Tyrants and Opiates

If you have not seen Glenn Beck's January 22, 2010 show on the roots of Progressivism, Communism, Marxism, and their effects on the 20th Century then I suggest that you watch them from the links below before reading on:

Part 1 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHJcG4kjQ68
Part 2 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkRHCzd_5rA
Part 3 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3zxPSC69ng
Part 4 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLRgaQ7FCig
Part 5 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqAKbwoY500
Part 6 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odS6veXcnWM
Part 7 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pe3hDFQ0Mw

I have always said, and continue to drill into my children and foreign-born wife that you must understand, absolutely, where you came from to best determine where you are going.

I must admit, though, that my wife gets a bit of a pass on that one. I'm going to digress a bit here, but it does have bearing on the bulk of this posting. My wife has lived much of this and she is so very disturbed by it all (the changes underway in America). She works hard every day to avoid the research that I put into this blog and she pointedly leaves the room whenever the kids ask me history or political questions (bless them their interest and curiosity). She grew up on the other side of the Iron Curtain and knows what it is like to see empty shelves and long lines for toilet paper, the lack of food and the meatless weeks (much of it going to the Soviet Union). She knows first hand about bribing and back room deals to get the most basic of medical care. She understands Obama and his Marxist revolutionaries on a visceral level. No amount of spin can camouflage those people from her eyes. The revulsion that emanates from her is palpable. She gets angry at times when she hears me speaking about what Obama is doing with the casualness of a college professor. She tells me that this is not just a theoretical discussion in his policies and their effects on the American people. This is serious. Deadly serious and she is sick of people looking at this, and him, as just another politician that needs to be restrained (Bill Clinton after 1994) and/or voted out of office (Carter in 1980). This man is a Marxist revolutionary that will stop at nothing to bring about redistributive change and totalitarian rule. I need to "get my mind right" on this and stop treating it as a cerebral exercise.

Point taken.

Watch what Beck and his crew have created. A documentary far more useful than any of the drivel that Michael Moore has created. It is chilling and it is accurate. As a history junkie I was impressed with the way he pulled the various roots of Progressivism together and bundled them up in a cohesive and easy to understand way. Too often historians make the act of storytelling tedious and boring. Not to mention they have to pitch in gratuitous Latin or other 'deep' concepts that they assume everyone knows about. Much like Jazz, everyone just nods as if they 'get it'.

Everyone looks to the 20th Century as the time when the modern world really came into being. The automobile was a 19th century invention that was perfected in the 20th. Lighter than air flight was invented in the 18th but perfected in the 20th with the Zeppelin and the airplane. Science had undergone explosive growth in the 19th century and only continued to accelerate in the 20th. The world was shrinking rapidly. One could go around the world in under 3 months in the 19th century, by the 20th that time was measured in hours. We were progressing on all fronts.

Many of the intellectuals in Europe and the United States felt that our social development needed to under go an evolution as well. The Fabian Society in England was created to bring about the slow, progressive evolution of the cultural condition. Socialism and Communism were born in the 19th century and then given full expression in the 20th. The Worlds Fairs of the 19th Century looked ahead to a Art Deco world of progress and plenty.

The 20th century was the bloodiest century in the history of recorded civilization. As destructive as the US Civil War was, running almost 4 years to the day, approximately 700,000 people died of active war and disease. At the Battle of Verdun, fought over a period of about 10 months it resulted in nearly 1,000,000 combined casualties of which almost 300,000 were KIA or MIA. 40 million artillery shells were fired and at least 100,000 soldiers were ground up in no-man-land to the point where bones are still found to this day. And that was just one battle of WWI. Between WWI and WWII, there must have been at least 130 million war deaths. In Korea the US military must have inflicted 1-3 million casualties on the North Koreans and at least that many casualties on the Chinese. Millions died of disease and exposure. Interestingly, the wars of the past were fought over territory, resources, and power.

The wars of the 20th century were primarily those of ideology. Such a simple word. Even the Crusades were fought more for power and prestige than for religion. The first quarter of the century saw the great empires of the previous 1,000 years break up. Often times violently. Communist and Socialists were in play the entire time. The Progressives had already taken root in the United States and came up with absolutely wonderful theories. Social Darwinism (borrowed by the Nazis), Eugenics (again, borrowed from America for use by the Nazis), and the idea of Corporatism (look it up, it is not quite as it sounds). Mussolini created the first stable Fascist government in Italy long before Hitler came to power in Germany. The trains ran on time and there was order, even in the 1930's when the rest of the world was in recession (the US being in a depression). The marriage of government, people, and corporations seemed the way to go and there were many, many admirers of that form of government here in the US.

However, this is where Beck really hits the nail on the head. Marxism, progressivism, communism; all of it leads down the same road. The more the government involves itself in one's life, the more it must control it. Prohibition was a Progressive idea. Alcohol is bad and we can't seem to get you to stop drinking of your own volition, so we are going to make a Constitutional Amendment banning the production, sale, import and export of alcohol (not to mention drinking it).

Prohibition gave us organized crime (not to mention the Kennedy dynasty) and years of speak-easys. The Law of Unintended Consequences is one of the most powerful laws in the Universe. It failed miserably. The Progressives never gave up, not one bit. After regrouping, they hijacked the 60's counter-culture revolution. They used that movement to first pull down the existing, moralistic order and replaced it with an anything goes world view. To remove the obstacle of the Constitution they had to pull down the education system. So now we have purple markers and open class rooms. Now, few people seem to really understand where we came from. For the last 40 years our culture has been torn down to be replaced with...what? A Marxist utopia?

Prior to the mid-1960's, America was a deeply religious nation. Much of the Western world was Catholic or one of the many flavors of Protestantism. Religion provides a culture with a foundation of morals and rules that allow large groups of people to live among each other with a minimum of friction. Religion can be such a big part of people's lives that everything they look at is through that lens (such leads to intolerance). Lenin called religion the "Opiate of the masses". He was saying that it is a useful distraction to occupy their time with. He was also saying that as long as people believe in God then there will always be competition with the State. So, you get rid of God.

Well, organized religion has now been largely discredited in the Western world. Everything is about you, and me, and the State. I have total liberty, I can do what I want, even at the financial expense of another...I'm owed; I'm a victim. In that mind-set, religion becomes a quaint hobby. What to replace it with? Well, judging by how much attention people pay to Angelia Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Jennifer Aniston, I'd have to say that Pop Culture is the new Opiate of the Masses. More people voted in American Idol in 2006 than voted for John McCain in the 2008 Presidential elections. Helllllooooo people! A useful distraction indeed.

Beck is also very good at illustrating this cultural degradation with the popular support of thugs and murderers like Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Che (not to mention this twisted fascination with criminals in general). You have people in the White House putting Mao decorations on the Christmas tree and idiot Hollywood stars from Depp to Masterson wearing Che t-shirts. Black rappers are even extolling the virtues of Che (who would have had them all shot since he hated music and blacks). Yet these people feel no shame at all wearing those shirts. Blissfully ignorant of the realities of this world. The Useful Idiots that the Marxist movement is always looking to use. How about at t-shirt with Hitler on it? Same Marxist belief system, same thoughts on civil control, redistributive wealth and centralized governmental planning. I really don't see a difference in them other than one did some of his own killing and the other killed through the government apparatus.

So much more. The lessons of the Stoa will continue later.

--Zavost