well the link doesn't work directly to the university ... surprise ... here's what the good Gramscian Leftist has to say:
"Steve Myers, of the Christian Patriot web site Exegesis, reports that followers of Antonio Gramsci -- the Italian political theorist and communist activist who died after a decade of imprisonment in Mussolini's jails -- have stealthily succeeded in taking control of the culture, economy, and political system of the United States.
According to Steve:
both research and empirical evidence suggest that the undermining of America's national culture is no accident. Indeed, this effort seems to have been strategically planned, primarily by the demonic disciples of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), whose communist teachings are at the core of much that has been taking place in America over the past forty years or so.
Put simply, Gramsci believed in what he called a "long march through the culture." He suggested that a relatively small number of people could achieve the Marxist goal of national and world domination if they infiltrated, undermined and hijacked cultural institutions like high schools, universities, churches and the media, while simultaneously anesthetizing the people. Of course, the process operates much more smoothly if it is done so covertly that average citizens will barely notice the changes. To that end, the Gramscian Marxists ensure that citizens remain preoccupied with entertainment, sport, battles fought in false dialectics, and other distractions.
This goal has been achieved with ease in America, given the geniality of her people. The Gramscians have actually managed to brainwash large numbers of people into ridiculing anyone who resists their advance.
Gramscians are now running America's political parties, banking system, movies, television and other media. Moreover, as they possess enormous financial and political strength, they are also able to oversee the appropriate distribution of subtle anti-Christian, anti-American, Marxist propaganda in political institutions, high schools, universities and even churches.
As a result of such efforts over the past forty years, America, blissfully brainwashed into ignorance, now stands perilously close to a Marxist, totalitarian state.
The structure of America was formed by the pillars of liberty, patriotism, faith in God, and limited constitutional government. And it is no coincidence that all those pillars are currently being subverted by the Gramscian Marxists and their demons popping out of every cultural nook and cranny in America, monotonously droning their constant anti-Christian, anti-American message.
We must no longer delude ourselves. America can be redeemed from the Gramscian Marxists only if we are bold, swift and decisive, and act with God's blessing and guidance. [end quote]
I admit with some embarassment that this came as a surprise to me. I am myself a follower ("demonic disciple" sounds a bit harsh, I think) of Gramscian political ideas, and failed to notice our total political triumph.
Further, I was recently at a conference attended by some of the leading scholars of Gramsci in the English-speaking world, and there was no mention of this remarkable achievement, which would have provided a splendid occasion for revelry and merriment. I guess that this kind of knowledge is held on a need-to-know basis. But that does make me wonder:
HOW IS IT THAT STEVE HAS APPARENT INSIDE KNOWLEDGE OF A GRAMSCIAN CONSPIRACY SO SECRET THAT EVEN THE GRAMSCIANS DON'T KNOW ABOUT IT?
Surely that is "no accident". What else does Steve know that we don't know? Who's been whispering in Steve's ear, and what is their hidden agenda? Is Steve being manipulated by a sinister conspiracy within a conspiracy -- appearing as a simple Christian Patriot but in fact a diabolically clever conduit for the propagation of the conspiracy's most treacherous propaganda directly into the Christian Patriot community??? Inquiring minds want to know, Steve.
A word of explanation for the perplexed (thanks Mark ... we're too stupid here at FR to figure this out!!):
The "demonic disciples of Antonio Gramsci" screed is another product of the "Christian Patriot" sub-culture that persists on US far-right, just this side of the white supremacists (although they may overlap somewhat). Belief that the US constitution is divinely inspired forms the basis for their fusion of Christian fundamentalism and nationalism.
They think the US is under siege by the forces of Satan ("demonic disciples", etc) -- internationalist, socialistic (by which they understand powerful, intrusive government regardless of ideology) -- seeking to undermine God-given rights and liberties as enshrined in the US constitution (but somehow mysteriously absent from other liberal republics) and the "family values" which inhere in the conservative, patriarchal, nuclear heterosexual unit (nice imagery in that last bit, eh?).
They believe that the Fordist-Keynesian state was the product of a conspiracy involving "international bankers" and marxist revolutionaries.
In a nutshell, the conspiracy robs hard-working American taxpayers in order to support welfare cheats, run up large government deficits (tax and spend, and spend some more), enrich the mega-bankers (by paying interest on the mounting national debt) and advance the anti-Christ (by undermining America's moral and/or dietary fiber). So in the context of that kind of narrative they are able to conflate Gramscians (as the cultural arm of the marxist arm of the imagined tentacular conspiracy) with the dominant class & with the state apparatus (not to mention Satan; did I mention Satan?). It's kind of like staring into an Escher print until you no longer know which way is up.
At one level, right-wing conspiracy-mongering is amusing; but at another, it's repulsive and scary -- especially in those variants where the main categories of the conspiracy narrative are racialized: (white) hard-working Americans; (non-white) welfare cheats; (Jewish) international bankers, and so on. This is where conspiracism shades into the overt racism and scapegoating characteristic of white supremacists. For background on and critical analysis of right-wing conspiracism, visit the web page of Political Research Associates.
It's tempting to dismiss conspiracists as pinheads, but of course that's too easy. Cultural theorist Mark Fenster has argued that it is a mistake -- both analytical and political -- to trivialize conspiracist thinking by framing it in terms of metaphors of pathology, especially paranoia; for framing it in this way draws attention away from the real social circumstances to which conspiracism might otherwise be seen to respond.
Pathologizing conspiracism not only produces inadequate explanations of it but is also politically self-limiting, since the appropriate response to pathology is treatment of the individual(s) suffering symptoms. Rather than being symptomatic of pathology, Fenster argues that contemporary conspiracism articulates, in distorted and self-limiting ways, a populist critique of contemporary social conditions and a desire for a meaningful political space which can be inhabited by ordinary “citizens.” Fenster writes, “just because overarching conspiracy theories are wrong does not mean that they are not on to something”:
Although conspiracy as a totalizing, instrumental entity might not exist, …relatively secretive, and at times quite open, concentrations of power, built through economic and social connections among elite groups, do. Conspiracy theory is thus ideological in that it substitutes the populist discourse of an antagonism between the people and powerful elites for the analysis of specific structures of power and the processes of struggle, particularly, though not exclusively, concerning class.
…Conspiracy theory as a theory of power, then, is an ideological misrecognition of power relations, articulated to but neither defining nor defined by populism, interpellating believers as “the people” opposed to a relatively secret, elite “power bloc.” Specifically, [conspiracy theories] ideologically address real structural inequities, and constitute a response to a withering civil society and the concentration of the ownership of the means of production, which together leave the political subject without the ability to be recognized or to signify in the public realm.
On this view, conspiracy theory ought not to be pathologized and treated, but rather understood as a distorted populism, framed in response to real social conditions but contradictory and deeply ambiguous in its political implications. Pinheads or not, conspiracists are able to appeal to elements of popular common sense in this country, and it's that which explains their persistence. Ironically, a Gramscian conceptual vocabulary can help us to understand this."
The above is helpfully supplied, via Google ... Thanks Mark Rupert, Professor of Politcal Science at Syracuse U.!!
Bump!