Palin, Krauthammer, and the Right Kind of Elitism

“Charles Krauthammer wrote, “it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant.”

And thanks for the powerful passage from Mr. Charlie, who sure knew what he was talking about, in giving a powerful summation of a phenomenon which has since consolidated its takeover of American culture.

Krauthammer, in citing Moynihan, gives the publication of Moynihan’s article as The American Scholar; I don’t know which is correct.

quote from Krauthammer:

There is a complementary social phenomenon that goes with defining deviancy down. As part of the vast social project of moral leveling, it is not enough for the deviant to be normalized. The normal must be found to be deviant.....Large areas of ordinary behavior hitherto considered benign have had their threshold radically redefined up, so that once innocent behavior now stand condemned as deviant. Normal middle-class life stands exposed as the true home of violence and abuse and a whole catalog of aberrant acting and thinking.
As part of this project of moral leveling, entirely new areas of deviancy — such as date rape and politically incorrect speech — have been discovered. And old areas — such as child abuse — have been amplified by endless reiteration in the public presses and validated by learned reports of their astonishing frequency. The net effect is to show that deviancy is not the province of criminals and crazies but thrives in the heart of the great middle class. The real deviants of society stand unmasked. Who are they? Not Bonnie and Clyde but Ozzie and Harriet. True, Ozzie and Harriet have long been the object of ridicule. Now, however, they are under indictment.

The moral deconstruction of middle-class normality is a vast project. Fortunately, thousands of volunteers are working the case. By defining deviancy up they have scored some notable successes. Three, in particular. And in precisely the areas Moynihan identified: family life, crime and thought disorders.

Sounds familiar to a degree. Note this excerpt from the transcripts of a 1984 interview with a defected Russian journalist whose father was assocaited with the KGB.

ED GRIFFIN: Well, you spoke before about "ideological subversion" and that's a phrase that I'm afraid some Americans don't understand. When the Soviets use the phrase "ideological subversion" what do they mean by it?

1. YURI BEZMENOV: Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate and open. You can see it with your own eyes.... It has nothing to do with espionage.

I know that intelligence gathering looks more romantic.... That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism....

The result? The result you can see ... the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get through to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.

In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/brainwashing/2007/bezmenov.htm

Three points are forgotten in all of this debate about the so called "educated."

1. What the hell have you done with that degree?
2. ARROGANCE.
3. What have I seen from the elite.

Point 1 - Obama touts his Harvard degree. What's he done? He was Acorn's attorney and spent 1 1/2 terms as state senator and part of a term as US Senator. That's not presidential qualification. If you go by private sector, I'm more qualified than this jerk with a much less prestigious degree.

2. We're Ivy League, so we know what's best for you. BS.

3. The ivy league gave us much of Congress, Both Bushes, Clinton, and Obama. They gave us the banking industry. They gave us Jennifer Granholm here in Michigan. What job have they done? Crappy.

The best president in my lifetime had a degree from Euerka College. The best governor in my lifetime went to my alma matta. Michigan State. The best two congressman I've had went to Adrian College (Mike Rogers in 2000) and Moody Bible Institute (Tim Walberg).

That's not to say everyone from "elite institutions" was bad. Jefferson went to William and Mary.

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.