Saturday, November 30, 2013

Fifty Shades of Journalistic Grey

Do you think Obama is the first radical to give someone in the media a thrill up their leg? No, not really.

I recently uploaded an article lifted out of The Metropolitan, titled "Understanding Woodrow Wilson". I first referenced this article over a year ago, but I need it for a future article I am writing and I noticed that the article is not searchable via a search engine. Well, was. Now that problem is solved. Anyways, If you read the article you cannot help but notice how big of a puff piece it is.

Being as I am normally keeping an eye out for the ideological components of progressivism, I overlooked one of the paragraphs in the article. This:

NOW there are two sets of opinions regarding Governor Wilson. Some argue that he is a good mixer; others argue that he is not a good mixer, being a professorial, arm's-length, prune-eating sort of person for whom even heart-throbs are merely muscular reflexes to be measured and observed as scientific phenomena. Some will tell you that he has no intimates, - they make it even stronger - not a single intimate, with whom he shares the inner stirrings of his mind: that the only person who has ever stood with him in the conning tower while he steers the ship of his career is his wife. Others aver that he has quite a group of intimates: eminent lawyers, business men and university professors, who come regularly to see him, and that he spends hours with them in the frank disclosure of his political soul. The probability is that both judgments are correct; yes, life is at least as contrary as that, and individuals constitute the originating contrariness of life. From my own experience, I can only make this one venture: when you sit down with the Governor of New Jersey upon his broad piazza at Sea Girt with two of the many great rocking-chairs set closely vis-a-vis, and the conversation which starts at random begins to lead into the deep-lying purposes of the man's heart and his voice drops to a confidential note, while his long fingers steal up your wrist past the elbow to a gentle pulling grip upon your upper arm as if he would hold your very soul to him while he talks, you are going to feel as you leave that you have been close to a very great and simple man who has trusted you and whose confidences you would not betray and whose cause you would not injure for ten thousand worlds.

""the conversation which starts at random begins to lead into the deep-lying purposes of the man's heart and his voice drops to a confidential note""?

""while his long fingers steal up your wrist past the elbow to a gentle pulling grip upon your upper arm as if he would hold your very soul to him while he talks""?

Ok, so the thrill went up his arm and not up his leg. But you get the point. With respect to people in the media, they have not changed in well over 100 years. They are in love with radicals and miscreants.

It would require a fully corrupt media in order for progressives to have progressed America to the point that its in today. We are essentially defenseless. The people who are supposed to be standing with the citizenry against the elites, the journalists, and telling us when something is wrong or when we are in danger - have chosen the elites instead - and they made that choice a very long time ago.

http://tinyurl.com/p84tl6n

Friday, November 29, 2013

American Thinker submission

I submitted an article and to the American Thinker tonight, I really think it is thought provoking and will illustrate what is my desire to use the progressives own history against them. They want to keep their history hidden beyond the usual bland narratives, and that gives us leverage.

The two primary points in the article are Woodrow Wilson and the British Constitution. I based it a lot off of a report I wrote this summer for my college history class. Hopefully, it will be published. If it is, I will also upload my paper to the internet so that people can read it. But I have to warn people in advance, my paper contains a lot of fluff that was necessary to satisfy professorial guidelines. But due to the nature of what I wrote, as well as the large amount of footnotes, I think it will be a benefit to those who wish to challenge progressivism.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Understanding Woodrow Wilson, by Peter Clark Macfarlane

Understanding Woodrow Wilson (on Archive.org)

It is highly important that the people of the United States should not deceive themselves regarding Woodrow Wilson. The man is less transparent than he seems. He thinks in ultimates. He sees to the end of the road before ever he takes the trail. In his book on "Congressional Government,"' written twenty-seven years ago, there are not wanting evidences that he was thinking even then that he might some day be President. He has the most undaunted faith in the results of his own mental processes. His personal resources have apparently not even been taxed - no man knows whether the bottom of them lies just under his present keel or fathoms deeper. He enters the arena rejoicing as a strong man to run a race. He has never been beaten. His supposed defeat at Princeton was a victory. The trustees who voted him down, knighted him; they plumed and heralded him as the champion of democracy. That was the launching of the man upon his career.

The first task to his hand was the governorship of New Jersey. The conflict was short and sharp. He turned the bosses out and the people in with ridiculous ease. By methods the most simple and direct he went out and won the nomination for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket. Immediately thereafter, without the quiver of an eye-lash, he reached out and turned the National Democratic Committee into a piece of political pottery conceived strictly for purposes of ornamentation. By the same twist of his wrist he created something else entirely new in Democratic Party management, the executive committee or campaign cabinet. This machine is small but of great power and geared high. Wilson himself sits at the wheel. And the old leaders did not even gasp; the spell of the cock-sureness of Woodrow Wilson was upon them.

Two Views of Wilson

NOW there are two sets of opinions regarding Governor Wilson. Some argue that he is a good mixer; others argue that he is not a good mixer, being a professorial, arm's-length, prune-eating sort of person for whom even heart-throbs are merely muscular reflexes to be measured and observed as scientific phenomena. Some will tell you that he has no intimates, - they make it even stronger - not a single intimate, with whom he shares the inner stirrings of his mind: that the only person who has ever stood with him in the conning tower while he steers the ship of his career is his wife. Others aver that he has quite a group of intimates: eminent lawyers, business men and university professors, who come regularly to see him, and that he spends hours with them in the frank disclosure of his political soul. The probability is that both judgments are correct; yes, life is at least as contrary as that, and individuals constitute the originating contrariness of life. From my own experience, I can only make this one venture: when you sit down with the Governor of New Jersey upon his broad piazza at Sea Girt with two of the many great rocking-chairs set closely vis-a-vis, and the conversation which starts at random begins to lead into the deep-lying purposes of the man's heart and his voice drops to a confidential note, while his long fingers steal up your wrist past the elbow to a gentle pulling grip upon your upper arm as if he would hold your very soul to him while he talks, you are going to feel as you leave that you have been close to a very great and simple man who has trusted you and whose confidences you would not betray and whose cause you would not injure for ten thousand worlds.

And yet I must write with unvarnished words: not a sketch of his life - everybody knows that by now - but a survey of his thinking, must try to show Metropolitan readers enough of his mental history for them to form accurate conclusions as to what manner of man Woodrow Wilson is, and for what goal he is making. There is a blemish on the brow of Woodrow Wilson, a mole-like patch just at the end of the white line that marks the part in the dappled gray of his hair. You will not observe this in many photographs; the camera sees it, of course, but the considerate artists touch it out; yet those who love Woodrow Wilson intimately must love the brown mole also. And now as we look at his career let us push our camera close and try to see both accurately and fairly the perfections that are admirable and the faults that are lovable.

Wrote a Book about Government at Twenty-nine

YOUNG as Woodrow Wilson was when he published "Congressional Government," twenty-nine years old, in fact, he made a book that went to the heart of our Governmental system like an X-ray. He was dissatisfied with what he found - and said so. Hear his saucy indictment:

As at present constituted, the Federal Government lacks strength because its powers are divided, lacks promptness because its authorities are multiplied, lacks wieldiness because its processes arc roundabout, lacks efficiency because its responsibility is indistinct and its action without competent direction.

Oh, lackaday! A plentiful aggregation of lacks, indeed! Yet one need not follow the young man's arguments far to see that he was thinking pertinently and truly. The years that have passed only make his judgments seem the more accurate.

Our young economist did not like things done in a corner. He complains when the white light of publicity is not shining. He tells us that "ours is a Government by the standing committees of Congress," and that "the privileges of the standing committees are the beginning and the end of the rules"; that "as a rule a bill committed is a bill doomed . . . It crosses a parliamentary bridge of sighs to dim dungeons of silence . . ."

"Power," he complains, "is nowhere concentrated . . . scattered among many small chiefs," i.e., the chairmen of the standing committees.

He believes very much in parties: "The great need is not to get rid of parties but to find and use some expedient by which they can be managed and made amenable from day to day . . . outside of Congress the organization of the National parties is exceedingly well-defined and tangible. Within it is obscure and intangible ... no visible and therefore no controllable party organization."

And now hear him go on: "In the British House of Commons the functions and privileges of our standing committees are all concentrated in the hands of the ministry, who have besides some prerogatives of leadership which even our committees do not possess so that they carry all responsibility as well as great power . . . the ministry, this great standing committee, goes out whenever it crosses the will of the majority." We, too, he thinks, must make our parties responsible. "It is plainly the representation of both parties on the committees that makes party responsibility indistinct . . . the difference between our device and the British is that we have a standing committee drawn from both parties for the consideration of each topic of legislation, whereas our English cousins have but a single standing committee which is charged with the origination of legislation ... A committee composed of the men who are recognized as the leaders of the party dominant in the state, and who serve at the same time as the political heads of the executive departments of government. The British system is perfect party government."

And his conclusion is that: "We have in this country, therefore no real leadership because no man is allowed to direct the course of Congress, and there is no way of governing the country save through Congress which is supreme."

Nor had young Woodrow Wilson any very great use for the Senate of the United States when he wrote his book, because among other reasons, he regarded the Senate as lording it over the President after a manner that was somewhat more lordly than the Constitution-makers intended. Indeed, the author of "Congressional Government" wrote with an unconcealed sympathy for the Executive. "The English system," he explains, "is a limited monarchy because of Commons and Cabinet: ours may be said to be a limited Democracy because of the Senate." Not strange is it, in the light of this, that the other day the Senate was pointing resolutions at Presidents and forewarning both itself and candidate Wilson by reading parts of this book and meditating aloud thereon. Evidently, too, those book-reading, speech-quoting Senators failed to realize that they were merely illustrating Professor Wilson's book afresh for him. As for instance, this: "All through the direct dealings of the Senate with the President there runs this characteristic spirit of irresponsible dictation . . . the President may tire the Senate by dogged persistence, but he can never deal with it upon a ground of equality . . . the Senate always has the last word ... it dictates to another branch of the Government which was intended to be coordinate and coequal with it."

And by way of full measure for the Senate, the book-writer has the aptest word for its presiding officer, the Vice-president, that was ever set into type, observing most sententiously, "His importance consists in the fact that he may cease to be Vice-president."

And when he comes to talk of the Executive, to whose position the twenty-nine-year-old may already have begun to aspire, the book loses none of its spiciness. He reveals his impatience with the semi-responsible position of the dominant party through our system of office tenures, when he observes with unveiled sarcasm: "A prime minister must keep himself in favor with the majority. A President need only keep alive."

Views on "The Highest Office"

THERE were moments, too, while this book was making, that the professor did not think highly of the President's job, as, witness: "The business of the President, occasionally great, is usually not much above routine - most of the time it is mere administration, mere obedience of directions from the masters of policy, the standing committees."

The Baltimore platform proposes to limit the Presidency to a single term. The youthful professor had no such idea when he wrote: "But even Americans are not Presidents in their cradles. One cannot have too much preparatory training and experience who is to fill so high an office. It is difficult to perceive, therefore, upon what safe ground of reason are built the opinions of those persons who regard short terms of service as sacred and peculiarly Republican principles." He felt like suggesting also that "for the sort of Presidents needed under the present arrangement, it is best to choose amongst the ablest and most experienced state governors."

State governors! Do we not begin to see something uncanny in the exceeding canniness of this book of seven and twenty years agone? Its author blazed the course for others and is now himself upon that way.

But reverting finally and for the last time to the general drift of the book, it should be understood clearly that what its author was inveighing against most sharply was our good, old, our holy and hoary, our vaunted and revered, system of checks and balances. Because of these he finds authority pieced, cut into small bits and responsibility not fixed, and finally he blurts out: "Somebody must be trusted! Power and strict accountability for its use are the essential constituents of good government."

Doubtless the opponents of Woodrow Wilson will make use of this book to embarrass him; yet truly there is nothing in it to make a thoughtful citizen anything but proud of the man who wrote it ere he came to thirty years. Besides, if Woodrow Wilson wrote anything in the book likely to embarrass him now, he ought to be excused and absolved of it before he enters upon the campaign. He says so in the book. That is the uncanniness creeping in again. The man wrote with strange prescience; he seemed to know his mind would range far, that he might do and say some things he would wish to be quit of when he ran for President twenty-seven years later, so here is what he printed at the bottom of page forty two. "A decisive career which gives a man a well-understood place in public estimation constitutes a positive disability for the Presidency, because candidacy must precede election, and the shoals of candidacy can be passed only by a light boat which carries little freight and can be turned readily about to suit the intricacies of the passage."

Does not the sageness and the pertinence of this observation become amusing in the present situation? To-day the good ship "Woodrow Wilson," draws a good deal of water, and already its captain has unhesitatingly pitched from his decks by frank retraction or plausible explanation several embarrassing pieces of cargo.

Strongly Partisan

WHEN we come to inspect Woodrow Wilson's political speeches of the last two years, it is evident at once we are looking on finished work. Every phrase is balanced and weighed. No speaker in America is a more skilful picker and sorter of words. He avoids strong language but he makes strong statements. His paragraphs are burglar proof. They may appear lightly thrown together but they resist attack. Many of his sentences are like slip-knots; the more they are struggled against the tighter they press. Not that Governor Wilson is incapable of platitudes. He is. And none is more skilful in the wooing of an audience with amiable nothings, although even at such times it stands one in good stead to see if the Governor has not tied the nosegay with some strand of thought that will later serve to bind stouter things than sprays of rhetoric.

The first thing to notice about the statesmanship of the mature Wilson is that it is strongly partisan. He believes in political parties. Particularly he believes in the Democratic Party. This cannot be stated too clearly or emphatically. Woodrow Wilson cannot be understood as a non-party man, nor as a biparty man, nor as a Progressive Republican running on a Democratic ticket; he must be interpreted as a Democrat, and a Democrat with the biggest "D" in the case. He was born a Democrat. He has consistently lived and voted a Democrat. His appeal for the Presidency was made to the Democratic Party, and he has expressed his admiration for that party in terms as undiscriminatingly enthusiastic as any man whoever pronounced its shibboleths or shouted its slogans. He declares that "the Democratic Party has remained free to act, free to take on new elements of popular impulse, free to read new times in new terms."

His next faith is in party leadership. He thinks the Executive in state or nation should be the leader of the party which elected him, not titularly but actually. "Do not vote for me," he said to the electors in his New Jersey campaign, "if you do not wish me to be the leader of the party."

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!

He had nothing to do with the making of the Democratic platform of 1910 in New Jersey. But he stood on it, campaigned on it, and made himself responsible for it, and directly upon inauguration went to work to see that its pledges were enacted into law. When members of the Democratic majority in the lower house resented his activity as interference, saying in effect: "We are the legislature; you are the governor. Keep your hands off!" he replied. "I am the leader of the Democratic Party in the state. I am going to see that the Democratic legislature keeps its pledges to the people." When that Democratic majority caucussed on the Geran Election Bill, Woodrow Wilson walked into the caucus in his dual capacity of governor of the state and leader of the party, and asked for the bill. The argument was fierce, but the Governor stood on his feet for three solid hours and fought the bill to victory.

It was in accordance with this conviction - that the executive is the head of the party - that Governor Wilson immediately after his nomination seized absolutely the reins of Democratic Party government. He became the dictator, the boss, probably more completely for the time being than any man has ever been the boss of the Democratic Party. But there is a difference between the boss-ship of Wilson and that of a Sullivan or a Murphy. The distinction is happily made for us in an address before the General Assembly of Virginia on February 1, 1912, wherein Governor Wilson said:

I believe that party success is impossible without organization; but I make this distinction between the organization and the machine - organization is a systematic cooperation of men for a common purpose, while the machine is a systematic cooperation of men for a private purpose.

Thus do we begin to understand Governor Wilson clearly. He is appealing to the voters of the United States as a Democrat; he is asking them to register their faith in the ability of the Democratic Party - quoting from his Harrisburg speech on Democracy's opportunity - "to prove true to its traditions and supply them with men and measures." Yet the Governor is only too conscious that there are many voters who have small faith in the working efficiency of the Democratic Party. Speaking of them in his Nashville speech on "The Tariff and the Trusts," he said: "They believe the Republican Party is the only party which has shown practical genius in understanding and administering the affairs of the nation . . . They say, 'Yes, we agree with the Democrats, but the Democrats don't know how to do it.'"

Now Woodrow Wilson believes that he does "know how to do it." He thinks he proved this in New Jersey. He is anxious to prove it in Washington. Should the opportunity come, he will immediately set himself to the task of helping Congress to do better than it otherwise could. His instruments are two: his theory of party leadership and his skill in appeal to the public voice. Undoubtedly he will prefer persuasive measures; but in Jersey when a legislator was not amenable to the soft phrase of peace, the Governor used to propose to debate the issue before the man's own constituents. Imagine the President of the United States going down into Tennessee or out into North Dakota to tell the folks at home how their Congressman was behaving; few Congressmen will lightly court such odium.

Summing thus much of what has been written, the reader now gets a picture of the new Democratic tiger, in mortar-board and spectacles, peering out of his lair, keen, masterful and purposing. And what does he purpose?

His Indictment of the Tariff

ABOVE and beyond all else he purposes an assault on the tariff - such an assault as the tariff has never sustained before. Woodrow Wilson regards the protective tariff as the root of most of our evils. He seems always to have been against it. We see him in his school days at Princeton refusing to enter a debate where he might have won a coveted prize, simply because he had drawn the affirmative side of the Protective Tariff question. He would not argue in support of a thing in the evil of which he believed so emphatically even then. His book from which we have quoted so freely, issued in 1885, frequently reveals the bias of his mind on this subject, and nowhere more clearly than when referring to Alexander Hamilton's famous report on manufactures, in which, he says, "were laid the foundations of that set of protective tariff duties which was destined to hang all the industries of the country upon the skirts of the federal power, and to make every trade and craft in the land sensitive to every wind of party that might blow at Washington."

To the Economic Club of New York so recently as May twenty-third, Governor Wilson said of some other point: "Let me illustrate it by the tariff, because every business question in this country, whether you think so or not, gentlemen, comes back, no matter how much you put on the brakes, to the question of the tariff."

The tariff he holds responsible for the trusts. "It is behind the shelter of the tariff wall," he tells a reporter for the New York World, in December, 1911, "that the trusts have been able to build up a system by which they have limited opportunity, and all but shut the door upon independent enterprise."

Governor Wilson charges the tariff, too, with having deliberately destroyed our merchant marine. "By the most stupendous stupidity on record," he tells the people of Nashville in his address on the tariff and trusts, "we have obliterated our merchant marine." He tells the real estate men of Boston, too, that, "We have bound ourselves hand and foot in a smug domestic helplessness by this jacket of a tariff we have wound around us." But it is not until he gets down into his native Virginia that all the pent-up convictions of his soul as to the tariff as a commerce-killer are poured out. There he says that "every manufacturer is waking up to the fact that if we do not let anybody climb over the tariff wall to get in, he has got to climb to get out; that we have deliberately domesticated ourselves, that we have deliberately cut ourselves off from the currents of trade; that we have deliberately divorced ourselves from the world's commerce; and now if we are not going to stifle economically, we have got to find our way out into the great international exchanges of the world."

These, from the mild-speaking Woodrow Wilson, are strong words; very, very strong words. But he is not without hope. To the Economic Club of New York in his very recent speech already mentioned, he was able to speak of "some prospect of breaking our isolation by lowering the tariff wall between us and other nations; now that we see some possibility of flinging our own flag out upon the seas again."

The Baltimore Platform declares for the restoration of our Merchant Marine; but declares against subsidies. Governor Wilson demands the restoration of the Merchant Marine. He makes it quite clear that he thinks the abolition of the protective tariff will bring about its renascence in a natural way without any other action.

Governor Wilson also holds the tariff emphatically responsible for a large part of the high cost of living. He animadverts to that portion of the theory of the protective tariff which holds that behind its walls the people of the United States would have free trade among themselves, and thus internal competition would keep prices down. "And I happen to know," he says sharply, "that there is not any internal competition. The great combinations of modern business have made the old theory of protection absolutely antiquated." These two sentences are quoted, the one from a Virginia speech and the other from a New York speech, but they happen to complete his thought upon the subject in the compass of a very few words. His reasoning is that there never was any logic in the protective tariff, even in the beginning, but if there was, the modern combinations in business which have throttled domestic competition, have knocked even that questionable portion out.

But Governor Wilson brings yet another damning indictment against the tariff. He holds it responsible for the corrupting entrance of business into national politics. He said as much to the National Democratic Club in New York on January third: "The reason business is in politics now is that it has thrust itself in by going upon every occasion to Washington and insisting upon getting all that it can from Congress. Politicians have not put the question of the tariff into politics. Business men have put the question of the tariff into politics."

The Governor thinks the Democratic tariff bills of last winter on wool, metals, chemicals, etc., were properly conceived and this is the way he will advance to the attack. To the National Democratic Club, he said: "Though I am not for drastic changes, yet I wish I saw some escape from it. At present I do not . . . We are to act upon the fundamental principle of the Democratic Party, not free trade but tariff for revenue, and we have got to approach that by such avenues and such stages, and at such paces as will be consistent with the stability and safety of the business of the country."

Be warned, however, of the danger of giving too narrow an interpretation to Woodrow Wilson's expression. "The business of the country." He has a larger term which he considers to be exactly synonymous, "The economic interests of the whole community." Now Woodrow Wilson thinks the economic interests of the whole community are affected harmfully by the protective tariff. He says: "There are no separate and distinguishable business interests of the country in a matter like this, or in any other matter of general economic policy. The whole country depends upon its business; where will you draw the line between those whom business affects and those whom it does not affect?"

So there you are again, with just one thing standing out perfectly clear, Woodrow Wilson, if he gets a chance, is going straight to work to rip the protective tariff policy entirely out of our political system, and leave us instead a "tariff for revenue." We have heard this slogan before, but with Wilson it is not a slogan. It is a purpose. It is almost the whole of his program. He will try to do it - sanely, of course, as he has said, but - he will try to do it!

And while Governor Wilson is convinced that the tariff has fostered the trusts, he by no means thinks that the adjustment of the tariff will adjust the trusts. He has a feeling that something is wrong - both with business and with the laws that regulate business. To the Iroquois Club in Chicago he said, "As our economic affairs are organized they cannot go on ;" while to the Virginia Assembly he observed: "Our laws are just about a generation belated, as compared with what other advanced nations have done to bring about adjustments." To the Economic Club of New York he brought this warning: "I merely say that by certain processes now well known and perhaps natural in themselves, there has come about so extraordinary a concentration in the control of business in this country that the people are afraid there will be a concentration in the control of government."

Still he makes it perfectly clear that his objection is not to combinations, to mere business aggregation, but "to combinations that restrain." And his thinking on this subject is sharply defined in his December interview in the New York Times, wherein he said: "A score of searching investigations have recently disclosed with perfect clearness just what is being done by the managers of great corporations to throttle competition and monopolize markets. Those who once denied all wrong-doing on the part of the trusts, and defended them without qualification against all criticism, now admit (their very officers included) that they have been guilty of inexcusable wrongs in the restraint of free opportunity and the smothering of rival enterprise."

The Money Trust

HE knows, too, that there is a "money trust." He described its operations in his Nashville address and concluded with "that is what is charged. And it is not charged without evidence." Before the Virginia Assembly he was more specific, saying: "But I know perfectly well, and I have been told by men who dared not speak above their breaths with regard to it for fear they would be punished, that I could not start a great enterprise in this country that needed a million or more of money to start it, unless I made an agreement and combination with certain gentlemen who control the great credits of the country."

His Remedy

AND in the Nashville address upon the tariff and the trusts Governor Wilson gave evidence that he had the clearest notion imaginable of what to do to curb and discipline the trusts. His plan is this:

"We can oblige every corporation to file with the proper officer of the law a sworn analysis of the way its business is done which will be conclusive - not merely presumptive evidence - upon any trial, an analysis which it cannot controvert upon trial; which will show that such and such transactions are ordered by the president, such and such transactions are ordered by a committee of its board, certain other transactions are ordered by the board as a whole, others by its first vice-president, and so on down through the analvsis. Then when a wrong is committed, we will turn to the analysis and find the officer who, according to that analysis, ordered that particular thing done, and we will indict him, not as an officer of the corporation but as an individual who used that corporation for something that was illegal. Then you say we will find out that he was a dummy. Very well, go on, push the trial, draw in all the collateral evidence and find out whose dummy he was, then amend the indictment and include the gentlemen whose dummy he was, whether it happens to be an official connected with the corporation or not, because in this process we have nothing to do with corporations. We are finding men . . . when you have found that person and given him a season to think it over in the penitentiary the thing will be stopped, and business will be relieved of the embarrassment of breaking up its organization in order to stop these practices."

Direct Legislation

A MAN'S position on the initiative, the referendum and the recall is just now one of the acid tests of his progressivism. On this subject Woodrow Wilson has charted a crooked course. In his book, "The State," he rejected these ideas utterly. Now he stands for them emphatically, but with certain reservations. One reservation is: "The recall of judges I am absolutely against, and always have been." The other reservation is that the chief value of these principles is in their moral effect as "a gun behind the door," rather than as instruments of daily reliance. In changing his opinion in regard to these new features of popular government, he states frankly that his reasoning has been compelled to bow to the superior logic of events. They have proved serviceable to the cause of popular government, and he cites the cases of Oregon and California to prove this. He explains that they do not constitute a national issue, because such things are in the power of the states to remedy, and he anticipates that "the people will in my opinion demand these measures only where they are manifestly necessary to take legislation and the control of administrative action away from special hopelessly entrenched interests."

On conservation Governor Wilson speaks emphatically but not at length, and for the reason that he feels that the practical details are in themselves such vast, far-reaching problems that while the time is at hand for attacking them the man would be foolhardy who attempted to define himself fully now. The Governor has thought of all these questions, but regards them as measures to be worked out practically and accepted or adapted or rejected by the people; and mostly in the individual states as conditions ripen. His utterance regarding conservation will hold here and for a large number of other issues of socio-industrial character. He is clear as to the principal and intention; the measures must be left to the future hour and to the genius of the practical men upon whom their solution will more directly devolve.

The best guide post here to the trend of Woodrow Wilson's mind is that considerable body of legislation beneficial to the condition of the workers which was enacted under his leadership in New Jersey, and perhaps a special indication of the ripeness of his heart if not of his mind on advanced social legislation, is the appointment of a commission to inquire concerning old age pensions and insurance. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Governor considers these all state questions rather than national issues.

Governor Wilson's speech of acceptance has already discussed and made clear his acceptance of the general principles of the Baltimore platform. It didn't sharpen it - a disappointment. In the light of what has already been written here and in the light of what is known of Woodrow Wilson's public career, his personal platform becomes of vast importance because if elected, this is the platform which he will seek to build into the statutes of the United States. In that personal platform and in the wrinkling skin of Woodrow Wilson may be bound up much of history.

http://tinyurl.com/kwcfttb

How to pronounce the name Walter Weyl

I could not initially find the answer to this problem. Walter Weyl had a son though, who was rather well known in his day having testified against Alger Hiss. Here is where we learn the pronunciation:
.....that earned Mr. Weyl a measure of notoriety. Mr. Weyl (pronounced "while") had been active....

It may seem like a waste of time to most others, but I find this important to know as I try to put together as many facts as I can from high to low. Walter While.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Would you like to watch Ted Cruz debate an actual Communist?

The video is here. This is pretty straight forward - Van Jones is a revolutionary communist, he has plainly admitted that. So what I would like to do is take the opportunity to remind everybody about the STORM manifesto. When it comes to Jones and 'communism', there is no name calling involved. It's what he actually believes, and this manifesto goes a long way towards helping you make a valid argument. Below are the chapter by chapter recordings on You Tube. This took me a lot of time to record at the time. Please pass it on to others you wish to educate - and realize, that not everybody you know has the time necessary to read. So if they are just willing to listen, then they can still be educated. It's nice to have options.

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

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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Kerry Makes It Official: 'The era of the Roosevelt Corollary Is Over'

You may have seen the news by now that John Kerry said the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over. Problem is, if you read what he said he isn't substantively talking about the Monroe Doctrine. He's talking about the Roosevelt Corollary. John Kerry(a progressive) is rejecting his own history! Theodore Roosevelt is one of John Kerry's own founding fathers, being the first President of the Progressive era. So what exactly did John Kerry say? Among other things:
The relationship that we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. It’s about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests that we share.

With "other American states", Kerry means countries such as those in the Gulf, Central, or South America. So what does the Roosevelt Corollary say? It is laid out in the The President's Annual Message to Congress of 1904. Among other things:

Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

This is the typical arrogance from progressives that drives me out of my mind. The Monroe Doctrine was generally a defensive declaration, while it is Theodore Roosevelt who lays out a programme of imperialist aggression. Not only has Kerry turned the doctrine on its head, Roosevelt also turned the Monroe Doctrine on its head 100+ years ago.

One thing that progressives will never want people to discover is that "American Imperialism" is a very important ingredient in the mixture of what would become progressivism. They own it, and Theodore Roosevelt is the key to unlocking the door to yet another dismal chapter in the history of progressivism.

http://tinyurl.com/kpxc28y

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Stalin: The collective method proved to be an exceedingly progressive method

In a speech to the Russian people on February 9th, 1946, Joseph Stalin explained the following:
Secondly, by the policy of collectivizing agriculture.

To put an end to our backwardness in agriculture and to provide the country with the largest possible amount of market grain, cotton, and so forth, it was necessary to pass from small peasant farming to large-scale farming, for only large-scale farming can employ modern machinery, utilize all the achievements of agricultural science and provide the largest possible quantity of market produce. But there are two kinds of large-scale farming -- capitalist and collective. The Communist Party could not take the capitalist path of developing agriculture not only on grounds of principle, but also because that path presupposes an exceedingly long process of development and requires the preliminary ruination of the peasants and their transformation into agricultural labourers. The Communist Party therefore took the path of collectivizing agriculture, the path of organizing large farms by uniting the peasant farms into collective farm's. The collective method proved to be an exceedingly progressive method not only because it did not call for the ruination of the peasants, but also, and particularly, because it enabled us in the course of several years to cover the entire country with large collective farms capable of employing modern machinery, of utilizing all the achievements of agricultural science and of providing the country with the largest possible quantity of market produce.

There is no doubt that without the policy of collectivization we would not have been able to put an end to the age-long backwardness of our agriculture in so short a time.

It cannot be said that the Party's policy met with no resistance. Not only backward people, who always shrink from everything new, but even many prominent members of the Party persistently tried to pull our Party back, and by every possible means tried to drag it onto the "ordinary" capitalist path of development. All the anti-Party machinations of the trotskyites and of the Rights, all their "activities" in sabotaging the measures of our Government, pursued the one object of frustrating the Party's policy and of hindering industrialization and collectivization. But the Party yielded neither to the threats of some nor to the howling of others and confidently marched forward in spite of everything. It is to the Party's credit that it did not adjust itself to the backward, that it was not afraid to swim against the stream, and that all the time it held on to its position of the leading force. There can be no doubt that if the Communist Party had not displayed this staunchness and perseverance it would have been unable to uphold the policy of industrializing the country and of collectivizing agriculture.

Everything they do, no matter how many lives it destroys or people it kills, gets labeled as "progress", "forward", or "new ideas". Despite the fact that all of these collective methods are as old as human history. The The Pilgrims gave collectivization a shot. It failed miserably. Other "progressive" ideas such as wealth redistribution are also very old ideas, having been implemented by tyrants for as long as time can remember. The death of truth is an important stage on the road to serfdom.

http://tinyurl.com/l9lglmm

Speech delivered by Joseph V Stalin, February 9th, 1946

Speech Delivered by Josef Vissarionovich Stalin at a meeting of voters of the Stalin Electoral District, Moscow

February 9, 1946

Comrades!

Eight years have passed since the last elections to the Supreme Soviet. This has been a period replete with events of a decisive nature. The first four years were years of intense labour on the part of Soviet people in carrying out the Third Five-Year Plan. The second four years covered the events of the war against the German and Japanese aggressors -- the events of the Second World War. Undoubtedly, the war was the main event during the past period.

It would be wrong to think that the Second World War broke out accidentally, or as a result of blunders committed by certain statesmen, although blunders were certainly committed. As a matter of fact, the war broke out as the inevitable result of the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism. Marxists have more than once stated that the capitalist system of world economy contains the elements of a general crisis and military conflicts, that, in view of that, the development of world capitalism in our times does not proceed smoothly and evenly, but through crises and catastrophic wars. The point is that the uneven development of capitalist countries usually leads, in the course of time, to a sharp disturbance of the equilibrium within the world system of capitalism, and that group of capitalist countries regards itself as being less securely provides with raw materials and markets usually attempts to change the situation and to redistribute "spheres of influence" in its own favour -- by employing armed force. As a result of this, the capitalist world is split into two hostile camps, and war breaks out between them.

Perhaps catastrophic wars could be avoided if it were possible periodically to redistribute raw materials and markets among the respective countries in conformity with their economic weight by means of concerted and peaceful decisions. But this is impossible under the present capitalist conditions of world economic development.

Thus, as a result of the first crisis of the capitalist system of world economy, the First World War broke out; and as a result of the second crisis, the Second World War broke out.

This does not mean, of course, that the Second World War was a copy of the first. On the contrary, the Second world differed substantially in character from the first. It must be borne in mind that before attacking the Allied countries the major fascist states -- Germany, Japan and Italy -- destroyed the last remnants of bourgeois-democratic liberties at home and established there a cruel terroristic regime, trampled upon the principle of the sovereignty and free development of small countries, proclaimed as their own the policy of seizing foreign territory, and shouted from the housetops that they were aiming at world domination and the spreading of the fascist regime all over the world; and by seizing Czechoslovakia and the central regions of China, the Axis Powers showed that they were ready to carry out their threat to enslave all the freedom-loving peoples. In new of this, the Second World War against the Axis Powers, unlike the First World War, assumed from the very outset the character of an anti-fascist war, a war of liberation, one of the tasks of which was to restore democratic liberties. The entry of the Soviet Union into the war against the Axis Powers could only augment -- and really did augment -- the anti-fascist and liberating character of the Second World War.

It was on this basis that the anti-fascist coalition of the Soviet Union, the United States of America, Great Britain and other freedom-loving countries came into being and later played the decisive role in defeating the armed forces of the Axis Powers.

That is how it stands with the question of the origin and character of the Second World War.

Everybody, perhaps, now admits that the war was not nor could have been an accident in the lives of the peoples, that it actually became a war of the peoples for their existence, and that for that very reason could not have been a swift or lightning war.

As far as our country is concerned, for her this war was the fiercest and most arduous ever fought in the history of our Motherland.

But the war was not only a curse. It was also a great school which examined and tested all the forces of the people. The war laid bare all facts and events in the rear and at the front, it ruthlessly tore down all the veils and coverings that concealed the actual features of slates, governments and parties, and brought them onto the stage without masks and without make-up, with all their defects and merits. The war was something in the nature of an examination of our Soviet system, of our State, of our Government and of our Communist Party, and it summed up their work and said, as it were: Here they are, your people and organizations, their life and work scrutinize them carefully and treat them according to their deserts.

This is one of the positive sides of the war.

For us, for the voters, this is of immense importance, for it helps us quickly and impartially to appraise the activities of the Party and its men, and to draw correct conclusions. At another time we would have had to study the speeches and reports of the representatives of the Party, analyze them, compare their words with their deeds, sum up the results, and so, forth. This is a complicated and laborious job, and there is no guarantee against mistakes. It is different now, when the war is over, when the war itself has verified the work of our organizations and leaders and has summed it up. It is now much easier for us to examine it, and arrive at correct conclusions.

And so, what is the summation of the war?

There is one principal summation upon which all the others rest. This summation is, that towards the end of the war the enemies sustained defeat and we and our Allies proved to be the victors. We terminated the war with complete victory over our enemies -- this is the principal summation of the war. But this summation is too general, and we cannot put a full stop here. Of course, to defeat the enemies in a war such as the Second World War, the like of which has never been witnessed in the history of mankind before, means achieving a victory of world historical importance. That is true. But still, it is a general summation, and we cannot rest content with it. To appreciate the great historical importance of our victory we must analyze the matter more concretely.

And so, how should our victory over the enemies be interpreted? What can this victory signify from the point of view of the state and the development of the internal forces of our country?

Our victory signifies, first of all, that our Soviet social system was victorious, that the Soviet social system successfully passed the test of fire in the war and proved that it is fully viable.

As we know, the foreign press on more than one occasion asserted that the Soviet social system was a "dangerous experiment" that was doomed to failure, that the Soviet system was a "house of cards" having no foundations in life and imposed upon the people by the Cheka, and that a slight shock from without was sufficient to cause this "house of cards" to collapse.

Now we can say that the war has, refuted all these assertions of the foreign press and has proved them to have been groundless. The war proved that the Soviet social system is a genuinely people's system, which grew up from the ranks of the people and enjoys their powerful| support; that the Soviet social system is fully viable and stable form of organization of society.

More than that. The issue now is not whether the Soviet social system is viable or not, because after the object lessons of the war, no skeptic now dares to express doubt concerning the viability of the Soviet social system. Now the issue is that the Soviet social system has proved to be more viable and stable than the non-Soviet social system, that the Soviet social system is a better form of organization of society than any non-Soviet social system.

Secondly, our victory signifies that our Soviet state system was victorious, that our multinational Soviet state passed all the tests of the war and proved its viability.

As we know, prominent foreign journalists have more than once expressed themselves to the effect that the Soviet multinational state is an "artificial and short-lived structure," that in the event of any complications arising the collapse of the Soviet Union would be inevitable, that the Soviet Union would share the fate of Austria-Hungary.

Now we can say that the war refuted these statements of the foreign press and proved them to have been devoid of all foundation. The war proved that the Soviet multinational state system successfully passed the test, grew stronger than ever during the war, and turned out to be quite a viable state system. These gentlemen failed to realize that the analogy of Austria-Hungary was unsound, because our multinational state grew up not on the bourgeois basis, which stimulates sentiments of national distrust and national enmity, but on the Soviet basis, which, on the contrary, cultivates sentiments of friendship and fraternal cooperation among the peoples of our state.

Incidentally, after the lessons of the war, these gentlemen no longer dare to come out and deny the viability of the Soviet state system. The issue now is no longer the viability of the Soviet state system, because there can be no doubt about its viability. Now the issue is that the Soviet state system has proved to be a model multinational state, that the Soviet state system is a system of state organization in which the national problem and the problem, of the collaboration of nations have found a better solution than in any other multinational state.

Thirdly, our victory signifies that the Soviet Armed Forces, our Red Army, was victorious, that the Red Army heroically withstood all the hardships of the war, utterly routed the armies of our enemies, and emerged from the war the victor. (A voice: "Under Comrade Stalin's leadership!" All rise. Loud and prolonged applause, rising to an ovation.)

Now, everybody, friends and enemies alike, admit that the Red Army proved equal to its tremendous task. But this was not the case six years ago, in the period before the war. As we know, prominent foreign journalists, and many recognized authorities on military affairs abroad, repeatedly stated that the condition of the Red Army roused grave doubts, that the Red Army was poorly armed and lacked a proper commanding staff, that its morale was beneath criticism, that while it might be fit for defence, it was useless for attack, and that, if struck by the German troops, the Red Army would collapse like "a colossus with feet of clay." Such statements were made not only in Germany, but also in France, Great Britain and America.

Now we can say that the war refuted all these statements and proved them to have been groundless and ridiculous. The war proved that the Red Army is not "a colossus with feet of clay," but a first-class modern army, equipped with the most up-to-date armaments, led by most experienced commanders and possessing high morale and fighting qualities. It must not be forgotten that the Red Army is the army which utterly routed the German army, the army which only yesterday struck terror in the hearts of the armies of the European states.

It must be noted that the "critics" of the Red Army are becoming fewer and fewer. More than that. Comments are more and more frequently appearing in the foreign press noting the high qualities of the Red Army, the skill of its men and commanders, and the flawlessness of its strategy and tactics. This is understandable. After the brilliant victories the Red Army achieved at Moscow and Stalingrad, at Kursk and Belgorod, at Kiev and Kirovograd, at Minsk and Bobruisk, at Leningrad and Tallinn, at Jassy and Lvov, on the Vistula and the Niemen, on the Danube and the Oder and at Vienna and Berlin -- after all this, it is impossible not to admit that the Red Army is a first-class army, from which much can be learned.

This is how we concretely understand the victory our country achieved over her enemies.

Such, in the main, is the summation of the war.

It would be wrong to think that such a historical victory could have been achieved without preliminary preparation by the whole country for active defence. It would be no less wrong to assume that such preparation could have been made in a short space of time, in a matter of three or four years. It would be still more wrong to assert that our victory was entirely due to the bravery of our troops. Without bravery it is, of course, impossible to achieve victory. But bravery alone is not enough to overpower an enemy who possesses a vast army, first-class armaments, well-trained officers and fairly well-organized supplies. To withstand the blow of such an enemy, to resist him and then to inflict utter defeat upon him it was necessary to have, in addition to the unexampled bravery of our troops, fully up-to-date armaments, and in sufficient quantities, and well-organized supplies, also in sufficient quantities. But for this it was necessary to have, and in, sufficient quantities, elementary things such as: metals -- for the production of armaments, equipment and industrial machinery; fuel -- to ensure the operation of industry and transport; cotton -- to manufacture army clothing; grain -- to supply the army with food.

Can it be said that before entering the Second World War our country already possessed the necessary minimum of the material potentialities needed to satisfy these main requirements? I think it can. To prepare for this immense task we had to carry out three five year plans of national-economic development. It was these three five-year plans that enabled us to create these material potentialities. At all events, the situation in our country in this respect was ever so much better before the Second World War, in 1940, than it was before the First World War, in 1913.

What were the material potentialities at our country's disposal before the Second World War?

To help you to understand this I will have to make you a brief report on the activities of the Communist Party in the matter of preparing our country for active defence.

If we take the data for 1940 the eve of the Second World War -- and compare it with the data for 1913 -- the eve of the First World War -- we shall get the following picture.

In 1913 there was produced in our country 4,220,000 tons of pig iron, 4,230,000 tons of steel, 29,000,000 tons of coal, 9,000,000 tons of oil, 21,600,000 tons of market grain and 740,000 tons of raw cotton.

Such were the material potentialities of our country when she entered the First World War.

This was the economic basis old Russia could utilize for the purpose of prosecuting the war.

As regards 1940, in that year the following was produced in our country: 15,000,000 tons of pig iron, i.e., nearly four times as much as in 1913; 18,300,000 tons of steel, i.e., four and a half times as much as in 1913; 166,000,000 tons of coal, i.e., five and a half times as much as in 1913; 31,000,000 tons of oil, i.e., three and a half times as much as in 1913; 38,300,000 tons of market grain, i.e., 17,000,000 tons more than in 1913; 2,700,000 tons of raw cotton, i.e., three and a half times as much as in 1913.

Such were the material potentialities of our country when she entered the Second World War.

This was the economic basis the Soviet Union could utilize for the purpose of prosecuting the war.

The difference, as you see, is colossal.

This unprecedented growth of production cannot be regarded as the simple and ordinary development of a country from backwardness to progress. It was a leap by which our Motherland became transformed from a backward country into an advanced country, from an agrarian into an industrial country.

This historic transformation was brought about in the course of three five-year plans, beginning with 1928 with the first year of the First Five-Year Plan. Up to that time we had to restore our ruined industries and heal the wounds inflicted upon us by the First World War and the Civil War. If we take into consideration the fact that the First Five-Year Plan was carried out in four years, and that the execution of the Third Five-Year Plan was interrupted by the war in the fourth year, it works out that the transformation of our country from an agrarian into an industrial country took only about thirteen years.

It cannot but be admitted that thirteen years is an incredibly short period for the execution of such a gigantic task.

It is this that explains the storm of debate that was roused in the foreign press at one time by the publication of these figures. Our friends decided that a "miracle" had happened; those who were ill-disposed towards us proclaimed that the five-year plans were "Bolshevik propaganda" and "tricks of the Cheka." But as miracles do not happen and the Cheka is not so powerful as to be able to annul the laws of social development, "public opinion" abroad was obliged to resign itself to the facts.

By what policy was the Communist Party able to create these material potentialities in so short a time?

First of all by the Soviet policy of industrializing the country.

The Soviet method of industrializing the country differs radically from the capitalist method of industrialization. In capitalist countries, industrialization usually starts with light industry. In view of the fact that light industry requires less investments, that capital turnover is faster, and profits are made more easily than in heavy industry, light industry becomes the first object of industrialization, in those countries. Only after the passage of a long period of time, during which light industry accumulates profits and concentrates them in the banks, only after this, does the turn of heavy industry come and accumulation begin gradually to be transferred to heavy industry for the purpose of creating conditions for its expansion. But this is a long process, which takes a long time, running into several decades, during which you have to wait while the light industry develops and do without heavy industry. Naturally, the Communist Party, could not take this path. The Party knew that war was approaching, that it would be impossible to defend our country without heavy industry, that it was necessary to set to work to develop heavy industry as quickly as possible, and that to be belated in this matter meant courting defeat. The Party remembered what Lenin said about it being impossible to protect the independence of our country without heavy industry, and about the likelihood of the Soviet system perishing without heavy industry. The Communist Party of our country therefore rejected the "ordinary" path of industrialization and commenced the industrialization of the country by developing heavy industry. This was a very difficult task, but one that could be accomplished. It was greatly facilitated by the nationalization of industry and the banks, which made it possible quickly to collect funds and transfer them to heavy industry.

There can be no doubt that without this it would have been impossible to transform our country into an industrial country in so short a time.

Secondly, by the policy of collectivizing agriculture.

To put an end to our backwardness in agriculture and to provide the country with the largest possible amount of market grain, cotton, and so forth, it was necessary to pass from small peasant farming to large-scale farming, for only large-scale farming can employ modern machinery, utilize all the achievements of agricultural science and provide the largest possible quantity of market produce. But there are two kinds of large-scale farming -- capitalist and collective. The Communist Party could not take the capitalist path of developing agriculture not only on grounds of principle, but also because that path presupposes an exceedingly long process of development and requires the preliminary ruination of the peasants and their transformation into agricultural labourers. The Communist Party therefore took the path of collectivizing agriculture, the path of organizing large farms by uniting the peasant farms into collective farm's. The collective method proved to be an exceedingly progressive method not only because it did not call for the ruination of the peasants, but also, and particularly, because it enabled us in the course of several years to cover the entire country with large collective farms capable of employing modern machinery, of utilizing all the achievements of agricultural science and of providing the country with the largest possible quantity of market produce.

There is no doubt that without the policy of collectivization we would not have been able to put an end to the age-long backwardness of our agriculture in so short a time.

It cannot be said that the Party's policy met with no resistance. Not only backward people, who always shrink from everything new, but even many prominent members of the Party persistently tried to pull our Party back, and by every possible means tried to drag it onto the "ordinary" capitalist path of development. All the anti-Party machinations of the trotskyites and of the Rights, all their "activities" in sabotaging the measures of our Government, pursued the one object of frustrating the Party's policy and of hindering industrialization and collectivization. But the Party yielded neither to the threats of some nor to the howling of others and confidently marched forward in spite of everything. It is to the Party's credit that it did not adjust itself to the backward, that it was not afraid to swim against the stream, and that all the time it held on to its position of the leading force. There can be no doubt that if the Communist Party had not displayed this staunchness and perseverance it would have been unable to uphold the policy of industrializing the country and of collectivizing agriculture.

Was the Communist Party able to make proper use of the material potentialities created in this way for the purpose of developing war production and of supplying the Red Army with the armaments it needed?

I think it was, and that it did so with the utmost success.

Leaving out of account the first year of the war, when the evacuation of industry to the East hindered the work of developing war production, we can say that during the three succeeding years of the war the Party achieved such successes as enabled it not only to supply the front with sufficient quantities of artillery, machine guns, rifles, aeroplanes, tanks and ammunition, but also to accumulate reserves. Moreover, as is well known, the quality of our armaments, far from being inferior, was, in general, even superior to the German.

It is well known, that during the last three years of the war our tank industry produced annually an average of over 30,000 tanks, self propelled guns and armoured cars.

It is well known, further, that in the same period our aircraft industry produced annually up to 40,000 aeroplanes.

It is also well known that our artillery industry in the same period produced annually up to 120,000 guns of all calibres, upto 450,000 light and heavy machine guns, over 3,000,000 rifles and about 2,000,000 automatic rifles.

Lastly, it is well known that our mortar industry in the period of 1942-44 produced annually an average of up to 100,000 mortars.

It goes without saying that simultaneously we produced corresponding quantities of artillery shells, mines of various kinds, air bombs, and rifle and machine-gun cartridges.

It is well known, for example, that in 1944 alone we produced over 240,000,000 shells, bombs and mines and 7,400,000,000 cartridges.

Such is the general picture of the way the Red Army was supplied with arms and ammunition.

As you see, it does not resemble the picture of the way our army was supplied during the First World War, when the front suffered a chronic shortage of artillery and shells, when the army fought without tanks and aircraft, and when one rifle was issued for every three men.

As regards supplying the Red Army with food and clothing, it is common knowledge that the front not only felt no shortage whatever in this respect, but even, had the necessary reserves.

This is how the matter stands as regards the activities of the Communist Party of our country in the period up to the beginning of the war and during the war.

Now a few words about the Communist Party's plans of work for the immediate future. As you know, these plans are formulated in the new five-year plan, which is to be adopted in the very near future. The main tasks of the new five-year plan are to rehabilitate the devastated regions of our country, to restore industry and agriculture to the prewar level, and then to exceed that level to a more or less considerable extent. Apart from the fact that the rationing system is to be abolished in the very near future, special attention will be devoted to the expansion of the production of consumers' goods, to raising the standard of living of the working people by steadily reducing the prices of all commodities, and to the extensive organization of scientific research institutes of every kind capable of giving the fullest scope to our scientific forces.

I have no doubt that if we give our scientists proper assistance they will be able in the very near future not only to overtake but even outstrip the achievements of science beyond the borders of our country.

As regards long-term plans, our Party intends to organize another powerful upswing of our national economy that will enable us to raise our industry to a level, say, three times as high as that of prewar industry. We must see to it that our industry shall be able to produce annually up to 50,000,000 tons of pig iron, up to 60,000,000 tons of steel, up to 500,000,000 tons of coal and up to 60,000,000 tons of oil. Only when we succeed in doing that can we be sure that our Motherland will be insured against all contingencies. This will need, perhaps, another three five-year plans, if, not more. But it can be done, and we must do it.

This, then, is my brief report on the activities of the Communist Party during the recent past and on its plans of work for the future.

It is for you to judge to what extent the Party has been and is working on the proper lines, and whether it could not have worked better.

It is said that victors are not judged, that they must not be criticized, that they must not be enquired into. This is not true. Victors may and should be judged, they may and should be criticized and enquired into. This is beneficial not only for the cause, but also for the victors; there will be less swelled-headedness, and there will be more modesty. I regard the election campaign as the voters' judgment the Communist Party of our country as the ruling party. The result of the election will be the voters' verdict. The Communist Party of our country would not be worth much if it feared criticism and investigation. The Communist Party is ready receive the verdict of the voters.

In this election contest the Communist Party does not stand alone. It is going to the polls in a bloc with the non-Party people. In the past Communists were rather distrustful of non-Party people and of non-Partyism. This was due to the fact that various bourgeois groups, who thought it was not to their advantage to come before the voters without a mask, not infrequently used the non-Party flag as a screen. This was the case in the past. Times are different now. Non-Party people are now separated from the bourgeoisie by a barrier called the Soviet social system. But on the other side of the barrier the non-Party people are united with the Communists in one, common, collective body of Soviet people. Within this collective body they fought side by side to consolidate the might of our country, they fought side by side and shed their blood on the various fronts for the sake of the freedom and greatness of our Motherland, and side by side they hammered out and forged our country's victory over her enemies. The only difference between them is that some belong to the Party and some don't. But this difference is only a formal one. The important thing is that all are engaged in one common cause. That is why the bloc of Communists and non-Party people is a natural and vital thing.

In conclusion, permit me to express my thanks for the confidence which you have shown me (loud and prolonged applause. A voice: "Cheers for the great leader of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! ") by nominating me as a candidate for the Supreme Soviet. You need have no doubt that will do my best to justify your confidence. (All rise. Loud and prolonged applause rising to an ovation. Voices in different parts of the hall: "Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!" "Cheers for the great leader of the peoples!" "Glory to great Stalin!" "Long live Comrade Stalin, the candidate of the entire people!" "Glory to the creator of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! ")

Saturday, November 9, 2013

"The American Invaders": Fred MacKenzie's indictment of big government in Great Britain

Frederick Mackenzie's book is one that progressive historians love to flaunt amongst other progressive historians and among their students. But have you ever actually read the book? You should, because if you wish to challenge a progressive historian it will serve you well. I'll explain:

I chose Robert B. Reich's 2010 book "The Work of Nations" to serve as my example, because his is a high profile name that's easily recognizable. At the end, I will list some others. On page 29 of "The Work of Nations", the following is written in a footnote:

Beginning in the 1890's, the average British citizen was treated to a series of lurid exposes about the German and American economic onslaught and its baleful consequences for Britain.

This is certainly true, and MacKenzie's book has become a favorite because of this aspect. But it's what else that MacKenzie has to say in the book that's so outstanding. On page 222 you will see the final chapter, titled "The Secret of American Success". Here's what MacKenzie has to say:

THE SECRET OF AMERICAN SUCCESS

Americans are succeeding to-day largely because of their climate, their superior education, their longer working hours, their willingness to receive new ideas, their better plant, and perhaps most of all, because of their freedom from hampering traditions.

It may be noticed that I do not say Americans are succeeding because of the great resources of their country. This I am aware is the common explanation. But although the natural resources of America are one of the great ultimate factors in the contest, it is yet possible to attribute too much importance to them at the present stage. England has magnificent resources, and is placed in a spot which naturally makes her a great centre of the world. Here we have iron, and coal, shipping facilities, and mineral wealth of every kind, and it is not for us to complain of the natural resources of our competitors.

What we must complain about is our bad legislation, our neglected education, our indifference, and excessive optimism. Through our bad legislation we have lost and are losing many trades. The tobacco, printing, and electric industries are instances of this. Once Ireland had flourishing tobacco plantations. These were purposely killed in order that the tobacco industry in our then American colonies might be fostered. Our erstwhile colonies are now a rival nation, but the revenue restrictions still make tobacco growing here practically impossible.

So he wipes the argument of "natural resources" off the table in the beginning of the chapter, while at the same time he lays the blame at the feet of government that is regulating everything out of existence. He continues:

There is no reason, climatic or other, why Ireland to-day should not produce great tobacco crops. A short Act of Parliament fostering the home growth of tobacco by a simplification of the collection of duty, and a rebate - or even temporary remission - of taxes on tobacco grown within the kingdom, would create a new industry in Ireland at a bound.

In other words "The Americans are killing us! We have big government, and they do not!" That's what MacKenzie is saying in this book. That's how he ends the book, that's the message he wants his readers to take home. You could even go so far as to say that MacKenzie is pointing to American Exceptionalism.

He does not just end his book with a message about excessive regulation. He also carries this message in other chapters of the book as well: (page 89)

Again I appeal to the statement of the Committee of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. They reported our backwardness to be largely due to the restrictive character of the legislation governing the initiation and development of electric power and traction enterprises. They recommended that the clauses in certain Acts which enable local authorities indefinitely to block local schemes should be repealed, that the Government departments which control the industry should be properly staffed, that the departmental regulations affecting engineering developments should be revised, and that the excessive time and expense needed to obtain permission to carry out electrical developments should be seen to.

Now, as to other progressive historians who have latched onto this book only for it's aspects of "Americanization", here are a few examples:

Consumer's Imperium, page xvi, the author.

Major Problems in American Popular Culture, page 92, Two authors one and two.

Giants of Enterprise, page 309, the author.

Spreading the American Dream, page 22, the author.

This last one is the best, because it leads to a footnote referencing a cluster of 7 other books which all reference MacKenzie.

A Destiny of Choice?: New Directions in American Consumer History, page 24, the author.

The other thing to note is how every author link I referenced goes to a university, mostly history professors. Now I do not know who any of these people are and contacting any of them would be a complete and utter waste of time, but here's the point.

Uniformity. Uniformity is what you have here. Read the books, and notice how all of them largely contain the same message worded slightly differently? This is the problem and, I think, danger that we face from the academic world of historians who currently are largely unchallenged. They engage in group think and many do not even realize it. They use a book that at it's closing undermines their very arguments, and nobody is even aware of it. Some progressive historian fed them a line of bull as they were in college, and they run with it. Some progressive historian up the chain fed their history professors with bull, and their professors did not question it either. You can follow this right back up the line. The history professor right now who is being indoctrinated into this line will not question it either. So the story continues right on down the road. And all you have to do is read the book.

History is anathema to the progressive crowd, which is why so many of them have engaged in revisionism over the years. But for most modern professors, I would imagine that plenty of them are completely in the dark.

http://tinyurl.com/qjq7jmt