Who Stole Our Culture? -- by William S. Lind
Sometime during the last half-century, someone stole our culture. Just 50 years ago, in the 1950s, America was a great place. It was safe. It was decent. Children got good educations in the public schools. Even blue-collar fathers brought home middle-class incomes, so moms could stay home with the kids. Television shows reflected sound, traditional values.
Where did it all go? How did that America become the sleazy, decadent place we live in today – so different that those who grew up prior to the '60s feel like it's a foreign country? Did it just "happen"?
It didn't just "happen." In fact, a deliberate agenda was followed to steal our culture and leave a new and very different one in its place. The story of how and why is one of the most important parts of our nation's history – and it is a story almost no one knows. The people behind it wanted it that way.
What happened, in short, is that America's traditional culture, which had grown up over generations from our Western, Judeo-Christian roots, was swept aside by an ideology. We know that ideology best as "political correctness" or "multi-culturalism." It really is cultural Marxism, Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms in an effort that goes back not to the 1960s, but to World War I. Incredible as it may seem, just as the old economic Marxism of the Soviet Union has faded away, a new cultural Marxism has become the ruling ideology of America's elites. The No. 1 goal of that cultural Marxism, since its creation, has been the destruction of Western culture and the Christian religion.
To understand anything, we have to know its history. To understand who stole our culture, we need to take a look at the history of "political correctness."
Early Marxist Theory
Before World War I, Marxist theory said that if Europe ever erupted in war, the working classes in every European country would rise in revolt, overthrow their governments and create a new Communist Europe. But when war broke out in the summer of 1914, that didn't happen. Instead, the workers in every European country lined up by the millions to fight their country's enemies. Finally, in 1917, a Communist revolution did occur, in Russia. But attempts to spread that revolution to other countries failed because the workers did not support it.
After World War I ended in 1918, Marxist theorists had to ask themselves the question: What went wrong? As good Marxists, they could not admit Marxist theory had been incorrect. Instead, two leading Marxist intellectuals, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary (Lukacs was considered the most brilliant Marxist thinker since Marx himself) independently came up with the same answer. They said that Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interests, that a Communist revolution was impossible in the West, until both could be destroyed. That objective, established as cultural Marxism's goal right at the beginning, has never changed.
A New Strategy
Gramsci famously laid out a strategy for destroying Christianity and Western culture, one that has proven all too successful. Instead of calling for a Communist revolution up front, as in Russia, he said Marxists in the West should take political power last, after a "long march through the institutions" – the schools, the media, even the churches, every institution that could influence the culture. That "long march through the institutions" is what America has experienced, especially since the 1960s. Fortunately, Mussolini recognized the danger Gramsci posed and jailed him. His influence remained small until the 1960s, when his works, especially the "Prison Notebooks," were rediscovered.
Georg Lukacs proved more influential. In 1918, he became deputy commissar for culture in the short-lived Bela Kun Bolshevik regime in Hungary. There, asking, "Who will save us from Western civilization?" he instituted what he called "cultural terrorism." One of its main components was introducing sex education into Hungarian schools. Lukacs realized that if he could destroy the country's traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying its traditional culture and Christian faith.
Far from rallying to Lukacs' "cultural terrorism," the Hungarian working class was so outraged by it that when Romania invaded Hungary, the workers would not fight for the Bela Kun government, and it fell. Lukacs disappeared, but not for long. In 1923, he turned up at a "Marxist Study Week" in Germany, a program sponsored by a young Marxist named Felix Weil who had inherited millions. Weil and the others who attended that study week were fascinated by Lukacs' cultural perspective on Marxism.
The Frankfurt School
Weil responded by using some of his money to set up a new think tank at Frankfurt University in Frankfurt, Germany. Originally it was to be called the "Institute for Marxism." But the cultural Marxists realized they could be far more effective if they concealed their real nature and objectives. They convinced Weil to give the new institute a neutral-sounding name, the "Institute for Social Research." Soon known simply as the "Frankfurt School," the Institute for Social Research would become the place where political correctness, as we now know it, was developed. The basic answer to the question "Who stole our culture?" is the cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School.
At first, the Institute worked mainly on conventional Marxist issues such as the labor movement. But in 1930, that changed dramatically. That year, the Institute was taken over by a new director, a brilliant young Marxist intellectual named Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer had been strongly influenced by Georg Lukacs. He immediately set to work to turn the Frankfurt School into the place where Lukacs' pioneering work on cultural Marxism could be developed further into a full-blown ideology.To that end, he brought some new members into the Frankfurt School. Perhaps the most important was Theodor Adorno, who would become Horkheimer's most creative collaborator. Other new members included two psychologists, Eric Fromm and Wilhelm Reich, who were noted promoters of feminism and matriarchy, and a young graduate student named Herbert Marcuse.
Advances in Cultural Marxism
With the help of this new blood, Horkheimer made three major advances in the development of cultural Marxism. First, he broke with Marx's view that culture was merely part of society's "superstructure," which was determined by economic factors. He said that on the contrary, culture was an independent and very important factor in shaping a society.
Second, again contrary to Marx, he announced that in the future, the working class would not be the agent of revolution. He left open the question of who would play that role – a question Marcuse answered in the 1950s.
Third, Horkheimer and the other Frankfurt School members decided that the key to destroying Western culture was to cross Marx with Freud. They argued that just as workers were oppressed under capitalism, so under Western culture, everyone lived in a constant state of psychological repression. "Liberating" everyone from that repression became one of cultural Marxism's main goals. Even more important, they realized that psychology offered them a far more powerful tool than philosophy for destroying Western culture: psychological conditioning.
Today, when Hollywood's cultural Marxists want to "normalize" something like homosexuality (thus "liberating" us from "repression"), they put on television show after television show where the only normal-seeming white male is a homosexual. That is how psychological conditioning works; people absorb the lessons the cultural Marxists want them to learn without even knowing they are being taught.
The Frankfurt School was well on the way to creating political correctness. Then suddenly, fate intervened. In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, where the Frankfurt School was located. Since the Frankfurt School was Marxist, and the Nazis hated Marxism, and since almost all its members were Jewish, it decided to leave Germany. In 1934, the Frankfurt School, including its leading members from Germany, was re-established in New York City with help from Columbia University. Soon, its focus shifted from destroying traditional Western culture in Germany to doing so in the United States. It would prove all too successful.
New Developments
Taking advantage of American hospitality, the Frankfurt School soon resumed its intellectual work to create cultural Marxism. To its earlier achievements in Germany, it added these new developments.
Critical Theory
To serve its purpose of "negating" Western culture, the Frankfurt School developed a powerful tool it called ”Critical Theory.” What was the theory? The theory was to criticize. By subjecting every traditional institution, starting with family, to endless, unremitting criticism (the Frankfurt School was careful never to define what it was for, only what it was against), it hoped to bring them down. Critical Theory is the basis for the "studies" departments that now inhabit American colleges and universities. Not surprisingly, those departments are the home turf of academic political correctness.
Studies in Prejudice
The Frankfurt School sought to define traditional attitudes on every issue as "prejudice" in a series of academic studies that culminated in Adorno's immensely influential book, "The Authoritarian Personality," published in 1950. They invented a bogus "F-scale" that purported to tie traditional beliefs on sexual morals, relations between men and women and questions touching on the family to support for fascism. Today, the favorite term the politically correct use for anyone who disagrees with them is "fascist."
Domination
The Frankfurt School again departed from orthodox Marxism, which argued that all of history was determined by who owned the means of production. Instead, they said history was determined by which groups, defined as men, women, races, religions, etc., had power or "dominance" over other groups. Certain groups, especially white males, were labeled "oppressors," while other groups were defined as "victims." Victims were automatically good, oppressors bad, just by what group they came from, regardless of individual behavior.
Through Marxists, the members of the Frankfurt School also drew from Nietzsche (someone else they admired for his defiance of traditional morals was the Marquis de Sade). They incorporated into their cultural Marxism what Nietzsche called the "transvaluation of all values." What that means, in plain English, is that all the old sins become virtues, and all the old virtues become sins. Homosexuality is a fine and good thing, but anyone who thinks men and women should have different social roles is an evil "fascist." That is what political correctness now teaches children in public schools all across America. (The Frankfurt School wrote about American public education. It said it did not matter if school children learned any skills or any facts. All that mattered was that they graduate from the schools with the right "attitudes" on certain questions.)
Media and Entertainment
Led by Adorno, the Frankfurt School initially opposed the culture industry, which they thought "commodified" culture. Then, they started to listen to Walter Benjamin, a close friend of Horkheimer and Adorno, who argued that cultural Marxism could make powerful use of tools like radio, film and later television to psychologically condition the public. Benjamin's view prevailed, and Horkheimer and Adorno spent the World War II years in Hollywood. It is no accident that the entertainment industry is now cultural Marxism's most powerful weapon.
The Growth of Marxism in the United States
After World War II and the defeat of the Nazis, Horkheimer, Adorno and most of the other members of the Frankfurt School returned to Germany, where the Institute re-established itself in Frankfurt with the help of the American occupation authorities. Cultural Marxism in time became the unofficial but all-pervasive ideology of the Federal Republic of Germany.
But hell had not forgotten the United States. Herbert Marcuse remained here, and he set about translating the very difficult academic writings of other members of the Frankfurt School into simpler terms Americans could easily grasp. His book "Eros and Civilization" used the Frankfurt School's crossing of Marx with Freud to argue that if we would only "liberate non-procreative eros" through "polymorphous perversity," we could create a new paradise where there would be only play and no work. "Eros and Civilization" became one of the main texts of the New Left in the 1960s.
Marcuse also widened the Frankfurt School's intellectual work. In the early 1930s, Horkheimer had left open the question of who would replace the working class as the agent of Marxist revolution. In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question, saying it would be a coalition of students, blacks, feminist women and homosexuals – the core of the student rebellion of the 1960s, and the sacred "victims groups" of political correctness today. Marcuse further took one of political correctness's favorite words, "tolerance," and gave it a new meaning. He defined "liberating tolerance" as tolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the left, and intolerance for all ideas and movements coming from the right. When you hear the cultural Marxists today call for "tolerance," they mean Marcuse's "liberating tolerance" (just as when they call for "diversity," they mean uniformity of belief in their ideology).
The student rebellion of the 1960s, driven largely by opposition to the draft for the Vietnam War, gave Marcuse a historic opportunity. As perhaps its most famous "guru," he injected the Frankfurt School's cultural Marxism into the baby boom generation. Of course, they did not understand what it really was. As was true from the Institute's beginning, Marcuse and the few other people "in the know" did not advertise that political correctness and multi-culturalism were a form of Marxism. But the effect was devastating: a whole generation of Americans, especially the university-educated elite, absorbed cultural Marxism as their own, accepting a poisonous ideology that sought to destroy America's traditional culture and Christian faith. That generation, which runs every elite institution in America, now wages a ceaseless war on all traditional beliefs and institutions. They have largely won that war. Most of America's traditional culture lies in ruins.
A Counter-Strategy
Now you know who stole our culture. The question is, what are we, as Christians and as cultural conservatives, going to do about it?
We can choose between two strategies. The first is to try to retake the existing institutions – the public schools, the universities, the media, the entertainment industry and most of the mainline churches – from the cultural Marxists. They expect us to try to do that, they are ready for it, and we would find ourselves, with but small voice and few resources compared to theirs, making a frontal assault against prepared defensive positions. Any soldier can tell you what that almost always leads to: defeat.
There is another, more promising strategy. We can separate ourselves and our families from the institutions the cultural Marxists control and build new institutions for ourselves, institutions that reflect and will help us recover our traditional Western culture.
Several years ago, my colleague Paul Weyrich wrote an open letter to the conservative movement suggesting this strategy. While most other conservative (really Republican) leaders demurred, his letter resonated powerfully with grass-roots conservatives. Many of them are already part of a movement to secede from the corrupt, dominant culture and create parallel institutions: the homeschooling movement. Similar movements are beginning to offer sound alternatives in other aspects of life, including movements to promote small, often organic family farms and to develop community markets for those farms' products. If Brave New World's motto is "Think globally, act locally," ours should be "Think locally, act locally."
Thus, our strategy for undoing what cultural Marxism has done to America has a certain parallel to its own strategy, as Gramsci laid it out so long ago. Gramsci called for Marxists to undertake a "long march through the institutions." Our counter-strategy would be a long march to create our own institutions. It will not happen quickly, or easily. It will be the work of generations – as was theirs. They were patient, because they knew the "inevitable forces of history" were on their side. Can we not be equally patient, and persevering, knowing that the Maker of history is on ours?
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Further Reading:
Roots of American Culture and Community in Disarray
Showing posts with label marxism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marxism. Show all posts
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Sunday, October 03, 2010
The Marxofeminist Paradise Known as Communist Cuba!
The following is an article written by a left wing Marxofembot back in 1998. It is just sitting out there plain as day that what fembots are agitating for (and writing into our legal systems) is Communism.
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One wonders why these sick, radical fembots in North America aren't heading to Florida en masse to get their hands on a cheap "previously owned" raft with which to navigate a trip to Cuba and escape the awful institutionalized patriarchal oppression that they are always whining to us about.
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One wonders why these sick, radical fembots in North America aren't heading to Florida en masse to get their hands on a cheap "previously owned" raft with which to navigate a trip to Cuba and escape the awful institutionalized patriarchal oppression that they are always whining to us about.
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Look! Here's a good one! Climb aboard, fembots! Just keep heading south. Bon Voyage!
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Feminism, Communism and Catholicism
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By Lisa Macdonald, Green Left Weekly, #304, 4 February 1998
By Lisa Macdonald, Green Left Weekly, #304, 4 February 1998
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The women of Cuba have reason to celebrate after the visit of Pope John Paul II two weeks ago.
The women of Cuba have reason to celebrate after the visit of Pope John Paul II two weeks ago.
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The pope's call, on behalf of the majority of the world's capitalists, for the US to lift its economic blockade of Cuba, focused the world's media on the Cuban people's plight after 37 years of economic isolation, and their achievements despite that. John Paul's call adds significantly to the growing pressure on the US to lift the blockade.
The pope's call, on behalf of the majority of the world's capitalists, for the US to lift its economic blockade of Cuba, focused the world's media on the Cuban people's plight after 37 years of economic isolation, and their achievements despite that. John Paul's call adds significantly to the growing pressure on the US to lift the blockade.
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The Cuban government knew that allowing the of the Catholic Church almost unlimited scope to spread his reactionary message on the family was a double-edged sword.
The Cuban government knew that allowing the of the Catholic Church almost unlimited scope to spread his reactionary message on the family was a double-edged sword.
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John Paul's ultraconservative position on women's "God-given" role as obedient and faithful wives, self-sacrificing mothers and domestic slave labourers is the antithesis of what Cuban revolutionaries have fought for.
John Paul's ultraconservative position on women's "God-given" role as obedient and faithful wives, self-sacrificing mothers and domestic slave labourers is the antithesis of what Cuban revolutionaries have fought for.
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Last year there were 41,227 divorces in Cuba (compared to 65,009 marriages). The pope's assertion in Santa Clara that divorce is evil and unnatural is not likely to change this pattern. The Family Code, which enshrines in law women's (and men's) unqualified right to divorce, to receive financial support from the father of their children and the state and to insist that their male partners do an equal share of domestic labour and child-care, was the product of years of profoundly democratic discussion involving the entire population.
Last year there were 41,227 divorces in Cuba (compared to 65,009 marriages). The pope's assertion in Santa Clara that divorce is evil and unnatural is not likely to change this pattern. The Family Code, which enshrines in law women's (and men's) unqualified right to divorce, to receive financial support from the father of their children and the state and to insist that their male partners do an equal share of domestic labour and child-care, was the product of years of profoundly democratic discussion involving the entire population.
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The pope also railed against women's right to control their fertility. Abortion, he said, is an abominable crime which distorts the "true nature and dignity" of motherhood. All birth control methods, he said, "are not in accordance with human dignity".
The pope also railed against women's right to control their fertility. Abortion, he said, is an abominable crime which distorts the "true nature and dignity" of motherhood. All birth control methods, he said, "are not in accordance with human dignity".
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Again, the pope's rantings must have had limited credibility among this particular audience since they directly contradict the experiences and aspirations of Cuban women. As one woman told a US journalist in Havana at the time: "He's entitled to his opinion".
Again, the pope's rantings must have had limited credibility among this particular audience since they directly contradict the experiences and aspirations of Cuban women. As one woman told a US journalist in Havana at the time: "He's entitled to his opinion".
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Cuba has no official birth control policy, but abortion is legal and considered a right for all women, regardless of age, marital status or personal circumstances. It is a right which Cuban women fought hard for, against the legacy of centuries of imperialist colonisation and the domination of the Catholic Church before the revolution.
Cuba has no official birth control policy, but abortion is legal and considered a right for all women, regardless of age, marital status or personal circumstances. It is a right which Cuban women fought hard for, against the legacy of centuries of imperialist colonisation and the domination of the Catholic Church before the revolution.
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The reproductive rights of women in Cuba contrast sharply with those in Cuba's "moral" condemner, the US. Whilst opinion polls throughout the 1990s revealed that at least 65% of people in the US agree that women should have the right to choose, 15 abortion clinics were bombed last year, and unrestricted access to abortion is not available in a single US state.
The reproductive rights of women in Cuba contrast sharply with those in Cuba's "moral" condemner, the US. Whilst opinion polls throughout the 1990s revealed that at least 65% of people in the US agree that women should have the right to choose, 15 abortion clinics were bombed last year, and unrestricted access to abortion is not available in a single US state.
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During 1996 there were 83,000 abortions in Cuba and 140,276 births - an abortion rate of almost 60%. This compares to 31% in the US.
During 1996 there were 83,000 abortions in Cuba and 140,276 births - an abortion rate of almost 60%. This compares to 31% in the US.
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For Cuban women living under the blockade, abortion is more often than not the only way to control their fertility. It is a "choice" they exercise within constraints which are beyond their and their government's control. As another woman in Cuba interviewed by US television pointed out, there would be many fewer abortions in Cuba if the blockade was lifted and Cubans had access to a range of contraceptive technologies.
For Cuban women living under the blockade, abortion is more often than not the only way to control their fertility. It is a "choice" they exercise within constraints which are beyond their and their government's control. As another woman in Cuba interviewed by US television pointed out, there would be many fewer abortions in Cuba if the blockade was lifted and Cubans had access to a range of contraceptive technologies.
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What the pope did not mention in his efforts to undermine the huge advances in reproductive and personal freedom that Cuban women have won is that, alongside the high rates of abortion and divorce, Cuba has a high level of health care, welfare provision and education for children. As a famous sign in Havana says: "200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today. Not one of them is Cuban."
What the pope did not mention in his efforts to undermine the huge advances in reproductive and personal freedom that Cuban women have won is that, alongside the high rates of abortion and divorce, Cuba has a high level of health care, welfare provision and education for children. As a famous sign in Havana says: "200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today. Not one of them is Cuban."
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Despite the immense difficulties it confronts as a result of the blockade, socialist Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate among underdeveloped countries, and a rate that is lower than in the United States itself.
Despite the immense difficulties it confronts as a result of the blockade, socialist Cuba has the lowest infant mortality rate among underdeveloped countries, and a rate that is lower than in the United States itself.
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It is because of such achievements, and because the revolution gave all Cuban women much more freedom, encouragement, resources and confidence to make their own decisions about how to live their lives that the pope's reactionary sermons will fall on largely unreceptive ears.
It is because of such achievements, and because the revolution gave all Cuban women much more freedom, encouragement, resources and confidence to make their own decisions about how to live their lives that the pope's reactionary sermons will fall on largely unreceptive ears.
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The Cuban revolutionaries know this. They also know that the greatest threat to and limitation on Cuban women's freedom, is not, as "his holiness" tried to insist, "the substitution of God's infinite wisdom and power with an [communist] ideology", but the power of the US to starve Cuba of the resources it needs to progress towards the full liberation of women.
The Cuban revolutionaries know this. They also know that the greatest threat to and limitation on Cuban women's freedom, is not, as "his holiness" tried to insist, "the substitution of God's infinite wisdom and power with an [communist] ideology", but the power of the US to starve Cuba of the resources it needs to progress towards the full liberation of women.
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Ooohh! It sounds like fembot paradise, doesn't it? Everything our Western World Fembots are trying to slam through already exists! Note the "propaganda of omission" so typical of fembot agitators where she states that "65% of people in the US agree that women should have the right to choose." Yet she fails to mention that 65% agree that in certain circumstances women should be allowed to abort, such as in cases of rape, incest, or imminent health dangers to the mother. If she would report how many people agree that abortion should be used as a simple birth control method, this "fact of 65%" would drop significantly into the minority of the population.
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But, we know that propaganda by omission is commonly used by feminists and Marxists all the time (because they are one in the same), and that's why this highly biased author blames all of Cuba's problems on the USA, but omits mentioning that things explained in the following website might have more to do with Cuba's problems than anything else.
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Anyway, I know this was an old article, but it is interesting to compare feminist goals to Communist countries because, when one does so, it becomes glaringly obvious what statements like these mean:
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"Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism." -- Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10
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"A world where men and women would be equal is easy to visualize, for that precisely is what the Soviet Revolution promised." -- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, Random House, 1952), p.806
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There you have it, fembots.
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And let it be known that No Ma'am heartily encourages fembots to seek their Matriarchal Utopia in Cuba.
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Stick out your thumb and hitch a ride to Florida.
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Find a used raft and start paddling Southward.
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Good Riddance!
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Further Reading:
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Model for the Future? Communist East Germany, Say Women -- W.F. Price/The Spearhead
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Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Divide and Conquer
I often ponder that we in the MRM are guilty of not being able to see the forest for the trees. We rant and rail against feminism as if it is the only cause of Western demise. The fact is, feminism is only one face of the subversive Marxist movement to curb freedom and consolidate power. Though, in our defence, feminism is the most vocal and rabid group out there and like the Brown Shirts they emulate, they are easily despised.
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But the fact is that it is not just MRA's that are fighting this battle. Before we all go blinking insane trying to rationally argue some sense into feminists and their pussified political mangina lackeys, we should stand back and recognize that ultimately the battle is against Marxism and there are tremendous amounts of people fighting its many different assaults on freedom and the very foundations of Western Civilization.
The problem is that we don't recognize that we are all fighting the same thing, resulting in us being divided - and therefore we are easily conquered, as has been plainly evident for the past several decades.
The main thing that must be realized about the goal of Marxism is that it must first destroy society in order for their new utopian society to emerge from the ruins of the old. This is not a joke! This is a common theme heard over and over again from Marx to Lenin to Gramsci to feminists to gay rights activists. The similarities in their words and thoughts are astounding! What they all agree they must do to bring down the present society is simple:
1 - Eliminate Christianity/religion from society
2 - Destroy Marriage and the family unit
These two things must be accomplished before the Marxist utopia can arrive. Why? Because these are two things that exist in society which virtually all men who are committed to them will die to defend. The Marxist elitists will never be able to control the direction of the masses as long as people believe in the unwavering authority of the Bible, nor as long as people have the natural urge to protect and nurture those who they love in "family situations." Marxists need human robots who will do what they are told without causing much of a fuss.
What the cultural Marxists have been brilliant in doing is fracturing their opponents into so many different groups that they are each virtually powerless to launch a counter-offensive.
- Many MRA's are anti-religious, and therefore are alienating themselves to potential allies.
- Some MRA's are for abortion and so they are alienated to anti-abortionists.
- Many father's rights activists only oppose custody and family law - but couldn't be bothered about other draconian laws against men, like biased rape laws.
- Religious activists are for strengthening marriage and are against abortion but many are also proudly proclaimed feminists and would rather light themselves on fire than recant it.
- Those who oppose the evolution theory are written off as religious nuts even though many who question it are not religious at all. (And who told us religion was "nuts" to begin with?)Questioning evolution theory in Western schools is asking for a quick dismissal because it is essential in discrediting religion.
- Environmental groups are hellbent on passing Marxist style restrictions on society, especially since the "Global Warming Report", yet there are many scientists and historians out there who are screaming on apparent media-deaf ears, that since humans have been recording temperatures there have been many dramatic, decades long temperature shifts that are similar to what we are experiencing - both warming and cooling.
The list could go on almost forever about all of the anti-freedom movements that have taken hold since the 60's "anti-establishment movement" has become the "new establishment." And we should all recognize that every one of the groups opposed to the Marxist left has the same frustration with fact distortion, advocacy research, illogical logic and basic bulldozer "Brown Shirt" tactics that MRA's face!
The fact is, those freedom loving hippies from the 60's didn't know the first thing about freedom, but they did get propagandized about Marxism - over and over again. Now they are in power and are carrying out their drug induced utopian vision via any totallitarian means their elitist egos see fit. Marxism has no room for honesty, integrity, civility, logic and the like. Marxists believe the ends justify the means and the "new utopia" is the ultimate end - therefore, they will bulldoze any and all opposition, believing with their elite view that they know best, and the rest of us are just silly children who don't know what's good for them.
It's time for all of the various groups to recognize that we don't have to agree on everything. What we have to do is put our differences aside and defeat our PC Marxist overlords first. We can work out the details later - when we can have free access to all the facts.
United, we could kick these dipshits to the curb.
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.But the fact is that it is not just MRA's that are fighting this battle. Before we all go blinking insane trying to rationally argue some sense into feminists and their pussified political mangina lackeys, we should stand back and recognize that ultimately the battle is against Marxism and there are tremendous amounts of people fighting its many different assaults on freedom and the very foundations of Western Civilization.
The problem is that we don't recognize that we are all fighting the same thing, resulting in us being divided - and therefore we are easily conquered, as has been plainly evident for the past several decades.
The main thing that must be realized about the goal of Marxism is that it must first destroy society in order for their new utopian society to emerge from the ruins of the old. This is not a joke! This is a common theme heard over and over again from Marx to Lenin to Gramsci to feminists to gay rights activists. The similarities in their words and thoughts are astounding! What they all agree they must do to bring down the present society is simple:
1 - Eliminate Christianity/religion from society
2 - Destroy Marriage and the family unit
These two things must be accomplished before the Marxist utopia can arrive. Why? Because these are two things that exist in society which virtually all men who are committed to them will die to defend. The Marxist elitists will never be able to control the direction of the masses as long as people believe in the unwavering authority of the Bible, nor as long as people have the natural urge to protect and nurture those who they love in "family situations." Marxists need human robots who will do what they are told without causing much of a fuss.
What the cultural Marxists have been brilliant in doing is fracturing their opponents into so many different groups that they are each virtually powerless to launch a counter-offensive.
- Many MRA's are anti-religious, and therefore are alienating themselves to potential allies.
- Some MRA's are for abortion and so they are alienated to anti-abortionists.
- Many father's rights activists only oppose custody and family law - but couldn't be bothered about other draconian laws against men, like biased rape laws.
- Religious activists are for strengthening marriage and are against abortion but many are also proudly proclaimed feminists and would rather light themselves on fire than recant it.
- Those who oppose the evolution theory are written off as religious nuts even though many who question it are not religious at all. (And who told us religion was "nuts" to begin with?)Questioning evolution theory in Western schools is asking for a quick dismissal because it is essential in discrediting religion.
- Environmental groups are hellbent on passing Marxist style restrictions on society, especially since the "Global Warming Report", yet there are many scientists and historians out there who are screaming on apparent media-deaf ears, that since humans have been recording temperatures there have been many dramatic, decades long temperature shifts that are similar to what we are experiencing - both warming and cooling.
The list could go on almost forever about all of the anti-freedom movements that have taken hold since the 60's "anti-establishment movement" has become the "new establishment." And we should all recognize that every one of the groups opposed to the Marxist left has the same frustration with fact distortion, advocacy research, illogical logic and basic bulldozer "Brown Shirt" tactics that MRA's face!
The fact is, those freedom loving hippies from the 60's didn't know the first thing about freedom, but they did get propagandized about Marxism - over and over again. Now they are in power and are carrying out their drug induced utopian vision via any totallitarian means their elitist egos see fit. Marxism has no room for honesty, integrity, civility, logic and the like. Marxists believe the ends justify the means and the "new utopia" is the ultimate end - therefore, they will bulldoze any and all opposition, believing with their elite view that they know best, and the rest of us are just silly children who don't know what's good for them.
It's time for all of the various groups to recognize that we don't have to agree on everything. What we have to do is put our differences aside and defeat our PC Marxist overlords first. We can work out the details later - when we can have free access to all the facts.
United, we could kick these dipshits to the curb.
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Thursday, June 17, 2010
Roots of American Culture and Community in Disarray
Committee on Ways and Means
Statement of Bill Wood, Charlotte, North Carolina
A personal submission not on behalf of anyone else and these are my own views.
ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IN DISARRAY
Political leaders, religious leaders, conservatives, families (especially fathers), judges, and interested lawyers, along with the vast majority of Americans who believe in ideals of family and country must understand that open WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THEM AND THIS COUNTRY. And it’s coming from many of the institutions that our taxes are funding and supporting! In terms of financial and human costs this war on America has been the most destructive war in America’s history.
While there has been progress in moving people off of the welfare rolls and into work, welfare still exists and many commentators note it exists to promote the breakdown of the family. A myriad of today’s social ills can be traced to the breakdown of the family and the undermining of marriage. Some of the testimony about the devastation of American families as a result of today’s culture war can be seen in several pieces of testimony I have submitted to the Human Resources Subcommittee:
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THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL
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In 1926, an Italian communist named Antonio Gramsci ended up in Mussolini’s prison after a return from Russia. While there, he wrote his “prison notebooks” and they laid out a plan for destroying Western faith and culture. His plans included ways to undermine and discourage Westerners through the intentional collapse of the existing social structure from within.
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Gramsci advocated not only Marxist class warfare, which was economically focused, but also social and cultural warfare at the same time. His theories and the “slow march through the culture” (or institutions) which he envisioned to destroy the West are enshrined in current American social policy. His theories surrounding “hegemony” and a “counter-hegemony” were designed to destroy Western social structure and overthrow the “West” from within.
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Hegemony, as defined by Gramsci is that widely accepted system of values, morals, ethics, and social structure which holds a society together and creates a cohesive people. Western social structures holding society together (i.e. “the hegemony”) include: authority, morality, sexual restraint, monogamous marriage, personal responsibility, patriotism, national unity, community, tradition, heredity, education, conservatism, language, Christianity, law, and truth. His theory called for media and communications to slowly co-opt the people with the “counter-hegemony” propaganda message.
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Through a systematic attack of these institutions he termed the “slow march through the culture,” Gramsci theorized that once these institutions were sufficiently damaged the people would insist on an end to the madness allowing totalitarian control of the Western world. A similar form of these theories was tried before America by the National Socialists (Nazis) headed by Hitler.
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Many of the Gramscian Marxist Communist ideals have been implemented in government, education, and law. In practice, women have become the vehicle deceived and used in this quest to tear down and destroy Western culture. This has been done by enlisting their help in ripping apart marriage and the traditional family.
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Careful study and review shows that Gramscian Marxist Communism encompasses today’s “feminist” movement. [iv] Feminism’s goals are to use women to undermine and destroy the culture by abandoning marriage and by not carrying on the critical task of “transmitting the culture” to the next generation. Today’s feminists use women to advance the destruction of women, children, and families while convincing them they are somehow a “victim” of the patriarchal structure. And the patriarchal structure is nothing but Orwellian NewSpeak for the social structures and institutions that have kept Western civilization together long before the social decay we see today.
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America’s socialists and communists make no pretenses about their goals to promote the destruction of a cohesive society by advancing a welfare state and the complete breakdown of the family. Socialists have openly adopted the “counter hegemony” taught by Gramsci which is designed to destroy Western culture. “[T]he stronger the ‘counter-hegemonic’ strength of unions and left parties, the stronger the welfare state… When we argue for ‘decommodifying’ (i.e., taking out of private market provision) such basic human needs as healthcare, childcare, education, and housing, we have in mind a decentralized and more fully accountable welfare state then [sic] exists in Western democracies.” [v] This statement comes from one of the MANY American college professors indoctrinating students today. As noted by William Gregg in the New American:
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Gramsci’s Marxist communist philosophy, with its goal and aim to completely destroy “Western” civilization is best summed up in the feminist phrase “THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL!”
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FAMILY LAW, CHILD SUPPORT, AND WELFARE FROM MARXISM?
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Many people would be shocked to learn that much of the current “family law” system we have today, which is at the heart of so much of our modern social upheaval and America’s “welfare state,” was born in the Soviet Union. Still more shocking would be the revelation that when the Soviet Union discovered its system was a disastrous failure, it instituted serious reforms in the early 1940’s to try to restore the family and the country. The Soviets made these changes when fatherlessness (which included children from divorced fathers) reached around 7 million children and their social welfare structure (day cares, kindergartens, state children’s facilities, etc.) was overburdened. Yet in America, some studies suggest that we are approaching 11 or 12 million such children. All the while, the social and financial costs of welfare and fatherlessness are just now gaining more widespread attention. America’s fatherlessness crisis is primarily by judicial making with the cooperation of the legions of lawyers and bureaucrats who profit from family destruction which rips America apart.
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Unfortunately, the Soviet reforms came too late and never brought about the extent of social reconstruction that would have allowed recovery from its self-inflicted social destruction. It was unable to stave off its widely celebrated collapse when the Berlin wall came down. Even though the Soviets tried in vain to restore the social values they had worked so hard to eradicate, America only pays “lip service” to much-needed massive social reform. Serious social reform has been largely absent from political debate. On the other hand, the systematic deconstruction of all of the social values that had made our nation great is being pursued passionately as one of our nation's primary socio-political goals.
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“Family law” is one of the key tools of the “counter-hegemony” which is used to advance the social welfare state through the promotion of the social structural collapse of America. The early Soviet system focused on personal happiness and self-centered fulfillment with its roots in class warfare. When it was determined that this type of class warfare directed at the family was a complete failure, the Soviets worked quickly to restore the traditional nuclear family in the 1940’s. Shortly after this, the NAWL (National Association of Women Lawyers) began their push for adopting these failed Soviet policies in America.[vii] America’s version of “family law” has adopted much of the early Soviet failed version of class warfare, while adopting new and more insidious Gramscian versions with gender, cultural, and social warfare components.
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The Federal Government continues to participate by paying the states incentives encouraging them to practice these draconian Soviet style, anti-family, child destroying policies. What a frightening use of our “tax dollars at work” to undermine and destroy the social order of America. Even going so far as to pay incentives on a slightly reformed version of Article 81 of The Russian Family Code. This was promoted in the United States by Irwin Garfinkel as “The Wisconsin Model” for child support and welfare reform. “The Wisconsin Model then became a center-piece for the national child support and welfare reform movement.” [ix]
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ADOPTING THE FAILED SOVIET ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE FAMILY
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Instead of our constitutionally guaranteed “Republican form of government,” we now have a thoroughly entrenched Marxist Communist judiciary in the civil court system masquerading as “family law.” America’s family law courts are no longer about the law, they represent complete perversions of numerous legal maxims and common law traditions that American law was founded upon. [x] These abandoned maxims represent the “hegemony” of American culture and historical tradition in civil family matters. The reprehensible evil of being rewarded for one’s wrongs, and of punishing the innocent have been firmly entrenched in the state’s family courts.
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No-fault divorce, “the child’s best interests,” and other components of family law in America were imported from the worst of the Soviet family law system. For example from a 1975 Louisville Law School review:
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The US Library of Congress Country Studies on Romania also shows direct parallels noting;
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INDOCTRINATING LAWYERS AND JUDGES TO DESTROY AMERICA
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Gramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism.” Law schools across America teach Gramscian “critical theory” as well as other communist ideals. A Westlaw or Lexis search reveals not just dozens, but hundreds and hundreds of legal articles, law reviews, and other materials on feminism, homosexuality, and various forms of Gramscian class “victimology.”
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Today’s Gramscian Marxists have numerous “oppositional groups” headed by lawyers and promoted by judges and bureacrats. They advance such “counter-hegemonic” (culturally corrosive and culturally destructive) positions as homosexuality, abortion, the complete FRAUD of the non-existent “separation of church and state,” the (it only applies to destroying marriage and relationships) Violence Against Women Act, “outcome based education,” and the fictitious “global warming.” They passionately HATE the initiatives that undermine their attempts to destroy America such as Title IX reform, Faith based initiatives, the 300 million for marriage, vouchers and accountability for education reform, and the Ten commandments along with ANY other reference to a moral Judeo-Christian code, and private property rights.
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High profile court rulings openly display this Gramscian Marxist theory in practice: the attack on the pledge of allegiance, the ACLU suing Judge Roy Moore over the Ten Commandments, and the recent Lawrence v. Texas pro-homosexual ruling. At the root of all of these rulings and many others is a violation of the judge’s oath to uphold the constitution. That constitution says that we have a Republican form of government, NOT a socialist or communist form.
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CONCLUSION
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Today’s Marxist Communists operate in law, government, religion, media, entertainment and education. They use Orwellian NewSpeak with words such as “tolerance” which actually means intolerance of things that prevent the destruction of all social structures and societal “norms”. Gramscians preach the religion of division, class warfare and social warfare while spouting their hatred of anything traditional, conservative, moral, or values centered – their battle cry is “the personal is the political.” They want all of Western culture completely destroyed and centralized government control erected in the place of the structure they seek to tear apart and discard. The fruits of the culture war they have engaged on America can be seen in the corrosive remnants of broken families, broken children, filled prisons, and a host of other ills underwritten by America’s taxpayers.
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Those who deeply care about this country and our constitution must fearlessly engage in this culture war--; the war for America’s heart and soul. It’s not too late yet. There is still a critical mass and majority of Americans who are not ready for the horrors of the type of communism or national socialism that Gramscians promote. No form of Marxism or communism (even its most radical form of National Socialism) has ever survived without totalitarian control. If the support were there for these Marxist Communists and National Socialists, history has shown that they would not hesitate to attempt a forceful or violent overthrow of American government.
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"If the family trends of recent decades are extended into the future, the result will be not only growing uncertainty within marriage, but the gradual elimination of marriage in favor of casual liaisons oriented to adult selfishness. The problem… is that children will be harmed, adults will probably be no happier, and the social order could collapse." [xiii] “In his book, The American Sex Revolution, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reviewed the history of societies through the ages, and found that none survived after they ceased honoring and upholding the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.” [xiv] Marcus Tullius Cicero, in a speech in the Roman senate recorded by Sallust said;
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POLICY IMPLICATIONS
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Gramsci’s “march through the culture” can be turned back once the roots and methods are known. Recognizing the foundations of the current class and culture warfare, promoted in many levels of government, law, religion, media, and education provides relatively easy answers to solve these problems and to turn back the tide of their corruption and destruction.
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[i] King, Jennifer. Who are the Real Radicals? Rightgrrl, December 1998. A brief exposition of Antonio Gramsci http://www.rightgrrl.com/jennifer1.html
[ii]Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 168-169. Routledge, London.
[iii] Borst, William, Ph.D. American History. A Nation of Frogs, The Mindszenty Report Vol. XLV-No.1 (January 2003) Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned by the Nazi’s and later by the Communists in Hungary. Online version can be seen at http://www.mindszenty.org/report/2003/mr_0103.pdf
[iv] “Marxism and Feminism are one, and that one is Marxism” Heidi Hartmann and Amy Bridges, The unhappy marriage of Marxism and Feminism. -- opening page of Chapter 1, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press (paperback in 1991)
“Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism…” -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 3
Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism. -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 10
"Our culture, including all that we are taught in schools and universities, is so infused with patriarchal thinking that it must be torn up root and branch if genuine change is to occur. Everything must go - even the allegedly universal disciplines of logic, mathematics, and science, and the intellectual values of objectivity, clarity, and precision on which the former depend." A quote from Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, "Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies" (New York, Basic Books, 1994), p. 116
[v] Schwartz, Joseph. Toward a Democratic Socialism: Theory, Strategy, and Vision. Joseph Schwartz, a member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, teaches political science at Temple University.
[vi] Grigg, William. Toward the Total State.The New American Vol. 15, No. 14. July 5, 1999. http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/07-05-99/vo15no14_total.htm
[vii] Selma Moidel Smith, A Century of Acheivement: The Centennial of the National Association of Women Lawyers, pg 10. (1999); See also ABA’s Family Law Quarterly, 33 Fam. L.Q. 501, 510-511. Family Law and American Culture – Women Lawyers in Family Law, Section B. The Crusade for No-Fault Divorce. (Fall, 1999)
[viii] The Atlantic Monthly; July 1926; The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage; Volume 138, No. 1; page 108-114.
[ix] The Child Support Guideline Problem, Roger F. Gay, MSc and Gregory J. Palumbo, Ph.D. May 6, 1998.
[x] Jus ex injuria non oritur. 4 Bin 639 -- A right cannot arise from a wrong; Lex nemini operatur iniquum; nemini facit injuriam. Jenk. Cent. 22.—The law works injustice to no one; does injury to no one; Lex deficere non potest in justitia exhibenda. Co. Lit. 197.—The law cannot be defective in dispensing justice; Lex non deficit in justitia exhibenda. Jenk. Cent. 31.— The law is not defective in justice; Commodum ex injurie sue non habere debet. Jenk. Cent. 161. -- No man ought to derive any benefit of his own wrong; Lex non favet delicatorum votis. 9 Co. 58.—The law favours not the vows of the squeamish; Nemo punitur sine injuria, facto, seu defalto. 2 Inst. 287.—No one is to be punished unless for some injury, deed, or default; Legis constructio non facit injuriam. Co. Lit. 183.—The construction of law does no injury; Nemo punitur sine injuria facto, seu defalto. 2 Co. Inst. 287. -- No one is punished unless for some wrong act or default
[xi]No-Fault Divorce: Born In The Soviet Union? University of Louisville School of Law, Journal Of Family Law. Vol. 14, No. 1 (1975). ppg. 32-41
[xii] Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 169. Routledge, London.
[xiii] David Popenoe, "Modern Marriage: Revisiting the Cultural Script," Promises to Keep, 1996, p. 248.
[xiv] Linda Bowles. Damage for the Children. June 13, 2000. Worldnet Daily online.
[xv] A similar program which has been very successful is DAPCEP (the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program http://www.dapcep.org/ ). The difference is that a program to undermine Gramsci should have BOTH parent’s involvement as its centerpiece. While it would be ideal if they were married, requiring BOTH parents is a start in the right direction.
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Related:
The Russian Family Code of 1926
Statement of Bill Wood, Charlotte, North Carolina
A personal submission not on behalf of anyone else and these are my own views.
ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE AND COMMUNITY IN DISARRAY
Political leaders, religious leaders, conservatives, families (especially fathers), judges, and interested lawyers, along with the vast majority of Americans who believe in ideals of family and country must understand that open WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED ON THEM AND THIS COUNTRY. And it’s coming from many of the institutions that our taxes are funding and supporting! In terms of financial and human costs this war on America has been the most destructive war in America’s history.
When Nikita Kruschev banged his shoe on the table and declared, ‘We shall destroy you from within’ during the infamous "Kitchen Debate" - he knew what he was talking about.
[Comparing the culture of the 50’s to that of 1998] violent criminal offenses have exploded upward by 700%. Premarital sex among 18 year olds has jumped from 30% of the population to 70%. Tax rates for a family of four have skyrocketed 500%, consuming a fourth of their income. Divorce rates have quadrupled. Illegitimate births among black Americans has soared - from approximately 23% to more than 68%. Illegitimacy itself has jumped from a nationwide total of 5% to nearly 30% nationwide - a rise of 600%. Cases of sexually transmitted diseases have risen 150%. Teen age pregnancies are up by several thousand percent and teen suicides have risen by 200%. Between 1950 and 1979 - serious crime committed by children under 15 has risen by 11,000%...
Most Americans would agree that our society has changed for the worst over the last 30 years.” [i]
While there has been progress in moving people off of the welfare rolls and into work, welfare still exists and many commentators note it exists to promote the breakdown of the family. A myriad of today’s social ills can be traced to the breakdown of the family and the undermining of marriage. Some of the testimony about the devastation of American families as a result of today’s culture war can be seen in several pieces of testimony I have submitted to the Human Resources Subcommittee:
US House Testimony on Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals, H.R. 4090. April 11, 2002, 109 citations or references - consequences of welfare practices on the family unit, and exploration of the 1996 welfare reform bill’s requirements for strengthening families and marriage (ttp://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/4-11-02/records/billwood.htm)
US House Testimony on Teen Pregnancy prevention PRWORA, Public Law 104-193 (Hearing 107-48). November 15, 2001, 43 citations and references -- effects of fatherlessness and divorce on teen pregnancy. (ttp://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/11-15-01/Record/wmwood.htm)
US House Testimony on Child support and Fatherhood proposals (Hearing 107-38). June 28, 2001, 83 citations or references - Social consequences of failed divorce and child custody policies (http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/6-28-01/record/chillegalfound.htm) -- Father absence, a byproduct of divorce, illegitimacy, and the erosion of the traditional family, is responsible for; filling our prisons, causing psychological problems, suicide, psychosis, gang activity, rape, physical and sexual child abuse, violence against women, general violence, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, lower academic achievement, school drop-outs, relationship instability, gender identity confusion, runaways, homelessness, cigarette smoking, and any number of corrosive social disorders.
US House Testimony on The "Hyde-Woolsey" child support bill, HR 1488 (Hearing 106-107, pages 94-103). March 16, 2000, 75 Citations. – Concerning problems with nearly every state's child support guidelines.
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THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL
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In 1926, an Italian communist named Antonio Gramsci ended up in Mussolini’s prison after a return from Russia. While there, he wrote his “prison notebooks” and they laid out a plan for destroying Western faith and culture. His plans included ways to undermine and discourage Westerners through the intentional collapse of the existing social structure from within.
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Gramsci advocated not only Marxist class warfare, which was economically focused, but also social and cultural warfare at the same time. His theories and the “slow march through the culture” (or institutions) which he envisioned to destroy the West are enshrined in current American social policy. His theories surrounding “hegemony” and a “counter-hegemony” were designed to destroy Western social structure and overthrow the “West” from within.
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Hegemony, as defined by Gramsci is that widely accepted system of values, morals, ethics, and social structure which holds a society together and creates a cohesive people. Western social structures holding society together (i.e. “the hegemony”) include: authority, morality, sexual restraint, monogamous marriage, personal responsibility, patriotism, national unity, community, tradition, heredity, education, conservatism, language, Christianity, law, and truth. His theory called for media and communications to slowly co-opt the people with the “counter-hegemony” propaganda message.
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"... Hegemony operates culturally and ideologically through the institutions of civil society which characterises mature liberal-democratic, capitalist societies. These institutions include education, the family, the church, the mass media, popular culture, etc." [ii].
Through a systematic attack of these institutions he termed the “slow march through the culture,” Gramsci theorized that once these institutions were sufficiently damaged the people would insist on an end to the madness allowing totalitarian control of the Western world. A similar form of these theories was tried before America by the National Socialists (Nazis) headed by Hitler.
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Many of the Gramscian Marxist Communist ideals have been implemented in government, education, and law. In practice, women have become the vehicle deceived and used in this quest to tear down and destroy Western culture. This has been done by enlisting their help in ripping apart marriage and the traditional family.
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Since economic Marxism was a failure, Gramsci reasoned that the only way to topple… Western institutions was by, what he called, a “long march through the culture.” He repackaged Marxism in terms of a… “cultural war”….
“Gramsci hated marriage and the family, the very founding blocks of a civilized society. To him, marriage was a plot, a conspiracy... to perpetuate an evil system that oppressed women and children. It was a dangerous institution, characterized by violence and exploitation, the forerunner of fascism and tyranny. Patriarchy served as the main target of the cultural Marxists. They strove to feminize the family with legions of single and homosexual mothers and ‘fathers’ who would serve to weaken the structure of civilized society.”.
…[A]nother cultural Marxist (George Lukacs) brought the Gramscian strategy to the schools… As deputy commissioner in Hungary… his first task was to put radical sex education in the schools… it was the best way to destroy traditional sexual morality, and weaken the family. Hungarian children learned… free love, sexual intercourse, and the archaic nature of middle-class family codes, the obsolete nature of monogamy, and the irrelevance of organized religion which deprived man of pleasure. Children were urged to deride and ignore… parental authority, and precepts of traditional morality. If this sounds familiar, it is because this is what is happening in our public… schools..
…Under the rubric of ‘diversity,’ its hidden goal is to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans. The cultural Marxists, often teachers, university professors and administrators, TV producers, newspaper editor and the like, serve as gatekeepers by keeping all traditional and positive ideas, especially religious ideas, out of the public marketplace. Herbert Marcuse was largely responsible for bringing cultural Marxism to the United States… He believed that all taboos, especially sexual ones, should be relaxed. “Make love, not war!” was his battle cry that echoed through ivy-covered college campuses all over America. His methodology for rebellion included the deconstruction of the language, the infamous “what does ‘is’ mean?” which fostered the destruction of the culture. By confusing and obliterating word meanings, he helped cause a breakdown in the social conformity of the nation, especially among the… young of America....
Marcuse said that women should be the cultural proletariat who transformed Western society. They would serve as the catalyst for the new Marxist Revolution. If women could be persuaded to leave their traditional roles as the transmitters of culture, then the traditional culture could not be transmitted to the next generation..
What better way to influence the generations than by subverting the traditional roles of women? The Marxists rightfully reasoned that the undermining of women could deal a deadly blow to the culture..
If women were the target, then the Cultural Marxists scored a bullseye… Women have traded the domestic tranquility of family and the home for the power surge of the boardroom and the sweaty release of casual sex. Divorce court statistics, wife and child abandonment, abortion and even spousal murder can be laid at [the feminists] doorstep to a large degree. [iii].
Careful study and review shows that Gramscian Marxist Communism encompasses today’s “feminist” movement. [iv] Feminism’s goals are to use women to undermine and destroy the culture by abandoning marriage and by not carrying on the critical task of “transmitting the culture” to the next generation. Today’s feminists use women to advance the destruction of women, children, and families while convincing them they are somehow a “victim” of the patriarchal structure. And the patriarchal structure is nothing but Orwellian NewSpeak for the social structures and institutions that have kept Western civilization together long before the social decay we see today.
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America’s socialists and communists make no pretenses about their goals to promote the destruction of a cohesive society by advancing a welfare state and the complete breakdown of the family. Socialists have openly adopted the “counter hegemony” taught by Gramsci which is designed to destroy Western culture. “[T]he stronger the ‘counter-hegemonic’ strength of unions and left parties, the stronger the welfare state… When we argue for ‘decommodifying’ (i.e., taking out of private market provision) such basic human needs as healthcare, childcare, education, and housing, we have in mind a decentralized and more fully accountable welfare state then [sic] exists in Western democracies.” [v] This statement comes from one of the MANY American college professors indoctrinating students today. As noted by William Gregg in the New American:
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Writing in the Winter 1996 issue of the Marxist journal Dissent, Michael Walzer enumerated some of the cultural victories won by the left since the 1960s:.
- "The visible impact of feminism."
- "The effects of affirmative action."
- "The emergence of gay rights politics, and … the attention paid to it in the media."
- "The acceptance of cultural pluralism."
- "The transformation of family life," including "rising divorce rates, changing sexual mores, new household arrangements — and, again, the portrayal of all this in the media."
- "The progress of secularization; the fading of religion in general and Christianity in particular from the public sphere — classrooms, textbooks, legal codes, holidays, and so on."
- "The virtual abolition of capital punishment."
- "The legalization of abortion."
- "The first successes in the effort to regulate and limit the private ownership of guns."
.Significantly, Walzer admitted… these victories were imposed upon our society by "liberal elites," rather than… "by the pressure of a mass movement or a majoritarian party." These changes "reflect the leftism or liberalism of lawyers, judges, federal bureaucrats, professors, school teachers, social workers, journalists, television and screen writers — not the population at large," noted Walzer… [T]he left focused on "winning the Gramscian war of position."
Cultural commentator Richard Grenier [notes Gramsci formulated] “the doctrine that those who want to change society must change man’s consciousness, and that in order to accomplish this they must first control the institutions by which that consciousness is formed: schools, universities, churches, and, perhaps above all, art and the communications industry. It is these institutions that shape and articulate ‘public opinion,’ the limits of which few politicians can violate with impunity. Culture, Gramsci felt, is not simply the superstructure of an economic base — the role assigned to it in orthodox Marxism — but is central to a society. His famous battle cry is: capture the culture.".
Gramsci recognized that the chief [obstacles] impeding… the triumph of Marxism were… those institutions, customs, and habits identified by Washington and the other Founding Fathers as indispensable to ordered liberty — such as the family, private initiative, self-restraint, and principled individualism. But Gramsci focused particularly on what Washington described as the "indispensable supports" of free society — religion and morality. In order to bring about a revolution, Gramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism." [vi].
Gramsci’s Marxist communist philosophy, with its goal and aim to completely destroy “Western” civilization is best summed up in the feminist phrase “THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL!”
.
FAMILY LAW, CHILD SUPPORT, AND WELFARE FROM MARXISM?
.
Many people would be shocked to learn that much of the current “family law” system we have today, which is at the heart of so much of our modern social upheaval and America’s “welfare state,” was born in the Soviet Union. Still more shocking would be the revelation that when the Soviet Union discovered its system was a disastrous failure, it instituted serious reforms in the early 1940’s to try to restore the family and the country. The Soviets made these changes when fatherlessness (which included children from divorced fathers) reached around 7 million children and their social welfare structure (day cares, kindergartens, state children’s facilities, etc.) was overburdened. Yet in America, some studies suggest that we are approaching 11 or 12 million such children. All the while, the social and financial costs of welfare and fatherlessness are just now gaining more widespread attention. America’s fatherlessness crisis is primarily by judicial making with the cooperation of the legions of lawyers and bureaucrats who profit from family destruction which rips America apart.
.
Unfortunately, the Soviet reforms came too late and never brought about the extent of social reconstruction that would have allowed recovery from its self-inflicted social destruction. It was unable to stave off its widely celebrated collapse when the Berlin wall came down. Even though the Soviets tried in vain to restore the social values they had worked so hard to eradicate, America only pays “lip service” to much-needed massive social reform. Serious social reform has been largely absent from political debate. On the other hand, the systematic deconstruction of all of the social values that had made our nation great is being pursued passionately as one of our nation's primary socio-political goals.
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“Family law” is one of the key tools of the “counter-hegemony” which is used to advance the social welfare state through the promotion of the social structural collapse of America. The early Soviet system focused on personal happiness and self-centered fulfillment with its roots in class warfare. When it was determined that this type of class warfare directed at the family was a complete failure, the Soviets worked quickly to restore the traditional nuclear family in the 1940’s. Shortly after this, the NAWL (National Association of Women Lawyers) began their push for adopting these failed Soviet policies in America.[vii] America’s version of “family law” has adopted much of the early Soviet failed version of class warfare, while adopting new and more insidious Gramscian versions with gender, cultural, and social warfare components.
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When the Bolsheviki came into power in 1917 they regarded the family… with fierce hatred, and set out… to destroy it… [O]ne of the first decrees of the Soviet Government abolished the term 'illegitimate children... by equalizing the legal status of all children, whether born in wedlock or out of it… The father of a child is forced to contribute to its support, usually paying the mother a third of his salary in the event of a separation… At the same time a law was passed which made divorce [very quick]… at the request of either partner in a marriage….
[Marriage became a game where it] was not… unusual… for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions. [T]he peasants… bitterly complained: 'Abortions cover our villages with shame. Formerly we did not even hear of them.'.
Many women… found marriage and childbearing a profitable occupation. They formed connections with the sons of well-to-do peasants and then blackmailed the father for the support of the children... The law has created still more confusion because… women can claim support for children born many years ago..
…Both in the villages and in the cities the problem of the unmarried mother has become very acute and provides a severe and annoying test of Communist theories..
…Another new point was that wife and husband would have an equal right to claim support from the other… The woman would have the right to demand support for her child even if she lived with several men during the period of conception; but, in contrast to previous practice, she or the court would choose one man who would be held responsible for the support. Commissar Kursky seemed especially proud of this point because it differed so much from the 'burgeois customs' of Europe and America..
Another speaker objected to the proposed law on the ground that some women would take advantage of its liberal provisions to form connections with wealthy men and then blackmail them for alimony. [viii].
The Federal Government continues to participate by paying the states incentives encouraging them to practice these draconian Soviet style, anti-family, child destroying policies. What a frightening use of our “tax dollars at work” to undermine and destroy the social order of America. Even going so far as to pay incentives on a slightly reformed version of Article 81 of The Russian Family Code. This was promoted in the United States by Irwin Garfinkel as “The Wisconsin Model” for child support and welfare reform. “The Wisconsin Model then became a center-piece for the national child support and welfare reform movement.” [ix]
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ADOPTING THE FAILED SOVIET ATTEMPT TO DESTROY THE FAMILY
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Instead of our constitutionally guaranteed “Republican form of government,” we now have a thoroughly entrenched Marxist Communist judiciary in the civil court system masquerading as “family law.” America’s family law courts are no longer about the law, they represent complete perversions of numerous legal maxims and common law traditions that American law was founded upon. [x] These abandoned maxims represent the “hegemony” of American culture and historical tradition in civil family matters. The reprehensible evil of being rewarded for one’s wrongs, and of punishing the innocent have been firmly entrenched in the state’s family courts.
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No-fault divorce, “the child’s best interests,” and other components of family law in America were imported from the worst of the Soviet family law system. For example from a 1975 Louisville Law School review:
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“Few members of the American legal community are aware of the fact that the Soviet Union has had, for some period of time, what can be described as a no-fault divorce legal system… [A]t a meeting with a group of Soviet lawyers in 1972, one of them asked, “Is it for a long time that you (California) have that system?” When informed of the January 1, 1970 effective date of the California law she remarked, “I think it is the influence of our law… [T]here are a number of similarities between Soviet and California divorce laws that suggest a “borrowing” or a remarkable coincidence.” (pg 32).
“For the Bolsheviks, with their Marxist disdain for religion, the influence of the ecclesiastical authorities over the family was an outrage. Since the family represented the major institution through which the traditions of the past were transmitted from generation to generation, the new regime had to destroy the old bourgeois notions of the family and the home. There was also a very urgent practical reason for disassociating family relations from the influence of the religious authorities… [T]he first task of the new regime in relation to the family was to break the power of the church and the husband.” (pg 33).
“Birth alone was declared the basis of family ties, and all legal discrimination against illegitimate children was abolished... Early Soviet policy was intended to attack these evils [of “patriarchy”] and to transfer the care, education and maintenance of children from home to society. This would mean the end of the family’s socialization functions, and would remove the child from the conservative atmosphere of the patriarchal family to a setting that could be entirely controlled by the regime.” (pg 34).
The Soviet press reported in the mid-thirties that promiscuity flourished... juvenile delinquency mounted, and statistical studies showed that the major source of delinquents was the broken or inattentive home… Additional public homes for children were established, and propaganda campaigns sought to persuade the public that a strong family was the most communistically inspired one. (pg 38, 39).
There was also the matter of seven to nine million fatherless and homeless children, according to Russian estimates of the early twenties. In derogation of Marxist ideology, the state had been unable to assist single mothers, and there existed almost no children’s homes, nurseries or kindergartens. Because of more pressing tasks and limited personnel and material resources the state had not been able to fulfill the conditions Engels had specified for extrafamilial facilities. (pg 40).
More seriously, anti-family policies were leading to a situation where many children in the first Soviet urban generation simply lacked the kind of socializing experience to fit them intellectually or emotionally to the new society the regime was attempting to build, with its emphasis upon self-discipline and control, perseverance, steadiness, punctuality and accuracy. While the family influence had been undermined, extrafamilial agencies had failed to provide a workable substitute, leaving the child prey to the noxious and deviant influences of “the street.” (pg 41) [xi].
The US Library of Congress Country Studies on Romania also shows direct parallels noting;
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“Family law in socialist Romania was modeled after Soviet family legislation… [I]t sought to undermine the influence of religion on family life. [Previously] the church was the center of community life, and marriage, divorce, and recording of births were matters for religious authorities. Under communism these events became affairs of the state, and legislation designed to wipe out the accumulated traditions and ancient codes was enacted. The communist regime required marriage to be legalized in a civil ceremony at the local registry prior to, or preferably instead of, the customary church wedding..
Because of the more liberal procedures, the divorce rate grew dramatically, tripling by 1960, and the number of abortions also increased rapidly. Concern for population reproduction and future labor supplies prompted the state to revise the Romanian Family Code to foster more stable personal relationships and strengthen the family. At the end of 1966, abortion was virtually outlawed, and a new divorce decree made the dissolution of marriage exceedingly difficult..
INDOCTRINATING LAWYERS AND JUDGES TO DESTROY AMERICA
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Gramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism.” Law schools across America teach Gramscian “critical theory” as well as other communist ideals. A Westlaw or Lexis search reveals not just dozens, but hundreds and hundreds of legal articles, law reviews, and other materials on feminism, homosexuality, and various forms of Gramscian class “victimology.”
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"The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or prevailing hegemony." [xii].
Today’s Gramscian Marxists have numerous “oppositional groups” headed by lawyers and promoted by judges and bureacrats. They advance such “counter-hegemonic” (culturally corrosive and culturally destructive) positions as homosexuality, abortion, the complete FRAUD of the non-existent “separation of church and state,” the (it only applies to destroying marriage and relationships) Violence Against Women Act, “outcome based education,” and the fictitious “global warming.” They passionately HATE the initiatives that undermine their attempts to destroy America such as Title IX reform, Faith based initiatives, the 300 million for marriage, vouchers and accountability for education reform, and the Ten commandments along with ANY other reference to a moral Judeo-Christian code, and private property rights.
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High profile court rulings openly display this Gramscian Marxist theory in practice: the attack on the pledge of allegiance, the ACLU suing Judge Roy Moore over the Ten Commandments, and the recent Lawrence v. Texas pro-homosexual ruling. At the root of all of these rulings and many others is a violation of the judge’s oath to uphold the constitution. That constitution says that we have a Republican form of government, NOT a socialist or communist form.
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CONCLUSION
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Today’s Marxist Communists operate in law, government, religion, media, entertainment and education. They use Orwellian NewSpeak with words such as “tolerance” which actually means intolerance of things that prevent the destruction of all social structures and societal “norms”. Gramscians preach the religion of division, class warfare and social warfare while spouting their hatred of anything traditional, conservative, moral, or values centered – their battle cry is “the personal is the political.” They want all of Western culture completely destroyed and centralized government control erected in the place of the structure they seek to tear apart and discard. The fruits of the culture war they have engaged on America can be seen in the corrosive remnants of broken families, broken children, filled prisons, and a host of other ills underwritten by America’s taxpayers.
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Those who deeply care about this country and our constitution must fearlessly engage in this culture war--; the war for America’s heart and soul. It’s not too late yet. There is still a critical mass and majority of Americans who are not ready for the horrors of the type of communism or national socialism that Gramscians promote. No form of Marxism or communism (even its most radical form of National Socialism) has ever survived without totalitarian control. If the support were there for these Marxist Communists and National Socialists, history has shown that they would not hesitate to attempt a forceful or violent overthrow of American government.
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"If the family trends of recent decades are extended into the future, the result will be not only growing uncertainty within marriage, but the gradual elimination of marriage in favor of casual liaisons oriented to adult selfishness. The problem… is that children will be harmed, adults will probably be no happier, and the social order could collapse." [xiii] “In his book, The American Sex Revolution, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin reviewed the history of societies through the ages, and found that none survived after they ceased honoring and upholding the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.” [xiv] Marcus Tullius Cicero, in a speech in the Roman senate recorded by Sallust said;
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"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.".
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
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Gramsci’s “march through the culture” can be turned back once the roots and methods are known. Recognizing the foundations of the current class and culture warfare, promoted in many levels of government, law, religion, media, and education provides relatively easy answers to solve these problems and to turn back the tide of their corruption and destruction.
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- Institute non-coercive national unity and patriotism in public policy. The national unity issue destroys the divisive class warfare while reviving patriotism helps to restore some of the “hegemony” the Marxists so passionately hate.
- Mandate abstinence training in schools for states to receive health funds. Stop allowing the natural inhibitions of children to sexual advances to be torn down by the current trend of pro-sexual education brought to them by their teachers who are also authority figures.
- Conservative politicians should take some of their campaign time and effort to tap into and lobby for more than just money. Conservatives must lobby large businesses to partner with inner city churches and schools to create programs of opportunity in disadvantaged areas. This takes the race baiting and class warfare issue away from the left, and gets socialist government programs out of the involvement in people’s lives. [xv]
- Tie clear mission statements to EVERY government program and agency which include: promoting traditional marriage and family, restoring national pride, reducing divorce, reducing illegitimacy, promoting abstinence, and encouraging strong morals and values. Force a public debate on these issues and it will destroy the liberal Marxist establishment. Ever since welfare reform the liberal establishment has been slowly crumbling. Press the issues and accelerate their demise.
- CAREFULLY identify several congressional staff members who have a proven track record of being pro-family, with proven integrity, and have shown a level of frustration over today’s social problems. Assign them to a special research project to study Gramsci’s version of Marxist communism and how it has been implemented in America. Publish their reports and develop strategies based on those reports. (And if the lefties cry “McCarthy,” let the public debates begin! An honest reading of McCarthy’s record completely vindicates him and exposes them!)
- Press the Judiciary committee to amend Title 18 of the US Code to create provisions stating that no state or federal judge shall have any form of immunity whatsoever for engaging in actions which produce or promote taxpayer fraud. For any such act or acts, they shall be subject to both criminal prosecution and they shall be subject to suit in their personal capacity. Let the judges and lawyers scream about “independence” and then insist that they must interpret “independence” to mean that they should be free to break the law and commit fraud against the taxpayers of the United States.
- If Title 18 cannot be amended, then insert the provisions under Title 42 related to the Public Health and Welfare.
- End taxpayer funding of PBS. Expand libel and slander laws to include distortions, manipulations, or unbalanced reporting in television and cable news programs. Let the trial lawyers have a field day with the liberal media.
- Codify in the USC the mission of senior level bureaucrats and their guiding principles with explicit provisions noting personal liability for not adhering to these provisions. Codify the requirement for annual reports by heads of agencies demonstrating how they have complied with these requirements. For example:
-- Make the HHS Director’s mission something like “to work to restore traditional marriage and family while reducing the number of single-parent and broken families who need to collect welfare or child support.” Make it a mandatory reporting requirement on how this mission is being fulfilled.
[i] King, Jennifer. Who are the Real Radicals? Rightgrrl, December 1998. A brief exposition of Antonio Gramsci http://www.rightgrrl.com/jennifer1.html
[ii]Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 168-169. Routledge, London.
[iii] Borst, William, Ph.D. American History. A Nation of Frogs, The Mindszenty Report Vol. XLV-No.1 (January 2003) Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned by the Nazi’s and later by the Communists in Hungary. Online version can be seen at http://www.mindszenty.org/report/2003/mr_0103.pdf
[iv] “Marxism and Feminism are one, and that one is Marxism” Heidi Hartmann and Amy Bridges, The unhappy marriage of Marxism and Feminism. -- opening page of Chapter 1, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press (paperback in 1991)
“Sexuality is to feminism what work is to Marxism…” -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 3
Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism. -- Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 1989, First Harvard University Press. Page 10
"Our culture, including all that we are taught in schools and universities, is so infused with patriarchal thinking that it must be torn up root and branch if genuine change is to occur. Everything must go - even the allegedly universal disciplines of logic, mathematics, and science, and the intellectual values of objectivity, clarity, and precision on which the former depend." A quote from Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, "Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies" (New York, Basic Books, 1994), p. 116
[v] Schwartz, Joseph. Toward a Democratic Socialism: Theory, Strategy, and Vision. Joseph Schwartz, a member of the National Executive Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, teaches political science at Temple University.
[vi] Grigg, William. Toward the Total State.The New American Vol. 15, No. 14. July 5, 1999. http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1999/07-05-99/vo15no14_total.htm
[vii] Selma Moidel Smith, A Century of Acheivement: The Centennial of the National Association of Women Lawyers, pg 10. (1999); See also ABA’s Family Law Quarterly, 33 Fam. L.Q. 501, 510-511. Family Law and American Culture – Women Lawyers in Family Law, Section B. The Crusade for No-Fault Divorce. (Fall, 1999)
[viii] The Atlantic Monthly; July 1926; The Russian Effort to Abolish Marriage; Volume 138, No. 1; page 108-114.
[ix] The Child Support Guideline Problem, Roger F. Gay, MSc and Gregory J. Palumbo, Ph.D. May 6, 1998.
[x] Jus ex injuria non oritur. 4 Bin 639 -- A right cannot arise from a wrong; Lex nemini operatur iniquum; nemini facit injuriam. Jenk. Cent. 22.—The law works injustice to no one; does injury to no one; Lex deficere non potest in justitia exhibenda. Co. Lit. 197.—The law cannot be defective in dispensing justice; Lex non deficit in justitia exhibenda. Jenk. Cent. 31.— The law is not defective in justice; Commodum ex injurie sue non habere debet. Jenk. Cent. 161. -- No man ought to derive any benefit of his own wrong; Lex non favet delicatorum votis. 9 Co. 58.—The law favours not the vows of the squeamish; Nemo punitur sine injuria, facto, seu defalto. 2 Inst. 287.—No one is to be punished unless for some injury, deed, or default; Legis constructio non facit injuriam. Co. Lit. 183.—The construction of law does no injury; Nemo punitur sine injuria facto, seu defalto. 2 Co. Inst. 287. -- No one is punished unless for some wrong act or default
[xi]No-Fault Divorce: Born In The Soviet Union? University of Louisville School of Law, Journal Of Family Law. Vol. 14, No. 1 (1975). ppg. 32-41
[xii] Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, pg. 169. Routledge, London.
[xiii] David Popenoe, "Modern Marriage: Revisiting the Cultural Script," Promises to Keep, 1996, p. 248.
[xiv] Linda Bowles. Damage for the Children. June 13, 2000. Worldnet Daily online.
[xv] A similar program which has been very successful is DAPCEP (the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program http://www.dapcep.org/ ). The difference is that a program to undermine Gramsci should have BOTH parent’s involvement as its centerpiece. While it would be ideal if they were married, requiring BOTH parents is a start in the right direction.
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Related:
The Russian Family Code of 1926
Friday, March 08, 2002
Zenpriest #67 - The Baby Bomb: How the Boomers were Used to Demolish a Culture
The baby boom had a long fuse. While the social mass of having such a large number of people suddenly added to a culture would naturally displace the center of social balance toward the values of younger people, the impact of the boomers was disproportionately greater than the percentage of the population they represented. The reason for this unusually large impact came from the convergence of several long-term trends and influences which converged at the time of the boomer generation to produce a sort of “Demographic Perfect Storm” which wrought fundamental changes in the culture.
When I say they were used to “demolish” it, I mean to fundamentally change the values which had defined the culture up until that time. Any culture is defined by its values, and when you change those values you change the culture into something else. Using the social mass of the boomer generation like a wrecking ball, they were slammed into a culture which was already undergoing fundamental changes in social organization and the institutions which perpetuated that organization. The large scale trends that came together as the boomers were being born and raised were:
- Demographic Displacements and Shifts
- The Rise of Mass Media
- Consumer Culture and
- Marxist Thought.
First Demographic Displacements and Shifts
World War I was fundamentally about the end of the old hereditary aristocracies in Europe, but it had a subtle and unforeseen effect on the US as well. The long term trend of movement of the population away from farms, rural settings, and agrarian lifestyles toward urban settings and industrial employment got a huge bump from the servicemen leaving the farms to go off to war and not returning to the farms when they came back. Instead they tended to stay in the cities and feed the work force for the growing industrial output of the US.
About 1920, the first of two huge demographic crossover points was passed – when the majority of the population no longer worked on and drew their livelihood from farms, but instead lived in urban areas and was employed in industrial production or commerce. During the Depression and Dust Bowl eras of the 1930s, this rural to urban movement increased as many landholders lost their land and were forced to move to the cities and find employment where they could.
World War II was a repeat of the pulling of farm boys into the armed forces and then dumping them back in the cities, with the added twist of the GI Bill which allowed many of them to attend college who otherwise would have never had the chance to do so. This sudden increase in the proportion of the population with college degrees raised income expectations and did, in fact, result in increased personal incomes for a while, which in turn drove a growing housing market and the rise of “suburbia” as new living spaces were constructed on the edges of cities already at saturation point in terms of the number of people they could hold.
With the end of the war, the US was left with massive industrial production capacity but no longer had the majority of that output being destroyed by war and thus needing constant replacements. The suburban population centers with their newfound affluence and disposable income were one obvious outlet, as was post-war Europe and Japan in rebuilding mode. But, even with all those markets the unbelievable production of the US industrial engine would have soon saturated demand. The two concepts of “Planned Obsolescence” and “Conspicuous Consumption” were wedded with the newly emerging mass media of television to produce an advertising-driven culture of perpetual consumption.
No longer were people accustomed to producing most of their own needs like food, fuel, and even furnishings. They were entirely dependent on trading the wages for their labors with other people for all the necessities and luxuries of life. This played very well into Keynesian economics, or the “velocity economy” in which the economy was measured not by total wealth, but by how many times and how often a dollar changed hands.
These were the parents of the boomers, and the environment into which the boomers were born.
Consumer Culture
About 1960, one of the most profound demographic shifts in history occurred virtually unnoticed in the US: the number of people involved in the production of anything – agricultural or manufactured goods – slipped into the minority and there became more people involved in selling, distributing, or managing those goods than were involved in producing them. In other words, the US shifted from being a nation of producers to a nation of handlers. This laid the groundwork for being able to use such phrases as “service economy” or “information economy”, which would play a very significant role in how the expectations of affluence created by the circumstances of the boomers’ upbringing would be met as they moved into and through adulthood.
The boomers were raised on a steady diet of television, parental competition to “keep up with the Joneses”, and the repeated refrain from their depression-era parents that “we don’t want our kids to have it as hard as we had it.” They were also indoctrinated virtually from birth that they would carry on the tradition of being college educated which may have only started with their parents, but which was definitely seen as the key to “a better life” – which at that time generally meant “having more stuff.”
The Rise of Mass Media
After WW I, two new mass communication technologies really began to take off and spread – film (movies) and radio. These two technologies covered two very important aspects of culture – information dissemination and entertainment. Radio had the advantage over print media like newspapers in being immediate and timely, as well as being one step closer to direct human experience – hearing is a direct sensory experience, while reading requires intellectual processing and literacy in addition to sight. Literacy was far from universal at that time, so people could be reached by radio that could not be reached by newspapers, books, or magazines.
Film put the experience of “theatre” within the reach of the common people. While everyone might not be able to afford tickets to a Broadway play, almost everyone could scrape together the 5 cents for which they could purchase an hour or two of complete escapism. This escapism gained even wider appeal during the Great Depression when a great many people had really difficult lives from which they loved having the ability to purchase an hour or two of complete escape.
The film industry spawned an interesting side effect based on the social tendencies of people – the phenomenon of celebrity. Stage actors and other entertainers had always had a degree of fame and celebrity, but the mass market venue of film provided a much broader potential audience and a whole host of new niches for celebrities to fit into and exploit. It was possible to have only so many great Shakespearean actors or operatic divas, but movies provided the opportunity for many different types – from the buffoons of the 3 Stooges to the cowboy actor – to gain a following.
Radio and film merged their potentials in television. Sight, sound, and immediacy were a very potent combination. The propaganda potential of radio was well recognized and exploited in the years leading up to WW II and during the war, and the advent of television on a mass scale made it a propaganda device on steroids. In addition, it also made a very nice consumer good to occupy those factories, as well as being a self-perpetuating outlet for consumption because it created demand through advertising.
Radio also spawned a related industry which would eventually come to figure very heavily in the “information economy” to come – recorded music. While it was a product with some continuing market from its introduction up through the war years, it really started to become a force in its own right when presented with a market comprised of suburban teenagers with lots of time on their hands due to lack of involvement in any economic activity but still with disposable income.
So, all the fragments were arranged – massive production, massive consumption, high degree of wealth relative to what had gone before, mass media with both propaganda potential and the ability to create demand for consumer goods by emotional manipulation, and a number of products with no direct need or worth as necessities of life which were easy to produce and easy to distribute – when the baby bomb was detonated and sent those fragments tearing through the foundations of cultural values.
Marxist Thought
Now the plot thickens.
All of the above is merely descriptive – laying out the conditions that existed when this huge mass of new future citizens was dumped onto the scene.
Marxist thought goes back, of course, to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. However, the portion I’m going to highlight starts in 1917 with the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Rob has covered this extensively, so this is going to be an extremely brief synopsis. For a far more complete picture, go to http://menforjustice.net/library or http://no-maam.blogspot.com.
The Russian revolution failed to spark the world-wide uprising of the proletariat to kill the capitalists which the Marxists had expected. In analyzing the reasons why it didn’t, Marxist theorists saw the cultural institutions of religion and religious values, family, patriotism/nationalism, and education as being too strong in maintaining and transmitting cultural values for such a major shift to take place. In order for the Communist revolution to come about, those institutions would have to be weakened and undermined and the cultural values they transmitted be destroyed.
One of the best ways to go about this was to deal with people’s baser appetites and motivations and weaken their intellectual and moral control of their behavior. A perfect model of how this might be accomplished was provided by Freudian psychoanalytic theory with his “id, ego, and superego” – the id being the reptilian brain and the animal appetites and emotions, the superego being social and moral consciousness, and the ego mediating the conflicts between the two. Appealing to the id, and weakening the superego, puts the ego in service of the id.
The Frankfurt School was a center of Marxist thought established in Germany in the early-mid 1920s. Their goal was to meld psychoanalytic thought with political action as a way of weakening cultural institutions supporting restraint, by endorsing hedonism and short-term gratification. The prime strategist was a man named Antonio Gramsci, who laid out a plan for a “Long March Through The Culture” which would leave every cultural institution which had defeated the Bolshevik revolution in a pile of rubble in its wake.
So, now the stage is set.
Fearing the rise of National Socialism, the Frankfurt School relocated to New York in the mid 1930s. Most of the members were Jewish, so they had real reasons to fear the anti-Semitic sentiment which was rising in Germany, and they were able to come into the US without attracting much attention because of the large influx of other Jewish intellectuals and professionals fleeing Germany for the same reason. Once here, they set out to infiltrate and become strong influences in the media, education, and psychotherapeutic communities. There was an easy symbiosis between these, particularly due to the chic and trendy nature of psychoanalysis in the post WW II US.
Despite the way that McCarthy has been ridiculed and demonized, there really were communists active in the entertainment industry during the post-war years. They didn’t concentrate as much on strictly Marxist themes as they did on indirectly attacking cultural values. Instead of a direct attack on religion, for example, a competing idea of nihilism was introduced and promoted – e.g. “Rebel Without A Cause.”
The boomers were sitting ducks for all this because they were children in the stage of life when the purpose and goal is to learn and internalize cultural values. Instead of the parents, churches, and communities which provided most of the input for previous generations, the boomers were raised by television, radio, and film. The monumental sexual drives of adolescence, which every culture has to find a way to grapple with and restrain, coincided with a generalized loosening of sexual mores and restraints. More and more sexual imagery started appearing, and the Pill conveniently arrived – separating sex from reproduction and making “recreational sex” a real possibility – just as the first boomers hit puberty.
During the “turbulent 1960s”, there were two major cultural phenomena which strained generational relationships even more than the classic and inevitable tensions between the old and the young – the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. The high level of distrust engendered among young people for the older generations, the “establishment”, was captured in Abbie Hoffman’s famous dictum “Never trust anyone over 30.” ”Traditional” values were seen as corrupt, exploitive, capricious, and often dishonest. A major youth movement/trend developed whose participants were called “Hippies” with values directly opposed to and reacting against the values of their parents and older generations. It was actually termed the “counter-culture”, which was an very accurately descriptive term because the values which defined it ran directly counter to prevailing cultural values of the time. ”Sex, drugs, and Rock’n'Roll” was the mantra, “Make Love, Not War” was the passion, and “Free Love” was the ideal goal. Hedonism became the highest good, and even members of their parents’ generation wanted to join the party and have some fun. The developmental period of adolescence got greatly extended, with many parents sitting down to smoke dope with their own kids, if not being the ones to introduce their own children to the drug subculture.
The expectations of affluence, plus the expectations of their parents, plus the Vietnam War sent the boomers to college in unprecedented numbers. Here is where the Frankfurt school had really been busy. A huge number of their members had achieved professorships in prestigious institutions, and by the late 1960s they owned the academy. Hardly any discipline outside the hard sciences was untouched. Their thinking pervaded the social sciences, the arts, philosophy, and even theology. The boomers were at college to LEARN, so that is what they did. Few had the critical facilities to question and analyze what they were being taught. Some of us renegades who did question saw the early beginnings of Political Correctness taking shape as refusing to conform to the ideological indoctrination would be severely punished. If you wanted good grades, and that meant the carrot of a “good job” that they dangled in your face, you toed the party line.
And, into this volatile mess, they injected feminism.
The family, paradoxically, was at the same time both the strongest cultural institution and one of the easiest to attack. The age old tensions between men and women, dubbed “the battle of the sexes” were easily exploited to get women to see themselves as an “oppressed” class. The sexual revolution was in the news, but not in everyone’s minds yet. The boomers were raised mostly under the old cultural mores and values regarding sex, and then suddenly turned loose with a new toy they weren’t quite sure how to play with. Mis-cues and misunderstandings between the sexes on what sexual “liberation” actually looked like were easy fodder for exploitation in the next phase of the gender war – the escalating issue of “rape.”
The establishment of “Women’s Studies” departments in the academy metastized the cancer, and gave the hard core haters an entrenched “bully pulpit” from which to spread their Marxist theory and hatred against the “class” of men.
Boomer men were on the horns of two-pronged dilemma They were at the stage of their lives when their primary goal and task was to find a mate and form a family, yet their pool of potential mates was developing values which were fundamentally different than the values that men had been led to expect to find in the women they would choose as wives. Trained in one set of skills and attitudes that had been attractive to women in the past, men were now finding women who were not attracted by those characteristics and were demanding something different. However, the specifics of what was demanded no longer followed any sort of cultural pattern but were mostly based on the preferences of individual women – their much vaunted “choices.”
No-fault divorce and the rise of “rape consciousness” fundamentally changed the relationship dynamic within marriage. The idea that a man could be convicted of “raping” his wife totally erased the long held tradition of “marital duties” and turned sex from being part of the foundation of the relationship between man and wife into an instance-by-instance exercise in the gratification of personal whims.
The Marxist concept of “class oppression” combined with the sex-fearing dysfunction of women like Susan Brownmiller severed the most basic marital bond in one blow.
This class warfare was extended by placing all sexual activity on a “continuum of oppression” and set up a situation and consciousness that men could not possibly do anything but lose – the fundamental attraction between the sexes which is essential for the continuation of the human race became proof of “oppression” and a constant and perpetual source of justification for claims of female victimhood. The class consciousness of the “sisterhood” hoodwinked women into believing that they had more in common with women living on the other side of the world, or with women who had lived and died years before they were born, than with the man with whom their shared their bed, their children, and their lives.
This “unity based on type” was exactly what the socialist and union organizer Eugene Debs was saying when he said -
"while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a sooul in prison, I am not free."
“Brotherhood” and “sisterhood” are the same basic concept, and are illustrations of the same type of “ideology over everything else” that sometimes found members of the same families, sometimes even biological brothers, on opposite sides in the US war between the states, or civil war. A woman might have a splendid life – a comfortable home, a loving husband, decent kids – but as long as there was one woman anywhere who was “oppressed”, then so was she. ”
“The personal is political and the political is personal” destroyed people’s ability to have personal relationships and turned all relationships into political relationships. A man and a wife might be having a typical couples argument, and suddenly the man became responsible for the mistreatment of women in the Middle East, the binding of Chinese women’s feet, and the lack of women’s suffrage a century ago.
In the face of this onslaught, most men felt an unbelievable sense of betrayal, but they were stuck in marriages to these women and their only choices were a lifetime of conflict or to just surrender and give in. Most men chose keeping their family together over falling on their swords of principle, and just caved in. Some even went so far as to exhibit a form of Stockholm Syndrome and became dedicated feminists, denouncing themselves in weird displays of schizophrenia and self-abdication.
Those that didn’t soon faced the Soviet-style “re-education camps” created by the DV industry which was based on the Marxist idea that all Domestic Violence was a conspiracy by men to perpetuate their “oppression” of women. There is no more purely Marxist bit of thinking at work in feminist countries today than the Duluth Model of domestic violence.
Demographic and economic shifts, and growth of mass media and consumer culture continue
This gradual infiltration of Marxist thought occurred against the backdrop of continuation of the social, economic, and cultural trends which took off a half century before. During the 1960s mass media exploded. For many years there had been only 3 TV broadcast networks and only people living in or near major cities had access to all three. As the distance increased, reception decreased and people living 60 or more miles from an urban center often could only get all 3 stations reliably if the weather was clear. Throw in a bit of rain or fog and most people got vague ghosts on the TV and slightly warmed rain or fog between them and the broadcast tower.
These remote communities soon saw a business opportunity open up in the form of Community Antennas, or Cable TV. Entrepreneurs built huge towers and installed signal boosters, filters, and amplifiers and delivered the signal to homes via coaxial cable. The low cost of this kind of distribution system led quickly to the development of original content specifically for cable, which eventually became cable networks like HBO, Cinemax, and MTV. The expansion of content drove up demand, and demand drove the expansion of content. An entire new “industry” was born which in turn spawned many new jobs.
The transition from a nation of producers to a nation of handlers in 1960 was the key to an economy which would have to absorb more new workers than ever before in history. A purely production-based economy could not have done so because there were not enough markets to absorb greatly increased output. At the end of the decade of the 1950s, the US, with 2% of the world’s population, was absorbing over 50% of the world’s industrial output. The rebuilding of Europe and Japan were essentially complete, so any increase in production would require opening new markets. But, opening new overseas markets would require spurring development in those areas so that those countries would have something of economic value to exchange with the US. Only a strategy of globalization provided enough potential for perpetually expanding markets, and one of the first functions to be “outsourced” to other countries was industrial production.
This fit perfectly with the white-collar expectations of the new generation who never once considered following in their fathers’ footsteps and becoming blue collar workers.
The boomers were a double-whammy to the labor market because not only was a larger number of men than ever before looking for places in it, but also a large number of women were following the feminist script to compete with men economically and for the available jobs. The “service economy”, and “information economy” ideas led to the rapid development of a generalized “managerial” class, which required skills which transferred seamlessly into a rapidly growing government bureaucracy.
As the boomers seeped into the workforce between 1964 and about 1986, the economy slid into the doldrums. The petroleum crisis in the mid 1970s ended cheap gasoline, dealt a crippling blow to the US auto industry because they were too slow to respond to trends and downsize their offerings, and opened the US market to Japanese autos of much higher quality than the US produced models. Globalization had begun in earnest.
Interest rates spiraled out of control in the early 80s, going over 20%, which depressed the housing market and sent ripples through the rest of the economy. The displacement of farm families of the 1930s was repeated as rising fuel costs and a weak economy forced a large percentage of the remaining family farms out of business.
Through all this, men and women had been stroking away, coping as best they could, trying to work out some sort of new balance and mixture of gender roles, and managing to get along.
And then the feminists unveiled the nuclear device of the gender war – the redefinition of normal sexual relations between men and women as “rayyyype!”
The notion of women as an “oppressed class” had simply failed to gain the traction it had needed to completely split the normal attraction between the sexes, so the obvious strategy was to attack that attraction itself. Susan Brownmiller had laid the conceptual foundations in the mid 1970s with “Against Our Wills”, and Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin had carried the water of the concept forward with sexual harassment law and Dowkin’s sex-hating, man-hating, prose. All it took was for Mary Koss to fabricate her bogus bit of research in which she mysteriously “found” that “1 in 4″ women were being “rayyyyped” and the wedge to sever the trust and attraction between the sexes was set.
The feminist movement had pretty much stalled because most women still didn’t see their husbands, brothers, fathers, and male friends as the enemy. People were slowly working out new roles and people were adjusting to dual income families. The Equal Rights Amendment had failed back in the 1970s, but the real barriers to the kind of equality it envisioned were more in the slowly changing social attitudes. Things had changed blindingly fast as social change normally goes, but still not fast enough for the feminists.
And then, along came Susan Faludi, with her Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. If there ever is a trial for war crimes of the gender war, I hope Faludi hangs. Despite what were actually huge strides toward a new more equal social system, including the fact that women had been getting the majority of college degrees for a full decade, she dismissed all that and re-kindled the sense of victimhood among women of a certain age group. There wasn’t a war before her book, but things certainly became one as a result of it.
In the brief cultural span of less than 50 years, every social value which was in place half a century ago has been swept aside. The idealistic boomers, fresh out of college with their Marxist ideas went into every aspect of government, and rode Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” into a welfare-therapeutic state where they controlled education, social services, and most branches of government as a result of having become entrenched in the multitude of bureaucracies spawned by the notion that every human problem could be solved if you just threw enough money at it.
The right to kill one’s own children and call them “choices” was enough of a blow to the culture, but when people started seriously using “same sex” and “marriage” together, the Long March Through the Culture was complete – absolutely nothing meant the same thing it had 50 years before.
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