Tony Rubolotta

My No Thank You Note to Obama
August 15, 2009

I want to no thank you personally for bringing to reality things I had only read or heard about prior to your regime. Some lessons must be experienced first hand to fully appreciate what history would teach or others would relate of their own experience. Seeing is believing and you have made a believer of me, erasing any doubt about what I had read or heard before.

In my lifetime I have met and befriended a number of people who have lived under communism. They came from Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Cuba and Azerbaijan. Most of my knowledge of communism prior to this had been from reading various news articles, essays and the writings of the source itself, Marx. While I had no reason to doubt the credibility of these sources, gleaning the first hand experience of others always adds depth to one’s understanding and puts a human face to the text on the page. Having the first hand experience myself is even more valuable in reaffirming my opposition to communism and anything like it.

It wouldn’t be fair to continue without noting that fascists are no better than communists when it comes to tyranny and oppression. I know you are trying to discover yourself and figure out exactly which you are since you seem to dabble in both, so I don’t want to leave any bases uncovered in this no thank you note.

I had never seen such bias, distortion and lying in news reporting until recently, but I understand this is standard practice under communist regimes. Everyone knew they were being lied to and that support for the regime was manufactured by the media, but what could they do about it? I’m sure there must have been some true believers that swallowed everything the media fed them, but I haven’t met any yet. I’ll keep looking and let you know if I find one.

Protests under communism were limited to demonstrations for the state and party, not against them. If you did protest against the state, you were either shouted down by state sponsored counter-protestors, tear gassed, beaten, fired from your job or imprisoned. At least the riot police in Poland and Hungary wore spiffy uniforms when they did this. Purple is OK, but don’t you think SEIU members in military styled uniforms would be more impressive and menacing than T-shirts? The New Black Panthers are snappier dressers and appear better armed too.

While public protests were obviously risky, so were private protests should the wrong ears overhear what you were saying. Citizens did spy on citizens with the expectation of gaining some favor with a state official. Turning in a dissident was patriotic. It might get you a washing machine a little sooner than your neighbor.

Of course dissent wasn’t a crime in the Soviet Union, it was a mental disorder. I asked about the rationale because communism always has a rationale to justify its cruelty. As one friend explained, the state had created a workers paradise and gave you everything you needed. Only a crazy person could be unhappy and complain. They obviously required psychiatric treatment until they were cured. What about the incurable, I asked? Well, you never saw them again.

Any no thank you note about communism would be incomplete without mentioning lines, waiting lines that is. But let me start with a joke from my Ukrainian friend. I don’t want to appear totally glum in my no thank you note.

A man is standing on a line for bread and butter and is overheard by a KGB (ACORN?) agent muttering “70 years of communism and no bread or butter.” The agent pulls him out the back door of the shop and strikes him over the head with a revolver, saying “If bullets weren’t so expensive I would shoot you. Now get back on line and shut up.” The man returns to the line and starts muttering “70 years of communism and no bread or butter or bullets.” Not to worry because we will find a suitable joke for the waiting lines and rationing you plan to force on us.

Everyone I know that lived under communism has confirmed that waiting lines, rationing and shortages were a routine part of life. They also told me that most people had their caches of private property hidden in their basements. It was a crime against the state for one person to have more than another. To achieve true social justice, everyone must be equally poor. Well, almost everyone.

Under communism, you do not pick your job, the job picks you. If you don’t like your job and think you could do better, then you are just a selfish bourgeois pig not meeting your responsibility to your fellow man. I’m waiting to see lines of men with bronzed and weathered faces, stern jaws and lips bearing a look of grim determination as they march four abreast with shouldered shovels and picks to all the shovel-ready jobs you have for them.

You have given us a good preview of what life will be like in your transformed America. It is change I now believe in based on what I have read, what I heave heard and what I have experienced. For that I say no thank you.

PS: Contrary to media claims, I voted against you not because you are black, but because you are red. Just thought I would set the record straight.