Where and when did progressives start revising history?

The book "The Great Tradition: Constitutional History and National Identity in Britain and the United States, 1870-1960" contains an interesting piece of information on page 141: (Chapter 6)

"With your belief that the revolutionary history must be re-written with reference to its social aspects, I am in entire agreement, tho' I am not sure I should raise unnecessary issues by calling the movement for self-government secondary to this as the primary movement." 18

The relevant footnote explains the source:

18. Turner to Becker, 25 March 1909, Box 7, Carl Becker papers, Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.

From the internet, the Becker papers are under lock and key. Too bad.

Becker is at the root of the progressives' historical revisionism with his 1909 book "History of Political Parties in the Province of New York". Well known revisionist Charles Beard would expand upon the work that Becker already laid down in his book "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States".

Becker's professor Frederick Jackson Turner is also an important figure in revisionist history, with his "Frontier Thesis". He sought to revise American history itself with a new explanation. This could easily be the source of the idea of revising for later revisionists, who went further into other places. As we see above, they did discuss it behind the scenes.

In constantly searching and digging for new information, I am finding out that the 60's(and late 50's) are surprisingly a good resource for knowledge about progressivism. As the revolutionaries, SDS, and all the rest were going bonkers there were people who were doing then just like we are doing now: looking and trying to learn from whence all of this came. The book Fabian Freeway that I just got done transcribing was published in the 60's. The book "Bending The Twig", detailing the nature of the subversion of American schools was published in 57. Then there's this book from '66: "The reinterpretation of early American history: essays in honor". The following is highlighted: (page 153)

The basic structure of the new interpretation was first worked out in detail in two studies of politics in the middle colonies in the years immediately preceding the Declaration of Independence: C. H. Lincoln, The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (1901), and Carl Becker, History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760-1776 (1909). Lincoln and Becker found that politics in both Pennsylvania and New York was conditioned by deep-seated internal conflicts between rival social groups. In Pennsylvania there were "two opposing forces, one radical," composed of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and Germans in the west and non-Quaker lower and middle-class Philadelphians in the east, and the other "conservative," consisting of the Quaker mercantile oligarchy in the east

In reading through parts of Charles Lincoln's book, it becomes fairly evident that the author certainly gets it right about the structure of the book. On page 98 is this:

From our review of conditions in Pennsylvania we should expect to see the two opposing forces, one radical the other conservative, coming gradually into conflict. Into this opposition each party had been forced by the logic of events, for each sought its own advantage and the opposing forces had few common interests.

So using marxist or quasi-marxist ideology, Lincoln turns the people of the founding era into the first modern American soap opera of class conflict. Talk about classes and antagonisms is right out of the manifesto. From page 77:

Coincident with the growth of the discontent throughout the Susquehanna Valley there was developing in the city of Philadelphia a spirit of hostility to Quaker domination, only less important than the Scotch-Irish antagonism. Although there was not the feeling of self-reliance among the discontented inhabitants of the city, which was found in the frontier communities, there were bitter rivalries in Philadelphia accompanied by an extreme jealousy of the ruling aristocracy. It may fairly be doubted whether this opposition of the middle and lower classes to Quaker control would, of itself, have been able to make headway against the legal barriers which the sagacity of the early colonial leaders had erected ; but, like the German element throughout the west, the Philadelphia populace became a valuable ally of the interior counties in their struggle against the dominant conservatism of the province.

A great deal of the information that we are learning now through a myriad of authors, scholars, and researchers has already been learned. But in the 60's, the media was almost entirely dominated by university-trained journalists, all steeped in the Lippmann school of journalism. So all of this information in books like these which show us where to look, who, what, and so forth; was allowed to be lost. Now we need to re-learn it.

http://tinyurl.com/c7p9hef

Eleanor Roosevelt received an award from the League for Industrial Democracy

In "The L.I.D.: Fifty years of democratic education, 1905-1955", written by Mina Weisenberg, the following is written: (Page 36)

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, Recipient of L.I.D. Award, 1953; "First Woman of the World"

A decade later, the SDS would come out of the League for Industrial Democracy. Previous to calling itself LID, the League called itself the ISS; Intercollegiate Socialist Society.

And to be sure, it's not likely that Mrs. Roosevelt rejected the award. One of her favorite books was written by a Fabian Socialist, Prestonia Mann Martin. (1) (2)

Where this becomes frustrating, is things like this:

Organization of Alumni Chapters is being considered at Berkeley and Fresno, California. The Chicago Fabian Society, which is informally connected with the I.S.S., is holding successful meetings.

That's from the writings of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society themselves. Informal connections, and they've been doing it this way for 100+ years. These radicals, revolutionaries, and evolutionaries, who seek to usurp power and rule over our lives have decentralized themselves. That's why we need to take the time to discover the networks.©®

At least they're connected enough to wish each other happy birthday under more honest auspices.

http://tinyurl.com/c9fqv6x

Bernard Shaw's advice: Abolish the constitution

Here are two old videos of an interview with Bernard Shaw. It's the same interview, just captured at different angles, probably by different camera crews as they're cut differently. These interviews took place quite some time into FDR's presidency, as Shaw makes reference to the Court's repeated actions to stop him.

Bernard Shaw:

I've been here before, I told you what to do and you haven't done it. And you're up to your neck in trouble, in consequence. I told you in New York. I put it to you very carefully and exactly. I told you that what you had to do in this country was to abolish your constitution, which was preventing you from doing anything. And now you see what's happened since. Every attempt you've made to do anything the Supreme Court immediately stops it and says it's against the constitution.

Well, I tell you again to get rid of your Constitution. But I suppose you won't do it. You have a good president and you have a bad Constitution, and the bad Constitution gets the better of the good President all the time. The end of it will be is that you might as well have an English Prime Minister.

Videos:

Bernard Shaw told us to abolish our constitution

Bernard Shaw urged Americans to ditch their Constitution

http://tinyurl.com/d4b75bg

Stuart Chase founded the Chicago Fabian Club

In the "Intercollegiate Socialist", Volume 7, the following is written:

Cooperation, according to Stuart Chase, founder of the Fabian Club of Chicago, must depend on the future radicalism of the labor parties.

All those groups in society which lose rather than gain from the present economic system must amalgamate their sooner or later - if the present economic system is really to be modified. I think the Socialists and other articulate radicals would do well to hold off, without gratuitous criticism, and give the Labor Party a chance to see what it can do, and how far to the left it is prepared to go. If results are in any way encouraging, and a real class consciousness is developed, the radicals should come in to the Labor Party - as in England. Socialism under any other name would smell as sweet.

The "Intercollegiate Socialist" was the publication of the ISS, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which would go on to rename itself LID, the League for Industrial Democracy. (The student wing of the LID renamed itself again, to SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society.)

Chase (if you recall) was a member of FDR's Brain's trust. Note Chase's words above. What the Fabians were trying to do with the ISS and the LID was re-create what they did in England. It didn't quite go according to plan considering the differences between Progressivism and Fabianism, but it was successful enough. The other thing of note is his advice to slow down and hold off. Give things a chance to work - don't push for revolution, support the evolution. That's classic Fabianism - "Make haste, slowly". It's also in line with Progressivism and 'making progress'.

In quoting the publication "Intercollegiate Socialist", I am quoting a 'friendly' publication, in that Chase was a member of the ISS.(and when they changed into LID, Chase was their treasurer.) And as to 'friendly' publications, that's not the only one. Another group that Chase was involved with was the Consumer's Cooperative League. They helped to publish at least one of his books. (The Story of Toad Lane)

In one of the publications for the Cooperative League, we find some very useful information:

STUART CHASE received his degree as C.P.A. (certified public accountant) in 1915. His accounting practice has taken him into all phases of industry and government, and he has had an unusual opportunity to see how modern business is carried on. He was for a time employed by President Taft's Commission on Economy and Efficiency. He has specialized particularly in accounting systems and in chart work.

Mr Chase was born in Somersworth NH in 1888. He graduated from Harvard in 1910. "A year or so after graduating from college," he writes: "I happened, quite by accident, to meet Henry George's "Progress and Poverty," which formed the basis of my social awakening. No inkling of real economics had ever penetrated to me during my college days, although I specialized on economics at Harvard."

Then in July 1914, Mr Chase married Margaret Hatfield, whose social ideas were parallel to his own, and they devoted their honeymoon to a sociological experiment in Rochester, N.Y., where they presented themselves as a homeless jobless couple looking for work. This experiment resulted in a widely read book, "A Honeymoon Experiment."

Mr Chase has been active in various progressive movements, and is connected as an officer with the Massachusetts' Birth Control League, the Massachusetts Single Tax League, and the Fabian Club of Boston. He is the author of a number of articles.

http://tinyurl.com/d92husw

Who is the militia?

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel

Today's crisis is that of this horrible shooting in Connecticut. Am I the only one to notice that the first people out pushing hard for gun control was the journalistic establishment? How about they try educating people for once? The second amendment is very clear.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Even without reading history, the last two sentences can't be messed up. But we're dealing with progressives, they seek to muddy the waters. And since they've revised all sorts of history and removed large parts of history out of the books altogether, they've built in their own ability to confuse the debate much more effectively. (This has been done by design, mind you. See [1] and [2])

So the focus is often thrown upon questions about the militia. What was the Founder's views on the militia? The 2A makes this pretty clear right in it's own text, the militia is what makes a free state free. But why? First let's ask Noah Webster, who lived during the time of the founding and was very much in favor of independence. In his "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution", he writes the following: (page 43)

But what is tyranny? Or how can a free people be deprived of their liberties? Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state. This position leads me directly to enquire, in what consists the power of a nation or of an order of men?

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.

The militia is the whole people. You and me, every one of us. It's sort of a euphemism, an interchangeable word. But Webster wasn't a Founder. He merely observed what others around him were saying, what the laws were written to express, and elaborated upon them. The Founders themselves said similar things. Like Tench Coxe, a Founder from Pennsylvania. In The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788, Coxe wrote:

The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people.

The militia is the whole people. This is very much in line with what Webster wrote. Federalist 46, written by the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, states the following:

The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger.

So Madison states pretty plainly that we need not fear the Federal government, and can easily disprove the reality of this danger. Why?

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation

"Possess over the people of almost every other nation". Again, that's very much what Webster said. (Madison also lists the existence of state governments, but sadly, the progressives have blown through that firewall of protection) As most of the people in Europe at that time were disarmed, it was very easy for tyrants to rule.

George Mason also said similar things. In the debates at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, the following is written, perhaps the most ominous of them all: (page 302)

I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor; but may be confined to the lower and middle classes of the people, granting exclusion to the higher classes of the people. If we should ever see that day, the most ignominious punishments and heavy fines may be expected. Under the present government all ranks of people are subject to militia duty. Under such a full and equal representation as ours, there can be no ignominious punishments inflicted. But under this national, or rather consolidated government, the case will be different. The representation being so small, and inadequate, they will have no fellow-feeling for the people. They may discriminate people in their own predicament, and exempt from militia duty all the officers and lowest creatures of the national government.

And from there he goes on to talk about congress exempting themselves from duty, as if they were a bunch of monarchs.

But we can see the obvious. The militia is the whole people. The word ignominous means "Marked by shame or disgrace; despicable; degrading; debasing". Which is what tyranny is.

So if only poor and middle class Americans were armed, Mason warns us, tyranny would start to flourish.

Liberty requires the whole of the militia people to be armed. What would really be a shame is if 20 slain angels becomes the reason that iron fisted tyranny commences in these United States of America. But hey, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

http://tinyurl.com/aw74mh7

Birthday greetings to America’s Fabian Society!

One of the footnotes in the book "Fabian Freeway" isn't quite right. The first footnote of Chapter 15 states the following:

1. Forty Years of Education (New York, League for Industrial Democracy, 1945), p. 56. A telegram to the League on its fortieth anniversary from Mandel V. Halushka, a Chicago schoolteacher, read, "Birthday greetings to America's Fabian Society!"

The corresponding paragraph to this footnote says the following:

In the future as in the past, the continuing leadership of the Socialist movement in the United States resided in America’s Fabian Society, (1) the polite but persistent Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which changed its name but not its nature in 1921.

Mandel Halushka actually wrote this:

"You, Dr. Laidler, have worked with such steadfast devotion and intelligence that all of us who helieve in the cause of freedom and justice in America are deeply in your debt."

Mandel V. Halushka, Teacher, Chicago, III.:

"Birthday greetings to Americans Fabian Society!

"Many organizations with much larger membership and greater financial support have come and gone since September 8, 1905. Few organizations have championed a better cause than the League for Industrial Democracy during these many years."

That comes from the book "Forty years of education, the task ahead (1945)". (Page 56) One whole letter difference means it won't show up in a search engine. This book was written by the League for Industrial Democracy, and as the description makes clear, this is written in a celebratory manner. So the LID was called America's Fabian Society, and they wholly accepted it.

That puts the birth of America's Second Fabian Society at September 12th, 1905 (ISS doc.) (Key Wiki). The first attempt to found a Fabian Society in the US was February 1895.

Who was Mandel V Halushka?

The Tamiment Library at NYU holds the Halushka papers. The abstract is as follows:

Chicago Socialist, compiler of list of Socialist publications, 1900-1950. The papers contain correspondence including letters from socialist notables, material relating to the Young People's Socialist League; a scrapbook of articles by Halushka and others; a scrapbook relating to the Young Circle League; and survey forms and charts relating to Halushka's research on Socialist mayors and Socialist newspapers.

In short, Halushka was deep within the movement, and was a researcher. One more thing. What is the Tamiment Library at NYU? That is where the papers of the Rand School of Social Science ended up after it shut down. Chapter 14 of Fabian Freeway goes into quite a lot of detail about the Rand School. The Rand School story reads just like the story for the Fabian-Founded London School of Economics.

For some, I'm sure this information may seem irrelevant or disconnected. The League for Industrial Democracy had such luminaries involved with it as Stuart Chase, an advisor to FDR. John Dewey, the Father of Modern Education was the LID's president at one time. And the LID's student wing became SDS.

http://tinyurl.com/benb9m3

The New School for Social Research was co-founded by a Fabian Socialist

As several places (1) (2) are scheming against your hard earned retirement, the roots of this unsurprisingly go back to American academia. But where does that lead?

The war on your 401k seems rooted in the ideas of a Teresa Ghilarducci, of The New School for Social Research.(NSSR) According to the NSSR's home page, it is her idea:

"Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at The New School for Social Research, has won attention among lawmakers nationwide for her tough stance against 401(k)s"

This goes back to 2008 and probably before, but it's who makes it prominent that gets the credit. Levin did an interview with Ghilarducci back in 2009 which is quite interesting and honest, on her part.

So who is this "New School for Social Research"? Where does it come from? They'll tell you. Here's a Message from the Dean, and here's what the Dean has to say:

Visionary thinking has been at the heart of our school since the founding of the New School for Social Research in 1919. The founders and early teachers included leading progressive scholars of the day: John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen, Charles Beard, Franz Boas, Harold Laski, and others.

Harold Laski is known to be involved with the Fabian Society as early as 1914, according to Margaret Cole, Fabian Historian and author of "The Story of Fabian Socialism". Her book is largely written in order along a timeline.

Laski would ultimately serve as Chairman of the Fabian society from 1946 to 1948. (also see Cole, Page 250) The Dean is somewhat ambiguous about the list of names and their involvement, so just to be clear about Laski: (1) (2)

Laski taught there after it's founding, as did other noted Fabians Graham Wallas and Bertrand Russell, not to mention the future President of America's Fabian Society, John Dewey.(Dewey, who is mentioned above by the Dean)

You can't get good fruit off of a bad tree, and the wolves in sheep's clothing eyeing your 401(k)s like a pork chop seems to be a clear way to prove this. The New School tree planted 100 years ago is bearing some very bad fruit.

http://tinyurl.com/bjko7dv

Distrust of the wisdom of the citizens is foundational for progressives

In a letter to William Charles Jarvis, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following: (September 28th, 1820)

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.

But this is the last thing that progressives want to do. For John Dewey, education is a tool to turn people into an "organ and agent of a comprehensive and progressive society", and Woodrow Wilson also made even more pointed comments in the context of education, lamenting that "You will not find many reformers among the successful men"

Alright, so people are stupid and need to be indoctrinated into the progressive world view. But what of the adults, why would progressives look at them and be put off? Herbert Croly answers this. In his book(Recommended by Theodore Roosevelt) Progressive Democracy; on page 309 Croly writes the following:

Representative assemblies, on the other hand, were supposed to embody not the will of any definite fraction of the community, but the dim religious light of public reason.

So for the early 20th century progressives, this idea of "public reason" is nothing more than a sort of voodoo political science. THAT is why they indoctrinate us. We can't be trusted.

On page 362, Croly says this about administrators:

Although the kind of administrator that I am describing must obtain the standing of an expert, he must also be something more than an expert. He is the custodian not merely of a particular law, but of a social purpose of which the law is only a fragmentary expression. As the custodian of a certain part of the social program, he must share the faith upon which the program depends for its impulse; and he must accept the scientific method upon which the faith depends for its realization. Thus with all his independence he is a promoter and propagandist. As long as he remains in the government service, he should not carry his propagandism further than the official social program justifies him in carrying it; but he should carry it as far as he can. He qualifies for his work as an administrator quite as much by his general good faith as by his specific competence.

If this paragraph were my first brush with 20th century progressivism, I would be horrified. This goes to show just what kind of "expertise" that progressives are looking for in their administrators. But the last two words are really what gives it away.

You and I don't have any "specific competence" as the progressives would define it. So we simply cannot be trusted. Above all is the belief that government has all the answers, as he said: "must share the faith upon which the program depends". The program couldn't survive a constitutionalist, now could it?

Most Americans in Croly's day didn't want to live in tyranny. That's why progressives had to change their name and call themselves "liberals" for all these years. The original progressives so scared the people with their ideas that they had to go into hiding for decades.

It's at the very core of progressivism to distrust the people.

http://tinyurl.com/bgpkezl

Judge Abel Upshur's pamphlets on Nullification

The Tenth Amendment Center has a great article which highlights the necessary road back to Liberty. Many Americans are understandably frustrated with Obama's re-election, but dissolving the union in order to defy Obama is not only a bad choice, it's an unnecessary one. We haven't exhausted all of our options yet. The sad thing is, that due to the state of progressive education in our country, Americans aren't taught about their constitutional powers. This is actually by design, considering that progressives view the government school system as a vehicle for change.

In 1833, Judge Abel P. Upshur wrote a series of six pamphlets titled "An Exposition of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798", and in them he makes it very clear the importance of keeping the Union together. You can read five of these pamphlets here(1, 3-6) and the second pamphlet is here on page 70. Here's some of what he says:

In the first place, a State which withdraws from the Union breaks the Union. This is true, ex vi termini, and therefore, need not be proved. But I have already shown the Resolutions of 1798, proceed upon the idea, that the Union is to be preserved; and indeed, that is the main object of resistance, as therein contemplated. In this respect, therefore, secession is not a means of resistance within those resolutions.

In the second place, the resistance therein contemplated, must be such as will "arrest the progress of evil." Will you be so obliging to tell me, sir, how a usurped power can be resisted, by giving way to it? In one way, indeed, the evil may be arrested by secession; the usurped power may be rendered nugatory, by withdrawing from its reach, all the subjects upon which it can exercise itself. I can scarcely imagine, however, that this tame and submissive idea, was entertained by the statesmen of 1798. It appears to my humble understanding, that secession, so far from being a form of resistance to usurped power, is the precise reverse; it is neither more nor less than a running away from the oppressor. And so far from "arresting the progress of evil," it encourages and invites the evil, by removing all restraint from the wrong-doer. In this view, therefore, it is not within the resolutions of 1798.

The Tenth Amendment Center goes into greater detail surrounding some of the history of these pamphlets in this article.

http://tinyurl.com/d6ngv5v

Savior Nation: Woodrow Wilson and the Gospel of Service

In the lead up to modern redistributive social justice, the preceding movement used to call itself the "social gospel". This has proven to be a particularly hard shell for me to crack, but thankfully I'm not the only one out here trying to learn the history of progressivism and show it to others.

An article by Dr. Richard M. Gamble titled "Savior Nation: Woodrow Wilson and the Gospel of Service". Here's the PDF downloadable version, and here's the Google Docs directly viewable version lays it all out pretty well. Here's an example:

The United States had preserved its own liberty and now as a belligerent power was “an instrument in the hands of God to see that liberty is made secure for mankind.” Wilson, who habitually reversed the logic and sequence of cause and effect in history, derived the real meaning of the past from the present, of the Civil War from the later Great War: “We did not know that God was working out in His own way the method by which we should best serve human freedom—by making this nation a great, united, indivisible, indestructible instrument in His hands for the accomplishment of these great things.” 34 American history was a clear and seamless revelation to Wilson, the meaning of the Old Testament waiting to be read in the New.

In short, it seems that for Wilson American history and its principles and even its symbols belonged to all humanity. To think otherwise would have been the epitome of national selfishness, an unspeakable crime to the humanitarian internationalists of the Progressive Era. In a remarkable speech given before the outbreak of the European war in the summer of 1914, just days after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Wilson stood in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July and claimed that since the United States was the champion of “the rights of humanity” then its “flag is the flag, not only of America, but of humanity.”35 He divorced the symbolism of the flag’s colors and stars and stripes from their historical meaning and reinvented the banner as a universal symbol for the freedom of all mankind - an audacious claim of boundless national mission.

Dr Gamble's essay is compelling, at least to me, as to the corrupting nature of Wilson's Presidency, particularly in his use and abuse of history and the faith of the people to rationalize doing things that should never have been done.

http://tinyurl.com/cmzqlsu

William Z Foster's speech to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society

In the 'Socialist Review', the publication for the ISS, the following is written. (November 1920, page 185)

The I.S.S. Convention

While every session of the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, held in New York City on December 29th and 30th, 1919, was filled with vital discussion, the big dinner, devoted to a symposium on "The American Labor Revolt: Its Meaning," and attended by some 400 collegians, elicited, in the nature of the case, the greatest public attention. William Z. Foster, Secretary of the Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers, the chief speaker of the occasion, gripped the audience with a thrilling story of heroic sacrifice and of the developing solidarity of labor as witnessed in the steel industry. Foster first told of the organization of the meat packing industry during the war, and the beginning, on August 1, 1918, of the campaign for the unionization of the steel workers.

William Z. Foster

"I have no patience with the radical who says that nothing can be accomplished through the regular trade union movement. The fault is not with the trade unions, but with the radical. The movement is shrieking for able men and if a radical has constructive ideas, the trade unionist will pick up these ideas and put them over. I know from experience of what I am talking.

"Formerly the union organizers used to begin their work among the steel men by organizing those of one craft in one locality. Their activities would be discovered and the men in the union would be promptly discharged. This happened over and over again. I proposed to start with the organization of all crafts in all localities. If we had entered on a big campaign along these lines at that time we would have been thoroughly organized before the armistice was declared. The suggestion seemed too great a departure for the unions to make. So we employed only a few organizers and started them in the Chicago district, and the men in Gary and Indiana Harbor came in by the thousands.

"We then went to Pittsburgh. We had to fight everyone in the town. Pittsburgh is a company owned town from top to bottom. The press, the banks, and other institutions-all are controlled by the interests, with the United States Steel Corporation the boss on the job.

"For weeks we tried to obtain permission to address peaceful meetings. We couldn't get results. Finally we decided to establish free speech ourselves. We went to McKeesport and asked the Mayor for the privilege of holding a meeting. He refused us our constitutional rights. We decided to defy the local authorities. We put up huge posters announcing the meeting, urging all who believed in sixteenth-century absolutism to stay away and those who believed in President Wilson's democracy to attend. The Mayor backed up and we held the meeting.

"We took the fight into Duquesne. We asked the Mayor for a permit to speak. Rabbi Wise was scheduled as the principal speaker. The Mayor of this town was not only mayor, but judge, one of the chief bankers, a president of the local steel mill, etc. He told us that Jesus Christ couldn't speak in Duquesne for the A.F. of L. We leased a lot, and one by one Mother Jones, another organizer, and myself were arrested as we began to speak and were fined $100 and costs. Still another organizer, hearing of the meeting, and entering the police station to pay the fines of those arrested was also hauled in.

"In those localities the deputy sheriffs, the company police, the private detectives, the city police, and the state police all cooperate against the men. Time and again workers have been arrested and fined $50 and costs for merely being found on strike!"

Mr Foster described the commissary department of the strike committee, and declared that, instead of the strike causing the United States Steel Corporation a loss of $20,000,000 the pre strike-calculation of the officials, it had resulted in a loss of $400 000,000. He felt that the eight-hour day would be won as a result of the strike.

William Z. Foster was a communist, an organizer, and a writer. More general information about him here. He would go on to write the book "Toward Soviet America".

The ISS was founded in 1905 by many Fabian-minded radicals. The ISS would go on to re-name itself LID, the League for Industrial Democracy. The LID's student wing would later on re-name itself SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society.

http://tinyurl.com/d92spwg

Progressivism: Transforming the executive into a legislator

Herbert Croly was a man of vision. He had a vision of future presidents where they didn't merely just execute the laws passed by congress, but the president himself was head legislator. Sound familiar? It should, that's how just about every president has acted since the progressive era. In "Progressive Democracy", the following is written: (page 355)

In the plan of state government which I have sketched in a previous chapter the executive has become essentially a representative agency. His primary business is that of organizing a temporary majority of the electorate, and of carrying its will into legal effect. He becomes primarily a law-giver and only secondarily an agency for carrying out existing laws. Yet he is none the less at the head of the administration; and the great majority of the progressives want him to be more responsible than he is now for administrative efficiency. They want him, that is, to have the power of appointment and dismissal over the upper grades of the civil service in very much the same way that the owner of a private business would have over his employees, and they want to liberate the power of appointment from the partisan abuses which have resulted from the custom of confirmation by a senate.

But they propose to grant this power to the executive in the interest not of frequent changes in administrative personnel, but in that of a relatively prolonged official tenure. The more clear-sighted progressives almost unanimously believe in a body of expert administrative officials, which shall not be removed with every alteration in the executive, but which shall be placed and continued in office in order to devise means for carrying out the official policy of the state, no matter what that policy may be. Such is, of course, the situation in European countries. The executive changes more or less frequently in nations governed by a Parliament, but the administration remains.

Now this is exactly what we have today. Presidents run for office saying they'll do this or that, raise or cut taxes, get x policy done, or repeal something.

Is this how an executive acts? Or is this how representatives act?

Recall Woodrow Wilson's declaration that he would be an unconstitutional governor. What was Wilson saying? Among other things, he was saying that he would shirk his constitutional duty to execute, and be an active legislator.(and as President, he continued this) The lines are blurred over seas in European parliaments, with respect to who has power to do what.

Our constitution prescribes a strict separation of powers.(one which progressives widely have disdain for)

Anybody who truely seeks to get rid of this national ill called 'progressivism' will at some point have to address this. We need to stop the president from legislating and put him back into his constitutional box. Since the era of Roosevelt and Wilson and the activist presidency, our liberties have become less secure, not more secure. The Founding Fathers gave us these firewalls on purpose, because protecting Liberty is much more essential than any "getting things done".

http://tinyurl.com/cqd6z2g

Fabian Tracts: Method of Propaganda

In "The Encyclopedia of Social Reform", W. D. P. Bliss(Founder, Fabian Society U.S.A.) writes the following: (Page 579)

The great literary success of the society, however, has been its Fabian Essays. In 1889 a course of seven lectures, which had been previously delivered before the society by membersof the society (George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, William Clarke, S. Olivier, Graham Wallas, Annie Besant, and Hubert Bland) was published under the name of Fabian Essays in Socialism, and met with most marked success. Over 30,000 copies have been sold in England, and two American editions have appeared. The tracts are accurate and concise statements of industrial facts or explanations of the application of the principles of socialism to actual and existing political and social problems.

This is of course a pretty generic laudatory statement. But what's tucked into the sidebar is this:

Method of Propaganda

This is repeated by G. D. H. Cole, who was a part of the Fabian Executive and was at one time the Society's Executive Chair. Cole wrote Fabian Tract # 238 titled: "Some essentials of socialist propaganda: a tract for the times".

This is an important part of the process of permeation.

http://tinyurl.com/aef9pqq

Progressivism: The judiciary is an "expert panel" on the constitution

The progressives believe that the administrators should be separate from "politics". (I'll demonstrate this below) What they mean by "politics", is the political process. That is, you and I, the voting public.

In "Politics and Administration", Frank Goodnow writes the following: (Page 9)

Whatever may be the truth or error in this conception of the state, it is still true that political functions group themselves naturally under two heads, which are equally applicable to the mental operations and the actions of self conscious personalities. That is, the action of the state as a political entity consists either in operations necessary to the expression of its will, or in operations necessary to the execution of that will.

Note how in both instances the state is supreme. No mention of what the people actually want. And he goes on to talk about the will of "the sovereign", which is a lift right out of Hobbes' Leviathan. A book which lays out a tyrannical state. He talks about Leviathan on page 8.

But in keeping with this comment, you have the will of the state and the expression of that will. In order for that will(divorced from the people) to be expressed or executed, you need institutions which carry forward whatever it is that the government wants done. With that in mind, here is what Goodnow states on page 87:

The governmental authorities intrusted with the discharge of the administrative function should not only, like judges, be free from the influence of politics; they should also, again like judges, have considerable permanence of tenure. They should have permanence of tenure because the excellence of their work is often conditioned by the fact that they are expert, and expertness comes largely from long practice.

First, regarding the dirty influence of 'politics', Goodnow was hardly alone in this view. Herbert Croly agreed with this sentiment. In "Progressive Democracy", Chapter 17: "The Administration as an Agent of Democracy", Croly writes the following: (page 360)

In almost every case it depends for its success upon the ability and disinterestedness with which the law is administered.

"Disinterestedness" is the key. This is what makes "politics" so dirty and ugly: All of your individual private interests. Your private interests are what taint and corrupt the public interest, because your representatives are subject to your selfish wants and needs. But the administrators are not elected, they are expert, they are pure, they serve the public interest, they are disinterested. The public interest, those two heads Goodnow wrote about. The will of the state and the expression of that will.

Second, Goodnow is looking at the judiciary as a role model for administrative agencies, but in doing so he is readily putting on display his view that the judiciary is in/of itself an administrative agency. And what do they administer? The constitution. Woodrow Wilson writes in Constitutional Government (Page 155):

The tests of the federal Constitution can be applied in the state courts, and the tests of the state constitutions in the federal courts, but only in such a way as to make the federal courts the final judges of what the meaning and intent of the federal Constitution is, and the state courts the final judges and interpreters of what the state constitutions forbid or require.

One can't help but notice how Wilson wants to use the courts and constitutions against each other to systematically test for weaknesses. Like a foreign invader. But nonetheless, you see again the role of the judiciary in the progressive mindset. The judges are merely an expert panel among many. They say what it really says, not the text of the document.

It should be remembered, that Wilson recognized Goodnow's expertise on the matter:

In fact, when he later taught administration in the 1890s, he said that there was only one author other than himself who understood administration as a separate discipline: Frank Goodnow.[31]

We can see the judiciary as an expert panel on the Constitution in action. Congress already executed the will, now the expert panelists will express the will in written form. In J. W. Hampton, Jr. & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394 (1928), Chief Justice William Howard Taft declared the following:

If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [exercise the delegated authority] is directed to conform, such legislative action is not a forbidden delegation of legislative power. If it is thought wise to vary the customs duties according to changing conditions of production at home and abroad, it may authorize the Chief Executive to carry out this purpose, with the advisory assistance of a Tariff Commission appointed under congressional authority. * see footnote

This strikes right at the very heart of one of the things that Woodrow Wilson hated most, separation of powers. When Wilson declared that he would be an unconstitutional governor, that's exactly what he was announcing. And later as president, he made speeches about the "mechanical" and rigid nature of the constitution:

No living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live. On the contrary, its life is dependent upon their quick co-operation, their ready response to the commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose. Government is not a body of blind forces; it is a body of men, with highly differentiated functions, no doubt, in our modern day, of specialization, with a common task and purpose. Their co-operation is indispensable, their warfare fatal. There can be no successful government without the intimate, instinctive co-ordination of the organs of life and action.

That's the only way progressivism can work. The branches stop fighting each other, and start fighting against us. The people. And of course, our selfish, dirty, private interests.

This is why the colleges don't teach the constitution anymore, instead they teach case law. In order for suitable experts on the Constitution to be trained, they need to know where this is going, not where it started. If potential jurisprudents read the Constitution, they would know that at some point we've gone too far away from what the document actually states, and they would be unsuitable to be an administrator on the Supreme Court. Or any court, for that matter.

* In the Taft quote, the four words in the square braces come from the Hillsdale Constitution 201 lecture. Part 7, "The Transformation of America's Political Institutions" 17:55. Lecture 7 was very helpful in several places for the construction of this post.

http://tinyurl.com/akncxtv

Reassessing the Presidency

Now that Hillsdale's lecture series Constitution 201 has concluded, I would like to just take a short moment to point out another series that has some segments similar to what Hillsdale presented.

I initially came across this by doing research into the work of one of Hillsdale's professors, Richard M. Gamble. In The Mises series "Reassessing the Presidency", Gamble lays out very similar concepts about Woodrow Wilson as you saw in Constitution 201, or as you will find in my archives.

So far I have only listened to the sections regarding Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Both of these sections appear to be very well researched and informative into the danger that progressivism presents our country.

The Mises audio lectures have also been uploaded to Youtube, if you so prefer, and for ease of navigation I have linked to them below. I have these listed in the same order as on the Mises page.

Harry Truman and the Imperial Presidency | Ralph Raico

The Impossibility of Limited Government | Hans-Hermann Hoppe

William McKinley: Architect of the American Empire | Joseph R. Stromberg

Martin van Buren: What Greatness Really Means | Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

Presidential Money Mismanagement from FDR to Nixon | Joseph T. Salerno

Teddy Roosevelt and the Origins of the Modern Welfare-Warfare State | Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Despotism Loves Company: The Story of Roosevelt and Stalin | Yuri N. Maltsev

Woodrow Wilson's Revolution Within the Form | Richard Gamble

The President as Social Engineer | Michael Levin

Unimagined Power: The Presidency in the History of Political Philosophy | Paul Gottfried

The Supreme Court as Accomplice: Judicial Backing for Executive Power | Marshall DeRosa

The Electoral College as a Brake on Presidential Power | Randall G. Holcombe

The Warren Commission: A Rothbardian Analysis | James Dunlap

Lincoln and the Triumph of Mercantilism | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Presidential Use and Abuse of the Sherman Act: Cleveland to Clinton | George Bittlingmayer

Reluctant Imperialism? William Howard Taft and the Colonial Empire | William Marina

The Use of George Washington in the Statist Offensive | David Gordon

From Bad to Worse: Interventionist Bias in Conventional Presidential Rankings | Richard Vedder

http://tinyurl.com/bk3m5qm

Hugo Chavez: Democracy is impossible in a Capitalist system

In an interview that a lot of people missed, BBC interviewer Stephen Sackur has an exchange with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. (Video, Jun 21st 2010) Much of the interview is what you would expect, but one thing stands out:

(Click for larger)

As is usual, when these people are in front of an audience that they perceive as friendly, they are more honest than they'd otherwise be.

And Hugo Chavez is not alone in this belief. Let's start with Woodrow Wilson.

"it is very clear that in fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same"

("Socialism And Democracy", 1887)

Occupy Wall Street:

"The only way to have a genuinely democratic society would also be to abolish capitalism in this state"

(Occupy Strategy Session, March 2012)

Weather Underground:

"The struggle for self-determination has had two stages : (1 ) a united front against imperialism and for New Democracy (which is a joint dictatorship of anti-colonial classes led by the proletariat, the content of which a compromise between the interests of the proletariat and nationalist peasants , petit bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) ; and ( 2) developing out of the new democratic stage, socialism."

(You Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows, 1969.)

Van Jones/STORM Manifesto

"Like all effective organizations, STORM had to figure out how to support leadership while fostering democracy."

The manifesto "Reclaiming Revolution" is one of those which I recorded as an audiobook. If you want to understand Jones and the left, this manifesto is a great place to start. If you can't make time to read it, then you have the option listen to it. The STORM manifesto uses "Democracy" or "Democratic" 42 times.

And finally, the Fabian Society.

"She (Greece) fell before a united Macedon, even as Macedon fell before the larger unity of the Roman Empire. But did they not try a virtual Socialism in Athens? And while it endured, did it not produce an individuality elsewhere unequaled in the world?"

(William Dwight Porter Bliss, Founder of the American Branch of the Fabian Society. "Where Socialism was Tried" - November 11th, 1905.) In case you don't go read the article, he is indeed pointing to the birthplace proper of Democracy as his proof that Socialism has been tried. Athens, Greece.

The left's active definition of the word "Democracy" is "Socialism", and it has been for a very long time. They'll never announce it openly enough to make it into a dictionary,(or at least, every dictionary I've seen treats democracy and socialism as separate items) but it's pretty set in stone for me. They use a different language than we do and it's important to understand their language, if you truely want to stop them.

http://tinyurl.com/bmzppau

Calvin Coolidge calls out the progressives of his generation

Progressivism is an utterly bankrupt ideology, and Calvin Coolidge knew it. In his Speech on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he said the following:

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

It's important to note the words Coolidge uses here. He calls the Declaration restful, that makes it a trusty bulwark. This is the opposite of 'progressive' which is constantly on the move.

He points out that since 1776 we've made progress, but that cannot be applied to the great Declaration. I would suspect he is talking about this false narrative that progressives use about technology in order to advance their statist cause.

Inalienable rights are indeed final, and in the next part of this paragraph, Coolidge points out:

If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Which is clear. Moving toward bureaucratic despotism(progressivism) is not moving forward, that's moving backward. The darkness of tyranny is always backward when compared to the light of liberty, no matter how that tyranny is structured, and no matter what words they use to hide their schemes of centralized planning.

"The plans differ; the planners are all alike" - Frederic Bastiat - Economic Harmonies - 1.83

This is what made Coolidge such a great President. He was surrounded by progressives, he heard what they were saying, their attacks on American life, on so called "eighteenth century ideas" of "individualism". But Coolidge says no. He says some things are indeed final, and the Declaration is restful. That's what happens when you reach the pinnacle of something, you stop. Liberty is the pinnacle of mankind, not a bunch of bureaucrats steeped in their own legends of their "expertise", who can tell you how best to run your life.

What makes Coolidge so unique in this respect, the context of these words, is that you don't find much of anything like this prior to him. He had something to answer for, because prior to people like Wilson and Roosevelt, there weren't open assaults upon the American way of life. Not in a major way and on a national scale, anyways. This is part of how Coolidge ends the speech:

No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp.

This is something that progressives turn on it's head. They don't understand the relationship between Liberty and all that has made America great. They believe in this historicism, that it's all about the thought of the current age. That's why Wilson talked about the Constitution as a living document.

And because progressives don't believe Liberty is what makes all things possible, they believe instead that America is the root of all evil, that we have stolen from the rest of the world. Without a realization of the treasure of Liberty, what is left? "Of course America stole it from the rest of the world, there's no other explanation", says the progressive.

So it's no wonder that after the depression of the Wilson era, the "Roaring 20's" follows. It's because Coolidge understood Liberty, and sought to defend it. Whereas the progressives seek to tell you that no, "You didn't build that" you stole it. Liberty and prosperity do stand on their own, without stealing from anybody. Yes, we did build that. We are a free people, and that's what free people do.

http://tinyurl.com/bluwotq

"I will be an unconstitutional governor" - Woodrow Wilson

In The Metropolitan, Volume 36:

His Republican opponent announced that he would be a constitutional governor, meaning thereby that he would concern himself solely with the administrative function of his office and not seek to influence law making. This rang upon the shield of Wilson like a challenge. Doctor Wilson answered back: "If that is what it means to be a constitutional governor." and there was a gleam in his eye as he said it- "then I will be an unconstitutional governor." And he has been!

This is alarming language. Here's the thing about Wilson. He did not like separation of powers. He was a big fan of the British Parliamentary system, which doesn't have such a hinderance. This is seen in his role as the first Parliamentary of New Jersey. In an article from McClure's titled "Woodrow Wilson: Political Leader" that starts on page 217, the following is written: (page 222)

Need of Leadership in the Executive

Governor Wilson makes no secret of the fact that he admires the British cabinet system. In England the responsible rulers are simply a committee of Parliament, composed of the leaders of the political party which has won the people's confidence at the polls. These leaders control the government in both its executive and legislative branches. They propose and pass needed legislation and they likewise enforce it. They are hampered by no "checks and balances"; they govern directly, with immediate personal responsibility for their success or failure. The one source of their authority is public opinion, and they hold office only so long as the people indorse their acts

And of course, this article too quotes Wilson's words in regard to being an unconstitutional governor. But the meat of the article is on page 226, under the section heading "The Unofficial "Ministry":

And now Mr. Wilson, as party leader, began the work of framing the party program. Like a prime minister he selected a body of advisers in the legislature - a number of leading legislators, who were to join hands with him in framing bills and getting them made law. The New Jersey legislature was by no means destitute of talent. There were men like Fielder, Osborne, Gebhardt, and Silzer in the Senate, Kenny, Simpson, Egan, and Geran in the House - men who for several years had been specializing in "progressive legislation".

And these articles go on. And as usual, I hope those of you who wish to become familiar with progressivism will read on in the articles in greater depth.

These are Wilson's actions as governor. He didn't like American governmental structure, and he acted that way. With regard to his disdain for the separation of powers doctrine, see a previous posting here, in which I discussed Wilson's view of the declaration. In short, we need to move past it.(his view) In addition, see "What Is Progress" one of Wilson's speeches extracted from the book "The New Freedom". In "What Is Progress" Wilson says the following:

He called my attention to the fact that in every generation all sorts of speculation and thinking tend to fall under the formula of the dominant thought of the age.

This is important also in understanding Wilson's view of the living constitution as well as the 'unconstitutional' comment. The constitution is not a living document. What progressives seek to do when they make this claim is to abuse and pollute the English language. A document that is living, and a document that is amendable, are two entirely different things. This 'thought of the age" concept is a reference to the British Constitution, which as R. J. Pestritto brilliantly points out in Constitution 201 part 2, you can't even print out a copy of the British Constitution. There is no single document, that is a living constitution. But this part of Wilson's speech is important for what he says next:

He called my attention to the fact that in every generation all sorts of speculation and thinking tend to fall under the formula of the dominant thought of the age. For example, after the Newtonian Theory of the universe had been developed, almost all thinking tended to express itself in the analogies of the Newtonian Theory, and since the Darwinian Theory has reigned amongst us, everybody is likely to express whatever he wishes to expound in terms of development and accommodation to environment.

Now, it came to me, as this interesting man talked, that the Constitution of the United States had been made under the dominion of the Newtonian Theory. You have only to read the papers of the The Federalist to see that fact written on every page. They speak of the "checks and balances" of the Constitution, and use to express their idea the simile of the organization of the universe, and particularly of the solar system,—how by the attraction of gravitation the various parts are held in their orbits; and then they proceed to represent Congress, the Judiciary, and the President as a sort of imitation of the solar system.

And later in the speech:

The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton.

He's using code words here to try to cloak his true meaning. He has defined "Newton" as the Founding principles, that is, checks and balances, the constitution, and other such things.

And he's rejecting it.

Instead, he puts his support under Darwin. Which as we all know is synonymous with "Evolution". Or, the living document, progressivism, you get the idea. He makes this clear a few paragraphs down, I used the word evolution because he did.

But in understanding the "unconstitutional governor" comment, there's one more detail, in A people awakened: the story of Woodrow Wilson's first campaign by Charles Reade Bacon, the following is written from one of Wilson's speeches (Page 135):

The Republican candidate has in more than one speech, given a sufficiently clear indication of how he expected to act. You will remember that, when he accepted the nomination, he said that he expected to be a constitutional Governor, by which he meant that he would punctiliously confine himself to those things that were intimated as his privileges and duties by the Constitution of the state; that is to say, he would send messages to the legislature, make strong recommendations to them but that if they did not accept his recommendations he would have nothing more to say about it.

I, following about a week afterward, said that if that was the standard I was going to be an unconstitutional Governor, because, if it was unconstitutional to urge upon the citizens of the state, in order that opinion might guide the legislature, the things that it seemed absolutely necessary the legislature should enact, then I was going to take the liberty, the utmost liberty of speech that belonged to me, not merely as Governor, but as an American citizen, to urge upon the people of the state the necessary reforms in legislation and administration

Punctiliously: Strictly attentive to minute details of form in action or conduct.

And having already briefly described Wilson's beliefs in the British Parliament and disdain for checks and balances, you know what he means by these words. On the surface it's obvious, he wants to demagogue the issues. But beyond that, he didn't want to be confined by the New Jersey Constitution, much less the Federal one. And he wasn't. He governed not like a US Governor, but a British Parliamentarian. And by inventing this idea of the living Constitution, he built in his own excuse for importing foreign values into his governing style.

http://tinyurl.com/a4b4n9g

George Soros teaches radicalism to his family at dinner time

In an article from the Wall Street Journal (alt link) about Alexander Soros, there's this:

Mr. Soros, 25 years old, is a full-time student pursuing a Ph.D. in history at University of California, Berkeley. He says his knowledge of and interest in philanthropy was honed over the dinner table in conversations with his father, billionaire hedge-fund manager and philanthropist George Soros.

This entire story relies on distortions of reality, but I only want to focus on the more major things. A little way down the article, the younger Soros says this:

Organizations that support the concepts of an open society, justice and minority rights are dear to the younger Mr. Soros. He says that's he's not interested in the "sexy" philanthropic areas of health or technology.

Outside of health and technology, what kind of 'philanthropy' is left? The younger Soros explains. The last line of the article is the glue:

"I'm much more interested in doing things that are more experimental and controversial because I think they could have the greatest impact. My dad's view was always instead of building a hospital in a war-ravaged area, why not try and make peace or solve the actual problem."

Ah, yeah. Like father, like son. Experimental and controversial. And just like the father, the son knows how to manipulate the language in order to cloak his true meaning, for those who don't know progressive-speak. The Soros's have turned "philanthropy" into a loaded term.

We do know what Soros Sr. considers to be "the actual problem". Liberty. He's on video saying so, right here.

When you watch this video, note the similarities in the language of Father and Son.

At :25 seconds into the video, Soros Sr talks about his need to experiment.

At :53 seconds, Soros Sr talks about his "matrix" of foundations and the subversive and disruptive activities. What's the real alarming thing here isn't quite so much what he says, it's the look on his face. He truely loves screwing with people's lives. These are real people he's destroying.

Enter Alexander Soros' subversive activities with Samuel L Jackson. Alexander too, really loves his foundations. These are the kinds of things that can make "philanthropy" into a dirty word - the entire Soros "philanthropic record". They're not "donating" to "non profits" which serve a public purpose, they're building resistance fights and using non profits as a launching pad for the revolution.(If you don't know what I mean by "resistance fights", see the STORM manifesto, section 11) When Soros uses the word "matrix", what he's describing is much closer to the movie than it may seem.

At 1:13 Soros Sr talks about the problem of the sovereignty of states. Yet the last century of US history shows that the more national(less federal) our governmental structure gets, the less individual liberty we have.

Mr. Soros is quite an old man at this point. But unfortunately for us, he has prepared his successor. It's Alexander who will inherit Soros Sr's "matrix", and so far it looks like he's received the training necessary in order to know how to "properly" use that matrix against us.

http://tinyurl.com/a43475c

What is the Fabian policy of Permeation?

During my transcription process of the book Fabian Freeway, I would sometimes go through the footnotes and see what I could verify, when one thing in particular caught my eye. (Chapter 17)

The fact that an old-line southern Democrat had been induced to sponsor the basic legislation so ardently desired by all spokesmen of gradual Socialism was an early and notable example of success for the Fabian technique known as permeation.

This concept is actually used extensively throughout the book, but for whatever reason, it caught my eye in the current context. The Fabians turned "Permeation" into a policy because it was so successful: (GB Shaw, Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Page 186)

The Fabian Society succeeded because it addressed itself to its own class in order that it might set about doing the necessary brain work of planning Socialist organization for all classes, meanwhile accepting, instead of trying to supersede, the existing political organizations which it intended to permeate with the Socialist conception of human society.

In short, a single skilled propagandist can turn a non-Fabian organization into a sort of proxy. Another good source for this(too long to quote) is Fabian Tract 41. Especially page 19, the section titled "Permeating the Liberals", as well as Edward Pease's "The History of the Fabian Society". As to this being a "specific Fabian policy", yes. It indeed was. In "The Story of Fabian Socialism", Fabian Margaret Cole, wife of G. D. H. Cole, writes the following: (Page 85)

What Fabian permeation meant was primarily ‘honeycombing’, converting either to Socialism or to parts of the immediate Fabian Programme, as set out in the continuous stream of Tracts and lectures, key persons, or groups of persons, who were in a position either to take action themselves or to influencing others, not merely in getting a resolution passed, or (say) inducing a Town Council to accept one of the clauses of the Adoptive Acts, but in ‘following up’, in making sure that the resolution or whatever it was did not remain on paper but was put into effect. It was not necessary that these 'key persons' should be members of the Fabian Society; often it was as well they should not; what was essential was that they should at first or even second-hand be instructed and advised by Fabians.

That last part says it all. Because it's that last line that allows me to actually test this. Anybody can talk about Fabians and Progressives all they want, but can you actually test all of this in reality? Let's take a shot at it. An easy starting place is someone I've already written extensively about, which is fellow Fabian, Stuart Chase. The person who coined the term "New Deal" and a member of FDR's Brainstrust.

Margaret Cole said that 'key persons' must be advised at first or second hand. Who would have FDR's absolute and unquestioning faith and trust? Surely his key advisors would've been important, but how about his wife, Eleanor? I don't believe she was a Fabian herself, but that's the wrong question anyways.

Those of you who may be steeped in historical knowledge about the New Deal era will likely know this right off the bat to be true: Eleanor Roosevelt loved the book "Prohibiting Poverty", written by Prestonia Mann Martin. She would go out and publicly acknowledge Martin's work. Here is such an example.

Remember, permeation. It's preferred if Fabian policies are instituted by non-Fabians. Though, with Chase's inclusion into the Brains Trust, the result was inevitable. And before I get too far away from it, yes, the Martins were Fabians. They founded the "American Fabian", and Prestonia herself was one of it's contributing editors. I have actively written about the Fabian policy of permeation, before I knew it had an official name. Here, Friedrich Engels describes the process without calling it by name.

Now, the New Deal Era is not the only place I can test apply the concept of permeation in an American presidential government.

The Woodrow Wilson years are another example. Take Fabian Walter Lippmann, for example, a member of Wilson's administration. Lippmann helped draft Wilson's "Fourteen Points", an important part of the Wilson story. Certainly Lippmann would've had some influence, but not nearly as potent as Eleanor's effect upon FDR(or for that matter, Stuart Chase in the trust). Look to Wilson himself.

I made an offhanded comment once that I believed Richard T Ely to be probably the closest thing to a "Founding Father" of progressivism that there could be. Based on some of my readings of what went on at the American Economic Association, and further bolstered by reading about how the Fabians structured their groups, similarities in the use of regulation as a means of control, and other things, this AEA has really gotten my attention.(Though I have not mentioned it yet)

Woodrow Wilson was an alumnus of the AEA. Just that alone points to the importance of Ely's influence. R. J. Pestritto has a blurb about this. In the AEA's own minutes, we see that Woodrow Wilson sat upon the AEA's council.

Here's where it gets fun. What did the AEA read or discuss? Among many, many other things they discussed Fabian tracts. The Fabian Society Summer School. G. D. H. Cole. And Sidney Webb.(see below)

A rather interesting footnote is that the Fabians were reading from the AEA. See Sidney Webb's essay titled "Historic", footnote 3. As AEA were reading the work of Sidney Webb, Webb was reading them reading him! Rather ironic, two movements in favor of centralized planning, in development and not yet fully blossomed, both learning from each other and perfecting their concepts of subversion. Allow me to demonstrate:

Margaret Cole's book "The Story of Fabian Socialism" is a gem just like Fabian Freeway is, Here's from page 84/85:

'Permeation' is a peculiarly Fabian term, with a very long history. It is first found in print in Hubert Bland's Fabian Essay - curiously enough Bland was not there advocating but warning the Society against it; but the casual reference shows that it was already in common use. Occasionally it seems to mean no more than what the Americans have taught us to call 'pressure groups' - persons organised with the purpose of forcing a particular measure, a particular interest, or a particular point of view upon those in power.

She doesn't elaborate upon what specific groups she means, but surely good candidates would be the ACLU, the NAACP, and likely the AEA itself. Recall a recent article of mine about how the Fabians and Progressives had enjoyed quite a friendly relationship with each other. Margaret Sanger's body of work(Planned Parenthood) would certainly apply as a 'pressure group', and that group still exists to this day.

'Permeation' is the puppet string that makes a non-Fabian group do Fabian things. It's the reason why (as GBS wrote above) they were so successful, despite the fact that by numbers the Fabians are incredibly small.

It's the reason why associations matter.

http://tinyurl.com/98z6p83