Mind Manipulation

IM:  I hear a lot of my fellow Republicans now saying Trump is a catastrophe and do not want to support him; some are even talking about voting for Hillary.

Old Gadfly:  Does that come as a surprise to you?

AM:  What I see playing out in the news is a very deliberate attempt to not only control what we see and understand, but to control our reactions as well.  Take the news today.  All the networks focused on how Trump claimed to have seen a video of an aircraft carrying $400 million in cash as ransom for four hostages released by Iran.  Trump later corrected this claim by saying it was actually another clip of an aircraft carrying the hostages.  The focus was Trump’s incorrect claim.  There was no interest in the $400 million in cash in exchange for the hostages.  In other words, Trump is dishonest or a loose cannon.  How about a glib president that chuckled away the $400 million in cash for four hostages, saying this was not ransom money?

IM:  Remind me what glib means.

AM:  Glib means “fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow.”  Voluble is “characterized by a ready and continuous flow of words” in order to dominate the narrative.  See how the press reacted?  They focused on Trump’s erroneous video clip—something considerably trivial compared with a ransom for hostages.

Old Gadfly:  Remember, F.A. Hayek made two important observations related to these dynamics.  The first was about how the political elite shape reactions to any opposition to their established values in the Chapter, “The End of Truth,” in his book, The Road to Serfdom.  Those sufficiently indoctrinated with these values are to spontaneously attack those who express any opposition to these values.  This explains the vitriolic reporting following George Stephanopoulos’s questions to Trump following the Kahn attacks at the Democrat National Convention.  The second observation in his book The Fatal Conceit:  The Errors of Socialism is that “the mind is the product of cultural evolution and reflects more imitation than reason.”

IM:  I hear a lot of people repeating what is in the news.  When I ask them to provide more detail or examples to support allegations, they go silent.  So, this must be a form of imitation.  Just this morning, I read Michael Morell’s op-ed, “I Ran the C.I.A.  Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton” in the New York Times.  This evening, quotes from his article were all over the news—a classic echo chamber.

AM:  I read the same article—pure propaganda.  He said, “Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. . . . I spent four years with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room.  In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.”  These are called platitudes.  If this is representative of the type of analysis he provided as the acting head of the CIA, no wonder we did so poorly on the international stage.  None of these qualifications relate to actual achievements.  But they do “glibly” disguise the tremendous foreign policy failures during her tenure—Benghazi, Libya, Egypt, Syria, ISIS, a resurgent Russia (who took Crimea and threatened Ukraine), North Korea, China, Cuba, and so forth.  None of these were successes—they were all setbacks.  Obama had no foreign policy expertise when he ran for president.  When McCain confronted him with this realization, Obama laughed at him and said, “but I have superior judgment.”  As if judgement is in one’s DNA and has nothing to do with experience and the wisdom that follows.

IM:  Morell, obviously pandering for a Clinton administration appointment, then went on to criticize Trump for his character traits:  “The traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement [nothing compared with the narcissist in chief, Obama], his overreaction to perceived slights [there have been no vicious attacks of Trump—they are all in his imagination], his tendency to make decisions based on intuition [he offers no examples, but don’t forget intuition is what Obama’s superior judgment depended upon], his refusal to change his views based on new information [even Hillary refuses to change her views about lying to the people even from old information on the record from Director Comey], his routine carelessness with the facts [nowhere near to Obama’s characterization of the ISIS threat, the economy, and so forth], his unwillingness to listen to others [Obamacare is the right thing to do even though the majority of Americans didn’t want it], and his lack of respect for the law [enforcing immigration laws do not count and Obama is exempted from similar criticism because it would be racist].

AM:  In my view, the most egregious part of his article is when he suggested Putin “recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”  Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation were involved in very serious “pay to play” actions with Russian actors.  Joy Overbeck provides a detailed expose in her article, “None Dare Call Her Treasonous.”  On the same page of The New York Times is another op-ed article by Arkody Ostrovsky, the Russian and Eastern European editor of the Economist.  The title of his article was “For Putin, Disinformation Is Power.”  The ideological zealots who make up the editorial staff at The New York Times completely missed the irony of these juxtaposed op-ed articles.  The Morell article is disinformation.

IM:  Mr. Ostrovsky said, “After Mikhail Gorbachev opened up the Soviet media, the contrast between socialist and capitalist economic systems had become too apparent.”  Yet, the progressive Democrats in America are pushing socialism while condemning capitalism.  Trump represents capitalism, which is why the progressive Democrats must diminish him as a candidate.  Ostrovsky continued, “Mr. Putin has reason to fear in one respect.  His system does face an existential threat from the Western model of governance.  Just as the economic inadequacies of Soviet Communism were exposed by comparison with the wealth produced by Western capitalism, Mr. Putin’s authoritarianism cannot match the appeal of an economy based on the rule of law, openness and competition.  The best way for the West to resist Russia, now and then, is to uphold its own values.”  Obama’s vision for fundamentally transforming America took us away from these values.  Hillary Clinton wants to accelerate this transformation.  Trump wants to reinstate them by “making America great again.”

Old Gadfly:  In the cold, gray month of January 1980, my wife and I traveled to Berlin, which included a visit to the Berlin Air Safety Center, a facility manned by officers from the four occupying nations—the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  As we met those on duty who were controlling flights into and out of Berlin corridors, two Soviet officers were in the room.  A younger one was sitting near the wall with his feet resting on the desk, reading the Pravda newspaper.  I shook hands with the senior Soviet officer on duty.  We were told by a younger Soviet officer, who spoke fluent English, the senior officer was a lieutenant colonel and a former MIG-25 pilot.  He was a first lieutenant, but the colonel reported to him—in other words, the lieutenant was the political officer for their unit.

AM:  The Russian word Pravda means “truth” in English.  We know Pravda was the government-sponsored and controlled paper.  It was the propaganda machine for the communist party—it reported on what the people were allowed to know or believe.

          Old Gadfly:  If the communist party controlled what was reported in the Soviet Union, then is it possible for an American ideology to have similar control over news reporting even in so called free societies?  Obviously it is.  American progressives—politicians, media, academia, and Hollywood—control the narrative.  The Trump and Clinton we see is the Trump and Clinton they want us to see.  Aggressive research is contrary to these images.  Hillary Clinton is unapologetically corrupt.  Peter Schweizer reveals some of this corruption in Clinton Cash (here is a free video that provides some of the evidence).  The last couple weeks I have asked friends, family, and complete strangers if they had seen Dinesh D’Souza’s movie or read his book:  Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  Nine out of 10 have never heard of it.  The media is suppressing it.  This is called censorship because the facts and analysis are so contrary to the progressive idea of “truth.”  Americans—all Americans--need to realize this.

A Dark Vein of Intolerance

AM:  The media is engaged in “wolf pack” attacks on Trump because he responded to the Islamic “Gold Star” parents of a son killed while serving in the American armed forces.  The Kahns are receiving 50 times more coverage than the grieving mother of her son who was killed in the Benghazi attack.  The Kahns verbally attacked Trump during the Democrat National Convention (DNC) by suggesting that Trump wanted to violate the U.S. Constitution as indicated by his rhetoric on Muslim immigration.  It was not clear to me what was unconstitutional in regard to Trump rhetoric, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has clearly issued unconstitutional executive orders related to immigration.  This episode reminded me of General Colin Powell’s notorious allegation to David Gregory on Meet the Press that as a registered Republican he voted for Barack Obama twice because of his economic plan and that there was a dark vein of intolerance within the Republican Party (see also this interview).

Old Gadfly:  Where you are going with this, AM.

AM:  First, the Democrat Party had a clear agenda in inviting the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in combat while serving in the American armed forces.  The idea is to make Trump appear (a) bigoted because he wants to ensure Muslims coming from parts of the Middle East are sufficiently vetted before entering the United States, and (b) xenophobic by wanting to enforce immigration laws while confronting those who are here illegally.  Second, the Kahns could then attack Trump because their Muslim and gold star status would be a shield against any rebuttal.  This was a trap.  If Trump responded in any way, it would come across as unsympathetic to grieving parents.  This is exactly what we see playing out in the media.  If, on the other hand, Trump did not respond, then the message that Trump is intolerant to those wanting to come to America, whether Muslim or as an illegal alien, would still be reinforced without any rebuttals.  Third, there are some opinions that the soldier’s father is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Currently, there is no evidence of such membership.  However, recall our conversation on June 15, 2016 regarding Hillary Clinton’s close adviser, Huma Abedin, and her connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  If Kahn is connected, and I strongly suspect he is, this is part of a much bigger story that aligns with Obama’s vision for fundamentally transforming America—mostly through demographics and its effect on culture.    

IM:  A lack of evidence about Kahn’s motivation or membership does not minimize the sinister tactics employed by the Democrats.  Obviously, the parents did not just appear on the schedule.  The DNC organizers had a particular narrative in mind.  You nailed it, AM, in the intent to set a trap, and the complicit media are relishing in the intended reaction, not just from Trump, but from those who are sympathetic to the grieving parents.  This is how people get coopted into aligning themselves with another politically-oriented policy issue.  Support the parents of a Muslim soldier lost in action and then feel good about Muslims coming to America.  Advertisers associate sexy images with a particular product and, because the sexual component attracts, the product becomes attractive by association.  This is how propaganda works.  Stalin was a master at this with his mind control propaganda.

AM:  In the flurry of media spin on the Kahn story, when confronted by George Stephanopoulos about not sacrificing anything or anyone, Trump could have responded, “No, I have not; but Hillary sacrificed four Americans and the video fall guy at Benghazi.”  But, he did not respond that way.

Old Gadfly:  AM, tell me how this story and its corresponding broader public narrative remind you of General Powell’s “vein of intolerance.”

AM:  Given that General Powell is an African-American who unabashedly accuses the Republican Party of having a vein of intolerance tells me that despite his tremendous accomplishments on behalf of America, he appears to have no idea of how hypocritical that accusation is within the context of American political history.  While progressives love to create truth while obscuring the actual truth, there is far too much documented history that demonstrates the vein of intolerance has actually run throughout the Democrat Party ever since it was founded by Andrew Jackson.  Dinesh D’Souza does a fabulous job presenting this very readable history in his book and movie, Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  I watched the movie and am now reading the book.  The book provides far more detail with a compelling and cohesive set of evidence-based arguments, citing actual source documents and credible historians.  Ironically, his treatment of pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions had little to do with religion and a great deal to do with political power.  Democrats, in both the southern and northern states, were pro-slavery.  The abolitionists, many of whom were Christian, were Republicans.

Old Gadfly:  What did General Powell refer to regarding intolerance?

AM:  He said some Republicans still use “racially tainted language” regarding minorities; he offered a couple of examples based on comments by Sarah Palin and John Sununu.  When I heard the General say this, I inferred that since Republicans opposed the Democrat candidate, an African- American, the real opposition must be due to race, as if Obama’s stated intentions to fundamentally transform America in an egalitarian—where equality trumps liberty—and socialistic direction had nothing to do with the opposition.  Redistributing the wealth sounds good to a socialist (and struggling minorities) but not to those who believe in individual liberty, a limited government, and a capitalistic free market.  These are competing worldviews, and a social psychology professor, Jonathan Haidt, from the Stern School of Business school at New York University does an excellent job explaining these different views in this video.

Old Gadfly:  Democrats have been masters at projecting their own sins upon the Republican Party.  As D’Souza clearly establishes in his book, Democrats were the racist Party of slavery; and, today, they have evolved into the progressive Party of enslavement.  (Recall our conversation on indentured classes on August 28, 2014).  The great champions of American progressivism were the Democrat Party Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson—all three were documented bigots.  The late Democrat Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), but this did not stop President Obama from attending his funeral, even though he chose not to similarly honor Margaret Thatcher or Justice Scalia.  The racist to progressive transformation was complete when an African-American President felt compelled to attend the funeral of a known racist.  And General Powell wants to accuse Republicans of having a vein of intolerance.

IM:  Recall President Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech last year.  Of course, the immediate context involved public concerns about the Islamic terrorism taking place across the world.  After opening his speech with “Giving all praise and honor to God,” which is a similar pattern to opening lines for various chapters (or suras) in the Qu’ran (“In the name of Allah [God], the Gracious, and the Merciful”), Obama said the following:

And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . . . 

So this is not unique to one group or one religion.  There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.  In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try.  

 Old Gadfly:  Aside from Obama’s distorted understanding of the Crusades, what does this passage tell us?

IM:   I particularly noted the sanctimonious assertion, “There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”  Obama is perverting and distorting the truth and terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  Democrats promoted slavery, spawned the KKK and Jim Crow laws, advanced segregation and obstructed legislation to advance freedom for all in the form of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.  And, Obama gets on his high horse when he said, “In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance.”  It was Obama that said if I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin and has supported the Black Lives Matter group, the latter of which spawned from the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, Missouri.  Judgments in both these cases were made before they were even fully processed in our legal system.  Incidentally, Democrats convinced FDR to block anti-lynching legislation in the 1930s.  It seems lynching remains a Democrat tactic in today’s politics.  D’Souza can attest to this.

          Old Gadfly:  When there is a dark vein of intolerance running throughout the progressive Democrat Party, truth does not matter.  When a complicit mainstream media drink the same progressive poison, legitimizing a distorted truth, then stand by for more metaphorical lynchings. 

The Missing Adult

AM:  During the Republican presidential primary season, do you recall Ohio Governor John Kasich claiming to be “the only adult” running?

Old Gadfly:  Yes, I do.

IM:  So, where was he when the Republican National Convention (RNC) commenced?  After all, the RNC is being held in the State of Ohio.

AM:  An adult teaches children all about being a good sport, to shake the hand of your opponent even when you lose the contest.  For the Ohio Governor not to officially welcome delegates to the RNC shows that not only is he a poor sport, he’s a quitter and a loser. 

IM:  For people like John Kasich, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and the Bush clan not to support the Republican candidate for President says a lot more about them than it does the Republican candidate who won the primary playing by the rules.  They truly demonstrate why the word conservative can project a negative, status quo preference for political privilege.  Just like the Democrat ruling class, some within the Republican Party forget that they too can be seduced by a ruling class mentality contrary to the wishes of the constituency they should be humbled and honored to serve.

Old Gadfly:  Unfortunately far too many Americans still feel comfortable being fed narratives shaped by a very biased media.  As you will recall, I categorized many of these individuals as Copernican drones because they lack the capacity to think and analyze original sources on their own.  For example, I have heard many express their fear of Trump because he would be imperialistic or authoritarian.  Perhaps they have been desensitized regarding this notion by a truly authoritarian who has followed through with his promise to circumvent the Congress with his phone and pen.  Trump says that on his first day in office he would rescind unconstitutional executive orders related to the second amendment and immigration.

IM:  I noticed that Trump’s campaign website provides positions on some key issues.  I read through all of these positions, and what struck me was Trump’s apparent intent to work with Congress and our existing institutions to advance solutions.  This does not sound like an imperialistic President.

AM:  Ironically, when looking at Hillary’s campaign website, her positions represent a third Obama term and address everything under the sun—consistent with imperialistic thinking and a belief in a very big and powerful central government.  Let’s see, Hillary’s commitment to the status quo sounds like a conservative.  Trump is the one advancing new ideas to benefit all Americans, not just protected classes at the expense of others.  Nor does he want to enslave the nonruling class.

Old Gadfly:  This past week, I had the opportunity to hear Dinesh D’Souza discuss his upcoming documentary based on his book, Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  The movie opens in three days (July 22, 2016) at theaters nationwide.  Progressives are already trying to debunk the analysis by suggesting political realignment.  Sadly, we see no advertisement by the media.  Does this come as a surprise.  I remember all the media hype about Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth before they were released.  So, we need to spread the word through other means.

IM:  Wasn’t D’Souza convicted recently?

Old Gadfly:  Yes.  This is what he explained in his book:

In this book I will show how Democrats went from slavery for blacks to enslavement for the whole population.  Even those who benefit from the progressive state become dependent upon it and remain captive to their progressive benefactors.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are forced, intimidated, and terrorized into forking over our earnings and possessions so that progressives can dispose of them as they see fit.  In sum, progressive Democrats have gone from exploiting blacks to exploiting everyone.  This is their actual Big Switch. 

. . . Progressives need a pitch, and the best pitch is the idea of social justice.

. . . I learned about the pitch in a federal confinement center where I spent eight months in overnight captivity for my sins against the Obama administration.  My crime was exceeding the campaign finance laws by giving $20,000 over the campaign finance limit to a college pal of mine who was running for the U.S. Senate.  I didn’t do it to get anything in return; I did it simply to help an old friend.  For this, I found myself at the receiving end of the full force of the U.S. government.

But since no one in American history has been prosecuted—let alone incarcerated—for doing what I did, I should be allowed to suspect that my real crime was in exposing President Obama in my film 2016:  Obama’s America and my books The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America.  Obama hated my film, vituperatively attacking it on his website barackobama.com, and a few months later, the FBI was knocking on my door (pp. 22-23).        

AM:  What does D’Souza mean by “the Big Switch?”

Old Gadfly:  Democrats and their complicit progressives in academia, the media, and Hollywood claim Republicans, and now Trump, in particular are bigots, racists, misogynists, and so forth, when it was Democrats in our history that were the racists and misogynists.  D’Souza provides evidence that the Ku Klux Klan emerged from the Democrat Party, Jim Crow laws were advanced by Democrats, and Democrats opposed women suffrage.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Read his book.  Better yet, watch the documentary.

IM:  Sadly, there is an abundance of evidence to impugn Democrat social justice policy.  For example, here is an interesting video by Dr. Walter Williams from George Mason University.

AM:  Democrats seem to have a powerful megaphone, claiming Republicans are the party of “no” or “obstructionists.”

Old Gadfly:  When a particular ideological faction controls the narrative, it is easy to manufacture false notions.  This is one of the recruiting advantages ISIS and other Islamic or jihadists groups have, and they start early as in this news video of a kindergarten graduation in the Gaza Strip.  Progressives are an ideological faction, and they want Americans to think they are the ones with ideas to advance progress while Republicans want to put blacks back in chains.  Well, Republicans do have ideas.  Check out Trump’s website and take a look at Ryan’s (Republican Speaker of the House) A Better Way.  Of course, most Americans will only know about Ryan’s policy agenda through the media.  Here’s such an example.  The biggest criticism is about the lack of specific detail, highlighting alternatives to Obamacare, as an example.  As a professor, I always advise students to evaluate primary sources.  This is part of an education many Americans seem to have missed.

IM:  Coloradans are about to discover what they did not read in the legislation before it was passed strictly by Democrat votes.   Because a Colorado democrat-controlled legislature and governor passed an Obamacare exchange, they are now scrambling to see how Colorado will fill the gap in lost federal subsidies this coming year.  The proposed legislation calls for an increase in individual income taxes (from 4.63% to 7.96%) and 10% increase for sole proprietors (from 4.63% to 14.63%) and corporations.  Meanwhile thousands of Coloradans have been added to the State Medicaid program.  The citizens of Ohio will soon discover the same dilemma after Governor John Kasich enthusiastically promoted Obamacare exchanges in his State.  A nice little mess created by progressive Democrats, but they will find a way to blame it on Republicans as in D’Souza’s Big Switch theory.

          Old Gadfly:  Some of this explains why Democrats fear a President Trump.  Trump firmly believes in law and order over political retribution.  As an adult, and given available resources, his Attorney General and other federal-level prosecutors would focus on crimes that are far more egregious than a $20,000 campaign contribution.  Perhaps by then, other “ruling class” Republicans will seek redemption for failing to be an adult, and putting our nation at risk with a President Hillary Clinton. 

Some Are More Equal

IM:  Events during this week demonstrated life imitating satire.

Old Gadfly:  What do you mean, IM?

IM:  In Orwell’s Animal Farm, after the socialists took command, they issued seven commandments.  Over time, seeing how easy it was to control the other animals, Napoleon (styled after Joseph Stalin) reduced the commandments to just one:  “all animals are created equal; some are more equal than others.”

Old Gadfly:    Animal Farm’s class distinctions certainly appear to reflect the FBI Director’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite his own well-described case of someone who grossly violated federal statutes.  Comey was very careful in his wording:  “no evidence of criminal intent” and “extreme carelessness.”

IM:  This wording was precisely what President Obama signaled when interviewed by Chris Wallace on April 10, 2016 on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program.  Obama said he believed there was “no intent” to violate laws, although the actions certainly were “very careless.”

AM:  Then, on a Monday, June 27, 2016, in an unscheduled but well-choreographed arrangement, Bill Clinton privately (no witnesses or photographers) met with Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States, on her plane on the airport tarmac in Phoenix.  When leaked, Lynch claimed it was just a casual discussion about grandchildren.

IM:  Five days later, on Saturday, July 2, 2016, several FBI agents interviewed Hillary Clinton for about three hours.  This was not a sworn deposition, and there was no recording or transcript of the session.  Yet, Democrats wanted to compare this case to the Petraeus case—the big difference is that the FBI interrogated him under oath.  Do you think Bill advised Lynch to remind the FBI that when they talked to Hillary, it should not be under oath to avoid perjury implications?  Bill remembers his own experience under oath regarding his sexual encounter with Monica Lewinsky.

AM:  Then, on Sunday, July 3, 2016, the New York Times published an article that sent a signal to Loretta Lynch:  “. . . Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general, who took office in April 2015."  Of course, by then Lynch said to the public that she would do whatever the FBI recommends.

IM:  All of which led up to FBI Director, Comey, making his announcement on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, that he would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton.  This announcement was just in time for Obama and Clinton to emerge from Air Force One in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a campaign stop.  The optics were powerful—Air Force One, the President, and an unindicted felon flaunting the notion that some people are above the law and thus more equal than others—like Obama, another anointed one.  Obama declared Hillary the most qualified person for President ever in our history.  Sadly, job titles are not sufficient qualifications.  What has Hillary actually accomplished that is positive?  A lot of wreckage followed her wake:  the Russia reset, a Middle East in absolute turmoil, ISIS, North Korea, Iran nuclear deal, and so forth.

AM:  In the military we had a saying, screw up and move up.  It was recognition that senior people who made mistakes somehow got promoted. 

IM:  With the “above the law” precedent clearly established thanks to Lynch, Comey, and Clinton, Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor, appeared on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program (hosted by Shannon Bream) today in his “private capacity” on national television to stump for Hillary Clinton.  Can you imagine Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunsford, presenting himself in a business suit on the same talk show to stump for a politician?  He’d be court-martialed for violating the Hatch Act—which applies to all federal officials by the way.  Clearly some Americans are more equal than others.

Old Gadfly:   My son-in-law is a legal immigrant.  When I asked him why foreign nationals come to America, he unhesitatingly said, “America has been known as a prosperous and peaceful society based on the rule of law” (bold italics added for emphasis).  He is very disappointed by what is playing out by this corrupt administration, in general, and by an unscrupulous, above the law, presidential wannabe, in particular. 

Gentlemen, we talked about a ruling class in January.  This week provided more evidence.  How do we wake up Americans? 

Democrats to Define Trump

IM:  Today’s New York Times First Draft reports that a Democrat research group by the name, American Bridge, is compiling volumes of dirt on Donald Trump.  The authors openly admit, “Their hope is to have Mr. Trump defined before he ever gets to reintroduce himself to the general election voters.”

AM:  The authors also indicate that American Bridge was founded by a close Hillary Clinton ally.

Old Gadfly:    Do you recall Obama’s response to reporters who asked why he had performed so poorly against Romney in their first presidential debate?

IM:  He laughed and said, “That was not the real Romney.”

AM:  Exactly.  The people were not to evaluate the candidate for who he really was.  The caricature of Romney was how Democrats defined him.  For those of us who actually believe in the 10 commandments—amazingly, there are only 10--one involves not bearing false witness against a neighbor.  But Democrats want the people to buy into what their own Party Pharisees preach, whether it is true or not.

IM:   We are observing full-throated propaganda.  Just today, I reviewed background on the Watergate scandal in terms of the circumstances about covering up illegal activity, refusing to comply with a Congressional investigation, and all the indictments and convictions related to the case.  No one was killed.  But there was accountability for the politically-motivated activities.  On the other hand, the Executive branch has obstructed a congressional investigation into Benghazi (not to mention Fast and Furious, the IRS, and other scandals) and intentionally destroyed evidence.  Four Americans were killed.  Immediately after the Committee released its 800-page report, major news networks headlined their belief that there was nothing new and that it was time to move on.  Why is this disturbing to me?  When Hitler and the Nazi Party assumed control of Germany, they could count on a complicit media.  Here is a list of 20 pro-Nazi newspapers or magazines.  I could not find a similar list for anti-Nazi newspapers.  American-born, William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw, even participated in pro-Nazi radio broadcasts.

Worse, I checked on major themes for Nazi propaganda, and here is what I found:

·         Denounce enemies of their ideology, to include capitalists (this closely aligns with Democrat defined enemies such as the top 1%, white males because of white privilege, and any others that question progressive values as racist, misogynist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, etc.)

·         Punish those who oppose their ideology (Dinesh D’Souza can vouch for this because of a $30,000 indirect campaign contribution; yet, George Soros can contribute over $7 million to the Hillary Clinton campaign while other Wall Street investment firms contributed even more.)

·         Champion eugenics (here the Nazi’s watched developments within America for the moral foundations for cleansing the human race from imperfections, to include Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood)

·         Maintain a cult of personality around the ideology’s leader (for progressives in America this is now Obama, soon to be Hillary Clinton)

·         Tolerate religious practices only if they do not interfere with the state (the Little Sisters of the Poor faced millions in fines for not complying with birth control and abortifacient mandates)

·         The media was more than happy to amplify the Nazi values (we see similar complicity with our own main stream media)

·         Employ propaganda, consistent with Hitler’s own vision for manipulating the masses.  Here are Hitler’s own words in his book, Mein Kampf:

The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses [this is why Democrats aggressively define the opponent; see also here]. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.

Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice [i.e., the emphasis on social justice, fair share, etc.]; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side [similar to progressive George Lakoff’s axiom that it is the frame that matters, and facts are only relevant if they fit the frame]. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas [e.g., racist, bigot, white privilege, misogynist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, etc.  Just the other day, Hillary argued that Trump followers fit into one or more of the standard progressive stereotypes.]. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.[1] (Text in bold, italics added)

AM:  Joseph Stalin engaged in similar tactics.  In 1991, the formerly classified footage of Stalin and his mind control evidence was released to the public.  A comprehensive sampling can be found here.  Under Hitler and the Nazi regime, some of the first to be sent to German concentration camps were communists.  Ironically, the fascists and communists were brutal ideological opponents within the same socialist camp.  The Nazis were opposed to Marxist materialism and capitalism.  Yet, to this day, scholars and the general public have bought the myth that fascism, and its Nazi manifestation, is far right on the political spectrum.  Communism and fascism are far left manifestations of left-wing socialism.

Old Gadfly:  As we were having this conversation, I received the personal thoughts of a pastor who plans to support Trump, not because he is a saint, but because he firmly believes Trump is a modern biblical Cyrus.  This pastor also reminded us that Winston Churchill was known to be bombastic and was similarly caricatured as Trump has been.

IM:  The thought has occurred to me that recent progressive efforts to punish Christian bakers for not wanting to participate in same sex weddings, to force public schools to accommodate transgenders, to celebrate black lives matter, to perpetuate gender pay gaps, to criticize opponents of lax immigration policies, to refuse to use terms like jihad or radical Islam, and so forth, are specifically designed to tee up opportunities to use stereotype labels such as racist, misogynist, homophobe, xenophobe, Islamaphobe, and so forth.

AM:    Your observation, IM, represents a swarming effect using several Saul Alinsky rules:  rule 5, ridicule is man’s most potent weapon; rule 8, keep the pressure on; rule 12, the price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative (here the example is the attempt to foil Trump’s evolving views on various issues by suggesting he is flip flopping); and rule 13, pick the target, freeze it, and polarize it.[2]  Obviously, Hillary Clinton has an opportunity to seize upon Alinsky’s tactics; after all, her Wellesley College senior thesis extolled his virtues.  And the American Bridge will be the instrument to lead these tactics.

Old Gadfly:  So, based on all these facts and circumstances, who is the most dangerous opponent to Democrats:  Donald Trump or ISIS?  Trump opposes the Democrat progressive ideology.  ISIS opposes American values in general.  Since Trump appears to be the most existential threat to Democrats, Democrats have indirectly aligned themselves with a threat against America itself.  But then again, Obama, who symbolizes progressivism, vowed to fundamentally transform America.  Therefore, while Trump wants to make America great again, Democrats are actually anti-America.  I know this sounds bold.  But as I mentioned to a good friend yesterday, when one is confronted with telling a mother her baby is ugly, one typically capitulates to dishonesty to avoid getting slapped. 

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[1] Mein Kampf citations are from the Project Gutenberg-hosted 1939 English translation by James Murphy

[2] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals:  A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1972).