Can someone define "Cultural Marxism" Please?

[Steve MB]

Originally Posted by What the .... ?!?!

Apparently in the 60's ,in the UK, a right -wing candidate tried to scare his kind of voter by bringing up race as a strategy..

So, the term "race card" then meant the same thing it does now (demagogic appeals to racial solidarity). What's your point?

Originally Posted by What the .... ?!?!

Still waiting...........

Er, if you're waiting for yourself to provide that fourth example (or, for that matter, replace the third example you did provide with a term that has, in fact, changed from one meaning to another), complaining to the rest of the board won't help.

[What the .... ?!?!]

Originally Posted by Steve MB

So, the term "race card" then meant the same thing it does now (demagogic appeals to racial solidarity). What's your point?

Wiki on the two different contexts.

[OnePercent]

Sorry to bump this thread but I just couldn't resist. Here is my definition of Cultural Marxism:

Cultural Marxism is colloquially known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness.

Through the use of "Critical Theory" developed by the marxist philosophers of the Frankfurt School and held sacrosanct by the idealists of the "New Left", indoctrinated Cultural Marxists utilize social class criticism to undermine "capitalist" bourgeois culture. The overarching goal is to reduce the cultural dominance of the "middle-class" in favor of the proletariat, a group that is seen as being more amenable to economic marxism.

In practice cultural marxists criticize the major cultural institutions of a society as being "racist" or "sexist" in order to undermine them and cause internal divisions within them. The ultimate goal is to turn a unified and functional culture into a dysfunctional and fractured one. They do this in the belief that such disorder will finally bring about Marx's fabled "proletarian revolution".

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by OnePercent

Cultural Marxism is colloquially known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness.

Well, that makes sense.
In other words, now it is like "Political Correctness," nothing more than a glib dismissal thrown out by people who don't like a topic or the direction of a discussion, based on a vague reference to an historical phenomenon that no longer exists.

[Gyrate]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Well, that makes sense.
In other words, now it is like "Political Correctness," nothing more than a glib dismissal thrown out by people who don't like a topic or the direction of a discussion, based on a vague reference to an historical phenomenon that no longer exists.

Laugh it off, Mod Boy, but you'll be first up against the wall when the Cultural Marxist Revolution comes!

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Gyrate

Laugh it off, Mod Boy, but you'll be first up against the wall when the Cultural Marxist Revolution comes!

Well, I won't be holding my breath for an event that has already come and gone with less of a ripple that a feather falling into the ocean on a windy day.

[Chuck11]

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

Is it possible, however, to talk about “cultural Marxism” as a purely descriptive term? Does “cultural Marxism” describe in a neutral enough fashion the movement of ideas that came out of the Frankfurt School and which has gained a powerful hold on Western countries?

In my book, The Strange Death of Marxism, I argued that these ideas established themselves as leftist programs and progressive rhetoric throughout Western Europe, Canada, and the US before the fall of the Soviet empire. They evolved into a form of leftist radicalism that could coexist with consumer societies and mixed economies, because they focused on culture and society much more than they did the economy. Frankfurt School ideas have encouraged a war without quarter against bourgeois institutions and national identities—but that war does not necessarily require far-reaching change in the structure of the economy.

[Chuck11]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Well, that makes sense.
In other words, now it is like "Political Correctness," nothing more than a glib dismissal thrown out by people who don't like a topic or the direction of a discussion, based on a vague reference to an historical phenomenon that no longer exists.

Cultural marxism (CM) refers to marxist type critique, moralism, and utopic idealization applied to cultural as opposed to class (e.g., instead of proletariat vs bourgeois, cultural marxists focus on victim versus cultural supremacist; instead of a communist utopia, they strive for a culturally "inclusive, diverse" utopia; their focus on "social justice" is cultural, race, or ethnic based, not class based.) PC merely refers to social taboos, typically established by the left; there's an overlap between PC and CM, as the latter utilize PC, but the two are conceptually distinct. The difference is comparable to that between "morality" and "Islam." As for "multiculturalism", there are senses in which it's basically cultural marxism by another name, but there are also senses in which it means something different such as the converse of assimilationist policy. Like PC, multiculturalism can be used as a means of achieving the CM utopia (e.g., by deconstructing national characters), but it is not CM, except when it is.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by OnePercent

Sorry to bump this thread but I just couldn't resist. Here is my definition of Cultural Marxism:

Cultural Marxism is colloquially known as “multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness.

Through the use of "Critical Theory" developed by the marxist philosophers of the Frankfurt School and held sacrosanct by the idealists of the "New Left", indoctrinated Cultural Marxists utilize social class criticism to undermine "capitalist" bourgeois culture. The overarching goal is to reduce the cultural dominance of the "middle-class" in favor of the proletariat, a group that is seen as being more amenable to economic marxism.

In practice cultural marxists criticize the major cultural institutions of a society as being "racist" or "sexist" in order to undermine them and cause internal divisions within them. The ultimate goal is to turn a unified and functional culture into a dysfunctional and fractured one. They do this in the belief that such disorder will finally bring about Marx's fabled "proletarian revolution".

That's as much as to say that political correctness has "proletarian revolution" as its goal, which is entirely too ludicrous an idea to be taken seriously, and you fucking know it.

The term political correctness or "PC" usually refers to upholding a social taboo against language and attitudes that might be considered offensive. This term has become a boogey-man for the right, who use it to tar anything that runs contrary to their own policies, such as letting women out of the kitchen or gays out of the closet.

Ruth Perry wrote in an essay entitled [i]A Short History of the Term "Politically Correct"[i][1] that the term was first coined by Mao Zedong,[2] but was later hijacked by right wing nut jobs conservative eclectics who proceeded to overuse it in exactly the manner above described, hence taking all the juice out of it.[3] More recently, advocates of political correctness have therefore substituted the term "civilized speech" for "politically correct" in order to boost its image in light of the PC backlash.

Ironically, conservatives have also adopted political correctness widely; trying to justify censorship on the grounds that something is "offensive to Christians," for example, or Conservapedia's insistence on BC/AD to the total exclusion of BCE/CE.

Passive-aggressive people who defend racism but don't want to be labeled that way attack dissenters as "politically correct."

Nor does either equate to multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism is the phenomenon of multiple groups of cultures existing within one society, largely due to the arrival of immigrant communities. Supporters of multiculturalism claim that different traditions and cultures can enrich society; however, the concept also has its critics, to the point where the term "multiculturalism" may well be used more by critics than by supporters. It could, indeed, be classified as a snarl word.

Definitions

Multiculturalism occurs naturally when a society is willing to accept the culture of immigrants (with, ideally, immigrants also willing to accept the culture of the land to which they have come.) A distinction should be drawn between multiculturalism that occurs simply due to the absense of a single enforced culture, and multiculturalism which is endorsed and actively encouraged by the government; this is often referred to as state multiculturalism.

Kenan Malik states that "The experience of living in a society transformed by mass immigration, a society that is less insular, more vibrant and more cosmopolitan, is positive" but contrasts this with the political process of multiculturalism, which "describes a set of policies, the aim of which is to manage diversity by putting people into ethnic boxes, defining individual needs and rights by virtue of the boxes into which people are put, and using those boxes to shape public policy."[1]

That has nothing to do with "proletarian revolution" either, of course.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

That VDARE piece by Paul Gottfried actually refers to the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "leftist vigilante group." 'Nuff said, and less said the better.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

The concept is developed in this book. Refer also here.

So, basically, it is nothing more than a defunct academic exercise, the name of which is still waved about by crusaders from the Far Right to try to poison the well of any discussion in which they have too few facts, so they must wave the "Marx" boogeyman around, (even though he had nothing to do with it), to taint the discussion.

Basically, "cultural Marxism" is simply a bad mindset that libels the person for whom it is named by misapplying some eponymous ideas in totally inappropriate contexts, much like "social Darwinism." And, as noted, the former is now not even pursued much in academia, remaining in the language only as an insult by people who need a handy code word for "bad" that does not get them branded as rude for using the words they would prefer to use.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Basically, "cultural Marxism" is simply a bad mindset that libels the person for whom it is named by misapplying some eponymous ideas in totally inappropriate contexts, much like "social Darwinism." And, as noted, the former is now not even pursued much in academia, remaining in the language only as an insult by people who need a handy code word for "bad" that does not get them branded as rude for using the words they would prefer to use.

While I'm sure it's as dead as a canned sardine in academia, on the Intertubes "social Darwinism" is a phrase I still encounter people arguing for, as signifying a good thing.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Well, that makes sense.
In other words, now it is like "Political Correctness," nothing more than a glib dismissal thrown out by people who don't like a topic or the direction of a discussion, based on a vague reference to an historical phenomenon that no longer exists.

Yes, but there's "Marxism" in it, so it's at least 30% more scary. Abloogybloogywoo !

[BrainGlutton]

Actually, the whole thing's a mistranslation of "cultured Marxism." Workers of the world, would you care to discuss Baroque-era art and design?

[Chuck11]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

So, basically, it is nothing more than a defunct academic exercise, the name of which is still waved about by crusaders from the Far Right to try to poison the well of any discussion in which they have too few facts, so they must wave the "Marx" boogeyman around, (even though he had nothing to do with it), to taint the discussion..

My point was pretty simple and spot on topic: the term can have descriptive content. Let's take the case of "fascist" as an example. "Fascist" can just mean "bad" in which case it has no content or context (think: "liberal fascism") or "fascist" can mean "someone who embraces a political philosophy which values (whatever was characteristic of Spanish, Italian, Austrian, etc. fascism)" in which case it has content and context, even if the term is uttered with a sneer. Or as is the case more often, the term can be used as a pejorative to smear people who embrace a political philosophy which is thought to shares some fascist like characteristics (e.g., a value of hierarchy) or it can be used to describe political philosophies that reasonably resemble fascism (e.g., Pinochet's's Chile).

The same holds for "cultural marxist." The point again is that there is a neutral usage of the term. Whether it meaningfully describes a contemporaneous movement is a separate issue, which we can discuss in the yet created thread: "Do cultural marxists still exist?"

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

MThe same holds for "cultural marxist." The point again is that there is a neutral usage of the term.

Yes, but there's only one -- usage in reference to the long-gone academic school that called itself that.

Originally Posted by Chuck11

Whether it meaningfully describes a contemporaneous movement is a separate issue, which we can discuss in the yet created thread: "Do cultural marxists still exist?"

Start that thread if you like, but the answer is no. In fact there never was such a movement, only a school.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

My point was pretty simple and spot on topic: the term can have descriptive content. Let's take the case of "fascist" as an example. "Fascist" can just mean "bad" in which case it has no content or context (think: "liberal fascism") or "fascist" can mean "someone who embraces a political philosophy which values (whatever was characteristic of Spanish, Italian, Austrian, etc. fascism)" in which case it has content and context, even if the term is uttered with a sneer. Or as is the case more often, the term can be used as a pejorative to smear people who embrace a political philosophy which is thought to shares some fascist like characteristics (e.g., a value of hierarchy) or it can be used to describe political philosophies that reasonably resemble fascism (e.g., Pinochet's's Chile).

The same holds for "cultural marxist." The point again is that there is a neutral usage of the term. Whether it meaningfully describes a contemporaneous movement is a separate issue, which we can discuss in the yet created thread: "Do cultural marxists still exist?"

Interesting comparison. I tend to treat serious discussions of actual fascism, (authoritarian governement, cultic leader, appeal to (often imaginary) "racial" superiority, etc.) with sufficient respect to engage in those discussions. On the other hand, people who use "fascism" as a mindless synonym for "bad," (Islamo-fascism, Femi-nazis, fascist police, etc.), announce themselves to be less than capable of carrying out a serious discussion, resorting as they are to simply throwing out mis-applied meaningless phrases with no current relevance.

Similarly, if someone wanted to discuss the philosophies of a few now dead academics who embraced "cultural Marxism," I might choose to participate in those discussions in the same way that I would discuss Athenian Democracy or other long departed social trends, but people who spout claims about "cultural Marxism" in the present tense simply render any further discussion moot, since they are merely abusing the term as a synonym for "bad" while pretending that the entire movement had not died out several decades ago.

[OnePercent]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

That's as much as to say that political correctness has "proletarian revolution" as its goal, which is entirely too ludicrous an idea to be taken seriously, and you fucking know it.

Actually political correctness does have a marxist goal at its heart and here is the proof: "white trash". It is perfectly acceptable to for anyone anywhere at anytime to openly label people as "white trash", the term appears in the MSM frequently and leftist columnists and commenters use it with reckless abandon. Contrast that phrase with a similar disparaging phrase for blacks, hispanics, asians, or any other group and the hypocrisy is apparent. This is cultural marxism in action.

Racism is real, racism exists in every ethnic group and it is directed outward at every other ethnic group. Marxists, however, only recognize and act upon racist action coming from the "bourgeoisie" (in modern America the white "middle-class") and they simultaneously deny the existence or relevance of racism directed toward the bourgeoisie. And it goes well beyond the hypocrisy of "political correctness", look at Affirmative Action and Hate Crime Laws, these are clear examples of institutionalized racism against a specific segment of the population. Cultural Marxism is thriving, even if it goes by some other name among some other group of people. To parapharase Shakespeare: marxism by any other name smells just as rotten

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by OnePercent

To parapharase Shakespeare: marxism by any other name smells just as rotten

I don't care much about your nonsense theory, but please don't abuse Shakespeare like this.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by OnePercent

Actually political correctness does have a marxist goal at its heart and here is the proof: "white trash". It is perfectly acceptable to for anyone anywhere at anytime to openly label people as "white trash", the term appears in the MSM frequently and leftist columnists and commenters use it with reckless abandon. Contrast that phrase with a similar disparaging phrase for blacks, hispanics, asians, or any other group and the hypocrisy is apparent. This is cultural marxism in action.

And how is that supposed to lead to proletarian revolution?!

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by OnePercent

Actually political correctness does have a marxist goal at its heart and here is the proof: "white trash". It is perfectly acceptable to for anyone anywhere at anytime to openly label people as "white trash", the term appears in the MSM frequently and leftist columnists and commenters use it with reckless abandon. Contrast that phrase with a similar disparaging phrase for blacks, hispanics, asians, or any other group and the hypocrisy is apparent. This is cultural marxism in action.

Given that the term white trash originated around the time that Marx was a teenager, (long before he published any ideas), and underwent a change of meaning utterly divorced from its cultural roots without any effort by any Left wing pundits, (it was pretty mucha Right wing expression among whites when it changed meaning and remains so, today), trying to blame it on "cultural Maxism" is rather like blaming Catholics for spreading the use of "papist" as an epithet.

[Chuck11]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

Similarly, if someone wanted to discuss the philosophies of a few now dead academics who embraced "cultural Marxism," I might choose to participate in those discussions in the same way that I would discuss Athenian Democracy or other long departed social trends.

Yet Pericles isn't living. Jurgen Habermas is. So it makes sense to speak of contemporaneous Cultural Marxists, assuming we grant Habermas that status.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

Yet Pericles isn't living. Jurgen Habermas is. So it makes sense to speak of contemporaneous Cultural Marxists, assuming we grant Habermas that status.

Feel free to discuss Habermas, but realize that branding him a "cultural Marxist" is simply using a stock phrase fom his opponents to marginalize his more complex discussions. I don't even often agree with him, but it seems pretty clear that his "Marxist" influence has rather more to do with dialectic than with attacking bourgeoisie. At any rate, he is certainly not out promoting the sort of bumper-sticker revolution that people condemning "cutural Marxism" fear.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Originally Posted by Chuck11

The same holds for "cultural marxist." The point again is that there is a neutral usage of the term.

And, if there's one source that's bound to use a term neutrally, it's VDare.

[wildorchid]

when you randomly ask someone "do you believe in a central bank?; ...in heavy income taxes? ...in compulsory gov't run public 'education'? ...in farm subsidies? ...is gov't control of labor?"
and you hear a resounding 'of course i do.' (...and you will)
it's the result of cultural Marxism.
they sure haven't read Marxs communist manifesto, or are familiar with it's 10 planks, or have even heard of Karl Marx, and they may even recoil from the word 'communist' but they just agreed with it 100%.
why?
how did this phenomenon happen? people agreeing with what amounts to a very violent, almost anti-human philosophy without ever recalling being presented with it as such, much less adopting it?
VOILA!
Cultural Marxism!!
...and this is exactly what the Frankfurt school set out to accomplish:
they know that people would'nt accept Marxism at face value. they knew people found it 'icky' when it was presented to them straightforwardly and plainly. They did know that people are very suggestible, and that through the medium of popular culture the ideas and values of Marxism could be introduced, and core American values, like individuality, oppurtunity, self-reliance, ect... could be
gradually removed from the population.
They used infiltrators (ie. professors) in the public university systems to spread this trend throughout the culture, and it goes on in public schooling, too.
just ask kids today if they prefer the idea of a world gov't or keeping nat'l sovereignty/ borders,
and if their white colonist ancestors were blood-thirsty killers that came here to 'steal the Indians land', and see what answers you get overwhelmingly.
See, after WWI it had become apparent that hard Marxism, or communism established through violent upheaval of the prole masses against their oppressors was'nt going to ever come off (they werent falling for it), so the Frankfurt school came up with plan B, which was achieving the same end goal through the slow and incremental means of deception, demoralization, subterfuge, and the manipulation of impressionable people through culture, and 'critical theory'.

[tomndebb]

wildorchid, could you give us an example of a genuine human who would engage in the the sort of rhetoric that you are describing?

There are certainly genuine Marxists around, (although fewer now than prior to 1989), but the question concerns Cultural Marxism and you appear to have created a portrait of an imaginary person and then slapped the "Cultural Marxist" label of that figment of your imagination.

[Boyo Jim]

President Obama, of course!

[wildorchid]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

wildorchid, could you give us an example of a genuine human who would engage in the the sort of rhetoric that you are describing?

There are certainly genuine Marxists around, (although fewer now than prior to 1989), but the question concerns Cultural Marxism and you appear to have created a portrait of an imaginary person and then slapped the "Cultural Marxist" label of that figment of your imagination.

try it yourself:
ask a random american: "do you believe in income tax? in a central bank? in govt run compulsory education? ect..."
and when they answer 'yes', you have a Marxist who has become a Marxist (they just agreed w/ the planks of the communist manifesto having never read it). they agree with it because its become a part of our culture.
how did this happen?
well, the Frankfurt school openly tried to achieve this from Columbia University.
In 1991 Gorbachev started the 'State of the World' forum in San Francisco.
I live there, and almost everyone describes themselves as
socialist' now. they aren't referring to the socialism of adolf hitler (national socialism), or of the socialism that Mao practiced when he killed 80 million of his own people, or Stalin when he killed 7 million. they are referring to a warm fuzzy version of socialism? they don't care, really because they mostly don't know the nightmarish history of socialism.

I went to public schools, and a public University and got taught socailist writers over and over and was NEVER TOLD they were hard-core socialists:
George Bernard Shaw (founded fabian society), Erich Fromm, Franz Boas, Margeret Mead...
why did my teachers not mention their socialist/ communist credentials?

because Cultural Marxism relies on it being undercover. thats the idea of it: Marxism presented honestly will get rejected. They have to 'sneak it' in.

[wildorchid]

'a rose by any other name', right?
just because someone doesnt or wouldnt describe themselves as a Marxist doesnt mean they arent essentially one in principle,
If you ask them if they are a Marxist, and they say 'no', which sounds reasonable since they have never read Marx, but then they agree with all of Marxs ideas, which they have absorbed through popular culture, then they are an unwitting Marxist.
that was the goal of the Frankfurt school; look into it yourself:
to create a nation of UNWITTING MARXISTS.
which is what we have.
look at articles from RT:
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/col...iet_mistake-0/

Obama is the darling of the UK Fabian Society, too. their journal sings his praises.
the fabians had a similar strategy for spreading communism; do it gradually, and do it through popular culture.
now are you going to tell me that they arent real either.

Frankfurt School: FACT
Fabian Society: FACT

are you suggesting these arent real??

[Docta G]

OMG, they're under his bed.

[wildorchid]

look at history: Americans didn't believe in a central bank. Thats a big reason we started this country, to get away from the central bankers, and their influence.

Jacob Schiff, founding member of the federal reserve bank helped fund the bolshevik revolution in Russia just years after the formation of the fed along w/ the Warburgs, and Kuhn and Loeb, co. (historical facts)... Tolstoy was supported by the Rockefellers and prepared in NYC to start revolution in Russia.

now, (almost) everyone loves the fed here. call it Stockholm Syndrom, or the result of Cultural Marxism, whatever... semantics...

i would appreciate some worthy arguments, instead ofthe weak invective and name calling that i've seen so far. (even from mods??)

[wildorchid]

Fabian Society journal from 2009 celebrating Obamas first election.
obv they view him as 'one of their own'?

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/rese...angeWeNeed.pdf

but if you use the world 'socialist' it's called into question.
clueless... see, people don't even know what it is that they believe in. They are illiterate cultural parrots, and socialism/ collectivism/ communism is the 'cool' thing. just don't call it by it's real name...

[elucidator]

Your effort to infiltrate our community of right-thinking patriots has been detected. You left out the Rothschilds. Comrade.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

when you randomly ask someone "do you believe in a central bank?; ...in heavy income taxes? ...in compulsory gov't run public 'education'? ...in farm subsidies? ...is gov't control of labor?"
and you hear a resounding 'of course i do.' (...and you will)
it's the result of cultural Marxism.

Nonsense. We had all those things before the Frankfurt School existed, and we had them because the public approved of them.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

I went to public schools, and a public University and got taught socailist writers over and over and was NEVER TOLD they were hard-core socialists:
George Bernard Shaw (founded fabian society), Erich Fromm, Franz Boas, Margeret Mead...
why did my teachers not mention their socialist/ communist credentials?

Probably because they wanted to be allowed to continue teaching them.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

Obama is the darling of the UK Fabian Society, too. their journal sings his praises.

So does the Communist Party USA, given the alternatives; that does not make Obama a Communist or a socialist or even much of a liberal. (You do understand that, don't you?)

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

look at history: Americans didn't believe in a central bank. Thats a big reason we started this country, to get away from the central bankers, and their influence.

No. The Bank of England had very little to do with it; what frightened our FFs was the English ruling class. From The American Way of Strategy, by Michael Lind:

Many people remember vaguely that the American Revolution had something to do with taxes. A few remember that the issue was whether the power to tax lay with London or the American colonies. But this was a surrogate for the real issue: preserving the American way of life.

In the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century, the British colonists in North America developed a distinctive way of life quite different from that of their British cousins. Something like Britain's aristocratic society endured in the South and parts of the Northeast. But in general, colonial society was characterized by a degree of middle-class prosperity and widespread property ownership unknown in any other society in the world. Not only were America's yeoman farmers, artisans, and merchants better off than most Britons and Europeans, but also the cost of government was much lower.

The trouble began in the aftermath of the French and Indian War (Seven Years' War) of 1754-63. The British imperial government insisted that the colonists pay more of the costs of their own defense. The colonists, however, feared that the London parliament was trying to destroy the system of colonial self-government that had grown up in the preceding generations. They remembered that the London parliament had destroyed the Scottish parliament in 1707 (it would eliminate the Irish parliament in 1801). They feared that the same thing was now happening to them. They would pay ever higher taxes, even as their colonial assemblies lost authority to the London parliament. As a result, British North America might come to resemble Ireland or Scotland, impoverished countries where absentee landlords held vast tracts of land and where major decisions were made by well-connected aristocrats and merchants in London with little or no accountability to the people whom they ruled.

<snip>

This history may be familiar but the point is not. For Americans, the independence of the United States from Britain and its organization as a democratic republic was a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end was the safeguarding of the communal right to self-government and the individual liberties that the British settlers in America had already enjoyed for generations under British rule. Americans adopted their own strategy for defending the American way of life against imperial centralization -- independence as a democratic republic -- only because their first choice, self-government within a federal monarchical empire, was rejected. Democratic republicanism and national independence were only two of several possible methods for preserving what by 1776 was the traditional American way of life, characterized by personal liberty, widespread property ownership, low taxes, and an inexpensive military.

Originally Posted by wildorchid

Jacob Schiff, founding member of the federal reserve bank helped fund the bolshevik revolution in Russia just years after the formation of the fed along w/ the Warburgs, and Kuhn and Loeb, co. (historical facts)... Tolstoy was supported by the Rockefellers and prepared in NYC to start revolution in Russia.

You're really gonna have to provide a cite for all that.

Originally Posted by wildorchid

now, (almost) everyone loves the fed here. call it Stockholm Syndrom, or the result of Cultural Marxism, whatever... semantics...

Actually, it is because since the Fed was founded, we have had far fewer financial crises per decade than we had before.

[Lemur866]

The notion that things like a central bank, income taxes, and public schools are Marxism could only be believed by an insane person.

Marxists believe in complete government ownership of the means of production, rule by a revolutionary vanguard, the impossibility of peaceful transition to socialism and the necessity for revolution, and so on.

You know, the sort of thing that happened in the Russian revolution. Capitalists and aristocrats lined up against the wall and shot, forced collectivization of the means of production, dictatorship of the proletariat, suppression of all non-communist political parties, and on and on.

It used to mean something to be scared of the Marxist boogey-man. If you're scared that public schools and the Federal Reserve and hurting conservative's feelings are communism, then good luck to you.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

try it yourself:

No. You made the argument; you provide the examples and citations to support the examples.
(Most of the silliness posted under your name in this thread is just wrong, either because it factually never happened or because your explanation of events that did happen are incorrect. I am not going to exert the effort to disprove a slew of errors until I see some concrete facts to address.

[wildorchid]

http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/tenplanks.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff


http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Boo...Revolution.pdf

Anthony Sutton (Hoover Institute Stanford) cited^^^

That international banking cartels would fund and foment communism should actually come as no surprise if one knows history, and philosophy.
Bankers have been creating arbitrary enemies, arming governments against each other, and creating debt slaves since ancient Babylon (5000 years)... this is nothing new.
Dirty tricks like funding the bolshevik revolution is exactly the province of intl bankers like Schiff (a german btw).
Hegels dialectic describes the problem-reaction-solution method of indirectly achieving a goal which would never have flown on it's own. The intentional creation of a problem gets a public who would never have accepted, much less endorsed the pre-determined solution to the contrived problem, to do just that because of their predictable reaction to the problem, the solution is what was intended to be imposed in the first place... manipulation; kids stuff really.
If a football team ran the same play like this over and over season after season, no one would fall for it, yet we seem to never gather anything from history.
Hitlers' 'enabling act' is a perfect example of the hegelian dialectic in action, and history has shown that they did indeed light up the Reichstag fire on purpose, swaying the public to accept the lose of their rights, and the promotion of a more collectivist state.

We can't just dismiss things because we didn't learn it in public schools.
there is plenty that got left out on purpose. what gets left in is a lot of socialist garbage; Boas, Mead, Fromm (but hush hush about their communism)
(That's another one i can easily site, the merger of the education systems of the US and the USSR under Reagan).

I was taught George Bernard Shaw in high school honors english;
no mention that he founded the Fabian socialists, or about his anti-human tirades like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBZsTf6oLfY

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

(That's another one i can easily site, the merger of the education systems of the US and the USSR under Reagan).

FINALLY, the assertion of a "fact" rather than boilerplate Bircher rhetoric.

If you can "easily" cite this example, then do so.

Otherwise, we can probably dismiss the rest of your odd claims as part and parcel of the same disconnect from reality.

[wildorchid]

http://www.nhteapartycoalition.org/t...-of-education/

also see link to Charlotte Iserbyts' 'Deliberate Dumbing Down of America'. ^^^

she was in the Dept. of Ed under Reagan

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com.../DDDoA.sml.pdf

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Lemur866

The notion that things like a central bank, income taxes, and public schools are Marxism could only be believed by an insane person.

Well, The Communist Manifesto did call for universal public education, among other things. But that doesn't mean Marx had any copyright on the idea, which in 1848 was already in practice in the United States and had been for decades.

[wildorchid]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Well, The Communist Manifesto did call for universal public education, among other things. But that doesn't mean Marx had any copyright on the idea, which in 1848 was already in practice in the United States and had been for decades.

this isnt true.
the truant officer was a new thing in 'Our Gang', the Little Rascals, and that was the 20's...
remember how they were always trying to duck the truant officer?

in the 1800s it was the one room school house.
school wasn't compulsory. and it wasn't provided by a central gov't and was uniform/universal (each state and community was different/ independent)

in the 1850's the Prussian model of education was introduced for the first time in Mass., but it was still far from the rule.

please back your claims...

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

That international banking cartels would fund and foment communism should actually come as no surprise if one knows history, and philosophy.
Bankers have been creating arbitrary enemies, arming governments against each other, and creating debt slaves since ancient Babylon (5000 years)... this is nothing new.

Cite for that, please.

And what has it do with philosophy?!

Originally Posted by wildorchid

Hegels dialectic describes the problem-reaction-solution method of indirectly achieving a goal which would never have flown on it's own.

OK, we can now add Hegel's dialectic to the list of things you do not understand. It ain't a method.

[wildorchid]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

FINALLY, the assertion of a "fact" rather than boilerplate Bircher rhetoric.

If you can "easily" cite this example, then do so.

Otherwise, we can probably dismiss the rest of your odd claims as part and parcel of the same disconnect from reality.

sorry, the use of shaming language establishes nothing in your 'argument' which is what i'm calling your weak invective out of courtesy. [?]
sounds good, but you still score no points... (there are, however, many logical fallacies at work in your comment)

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

this isnt true.
the truant officer was a new thing in 'Our Gang', the Little Rascals, and that was the 20's...
remember how they were always trying to duck the truant officer?

in the 1800s it was the one room school house.
school wasn't compulsory. and it wasn't provided by a central gov't and universal (each state and community was different/ independent)

It was still tax-supported public education. Every town and county in the country had its public schools. (Attendance was made universally compulsory in the early 20th Century, simply as a way of enforcing the new child labor laws.)

[Der Trihs]

Originally Posted by wildorchid

(there are, however, many logical fallacies at work in your comment)

A claim which of course you won't actually demonstrate.

[wildorchid]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

Cite for that, please.

And what has it do with philosophy?!



OK, we can now add Hegel's dialectic to the list of things you do not understand. It ain't a method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic
This has everything to do w/ pholisophy... Marx was a philosopher, remember?? (albeit a bad one, a kind of 'hired gun' who was put up to it.)

please show where i mis-understand Helgelian dialectic (i was speaking of one aspect of it, ie. history...)

I majored in philosophy, and was fortunate to have one well-known professor who was great (now deceased), so w/e. i don't care what you think, and your put-downs just weaken your own credibility imo.

I wouldnt re-read Kant, or Hegel if you paid me a million bucks. (horrible head ache... i'm assuming YOU have read that garbage?? i'm interested...)
...but i do understand the implications and influence that their philosophy (including Fichte) has had on the 20th century and all the horrors that took place in it as a result of socialist dictators and the people who went along with them.
In a nutshell, it's: nihilism, irrationalism, (Kants phenomona ) , and the abandonment of aristotles' reason;
It's substituting 'you can't know, so just do as your told' for individual moral choice...
This philosophy is evident everywhere you look in modern American culture, as it was in 1933 Germany. It's still getting rammed down our throats in school.
it used to be 'God hates a liar', and now it's "don't lie because you might get caught' that parents teach their children, and then we wonder why society is falling apart... the individual is being undermined by the 'collective', and moral choice is replaced by the results of operant conditioning designed to control behavior.

[wildorchid]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

FINALLY, the assertion of a "fact" rather than boilerplate Bircher rhetoric.

If you can "easily" cite this example, then do so.

Otherwise, we can probably dismiss the rest of your odd claims as part and parcel of the same disconnect from reality.

logical fallacies here:
] bringing Birch into it out of nowhere... 'guilt by association' fallacy (you say the same thing so-n-so says; so-n-so is a nutjob; therefore youre a nutjob, and what youre saying can't possibly have any merit. (massive logic fail))

] using 'poisoning the well' type language (disconnect from reality; boilerplate rhetoric)
to sow seeds of doubt without presenting anything of substance...

] shifting the burden of proof for your counter-claim (if you have one) away from yourself with transparent sophistries...