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