Karen Kline Santa Fe, NM 87505 5/27/96 The Honorable Henry G. Cisneros Housing and Urban Development Department 451 7th Street SW Washington. D.C. 20410
Dear Mr. Cisneros,
I have written to you before, in relation to a foreclosure on my property that is a direct result of IRS abuse. This letter, however, is in response to seeing you on Montel. Which program, by the bye, was very good.
The only improvement, in my opinion, that could have been made, was when Montel said something about who people should vote for and you said you didn't want to say for whom people should vote, which I found jarring, I mean, the clear answer is to re-elect President Clinton. So, why did you not say that? Are government members disallowed from "campaigning" during public appearances that relate to their positions? If so, I think it would have been good for you to say exactly that, so there would be no doubts raised by your reply.
An aside: I want to tell you, since I believe you were mayor of San Antonio, that I once painted the Witte white. Pregnant, I had moved to San Antonio because here in New Mexico Texans were hated, and I wanted to see what Texans were like. When I went into the Witte, I tend to go to museums, everything was draped in tarps. Now, I had been thinking for years that if I could paint walls white that perhaps I could get over the darkness in my mind that had resulted from an earlier abortion. The abortion had changed my life so dramatically that I forever thereafter felt at one with Viet Nam veterans who suffered from what they had seen in combat, and the killing in which they had participated. So, when I saw the tarps, I found a museum guy and asked what color they were planning on painting the museum. White, came the reply. I said I really wanted to paint walls white, and could I have the job. They hired me and I proceeded to paint the museum, upstairs and down, white, at night when the museum was closed to the public. It was great, had the desired affect, and was a tremendous learning experience when museum administration learned I had a college degree and transferred me to the Public Relations office, at a three dollar an hour cut in pay. In terms of Texans, they were great. They were as friendly as they are portrayed to be. Once, in London, a year or so later, when I was very lonely and homesick, I wished I had a friend there with whom to talk. I came home from the British Museum, with my small son, and found on my doorstep, waiting to surprise me, two young women I'd met in San Antonio. It was so great!
Okay, back to the issues at hand. I think the idea of public housing is good, and serves a vital role. But I have to ask you, do you think it is right for IRS to take people's homes in order for the government to give homes to other people?
It is really important that you face the fact that this is what is happening. I am not exaggerating, as you well know. IRS has and uses precisely that power. For that reason, among others, I believe we must, that in fact we have an absolute moral duty, to change our taxation system so that this kind of destructive police power is removed.
The only system in which the removal of police power will actually be accomplished, is one in which there can be no back taxes. That is, a system based on a National Sales Tax with quarterly refunds to low income people. It is the only way in which people will always be all paid up. And, like the gas tax, tourists and business people from other countries, as well as illegal immigrants and drug traffickers will be contributing a share of the taxes, thus lowering the burden on individual hard working Americans.
I believe that you and others must realize that the system we now have is one which fosters hate groups. By that I mean that my understanding is that hate groups originate when there is a severe economic hardship being suffered by a group of people who, wanting something or someone to blame, and not comprehending the real reasons, choose an identifiable group of people who are different from themselves. In California, the Mexican immigrants are the focal point of the blame. In the CBS mini-series based on Ruby Ridge, the Randy Weaver character and his friends were talking about the ZOG. Not a term I'd previously heard. But, I could see how it would come into use when the government fails to represent a large group of people, and those people begin to wonder about their situation and create explanations for it, that they can understand.
I don't know if you saw or heard the David Gergen Dialogue on the News Hour last week, but he was talking with someone who had recently written a book about how man-on-the-street type Germans had participated in killing the Jews. I found this interesting because from the time I was in grade school, I could not see it any other way: when a German fastened the bolt on a train car of Jews headed for concentration camp, that German played a role, and must have known and accepted that role. So, the question arises, why? Why did the German feel so strong a hatred for the Jews?
In thinking about this, I remember a conversation I overheard when I was a child, well before I'd started school. It was between my maternal grandfather and his daughter's husband, my uncle. My grandfather was explaining how to recognize a Jew, and said you could tell a Jew by the shape of his nose. The idea was that this was a good thing to know, since Jews tended to stick together and always took care of their families first. I never forgot this. Years later when I was living in London, and my family had told me never to return to Wisconsin since I had a child and had not married, I wished I were Jewish, so that my family would "stick together" and I would not be alone. Desiring this as strongly as I did, a man who was one of the solicitors or barristers for the actors' union, as an acquaintance, helped me by buying silver that I made: one small silver box, plain but nice, for £16, but that was everything I happened to need at the time. He was Jewish, from South Africa. With this background, I was very pro-Zionist until I had a very different kind of experience in the course of selling real estate. I found, on various occasions, that Jewish people tended to negotiate much more cut-throat than did others, and would, if given the chance, take an advantage, even if that advantage caused great harm to the seller with whom they were dealing. I also saw that Jewish people were putting their profits well before the well being of people with whom they worked: hating to increase hourly wages by a quarter, but driving a Range Rover. Only one example. Then, recently, when I was thinking I would contribute time to some U.S. Senate candidate who might possibly unseat Senator Diminishing (Pete), I was at a campaign meeting where I offered to do fund raising, figuring that if I had always been extremely successful as a sales person, I could "sell" a candidate for contributions. I was given a print out of party members, and told by the candidate that I should call Jewish people since they were likely to contribute to another Jew. I was surprised he said this. Perhaps not at the concept, but at his saying it so matter of factly. Especially when only moments earlier, I had been talking about the Israeli bombing of the U.N. facility with the Lebanese women refugees, he had not deigned to agree a bombing of that nature was upsetting, but rather, had walked away from the conversation. I said that I wasn't sure it was wise for him to say something like that. He went ahead and pointed out Jewish names to me. Later, I realized that I didn't want to raise money for him. I also realized that if he walked away from the Israeli issue, he might walk away, just exactly as Domenici did, from any other issue that didn't suit him.
Here is my point: it is not a good idea for people to use public office to promote anything but the common good. Playing favorites, whether the favorite is a large contributor to the party, or ethnic, cannot be done without being seen, and while the people whom it favors, like seeing it, those people may in actuality be outnumbered by people who don't like seeing it. I doubt that good can come from anything but working for the common good.
What do I want you to do about all of this? I want you to consider how much we need to change our system of taxation so that poor working people will no longer be pitted against poor people of different skin colors who are easier to take on as an opponent than is the government, that is, IRS.
Only because I am willing to pit my life in this fight with IRS, am I able to have any impact at all. If I were not pitting my life, I would have to be trying to keep my property by working inordinate hours, and most likely failing in my goal anyway. I am, you see, in a lot more physical pain that I was when I started out putting together my retirement plan -- my pain is a result of a number of car accidents I had one year, all of which I believe were a subtle attempt to have someone else kill me, to end the pain of the separation with my child. If you're interested, I'll tell you the story, else, I'll save you the energy of reading/listening. Before IRS put me out of business, I had body work done once or twice a week to help control/handle the pain, since IRS put me out of work, I have this pain almost every single day. Most nights it keeps me from sleeping straight through, even if I take Advil, etc. Last year it was so severe that breathing caused me to gasp some of the time, and much of the time, for months, taking a step was excruciating. This, again, is a direct result of IRS actions. Actions that must be termed abuse. My point in mentioning my pain, is simply that it has an effect on my life: it makes me tire much more quickly than I tired before I had it, so that I know I can't work the sixteen hour days it took to put together the little I had for my retirement, that IRS so quickly destroyed.
Under the circumstances, I can see how I might watch a program like that presented by Montel, and begin to hate the people who are getting my money and my security, while I'm being made to live in pain, having had my provisions for my old age taken from me. However, having been poor so much of my life, and realizing that a lot of people don't have the ability to write that I have, call it a talent, I don't find myself blaming other poor people so much as I blame misuse of government power.
Given that most people won't vent against the government with letters, as I do, I don't think that anyone can be surprised when people, who are hurting, vent against other people, ones who are less powerful and therefore a relatively easier target than the government.
My point is that government's misuse of power is creating hate groups.
Because you are in a position to help solve this problem, I hope that you indeed put effort into solving it. I hope that you actively support a National Sales Tax with quarterly refunds to low income people.
Sincerely, Karen Kline Karen Kline
Copy to Montel and to David Gergen, Editor at Large, U.S. News & World Report
