An Interesting Dinner Conversation - True Confessions
My wife and I went out to our favorite sushi bar this evening, and there is always an opportunity to get into a discussion with someone sitting next to you. The fellow, in this case, indicated he was in software for transaction verification and was selling it to Japan. I noted the problem with Diebold voting machines and their ability to be tampered with. From his accent, I asked if he was from Canada, and he said Montreal. The stage was set for him to reveal his political leanings. He said Northern California was the only place he could consider living in as the politics were so odd everyplace else. I found this a remarkable statement, primarily since I live here and I find the politics of the area totally repugnant. Then he professed he was a "bleeding heart liberal". I tried to sooth him by saying we need all types of people in this country and that seemed to make him feel better. I told him I don't mind liberals (all the while not revealing my political position, which he sort of homed in on) as long as they are critical thinking and use logic to come to their conclusions. He agreed with that. Then he expounded on how there was no good nor evil in the world, to which I replied the Pope stated the biggest threat to the future of humanity was moral relativism. ...Silence... Then we started talking about the features of our similar mobile phones. Hmmm.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Peace At Any Cost
It is ironic, to me, the lack of realization by anti-war activists, peace advocates, and pacifists that no one wants war unless they happen to be arms dealers or other narrow interests that may gain financially. Moreover, it is often the activities of these groups that encourage those not so inclined to peaceful intention. The unintended consequences are a prolonging and more distructive time of unrest and dying.
Such is the situation in Iraq. Whether or not it was a good or bad decision, the actions of these groups have glorified the enemy (the groups would quickly say it is us) and have given away valuable information that undermines resolution of the conflict.
So the next time you see these misguided individuals getting on their high horse "Hate Bush" campaign with no suggestions or recommendations, remind them that they have a major role in all this death and destruction we are currently witnessing.
Fabian Socialism
Some time ago, I'd written about these various special interest groups when bundled together looked like the Communist Manifesto being implemented via Fabian Socialism. Here is another author supporting a similar line of thought. I would have included International A.N.S.W.E.R. and MoveOn.org in the second paragraph, however.
To any of you ready to pooh-pooh this discussion are either part of the problem or have allowed yourselves to be controlled by these psychopolitical events.
===========
From: "AlainsNewsletter"
The New Left, Cultural Marxism,
and Psychopolitics Disguised
as Multiculturalism
Linda Kimball
There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded. The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well. "The Sixties are dead," wrote columnist George Will (Slamming the Doors, Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991)
Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war 'peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and 'gay' rights groups. All of these groups pursue their piece of the radical agenda through a complex network of subversive organizations such as the Gay Straight Lesbian Educators Network (GSLEN), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), People for the American Way, United for Peace and Justice, Planned Parenthood, Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and Code Pink for Peace.
Both communism and the New Left are alive and thriving here in America. Code words by which they can be recognized are: tolerance, social justice, economic justice, peace, reproductive rights, sex education and safe sex, safe schools, inclusion, diversity, and sensitivity. All together, this is Cultural Marxism disguised as multiculturalism.
Birth of Multiculturalism
In anticipation of the revolutionary storm that would baptize the world in an inferno of red terror, leading to its rebirth as the promised land of social justice and proletarian equality - Frederich Engels wrote, "All the large and small nationalities are destined to perish in the revolutionary world storm. (A general war will) wipe out all nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only reactionary classes but reactionary peoples." (The Magyar Struggle, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Jan. 13, 1849)
By the end of WWI, socialists realized that something was amiss, for the world's proletariat had not heeded Marx's call to rise up in opposition to evil capitalism and to embrace communism instead. They wondered what had gone wrong.
Separately, two Marxist theorists-Antonio Gramsci of Italy and Georg Lukacs of Hungary-concluded that the Christianized West was the obstacle standing in the way of a communist new world order. The West would have to be conquered first.
Gramsci posited that because Christianity had been dominant in the West for over 2000 years, not only was it fused with Western civilization, but it had corrupted the workers class. The West would have to be de-Christianized, said Gramsci, by means of a "long march through the culture." Additionally, a new proletariat must be created. In his "Prison Notebooks," he suggested that the new proletariat be comprised of many criminals, women, and racial minorities.
The new battleground, reasoned Gramsci, must become the culture, starting with the traditional family and completely engulfing churches, schools, media, entertainment, civic organizations, literature, science, and history. All of these things must be radically transformed and the social and cultural order gradually turned upside-down with the new proletariat placed in power at the top.
In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated patriarchal family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow, Lukacs--towards this end--launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All of this was accompanied by a reign of cultural terror perpetrated against parents, priests, and dissenters.
Hungary's youth, having been fed a steady diet of values-neutral (atheism) and radical sex education while simultaneously encouraged to rebel against all authority, easily turned into delinquents ranging from bullies and petty thieves to sex predators, murderers, and sociopaths.
Lukacs plans were the precursor to what Cultural Marxism in the guise of SIECUS, GSLEN, and the ACLU -- acting as enforcer -- later brought into American schools.
In 1923, the Frankfurt School - a Marxist think-tank - was founded in Weimar Germany. Among its founders were Georg Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, and Theodor Adorno. The school was a multidisciplinary effort which included sociologists, sexologists, and psychologists.
The primary goal of the Frankfurt School was to translate Marxism from economic terms into cultural terms. Toward this end, Marcuse - who favored polymorphous perversion - expanded the ranks of Gramsci's new proletariat by including homosexuals, lesbians, and transsexuals. Into this was spliced Lukacs radical sex education and cultural terrorism tactics. Gramsci's 'long march' was added to the mix, and then all of this was wedded to Freudian psychoanalysis and psychological conditioning techniques. The end product was Cultural Marxism, known in the West as multiculturalism.
In 1950, the Frankfurt School augmented Cultural Marxism with Theodor Adorno's idea of the 'authoritarian personality.' This concept is premised on the notion that Christianity, capitalism, and the traditional family create a character prone to racism and fascism. Thus, anyone who upholds America's traditional moral values and institutions is both racist and fascist. Children raised by traditional values parents, we are told to believe, will almost certainly become racists and fascists. By extension, if fascism and racism are endemic to America's traditional culture, then everyone raised in the traditions of God, family, patriotism, gun ownership, or free markets is in need of psychological help.
The pernicious influence of Adorno's 'authoritarian personality' idea can be clearly seen in the following quote: "In Aug., 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the results of their $1.2 million tax-payer funded study. It stated, essentially, that traditionalists are mentally disturbed. Scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford had determined that social conservatives suffer from 'mental rigidity,' 'dogmatism,' and 'uncertainty avoidance,' together with associated indicators for mental illness." (www.edwatch.org 'Social and Emotional Learning" Jan. 26, 2005) From this Orwellian quote we can see just how successful has been Gramsci's 'long march through the culture.'
The corresponding and diabolically crafted corrective idea is political correctness. The strong suggestion here is that in order for one not to be thought of as racist or fascist, then one must not only be nonjudgmental but must also embrace the 'new' moral absolutes: diversity, choice, sensitivity, sexual orientation, and tolerance. Political correctness is a Machiavellian psychological 'command and control' device. Its purpose is the imposition of uniformity in thought, speech, and behavior.
Critical theory is yet another psychological 'command and control' device. As stated by Daniel J. Flynn, "Critical Theory, as its name implies, criticizes. What deconstruction does to literature, Critical Theory does to societies." (Intellectual Morons, p 15-16) Critical Theory is an ongoing and brutal assault via vicious criticism relentlessly leveled against Christians, Christmas, the Boy Scouts, Ten Commandments, our military, and all other aspects of traditional American culture and society.
Both political correctness and Critical Theory are in essence, psychological bullying. They are the psycho political battering rams by which Frankfurt School disciples such as the ACLU are forcing Americans to submit to and to obey the will and the way of the Left. These devious devices are but psychological versions of Georg Lukacs and Lavrenti Beria's 'cultural terrorism' tactics. In the words of Beria, "Obedience is the result of force. Force is the antithesis of humanizing actions. It is so synonymous in the human mind with savageness, lawlessness, brutality, and barbarism, that it is only necessary to display an inhuman attitude toward people to be granted by those people the possessions of force." (The Russian Manual on Psychopolitics: Obedience, by Lavrenti Beria, head of Soviet Secret Police and Stalin's right-hand man)
Double-thinking 'fence-sitters', otherwise known as moderates, centrists, and RINOs are an obvious result of these psychological 'obedience' techniques. These people-afraid of incurring the wrath of name-calling obedience trainers--- have opted to straddle the fence lest they be found guilty of possessing an opinion, one way or another. At the merest hint of displeasure from the obedience-trainers, up goes the yellow flag of surrender upon which it is boldly written: "I believe in nothing and am tolerant of everything!"
The linchpin of Cultural Marxism is cultural determinism, the parent of identity politics and group solidarity. In its turn, cultural determinism was birthed by the Darwinian idea that man is but a soulless animal and therefore his identity is determined by for example, his skin color or his sexual and/or erotic preferences. This proposition rejects the concepts of the human spirit, individuality, free will, and morally informed conscience (paired with personal accountability and responsibility) because it emphatically denies the existence of the God of the Bible. Consequently, and by extension, it also rejects the first principles of our liberty enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. These are our "unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Cultural Marxism must reject these because these principles of liberty "are endowed by our Creator," who made man in His image.
Cultural determinism, states David Horowitz, is "identity politics-the politics of radical feminism, queer revolution, and Afro-centrism-which is the basis of academic multiculturalism, a form of intellectual fascism and, insofar as it has any politics, of political fascism as well." (Mussolini and Neo-Fascist Tribalism: Up from Multiculturalism, by David Horowitz, Jan. 1998)
It is said that courage is the first of the virtues because without it fear will paralyze man, thus keeping him from acting upon his moral convictions and speaking truth. Thus bringing about a general state of paralyzing fear, apathy, and submission-the chains of tyranny-is the purpose behind psychopolitical cultural terrorism, for the communist Left's revolutionary agenda must, at all costs, be clothed in darkness.
The antidote is courage and the light of truth. If we are to win this cultural war and reclaim and rebuild America so our children and their children's children can live in a 'Shining City on the Hill' where liberty, families, opportunity, free markets, and decency flourish, we must muster the courage to fearlessly expose the communist Left's revolutionary agenda to the Light of Truth. Truth and the courage to speak it will set us free.
Old King George
George Soros managed to Op-Ed his way into the Wall Street Journal with his blather about his Open Society and the world's opinion of the U.S.
For a fellow that escaped Hitler's and Stalin's excesses, he certainly has his own form of megalomania that he is trying to force on us with his money and, what I call subversive, associations. Watch out for this smarmy fellow.
GEA
=============================
August 15, 2006
COMMENTARY
A Self-Defeating War
By GEORGE SOROS
August 15, 2006
The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies. Five years after 9/11, a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world. Yet al Qaeda has not been subdued; a plot that could have claimed more victims than 9/11 has just been foiled by the vigilance of British intelligence.
Unfortunately, the "war on terror" metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder. But the war on terror remains the frame into which American policy has to fit. Most Democratic politicians subscribe to it for fear of being tagged as weak on defense.
What makes the war on terror self-defeating?
• First, war by its very nature creates innocent victims. A war waged against terrorists is even more likely to claim innocent victims because terrorists tend to keep their whereabouts hidden. The deaths, injuries and humiliation of civilians generate rage and resentment among their families and communities that in turn serves to build support for terrorists.
• Second, terrorism is an abstraction. It lumps together all political movements that use terrorist tactics. Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi army in Iraq are very different forces, but President Bush's global war on terror prevents us from differentiating between them and dealing with them accordingly. It inhibits much-needed negotiations with Iran and Syria because they are states that support terrorist groups.
• Third, the war on terror emphasizes military action while most territorial conflicts require political solutions. And, as the British have shown, al Qaeda is best dealt with by good intelligence. The war on terror increases the terrorist threat and makes the task of the intelligence agencies more difficult. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large; we need to focus on finding them, and preventing attacks like the one foiled in England.
• Fourth, the war on terror drives a wedge between "us" and "them." We are innocent victims. They are perpetrators. But we fail to notice that we also become perpetrators in the process; the rest of the world, however, does notice. That is how such a wide gap has arisen between America and much of the world.
Taken together, these four factors ensure that the war on terror cannot be won. An endless war waged against an unseen enemy is doing great damage to our power and prestige abroad and to our open society at home. It has led to a dangerous extension of executive powers; it has tarnished our adherence to universal human rights; it has inhibited the critical process that is at the heart of an open society; and it has cost a lot of money. Most importantly, it has diverted attention from other urgent tasks that require American leadership, such as finishing the job we so correctly began in Afghanistan, addressing the looming global energy crisis, and dealing with nuclear proliferation.
With American influence at low ebb, the world is in danger of sliding into a vicious circle of escalating violence. We can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor. If we persevere on the wrong course, the situation will continue to deteriorate. It is not our will that is being tested, but our understanding of reality. It is painful to admit that our current predicaments are brought about by our own misconceptions. However, not admitting it is bound to prove even more painful in the long run. The strength of an open society lies in its ability to recognize and correct its mistakes. This is the test that confronts us.
Mr. Soros, a financier, is author of "The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror" (Public Affairs, 2006).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115560280788735731.html
Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
The "C" Word
Dear Friends,
Most recently, I have been looking into the writings of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels...The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848. When I advise individuals of this activity, they look at me in horror. Why? Because they have been so brainwashed from the leftovers of the "red scare" and the Cold War, it appears traitorous to even consider studying such material. I was in the local Barnes & Noble bookstore, and they had these little nicely bound volumes of classic novels and other writings. A digest of Marx and Engels was among them. I picked it up and could not put it down. Why, again? I saw clearly ALL the upside-down issues we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
As far as I have delved into these writings, I see Marx as a brilliant dissector of our capitalist economic system. It is somewhat depressing to read through all the warts that capitalists try to manage from day-to-day. However, what he offered in its place is a system that resulted in governments killing 100+ million of their own people in the last century.
So why, you ask, is this of any consequence after we have seen the changes in the old Soviet Union and China? The march of Communism is alive and well and more ubiquitous than many of you realize and are willing to admit. It is fueled by ongoing class warfare of the have's and the have-nots fired up by special interest groups such as labor unions and corporate elite with little accountability built into their remuneration contracts. The smothering regulation of the nanny state WE have created frustrates people to take an irrational outlet for their anger, etc., etc.
These are the most visible manifestations that help to blind us to this reality and weaken our resolve to take action, individually or as a group.
EVEN MORE INSIDIOUS are specific strategies that have been diffused or distributed to PAC's, NGO's, or other blatantly subversive groups. I have extracted certain passages from the Communist Manifesto and tried to relate to current events or groups that support those actions. Primarily, these activities reside on the left. When taken individually, they are really in some sort of stealth social engineering mode. When taken as a whole and seriously thought about, you suddenly have in-your-face Communism as put forth by the Soviet Union, China, etc. Someone or some group has cleverly redone the strategy into its present form. Clearly, some of this resides in the "ruling elite"...the group that thinks they know what's better for us than we ourselves. I am sad to say that our government has a good-sized infection from these human parasites. I should add that this is not isolated just to the U.S. It IS a worldwide phenomena through social incrementalism.
Here we go, with my comments inserted...
"In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible."
GEA Eminent domain issues recently before the Supreme Court. The left gave it a pass in a highly corrupted form allowing monied interests to roll over private property owners.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations. It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.
GEA Driven in this direction by suffocating regulation and government's increasing involvement in business in an effort to take ALL personal initiative and self-determination and turn it over to the nanny-state. Culture is attacked through multiculturalism and open borders and undermining of the lingua franca.
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine. But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.
GEA Legislation from the bench based on a "Living Constitution" mentality...
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.
"Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."
GEA You are bloody blind if I have to list out the various aspects of this, however, for those still asleep, here are a few...
1. Redefinition of the word "marriage".
2. Redefining of family composition...two mommies, two daddies, etc.
3. Radical gay and lesbian predatory practices on our children via their own "manifesto" issued in the late '80's."
4. Removal of control of what our children are exposed to by the ACLU using first amendment rights.
5. Out of wedlock births
6. Eroding commitment to marriage...prior to and during.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty. But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
GEA The NEA and other educators believe their job is socialization and NOT education, as we commonly think. Certainly, socialization is important to a certain extent, but it presently is the only objective leaving readin', ritin', and rithmatic in the dust.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.?
The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
GEA Brainwashing of our children rather than teaching them how to study and think for themselves AND giving them the fundamentals necessary to survive in our "bourgeois" system. Hmmm.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.
GEA Pretty cold, eh?
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
GEA The rise of radical feminism and hatred of men.
Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public
and private.
GEA Again, marriage under attach by dogmatic zealots.
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
GEA Multiculturalism run amok. Open borders and no attempt to stem the flow of illegal aliens.
National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster.
GEA Odd statement. Will we have more soulless multinational corporations or one big communist glob with a few god-men pulling the strings?
United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
GEA Didn't Hillary say, "Power to the people!" in one of her more animated rallies? I may be mistaken."
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
GEA There you Commies go again, trying to change man...err woman's fallen nature.
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.
GEA Destroy religion in the public square using militant Islam and the running dogs of the ACLU. Hmmm... this could backfire.
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life? What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
GEA Strong introduction of situational ethics, moral relativism, and the secular humanist trend or religion.
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
GEA This is the key idea that justified the slaughter of 100+ million individuals in the last century. Goodness people, how many of you have confronted the popular thinking associated with situational ethics. Did you ever think that such an idiot scheme was actually part of the Communist Manifesto and those that have been espousing it have been brainwashed by this new religious dogma? This is one of the prime reasons that Michael Savage, an independent conservative says, "Liberalism is a mental disorder." Trying to logically discuss this matter is impossible with those caught in this cult's grip. So far, I've found this to be most evident in the U.S. and to a lesser extent, internationally. International liberals still have their brains connected to their mouth. From a Christian viewpoint, we believe in a higher power than man. The communist viewpoint allows man to rise to be a god with ALL the negative ramifications. This fundamental flaw in communism has been responsible for its undoing over and over again. Why does it keep rising from the ashes? ...Undermining of our culture and religious Judeo-Christian values.
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common
forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.
GEA Perhaps the fact that the U.S. consumes nearly 50% of the drugs might be a leading indicator that if the puppeteers can just drug us down a bit more, they can really eliminate this human flaw, rather than teaching through our various institutions how to manage and control it.
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas. But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
GEA Current approach...yell down your opponents with profanities and call them idiots.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
GEA This plays to the left's equal outcomes approach to societal brainwashing. Social justice, inclusiveness, celebrate, etc. are the buzz words used to break down these restraints.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the
soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Wow! And you mean there are people that can intellectually handle all these centralized decisions and power and responsibility for over 6 billion people? What a bunch of lunatics!
GEA
Ref: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
Most recently, I have been looking into the writings of Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels...The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848. When I advise individuals of this activity, they look at me in horror. Why? Because they have been so brainwashed from the leftovers of the "red scare" and the Cold War, it appears traitorous to even consider studying such material. I was in the local Barnes & Noble bookstore, and they had these little nicely bound volumes of classic novels and other writings. A digest of Marx and Engels was among them. I picked it up and could not put it down. Why, again? I saw clearly ALL the upside-down issues we are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.
As far as I have delved into these writings, I see Marx as a brilliant dissector of our capitalist economic system. It is somewhat depressing to read through all the warts that capitalists try to manage from day-to-day. However, what he offered in its place is a system that resulted in governments killing 100+ million of their own people in the last century.
So why, you ask, is this of any consequence after we have seen the changes in the old Soviet Union and China? The march of Communism is alive and well and more ubiquitous than many of you realize and are willing to admit. It is fueled by ongoing class warfare of the have's and the have-nots fired up by special interest groups such as labor unions and corporate elite with little accountability built into their remuneration contracts. The smothering regulation of the nanny state WE have created frustrates people to take an irrational outlet for their anger, etc., etc.
These are the most visible manifestations that help to blind us to this reality and weaken our resolve to take action, individually or as a group.
EVEN MORE INSIDIOUS are specific strategies that have been diffused or distributed to PAC's, NGO's, or other blatantly subversive groups. I have extracted certain passages from the Communist Manifesto and tried to relate to current events or groups that support those actions. Primarily, these activities reside on the left. When taken individually, they are really in some sort of stealth social engineering mode. When taken as a whole and seriously thought about, you suddenly have in-your-face Communism as put forth by the Soviet Union, China, etc. Someone or some group has cleverly redone the strategy into its present form. Clearly, some of this resides in the "ruling elite"...the group that thinks they know what's better for us than we ourselves. I am sad to say that our government has a good-sized infection from these human parasites. I should add that this is not isolated just to the U.S. It IS a worldwide phenomena through social incrementalism.
Here we go, with my comments inserted...
"In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e., from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible."
GEA Eminent domain issues recently before the Supreme Court. The left gave it a pass in a highly corrupted form allowing monied interests to roll over private property owners.
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations. It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property, all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything do not work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.
GEA Driven in this direction by suffocating regulation and government's increasing involvement in business in an effort to take ALL personal initiative and self-determination and turn it over to the nanny-state. Culture is attacked through multiculturalism and open borders and undermining of the lingua franca.
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine. But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, &c. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.
GEA Legislation from the bench based on a "Living Constitution" mentality...
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property – historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production – this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property.
"Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists."
GEA You are bloody blind if I have to list out the various aspects of this, however, for those still asleep, here are a few...
1. Redefinition of the word "marriage".
2. Redefining of family composition...two mommies, two daddies, etc.
3. Radical gay and lesbian predatory practices on our children via their own "manifesto" issued in the late '80's."
4. Removal of control of what our children are exposed to by the ACLU using first amendment rights.
5. Out of wedlock births
6. Eroding commitment to marriage...prior to and during.
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty. But, you say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we replace home education by social.
GEA The NEA and other educators believe their job is socialization and NOT education, as we commonly think. Certainly, socialization is important to a certain extent, but it presently is the only objective leaving readin', ritin', and rithmatic in the dust.
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, &c.?
The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.
GEA Brainwashing of our children rather than teaching them how to study and think for themselves AND giving them the fundamentals necessary to survive in our "bourgeois" system. Hmmm.
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.
GEA Pretty cold, eh?
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees his wife a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.
Our bourgeois, not content with having wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
GEA The rise of radical feminism and hatred of men.
Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public
and private.
GEA Again, marriage under attach by dogmatic zealots.
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
GEA Multiculturalism run amok. Open borders and no attempt to stem the flow of illegal aliens.
National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster.
GEA Odd statement. Will we have more soulless multinational corporations or one big communist glob with a few god-men pulling the strings?
United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
GEA Didn't Hillary say, "Power to the people!" in one of her more animated rallies? I may be mistaken."
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
GEA There you Commies go again, trying to change man...err woman's fallen nature.
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.
GEA Destroy religion in the public square using militant Islam and the running dogs of the ACLU. Hmmm... this could backfire.
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and conception, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life? What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class. When people speak of the ideas that revolutionise society, they do but express that fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
GEA Strong introduction of situational ethics, moral relativism, and the secular humanist trend or religion.
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”
GEA This is the key idea that justified the slaughter of 100+ million individuals in the last century. Goodness people, how many of you have confronted the popular thinking associated with situational ethics. Did you ever think that such an idiot scheme was actually part of the Communist Manifesto and those that have been espousing it have been brainwashed by this new religious dogma? This is one of the prime reasons that Michael Savage, an independent conservative says, "Liberalism is a mental disorder." Trying to logically discuss this matter is impossible with those caught in this cult's grip. So far, I've found this to be most evident in the U.S. and to a lesser extent, internationally. International liberals still have their brains connected to their mouth. From a Christian viewpoint, we believe in a higher power than man. The communist viewpoint allows man to rise to be a god with ALL the negative ramifications. This fundamental flaw in communism has been responsible for its undoing over and over again. Why does it keep rising from the ashes? ...Undermining of our culture and religious Judeo-Christian values.
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common
forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.
GEA Perhaps the fact that the U.S. consumes nearly 50% of the drugs might be a leading indicator that if the puppeteers can just drug us down a bit more, they can really eliminate this human flaw, rather than teaching through our various institutions how to manage and control it.
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas. But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
GEA Current approach...yell down your opponents with profanities and call them idiots.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
GEA This plays to the left's equal outcomes approach to societal brainwashing. Social justice, inclusiveness, celebrate, etc. are the buzz words used to break down these restraints.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the
soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
Wow! And you mean there are people that can intellectually handle all these centralized decisions and power and responsibility for over 6 billion people? What a bunch of lunatics!
GEA
Ref: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
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