This explains a lot about modern journalistic malpractice

Walter Lippmann, the "Father of Modern Journalism", is really a piece of work. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to make the title of this post. I simply do not believe that any man who holds the following views could possibly be a journalist worth a damn. Pardon my language, but this makes me sick. Every time I read something from this guy, I have an internal revolt. In his regular column "Today and Tomorrow", on April 7th, 1933, the following is written under the title "Roosevelt's Achievement":

At the beginning of last month the country was in such a state of confused despair that it would have followed almost any leader anywhere he chose to go. It was a moment when an intoxicated demagogue could have aroused section against section and class against class, when a dull politician would have been bewildered and would not have known what to do. By the greatest good fortune which has befallen this country in many a day, a kindly and intelligent man had the wit to realize that a great crisis is a great opportunity. He has taken advantage of it.

Hello, Rahm Emanuel.

This is bad journalism and bad columnist all wrapped into one, because FDR's policies of raising taxes so high was just that very thing, pitting one section against another. He was well known for going out and ripping this class and that class. This article goes on to discuss budgets and balancing them, but be careful to note how all of this is worded:

It was this impotence to control expenditure and to obtain revenue which was destroying the national credit. Inherently the federal government is the safest risk in the world, since it has legal access to the greatest wealth in the world. If anybody anywhere was theoretically entitled to borrow money in a time of emergency, the United States government was entitled to borrow it.

There's that flagrant progressive arrogance that we're all used to. Yes, all of our hard earned money is nothing more than a dispensation of government. It's not that you may pay 10% in taxes, or 35%, or whatever that rate may be. The progressive view is that they let you keep 90%, or 65% or whatever remainder is allotted to you post-taxes.

Now a government which has asserted its control over its expenditures and its access to revenue has accomplished what "balancing the budget" means.

And we see this very arrogance repeated today, in 2012, where they have made good on their legal access to the greatest wealth in the world. The left would love to 'balance the budget' - on your back. At the end of the article he says "Its no longer necessary to scrutinize so anxiously the relation between income and outgo" - and as we all know based on historical truths, FDR was a huge spender, and that's what's being endorsed here.

On Saturday, February 18th, 1933, in "The Paramount Issue", Lippmann ended his column this way:

A great emergency can be dealt with only by the swift use of power exercised by some central authority which possesses the confidence of the people. The danger we have to fear is not that Congress will give Franklin D. Roosevelt too much power, but that it will deny him the powers he needs. The danger is not that we shall lose our liberties but that we shall not be able to act with the necessary speed and comprehensiveness. To give the president the power to act must, therefore, be the first objective of those who appreciate the situation we are in and understand the magnitude of the measures that are needed to cope with it.

And who is it that's building the confidence of the people? Telling them that it's ok. Why, it's journalists. The "intelligent minority" who know how to regiment and guide the masses. Walter Lippmann himself wrote about "the manufacture of consent", in the context of that book he is largely decrying various forces(mainly within government) who use propaganda efforts as a means of control.

Yet, in this article, on February 25th, 1933, titled "Democracy and Dictatorship" he writes in defense of the concentration of power in the executive at the expense of congress. The whole article is quotable, but here is a very good illustration of regimenting and guiding the masses; the manufacture of consent.

The emergency calls for changes which will concentrate in the president the widest administrative and ministerial powers possible under the constitution, and in matters of policy the reinforcement of his leadership by the party caucus and by cloture on debate.

Ahh, yes. Give the president more authority, then sit down and shut up. It's the American way!

Proposals of this sort have loosely been described as designed to establish a dictatorship. This is an abuse of the plain meaning of words. A dictatorship is a wholly different thing, as one can readily see by looking at the dictatorships in Europe. The basic fact in a dictatorship is that the regime holds its power not by the votes of the people, but by the force of a body of armed men.

Walter Lippmann clearly did not read a book titled "Public Opinion", written by Walter Lippmann before he wrote this line. Had he done that, he would've realized that manufacturing consent is an act of manipulation that was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy.(The implication thus being, that dictators of old used it regularly) Yet here he is, Walter Lippmann himself, engaging in the manufacture of consent. But what else would you expect from a man who wrote in his book that "news and truth are not the same thing"?

http://tinyurl.com/7yfb8ee

Walter Lippmann and utilitarian thought

I wrote a while back about the relationship between Utilitarianism and Fabianism, and considering that Walter Lippmann was a Fabian, what's written in his book "Public Opinion" certainly goes to show the influence. Specifically, pages 26, 117, and 187. First up, Page 26:

Try to explain social life as the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. You will soon be saying that the hedonist begs the question, for even supposing that man does pursue these ends, the crucial problem of why he thinks one course rather than another likely to produce pleasure, is untouched.

I know what this is, because they tried to indoctrinate me with it. The pleasure pain calculus has several names, one of which is called the hedonistic calculus.(He references this later) As is noted, this comes from Jeremy Bentham.

Page 117:

So they constructed what they sincerely hoped was a simplified diagram, not so different in principle and in veracity from the parallelogram with legs and head in a child's drawing of a complicated cow. The scheme consisted of a capitalist who had diligently saved capital from his labor, an entrepreneur who conceived a socially useful demand and organized a factory, a collection of workmen who freely contracted, take it or leave it, for their labor, a landlord, and a group of consumers who bought in the cheapest market those goods which by the ready use of the pleasure-pain calculus they knew would give them the most pleasure. The model worked. The kind of people, which the model assumed, living in the sort of world the model assumed, invariably cooperated harmoniously in the books where the model was described.

He's clearly describing the calculus here. From page 187:

The socialist theory of human nature is, like the hedonistic calculus, an example of false determinism. Both assume that the unlearned dispositions fatally but intelligently produce a certain type of behavior. The socialist believes that the dispositions pursue the economic interest of a class; the hedonist believes that they pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Both theories rest on a naive view of instinct, a view, defined by James,(11) though radically qualified by him, as "the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends and without previous education in the performance."

And there, he calls it by name. A Fabian, with knowledge of Utilitarian concepts. Having read other works from the Fabian Society, I'm not surprised.

Is Walter Lippmann really the "Father of Modern Journalism"?

Before I can say much more about Lippmann, I've made this statement in the past and now I'd like to establish it as something fairly reputable.

Drucker Gives Lippmann Run As Most Influential Journalist

But in his time--from the eve of World War I until the height of the Vietnam War--Lippmann was, as Steel says, "without doubt, the nation's greatest journalist," the confidant of presidents, the writer of books. And when he retired from writing his column in 1967, "it was as if an institution ceased to exist."

This one I found to be particularly relevant, considering that 'Foreign Affairs' is the mouthpiece for the Council on Foreign Relations, which was founded by Woodrow Wilson's right hand man, Edward House, and Lippmann himself. That explains why it's so puffy.

Walter Lippmann and the American Century

To James Thurber, in a 1943 New Yorker cartoon, Walter Lippmann was the object of respectful humor: a wife looks up from a newspaper and tells her husband, "Lippmann scares me this morning." To Judge Learned Hand, Colonel House, and five hundred guests at a testimonial dinner in 1931, he was, in the words of Time magazine, "their Moses, their prophet of Liberalism." To Dean Acheson, writing his memoirs, he was "that ambivalent Jeremiah." To Woodrow Wilson, for whom Lippmann prepared several of the famous Fourteen Points, his judgment was "most unsound"; to Lyndon Johnson, it was ultimately far worse than that. The one inescapable conclusion to be drawn from his six decades as a public correspondent is that Lippmann was America's, and perhaps the world's, most influential journalist.

Eli Pariser, board member of Moveon.org and author of the book "The Filter Bubble" openly calls Lippmann "The Father of Modern Journalism". These pages aren't numbered for whatever reason, so if anybody needs to reference this, it's on the second page of chapter 2 - "The User is the Content". Paragraph 8.

Nancy Snow also openly calls Lippmann "The Father of Modern Journalism" on page 31. Snow, who is a frequent contributor on The Huffington Post.

Nieman Foundation > About the Foundation : History > Walter Lippmann House

Lippmann, Harvard Class of 1910, was one of the most influential journalists of his time and served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers.

I figured I'd save this one for last, considering that Sidney Blumenthal wrote at the rag that Lippmann founded - The New Republic.

Walter Lippmann and American journalism today

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was the most influential American journalist of the 20th century.

And there you have it. The Father of Modern Journalism, the most influential journalist of the 20th century. Walter Lippmann. According to today's progressives. I won't argue.

http://tinyurl.com/8yfj7aa

Are Fabian socialists as dangerous as communists?

I recently posted some thoughts from several of the major members of the Fabian Society, where some of them considered Soviet Russia to be a "Fabian State". But there may be a better example.

In order to more properly construct my thought here, I reference the great Milton Friedman, in this video, "The Robin Hood Myth". Large sections of his lecture are relevant, but one line of his in particular really drives the point: (from 2 minutes in, to about 2:20)

Because those people who are at the bottom tend to be much less skillful in political activity for the very reasons that leave them at the bottom of the economic scale.

There's more in the video which develops the thought. But that's all I need to get the point across.

Now, who are Fabians? Who are Communists? There is obviously some overlap here, but the original Fabians were almost all middle/upper class citizens, the successful and/or well off, and that's typically who they tried to recruit. The elites, and that's also typically who progressives are as well. Contrast that with, well, communist theory anyways; where it's the lower classes who supposedly rise up.

The fact that so many people don't even know what a Fabian is,(instead thinking it's just some singer) or don't take Fabians seriously(which is why I chose the heading) is a testament to their political skill, I think.(See my past entries, I do not look fondly upon these people. I just take them seriously. See Sun Tzu) They've successfully re-written themselves out of many of the history books, even when they themselves lauded what was arguably the most well known communist regime as a "Fabian state" and had a profound impact right here in America. How much skill does that take, do you think? With regard to this concept of a "Fabian state", consider this:

It starts with Annie Besant. Have you ever read anything about her? You should. You may come across her time in India. Funny thing, that. She moves to India, and along the way founds the Fabian Society of India(Page 347), and what is now one of the largest colleges in India, the Central Hindu College. Hey, I know where I've heard a story like this. It was the Fabians who set up one of Britain's "most respected" colleges, the London School of Economics. Interesting how similar that is. She was also the First Woman President of Indian National Congress, which is still active today.

Mohandas Gandhi was in Britain(1889) at the time when the Fabian Society was founded. Am I calling Gandhi a Fabian? No, he didn't have to be, as Friedrich Engels noted - the effect that Fabianism has on liberal minded people. Here's what I do know. Gandhi mentions Besant 7 times in his autobiography as they worked together on various things, and he was influenced by her work as a leader within the Theosophical movement in India.

It's well known that Gandhi was heavily influenced by Henry David Thoreau, specifically "Civil Disobedience". Every college professor will gladly crow about this. Who introduced Gandhi to HDT? Henry Salt. Henry Salt was a member of Britain's Fellowship of the New Life. The Fabian Society is an offshoot of the FotNL. Henry Salt was a member of both groups, and Gandhi associated with Salt while in Britain. Note, how both Salt and Gandhi were part of the Vegetarian Society. Bernard Shaw was also a member of that group, as was Frances Willard and Lady Henry Somerset, and others with involvement include Annie Besant and Edward Carpenter - none of this is a coincidence. But it bets better.

Who was Gandhi's hand picked successor in India? On January 15th, 1941 Gandhi said:(Page 252)

Some say Pandit Nehru and I were estranged. It will require much more than difference of opinion to estrange us. We had differences from the time we became co-workers and yet I have said for some years and say so now that not Rajaji but Jawaharlal will be my successor.

Jawaharlal Nehru was a Fabian. Nehru's Daughter was Indira Gandhi, you know, the emergency dictator? She was a Fabian.(Page 234) Her husband, at a minimum studied at the London School of Economics.(Page 90) And I bet there's more. Am I calling India a "Fabian State"? I think it's a fair question to ask. I'd bet that modern Fabians look upon it that way. There's way too much here to just brush aside as coincidence. And none of this is to discount the danger from communism - I'm the one who recorded the Marxist STORM Manifesto into audio, I know the danger they pose. And why go through all this? It's India, who cares? Let them deal with it. Pointing out how all of this clearly flows together is important, considering the similarities with what has been done in America - LSE in London, CHC in India, the Rand school in New York - Britain, India, and in the Wilson and FDR administrations. Again, Sun Tzu.

Let's bring this back to the top. Regarding Friedman's observation about particular people being more successful than others in life. The Fabians are well known for their disagreement with Marx, regarding revolution and evolution(gradualism). But there is another major point of contention, which dovetails with what Friedman said. As noted in Socialists at Work, Volume 20:(Page 98)

The Fabians evolved an original philosophy that the middle and upper classes are the revolutionary element in society, and the proletariat the conservative element

This almost word for word cites the words of Shaw. Here are his exact words:(Page 101)

It was supposed to be written for the working classes; but the working man respects the bourgeoisie and wants to be a bourgeois; Marx never got hold of him for a moment. It was the revolting sons of the bourgeois itself - Lassalle, Marx, Liebknecht, Morris, Hyndman, Bax, all like myself, crossed with squirearchy - that painted the flag red. Bakunin and Kropotkin, of the military and noble caste (like Napoleon), were our extreme left. The middle and upper classes are the revolutionary element in society; the proletariat is the conservative element, as Disraeli well knew.

So will it be a workers paradise from whence the proletarians simultaneously rise up? Or will it be led and sourced from people in the middle to the highest classes of society? Anybody know what Frances Fox Piven's net worth is? You know, Pelosi is filthy rich. So is George Soros.(which coincidently enough, he attended the London School of Economics) And how about Dear Leader, President Obama? He attended private school, then Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard. I do myself wonder who paid for all that, but here I wish to examine the difference between the mindset of people at the lower levels of society and those who comprise the middle and upper. It's clear where Obama fits in.

There are plenty of people today who recognize the danger that is posed by the elites, I just happen to have taken a very different path here - to get to that conclusion.

There is one more way to look at this. Do you believe America to be more socialist today? Or more free, as the founders envisioned?(and as Tocqueville wrote about) If yes to the first, did it happen with one quick revolution ala the Chinese/Mao Revolution? Or has America followed a 100 year plan?

http://tinyurl.com/7vztbec

Was Soviet Russia the world's first "Fabian State"?

In The Letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb: Volume 3,(Introduction) the author makes the following observation about the Webbs' and Shaw's view of Russia:

Shaw, visiting Russia before them, came to the same conclusion and reported that Lenin had established a Fabian state.

This was being written as far back as 1932; in "Bernard Shaw, playboy and prophet":(Page 250)

Shaw even claims the Russian Soviet Republic, founded on uncompromising Marxism but soon forced by hard facts to recognize Webb's "inevitability of gradualness," as a Fabian State.

This is what I find so infuriating about copyright laws(which I do respect and support, but nonetheless), is that there's so much important information that's sitting right there, yet hidden from view. It's also why I'm willing to record an audiobook and just give it away, because this information needs to be known, these stories need to be told. However, every now and then a stroke of luck brings to surface a partial quote, which enables me to dig out a piece of information that never should've been forgotten. From CSMonitor, who quotes Shaw in 1945:

None of us foresaw then that the revolution would be achieved in Russia (of all places!) by a minority of excessively sophisticated Marxists; and that they would make every possible catastrophic mistake until they were driven by sheer force of facts to establish the present Russo-Fabian state.

Now we're getting somewhere. Shaw on the U.S.S.R.:(Page 131)

Why do you recommend me to go to Russia? I've been there. It is a paradise: no ladies and gentlemen there. The Catholic church is like Democracy, an eternal ideal, noble and beneficent as such; but all attempts to manufacture it in the concrete reduce it to absurdity.

I couldn't find the Webb's exact wording though. Too bad. But looking for the exact phrase "Fabian State" may be looking at this the wrong way. As Margaret Cole writes (Cole, who was herself a Fabian, so this is written with all approval), Page 220:

It was in 1932 that the Webbs went to Russia, and 'fell in love', as Beatrice said, with the Soviet system; for three years thereafter they were engaged in the preparation of their massive Soviet Communism, and tended to judge all political characters - and all their visitors to Passfield Corner! - by the amount of interest they showed in Soviet affairs.

In the end, all centrally planned societies largely look the same.

So then the whole book "Soviet Communism" is a testament to the Webb's initial love for the world's first Fabian State.(they would later change their minds, but it still was what it was)

http://tinyurl.com/7nvt8pv

COMPULSORY CIVIC SERVICE PROPOSED FOR CHILDREN (1913)

On April 6th, 1913, the headline in the NY Times screamed: COMPULSORY CIVIC SERVICE PROPOSED FOR CHILDREN; Prof. Royal Meeker of Princeton Offers a Plan Which He Believes Would Solve Many of the Problems Arising Out of Our Imperfect System of Education. in which you will find the following: (The PDF of the article is freely downloadable)

No private or parochial schools should be permitted to trespass upon the child's time of preparation for the service of the State.

This line(beginning paragraph 3) stands out like a sore thumb, until you see paragraph 6:

All the children of the whole community should be educated together in the elementary schools in order to accustom them to co-operative thinking and action, so that when they come into full citizenship they will not be obliged to begin their social and political education at the beginning.

Indoctrinating the children into good little statists. The fourth paragraph of the second column:

At this period the children should be formally drafted into the service of the State, with solumn dedicatory services. This dedication of the youth to the service of the State should be made as impressive as possible. Every important institution employs elaborate ceremonies, for ceremonial is firmly rooted in the psychology of man.

This is important to understand about the early 20th century progressives. They often employed(and still do to this day) psychological tactics and observations in order to better achieve their causes.

This article does make "good points" with respect to the move from student to productive citizen and other problems, but the default thinking is that the state is the answer, and that's dangerous. The people can always solve problems better than the government.(Save those handful of things elaborated in the Constitution: National Defence, etc)

Royal Meeker was an advisor to Woodrow Wilson and was also Commissioner of the BLS from 1913 to 1920.

http://tinyurl.com/86vpbre

Paul Harvey warned us about the dangers of progressivism

Not too long ago, I asked the question: How many warnings of the revolution have you missed?

It's not a coincidence that Harvey said these things during the last(thankfully failed) attempt to steal our liberty - the 60's.

I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion

"Social justice" in the churches.

And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington

There are two "third rails" in politics. Medicare and Social Security.

And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized.

I wonder if Saul Alinsky heard Harvey's broadcasts? No matter; Lucifer is who Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals to at the beginning of the book, in the unnumbered pages.

I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me.

SEIU anybody?

I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild.

Progressives have long been honest about their real intentions with regards to education, and molding young minds into good little statists. Like this for example. 100 years later, we've seen the results of progressive education.

I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

Every bit of this we've seen from social justice pastors. And of course the leagues of people who take "the separation of church and state" out of context to mean that all worship must be done in the quiet of your own bedroom, with the lights off. That's not what our founders intended.

I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious.

And where are we on this one today? It would be easier if I asked the question this way: Can you name someone in Obama's government who doesn't want to redistribute wealth?

And those are the dangers of progressivism, thank you Paul Harvey. There is a slightly better version of this, here One thing he has also said is this:

And with promises of higher ratings, I'd have mesmerizing media fanning the flames

It's no wonder that so many of the early 20th century progressives were all journalists and media types.

http://tinyurl.com/79lxqde

My God Will Wipe This Country From the Face of the Earth

When you watch the particular video when he says "My God Will Wipe This Country From the Face of the Earth"(second one down), look at the look on his face. He is not just joking around and being cute.

"My God Will Wipe This Country From the Face of the Earth": The Real Louis Farrakhan in His Own Words on GBTV

Louis Farrakhan warns: Secret militia will protect Wall Street protesters!

Radicalized Islamists isn't normally within my normal list of topics, but when you see how all of them have joined hands to take out America, it can't be ignored.

http://tinyurl.com/cw6qgty

It would be better for us if we were to turn our guns upon every vessel bringing Japanese to our shores

In what was known as the "Ross Affair" back in the 1900's, connected with Stanford University - because that's where he worked at the time - Professor Edward Ross said the following:

And should the worst come to the worst it would be better for us if we were to turn our guns upon every vessel bringing Japanese to our shores rather than to permit them to land

Ross is not an insignificant name to be familiar with. He was a big believer in Eugenics, and it was he who coined the term "race suicide" - which was an important term during the early 20th century progressive/eugenic era. From what I can tell, where the term was coined was in his address titled "The Causes of Race Superiority"(The address starts on page 67, but I have pointed you to page 88 where he uses the term). It was Theodore Roosevelt who popularized the term.

Ross ended up serving as National Director for the ACLU from 1940 to 1950.

As I write this, I have glanced at Ross' Wikipedia page several times and I note how sanitized it is. Should anybody be willing to be a wikipedia editor, you could really do some good(or damage, as the progressives would likely look at it) by un-sanitizing their pages with what Paul Harvey used to call "The Rest of the Story". I don't have the time for this. Those who are my regular readers know I always dig to the original source, so you would have all you would need. Conservapedia doesn't even have a page on Ross. This is a big mistake.

http://tinyurl.com/85qpttx

Socialism is democracy extended to the world of work and money

In the past I've written how democracy is inherently socialistic, this is a continuation of that theme.

Carl Cohen, a professor at some college(It's in my college books, so this is being used for indoctrination purposes) wrote the following in his book Four systems on page 42:

Action as a society is most needed in the production and distribution of the necessities and comforts for ordinary human life. Socialism is democracy extended to the world of work and money.

On the surface, that makes socialism sound fantastic! (sarcasm) Considering that socialism is any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, Cohen's words sound much more like progressivism to me, considering that progressivism is regulation, not socialism. But I want to dig a little deeper than this. Who this really sounds like to me, is Theodore Roosevelt. In a book titled Progressive Principles(Which isn't written by Roosevelt himself per se, but he did write the preface. In the preface Roosevelt states the book is a collection of his speeches) Roosevelt said the following:(Page 3 - all Roosevelt quotes come from this one book)

Our aim is to secure the real and not the nominal rule of the people.

But what does this really mean? As we see with Barack Obama today(and others within our lifetimes) Progressives speak in a sort of code. Take 5-7 speeches of Obama's and put them together, and you'll see what he's really saying once you eliminate most of the fluff. Roosevelt, Wilson, and all these other people from 100 years ago were no different. They're only honest in places where they don't think people aren't looking. On page 116, we see:

There is urgent necessity of applying both common sense and the highest ethical standard to this movement for better economic conditions among the mass of our people if we are to make it one of healthy evolution and not one of revolution.

Now that's interesting. Roosevelt prefers evolution to revolution. I've heard that before. Here and here. Now, I'm not at all saying that Roosevelt was a Fabian, he didn't have to be. The seeds of nationalism had already been sown into the fabric of America, and and Fabianism does have a rather peculiar effect upon people of a liberal mindset. Where we get to the real meat of all this is on page 296:

And on the other hand you will read in the papers editorials saying that I am a Socialist or else that I am an anarchist. Now, I am preaching neither anarchy nor socialism; I am preaching the corrective to socialism and the antidote to anarchy. I am preaching and I am trying to practice, the policy of a square deal for every man and every woman in this Republic.

What on earth would he consider to be a corrective of socialism? Well, there's no doubt that Roosevelt significantly grew government beyond the founders intent. Stuart Chase IMHO write it the clearest:

17. not much "taking over" of property or industries in the old socialistic sense. The formula appears to be control without ownership.

This ties all of it together. This is where they're 'evolving' to, where they're 'progressing' to. The "democratization" of every aspect of our lives. Of course government should be involved with all aspects of business, people need to exercise their vote! That's the logical outcome of this. What you're witnessing is the full abuse of what 'democracy' really is. government by the people; especially : rule of the majority Mob Rule - yes, this explains why on the surface these people spout 'democracy' when they really mean 'socialism, because the mob really does want other people's money. Watch them riot. You can't miss it. But the concept of extending the ballot box to the grocery store, your place of business, your next door neighbor's belongings, all of it. This is indicative of people who view everything in life through government. As Reagan said:

Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

All of this is a totalitarian mindset, where they view our lives as a dispensation of government. Let's go back to Roosevelt. Page 139:

Our aim is to control business, not to strangle it

There's Cohen right there. Socialism is democracy extended to the world of work and money. As Roosevelt said (Page 296), there's his 'corrective' to socialism right there. Of course, having that much control over business leads to this: (same book from above, page 133:

We stand for a living wage

That means wealth redistribution. Back to page 139:

Our aim is to promote prosperity and then see to its proper division. We do not believe that any good comes to any one by a policy which means destruction of prosperity; for in such cases it is not possible to divide it because of the very obvious fact that there is nothing to divide. We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage workers and reasonable prices for the consumers.

"Proper division", because you're a greedy SOB! And we in government really know best how to spread the wealth around. No matter that government control of business necessarily means the destruction of prosperity.

Totalitarian mindset, and it always ends up in the same place if allowed to reach it's final stage. Of course, the progressives learned to hate the constitution because it stood in their way, which is why: (Page 316)

The Progressive Party ... pledges itself to provide a more easy and expeditious method of amending the Federal Constitution

That would be The Gateway Amendment. Progressives will destroy anything that stands in their way, of attaining ultimate power.

http://tinyurl.com/7tvlqcs

The STORM handbook is up on Youtube - Sunlight is the best disinfectant

Click here to download the full audiobook MP3 files.

I numbered the audio files to co-respond with the page number that each segment begins on in the printed document, since some of the segments of the manifesto do not appear in the table of contents. That was the closest I could do to keep it in it's original form. But because of how the original document was designed, that means a small amount of the content is out of order. You'd read it out of order anyways, so listening to it that way doesn't change much.

Read it here. For those who don't remember, STORM is the group that Van Jones comes from - and the White House was watching him. In that video, Valerie Jarrett says they watched him for a long time. What was Van Jones doing out in Oakland? This:

Reclaiming Revolution 01: Audiobook Preface

Reclaiming Revolution 02: Setting The Stage

Reclaiming Revolution 05: Early 1990s - The Roots of STORM

Reclaiming Revolution 08: 1994 - Launching STORM & First Steps

Reclaiming Revolution 13: 1995 - Crisis

Reclaiming Revolution 18: 1997 - Re-grounding & Rectification

Reclaiming Revolution 20: 411 - Political Education Committee

Reclaiming Revolution 21: 1998 - Re-emergence

Reclaiming Revolution 26: Workers Organizing to Rid us of Capitalism (WORC)

Reclaiming Revolution 27: 1998-1999 - Rolling

Reclaiming Revolution 28: Theory Development Work Group

Reclaiming Revolution 31: Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM)

Reclaiming Revolution 34: Culture & Propaganda (CPWG)

Reclaiming Revolution 36: 1999-2000 - Clouds Start to Form

Reclaiming Revolution 38: Was STORM Trying to Control Other Organizations and Run the Movement?

Reclaiming Revolution 42: 2001-2003 - Crisis (Part 1)

Reclaiming Revolution 42: 2001-2003 - Crisis (Part 2)

Reclaiming Revolution 51: STORM's Politics - Storm's Approach to Marxism

Reclaiming Revolution 52: Moving from Resistance to Revolution

Reclaiming Revolution 53: Storm's Points of Unity

Reclaiming Revolution 56: Did Storm Think It Was the Vanguard?

Reclaiming Revolution 57: STORM's Structure

Reclaiming Revolution 60: The Politics Behind STORM'S Structure

Reclaiming Revolution 63: Summation of our Experiences - Revolutionary Politics

Reclaiming Revolution 64: Approach to Theory & Ideology

Reclaiming Revolution 66: Revolutionary Strategy

Reclaiming Revolution 69: Cadre Organization

Reclaiming Revolution 72: Leadership Development

Reclaiming Revolution 73: Building the Movement

Reclaiming Revolution 77: Leadership & Democracy

Reclaiming Revolution 80: Nationalism & Internationalism

Reclaiming Revolution 83: Revolutionary Feminism

Reclaiming Revolution 86: Style of Work

Reclaiming Revolution 89: Revolutionary Discipline

Reclaiming Revolution 92: Romantic Relationships between Revolutionaries

Reclaiming Revolution 94: Political Security

Reclaiming Revolution 97: Conclusion - Closing Words to Open the Conversation

I realize many of you just don't have time to read books considering your personal lives. This is what I can do to help people stay informed.

http://tinyurl.com/6ntuwhh

The progressives know their own history. Are you familiar with their history?

I wanted to make sure that I put the page number of "Political System X" into it's very own specific headline, so I separated it here.

Now, about that new Obama documentary. I too am unconvinced that the choice of title for it is a coincidence. I know I might be crossing a boundary with this, but there is one thing (non-related to the communist ideology) that I do find to be legitimate in the Communist manifesto, and it's this:

German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits, eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions had not immigrated along with them.

This quote sets up a fantastic think piece: When the Communist Manifesto was translated and imported into the United States, was the social conditions of the countries of either Britain or Germany imported as well? Obviously not.(Marx was in Britain at the time of the manifesto's writing, IIRC)

So we have to learn primarily from our own radical revolutionary literature - secondarily from foreign radical revolutionary literature, otherwise we are going to end up chasing our own tails and we will never be able to properly defend our own liberty, much less advance the causes of liberty. So if you're looking for a manifesto for progressivism, your best bet is probably going to be Chase's book. That's their playbook for dictatorship. Why else would Obama be being honored with a film titled "The Road We've Traveled"? Why else would Obama be channeling Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism speech?(Roosevelt really was the first to indicate that government should meddle with people's healthcare) Why else would Hillary Clinton be saying she's a progressive like the early 20th century progressives?(During one of the debates) These names from the past seem obscure only because these progressives have mastered the art of revisionism. Who do you think Hillary was talking about? Could be any one of these - "Charles Merriam, who? Margaret Sanger... W D P Bliss... Woodrow Wilson... or others... Nah, not interested." Yes. Yes - The things that have been written, right here in the States', regarding the elimination of American Liberty are things that we MUST be familiar with.

The days are over when Americans don't know who Woodrow Wilson was, and how evil his beliefs were. The days are over when people can't go to you tube and hear Herbert Croly's words in context.(I'm getting there, slowly but surely) The days are over, when people are scratching their heads and wondering why it is that so many republicans don't like Theodore Roosevelt or any number of others who stood staunchly against the traditions that made America great. That's because we put the constitution first, because we're conservatives, and not really republicans all that much. It's because we've read all these people and we know what their true intent really was.

http://tinyurl.com/77owemg

As Trayvon Martin riots loom, the STORM manifesto displays relevance

I was listening to a local talk show discussing Trayvon Martin and how potential riots are coming, and one of the comments of a caller hit me: Rodney King. We're dealing with revolutionaries here - there are no coincidences.

So I whipped out my trusty copy of the Reclaiming Revolution manifesto and flipped a few pages. Right there on page 5,(or section 2 1:50) is where it mentions how Roots Against War(RAW - STORM's predecessor) helped organize the protests behind the Rodney King riots.

As I made note of not too long ago, Van Jones is a self-described communist.(And the STORM manifesto repeatedly talks about their Marxist philosophy) But the other things that are contained in this admission are important for building the puzzle here. Since the media don't take revolutionaries seriously, we have to do the work ourselves. Jones states:

"I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.'" Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. "I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary." In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."

April 29th is when the riots started. This the timeframe when he joined up with the people from RAW/STORM. This whole Trayvon Martin situation is exactly the kind of thing that's made to order for malcontents, and they state this directly in the section of the handbook titled "Moving from Resistance to Revolution", which I think is one of the most important sections. While I'm sure many of us realize that revolutionaries are present in all countries and that they're building a platform for themselves in the shadows(so as to not be seen, but be ready to cause trouble when the opportunity arises), it's quite a different thing to see it written. Because now it's no longer your theory, or even common sense.

Now it's verified.

That's why if you do a little digging, you'll see that Color of Change - one of the groups that Van Jones started - is involved in this. This is not a coincidence.

The STORM manifesto is being uploaded to Youtube, when time permits. Here is the first section. I wanted to make sure it's in a high profile place, and that's the highest profile place that I can place it at as an individual.

Reclaiming Revolution audiobook

Reclaiming Revolution PDF

In one of the places I go to get information out, someone has posted to me some pictures. One of those pictures is really poignant. Click for larger:

Brought to you by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

http://tinyurl.com/blh52w2

"Political System X" can be found on page 95

Recently Beck has "described a bit about what Political System X" does, as well as gives some real world examples of how Political System X would manifest itself, what that would look like.

This is why I spend so much time on progressivism, and I really wish more bloggers would take progressivism seriously. Or, at least, be willing to dig into the progressives own history. Because many of you who automatically think 'communist' when the topic is progressivism, well, there's really no soft way to say this: You're wrong. Not all progressives are communists. Yes, you can cite Van Jones(and many others) as an example(s) of a communist; I cite Van Jones as a communist. He has admitted it. But they are largely not following the playbook of the communist manifesto with it's ten point list. This is what they're following - From Stuart Chase's book "The road we are traveling, 1914-1942: guide lines to America's future":

1. A strong, centralized government.

2. An Executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and jucicial arms. In some countries, power is consolidated in a dictator, issuing decrees.

3. The control of banking, credit, and security exchanges by the government.

4. The underwriting of employment by the government, either through armaments or public works.

5. The underwriting of social security by the government - old-age pensions, mothers' pensions, unemployment insurance, and the like.

6. The underwriting of food, housing, and medical care, by the government. The United States is already experimenting with providing these essentials. Other nations are far along the road.

7. The use of the deficit spending technique to finance these underwritings. The annually balanced budget has lost its old-time sanctity.

8. The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.

9. The control of foreign trade by the government, with increasing emphasis on bilateral agreements and barter deals.

10. The control of natural resources, with increasing emphasis on self-sufficiency

11. The control of energy sources - hydroelectric power, coal, petroleum, natural gas.

12. The control of transportation - railway, highway, airway, waterway.

13. The control of agricultural production.

14. The control of labor organizations, often to the point of prohibiting strikes.

15. The enlistment of young men and women in youth corps devoted to health, discipline, community service and ideologies consistent with those of the authorities. The CCC camps have just inaugurated military drill.

16. Heavy taxation, with especial emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.

17. not much "taking over" of property or industries in the old socialistic sense. The formula appears to be control without ownership. it is interesting to recall that the same formula is used by the management of great corporations in depriving stockholders of power.

18. State control of communications and propaganda.

Those of you who don't realize that Progressivism is it's own stand-alone "ism", will realize how closely this does look like the points in the communist manifesto. That doesn't make it communist. What it means is that there's only so many ways that you can be a dictator, there's only so many ways you can centrally plan society. There's bound to be some overlap. This is a great example of why I focus somewhat heavily upon Fabianism, because Fabians were always different than Marxists, yet so closely resemble progressives. And Stuart Chase was a Fabian. This is not just some unimportant historical figure. Stuart Chase coined the term "New Deal" and was a part of FDR's brainstrust. This is a heavy hitter in the history of progressivism.

Note how I bolded (17) and linked to a different blog posting. When I originally started feeling that I had enough information about progressivism to do this blog, I knew that it wasn't socialistic in the old sense, and Hise's book is exactly right in it's admission that it's not socialism, it's regulation. Now the end result looks virtually identical, absent the state ownership part, however. Ronald Reagan was right in his "A Time for Choosing" speech, 1964:

Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the -- or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?

Socialism without state ownership; by the excessive use of regulation, is called progressivism. In their own words. We should call them by their name. It's changed, and has gone under changes in the past. The Marxian communists could hardly be called Owenites. Owenism had largely become outdated by that time. Now, it's regulation. Not socialism. They've progressed past state ownership. Yeah, they'll still do state ownership directly, but they've come to realize that they don't need it anymore. And this is what makes Cass Sunstein the most dangerous man in America. Because he does it all via regulation, instead of direct state ownership, you'll never see him coming. Why is Obamacare 2800+ pages? It's all social regulation, for the purpose of changing society. Fundamental transformation, to use Obama's words.

http://tinyurl.com/cpqx6sp

Did Norman Thomas really say that America would not knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of

I personally think the quote is unreliable, but see below - he's not alone. Norman Thomas is quoted as saying:

Yet the country has grown more and more socialistc and this soft-spoken kindly man of 82 years has planned it that way. "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

The closest I can come to sourcing that is this article from a 1967 newspaper. The part that's italicized above does not appear to be Thomas' words, rather, this article is a puff piece. Now if this stand alone unsourced quote is good enough for you, have at it. It's not for me. This was all supposedly said in a 1944 speech, so if I don't have the speech itself, the whole thing, I'd say just find and use something else.

Like this for example.

In the organ for Fabian Socialists in the United States, the "American Fabian" magazine, the following is written about Edward Bellamy:(June, 1898)

In Bellamy, social science and imagination were combined at their best. He has given us a substantial revelation whose scientific deductions from economic phenomena are unassailable. In the work of speeding the light he has made the valued distinction between Nationalism and Socialism. Nations advance toward their destiny upon lines marked out by the temper of their peoples, the character of their institutions, the conditions of soil, climate, and surroundings. Consequently the forward movement must be by national rather than international pathways. Bellamy saw this clearly, and formulating his Socialism to a purely American applicability, named it Nationalism. What has been the result? We hear no more the philistine cry that Socialism is an alien product. The far-reaching influence of "Looking Backward" has given us a native development of this definite form of Socialism, and has made possible the realization of his dreams in the near future.

Now this is an interesting concept. Tyranny has been Americanized - even if it's largely in title only. For those of you who don't know who Edward Bellamy was, he was(besides the obvious mentions above in this glowing eulogy - a nationalist-socialist) the ideological head of so called 'Nationalist Clubs around the states, and he was also associated with the Fabians toward the end of his life.

This does in a way back up the Thomas quote, in that this is what socialists and progressives do, they always do it and they keep doing it. They re-name themselves and their efforts in order to be more palatable even though it's largely the same thing. They'll do full scale people laundering if they have to.

If anybody knows where to get the full 1944 Thomas speech, send it to me and I'll post it.(except for copyright issues, of course) Heck, being as it's this hard to find, you get it to me with verification and I'll read it and you tube it, so that it can't be hidden again.

Bellamy's book "Looking Backward" is available as an audiobook for those who don't have time or would prefer that than to read it.

As a final note, on page 163 of The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek points out how "most planners are militant nationalists". Even Van Jones started out as 'a rowdy nationalist'.

http://tinyurl.com/6ukyytj