Herewith is my stab at substantive policy discussion on why expansion of SCHIP was rightly vetoed. This is a discussion that progressives claim to want yet can’t seem to get past demagoguing.
The current SCHIP battle is not simply about reauthorizing SCHIP, but rather a political and philosophical battle over the ridiculous expansion of SCHIP, beyond the program’s original intent.
The original SCHIP legislation passed in 1997 created a modest program designed to help children whose families made too much to qualify for Medicaid, and were too poor o purchase private health insurance. A worthy goal backed by a majority of Republicans at the time.
A lot of the left’s rhetoric deliberately distorts the conservative position as against reauthorization, which is patently false. In fact the president strongly favors reauthorization of SCHIP, just not the absurd expansion proposed by the Democrats. Bush has offered a sensible and reasonable compromise. His proposal is an expansion of $5 billion a year increase over the next five years. Apparently, this is not enough for the left.
Here are the problems with the expansion plan. The Democrat expansion plan includes middle class families that can well afford private insurance on their own, illegal immigrants, “children” as old as 25. As Deroy Murdock noted, it depends on what the meaning of the word “children” is.
The Democrat plan would expand the program by $12 billion a year over the next five years. The eligibility threshold would increase to 400% the federal poverty line. By this standard a family making over $80,000 per year, able to afford private insurance, would be eligible for SCHIP, and not just their young children, but any childless adult children as well. What is more absurd is that this means these families are simultaneously poor and high income because they also get hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). This SCHIP expansion shifts welfare away from the truly poor and extends it to the middle class.
The main funding mechanism of the bill is a massive increase, 156%, in the cigarette tax, from 39 cents to $1 per pack. So in order for SCHIP to be fully funded the program would need nearly 22 million smokers to light up. As has been argued ad infinitum, a cigarette tax becomes a decreasing source of revenue. So when their expected revenue fails to materialize, non-smoking taxpayers will get the bill in the form of another tax.
The SCHIP bill also contains sneaky provisions that extend temporary Medicare provisions, increase doctor payments in 2008-2009, then drastically reduces them in 2010-2011, all of which are intended to mask the true cost of the expansion. The expansion also claims to have some cost offsets, but these offsets are from the president’s budget intended as cost savings for Medicare, not for an increase in additional spending. In addition to all the hidden costs, the bill would increase federal deficits by $73 billion over the next 10 years.
This massive expansion beyond helping poor children is nothing more than the first incremental step towards socialized medicine as first discussed by Hillary’s Healthcare Task force back in 1993. So there is a lot a weight behind the conservative argument that SCHIP expansion is a precursor to universal healthcare. I will give Andrew Kujan credit, at least he admits that progressive demogoguing of the issue is really about achieving socialized medicine.
A great deal of spittle-flecked liberal “outrage” at conservative meanies and hypocrites reveals a great deal about the philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives about the nature and functions of government.
For example, EJ Dionne in his zeal to slap the hypocrite label on conservatives writes,
"The left is accused of all manner of sins related to covetousness and envy whenever it raises questions about who benefits from Bush's tax cuts and mentions the yachts such folks might buy or the mansions they might own. But here is a family with modest possessions doing everything conservatives tell people they should do, and the right trashes them for getting help to buy health insurance for their children.”
You can’t compare a tax cut with an entitlement program. They are very different things, which highlight the philosophical differences. Dionne sees tax cuts as government largesse, because in the progressive view of government, this is merely daddy government doing its job by giving us a boost in our income in order to boost the economy or as with SCHIP, fulfilling its role of mothering the citizenry.
As Rick Moran notes in his flaying of Ezra Klein’s doltish argument, similar to Dionne’s:
“tax cuts have nothing to do with government and everything to do with personal property. That money is the taxpayer’s. It is already in his pocket. A tax cut is nothing more than a law preventing the government from reaching into the taxpayer’s pocket and taking away his property. It is not a gift or a favor or even a responsibility of government. A tax cut has everything to do with expanding personal liberty and nothing whatsoever to do with government being nice to taxpayers.
This simple, basic, liberty loving concept has been forgotten by liberals like Klein who see tax cuts as part of a government “plan” for the economy hence, monies that the government will forgo collecting in order to modify or encourage some kind of economic activity. In short, the money “given back” to taxpayers is really the government’s money to begin with, theirs to do with as they see fit.
To not see how that concept turns the idea of freedom on its head reveals a moral blindness that makes it easy to posit that all property is subject to government approval and control. It justifies eminent domain and host of other egregious threats to human liberty that used to be a concern of liberals but is now seen as an impediment to government management of most every facet of people’s lives.”
The Democrats and the progressive left were never willing to debate either the substance of the policy or the philosophical issues. Their policy prescriptions are tired old retreads that they know are losers, Hence their use of Graeme Frost as a human shield to deflect any criticism of the real issues. Why deal with conservative arguments when you can hide your own flawed arguments behind a 12-year old boy and label your opponents as smear artists and hypocrites to effectively shut down real debate on the issue.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Real SCHIP Debate and Those Who Don’t Get It, Part I
The left’s reaction to the supposed conservative “smear campaign” on young Graeme Frost and his family has reached absurd levels. It has become so absurd that the progressives are now accusing conservatives of squelching speech, when this whole thing started because the Democrats used young master Frost as a political human shield to deflect criticism away from the real substantive policy issues, which they know they always lose on. I’m not going to rehash my whole argument again, but it boils down to the fact that the left knows they lost and that their expansion of SCHIP was nothing more than blatant first step towards socialized medicine. So now their argument (not that they really had one) boils down to WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN SO MUCH?!
Caveat: I am not apologizing for some of the intemperate vicious remarks by some conservative bloggers and the harassment of the Frost family.
However, the oft cited Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn do not fit into this category. That they are used as pardon the pun, “poster children,” for the “conservative slime machine” shows just how desperate the left is in keeping this tripe going. In fact, Malkin has asked anyone to point out where she slimed or wrote one “negative, ad hominem word about the Frost children.” The silence is deafening. Oh and if you want to see smear attacks on children, the left has a few skeletons in its closet in that regard. Remember 9 year-old Noah McCullough from Bush’s campaign to reform social security in 2005? The left had no qualms about attacking him calling him a “budding young fascist,” and “in desperate need of a good ass-kicking,” for the unprintable stuff see the always reliable Democratic Underground. Respect for innocent children, for left anyway, is determined by whose ox is gored.
Indeed, mainstream columnists like EJ Dionne at the Washington Post, and Jean Marbella at the Baltimore Sun have gone in for this conservatives are meanies schtick castigating those of us who have criticized this boy and his family who “dared to speak out”.
This is just another example that the vaunted progressive reverence for dissent only applies to their side. There only mode of argument is to shut down argument.
Megan McArdle at The Atlantic sums it all up.
"But a number of people seem to believe that the very act of questioning whether Graeme Frost really needed the state to pay for his health care is somehow tantamount to accusing him of mopery while simultaneously suggesting that he be chopped up into small pieces and served flambeed to a party of laughing Republicans…The reason that Democrats put him up on the radio in the first place is that they thought Graeme Frost's need was a better argument for S-Chip than any boring old policy discussion. Well, if you make Graeme Frost's needs the measure of the program's success, then you can expect the program's opponents to question Graeme Frost's needs."
Caveat: I am not apologizing for some of the intemperate vicious remarks by some conservative bloggers and the harassment of the Frost family.
However, the oft cited Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn do not fit into this category. That they are used as pardon the pun, “poster children,” for the “conservative slime machine” shows just how desperate the left is in keeping this tripe going. In fact, Malkin has asked anyone to point out where she slimed or wrote one “negative, ad hominem word about the Frost children.” The silence is deafening. Oh and if you want to see smear attacks on children, the left has a few skeletons in its closet in that regard. Remember 9 year-old Noah McCullough from Bush’s campaign to reform social security in 2005? The left had no qualms about attacking him calling him a “budding young fascist,” and “in desperate need of a good ass-kicking,” for the unprintable stuff see the always reliable Democratic Underground. Respect for innocent children, for left anyway, is determined by whose ox is gored.
Indeed, mainstream columnists like EJ Dionne at the Washington Post, and Jean Marbella at the Baltimore Sun have gone in for this conservatives are meanies schtick castigating those of us who have criticized this boy and his family who “dared to speak out”.
This is just another example that the vaunted progressive reverence for dissent only applies to their side. There only mode of argument is to shut down argument.
Megan McArdle at The Atlantic sums it all up.
"But a number of people seem to believe that the very act of questioning whether Graeme Frost really needed the state to pay for his health care is somehow tantamount to accusing him of mopery while simultaneously suggesting that he be chopped up into small pieces and served flambeed to a party of laughing Republicans…The reason that Democrats put him up on the radio in the first place is that they thought Graeme Frost's need was a better argument for S-Chip than any boring old policy discussion. Well, if you make Graeme Frost's needs the measure of the program's success, then you can expect the program's opponents to question Graeme Frost's needs."
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
More SCHIP
Here are two excellent posts regarding the real policy issues surrounding SCHIP and the left's faux outage over conservative criticism of the Frost family and the Democrats using them as political human shields. Hat tip to my Red Maryland colleague Matt Johnston.
As I noted earlier, the real reason why people like Isaac Smith"can't refrain from cursing" about this, is because he knows that this once again exposes the left's lack of intellectual and policy heft, and that all they can do is engage in ad-hominem attacks.
Rick Moran slices through lefty "outrage" and shows how they distract from the real policy and philosophical issue about SCHIP expansion:
The struggle here is not over little Graeme Frost who no one has criticized or smeared. The ideological battle over “need” and “want” is what is at issue. Of course the middle class wants SCHIP. Why not? It’s free, isn’t it? But no one is asking if there is a better way to insure those who don’t make a million dollars a year. No one is asking if this expansion of federal largess at the expense of other taxpayers is a good thing or not – certainly no one has queried those taxpayers who are going to foot the bill for families like the Frosts whose situation, while complicated, is not desperate or hopeless where no one would begrudge them the benefit.
But if the left can’t see this fundamental issue as one of taxpayer fairness I don’t hold out much hope for entitlement reform and indeed, see a wild expansion of government programs in the future that would benefit families who aren’t needy but simply don’t want to make the sacrifices other families willingly make in order to get insurance, or send their kids to college, or go on a European vacation for that matter – something I have no doubt the left would use government to subsidize if they thought they could get away with it.
The whole problem with SCHIP and other entitlements is that we have confused “need” and “want” to the point that there is no longer any difference between the two. It is the difference between freedom and capitalism and dependence and socialism...
But I’m not going to sit here and be accused of “smearing” a family when the Democrats believe it is perfectly legitimate political discourse to use the Frosts as a poster family for what is good about SCHIP while not allowing me to use them in the exact same political context to show what is wrong with the program.
Captain Ed puts the lie to left's strawman:
Most Republicans supported the modest expansion of S-CHIP that the White House originally proposed. No Republican officeholders have, to my knowledge, proposed eliminating S-CHIP or scaling it back in any way. The GOP has argued that the expansion of the program to 400% of the poverty line would damage private health coverage and create a subsidy for families that can afford to make the choice for health coverage already.
The Frosts, the family at the center of the storm, came to personify the issue because Democrats had them use themselves as an argument for the expansion of the program. This turns out to be rather dishonest, because the Frosts qualified for S-CHIP without the expansion, as Herszenhorn reports. Their income levels fell below the existing 200% qualifying range for S-CHIP and they have used the program -- as they would have been able to continue to do so with the White House proposal.
That didn't stop the Democrats from demagoguing the debate by using the 12-year-old boy to make their political argument for them, then screaming about how heartless it was for Republicans to question the Frost's qualifications for government assistance. Like it or not, means testing is part of S-CHIP; in fact, it's the entire debate. That puts questions like assets, real income, and personal choices on the table. It's rather strange to consider someone who owns over $200,000 in home equity (not $400,000 as reported before) and commercial real estate as someone in need of government assistance. It's doubly strange when the children of the family attend private schools, even on scholarship. That calls into question whether the family has made choices to be without health coverage, or really have no resources to get it for themselves.
As I noted earlier, the real reason why people like Isaac Smith"can't refrain from cursing" about this, is because he knows that this once again exposes the left's lack of intellectual and policy heft, and that all they can do is engage in ad-hominem attacks.
Rick Moran slices through lefty "outrage" and shows how they distract from the real policy and philosophical issue about SCHIP expansion:
The struggle here is not over little Graeme Frost who no one has criticized or smeared. The ideological battle over “need” and “want” is what is at issue. Of course the middle class wants SCHIP. Why not? It’s free, isn’t it? But no one is asking if there is a better way to insure those who don’t make a million dollars a year. No one is asking if this expansion of federal largess at the expense of other taxpayers is a good thing or not – certainly no one has queried those taxpayers who are going to foot the bill for families like the Frosts whose situation, while complicated, is not desperate or hopeless where no one would begrudge them the benefit.
But if the left can’t see this fundamental issue as one of taxpayer fairness I don’t hold out much hope for entitlement reform and indeed, see a wild expansion of government programs in the future that would benefit families who aren’t needy but simply don’t want to make the sacrifices other families willingly make in order to get insurance, or send their kids to college, or go on a European vacation for that matter – something I have no doubt the left would use government to subsidize if they thought they could get away with it.
The whole problem with SCHIP and other entitlements is that we have confused “need” and “want” to the point that there is no longer any difference between the two. It is the difference between freedom and capitalism and dependence and socialism...
But I’m not going to sit here and be accused of “smearing” a family when the Democrats believe it is perfectly legitimate political discourse to use the Frosts as a poster family for what is good about SCHIP while not allowing me to use them in the exact same political context to show what is wrong with the program.
Captain Ed puts the lie to left's strawman:
Most Republicans supported the modest expansion of S-CHIP that the White House originally proposed. No Republican officeholders have, to my knowledge, proposed eliminating S-CHIP or scaling it back in any way. The GOP has argued that the expansion of the program to 400% of the poverty line would damage private health coverage and create a subsidy for families that can afford to make the choice for health coverage already.
The Frosts, the family at the center of the storm, came to personify the issue because Democrats had them use themselves as an argument for the expansion of the program. This turns out to be rather dishonest, because the Frosts qualified for S-CHIP without the expansion, as Herszenhorn reports. Their income levels fell below the existing 200% qualifying range for S-CHIP and they have used the program -- as they would have been able to continue to do so with the White House proposal.
That didn't stop the Democrats from demagoguing the debate by using the 12-year-old boy to make their political argument for them, then screaming about how heartless it was for Republicans to question the Frost's qualifications for government assistance. Like it or not, means testing is part of S-CHIP; in fact, it's the entire debate. That puts questions like assets, real income, and personal choices on the table. It's rather strange to consider someone who owns over $200,000 in home equity (not $400,000 as reported before) and commercial real estate as someone in need of government assistance. It's doubly strange when the children of the family attend private schools, even on scholarship. That calls into question whether the family has made choices to be without health coverage, or really have no resources to get it for themselves.
American Power
Prof. Donald Douglas, formerly of Burkean Reflections is now running a new blog American Power. In his first post at AP, Douglas lays out why he has slightly moved away from traditional Burkean thought. The whole post is worth the read, but here is the intro:
I've been meaning to establish a new blogging homepage for some time, since the "Burkean" in Burkean Reflections (my original blog), no longer reflects my fundamental political orientation. The fact is, when I started blogging I had just finished teaching a new course, Introduction to Political Theory. More so than other political philosophies covered in the class, I was drawn to Burkean thought for its emphasis on custom and tradition. I especially liked Burke's emphasis on continuity in culture - on prescriptive authority found in a nation's historical associations and traditions, and how such bases of authority formed a bulwark against revolutionary movements, and the rise of authoritarian leadership. I thus thought Burkean conservatism would provide excellent foundations for a traditionalist's analyisis of poltics and world affairs.
Yet I've become increasingly distressed under a Burkean identity of classical conservatism. While Burke will remain a key pillar of my thinking on the best social order, my forward orientation on America power and U.S. foreign policy diverges substantially from orthodox conceptions of Burkean restraint in foreign affairs. What's more, I've been disgusted, frankly, by some of the uses of Burke among some old-guard conservatives, who've championed Burke in a program of outright American isolationism and reactionary race doctrines.
Sorry Andrew and Isaac, flashcards and hand puppets are not available for this lesson.
I've been meaning to establish a new blogging homepage for some time, since the "Burkean" in Burkean Reflections (my original blog), no longer reflects my fundamental political orientation. The fact is, when I started blogging I had just finished teaching a new course, Introduction to Political Theory. More so than other political philosophies covered in the class, I was drawn to Burkean thought for its emphasis on custom and tradition. I especially liked Burke's emphasis on continuity in culture - on prescriptive authority found in a nation's historical associations and traditions, and how such bases of authority formed a bulwark against revolutionary movements, and the rise of authoritarian leadership. I thus thought Burkean conservatism would provide excellent foundations for a traditionalist's analyisis of poltics and world affairs.
Yet I've become increasingly distressed under a Burkean identity of classical conservatism. While Burke will remain a key pillar of my thinking on the best social order, my forward orientation on America power and U.S. foreign policy diverges substantially from orthodox conceptions of Burkean restraint in foreign affairs. What's more, I've been disgusted, frankly, by some of the uses of Burke among some old-guard conservatives, who've championed Burke in a program of outright American isolationism and reactionary race doctrines.
Sorry Andrew and Isaac, flashcards and hand puppets are not available for this lesson.
How Dare You Respond!
The left is in high dudgeon over conservative bloggers yanking down the Democratic façade surrounding the poster children for their naked attempt to expand government health care for those who can afford private insurance. This is typical of the left and once again reveals that they are long on anger and short on argument. So in order to mask that deficiency they resort to labeling legitimate criticism as “smear campaigns”, “intimidation” and “harassment.” Thus, they have distracted from and distorted the real issue at hand. This is the essence of progressive politics.
All through the debate over expanding SCHIP, the president and conservatives made the argument that the expansion would go far beyond helping those who really need it and cover those families who could afford to purchase private insurance. In fact, Bush has offered a proposal to expand the program by $5 billion a year, with overall spending limited to $30 billion.
What did the Democrats do after the veto? They rolled out a 12-year old, with a speech prepared by Senate Democrats, as the poster child for their argument that Bush is an evil meanie. What was the intimidating, harassing smear campaign by conservative bloggers? Pointing out that this poster child represented the very conservative argument against SCHIP! Leave it to the Democrats to provide the very example that proves the flaw in their plan.
As Mark Steyn pointed out, “The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game…. anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets…
So executive vice-presidents' families are now the new new poor? I support lower taxes for the Frosts, increased child credits for the Frosts, an end to the "death tax" and other encroachments on transgenerational wealth transfer, and even severe catastrophic medical-emergency aid of one form or other. But there is no reason to put more and more middle-class families on the government teat, and doing so is deeply corrosive of liberty.
And, if the Democrats don't like me saying that, next time put up someone in long pants to make your case.
The Democrats made the Frost family fair game by putting them in the political arena. It is entirely right and legitimate for conservative bloggers to bring forth the facts of their situation. All the leftists faux outrage over this is not any genuine concern for the Frost family but outrage at the fact that conservative bloggers exposed, for all to see, their disingenuous brand of politics, and lack of a real argument.
Having said that, there are conservative bloggers who went beyond legitimate criticism, and strayed into Kos-like bile, like this one at Red State. As intemperate and vile as this post is, it is not typical of conservative blogging on this subject. However, mainstream journalists have no compunction about framing it as such.
Sun reporter Matthew Hay Brown used this Red State post as the centerpiece of his follow-up article in the Baltimore Sun. Brown’s article paints that particular Red State post as typical of all conservative criticism, it is not and Brown knows this. Indeed, it was his shallow reporting and aping of Democrat talking points that in part, led conservative bloggers to reveal the Frost’s true financial circumstances. Brown’s follow-up piece is a blatant attempt to cover his ass.
If Democrats and the left want to use children as canon fodder to distract from their flawed positions, fine. However, it is entirely dishonest for the Democrats and the lefty bloggers to cry foul when they are called on it. Free speech is not an entitlement for your positions go unchallenged. Accusing your political opponents of harassment and intimidation for responding is even more dishonest, and they know it.
All through the debate over expanding SCHIP, the president and conservatives made the argument that the expansion would go far beyond helping those who really need it and cover those families who could afford to purchase private insurance. In fact, Bush has offered a proposal to expand the program by $5 billion a year, with overall spending limited to $30 billion.
What did the Democrats do after the veto? They rolled out a 12-year old, with a speech prepared by Senate Democrats, as the poster child for their argument that Bush is an evil meanie. What was the intimidating, harassing smear campaign by conservative bloggers? Pointing out that this poster child represented the very conservative argument against SCHIP! Leave it to the Democrats to provide the very example that proves the flaw in their plan.
As Mark Steyn pointed out, “The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man's job, then the boy is fair game…. anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you're welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets…
So executive vice-presidents' families are now the new new poor? I support lower taxes for the Frosts, increased child credits for the Frosts, an end to the "death tax" and other encroachments on transgenerational wealth transfer, and even severe catastrophic medical-emergency aid of one form or other. But there is no reason to put more and more middle-class families on the government teat, and doing so is deeply corrosive of liberty.
And, if the Democrats don't like me saying that, next time put up someone in long pants to make your case.
The Democrats made the Frost family fair game by putting them in the political arena. It is entirely right and legitimate for conservative bloggers to bring forth the facts of their situation. All the leftists faux outrage over this is not any genuine concern for the Frost family but outrage at the fact that conservative bloggers exposed, for all to see, their disingenuous brand of politics, and lack of a real argument.
Having said that, there are conservative bloggers who went beyond legitimate criticism, and strayed into Kos-like bile, like this one at Red State. As intemperate and vile as this post is, it is not typical of conservative blogging on this subject. However, mainstream journalists have no compunction about framing it as such.
Sun reporter Matthew Hay Brown used this Red State post as the centerpiece of his follow-up article in the Baltimore Sun. Brown’s article paints that particular Red State post as typical of all conservative criticism, it is not and Brown knows this. Indeed, it was his shallow reporting and aping of Democrat talking points that in part, led conservative bloggers to reveal the Frost’s true financial circumstances. Brown’s follow-up piece is a blatant attempt to cover his ass.
If Democrats and the left want to use children as canon fodder to distract from their flawed positions, fine. However, it is entirely dishonest for the Democrats and the lefty bloggers to cry foul when they are called on it. Free speech is not an entitlement for your positions go unchallenged. Accusing your political opponents of harassment and intimidation for responding is even more dishonest, and they know it.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Week 5: Redskins 34, Lions 3
Okay so the Lions are well the Lions (0-21 all-time on the road against Washington). However, they came into this game after dropping 34 points in the 4th quarter against the Bears last week. Given the collapse against the Giants two weeks ago, sitting through this game didn't feel like the laugher the final score indicated.
Leading 14-3 in the 3rd quarter it looked like a repeat of week 3 might unfold. Then the defense sprang up and Andre Carter sacked John Kitna for a safety and the Skins unleashed 20 points and finished off the Lions. Carlos Rogers added to the defensive scoring with a late pick returned for a touchdown.
As much as the defense stepped up, so did Jason Campbell make a giant leap forward in becoming the star he should be, 26-29, 248 yards, 2 TD. Not bad for a kid who has started only 11 NFL games.
Looks like Joe Gibbs took my advice. Mike Sellers had two touchdowns and the play of the game knocking Kenoy Kennedy three yards backwards.
Grades
Offense: B+
Defense: A
Special Teams: A
Katyn
Polish film maker Andrjez Wajda has a new film out about the Katyn Forest Massacre , simply titled Katyn.
Katyn could be up for best foreign film at the Academy Awards this year. Should it get nominated it would will have a good chance at winning. A win for Katyn would be the sign of a welcome trend in Hollywood. Last year's best foreign film winner The Lives of Others, detailed the crimes of the Stasi, communist East Germany's secret police. Instead of covering up for its own history of sympathy for Stalin and the crimes of communism, the film colony might be ready to seriously deal with the evil that communism was and still is.
The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression pact of 1939 not only secured a mutual bargain not to attack one another, it also contained a secret protocol in which Hitler and Stalin would carve up Poland and the deliver the Baltic states to the Soviet Union. When the Soviets moved into eastern Poland they rounded up and shot over 20,000 Polish citizens. Some were POWs others were lawyers, doctors, and businessman. Since Poland's conscription policy at the time required all non-exempted college graduates to serve in the reserve officer corps, the Soviets were able to eliminate a large segment of the Polish intelligentsia, that could pose a threat to their control of their portion of Poland. The prisoners were shot and buried in the Katyn Forest.
The massacre was not discovered until the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and the Nazis used it as a propaganda tool to undermine the allied war effort. Stalin in turn blamed the Nazis. Official Soviet policy continued to lay blame on the Germans well after Stalin's death. In 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev finally admitted that the NKVD executed the Poles on orders from Stalin.
There is a local monument to the Katyn victims here in Baltimore (see the pic above). The memorial is located at the end of President's St. adjacent to the waterfront Marriott. Mostly people walk by the memorial scratching their heads in a vain attempt to figure out what it is. If they only knew.
Katyn could be up for best foreign film at the Academy Awards this year. Should it get nominated it would will have a good chance at winning. A win for Katyn would be the sign of a welcome trend in Hollywood. Last year's best foreign film winner The Lives of Others, detailed the crimes of the Stasi, communist East Germany's secret police. Instead of covering up for its own history of sympathy for Stalin and the crimes of communism, the film colony might be ready to seriously deal with the evil that communism was and still is.
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