Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction

Today is February 6th, 2012. Mr Ronald Wilson Reagan would've been 101 years old today. Happy Birthday, Mr. Reagan. As a small token of commemoration, I would like to put focus on what I think is the most important thing he ever said, and he said a whole lot worth remembering.

Our Founding Fathers, here in this country, brought about the only true revolution that has ever taken place in man's history. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers. But only here did that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since, evolve the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny. But freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well thought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Thank You.

It wasn't but a few months ago that I even found out that the audio of this does indeed exist. Which is good, because I don't think anybody could've ever said this as forceful as he did.

I clipped this part of the speech, which is the end of it, and uploaded it here.

Someone else put the full 43 minute speech up on Youtube, which can be found here.

Socialism is super-progressivism

A picture is worth a thousand words.

From "The American Magazine", November 1912. Page 20.

http://tinyurl.com/7sx7fe5

Socialism is the Logical Outcome of Progressivism

There once lived a superprogressive by the name of Victor L Berger. He helped found the Democratic Socialists of America, was also a founding member of the Socialist Party of America, and was the first Socialist elected to the U.S. House. In November of 1912, superprogressive Victor L Berger wrote an article titled "Socialism, the Logical Outcome of Progressivism", which is little more than a pep article for fellow socialist Eugene V Debs. If you've read one tract of run of the mill political advocacy, you've read them all. But what's not run of the mill, is the picture caption: (The article starts on the right side of page 19, the picture is on page 20)

THE SANEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL SOCIALIST IN THIS COUNTRY

Victor L. Berger, the first Socialist ever to sit in Congress has fought unfalteringly for twenty-five years. He is the man who made possible the Socialistic victory in Milwaukee, and he commands respect everywhere for his honesty and common sense. He is a superprogressive. Berger is for many of the things progressives want, but he cannot see why they stop at these: he goes much further

Now, Berger had to have seen this caption and wholly agreed with it at the time. Or, he wrote it himself in third person, and the editors of American Magazine did not object to it. Either way, he did stylize his article as socialism being the logical end to progressivism. I downloaded the image with this caption, so that I can use it in the future. Oh yes, this is gold. :-) And should anybody in the future run across any of this, by all means, download the image and use it yourself. Any of what you find on my blog, take it and use it well.

http://tinyurl.com/6qocgcc

What effect does Fabian socialism have upon Liberalism?

In a letter to 'Sorge'(probably Friedrich Adolph Sorge), Friedrich Engels commented about Fabian Socialism: (January 18th, 1893)

The Fabians here in London are a band of ambitious folk who have sufficient understanding to comprehend the inevitableness of the social revolution but who cannot trust this gigantic work to the rough proletarian alone, and therefore have the kindness to place themselves at the head of it. Dread of the revolution is their fundamental principle. They are the cultured par excellence. Their socialism is municipal socialism - the commune, not the nation, shall at least be the possessor of the means of production. This Socialism of theirs is then presented as an extreme but inevitable consequence of middle-class Liberalism, and hence their tactics are to fight the Liberals not as decided opponents but to drive them on to socialistic consequences; therefore to trick them, to permeate Liberalism with Socialism and not to oppose Socialist candidates to Liberal ones, but to palm them off to thrust them on under some pretext.

Normally, I have little faith in the commentary of communists, but it needs to be remembered that communists and Fabians had a clash; one believes ardently in the glorious revolution, and the others believe in the glorious evolution. So this is not commentary that was made out of a sheer need to propagandize something for which it is not.

And let's examine the timeline here. Fabian Socialism was imported to the States in 1895. It's right around this time period that the "Reform Movement" which preceded progressivism started to change. Prior to the progressive movement, reformers are hard to pin down. They are not full fledged statists, down the line point by point authoritarians.(some are, but very few) One of the closest to a full fledged statist is Theodore Roosevelt. The first true hardcore, high profile statist, is Woodrow Wilson. The reformers at all levels(national, state, local) went from a disparate movement of people with all kinds of beliefs, ranging from many conservatives might agree with to full fledged statists within about 20 years. How?

Nudge.

Engels' words certainly fit, but ultimately all of this is a bit of conjecture on my part.

And I need to define my term here in this context as well. By "Liberalism", I mean it as it existed 120 years ago, a more classical version. In a lot of ways, they were the descendents of our Founders, and they did not want to do a 'seek and destroy' hit upon the COTUS, the US, or it's people. They still believed in liberty, a fairly limited government, and so forth.

Based on how Engels has described this, you could even go so far as to say that the Fabians were the original Saul Alinsky Radicals. For those of you who own this book like I do, see page 91, paragraph 3. Fits like a glove, doesn't it?

http://tinyurl.com/7x38m5v of this posting.

Margaret Sanger's Parliament of Population (Population Congress)

In an article titled "My Way to Peace",(From the Sanger public documents archive) she wrote the following:

Second, to have Congress set up a special department for the study of population problems, and appoint a Parliament of Population Directors representing the various branches of science.

This body to direct and control the population through Birth rates and immigration, and direct its distribution over the country according to national needs consistent with the taste, fitness and interest of the individuals.

The main objects of the Population Congress would be:

(a) to raise the level and increase the general intelligence of our population.

(b) to increase the population slowly by keeping the birth rate at its present level of fifteen, decreasing the death rate below its present mark of 11.

(c) keep the doors of Immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feeble-minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphiletic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred from entrance by the Immigration Laws of 1924.

(d) apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization, and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

(e) to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feeble-minded parents, the government would pension all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.

(f) the whole dysgenic population would have its choice of segregation or sterilization.

(g) there would be farm lands and homesteads where these segregated persons would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.

This is just............ wow. There's not much I can say to follow this up, really. Except this: Do not take these people lightly. Do not just brush this aside. And don't think this is just something that was talked about 100 years ago and so it's ok, no need to worry anymore. Progressivism is alive and well today, and once progressives get ideas they do not just let them go. They merely change their language. Theodore Roosevelt was the first progressive to propose nationalized healthcare. What did Obama do in 2009? Edward House(Wilson's mirror-self) wrote the book on unaccountable czars(administrators) who only report to the president. What has Obama surrounded himself with? Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood. What has this administration fought so hard to make sure doesn't get de-funded? If all the puzzle pieces fit, then you are actually looking at the finished product. Do not brush these things aside, or anything else you see from progressivism that makes you scratch your head and think "there's something wrong here". Your instincts are serving you well. My goal is to make sure your mind and your instincts are in sync, with knowledge, by removing the shadows that these progressives have for far too long lived in. No more. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for this disease.

Who are the people in the Fabian Window?

(click the picture to make it larger)The people at the top row are well known. On the left operating the bellows to give the fire more air and make it hotter is Edward R Pease, A Fabian founding member and he was their secretary. In the center is Sidney Webb, who is working with George Bernard Shaw on the right to pound on the globe in an effort to re-mould the world. Both of whom were early members. The bottom row is what's much harder to find. If you don't hit the right names while searching, it's largely impossible to find. On the website for the London School for Economics:

The window - is set within an oak frame, giving an overall size of 81 x 76cm. Cited as an example of 'Shavian wit', the figures are in Tudor dress to poke fun at Pease who evidently loved everything medieval. The Fabian Society coat of arms is shown as a wolf in sheep's clothing. The first man, crouching on the left, is HG Wells, cocking a snook at the others. He is followed by the actor-manager Charles Charrington, Aylmer Maude (translator of Tolstoy's War and Peace), G Stirling Taylor (reading a book, New Worlds for Old), and the dentist F Lawson Dodd. The women, from left to right, are Maud Pember Reeves (mother of Amber Reeves, who bore Wells a daughter in 1909), Miss Hankin, the suffragist Miss Mabel Atkinson, Mrs Boyd Dawson, and, at the end, the artist who made the window, Caroline Townshend herself.

Who founded Fabian Socialism in the United States?

Most people don't even know what Fabianism is. Those who do, may think it's limited to Britain. It's not. In The Encyclopedia of Social Reform, By William D. P. Bliss, this is written:(Page 578)

FABIAN SOCIETY, THE (AMERICAN) A movement to establish in America a Fabian Society and carry on a work like that of the Fabian Society in England (see the next article) was commenced in Boston in February, 1895, under the lead of the Rev WDP Bliss.

Doesn't get any clearer than that. It was founded by William Dwight Porter Bliss, in Boston. His Fabian organization in Boston ended up publishing the paper "The American Fabian". They initially had very limited success(see pages 320-322), but Fabians in America would go on to have influence in at least two different Presidential Administrations. Walter Lippmann, who served in Woodrow Wilson's administration, was a Fabian. And Stuart Chase, who was a member of Franklin D Roosevelt's "Brain Trust" was also a Fabian.

As a testament to how successful Fabianism was(and still is) in the United States, it was Stuart Chase who coined the term "The New Deal" in one of his books.

But how did the Fabians have so much success, if they initially met with so much failure? It was the Colleges and "institutions of learning". And the fact that the further they got away from the word "socialism", the more success they had. The Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which was founded by Harry Laidler, (different link) had two important members. Walter Lippmann and Stuart Chase. Chase was also involved in the Fabian's attempt to create a mirror of their London School of Economics(LSE) here in the US, the The Rand School of Social Science.

As a side note,(I know there's a lot of information here, but I hope some of you are following the links and the information bread crumbs) this explains why William Ayers decided to make the classroom the frontline of his revolution. He learned it from his predecessors. Ayers, formerly of the SDS, Students for a Democratic Society. SDS, which split from the League for Industrial Democracy. The League for Industrial Democracy, which is simply the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, renamed.

Another side note, about the League for Industrial Democracy, What is "Industrial Democracy"? Ask Sidney Webb(co-founder of the LSE and original Founding Fabian), who wrote the book on it. At some point, once you learn their language you realize that they are being much more honest than it initially seems.