Tuesday, December 13, 2005
From National Socialism to Power Elites
Plenty of good reads these past few days, some of them fallout from George W. Bush's slam against the Constitution as a "G_d_ piece of paper" as revealed the other day, but other things as well. Hopefully we'll have more time tomorrow. For now:
Joe Sobran's latest, more penetration beyond our "real matrix" where we see that managerial or bureaucratic socialism has become the unofficial and unrecognized political and organizational philosophy of America--and has been, for a long time. (Philosophy? What's that?!)
National Socialism Comes to America
Joseph Sobran
Sobrans: The Real News of the Month
November 24, 2005
In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, the historian John Lukacs smiled skeptically at the notion that it was a contest between the opposing principles of capitalism and communism. Actually, he said, it was a rivalry between two broadly similar states, Russian and American, both of which might be more accurately described as “national socialist.”
Unfortunately, that term had already been taken, and nobody wanted it after 1945. But Lukacs was far from the only one who saw that it fit most of the regimes that had survived World War II. In his influential 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution, the former Communist James Burnham argued that the American, German, and Russian systems, despite superficial differences, were all variants of a new type of bureaucratic state, in which the actual control exercised by the burgeoning new “managerial” class was separate from nominal ownership.
John T. Flynn saw Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as an American transposition of Fascism. Garet Garrett, another critic of Roosevelt, understood that the United States was undergoing a revolution — of the kind Aristotle had called “revolution within the form.” America was not so different from its enemies as most Americans liked to believe. By now it’s a little late for conservatism; most of the things worth conserving were destroyed a long time ago.
Still, “superficial” differences can be important. If all modern states are versions of national socialism, I’d rather live under one with habeas corpus and freedom of the press than under one without them. I’d rather be permitted to speak my mind than forbidden to.
But let’s be clear about this. Americans are still permitted to do a great many things, though not as many things as their ancestors could take for granted. Fine. But permission isn’t freedom. The privilege of a subject isn’t the right of a free man. If you can own only what the government permits you to own, then in essence the government owns you. We no longer tell the state what our rights are; it tells us.
Such is the servitude Americans are now accustomed to under an increasingly bureaucratic state. Permission, often in the form of legal licensing, is the residue of the old freedom; but we’re supposed to think that this is still “the land of the free,” and that we owe our freedom to the state, its laws, and especially its wars. The more the state grows — that is, the more it fulfills the character of national socialism — the freer we’re told we are.
President Bush, who is not exactly your philosopher-king type, would probably react with surprise, indignation, and bafflement if you called him a national socialist, since, after all, he thinks a fair amount of capitalism should be permitted, even encouraged; and he’s really not all that different from most of our rulers. But that’s the point. Few of these men really know what they think; they came in late in the game, and they play by the rules they see others playing by. What’s philosophy got to do with it? (That was an elective course, wasn’t it?)
Let’s put it this way. If our rulers were all shipwrecked on a desert island with no means of escape, they might eventually build monuments and skyscrapers; but can anyone imagine them creating free institutions? What sort of Republic would this be if it had been founded by the Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, Bidens, and McCains? Its rallying cry would have been something along the lines of “Give me Medicare benefits or give me death!”
This is not to insult them, merely to point out their shared premise: they all think from the perspective of power, of the rulers and not the ruled. They may be benevolent, in their way; but when they want to do something for their subjects, it goes without saying that they also reserve the right to do something to those same subjects. Controlling the nation’s wealth, even under the guise of “capitalism,” is always the main thing. It’s “our” wealth, isn’t it? Monarchy is so over, but rulers still love the first-person plural. As in “We owe it to ourselves.”
And even when the subjects criticize the rulers — which is permitted — the criticism itself assumes the same premise and perspective. After all, we’re told that in a democracy the subjects themselves are the ultimate rulers. Hence the taxpayers themselves may wish for higher taxes to pay for their privileges, calculating that these will be chiefly exacted from others.
And freedom? Well, under national socialism, freedom is where you find it.
END
Also published today is the latest grand slam home run by Patrick Wood (The August Review). Unfortunately I cannot reproduce this in its entirety; it is too long. But here is the first few paragraphs; you know what to do with the link at the bottom.
AMERICA PLUNDERED BY GLOBAL ELITE
PART 1 of 2
Patrick Wood
December 13, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
In 1978, this writer's book Trilaterals Over Washington revealed the global strategy of the Trilateral Commission and it's co-founders David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski, in particular, provided the intellectual reasoning and political strategy for the "New International Economic Order".
Brzezinski was also an astute political operator. He is credited as the first person to take interest in Jimmy Carter, to mentor him in globalism starting in 1973 when Carter was chosen to be part of the Trilateral Commission. Upon Carter's election victory in 1976, Brzezinski was appointed National Security Advisor. By the end of 1976, Carter had appointed no less than 19 members of the Trilateral Commission to high-ranking government positions. These 19 members represented just under 20% of the entire U.S. delegation of the Trilateral Commission.
The stage was now set for their power to become permanently embedded. Each successive Administration has been disproportionally dominated by members of the Trilateral Commission: George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, Richard B. Cheney. Each administration filled top posts from the Trilateral Commission. Think-tanks connected to the Trilateral Commission cranked out volumes of studies that droned on and on about the New International Economic Order, interdependence and the need for political change.
Looking backward to Brzezinski, however, is necessary because he most clearly and lucidly embodied the heart and soul of the rush to globalism. He created the watershed that initiated the plundering of America and the buildup of the global corporate elite. This issue intends to quantify the extent of this plundering.
[It does, too! Read on here.]
Joe Sobran's latest, more penetration beyond our "real matrix" where we see that managerial or bureaucratic socialism has become the unofficial and unrecognized political and organizational philosophy of America--and has been, for a long time. (Philosophy? What's that?!)
National Socialism Comes to America
Joseph Sobran
Sobrans: The Real News of the Month
November 24, 2005
In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, the historian John Lukacs smiled skeptically at the notion that it was a contest between the opposing principles of capitalism and communism. Actually, he said, it was a rivalry between two broadly similar states, Russian and American, both of which might be more accurately described as “national socialist.”
Unfortunately, that term had already been taken, and nobody wanted it after 1945. But Lukacs was far from the only one who saw that it fit most of the regimes that had survived World War II. In his influential 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution, the former Communist James Burnham argued that the American, German, and Russian systems, despite superficial differences, were all variants of a new type of bureaucratic state, in which the actual control exercised by the burgeoning new “managerial” class was separate from nominal ownership.
John T. Flynn saw Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as an American transposition of Fascism. Garet Garrett, another critic of Roosevelt, understood that the United States was undergoing a revolution — of the kind Aristotle had called “revolution within the form.” America was not so different from its enemies as most Americans liked to believe. By now it’s a little late for conservatism; most of the things worth conserving were destroyed a long time ago.
Still, “superficial” differences can be important. If all modern states are versions of national socialism, I’d rather live under one with habeas corpus and freedom of the press than under one without them. I’d rather be permitted to speak my mind than forbidden to.
But let’s be clear about this. Americans are still permitted to do a great many things, though not as many things as their ancestors could take for granted. Fine. But permission isn’t freedom. The privilege of a subject isn’t the right of a free man. If you can own only what the government permits you to own, then in essence the government owns you. We no longer tell the state what our rights are; it tells us.
Such is the servitude Americans are now accustomed to under an increasingly bureaucratic state. Permission, often in the form of legal licensing, is the residue of the old freedom; but we’re supposed to think that this is still “the land of the free,” and that we owe our freedom to the state, its laws, and especially its wars. The more the state grows — that is, the more it fulfills the character of national socialism — the freer we’re told we are.
President Bush, who is not exactly your philosopher-king type, would probably react with surprise, indignation, and bafflement if you called him a national socialist, since, after all, he thinks a fair amount of capitalism should be permitted, even encouraged; and he’s really not all that different from most of our rulers. But that’s the point. Few of these men really know what they think; they came in late in the game, and they play by the rules they see others playing by. What’s philosophy got to do with it? (That was an elective course, wasn’t it?)
Let’s put it this way. If our rulers were all shipwrecked on a desert island with no means of escape, they might eventually build monuments and skyscrapers; but can anyone imagine them creating free institutions? What sort of Republic would this be if it had been founded by the Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, Bidens, and McCains? Its rallying cry would have been something along the lines of “Give me Medicare benefits or give me death!”
This is not to insult them, merely to point out their shared premise: they all think from the perspective of power, of the rulers and not the ruled. They may be benevolent, in their way; but when they want to do something for their subjects, it goes without saying that they also reserve the right to do something to those same subjects. Controlling the nation’s wealth, even under the guise of “capitalism,” is always the main thing. It’s “our” wealth, isn’t it? Monarchy is so over, but rulers still love the first-person plural. As in “We owe it to ourselves.”
And even when the subjects criticize the rulers — which is permitted — the criticism itself assumes the same premise and perspective. After all, we’re told that in a democracy the subjects themselves are the ultimate rulers. Hence the taxpayers themselves may wish for higher taxes to pay for their privileges, calculating that these will be chiefly exacted from others.
And freedom? Well, under national socialism, freedom is where you find it.
END
Also published today is the latest grand slam home run by Patrick Wood (The August Review). Unfortunately I cannot reproduce this in its entirety; it is too long. But here is the first few paragraphs; you know what to do with the link at the bottom.
AMERICA PLUNDERED BY GLOBAL ELITE
PART 1 of 2
Patrick Wood
December 13, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
In 1978, this writer's book Trilaterals Over Washington revealed the global strategy of the Trilateral Commission and it's co-founders David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski, in particular, provided the intellectual reasoning and political strategy for the "New International Economic Order".
Brzezinski was also an astute political operator. He is credited as the first person to take interest in Jimmy Carter, to mentor him in globalism starting in 1973 when Carter was chosen to be part of the Trilateral Commission. Upon Carter's election victory in 1976, Brzezinski was appointed National Security Advisor. By the end of 1976, Carter had appointed no less than 19 members of the Trilateral Commission to high-ranking government positions. These 19 members represented just under 20% of the entire U.S. delegation of the Trilateral Commission.
The stage was now set for their power to become permanently embedded. Each successive Administration has been disproportionally dominated by members of the Trilateral Commission: George H.W. Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, Richard B. Cheney. Each administration filled top posts from the Trilateral Commission. Think-tanks connected to the Trilateral Commission cranked out volumes of studies that droned on and on about the New International Economic Order, interdependence and the need for political change.
Looking backward to Brzezinski, however, is necessary because he most clearly and lucidly embodied the heart and soul of the rush to globalism. He created the watershed that initiated the plundering of America and the buildup of the global corporate elite. This issue intends to quantify the extent of this plundering.
[It does, too! Read on here.]
