://www.revcom.us/a/ideology/3mp.htm

    Posted by antisocialist at 10/26/2009 @ 10:33am

    So, let me see if I've got this straight.

    If people who like Obama are called both Marxists and Socialists...

    Are they really 'soft core communists'? How can you be a communist AND a socialist? Is that possible?

    Isn't it more likely that if you are a socialist you are a fascist?

    Who's the final authority on this matter? Inquiring minds want to know.

    Posted by ficheye at 10/26/2009 @ 1:05pm

34. Upon further rumination, I guess that you could be a Communist/Socialist. Or a Marxist/Fascist. I guess that you could just mix and match, call it whatever you want. Communist Democrat? Fascist Republican?

    Posted by ficheye at 10/26/2009 @ 1:52pm

35. Who's the final authority on this matter?

    Posted by ficheye at 10/26/2009 @ 1:05pm

    the marxist libertarians of the australian school.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 2:05pm

36. His fight for democracy, freedom, and justice is the same thing we've fought for in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, regardless of whether or not one agrees with the timing, location, or execution. Posted by jimmylove at 10/26/2009 @ 12:36pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    you must be outa your mind. we did not fight for freedom in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.

    ask the relations of the victims of the latest Iraq bombing how they like their freedom?

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 2:26pm

37. the difference between socialism and communism is that the latter is usually totalitarian, and the former isn't.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 2:29pm

38. The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery. Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say."

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 12:46pm

    Typical Europeans.

    Here's an idea. Why don't those rich Germans actually DO SOMETHING WITH ALL THIS EXTRA CASH they have supposedly lying around?

    Instead of waiting for the governmnt to come and take it, why don't they invest it themselves? Surely they could impact the German economy more directly by doing that rather than having some of their cash siphoned off to pay the salaries of government middle-men who shephard their cash into more government projects and hand-outs?

    And this extra money they have must surely be doing something right now for the economy right where it is. In banks. In stocks. Retirement funds. All that money is already doing something, unless they have it stashed under their mattress. Taking it away will cause it to be less effective. No government can invest it as wisely or efficiently as the people who earned it in the first place.

    Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 2:42pm

39. The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery. Germany could raise 100bn euros (£91bn) if the richest people paid a 5% wealth tax for two years, they say."

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/26/2009 @ 12:46pm

    Typical Europeans.

    Here's an idea. Why don't those rich Germans actually DO SOMETHING WITH ALL THIS EXTRA CASH they have supposedly lying around?

    Instead of waiting for the governmnt to come and take it, why don't they invest it themselves? Surely they could impact the German economy more directly by doing that rather than having some of their cash siphoned off to pay the salaries of government middle-men who shephard their cash into more government projects and hand-outs?

    And this extra money they have must surely be doing something right now for the economy right where it is. In banks. In stocks. Retirement funds. All that money is already doing something, unless they have it stashed under their mattress. Taking it away will cause it to be less effective. No government can invest it as wisely or efficiently as the people who earned it in the first place.

    Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 2:42pm

40. you must be outa your mind. we did not fight for freedom in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.

    ask the relations of the victims of the latest Iraq bombing how they like their freedom?

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 2:26pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Emile, you clearly did not read my posting carefully...instead, just chose to automatically stamp your hyperpartisan political view on this. No, I am not out of my mind...just practical and willing to look at the both sides of every issue. You should try it sometime.

    Posted by jimmylove at 10/26/2009 @ 4:02pm

41. And another thing about this group of German millionaires.

    Why form a group? Go home, check your finances. If you have all this extra cash you don't need, then write a check to Big Brother and shut up already.

    But that isn't what this is about. They don't want an Arkansas style "Tax Me More" fund where people who think they should pay more in taxes can do so on their own just by writing a check to that fund.

    No, what they want to do is appear to be representing all wealthy Germans. It is not about being generous with their own money. It is about getting the government to force everyone else to be generous with their money.

    This, folks, is greed. Coveting somebody else's property. They can pay out all this extra money they have anytime they want...but do you think they voluntarily will?

    Posted by Citizen_Carrier at 10/26/2009 @ 5:24pm

42. the difference between socialism and communism is that the latter is usually totalitarian, and the former isn't. Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 2:29pm

    Thank you for the clarification.

    So I guess when it was called 'The USSR' they were in conflict with their own stated political aims since they were typically referred to as communists and not socialists.

    Posted by ficheye at 10/26/2009 @ 6:07pm

43. RIP TO A GREAT MAN WHO ACTUALLY "FOUGHT 'EM OVER THERE ,SO WE DIDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT 'EM OVER HERE." COMPARE KAILIN TO PRESCOTT BUSH WHO SUPPORTED THE REAL NAZIS FINANCIALLY-FOR A PROFIT -WHEN SOMETHING MIGHT HAVE BEEN DONE ABOUT THEM POLITICALLY -HE LATER SOLD NAZI WAR BONDS IN VIOLATION OF THE SWISS-CHEESE RIDDLED "TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT"-AFTER THE WAR HE HAD THE INVINCIBLE AUDACITY TO RUN FOR,AND WIN A SENATE SEAT FROM A STATE WITH A LARGE AND INFLUENTIAL JEWISH POPULATION.AN OLD TIME HARTFORD RESIDENT RECALLS GRAND PAPPY BUSH KISSING THE BABIES OF PARENTS WHO WERE STAMPED WITH THOSE TELLTALE TATTOOS.BY THE WAY,FOR THOSE FOLKS WHO ARE CONCERNED THAT LEFTIES DON'T KNOW WHO STALIN WAS. WE KNOW.SO DID THE 12 MILLION AMERICANS WHO FOUGHT IN WW2.HE WAS AN INDISPENSABLE ALLY.

    Posted by David Lucke at 10/26/2009 @ 6:17pm

44. His fight for democracy, freedom, and justice is the same thing we've fought for in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan,

    this is what I read. and I repeat, we did not, and do not fight for freedom in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. we claim to fight for freedom, which is not the same thing.

    So I guess when it was called 'The USSR' they were in conflict with their own stated political aims since they were typically referred to as communists and not socialists. Posted by ficheye at 10/26/2009 @ 6:07pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    I find this somewhat impenetrable. what political entities call themselves is not always true. the soviets incidentally called themselves socialist and communist. the Nazis called themselves "National socialist" while at the same time persecuting real socialists all the way to the extermination camps.

    the point I was trying to make is that there are many democratic countries that have socialist gov'ts, at one time or another.

    oh, and Jimmy, I love that hyperpartisan bit. to be against war and especially wars based on lies crosses all party lines. I think a dose of reality would do you good.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 6:19pm

45. RIP TO A GREAT MAN WHO ACTUALLY "FOUGHT 'EM OVER THERE ,SO WE DIDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT 'EM OVER HERE."

    this is of course nonsense.

    the rest of the post is fine. you are correct about Stalin. in WW2 the soviets did the heavy lifting, and paid the highest price. while the western allies dithered in North Africa and Italy, the russians ground the Wehrmacht up.

    if the allies had kept their promise to Stalin and invaded France in '42 the cold war would have been avoided, and at war's end, the soviets would have been in Russia, instead of Berlin.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 6:25pm

46. 'Kailin was a member of the American Communist Party from 1935 to 1949 and didn't leave voluntarily. The party, he explains, followed the example of the Soviet party.

    "Their style of work was very undemocratic, bureaucratic and dictatorial," he says. "You couldn't really discuss differences with them." Twelve party leaders were arrested for their beliefs, put on trial in New York and received five-year sentences. Kailin was expelled when he disagreed with the party's decision to go underground....

    Kailin remained loyal to the socialist cause and supportive of the Soviet Union even during the Stalin years, when, some say, more Soviet people were killed by the state than were by Hitler's Germany....

    Kailin explains that the leadership of the Communist Party USA knew what was happening...........'

    Asked why he didn't leave the Communist Party earlier, Kailin (who in the recent presidential election supported Ralph Nader) responds, "One might ask why U.S. Republicans and Democrats remain loyal to their parties in the face of U.S. military and CIA murderous depredations all over the world. The U.S. has intervened over 100 times in the affairs of other countries, but none of this has become a matter of public discussion. It's because the press here is almost totally controlled. How many Americans really know? And this is not Russia. Look at our attacks on Cuba today. For what purpose? And why embrace China?"...

    Clarence Kailin looks back on a lifetime of fighting the good fight Unrepentant red Esty Dinur on Monday 10/26/2009 12:00 pm Isthmus

    So - Kailin was a Stalinist Jew who knew full well what Stalin was up to. And, he is unapologetic, justifying his support for tyranny by analogy to US tyranny.

    Posted by OneVote at 10/26/2009 @ 7:36pm

47. I APOLOGIZE FOR LEADING OFF MY POST ABOVE WITH A COLOSSAL NON SEQUITUR.I WAS COMING BACK TO FIX IT,BUT DUBOIS RIGHTLY CORRECTED IT-

    Posted by David Lucke at 10/26/2009 @ 7:47pm

48. thanks Dave, but you don't need to shout.

    Posted by emile duBois at 10/26/2009 @ 7:50pm