Posted on 05/11/2010 11:58:36 AM PDT by Noumenon
Time grows short. I believe that we have until the end of the summer - or much, much less. For those who are not prepared in all respects, it is too late.
BUMP & BLOAT
Progressives love to toss around that word, “extremist,” don’t they? They have yet to learn the meaning of the word. Teaching time’s coming...
"...we must all struggle to overcome the collective tendency of civilized men and women to forgetfulness. For that, in truth, is the ultimate question facing us today. Can the West overcome the forgetfulness that is the nemesis of every successful civilization? If it can, then there is hope that mankind will be able to move forward to a higher stage of historical development. If it cannot, then the next stage of history will be one that we once hoped never to see again.I know the answer to that question. The memory of how we got here, how we achieved our freedom and at what cost has been systemeatically purged from the general consciousness. Not ours, but from that of many of our countrymen. Harris' concluding sentence is the price that we will all pay for that forgetfulness...
The tendency to forgetfulness is more "enhanced" in today's society by the constant onslaught of useless or destructive "information" and "entertainment" that is shoved at Americans 24 x 7. Just a small case in point, I've heard today on local news radio briefs, that today is apparently the 1 year anniversary of the death of M. Jackson. Take a gander at how much network programming will be dedicated to the coverage of this non-story over the next few days. (I'm not suggesting that anyone actually watch it, just glance at the program listings!) I recall that I was astounded at the amount of coverage that event garnered (for weeks!) last year!
NEW, NEW, NEW!
UPDATED, "NEXT GENERATION," TOMORROW'S {blank}"
Thanks for the quote, this ("forgetfulness") is going into my list of societal elements to be countered via any educational process.
Mine's heavily tabbed annotated, and I have disagreements with some of Harris views, but DAMN! if he doesn't hit out of the park on almost every page.
Harris also seems to ahve a blind spot with respect to the role of the Will to Power, especially as it applies to the horrors of the last 150 years - even though he manages to mention Nietzsche and Sorel in the same paragraph. What he has to say about the nature of conscience is compelling - and it ties directly to my theses regarding those without it.
A bump for Monday.
BLOAT - and turn ammunition into skill.
wow
So how do the worst get on top? How do these killers, these monsters, acquire what they should never in a million years get their hands on – the apparatus of the state? They’ve got help, and lots of it. They are Antonio Gramsci’s heirs and disciples. The Left’s “useful idiots”. Here’s a little bit of their background:
1. Wishful thinkers (and the mentally lazy) – don’t these people just wish that the world was a nicer place? If only everyone were just as smart, just as clever, just as enlightened as they think they are, it surely would be, wouldn’t it? Wishful thinkers and those like them aren’t really up to doing the heavy lifting to achieve their utopia, but they surely do vote and applaud into power those whom they believe will usher in the New Age. The trouble is, those they empower typically have an agenda that doesn’t quite match that of our dreamers. And no one is more surprised than they are when it all goes bad and the body count – their body count - mounts up.
2. Coercive utopians – they have a lot in common with our wishful thinkers, but they just know that no one is going to do what it takes to usher in the new millennium, the New Man or that immanent eschaton. But there’s a problem: put the sort of totalitarian regime necessary to achieve those goals - that is, socialism/communism and all of its imperatives and consequences - right out on the table in front of everyone, and no sane individual would buy it. Who would actively and openly cheer for the impoverishment and enslavement of humankind and the mass murder of those who won’t go along with it? The hard Left, that’s who, and they’ve said as much - but that’s beside the point for now.
The hallmark of coercive types is that they tend to be fairly bloody-minded. For example, Billy Ayers (0bama's good buddy andadvisor) and his wrecking crew thought that once they achieved power would have to slaughter over 25 million Americans too stubborn to toe their utopian socialist line – that was back in the 1970’s so we’re actually giving him a bit of a discount on that 25 million figure. But what’s a few million here and there? Eric Hobsbawm, Marxist historian (now there’s an oxymoron) has also said as much in a BBC interview where he allowed as to how the ’sacrifice’ of millions would have been worth it in order to achieve socialism. So – is a little slaughter and a ‘re-education camp’ or two or 10 not too much a price to pay for heaven on Earth? Not for the coercive utopians. Not by half.
3. Lord of the flies – now we’re at the top of the pyramid of power, and those driven by that insatiable will to power. These are the ones who, once they achieve absolute power, really make things happen. And we’ve got over 260 million dead in this century and the last one to prove it. Now, let’s say that again – that’s 260 million unarmed civilian non-combatants killed by their own governments. They were murdered by those exercising the power of the state. They were starved, gassed, tortured, shot, impaled, burned alive, drowned, frozen to death, hacked apart with hoes, axes and machetes – a litany of brutality and atrocity beyond human imagination. Hundreds of millions more lived their lives enslaved, impoverished and in despair. Communism, socialism, the immanent eschaton – who cares? Ideology is only the particular horse they ride in pursuit of absolute control of mankind.
Those who are driven by the will to power typically disguise their intentions under the guise of ‘achieving the greatest good for the greatest number’ or under the rubrics of social or economic justice. They may claim that they are ‘doing the business of the people’ or that they are acting according to ‘the will of the people’. The statement, ‘It’s for the children,’ should inspire instant disbelief and skepticism. When it has come to creating the ‘New Socialist Man,’ or immanentizing that eschaton or ushering in that New Age, those who advance such arguments remain untroubled by the oceans of blood they would have to spill and the mountains of corpses they would have to pile up in order to realize their dreams. They are all animated by the unrestrained and unappeasable ‘will to power’. The Will to Power plays itself out at all levels. From the malice or indifference of the petty bureaucrat to the most savage and demonic mass murderers of recent times. As we have seen, power and the exercise of that power is more addictive than any drug.
The need is insatiable. The result is horror.
So – where are our modern so-called ‘progressives’ in all of this? Here’s my question for a proud ‘progressive’: If you’re a follower or apologist for today’s political and social multiculturalism, an adherent of liberal democracy, or believe that our culture can continue without a basis in moral absolutes, in which camp do you suppose you belong? Are you a cynical but clever elitist intoxicated by the will to power? Are you on to the deception but support it out of pathological spite? Or are you simply ignorant of your role in the intentional destruction of your culture, even if you think you know what's best for the rest of us?
Finally, here’s a purely practical consideration for all those precious 'progressives': you may want to re-think your premises, because you are not likely to survive the consequences of the very bad ideas you’re advocating. History is my witness.
Mao Zedong died of a heart attack, still in power.
It is not certain how Stalin died, but assassination was alluded to. This, after 12 years of rule and 30 of being the head of his party... pretty decent run, I'd say.
Those were the guys on top. The monsters. The ones who helped them get there didn’t fare too well, did they?
Let us consider the range of options available to the resistor:
If the governmental parties are NOT students of history, then every thug they sent to round up and kill one of us, obviously, should be liquidated.
Now, given that in today's society, you are much more likely to see a soft tyranny, what are the most effective tools?
Widespread infiltration and changing the population's heart: To do this, you must educate. Free Republic is one such form of education, but it's reach is limited. The goal is to train millions of youth. Homeschoolers have a chance to do this, also, perhaps groups such as the Boy Scouts and other social groups. Here, you can educate the minds meaningfully.
Maybe even reach the immigrant population, meaningfully. Deradicalize the La Reconquistas if possible, and show them the merits of freedom and the ways to defeat - by law - government control.
Install more journalists. Train them and send them out.
Get into more churches.
Turn to social media.
The best weapon against communism and socialism is truth, imparted slowly and over a generation. They have two generations on us, so we won't be alive to see the fruits of our labor.
But labor, we must.
That is an excellent point, and one of the things we should educate about, as described in my mini-treatise, above.
“Civility’ bump. “Civility’, my royal Irish ass.
This is my role, as I see it. It's why I've studied so hard and built up a hard-copy library from which I can teach and that I can pass on to someone worthy of it. I expect things to get savage and bloody for a while. We hope to be out of the way of most of it. What comes our way, we will slay without mercy or remorse.
In the absence of physical attempts to quash, it remains a battle of ideas. Knowledge and training are powerful. It is not for nothing, that a wiser man than me, once said "The pen is mightier than the sword."
By the way, and I have always thought this: I find you to be an exceptional man. You are, and will remain, a powerful force in the battle to retake American values, and to change the minds of many citizens of this once-great land.
But in this case, what's burning is our own civilization. Those who want to "burn the old world to reveal the new," will get nothing but ashes and their own extinction. That's the lesson of history that so many of us have failed to learn. As Will Durant put it in The Story of Civilization, "...civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within."
It's obvious to many of us here that those barbarians are already well winside our gates. They occupy offices in the House and Senate, they enjoy positions of power and influence in the arts, media and our educational institutions. They preach from our pulpits. The goal? Power. Power over thee and me.
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
— Ayn Rand
Against this, we must prevail. We must educate, persuade and, when it becomes necessary, resist by force of arms.
An ‘extremeist’ bump for extreme times...
Keep your stick on the ice, my friend.
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