06/28/15

America’s only remaining choices – civil disobedience or collapse

Doug Ross @ Journal
By Lawrence Sellin

The United States no longer has, as the Constitution designed, a government composed of executive, legislative and judicial branches, separate, but equal in power.

The federal government is now an alliance of branches, devoted to the preservation of government itself, separate, not from each other, but from the American people and dedicated to tyranny.

The policies pursued by the Obama Administration and facilitated by cowardly politicians and a compliant media are not simply the intersection of radical ideology and incompetence, but a dangerous subversive element of an anti-American and anti-Western strategy.

Cultural Marxism and its many variants, such as political correctness and multiculturalism, is now firmly ensconced in the White House and the Democrat Party, while the Republican Party, dominated by eunuchs and the avaricious, continuously accommodates its “principles” to match an ever-shifting leftward movement of the “conventional wisdom.” It does so solely in to maintain its place as the token opposition and grifter at the federal tax-revenue trough for the personal financial benefits that it provides.

After the successful 1917 communist revolution in Russia, it was widely believed that a proletarian revolt would sweep across Europe and, ultimately, North America. It did not.

As a result, the Communist International began to investigate other ways to create the state of societal hopelessness and alienation necessary as a prerequisite for socialist revolution – in essence, to destroy western democracy from within.

The single, most important organizational component of this conspiracy was a Communist think tank called the Institute for Social Research, popularly known as the Frankfurt School. The task of the Frankfurt School was first, to undermine the Judeo-Christian foundation of Western civilization that emphasized the uniqueness and sacredness of the individual and, second, to determine new cultural forms which would increase the disaffection of and division among the population.

Just as in classical economic Marxism, certain groups, i.e. workers and peasants, are a priori good, and other groups, i.e., the bourgeoisie and capital owners, are evil; in Cultural Marxism feminist women, racial and ethnic minorities and those who define themselves according to sexual orientation are deemed good and “victims” of societal injustice. Similarly, white males and “privilege” and, by extension, Western civilization, are automatically and irredeemably malevolent.

Sound familiar? It has been the playbook of the American left for over sixty years. The aim is not to solve social injustice or protect “rights, “of which the left can concoct an endless supply, but to undermine and topple Western democracy.

The new element in this formula, using the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” paradigm, is what David Horowitz described as an unholy alliance between leftists and radical Islam. They have been brought together by the traits they share – their hatred of Western civilization and their belief that the United States is the embodiment of evil on earth. While Islamic radicals seek to purge the world of heresies and of the infidels who practice them, leftist radicals seek to purge society’s collective “soul” of the vices allegedly spawned by capitalism — those being racism, sexism, imperialism, and greed.

That combination of these ultimately mutually exclusive, but temporarily useful, ideologies is arguably the modus operandi of Barack Hussein Obama and his inner circle with a larger cast of fellow travelers and useful idiots.

It is no surprise, then, that lying and secrecy have become the hallmarks of an administration immune both to facts and reason, plagued by contradictions and led by an individual with the impatience and petulance of an insecure adolescent from a political party with the emotional stability of a disgruntled postal worker.

Obama’s transformation is fundamentally the degradation and humbling of a great nation he considers venal and corrupt, but is, in reality, merely a description of the content of his own character.

He and his present anointed successor and Mini Me, Hillary Clinton, are manifestations of modern-day, totalitarian Liberalism, in its insatiable thirst for power, where persuasion is replaced by coercion to implement policies that are inherently damaging to liberty and the national interest.

Unfortunately, the federal government, as an institution, has largely come to reflect those same characteristics, the tyranny that led the Founding Fathers to declare independence.

In their effort to make the central government “too big to fail,” the political-media complex has made it too corrupt to reform.

It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government – Thomas Paine

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired colonel with 29 years of service in the US Army Reserve and a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. Colonel Sellin is the author of “Restoring the Republic: Arguments for a Second American Revolution “. He receives email at [email protected].

06/27/15

Overthrow the Judicial Dictatorship

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Commentators have missed the real significance of Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the gay marriage case. He calls the decision a judicial “Putsch,” an attempt to overthrow a form of government—ours. His dissent, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, was written “to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.”

His comment about the Court using the kind of reasoning we find in a fortune cookie is a funny line. But there is much of the Scalia dissent that is not funny and which serves as a warning to the American people about what the Court has done to us.

Scalia understands the power and meaning of words and he chose the word “putsch” for a specific purpose. One definition of the term means “a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government…” Another definition is “a plotted revolt or attempt to overthrow a government, especially one that depends upon suddenness and speed.”

Hence, Scalia is saying this was not only a blatant power grab and the creation of a “right” that does not exist, but a decision that depends on public ignorance about what is really taking place.  It is our system of checks and balances and self-rule that has been undermined, he says.

In that sense, he is warning us that we need to understand the real significance of this decision, and go beyond all the commentators talking about “marriage equality” and “equal rights” for homosexuals. In effect, he is saying that the decision is really not about gay rights, but about the future of our constitutional republic, and the ability of the people to govern themselves rather than be governed by an elite panel making up laws and rights as they go.

Scalia’s dissent cannot be understood by listening to summaries made by commentators who probably didn’t read it. Although I may be accused of exaggerating the import of his dissent, my conclusion is that he is calling for nothing less than the American people to understand that a judicial dictatorship has emerged in this country and that its power must be addressed, checked, and overruled.

The implication of his dissent is that we, the American people, have to neutralize this panel, perhaps by removing the offenders from the court, and put in place a group of thinkers who are answerable to the Constitution and the people whose rights the Court is supposed to protect.

He says the majority on the court undermined the main principle of the American Revolution—“the freedom to govern themselves”—by sabotaging the right of the people to decide these matters. The Court destroyed the definition of marriage as one man and one woman “in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law.” In other words, the Court acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally.

Scalia called the decision “a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.”

Justice Scalia goes on, however, to attempt to explain why this is happening. He basically says, in so many words, that the majority of the Court is un-American, completely out of touch with American traditions and the views of ordinary Americans. He rips the Federal Judiciary as “hardly a cross-section of America,” people from elite law schools, with not a single person from middle-America, and not a single evangelical Christian or even a Protestant of any denomination. He calls the Court, on which he serves, a “highly unrepresentative panel of nine,” that has engaged in “social transformation” of the United States.

More than that, after examining the elite views and backgrounds of the “notorious nine,” he declares that while the American Revolution was a rejection of “taxation without representation,” we have in the gay marriage case, “social transformation without representation.”

One cannot help but think that Scalia wants readers to recall Obama’s promise of the “fundamental transformation” of America, except that in this case Obama has been assisted by five judges who did not represent, or even care about, the views of America as a whole.

While Scalia zeroed in on his colleagues on the Court, we can easily apply his analysis to the unelected members of the liberal media who pretend to offer the American people an objective and sensible interpretation of the decision.

On CNN, for example, anchor Brooke Baldwin “moderated” a discussion between lesbian liberal Sally Kohn and liberal pro-gay “Republican” Margaret Hoover. The only issue was when the Republican Party would accept gay rights and sell out conservative Christians. Baldwin herself is a member, or at least a supporter, of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

Conservatives watching Fox News and hoping for a pro-traditional values perspective are likely to be seriously disappointed as well. The new Fox star, Megyn Kelly, is getting rave reviews from the liberals for defending homosexual and transgender rights. A special report by Peter LaBarbera examines how Fox has been almost as biased on this issue as other media, calling the channel “unfair, unbalanced and afraid.” The word “afraid” describes the general failure to challenge the homosexual movement, into which Fox News has been pouring a significant amount of money for many years. Indeed, some “conservatives” have gone way over to the other side, with Greg Gutfeld, another rising Fox star, insisting that gay marriage is a conservative concept.

The Scalia dissent demonstrates why the fight for traditional values cannot and must not stop. That fight must continue because our form of democratic self-government is in grave jeopardy, and has in fact suffered a major blow. A federal constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage is one obvious course of action. But that won’t solve the basic problem of an emerging judicial dictatorship willing to redefine historical institutions, make up rights, and defy common sense.

The court’s reputation for “clear thinking and sober analysis” is in danger because of this terribly misguided decision, Scalia writes. In other words, the Court is drunk with power and cannot see or think straight.

The same can be said about the major media, which cover this decision as just another controversial ruling that people will disagree on.

In fact, as the Scalia dissent notes, this decision will live in infamy. It is as if a Pearl Harbor-type attack has been achieved on America’s moral fabric and constitutional foundations.

In this context, Scalia talks about the Court overreaching its authority and moving “one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.” In my view, this is an open invitation for responsible elected officials to take power away from this Court and return it to the people.

But how will the Republican Party respond? Some big money players are demanding the white flag of surrender, so the GOP can “move on.” This is what the British “Conservative” Party has done, and we see the consequences there, as Christians are now being arrested by police or fired from their jobs for expressing views in favor of traditional values and traditional marriage.

Scalia’s discussion of “social transformation” of the United States without the voluntary input or approval of the people captures the essence of the coup that has been carried out. This process now has to be explained in terms that most people understand. It is, in fact, the phenomenon of cultural Marxism, an insidious process explained so forcefully in Professor Paul Kengor’s new book, Takedown.

As Kengor notes, gay marriage is only the beginning of this cultural transformation. By redefining the historical institution, the Court has opened the door to multiple wives, group marriages, sibling marriages, fathers and stepfathers marrying daughters and stepdaughters, and uncles marrying nieces.

A country that descends to the bottom of the barrel morally and culturally will not be able to defend itself against its foreign adversaries and enemies. Indeed, we have the evidence all around us that, as the culture has degenerated, our ability to defend ourselves has simultaneously been weakened. The recent Pentagon gay pride event featured a male General introducing his husband, as a transgender Pentagon civilian employee looked on.

The next step, from the point of view of those objecting to this fundamental transformation of America, has to be to find those elected leaders willing to act. The presidential campaign of 2016 is an opportunity to find out who understands the crisis and whether they have a way out.

06/17/15

Study Marxism to Understand Hillary

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s speech that launched his presidential campaign on Monday noted that Hillary Clinton’s “progressive agenda” includes the admonition that traditional religious beliefs “have to be changed.” Mrs. Clinton’s entire quote, in talking about opposition to her version of feminism and demands for abortion, was that “…deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

Bush also said of the Democrats, “They have offered a progressive agenda that includes everything but progress.”

But it’s never been the case that the progressive agenda offers real progress, as ordinary people understand the term. Instead, the “progressives” offer what Professor Paul Kengor calls cultural Marxism. This is the planned disintegration of the traditional family structure that has been the basis of Western civilization. Kengor, author of the new book, Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, told me in an interview that the progressives are guided by the belief that “new rights are coming all the time and that everything is in a state of evolution.” He added, “There are no absolutes for them.” Hence, the gay rights movement has now morphed into rights for so-called transgenders, as we see in the relentless media propaganda that is designed to convince the public that men can, and perhaps should, become women. Kengor says the next step is for “progress” or “evolution” to a new level that includes such concepts and arrangements as multiple wives, group marriages, sibling marriages, fathers and stepfathers marrying daughters and stepdaughters, and uncles marrying nieces.

It’s no secret that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s family structure exists in name only. Bill, the disgraced former president impeached by the House, betrayed Hillary and had sex with a White House intern. He is a serial adulterer. But the Clintons have stayed together for political reasons, so that Hillary can pursue her political career. Together, along with daughter Chelsea, this arrangement has generated nearly $2 billion in donations to a family foundation that now finds itself embroiled in financial scandals over where the money went, and what it paid for.

Looking back on Mrs. Clinton’s career, I continue to be struck by the wisdom of Barbara Olson, the author of the 1999 book Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Olson was the lawyer and conservative commentator who was murdered by Islamic terrorists when the aircraft she was on, American Airlines Flight 77, was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon in the September 11, 2001, attacks. The crash killed 125 people on the ground and another 64 passengers and crew.

I interviewed Olson on December 8, 2000, when I hosted a radio show in the Washington, D.C. area. What follows is an edited transcript of that interview.

Q: Do you believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Marxist?

A:  I believe she has a political ideology that has its roots in Marxism. In her formative years, Marxism was a very important part of her ideology…But when you look at her ideas on health and education, you see more government and less individual control. You see very little regard for families…

Q: Do you see Hillary as in favor of Socialist-style thinking at the global level?

A: We saw that with her activities as First Lady. She traveled more than any other First Lady. She had a global view. She spoke at the Beijing conference on women. She was very active in organizations and conferences  that seem to be concerned about human rights but which are also directed toward a centralized governmental view. That is, one world. I looked at her travels and saw what she was doing. I always assumed Hillary was going to run for president. And I assumed that these international travels and her work with the Beijing women’s conference and the U.N. were going to be her way into the White House; that she was going to have a foreign policy platform that not many women have…

Q: So you do believe that she will run for president?

A: I do. She believes her ideology to the core. She’s worked for it behind Bill Clinton for years. I have thought that Hillary was going to run for the White House since 1993 when I started investigating the Clintons. She doesn’t compromise. She doesn’t come to the center. She believes in a true leftist, Socialist kind of government.

Q: She portrays her causes such as children’s rights and women’s rights in such an attractive manner. She has put conservatives on the defensive once again.

A: She has. That’s the central focus of her public relations campaign…But her ideas about health care and education have very little to do with women and children. They are the lever she uses to bring the government into the family. 

Q: She’s been pushing treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Isn’t she promoting global government?

A: Yes.  We all know about her book, It Takes a Village. She says the future is not family but the larger village of teachers, pediatricians and social workers. She talks about raising children as less of a parental task than a social one…You have the destruction of the family unit. That’s very basic when you study socialism and Marxism.

Mrs. Clinton’s speech to the Women in the World Summit, where she spoke on how religious beliefs have to be changed, was significant for several reasons. The event was sponsored by Tina Brown, who launched The Daily Beast and later became editor-in-chief of Newsweek. The event was conducted in association with The New York Times, and included actress Meryl Streep and comedian Jon Stewart. These were the elites of the progressive media and Hollywood.

Typically, Mrs. Clinton talked about families at the event. “We know that when women are strong, families are strong,” she said. “When families are strong, countries are strong.” It’s important to understand this comment in light of her own failed marriage, which she has held together for political purposes, and how she has adopted the entire progressive agenda regarding how traditional families have to be changed to accommodate new sexual rights and new “family” structures. Olson’s book is still important in order to understand what Mrs. Clinton means by families, and how Marxists use family-friendly jargon to confuse and mislead. Kengor’s book is absolutely essential to understand how the progressive agenda would continue to transform the nation under a President Hillary Clinton.

Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign announcement demonstrated that he is aware of the political and semantic games that the modern-day progressives are playing on the American people. If he focuses on this Marxist strain in the Democratic Party in order to identify the forces that are rotting America to the core, he will find many conservatives receptive to his message. At the same time, if he pursues this course, the progressives in the media who gathered around Hillary Clinton during that April feminist summit will come down on the former Florida governor like a ton of bricks.

Will Bush follow up with a full frontal assault on the progressive forces destroying America? Or will he wilt under pressure and make nice with those prepared to destroy the country he wants to lead?

06/12/15

The Marxist/Gay “Takedown” of America

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Paul Kengor’s new book, Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, examines “cultural Marxism,” the application of Marxism to culture rather than the economic sphere. Kengor’s book, available from WorldNetDaily and other sites, outlines how this movement to “fundamentally transform” America has reached its zenith under the presidency of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Things have happened so quickly, he notes, that “everyday Americans” have even been conditioned to embrace major aspects of this revolutionary change.

04/27/15

Alan Keyes on God-ordained Natural Marriage

By: Cliff Kincaid
America’s Survival

Alan Keyes drew attention to the Marxism of Barack Obama when he ran against Obama for the U.S. Senate in 2004. “Thanks to my experience with Obama,” he said, “I had the strong sense that his tenure would mark a major crisis that would threaten the survival of constitutional self-government, of, by, and for the people of the United States.” In this presentation to the America’s Survival conference, “Cultural Marxism and America’s Moral collapse,” Keyes discusses the assault upon America’s unalienable rights and essential liberties represented by same-sex marriage. www.usasurvival.org