Of Elites, Liberty and the Manipulation of Perception

Word is getting out, and it is explained better and better. I first heard about the false Left and Right dichotomy, reading Stephen Hicks' "Explaining Postmodernism", now entirely available online.

With Communism and Socialism on the far Left, and Nazis and fascists on the extreme Right hand side of this political scale - capitalism and liberty is positioned smack in the middle? It just doesn't make sense.

Ayn Rand had this to say about Nazism and Mussolini's Italian Social Republic:

The political origin of that notion is more shameful than the “moderates” would care publicly to admit. Mussolini came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Italy. Hitler came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Germany. It is a matter of record that in the German election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis—with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy: capitalism and its parliamentary form of government.

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism). (...) Read the lexicon

Oh, and let's not forget the secret Molotov-Von Ribbentrop Non Aggression Treaty, which was not as outrageous as it may seem. Word has it that even before 1939 Nazis were holding military exercises on Soviet territory.




Andie Brownlow on Pajamas today has the following overview on the subject, and throws in a shortlist of recent history, of the Leftist press dealing with the enemy, i.e. liberty. As a now deeply middle aged, Leftist stand-up even last night had it: everything bad that befalls us is America's fault (but then, he also thinks reactionary is the opposite of proactive, so perhaps never mind him).

As we conclude in "Socialist Causes Explained", in case Leftist actions defy all sense and logic, ask yourself this and you've got your answer: what course of action would hurt the West or the cause of liberty (read capitalism) most?

Pajamas: "American Media, Blaming the ‘Right’: From Duranty and the KGB to Reuters", by Andie Brownlow

A Reuters article last month titled “German protesters stop neo-Nazi march in Dresden” takes a hyper-partisan stab at what would otherwise have been a dull story. The article is short, 474 words, and describes a neo-Nazi funeral march in the German city to remember Nazi deaths by the Allied air raid in WWII. This event was thwarted by anti-Nazi protesters.

In this brief article about clear-cut good and evil, the political “right-wing” was awkwardly invoked six times, including under the caption. Such a ham-handed approach to finger-pointing can hardly go unnoticed. It is a sloppy attempt to paint the right-wing as sharing the ideology of one of the most evil men in history, Adolf Hitler.

As many people are beginning to understand, Nazism has nothing to do with modern conservatism or the clichéd “extreme right-wing” canard favored by the political left. In fact, all totalitarian regimes are on the extreme political left; nothing but anarchy exists on the extreme political right.

The modern left has its roots in the political phenomenon of the 1930s when progressivism, communism, fascism, socialism, and Nazism coalesced under the common flag of centralized governments and an ideology of collectivism. This worldwide movement went largely unchallenged ideologically until the reassertion of classical liberalism through the American conservative movement in the 1950s. (...) >>>

Read here about the moral equivalent of war, which explains the need for unity in the face of a common enemy, global warming. The moral equivalent of war turns out to be nothing less than an exalted means to mobilization for what's deemed an ethically superior cause: that's fascism, thought up by the groundlayer of "progressive" collectivist Pragmatism, William James.

Read here how politically demoralized commentator Andrew Sullivan is wriggling out of Orwell's correct analysis that pacifism is objectively pro fascist. This RINO is juggling objectivity and subjectivity as it were a cup game, and plays the card that any old Leftist habitually does, the ethics of good intentions (or deontology), in other words, the-perpetual-get-out-of-jail-card.

The more you learn, the more you feel liberated from INGSOC.

Related:

- "The Dystopia of Paradise"
- "Just Doing his Job", interview with Soviet defector, Juri Bezmenov
- "Socialist Causes Explained"
- "The Press from Hell"
- "Under the Bus"
- "In Defense of Liberty"

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• Nazi references are all the rage these days! (hotair.com)

"We Didn't Know" is No Excuse

Andrew Bostom is publishing a series on Pajamas on the history of infidels in Iran. Bostom is an authority on the fate of non Muslims in Muslim conquered lands, the so-called dhimmis. Part II was just released. Part III is coming up soon. We'll link to it as soon as it becomes available. The historian Bat Yeor coined the term in her book "Islam and Dhimmitude".

Would the Amsterdam anti discrimination Court, where Geert Wilders is currently on trial, be aware of all that? Given that 15 expert witnesses out of the 18 requested by Wilders were rejected by the Court, defending counsel's reaction was that "apparently they already know".

The series is reminiscent of Wilders' proposal for the rag head tax! Regretably it went nowhere. It would have given cause to a lifely debate. A junior journalist who went undercover in Wilders' party, said he even regretted it.

Turns out, the Nazis invented very little themselves. Antisemitism laws appear to have been lifted 1o1 from Muslim tradition. Part II of Bostom's series relates that even the World War II Star of David badge is an old Iranian custom. All that might well have had something to do with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, an uncle of Yasir Arafat, who was a regular on the Nazi scene.

We have our own theory here, that the genocide of the Jewish tribe of Medina, the Banu Qurayza, later stood model for both the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian genocide, as well as the Holocaust of World War II. At least it must have justified it, because it gave the mass murders a religious base.

Read all about it in "The Medina Precedent for Holocaust and Genocide" and "The Turkish Genocides, the Endless Story".

Also by Andrew Bostom: "The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims" and "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism".

Pajamas: "Jihad and Genocidal Islamic Anti-Semitism in Shi’ite Iran": Part I - Part II - Part III

Related dossiers:

- "The Unholy Alliance"

- "In Defense of Liberty"

- "The Jihad Project"

- "Stop Islamization of Europe"

- "Islamization=Apartheid"

- "Apostating Islam"

- "Muslims versus Sharia"

The "Brother Species" Just Hate Us

The story of the animal rights movement is the dialectic ... the biological version (9.0). Not wanting to distract you to the point of boredom, for an explanation please scroll down the dedicated page for the Introduction to the dossier.

While easily the most demonstrably ludicrous and irrational, the animal rights arm of Postmodernism is also perhaps the most dangerous in its nihilistic consequences. It goes directy to the species level.

This article by Dr Edwin Locke on the site of the Ayn Rand Institute explains the error well and concludes in no uncertain terms:

The granting of fictional rights to animals is not an innocent error. We do not have to speculate about the motive, because the animal "rights" advocates have revealed it quite openly. Again from PETA: "Mankind is the biggest blight on the face of the earth"; "I do not believe that a human being has a right to life"; "I would rather have medical experiments done on our children than on animals." These self-styled lovers of life do not love animals; rather, they hate men.

The animal "rights" terrorists are like the Unabomber and Oklahoma City bombers. They are not idealists seeking justice, but nihilists seeking destruction for the sake of destruction. They do not want to uplift mankind, to help him progress from the swamp to the stars. They want mankind's destruction; they want him not just to stay in the swamp but to disappear into its muck.

One area where the anti humanists are making great inroads is in the legal protection of species. As soon as the yellow striped gerbal is set loose on a plot of land and is accidentally spotted all construction work is halted, building activities stop and the local economy is put on hold. With some luck the legal process can be stretched to years on end.

Pim Fortuyn's political assassination which led to a crisis in the Netherlands was perpetrated by one of their ilk on behalf of Muslims which he also perceived to be endangered. Van der Graaff was regarded as a very successful litigator on behalf endangered species.

The lengths this practice can go to is recently demonstrated in California where the Federal Government has seen fit to cut off the water supply in protection of the delta smelt under the Endangered Species Act. It is creating a wasteland.



Tell me in which way this injustice is any different from Robert Mugabe's willfully laying waste to Africa's bread basket, Zimbabwe?

Californians are not standing for it any longer: California Ag Network.



Sean Hannity recently made an appearance in the dust bowl in support of the farmers and people of California. Here's some footage.



Had it really to do with the love of our fellow creatures, this might be caring to the point of suicide. Do our brother species, the Alsacian hamster and the delta smelt really hate us? Of course not. Animals have no free will and therefore lack our sense of morality, and a good job it is. Imagine the emotional wrecks lions might become out of remorse of having killed so many wonderfully agile antilopes over the course of their existence?

Animals deserve our love and respect. It's humans with morally reprehensible ideas that hate their brothers. (Now am I allowed to say their ideology shares roots with Nazism?)

A Short History of Bad Ideas (I): The Victims

Do we truly know the nature of the ideas we believe in? Do we know their pedigree? And what will ensue once implemented? Does it matter if what we tacitly condone or passionately advocate is true, or a figment of wishful thinking? Are the ideals we strive for really what we want? Or do we simply further them because they sound good and the mere intention suggests we have 'ethics' on our side? Does the vocal advocacy of such ideals absolve us from further acting in the real world? And do our good intentions remove the guild if our image of earthly paradise turns out to be a dystopia instead? And do we stand by them nevertheless, and blame their operators, or someone else?

One book helps clarify some of those questions. It is a must read for anyone with an interest in the workings of our world and the terrifying ideals that got us where we are today. “Lenin, Stalin and Hitler” by Robert Gellately, suitably subtitled “The Age of Social Catastrophe” charts the tragic course of history in the first half of the last century (Vintage Books/Random House, August 2008). Gellately is Professor of History at Florida State University and author of earlier books on National Socialism, among others “Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany.” From the Introduction:

“Only weeks after the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks created secret police forces far more brutal than any that had existed under the tsar [sic]. The Nazis followed suit and were no sooner in power than they instituted the dreaded Gestapo. Under both regimes millions of people were incarcerated in concentration camps where they were tortured and frequently worked to death.”

Clever propaganda set in motion after WWII by the Soviets made Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party the essence of evil, a comparative process in which they themselves came out far better than deserved, while in fact hence one, Lenin and Stalin had set the standard of brutality in waging a relentless class extermination war on their own people that lasted from 1917, until at least Stalin's death in 1953. The Gulags for political prisoners were dismantled only after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In what has become a frequent meme in Leftist theory, Stalin's perversion and mismanagement was to carry the can for the political crimes, the willful cruelty and the mass atrocities, while the theory and its main intellectual fathers, Marx and Lenin, came out unblemished: a lofty ideal so badly served by some of its leaders. Some maintain it to this day.

Kant's ethics of good intentions (deontology) did the rest for absolving Socialism and its related isms as ideologies, not tainted with evil, but ligitimate systems of governance. Under the blanket cover of Pragmatism the U.N. and other transnational entities now actively help broker it into power, for instance recently in the Himalaya Mountains nation of Nepal. Thanks to moral relativism President Reagan's Evil Empire has no heir-apparent.

Taking advantage of cheap vacation packages on the subtropical island dystopia of the Castro Brothers is no longer shameful opportunism. Shunning bargain price items made in the People's Hive of Vietnam no longer deemed a sign of moral backbone. The People's Republic of China - its human rights violating regime provided with legitimacy in the process - was awarded the hosting of the prestigious Olympic Games (not to mention trade deals): the Tibetans and their advocacy groups aside, no one batters as much as an eyelid.

In other words, while Rightist collectivism is forever tainted by history, Leftist collectivism came away smelling of roses. De-nazification gave way to mere lustrations, international treaties to protect dissidents made way for communistic apologists reinventing themselves as “the party of liberty”. From moral absolutes, to Realpolitik, to amoral Pragmatism within the course of sixty years.

British Independent Television News recently aired a documentary compiled just after WWII by the renowned suspense film director, Alfred Hitchcock. The work was withheld by the post war government because it was deemed to gruesome to be shown: it is gruesome. The eyeless poison dwarf of Tehran should be tortured with it - Clockwork Orange style - as some reverse aversion therapy against victim envy!

The end of the documentary comes as a shock. The narrative concludes as follows:

“Unless the world learns the lesson these pictures teach, night will fall.
But by God's Grace we will live, will learn.”

Perhaps the biggest drama is yet to come, because we didn't internalize in essence what made these horrors possible: not moral absolutism, but moral relativism; not hard facts, but the subjective denial of them; not reason, but contempt for it; not man as an individual, but his coining in groups; not the defense of the good, but the appeasment of evil: more of it might still be in store; that the millions of victims, and the last generation's defenders of freedom will have died in vain, is a horrible realization on US Memorial Day!

Read here how opinion and the freedom to vent it, are confused with denial of reality - whether the Holocaust happened is apparently a matter of personal taste! Where are the calls for land marks and memorial days, to be held in honor of the Victims of Collectivism, all 110 million of them? 

Where's the outrage over today's human sacrifices taking place in the Dar-al-Islam, Cuba and Kathmandu, to name but a few crisis spots? Thrown under the bus of Pragmatism in the name of the false idealism no one thinks worth fighting for, beyond gratuitously taking the streets to protest those governments that take freedom seriously.

Watching the blank faces of the villagers in complete denial of the pits of hell that were erected just outside their chocolate box villages, the SS men and women as they are confronted with the mass graves and the wretches that survived their evil works, one cannot help wondering, what made these people condone and commit these horrendous acts? Wasn't Germany supposed to be the most educated, most cultured and most sophisticated country in Europe?

The answer is, it was the ideas in their heads that made them do it. This is how vulnerable man is: stray from reality one inattentive moment and the descent into Hades ensues.

In the upcoming posts we will pursue the matter further. Here's Alfred Hitchcock's other “Psycho” (with a word of caution for those reluctant to face facts).

Related: 

- "Triumph of the Will", a propaganda film directed by German artist and photographer, Leni Riefenstahl featuring the 1934 Nazi rally at Nurnberg.

- To be continued to Part II: "Blueprint for Paradise" - 

- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" -

Puzzle of the Week: Connect the Dots

Let's do a little lumping, shall we! Not the postmodern version of "all who wear uniforms are Nazis", or "all white males are rapists", but some real equivalents on the philosophical level. Whatever infuriates the Leftist hypocrites is a source of amusement for the rest of us.

Question: What is the common thread in the following items?

Yahoo!News: "UK baby born without breast cancer gene"

(...) "The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations." (...) >>>

... and these nuggets from a less biologically sophisticated era:



Part 2/10 (short cut: the case is made in Part 1, but Part 2 explains it more in-depth); the rest of the historical series is available on YouTube, "New Age Inc.: NWO-Nazi Occult Aryan Worship".

Next, another dot in our puzzle - meet the humanitarian, compassionate eugenics site "Future Generations", proudly introducing evolutionary science, genetics: "We advocate measures to improve the innate quality of humankind which are entirely voluntary. (...) If we ever hope to solve the problems which face our species, it's imperative that we first look at them objectively, and assess the scientific evidence without bias. (...) >>>

Since we have such favorable experience with the subject of eugenics there can be no possible objection against that proposal, can there? [sarc off].

That was for the coarse-minded materialists. This is how the elevation of mankind works on a higher level of consciousness.

And last but not least we have a special presentation by a Lutheran broadcaster (hat tip L.L.), reminding us "How we got here": through a set of maniacal depressive hippies with visions of lifting humanity to a higher ethical plane through LSD and psychotherapy, to strip man of layer after layer of evil social constructs, a course advocated by Hillary herself: beyond social engineering lies consciousness creation!

Forward your answer within the next 24 hours in a comment. The winner gets a 4x4 Dodge Durango (just kidding).

A US Weimar Rep? Red Flags (III): the Lessons

Continued from Part II: "A US Weimar Republic? Red Flags: Our Republic"

From the desk of Dr Sam C. Holliday, director of the Armiger Cromwell Center

~~-:-~~

The parallels
Of course there are many differences in the USA today and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. Germany had been severely damaged by World War I and the Versailles Treaty; Germany lacked the Anglo-Saxon tradition of constitutionality, limited government, separation of powers and free-market capitalism; America has a tradition of smooth transitions between administrations; German nationalism was based on ethnic identity rather than identity with the principles in our founding documents; and the economy of Germany in the 1930s was worse than that of the USA today--at least worse than it is now.

Yet there are some ominous parallels. In the USA since the 1960s many traditional American ideas, values and attitudes have been eroded, and capitalism is being replaced by mixed economies. Religion and morality has less influence on behavior; there is a trend from individualism toward collectivism, relativism and socialism; there is greater acceptance of subjective ideas; there is greater catering to the fears and emotions of factions; and factions are becoming more alienated. These changes have parallels in Germany of the 1930s.

A key parallel is the replacement of rational thought with feelings and emotions. Another is how the vast majority of people simply absorb the thoughts presented by the educational establishment, the media, and the entertainment pop culture. The Utopias sought from 1919 to 1933 in Germany and in the USA after the 1960s are different, yet the pursuit of Utopias is the same.

Peikoff blames Christianity, and self-sacrifice for the collective, for paving the way to totalitarian dictatorship. Today we would have to blame postmodern thought. Will we hear the argument that centralized power under "an enlightened leader" is not all bad if necessary to solve crises and to insure "fairness for all"?

Will some group be declared an "enemy within"? Will the American people of the next decade be manipulated like the German people of the 1930s? Will the emotionalism of the Populares destroy the organic American nation motivated by its exceptionalism? An understanding of history might allow the USA to avoid the errors made by the Germans.

Of course these parallels only suggest a possible future for America. The many differences in the USA today and Germany in the 1930s probably insure stability and prevent a dictatorship, although future Caesars are likely. Such a tragic move would only be possible if the American culture is fundamental changed so that the frugality, industry and simplicity of ‘traditional Americans’ are replaced by decadence, self-indulgence and insolvent debt.

However, the red flags do justify a reexamination of the past. History is never repeated exactly, yet those unaware of history are destined to repeat past mistakes. How can we anticipate the future? We should study the past. Only thus can we have a glimpse of the road ahead. Hopefully if people understand the lessons of history they will be able to chart a better course. It is hoped that this essay can reveal a better course.

The Role of the German Military
The German military in the 1930s made errors of both commission and omission. For years they took too active a role in politics and then they lacked the will to prevent the destruction of a republican government, with checks and balances, and its replacement by a centralized authoritarian regime.

The paradox was that the military that was instrumental in the protection of the German people in 1919 (against the Communists and anarchists), in 1920 (against rejection of parliamentary government by the Prussian bureaucrat Kapp and Freikorps units) and in 1923 (against both Hitler and the Communists) was paralyzed after 1932 by their self-image of apolitical professionalism.

By August 1934 the German government had been centralized into a socialistic collective with Hitler as the Head of State—and the supreme authority. All officers and soldiers were required to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler personally, rather than to the German nation and Constitution of a German Republic.

After World War I the German nation lacked a social contract, so the Weimar Constitution was subject to continual interpretations, resulting in conflict among factions, rather than being a basis for unity. This made it difficult for the German military with experience of loyalty to a sovereign Head of State rather than to a sovereign people.

The leadership of the German military saw themselves as professional soldiers responsible for the defense of their country against external enemies. The officers were intelligent, dedicated men who had proven themselves in war, they were considered the brightest and the best, yet they were military technicians. They were more comfortable being loyal to a single leader, as under Kaiser William II, than under the control of a bungling parliament. They were not political visionaries—in fact they were politically handicapped.

Their guide was “Reichwehr does not shoot at Reichwehr”. They considered themselves above the selfish games of politicians and political parties. Although this gave them strength, it was also to prove a fatal weakness. Their apolitical professionalism did not prevent military leaders from taking key positions in government as illustrated by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, General Kurt von Schleicher, and General Hans von Seeckt.

In 1923 the German military was able to prevent Hitler from seizing power. From this defeat Hitler learned a lesson. He decided that in the future he would work to neutralize the military and come to power legally. He realized that military professionalism appropriate for War (conflict between the armed forces of states) and Peace (conflict/cooperation without the use of force) would be ineffective in political subversion in which all means possible are used to weaken and overthrow those in authority. He knew that if he could get power legally he could then use the military against external enemies, while he developed other organizations to insure internal control. Later these were to be realized in the SS and the Gestapo.

Field Marshal von Hindenburg was a renowned soldier with a long record of accomplishment in an era of conventional war, but he did not understand the dynamics of the 1930s or the complexity of political subversion. He had dealt with many politicians, but no true demagogue. He assumed that Hitler was just another clever, deceitful politician. So did von Schleicher, von Seeckt and most of the German military. The Reichswehr considered internal security and order primarily a police matter and something to be avoided by military professionals. This was the Achilles heel of the Reichswehr.

- Caption: Von Hindenburg on January 30, 1933 appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor, although the National Socialists lost two million votes and 34 seats in Parliament -

The actions of the German military after 1932 once again demonstrates that anything taken to the extreme creates its opposite. A lesson to be learned is that the vision of the Founding Fathers of the USA of checks and balances in a Republic is superior to the certainty of legality or the resolution of conflict through political debate.

Another is that decentralized federalism protects the people better than centralized government. A third lesson to be learned from the history of the German military under the Weimar Republic is that a military that focuses on external threats and war is vulnerable to a demagogue.

Can the USA Avoid the Mistakes Made by Germany?
Yes, but only if we learn from the past. There is going to be no “American Hitler”. However, power could be centralized so that the USA becomes a socialistic collective. And the outcome of interpretations to a “living” Constitution could mean a republic in name only--with little in common with what our Founders visualized.

If we remember the lessons of history the USA should be able to avoid the destruction of constitutional government, which took place in Germany from 1923 to 1934. However, US military must avoid the mistakes made by the German military, which will require an understanding of the concept of civilian control of the military among politicians, the military, and the public. Now there is only superficial awareness of this important concept.

To encourage thought about the meaning of civilian control of the military the essay 'Civil-Military Relations' dated 11 May 06 explains the four interpretations of civilian control of the military, and outlines its three requisites. Then the essay discusses how the concept evolved and how it has been used and misused. Finally, a conceptual framework is offered for those interested in understanding this important concept.

Civil-military relations cannot be seen solely in terms of legality. It must also be rooted in customs and traditions. The US military needs to have the knowledge, skill and will to balance effectiveness, responsiveness, and representativeness as it carries out its oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.

More importantly the American people must learn from history not to repeat the mistakes of the past, and they must realize that they are a unique people with a unique American culture. It is true that no one can foretell the future. Nevertheless we should hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. Americans must remember that the checks and balances (Stability through Equilibrium) and decentralization gifts of our Founders differ from the governmental structures and processes of all others. It is our mission to see that American exceptionalism is always a beacon for others.

- Caption: Washington Memorial - Hat Tip Ethan K. Birchard -

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agar, H., The Price of Union, Boston, 1950.
Barrow, R. H., The Romans, Harmondswrorth, Middlesex, 1955.
Peikoff, L., The Ominous Parallels, New York, 1982.
Mann, G. The History of Germany since 1789, New York, 1968.
Riencourt, A. de, The Coming Caesars, London, 1958.
Rossiter, C., Seedtime of the Republic, New York, 1953.

Copyright © 2008  Armiger Cromwell Center, Atlanta, GA 30319-1322. 404-201-7374. Permission is granted to forward this article by e-mail to friends or colleagues on a fair use basis. For reprint permission, contact Armiger Cromwell Center at armigercc@comcast.net

A printable version of the integral text of the essay "Red Flags", a parallel between Weimar Germany and Postmodern USA

- Filed on Articles in "The Armiger Cromwell Center" and "Americana" -

Revising "the Logic of Hegemony"

John Rosenthal has got a worthy piece of prose up on Pajamas Media that makes the skin crawl. "German Publishing’s Man in the White House" tells of Obama's ties to Germany's Bertelsmann Publishing and a massive conflict of interest yet to be fully disclosed.

There's the fact that the emporium happens to be the President Elect’s principal source of income, but even worse, perhaps hard to imagine in this day and age - or sadly, not any more - the Bertelsmann conglomerate does not belong to the vein of Teutons, who in a less politically correct time, were referred to as 'good Germans'.

Consider: the Bertelsmann Foundation and Corporation are two perfectly intertwined entities, both in effect, emanations of the Mohn family. Rosenthal:

"It might be considered irrelevant today that Bertelsmann massively collaborated with the Nazi regime during World War II. (For more on this, see “Bill Clinton’s German Paymasters.”) But it is surely not irrelevant that when German researcher Hersch Fischler first brought this fact to light, the family proposed to have the matter further investigated by one Dirk Bavendamm. Bavendamm is the family’s “in-house” historian, having written no fewer than three commissioned histories of the Mohn family and the Bertelsmann Corporation.

As so happens, he is also an open revisionist, who calls World War II “Roosevelt’s War” and suggests — à la contemporary 9/11 conspiracy theorists writing on George W. Bush — that Franklin Delano Roosevelt intentionally permitted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to occur. Bavendamm has even written a book on the subject with the curious title Roosevelt’s War 1937-45 and the Puzzle of Pearl Harbor [Roosevelts Krieg 1937-45 und das Rätsel von Pearl Harbor].

“With the events of December 7-8, 1941 [i.e., the attack on Pearl Harbor], Roosevelt … had achieved his most important aims,” Bavendamm has written in an essay on the subject [German link], “America’s entry into the War occurred with the enthusiastic consent of the overwhelming majority of the American people — … Roosevelt had finally convinced them that it was their sacred duty, guns in hand to defend freedom, democracy, and prosperity around the world.” (For more on Bavendamm, see Hersch Fischler and John Friedman’s “Bertelsmann’s Revisionist” here.)

The theory that the Pearl Harbor attack was a set-up is, incidentally, standard neo-Nazi fare. Interestingly enough, in his infamous “God Damn America!” sermon, Obama’s longtime pastor Jeremiah Wright invokes precisely this theory as apparently well-established fact: “The government lied about Pearl Harbor too,” he says. “They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Governments lie.”

The Obama team and the Mohns would undoubtedly say that it is scandalous to suggest that the Mohns were using their millions to influence the American presidency or that Obama could possibly be corrupted. (...) >>>

Be that is may, the Ayn Rand/Stephen Hicks school of philosophy never misses target. Mutual attraction apart, follow the irrationals, follow the collectivists, follow America hatred, and sooner or later one ends up in places where bodies have been piling up, eventual good intentions notwithstanding.



- Filed on Articles in "Revisionism" -

Obama is NOT the Most Liberal Liberal to Have Run for Office

On the late day the news was suppressed that a major Obama speech writer has broken rank, rummaging through an rather amusing PUMA blog - Hillbuzz - the winning meme hit consciousness level: Obama is not at all "the most liberal Democrat that’s run for president in as long as anyone can remember" ...

... Obama is NOT a liberal at all!

In "The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign" we introduced Global Labor, a unionist blogger who is perturbed by the Obama 'authoritarian' influence on education. He asserts that Obama's eduction adviser, Prof. Linda Darling-Hammond - like Ayers - is persuaded of the justice of the 'educational debt', reparations due to black citizens as 'historically oppressed." This theme is classical Marxist dialectic, pointing to the Marx assertion that Capitalism breeds happy peoples because it exports oppression to the Third World (never mind that African Americans are well, Americans).

If Obama doesn't share the Marxist beliefs with his former Chicago Annenberg Challenge board colleague Ayers, then why does he have (or has had) Mike Klonsky serving on the campaign blogs, answering matters pertaining to education and 'social justice', as Global Labor alleges? Both Klonsky and Ayers emerged from the SDS: whereas Ayers started his Weather Underground mob, Klonsky - via the October League - founded the US Communist Party (Marxist-Leninst) (CP (ML)), which was officially sanctioned by the Chinese regime.

The confusion in the political landscape could not be more profound. A leading Dutch magazine came up the other day with "Dutch liberals might become disappointed in Obama, because he is not as liberal as they think he is". That would be because - in order to win American Presidential elections - candidates have to 1. pretend to respect the 2nd Amendment (right to carry arms); 2. support the death penalty; and 3. pretend to be a Christian of sorts. The case is however altogether different.

No, Barack Obama is no liberal, and certainly not The Most Liberal Ever. He's an old fashioned, authoritarian, top down, commie nomenklatura. It's John McCain who's the real liberal, as some would have it ...

Every so often in this blog we make an effort to explain what is wrong with the current entrenched alignment of political parties, and that the American notion of liberals and liberalism is flawed. The last time we made such an attempt was in "Credit Crunch Critical for Survival of Capitalism." The American uptake of liberalism is actually Socialism light, which is directly opposed Libertarianism.

Confused? Luckily we now have the availability of the online Ayn Rand Lexicon in which the matter is explained better than we could ever aspire to. Consider:

"For many decades, the leftists have been propagating the false dichotomy that the choice confronting the world is only: communism or fascism—a dictatorship of the left or of an alleged right—with the possibility of a free society, of capitalism, dismissed and obliterated, as if it had never existed.

The political origin of that notion is more shameful than the “moderates” would care publicly to admit. Mussolini came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Italy. Hitler came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Germany. It is a matter of record that in the German election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis—with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy: capitalism and its parliamentary form of government.

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism). That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s (...) >>>

(...) apparently somebody forgot to inform the West.
______________________________________________________________
"The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more."
--Michelle Obama, the first lady of zero sum economics



- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" -

The Comprehensive Guide to Youth for Obama

“(...) That is your weapon! “Precious” needs to get on the phone and say, “Grandpa, Grandma, I am asking you to vote for Barack Obama. This is really important to me. It’s about my future. It’s about the world I will be living in. It’s about the world I want for my future children. (They will love that one!) Please! Do it for me!”
Barack Obama in "Kids for Obama" ___________________________________________________________

It's about time we did an inventory of one of the more worrisome features of the Obama campaign so far (besides shutting down the opposition by criminalizing them, and blackballing an endangered species, a critical member of the press - watch the Biden interview with Barbara West): the Obama Youth draft. Deny it at our peril.

To begin with, children of any age as a rule are innocent, vulnerable and impressionable. This is why we strive to shield them from predators and exploitation. Doses of reality are administered piecemeal in a controlled fashion, carefully dispensed when we believe they are able to handle a given situation.

Children lack the mental tool to discriminate, and are therefore open to suggestion. Precisely because their minds are like sponges, soaking up all information that's available to them, the totalitarians of our world prefer their pawns young, at the earliest age possible.

We would not dare to suggest - or indeed hope - that an Obama administration would ever go that far, but in an ideal totalitarian world children are a common property.

Rousseau followers have this romanticist image of the tribal village where children merrily rummage around, babies and toddlers crawling from hut to hut, soaking up wisdom dispensed by the tribal elders and wise old hags, who smoke their pipes in the soft afternoon sunlight as the women prepare the communal meal for the night's entertainment when the men come home from the hunt.

We must not forget that the tribe is the origin and the miniature of a totalitarian society. The above pastoral image is usually far removed from the actual horrors of communities in which the individual is but one element of the organic whole, that is the tribe. Individual actions might endanger the entire group, which is why they must remain subordinated to the collective.

We are coming from a situation in which the White House has been occupied by the most demonized President in the history of the United States. We are coming from eight years of Bush Derangement Syndrome, psychological denial, displacement and projection on a mass scale.

That is after thirty plus years in which Bill Ayers and his postmodernist following have been perverting education, debilitating and demoralising the mentality of entire generations of students, who therefore lack any historical perspective, minds poisoned with dialectically induced self-loathing.

Americans are at present in the process of being seduced by a personality cult figure ('celebrity' is way too mild an epithet - idol is more like it) and the electoral process has been reduced to a popularity contest. Facts and reality are irrelevant, voting on the basis of policies is out.

Watching the scene from a distance, all signs flare up in red alert, alarm bells toll at full throttle, but none of the caveats reach the general public who, as willing nymphets at the political lily pond are heartily enjoying their play of seduction with the Postmodern rendition of Peter Pan. Consider the conditions:

If children are becoming a lever in the campaign - or should we say 'movement' (see cashed screen shot of the top down "Grassroots 'Kids for Obama Parade' (Organizing)" - click to enlarge) - should we be surprised of creepy initiatives on the ground, signs that the malignant memes have long reached ground level?

The child choir "We're Gonna Change the World" is reminiscent of The Dear Leader's children and the Hitler Youth. It is disturbing on so many levels. The "yes we can" mantra is the translation of Will: remember Will? National Socialism thrived on it, reason was out - seen as middle class, and an inferior tool to knowledge. Pupils were encouraged to "think with their will." Another rather apt parody by The People's Cube is circulating, driving home the point of the mobilization of all the drones towards the cause.

At student level, we find the equally disturbing spectacle of the Obama Youth Regiment, almost reminiscent of child soldiers. Best perhaps not to say too much of this picture.

As said, one aspect of Hitlerism were the youth groups. These were case particular to the circumstances in the German interbellum, younger generations blaming the older ones for losing the Great War and holding them responsible for the devastating stipulations of the Versailles Peace Treaty.

The Wandervogel (ramblers) and Die Bunde were non-political, but they promoted Pragmatism and instilled from a young age the preference of emotions over rationality, and action over thought. Reason was referred to as 'the whore of the Enlightenment.' After the first great anti-modernist thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau, admired by all subsequent subjectivist movements, the Nazis sought to create an environment in which raw emotions and passions "as found in primitive societies and in the Orient, to give up one's individuality and merge with the organic youth group under a forceful leader," would thrive. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

One of the worst and emotionally devastating aspects of the total state is the social pressure exerted to ensure enduring loyalty to the ideology: children spying on their parents and vice versa, and neighbors no longer able to trust each other. One of many slick instruction manuals in full Obambi blue complete with hobbit dwellings shows you how to mobilize the neighbors. The complementory vid shows you're just a few clicks away from MyBO. (shudder)

It's not just the isolated cases in this campaign that are disturbing: it is the pattern and the effect the dissemination of these memes have in the real world. Two's a coincidence, three is a pattern, four is good reason for a critical look up close (and there's hasn't been much of that!).

Check out this 'inspirational' slightly off Obambi blue nugget towards the cause, currently hitting the childrens book shelves: "Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope" by Nikki Grimes and Bryan Collier. "Ever since Barack Obama was young, Hope has lived inside him. From the beaches of Hawaii to the streets of Chicago, from the jungles of Indonesia to the plains of Kenya, he has held on to Hope. Even as a boy, Barack knew he wasn't quite like anybody else, but through his journeys he found the ability to listen to Hope and become what he was meant to be: a bridge to bring people together."

You still there ...? Specifically trained organizers - the Obama Organizing Fellows - are strategically placed in communities "to carry out grassroots activities" for the serious minimum of 30 hours a week. As O himself began his agitating career as a community organizer this specific module of the movement must be particularly close to his own heart. The Acorn instruction manual can possibly be integrated in its entirety in the Fellows cyllabus. This has been put in place long ago: "the campaign is no longer accepting Obama Fellow Applications. The deadline for submission has now passed." Applicants have been contacted by June 2nd.

To top that up we have Obama Truth Squads enforcing The Current Truth, the laddies of Action Wire engaging in swarming and other acts of intimidation. The Obama proposals for a national service sends shivers down the individualist's spine! It's all about group mobilization!

When are the American people waking up from their enamoration with the seducer?

Here's the latest from the official Obiden Action Center on the targetting of kids, reported by Dr Slogan's Prescriptions in "The Future Has Arrived: Barack Obama Targets Kids": "If you go to Sen. Obama’s official site and click on People you’d see — among others — a recently added category called Kids. (...)

The opening statement sets the stage: “In the words of Senator Barack Obama, the “Obama for America Campaign is a different type of campaign”. For the first time in campaign history, children ages 12 and under, have a place to go and actually vote—through their voice. What a great way to be introduced to politics and to express your support for Senator Obama.” On this one, I have to agree with Sen. Obama–this is certainly a very different kind of campaign.

The site features content for kids themselves, for adults who want to leverage others’ kids to get more votes for Sen. Obama and for parents who want to leverage their kids to promote their support of Sen. Obama. Every set of instructions is worth reading. Kids have “10 Ways Kids for Obama can get involved” at their disposal. (...)

The site offers many handy instructions for young Sen. Obama supporters, helping them to form the pragmatic attitude they would absolutely need in the Obama led nation (...) "Read it for yourself (bring a mountain of tissues and a sizable pot to puke in).
N.B. the top quote is exerpted from this page >>>

If you are one of the few who doesn't believe there's any immediate danger to the nation, read today's Morning Bell, "First They Came for Joe" ...

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
--Ronald Reagan

- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House" -

The Left's Default Position: Coercion (II), the Philosophy

Continued from part I: "The Left's Default Position: Coercion"

Has anyone noticed of late the upsurge in open aggression, verbal or otherwise? It has increased in proportion to the Left's abandoning classic Social Democracy and replacing it with the Postmodern variety. Both share Kantian roots, but whereas Social Democracy has a healthy respect for science and technology and makes an effort to rationalize the ideology, Postmodernism has no such history and clings proudly to its core premise of anti-reason.

Even today Sarah Palin attacked the Postmodernist domestic terrorism of the Weather Underground and the long association Barack Obama had with its founder, Bill Ayers on the boards of the Chicago Annenberg Challange (see also "The Hidden Sinisterisms of the O Campaign" or ask the Global Labor blogger "Who Sent Obama?").

Once any form of subjectivism replaces reason, sooner or later it always comes down to coercion. We will endeavor to explain the reason here on the philosophical level, hopefully in the plainest possible terms. Part III will take a look how this translates in the daily practice and why the Left's style of activism reminds us so much of Fascist activity.

Subjectivism means that thought creates reality: reality (the object) is thus dependent on human consciousness (the subject). A thinker does not need to concern himself with the outside facts of reality to acquire knowledge. The mind, containing raw percepts and emotions, unfiltered and unprocessed by reason, has the power to create 'reality' in conformity with the owners wishes. Pathos, emotions and will take the place of reason as the primary tool of 'cognition'.

Iconically Albert Einstein once asked a subjectivist, "do you really think the universe is not there when you aren't watching it?" A subjectivist might legitimately ask, "If I die overnight, will the sun rise tomorrow?"

Violence and coercion are at the heart of subjectivist thought: it started with virulent forms of racism and ethnic Nationalism, which was followed by the gulags, psychiatric asylums and death camps of Socialism - meaning, all variations of Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism.

When the Western Left abandoned the ambition of reaching Utopia through violent revolution, they embraced democratic principles. This temporarily halted the coercive tendency, but it currently resurfaces with the Left adopting Postmodernism, which contains a strong strain of Rightist subjectivism of the Heidegger school of thought, which also strongly influenced Fascism.

Subjectivists do not engage in cognitive processes in any traditional sense of the word. An object - say a banana, isn't perceived from the inside out (what is the form, the color, its use, etc.), but the question is rather how does the banana 'strike' the observer. A subjectivist sits in reception how the banana will 'come across', what emotion the banana will trigger within him, the mind functioning as a sounding board or receiver, if you will.

This is also at the heart of the cannabis legalization campaign: the effect of a narcotic is a short-cut to superior subjective 'thought processes'.

The received sensation translates into pleasant or unpleasant percepts. The passive 'open mind' approach opens the field wide to suggestion, association, and projection. This can run wild, even resulting in psychosis, since it goes unchecked by sobering logic and reason. Subjectivists are ardent practitioners of campaigns for the manipulation of perception (the subjectivist approach to commercials: watch any liquor or auto commercial and you'll get the idea. Read also "When Reason Fails").

The basis for this improper method of 'cognition' is the Kantian notion that the mind is locked up inside the skull, forever separated from outside reality. It has become a place of smoke and mirrors, with objects that are only a ghostly form of the actual thing; the real object is localized in some parallel universe, unbreachable by the human mind. This belief allows subjectivists to manipulate facts, and pick and choose among data to reach any conclusion they like. Their ethics programs them to reach only collectivist outcomes.

Cut off from reason, the duty of altruism, which is the core of Kantian ethics, tends to demand force since that is the only means of ensuring that everyone complies with the moral duty to self-sacrifice to the collective; then pacifism rejects the legitimacy of self-defense. It reinforces the subjectivist default position of coercion, but the ultimate source is anti-reason: in absence of objective knowledge, might makes right (Pragmatism), which is further enhanced by the morality that forcing the 'good' on people is for their own benefit.

The Western Left have managed for a long time to refrain from the use of force. By adopting liberal democracy and declaring any form of violence (even self-defense) morally beyond the pale ("make love, not war) they limited themselves to peaceful methods of persuasion. Today it is 'just' the manipulation of perception (see also "The Hidden Sinisterism of the O Campaign") and methods like Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)* and The Nudge are the popular methods to make unsuspecting people comply with the ideology. By paying prolonged lip-service to equality, they adhered to democratic principles, even though subjectivism does not lead to universal equality, unless among members of the same collective.

In themselves the premises of individualism, limited government and equality are alien to subjectivism. Which is why the Left adopted these principles as leaps of faith: Kantian philosophy itself doesn't lead to individual autonomy and as we have seen, subjectivism sees force as a legitimate form of coercion, indeed a beneficial tool for compliance for the 'common good'.

With the shift of Social Democracy to Postmodernism on the part of the political Left we should not be surprised of the inherent reflexes coming once again to the surface. It's no wonder we are reminded of blackshirts and storm troopers! It's because they share the same philosophical parameters.

* Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Deconstructionism rest on the fallacy that language is an end, not a tool for the expression of concepts. Followers reject the existence of concepts and take its tool (language) to be an end in itself.

To be continued in part III: "The Left's Default Position: Coercion, the Practice"

Related:

- "Blurring the Border between Reality and Perception" (series)
- "When Reason Fails" (series)

- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" and "The Political Pathology Asylum" -