Abstract: Making
sense of the political tension and division within America is no easy
task. For most Americans, we are
experiencing conditions without precedent.
Yet, history has documented similar circumstances in the past. Why not examine these recorded observations
to ascertain what ever wisdom might be derived from such an analysis? This article attempts such an examination in
a conversation between Old Gadfly, an American citizen with an inquiring mind
(IM), and a seasoned combat aviator with an inquiring mind (AM). Gadfly then summarizes the discussion and
offers two predictions.
IM: Yes, in 1894, a French Jewish artillery
officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was accused of spying, court-martialed,
convicted of treason, and sentenced to life in prison at Devil Island. Before imprisonment, he was paraded before
the public where they shouted, “Death
to Judas, death to the Jew.” Two
years later, evidence eventually
surfaced that another French (non-Jewish) officer, Major Ferdinand Walsin
Esterhazy, was the actual traitor; Esterhazy was court-martialed but not
convicted. In 1899, Dreyfus was again
court-martialed and again found guilty, yet was quickly pardoned. Finally, in 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and
reinstated in the French army.
AM: This sentiment coincided with
the anti-Semitism that permeated Western Europe, Russia, and even the United
States. For example, The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a widely circulated publication
that claimed Jews were colluding to dominate the world. In Europe, the Rothschild
family was particularly singled out because of its vast wealth. In America, Henry Ford purchased and then
distributed 500,000 copies of The
Protocols within America. Ford even
published a series of anti-Semitic articles in the Dearborn Independent, a newspaper he owned. In hindsight, historical facts now show that
Ford materially contributed to a false narrative.
IM: Ironically, today Amazon
founder and CEO Jeff
Bezos owns The Washington Post. The nearly
wealthiest man in the world is deliberately and aggressively consolidating
the retail industry and possibly the news industry. Bezos’ consolidation efforts crush
competition and the novelty of diversity of ideas—not the left’s arbitrary
distinction in terms of ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so forth. Where is the opposition from the left? Perhaps the answer is because The Washington Post is clearly
anti-Trump.
Old Gadfly: Do you see any similarities between The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and
any other publication in America?
IM: Yes,
the so-called “Russian Dossier”
is a similar publication. The Protocols document was a complete
fabrication of lies; yet it had a huge impact in fueling anti-Semitism. Hannah Arendt, in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism,
identified the phenomenon of anti-Semitism as a critical seed in the emergence
of totalitarianism, which included both forms of socialism--communism and Nazism. Like The
Protocols, the Russian Dossier
also fabricated lies for effect. The Dossier fueled the Russian collusion
sentiment that still exists, especially in the justification for the current Mueller
investigation.
Old Gadfly: In
regard to the Russian Dossier, here
are some questions the public deserves to know:
How
did Senator
McCain get word of the dossier? Why
did he unilaterally dispatch an aide overseas to get a copy? Was this an act of collusion? Should he
be questioned in the same manner as Donald Trump, Jr., who met with a
Russian lawyer by invitation?
AM: Great questions, Gadfly. It appears anti-Trump Republicans initially
paid GPS Fusion (headed by Glenn Simpson) for opposition research against
candidate Trump. The research was then
handed off to another paying customer—the Hillary Clinton campaign. Further,
“British-American
businessman and anti-Kremlin crusader Bill Browder” claims GPS Fusion took
money from the Russian government. This
is why Congress is now investigating the Russia GPS Fusion connection
(collusion?).
IM: Do you
know who Bill Browder is? He is a
billionaire who, after the fall of the Soviet Union, has done extensive
business in Russia. He is now an
anti-Putin activist, seeking justice for the conviction, torture, and murder of
his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky.
Browder’s grandfather, Earl, headed up the American Communist Party,
twice running unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1936 and
1940. Browder tells his story in his
recently published book, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One
Man’s Fight for Justice.
Old Gadfly: Let’s get back
to Arendt’s book, The Origins of
Totalitarianism. She does an
excellent job explaining how anti-Semitic sentiment contributed to the
phenomenon of totalitarianism. After the
book’s release, she was very careful in responding to critiques to point out
that “seeds” may have been more accurate than “origins,” because it is
difficult to establish precedents for the unprecedented. Yet, it was the hatred and contempt that
coalesced against a perceived enemy that allowed the seed to crystallize over
time. In the early 1900s in Europe and
Russia, the hatred and contempt crystallized among those on the collective left
against those who had different beliefs and values such as those who appear to
be aligned with individual liberty, private property, and free-market capitalism. In today’s America, there are groups such as
the New Black Panthers, Occupy Wall Street, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and
other leftist groups characterized by anger and hatred. The left loves to claim
the KKK and white supremacist groups are far right; but, they are not. Historical records explain the true nature of
these groups and they tend to be leftist—Marxian, Nietzschean, and so
forth. To suggest a white supremacist
group is right-wing, conservative, or Republican is political heresy. It is like certain politicians (e.g., Nancy Pelosi,
Joe Biden, or Tim Kaine) advocating for abortion or same-sex marriage rights
while also claiming to be devout Catholics.
In this case, progressive orthodoxy trumps church orthodoxy.
There is a new leftist hate group called Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement
(check out the video). Notice also, the
accelerated aggressiveness of the Communist
Party USA (until it’s taken down, the homepage has a headline: “Can Trump Forge a New White Supremacist
Governing Coalition?”). Here is a print screen
image of the homepage:
IM: Another “seed” discussed by
Arendt was imperialism--in the form of ideological world domination. Arendt’s first chapter under the section on
imperialism had an interesting title:
“The Political Emancipation of the Bourgeoisie.” In this case, the bourgeoisie represented
those who controlled the centers of production (and wealth). Bourgeoisie did not include the
“aristocracy”—those in government roles—or the labor class (the proletariat in
socialist orthodoxy).
Old Gadfly: What can we
learn from this? How does it apply to
today’s circumstances?
AM: Obviously, it is very dangerous
for business leaders to align with a particular political ideology. And by ideology, I do not mean a political philosophy; I mean orthodoxy or dogmas
that become moral truths. Progressivism
in America is an ideology—it believes in secular humanism, the redistribution
of wealth, and other man-made rights (e.g., reproductive rights to justify
abortion, sexual orientations) that are contrary to the laws of nature and the
Judeo-Christian tradition. Progressivism
is coercive in that progressive values must become everyone’s values. Those that resist are punished. This is why the left, and not the right, has
invented moral slurs for those who possess different values: slurs such as homophobia, xenophobia,
Islamophobia, misogynist, and so forth—modern equivalents of the phenomenon of
anti-Semitism. In 2006, Bernard
Lewis argued
antisemitism represents a special case of prejudice and hatred, that it is
directed against people who are different from the rest and deemed to represent
“cosmic evil.” This is why progressives such as UC Berkeley Professor George
Lakoff feel compelled to indoctrinate the masses by publishing books with such
titles as: Moral Politics: How Liberals and
Conservatives Think. Lakoff’s
framework justifies explaining that conservative views are not only wrong, they
are immoral. This is also why those who
are skeptical of the anthropogenic theory and so called “settled science” for
climate change are labeled “climate deniers” and considered evil. For
interesting contrary “evidence” on the subject see recent Congressional testimony
by Dr. John R. Christy,
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science, Alabama’s State Climatologist
and Director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in
Huntsville.
IM: Given the rampant crony
capitalism and corporate welfare that characterizes the current situation in America,
there are now
perverse incentives for the government aristocracy and the business sector
to collaborate for the expansion of power and the perpetuation of that
power. Remember the “business world”
reaction when then Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act into law?
The act was eventually amended to accommodate the demands of the LGTBQ
special interest group who pressured businesses to boycott Indiana. There have been other
cases as well. Last year the Seattle
Seahawks chef faced similar pressures.
Recently, President Trump gave Congress six months to provide
legislation related to the unconstitutional Presidential policy known as DACA (Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals). A
31-year old Millennial, who happens to be the fifth wealthiest man in the
world (for inventing a gossip platform—arguably a modern Marxist opium for the alienated
masses), quickly organized a joint letter with roughly 300 business leaders
representing the politically emancipated bourgeoisie to demonize Trump’s adult,
well-reasoned constitutional action. After
all, authority for immigration policy rests on the legislative powers of the
U.S. Congress, specifically articulated in Article I of the Constitution.
Old Gadfly: It seems as
though secular humanistic movements are aligning against America’s
Judeo-Christian tradition. Is this a
modern “anti-Semitic” development?
IM: If it is such a development,
then it reflects concerns Arendt shared in a reply to a letter from Professor Eric
Voegelin, another prominent political philosopher, in 1953. The excerpt below talks about a lack of
common interest and the atomization of society (something clearly reflected in
social media phenomena):
For
similar reasons and for the sake of distinguishing between ideas and actual
events in history, I cannot agree with Mr. Voegelin's remark that "the
spiritual disease is the decisive feature that distinguishes modem masses from
those of earlier centuries." To me, modern masses are disintegrated by the
fact that they are "masses" in a strict sense of the word. They are
distinguished from the multitudes of former centuries in that they do not have
common interests to bind them together nor any kind of common
"consent" which, according to Cicero, constitutes interest, that
which is between men, ranging all the way from material to spiritual and other
matters. This "between" can be a common ground and it can be a common
purpose; it always fulfills the double function of binding men together and
separating them in an articulate way. The lack of common interest so characteristic
of modern masses is therefore only another sign of their homelessness and
rootlessness. But it alone accounts for the curious fact that these modem
masses are formed by the atomization of society, that the mass-men who lack all
communal relationships nevertheless offer the best possible
"material" for movements in which peoples are so closely pressed
together that they seem to have become One. The loss of interests is identical
with the loss of "self," and modem masses are distinguished in my
view by their selflessness, that is their lack of "selfish interests"
(p. 81).
In the following excerpt,
Arendt emphasizes the danger of atheism:
I
know that problems of this sort can be avoided if one interprets totalitarian
movements as a new--and perverted--religion, a substitute for the lost creed of
traditional beliefs. From this, it would follow that some "need for
religion" is a cause of the rise of totalitarianism. I feel unable to
follow even the very qualified form in which Professor Voegelin uses the
concept of a secular religion. There is no substitute for God in the
totalitarian ideologies - Hitler's use of the "Almighty" was a
concession to what he himself believed to be a superstition. More than that,
the metaphysical place for God has remained empty. The introduction of these
semi-theological arguments in the discussion of totalitarianism, on the other
side, is only too likely to further the wide-spread and strictly blasphemous
modem "ideas" about a God who is "good for you"-for your
mental or other health, for the integration of your personality and God knows
what-that is "ideas" which make of God a function of man or society.
This functionalization seems to me in many respects the last and perhaps the
most dangerous stage of atheism (pp. 81-82).
Old Gadfly:
How would you
characterize these observations in relation to the American culture?
IM: The idea of America,
“our nation,” has been deeply rooted in an understanding of human dignity and
the need for a political system to protect that dignity. Donald S. Lutz, a political scientist at the
University of Houston, conducted an analysis of archived documents between 1760
and 1805 to determine the source of influence in political thought during the
founding of our nation. The number one source cited was the Bible
with 34% of the citations. The number
two source, representing 22%, was a set of Enlightenment authors with
Montesquieu topping the list. The
implication is that political thought inherent in the Declaration of
Independence was heavily influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was the Judeo-Christian tradition that
championed tolerance for faith, regardless of the religion or lack of
religion. The Declaration clearly
established “self-evident” truths and rights—all men are created equal, endowed
with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There was no implied source for these truths
and rights. Our founders explicitly
identified the source: “their
Creator.” In the early 20th
Century, members of the U.S. armed forces received citizenship training that
was grounded in ethical and legal foundations. This 179-page manual includes an explicit
explanation of the role philosophy and religion play in understanding
individual liberty and the moral duty of citizenship. Culturally, Americans predominantly
affiliated with the Judeo Christian tradition, peaking in 1956 with 99% of
surveyed Americans—71% Protestant, 25% Catholic, and 3% Jewish. Since 1956, the number of Americans
affiliating with the Judeo-Christian tradition now represent 72%, a decrease of
27%--37% Protestant, 10% Christian nonspecific, 22% Catholic, 3% Jewish.
Old Gadfly: Arendt’s
explanation of the decline of the Christian tradition combined with the political
emancipation of the bourgeoisie established conditions for imperialism. Imperialism for many is commonly understood
to represent the colonization that European nations engaged in during previous
centuries. How would you explain
imperialism in the 21st Century?
AM: Progressives in America and
Europe believe in the power of central planning. This is why they are strong advocates for the
United Nations and other international organizations such as the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In
today’s vernacular, they are not imperialists; they are globalists. This is why it is becoming more common to
hear globalists, such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders,
call themselves “citizens of the world.”
International institutions can be useful if understood as collaborative
instruments in support of sovereign nations and people. Unfortunately, progressives (globalists) see
them as primary authorities. Arendt
reminds us that Soviet Communism and German Nazism were intended for world
domination. Progressivism and its
central planners have a similar intent. By
the way, Hillary’s recent book title is What
Happened. A quick glance at the
content reveals a
lot of complaints about her struggle-bound presidential campaign and all
the great ideas she had for policies across the board for social, political,
and economic life for the masses. I
could not help but think that a better title for the book would have been My
Struggle, but another figure in history already used that one.
IM: Pretty clever, AM, on the book
title observation! But, then again, I
noticed Samantha Power wrote the “Introduction” to the 2004 edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism. The “Introduction” has two parts. The first was a brilliant analysis,
evaluation, and synthesis of Arendt’s thinking.
The second part revealed Power’s progressive and globalist nature. I was not surprised then to recently learn
that she participated on behalf of the Obama Administration in the “unmasking”
of individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
Old Gadfly: Let me summarize this excellent discussion and
then close with two predictions:
Summary: First, America’s
Dreyfus Affair is an attempt by the leftist progressives to create anger,
contempt, and hatred against Donald Trump and all that he symbolizes—to include
Americans Hillary Clinton demeaned as “deplorables.” Second,
there are anti-Semitic-equivalent movements that need to be called out and
diminished. Third, there is an
imperialistic manifestation in the form of the business sector aligning with
the political ideology of progressivism, further compounded by the unholy
alliances of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. These developments should also be called out
by virtuous customers and politicians.
Prediction: First, it is
now becoming apparent that moral (not political) courage helped Trump get
elected. Ninety-three
percent of Americans classified as “Spiritually Active,
Governance Engaged Conservative Christians” voted for Trump. Only 1% voted for Clinton. If Donald Trump survives the manufactured Russia
collusion scandal, those who believed in his sincere and authentic vision of
the American idea (“Make America Great Again”) will become greater in number
and more courageous in fulfilling their moral duty, grounded in our Judeo-Christian
tradition. Second, virtuous Democrat leaders will realize the opportunity they
have to “heal” the anger, contempt, and hatred that is so prominent (and
rampant) among those who vote Democrat.
However, this will only come about after a serious evaluation of the
progressive “ideology” and its dogmatic principles that are intolerant of other
ideas and values.
Arendt, H.
(1953). [The Origins of Totalitarianism]: A Reply, The Review of Politics, 15(1),
76-84.
