Category | Op Ed

Night of the living dead

Published on April 28, 2009 by Tony Sarrecchia

Anti-capitalism gives rise to its own form of undead
The invasion has begun.

While flipping through the channels the other night, I landed on one of my favorite zombie movies: Return of the Living Dead.  This is not to be confused with the Night of the Living Dead, or its Dawn of the Dead sequels.  Return of the Living Dead is not only a wry darkly humorous film, but the zombies have a palette for a specific organ: a brain, served at a toasty, tasty, temperature of 98.6 degrees F.  All zombies have a taste for flesh, but these zombies literally want the part that makes humans unique and productive.  Not that the zombies will do anything productive with the brains, they just want to eat them and hope they feel better-much like the those who would limit executive salaries because “no one should earn that much money,” as if earning money were a bad thing.   In a way, this breed of real-life looters and parasites is not any different from the brain seeking undead.

If you were to believe certain U.S. news outlets, you would think that all business owners are Bernie Madoff-evil men out to enrich themselves at your expense.   While that thought incorrectly presupposes that wealth is a zero sum game, it does not begin to probe the depth of the envy and hatred that exists for successful Americans by the growing zombie hordes. Last month, when AIG executives accepted their congressionally approved bonus, some of the more newspaper friendly threats against them were: “The Revolution is coming. The family members of your executives are not safe. Your blood will run through the streets in the coming months.”  Even the Mafia leaves the families alone.   These type of threats are not the behavior of rationale humans; this is a sub-human-mindless loathing brought about by jealousy and covetousness.  As an interesting side note, The Wall Street Journal reported that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are paying out over $210 million in bonuses this year and next year.  Yet, the zombie thugs and their political masters remain quiet about this outrage.

As is typical in zombie movies, the undead attack the only group who might be able to help them: the survivors.  The real life zombies are the same.  They are not directing their anger at the politicians who caused the crisis (no one seems to want to eat Barney Frank’s brains) but they do want the brains of the one group who can restore economic equilibrium: the small business owners and executives who create jobs.  The living zombies would rather punish the people who can save them and turn to the politicians to raise taxes on those evil capitalists.  Rather than brains, it is an immoral belief that they are entitled to the labors of others that drives the mindless drones of the anti-business class.

The U.S. is not the only country suffering from a zombie invasion; France has reached a most unpleasant balance between looters and producers. In the country known more for self-love than self-reliance, workers of 3M Corporation took a manager hostage over job cuts and executive pay.  Rather than outrage at this act of worker-based terrorism, almost 50 percent of the French workforce believes that kidnapping is a valid form of expressing a grievance.

A report published last month by the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee says that while President Barack Obama’s stated goal is to increase jobs, his plan to raise taxes targets the same businesses that employed “60-80 percent” of the small business workforce in 2006. Additionally, a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NIFB) found that 50 percent of the businesses taking part in the survey that employed between 20 and 250 employees also had an income of $200,000 or more-with a large number of them paying taxes at an individual rate.  This is the same group currently targeted by President Obama’s tax hikes.  We all know that if a business loses money in one area, it must make up the difference somewhere else.  In a down economy, backing a business owner into a corner where they must cut an employee or an entire staff is counter-intuitive to economic recovery.

There is a zombie invasion occurring, and its targets are the successful and the producers.  It is best to remember that (paraphrasing William Boetcker) you can eat all the rich people you want but the poor will still be poor; and you can loot the employers with regressive taxation but you will not save a single employee.