Posted on 07/11/2008 11:47:16 AM PDT by Bokababe
To understand anything, we have to know its history. To understand who stole our culture, we need to take a look at the history of "political correctness."
Early Marxist theory
Before World War I, Marxist theory said that if Europe ever erupted in war, the working classes in every European country would rise in revolt, overthrow their governments and create a new Communist Europe. But when war broke out in the summer of 1914, that didn't happen. Instead, the workers in every European country lined up by the millions to fight their country's enemies. Finally, in 1917, a Communist revolution did occur, in Russia. But attempts to spread that revolution to other countries failed because the workers did not support it.
After World War I ended in 1918, Marxist theorists had to ask themselves the question: What went wrong? As good Marxists, they could not admit Marxist theory had been incorrect. Instead, two leading Marxist intellectuals, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary (Lukacs was considered the most brilliant Marxist thinker since Marx himself) independently came up with the same answer. They said that Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interests, that a Communist revolution was impossible in the West, until both could be destroyed. That objective, established as cultural Marxism's goal right at the beginning, has never changed.
A new strategy
Gramsci famously laid out a strategy for destroying Christianity and Western culture, one that has proven all too successful. Instead of calling for a Communist revolution up front, as in Russia, he said Marxists in the West should take political power last, after a "long march through the institutions" the schools, the media, even the churches, every institution that could influence the culture.....
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
The simple story is that the following things happened: (1) Our Judeo-Christian heritage was weakened by the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, (2) The robust cultural confidence of the West was destroyed by the two world wars, (3) Affluence and technology became the new gods that the culture worshiped.
Cultural Marxism would not have had a chance had it not been for these three things. The answer: a return to the roots of our Western culture and a rejection of all the false gods.
btt
Exactly the same for me - even the Mormons.
We had peer pressure to be upstanding; and, if that wasn’t enough we knew Jesus was watching!
A New DirectionThe dire predicament in which we find ourselves demands a drastic change in strategy by cultural conservatives. It is becoming increasingly clear that we must heed Paul Weyrich's call for a tactical retreat from the fields of political battle--not totally or permanently, but until such time as we can confidently proclaim that traditionalists are a force to be reckoned with in the wider society. Without this, any offensives using political means are doomed to failure. They are therefore a waste of our people's time, money, and energy, and for that reason should not even be attempted. We will never succeed in taking over political structures until we can convince the American people that we can be trusted to take them over, and to do that we must win the people over culturally--by defining how man ought to act, how he ought to perceive the world around him, and what it means to live the good life. Political arrangements can only be formed after these fundamental questions have been answered.
Once this basic belief is accepted, our next task is to develop the means by which it can be put into practice. We must, as Mr. Weyrich has suggested, develop a network of parallel cultural institutions existing side-by-side with the dominant leftist cultural institutions. The building and promotion of these institutions will require the development of a movement that will not merely reform the existing post-war conservative movement, but will in fact be forced to supersede it--if it is to succeed at all--because it will pursue a very different strategy and be premised on a very different view of its role in society.
Our movement--which we will call the New Traditionalist movement--will not seek to immediately replace the dominant culture. A retreat will allow us to regroup and find our bearings. The overemphasis on effecting change through political activism has left us disoriented, distracted, and overly prone to accept the cultural assumptions of the Left. But this tactical retreat will ultimately lead to strategic victory.
A central mission of this movement is to advance a true traditionalist counter-culture based on virtue, excellence, and self-discipline. The New Traditionalists will not be exclusively Christians, but many of them inevitably will be. What binds the New Traditionalists is a belief that each individual has a duty to obey a higher law than his own will and appetite. New Traditionalists reject the materialism, hedonism, consumerism, egoism, and the cult of self-actualization which permeate modern life. We share a willingness to face reality and repudiate ideology--i.e., a set of beliefs that bear no relation to how people really think and how people really live.
There will be three main stages in the unfolding of this movement. The first stage will be devoted to the development of a highly motivated elite able to coordinate future activities. The second stage will be devoted to the development of institutions designed to make an impact on the wider elite and a relatively small minority of the masses. The third stage will involve changing the overall character of American popular culture
The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement
I very much recommend reading the entire essay; the above is just a small excerpt.
One prophet to another:
You got the right spirit. Marxist propoganda - the steady stream of lies and deception - must be confronted squarely and vigorously.
Global warming is a vicious lie perpetrated by fascist thugs.
The US is NOT a racist culture.
Expanding government is the enemy of freedom.
Endangered species are a natural process.
And on and on it must go, until the voices of corruption and destruction are silenced by the sheer power of truth spoken endlessly and without restraint.
Lies survive in the absence of truth. Truth spoken loudly and often will drive lies into the holes out of which they crawled.
BTTT
Great article! Thanks for posting!
What would rejecting the scientific revolution entail?
The film industry was self regulating from 1934 on with The Production Code which was a censorious joke. Homoerotic undercurrents and much else were all over the place in films of the early 1930s before it went into effect. After that it was more hidden but still there and many film studies have tracked this.
bookmark
But one thing someone said to me last night in a political discussion hit a nerve & I've been thinking about it all day.
He said that while the ideals of Conservativism were good & essential in preserving what we need to live as a free people, yet the way that the Conservative movement frames itself and its arguments are actually what makes its so vulnerable. Because Conservativism by its description is static and doesn't look forward, only backward. It seldom acts, but rather simply reacts. Virtually all arguments of Conservatives today are about what date we want to turn the clock back to, as though the best of lives were already behind us. And this is exactly what makes us sitting ducks, and easy to pick off by the socialist movement who are continually moving forward.
He went onto say that if we really do want to preserve those ideals necessary to survive as a free people, we have to start expending some energy and developing some dynamism as Conservatives. We need to agree what to take on our trip, what to leave behind and start moving forward. We need to start acting instead of just reacting to a present and future that we don't like. Socialists (Libs like Obama) have presented to voters a vision of the future and ticket for the trip and that gives people "hope" (however false), while all Conservatives are doing is offering is a trip back in time through some old photos & stories to a time that if it were really as "perfect" as we remember, it would not have changed in the first place.
Even our own Republican Party ignored Conservatives when they picked McCain, and they are sure that we will vote for him anyway because we are afraid of worse (Obama). McCain is also more like the Libs so there is the potential for crossover votes, but McCain was forced to move Left while Obama didn't need to move Right to get votes.
I don't think that this guy was wrong. There must be a better way to frame the message and generate some energy. While Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater WERE incredibly inspiring, they are dead now. And so is Buckley. That unfortunately is the reality. We needs some new living, breathing, dynamic Conservative spokesperson for a new generation -- whose representation isn't just one of a bunch of scared, constipated old men. Otherwise Conservatism has hit a dead end, and outr numbers will dwindle based on attrition (death) until we are over & out.
Great read. I recall reading the planks of the KGB-supported Marxists in this country during the Cold War — methods of disrupting, weakening America from within. They sum up very nicely the agenda of today’s Left. It’s true, those who espouse this stuff are communists, even if most don’t realize it.
The "Program for the New Traditionalist Movement" contains a very positive agenda. See, for example, the discussion about the "Study Groups" toward he end of the paper.
The music wasn't that good (and I like BOC), there were way to many drunk people, that were under-dressed, making wierd finger signs at the band and waggling their tongues.
The only reason I was there was that I was making money and I was hoping for something exciting to happen, otherwise I wouldn't go.
There is a segment of society that I would not otherwise like to hang out with and they are found at crappy bars and BOC concerts.
Yup, me too.
My favorite front man was Vladimir Posner, no Russian accent, intelligent & eloquent, regular guest on the Phil Donahue Show. Friends of mine, whose families escaped communism, & I, used to call him "Satan II".
Posner has recently admitted that he was a propagandist.
I can recall Posner making some snide remark to Donahue about "the inequalities in the American system" and "the US not getting rid of slavery until 1865". Phil Donahue was nodding in agreement like some stupid bobblehead with no response. I was screaming at the TV-- "Hey Donahue, don't you bring up the fact that it wasn't until 1861 that Russia freed 50 million serfs? The US never had THAT many slaves, but Russia did!" Of course, Donahue didn't hear me -- and ignorance is bliss.
Not to mention the fact that the U.S. banned the slave trade in 1808 and it would have been earlier had not the Constitution forbidden any such ban till 1808.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.