Postscript on a Madhouse

I had a private exchange with a friend who remarked,

I had a thought about the Left’s abhorrence of guns. I wonder if part of it stems from a rationalist “principle” of “all killing is bad.” So, it’s not just the murder of innocents that’s evil, but killing in self-defense is really just as bad--and from that contradiction flows all manner of additional craziness.

The subject was the madness within our modern society. He quoted Galt in Atlas Shrugged, who said,

"I have said that faith and force are corollaries, and that mysticism will always lead to the rule of brutality. The cause of it is contained in the very nature of mysticism. Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence."

I replied (dovetailing my last post the other day, It's a Madhouse):

It's true that mysticism reduces mankind to the state where disagreements can only (ultimately) be resolved with force and / or violence, but in our society the practical expression of mysticism is self-sacrifice, and I think this is the best starting point to understand the spread of psychosis in our world.

For many on the Religious Right, sacrifice takes a relatively simple form -- God, Country, Charity, etc. But generally, they kind of let you keep half your soul and half your happiness. That's enough to keep most (religious) people grounded enough in reality to survive.

The Left takes self-sacrifice more seriously, though. The root of this, I think, is that they are neurotically driven to seek any gospel that gains them moral superiority over others. Why they are so neurotically insecure about themselves is a different topic (it's much like a rat eating its own tail because it's both taught and reinforced in school and society), but I think the leitmotif of the Left culminates in a neurotic insecurity that becomes driven by the Creed of Self-sacrifice.

The pain of this neurotic self-doubt is compensated by only one thing: power lust. Their desire to control others is rationalized by projecting it through the demands of society, and the really scary part is their unadmitted desire for a dictator to rule them.

Morality, via self-sacrifice, is their kool-aid. The means to control people while inflating their own pseudo-self-esteem... moral superiority = higher perceived self-value. An illusion of self-worth created by the drug of self-sacrifice, because *anyone* can easily find ways to ask *others* to sacrifice. The method comes courtesy of Karl Marx, Immanuel Kant, and every religious huckster for the last 30,000 years of human existence.

The more they call for methods of self-sacrifice, the more superior they are, and the addication grows with the number of laws and lobbyists in Washington.

Psychologically, their neurosis leads them to seek out every form of self-sacrifice. Gun control, saving the whales, the planet, the furbish lousewort, sacrificing for racial equality via racism, sacrificing Western Civilization to every barbaric civilization (Islam or any random tribe of indians), even giving up any kind of food that is tasty in the name of any kind of diet that isn't (eg, vegetarianism), prohibiting any modern convenience in the name of technological abstinence -- or the technology that makes conveniences possible, like coal, oil, nuclear, in favor of any quackery that is more costly (wind, solar, etc). And the self-sacrifice is all couched as unchosen duties to thy neighbor, village, city, state, nation, planet, even your own body (don't eat salt!), which is treated as somehow not your own. Ad infinitum.

At the deepest level, they sacrifice reason and reality to any irrational notion they care to concoct out of thin air and turn into a cult or a fiscal policy or foreign policy or a university curriculum. But again, it's all unchosen duties and unchosen "responsibilities" (a word they prefer because it requires less self-examination and allows more equivocation between the chosen and the unchosen) because they want to sacrifice individual judgment, individual values, individual choices to the herd or to the worship of unhuman or inanimate objects.

In an important sense, the Left is that part of human civilization that never stopped worshipping bulls and figurines and sun-gods and other icons; they just reified them in the form of abstractions -- "society", "the planet", and most abstract of all, any floating, disconnected nothingness conceived by an ivory tower academic living off government subsistence, especially those ideas pertaining to human behavior, human psychology, human interactions. Though of course, today it goes far beyond that, right into the "hard" sciences. Any abstract nothingness is in the pantheon of their gods.

As Galt said, they worship the Zero, because that's the ultimate form of self-sacrifice. Zeroes worshipping every Zero, trying to claim a Zero is something because they worship it. Exhibit A: Barack Obama.

Gun control plays into all this, cause it's the sacrifice of innocent victims to armed killers, and the sacrifice of innocent citizens to the government. It nicely plays into their need to control people with a straitjacket of regulations and permissions. You didn't build that, but if you did, we'll tax you out of existence and take credit for it.

Sacrifice of the individual to society embraces most things the Left advocates, though the aberration of environmentalism took that concept a step further to advocate the sacrifice of the individual to even things outside society -- by anthropomorphizing the planet or nothingness (there have been calls to end the littering of space with our "junk").

There's nothing connected to reality in any major agenda of the Left. The only common theme is the unquestioned irrational pursuit of self-sacrifice. It's all insane, and it has to breed insanity. As Galt also said,

"Death is the standard of your values, death is your chosen goal, and you have to keep running, since there is no escape from the pursuer who is out to destroy you or from the knowledge that that pursuer is yourself. Stop running, for once—there is no place to run—stand naked, as you dread to stand, but as I see you, and take a look at what you dared to call a moral code."

To paraphrase, psychosis is the standard of their values, psychosis is their chosen goal... take a look at what they dare to call a moral ideal -- the creed of self-sacrifice.

It's a Madhouse

Headline: 20 Children Among 28 Dead In Newtown Elementary School Massacre.

It's too terrible to dwell on the concrete details, which have become far too commonplace.   I only note that it was inevitable, and more is on the way.

It's a terrible fact that when the philosophy of a culture becomes utterly irrational, it infects everything.  People become utterly irrational when they come to embrace utterly irrational ideas.  I've remarked multiple times that the Left has become borderline psychotic, and I mean it.  Leonard Peikoff suggested something similar many years ago in his speech, "Modernism and Madness," (1994) which was the source of my own observation, and I've thought about it ever since.

The effect of irrational ideas infects everyone who subscribes to them.  What makes the Left's ideas so pernicious, especially those of the so-called "post-modern" Left, who are something of the apotheosis of worship in the Cult of  Unreason, is the insidious nature of the un-integrated, unreal ideas they advocate -- ideas developed ultimately with no regard for reality, but not merely no regard -- open, defiant contempt for reality.  The ideas they uphold are utterly unintegrated from any rational context by intention, with a brooding leitmotif of loathing for any kind of order to existence, and for any kind of human existence.  This expresses itself in the phenomenon Ayn Rand identified as hatred of the good for being the good:

This hatred is not resentment against some prescribed view of the good with which one does not agree. . . . Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one’s own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.

As she noted,

What is the nature of a creature in which the sight of a value arouses hatred and the desire to destroy? In the most profound sense of the term, such a creature is a killer, not a physical, but a metaphysical one—it is not an enemy of your values, but of all values, it is an enemy of anything that enables men to survive, it is an enemy of life as such and of everything living.

The effect of irrational ideas has to ripple down through a culture.  Putting aside the vocational aspects, our schools today are dedicated to one proposition: destroying the minds of children. The most successful products of our schools now grow up warped and disfigured mentally, in possession of some knowledge here and there -- table scraps for emaciated minds -- but largely shriveled mentally, their cortical folds flattened and disfigured by rabid committments to random eclectic notions bearing no connection at all to reality. 

At some level they know they are freaks. The anger wells up.  From the start of their grade-school they had stewed for years in a pot of  irrationality that washed their brains of any critical faculty and left them inept to live and filled with rationalizations for their metaphysical incompetence -- it's somebody else's fault for their lack of self-esteem or ambition or whatever. The brainwashing was perfect, because they came out of the process not merely unable to recognize their own killers, but admiring them.

With the sanction of a post-modern philosophy that glorifies hatred of anything human, they went home -- to watch post-modern movies or television shows denigrate anything heroic while teaching a mindless amoral violence as the solution to all problems.  And then, when bored with that (for the existentialism of boredom surely permeates the post-modern culture) they settled deeper into their couches to play post-modern video games that glorify mindless violence. 

Then you add the confines of the straitjacket of statism.  All that incompetence and feelings of worthlessness become a suffocating claustrophobic pressure seeking release. With no freedom, no ability to exercise individual judgment and only unchosen duties -- of course something has to give. 

This is the pattern of any extreme authoritarianism driven by an insane philosophy.  Psychological pressure builds till people start exploding.  They go crazy. 



It's happened throughout history, though you don't read much about it unless you look for it. Look up the history of any rigidly authoritarian country like the Soviet Union, or Cambodia -- sometimes the people doing the exploding are the ones in control. (Or -- who was the "Pied Piper" of Hamelin?  A serial killer of children. Put this one in the context of the stultifying religious authoritarianism of the Dark Ages.)

Freedom is the pressure relief valve of psychosis, in a sense, but more fundamentally, reason is what prevents psychosis and the pressure build-up in the first place -- by developing confident human beings who feel fit to live, who are qualified to live freely and independently, and who cultivate a society that allows people to live freely.

Free, rational societies don't breed mass killers.  Authoritarian, irrational societies do breed mass killers.  That's why I said:  more is coming.

Our society has scorned reason. Under government run, left-wing schools of pure, unadulterated brainwashing, too many children are taught nothing but irrational social and psychological doctrines that disfigure them mentally -- by design.

Ayn Rand explained it in one of her most brilliant essays, The Comprachicos. Quoting Victor Hugo in his novel The Man Who Laughs, she made a comparison:

' …The comprachicos, or comprapequeños, were a strange and hideous nomadic association, famous in the seventeenth century, forgotten in the eighteenth, unknown today.

'…Comprachicos, as well as comprapequeños, is a compound Spanish word that means “child-buyers.” The comprachicos traded in children. They bought them and sold them.

' They did not steal them. The kidnapping of children is a different industry.

' And what did they make of these children?

' Monsters.

' Why monsters?

' To laugh.

' The people need laughter; so do the kings. Cities require side-show freaks or clowns; palaces require jesters …

' To succeed in producing a freak, one must get hold of him early. A dwarf must be started when he is small …'

' Hence, an art. There were educators. They took a man and turned him into a miscarriage; they took a face and made a muzzle. They stunted growth; they mangled features. This artificial production of teratological cases had its own rules. It was a whole science. Imagine an inverted orthopedics. Where God had put a straight glance, this art put a squint. Where God had put harmony, they put deformity. Where God had put perfection, they brought back a botched attempt. And, in the eyes of connoisseurs, it is the botched that was perfect …

' The practice of degrading man leads one to the practice of deforming him. Deformity completes the task of political suppression…

' The comprachicos had a talent, to disfigure, that made them valuable in politics. To disfigure is better than to kill. There was the iron mask, but that is an awkward means. One cannot populate Europe with iron masks; deformed mountebanks, however, run through the streets without appearing implausible; besides, an iron mask can be torn off, a mask of flesh cannot. To mask you forever by means of your own face, nothing can be more ingenious…'

She continued in her own voice:

The production of monsters — helpless,twisted monsters whose normal development has been stunted — goes on all around us. But the modern heirs of the comprachicos are smarter and subtler than their predecessors: they do not hide, they practice their trade in the open; they do not buy children, the children are delivered to them; they do not use sulphur or iron, they achieve their goal without ever laying a finger on their little victims. 

This is the ingenuity practiced by most of today’s educators. They are the comprachicos of the mind. They do not place a child into a vase to adjust his body to its contours. They place him into a “Progressive” nursery school to adjust him to society...

She quotes herself in Atlas Shrugged:

He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly — yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think… “Men would shudder, he thought, if they saw a mother bird plucking the feathers from the wings of her young, then pushing him out of the nest to struggle for survival—yet that was what they did to their children...

I strongly recommend her entire essay to expand on what I'm saying here.

So the mental cripples emerging from our schools, realizing they are metaphysically worthless social pawns, become a kind of suicide bomber. They understand only one thing -- that they possess no reading ability, no writing ability, no mathematics ability, no knowledge of history or science or literature, no morals, no principles to guide them, no introspective ability (because that requires all the rest), no capacity to think whatsoever, and no self-respect, because that requires the capacity to think.  What can they do?

Explode.  They have to explode. It's the only thing they feel capable of doing, and for many the only thing they are practiced in doing, based on long hours ruminating in front of the screen of an imploding culture. 

They can't see inwardly, so all they can do is look outward.  They see some people who are happy, or who might be happy, and they feel a bubbling resentment.  They hear the steady pounding of left-wing culture rap that resonates with the never-ending migraine in their own skulls.  Momentarily, they get a brief cathartic release watching other people "solve" their problems on TV or in movies by shooting, stabbing, strangling or blowing someone up. The "anti-heroes" in those shows project no moral purpose to the carnage -- so the message is simply that even if love is the professed theoretical solution, killing is the only practical one.

This is reinforced when the nightly news flashes on-screen to trumpet the celebration of the doctrine at a wholesale level, with new legislation or Presidential edicts that destroy industries or murder Americans in altruistic wars. 

Seeing all this indiscriminate killing, disfigured human misfits might flee to the narcotic of a video game to get them through another night of escape with a barrage of simulated killing -- but that drug wears off quickly, leaving them only halucinogenic nightmares of unrelenting terror. Repeated day in and day out, the psychological battering eventually drives some to seek out a stronger drug, the only thing they feel competent to do to  redeem the void of their lives-- kill.

And so it goes.  Disfigured as they are, they can't even grasp what's been done to them, nor what might save them--reason.  Where would they go to find out?  A school?  Welcome to the monkey house.  Disfigured mental dwarves have taken over all the places of higher and lower learning and turned them into mad-houses.  Most of the teachers and administrators don't even know they are disfigured, or that they are disfiguring the next generation.   

The current generation, meanwhile, being fully mentally and permanently disfigured by the Comprachicos of the educational establishment and our culture writ large, have been let loose to stumble around for their survival within the cage of our authoritarian society -- which regulates their every movement and whips them at every turn for any expression of individual judgment or pursuit of any personal happiness.  They've no future at all, nothing but random hope for some loose change of an existence.

They see only one way out of the pain of such an existence: death.  This becomes a brooding, festering fascination with it, born of resentment and hatred and loathing and envy for every single creature that is worthy of its own existence. This resentment comes to consume the pathetic shreds of their lives, and some of them determine, when the pressure becomes too great, that one last suicidal gasp is all that's left to prove that they are better, as long as no one else is better off.  Anyone of any happiness, or any potential for happiness, like a child.  Anyone of any ability, any integrity, any achievement, any good in them is a glaring affront to the existence of these metaphysical monstrosities, and must be eliminated, in their psychotic world-view.  Destroyed, obliterated from existence.

Such is the development of a mass killer -- anyone who's main goal is to snuff out the lives of  everyone who might be happy, solely because they might be happy.

Random shootings are modern philosophy played out in action on a small scale. But modern philosophy is also starting to play out on a much bigger scale -- the recent election was our next "Batman shooter" preparing to enter the theater of the nation by engraved invitation -- and it will soon lead to global destruction unless the government-run schools of indoctrinated madness are shut down, but more fundamentally, only if the philosophies of madness that guide those schools are replaced with a philosophy of reason.

(I don't wish to raise the spectre of politics in this essay given the somber nature of the subject, but some time ago I did a commentary on how this kind of analysis applies to the disfigured creature in the White House.  It is a fact that he is closely related in spirit and intention to those who would randomly attack schools or theaters, and this should be borne in mind for the wary.)

Denouement of a Lobotomized Nation

A few years ago on my blog I linked an interview with a former Soviet KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, in which he described, in a 1984 interview on Canadian TV, in chilling detail how the Soviets were working to undermine America with ideological subversion.  I'm revisiting this after the election, because the implications of that interview have become so much more significant -- we are on the verge of something so terrible -- as a nation, and as a world -- that I can hardly put words to it.  I will let the former KGB man do most of the speaking.

Now, I know what a lot of Objectivist friends will say -- ideas are the primary determinant of the course of a culture, and intelligence and military propaganda efforts are of minor significance -- but remember, ideas determine ideology, and ideology determines psyops (psychological operations). The Soviets were the product of Kant, Hegel and Marx, and so were their military and intelligence operations -- operations which were planned and executed over decades towards the end goal of global domination.

Yes -- the Soviet Union is no longer around. But the effect of their operations are still very much alive, in the sense of zombies. Exhibit A: Barack Obama. Exhibit B: the American education system. Exhibit C: The American mainstream media. Exhibit D: the sanction of victims at every level of our society. Exhibit E: the imminent collapse of our society.

His words are frighteningly prophetic -- in 1984. Don't dismiss this with superficial bromides -- not until you've watched the interview, or read the transcript of what the man said, which I will include parts of to motivate your interest in more. This has direct relevance to what we are now living.

Some excerpts here from Bezmenov -- compare this to what you know today:

BEZMENOV: "...ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country. It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages...

1. The first stage being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. ...So basically America is Stuck, with demoralization; and unless, even if you start right now this minute; you start educating new generation of Americans - it will still take you 15 to 20 years to turn the tide of uh, ideological perception of reality; uh back to normalcy and patriotism.

...The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years [he said this in 1984!]. Actually, it's over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. 

...The result you can see -- most of the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get rid of to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

2. The next stage is destabilization.... this time, subverter does not care about your ideas and the patterns of your consumption. Whether you eat junk food and get fat and flabby doesn't matter any more. It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters is essentials; economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some... sensitive areas such as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago when I landed in this part of the world that the process will go that fast.

3. The next stage of course is crisis, which may take only up to 6 weeks to bring a country to the verge of crisis. ...This is what will happen in [the] United States if you allow all the shmucks to bring the country to crisis. To promise people all kinds of goodies, and the paradise on Earth.

See this video to connect what he says about a people now addicted to "all kinds of goodies":   I'm not sure if this video is a gag or not, but it captures the essence of what's happened to our society. This woman describes why the People's State of California is the best state in the country to live in -- because everything is free.  She concludes, quite matter-of-factly and earnestly, 

"I mean, WHO would want to work in America? This is what the taxpayers are paying for!"

Back to Bezmenov.  

4. And, after crisis, with a violent change of power, structure, and economy, you have [the so-called] period of normalization. It may last indefinitely. Normalization is a cynical expression borrowed from Soviet propaganda. When the Soviet tanks moved into Czechoslovakia in ‘68, Comrade Brezhnev said, ‘Now the situation in brotherly Czechoslovakia is normalized.’

This is what will happen in [the] United States if you allow all these schmucks to bring the country to crisis, to promise people all kind[s] of goodies and the paradise on earth, to destabilize your economy, to eliminate the principle of free market competition, and to put [a] Big Brother government in Washington, D.C. with benevolent dictators like Walter Mondale, who will promise lots of thing[s], never mind whether the promises are fulfillable or not. He will go to Moscow to kiss the bottoms of [a] new generation of Soviet assassins, never mind... he will create false illusions that the situation is under control. [The] situation is not under control. [The] situation is disgustingly out of control.

Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system trains another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. [The] United States is in a state of war: undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov, of course. It's the system. However ridiculous it may sound, [it is] the world Communist system (or the world Communist conspiracy). Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot. If you are not scared by now, nothing can scare you.

But you don’t have to be paranoid about it. What actually happens now [is] that unlike [me], you have literally several years to live on unless [the] United States [wakes] up.

He adds,

To destabilize your economy to eliminate the principal of free market competition; and to put a big brother government in Washington D.C.; with benevolent dictators ...Never mind whether the promises are fulfilled or not. He [the dictator] will go to Moscow to kiss the bottoms of a new generation of Soviet assassins. Never mind [nothing to see here, move along], he will create false illusions that the situation is under control.

Sidenote: Obama's first visit overseas after winning his first election? Russia, to meet Putin. It's been announced his next visit overseas after this latest election will be... to visit Putin, who is also a former KGB man. I know this remark will evoke comment from my Russian friends :) Doesn't mean Putin is still a communist.]

"Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov of course - it's the system. However, ridiculous it may sound, [it is] the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy.

[Side-side note: I have a friend who was in Berlin in 1984, working Army signals intelligence for NSA, when his group picked up the first coded messages from Moscow that Andropov had died; the world learned 3 days later.]

BEZMENOV:  "Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot. If you're not scared by now, nothing can scare you. You don't have to be paranoid about it. What actually happens now; that unlike myself, you have literally several years to live on unless United States wake up. The time bomb is ticking. With every second the disaster is coming closer. Unlike myself, you will have nowhere to defect to, unless you want to live in Antarctica with penguins. This is it, this is the last country with freedom and possibility.

INTERVIEWER: Okay, so what do we do? What is your recommendation to the American people? 

BEZMENOV: Well, the immediate thing that comes to mind is, of course, there must be a very strong national effort to educate people in the spirit of REAL patriotism, number one. Number two, to explain [to] them the real danger of socialist, communist, welfare state, Big Brother government. If people fail to grasp the impending danger; nothing ever will help the United States. You may kiss goodbye your freedoms.... All this freedom will vanish in 5 seconds - including your precious lives.

The moment at least part of [the] United States population is convinced that the danger is real, they have to FORCE their government, and I'm not talking about sending letters, signing petitions, and all this beautiful, noble activity, I'm talking about FORCING [the] United States government to stop aiding Communism....
.....

Bezmenov did a lecture in Los Angeles just before these interviews, and said similar things, but also went into some more detail about the nature of Soviet subversive techniques.  A sampling:

BEZMENOV: "The highest art of warfare is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in the country of your enemy, until such time that the perception of reality of your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not perceive you as an enemy, and that your system, your civilization and your ambitions look to you enemy as an alternative, if not desirable, then at least feasible. Better Red than Dead. That's the ultimate purpose, the final stage by which you can take your enemy without a single shot being fired. If the subversion is successful. This is what subversion is. As you see, not a single mention of blowing up bridges.

"The basics of subversion are being taught to every student of the KGB in the USSR and to officers of military academies."

"Subversion can only be successful when the initiator, the actor, the agent of subversion has a responsive target. It's a two-way traffic. The United States is a receptive target of subversion."

Even more chilling is how Bezmenov routinely describes how communists take care of dissenters after they take over:

BEZMENOV: Most of the activity of the department [KGB] was to compile a huge amount  and volume of information on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publisher, editors, journalists, actors, educationalists, professors of political science, members of parliament, representatives of business circles.

Most of these people were divided roughly into two groups: those who would tow the Soviet foreign policy, who would be promoted to positions of power through media and public manipulation; [and] those who refuse the Soviet influence in their own country -- [they] would be character assassinated OR executed physically, come Revolution.

Same way as in a small town of Hua in South Vietnam; several thousands of Vietnamese were executed in one night when the city was captured by [the] Viet Cong for only two days; and American CIA could never figure out -- how could [the communists] possibly know each Individual, where he lives, where to get him, [how could they] be arrested in one night basically in four hours before dawn, put on a van, driven out of the city limits and shot?

The answer is very simple. Long before communists occupied the city, there was an extensive network of informers; local Vietnamese citizens who knew absolutely everything about people who were instrumental in [forming] public opinion -- including barbers and taxi drivers. Everyone who was sympathetic to the United States was executed. Same thing was done under the guidance of the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, and same thing I was doing in New Delhi. To my horror, I discovered that in the files were people who were doomed to execution. There were names of pro-Soviet Journalists, with whom I was personally friendly.

INTERVIEWER: Pro Soviet?

BEZMENOV: Simply, because, you see, [they were] useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of Soviet or Communist or Socialist or whatever system; when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That's why my KGB instructors specifically made the point, "never bother with leftists, forget about these political prostitutes -- "aim higher," this was my instruction...

INTERVIEWER: But to eliminate the others; to execute the others, don't they serve some purpose -- wouldn't they be the one's to rely on?

BEZMENOV: No, they serve a purpose only [up] to the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in [the] United States; all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion, only to destabilize a nation. When the job is completed, they are not needed anymore. They know too much. ...The moment they serve their purpose, all the useful idiots are either executed entirely, [or sent to a prison camp]. All the idealistically minded Marxists. ...you can get popular like Daniel Ellsberg and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for being a dissident [and] for criticizing your Pentagon. In [the] future these people will simply be [he makes a squishy noise] squashed like cockroaches for criticizing the government.

You might tie that in to this from the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) web site, November 17, 2012 -- their National Committee issued a report celebrating the re-election of Barack Obama:

"We meet on the heels of an enormous people's victory. It was a long and bitterly contested battle in which the forces of inclusive democracy came out on top. The better angels of the American people spread their wings.

"An African American president was reelected to the Presidency, the Democrats unexpectedly strengthened their hand in the Senate and House, new progressive voices, like Elizabeth Warren, are coming to Washington.

"We can be proud of our role in the election. Our contribution was both ideological and practical. Nearly every member and leader was involved. Our work gives us much to build on as we throw ourselves into the post-election battles.

"In every state and city our political relationships are broader and deeper; our presence and prestige are on a new level.

"We come out of this election poised to play a larger role in the unfolding struggles, beginning with the struggle over the "fiscal cliff."

Pause on a few phrases in there:

"...Our contribution was both ideological and practical. Nearly every member and leader was involved."

Think about that word -- "practical."  It means something to a committed communist -- it means, control and violence.  This was practically a call to mobilize for violent takeover.

"Our work gives us much to build on as we throw ourselves into the post-election battles. We come out of this election poised to play a larger role in the unfolding struggles..."

You must realize that communists take that word "battle" literally. And Barack Obama is a communist. A Stalinist. 

Realize -- we have something much worse than mafioso in charge of our country right now.

There is *much* more to either the inteview or the lectures. He's quite matter of fact (and very funny at times), as when he talks at length of how most of the "idealistic" communists would be immediately executed if the Soviets took over. Well, same principle applies if it's not the Soviets: people after power don't tolerate starry-eyed idealists for long.

It's all coming from a man who knew, too well, how the United States was being deliberately undermined for decades, by long-range plan and intention. Yes, the sickness was much wider than Soviet plans. Yes, there was, as Ayn Rand argued, a philosophical sickness poisoning the entire world with wrong ideas, from which communism emerged, and yes, the United States was infected with it even before the Russian Revolution in 1917. (It was.)

But it's one thing to be sick; it's another thing to feed the patient poison to greatly accelerate the sickness. (and the Soviets were part of the sickness)

Ayn Rand also said that the communists -- which as Bezmenov notes were *not* just the Soviets but the entire loosely-knit *internationale* of communists and their sympathizers -- were like maggots feeding off of a corpse. (from memory -- exact phrasing might be corrected). In this case, the maggots that the Soviets begat in the 50's and 60's took on a life of their own even well before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and what we are living with today is the legacy of that.

Another side note: Bezmenov worked for the KGB to subvert India during the 60's. In the late 40's, the post-war architect of Indian socialism was a British diplomat and intellectual named Harold Laski. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Laski) He was openly a socialist, later revealed to be a closet communist -- a Fabian, if I recall, the stealth organization dedicated to incremental implementation of communism, started by Bertram Russell, among others.

But in the 1930's Ayn Rand heard Laski talk, and instantly realized that *he* was the role model for her character of Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead -- a man, whom she had say in the novel (see my post Good Night, America) about the independent, free man:

"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped--and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"

This is all related to a point I made in a post a year and a half ago: the problem is bigger than most people realize.  Much bigger.

Links to full Los Angeles lecture by Bezmenov:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN0By0xbst8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoaS6Tt6ODY
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJ30f9OfuFs
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX_9kKvyjJs
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bivEvWDWxlI
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUmpwZiGjg
Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VctBWelXt4

Short video segments of the interview on this page:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k6KUDv1wzraWhwlBt1

Full 81 minute video of Bezmenov interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_doqvkC-jYk

Full interview transcript (in three parts):
http://uselessdissident.blogspot.com/2008/11/interview-with-yuri-bezmenov.html

Partial transcript of Bezmenov interview may be found here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k6KUDv1wzraWhwlBt1 
 

ED GRIFFIN: Our conversation is with Yuri Alexandrovic Bezmenov. Mr. Bezmenov was born in 1939 in a suburb of Moscow. He was the son of a high ranking Soviet Army officer. He was educated in the elite schools inside the Soviet Union; and became an expert in Indian culture and Indian languages. He had an outstanding career with Novosti, which was, and still is I should say, the press arm or press agency of the Soviet Union; it turns out this is also a front, for the KGB.

He escaped to the West in 1970 after becoming totally disgusted with the Soviet system; and he did this at great risk to his life. He certainly is one of the worlds outstanding experts on the subject of Soviet propaganda; and disinformation and active measures.

[To Bezmenov] ...you spoke before about "ideological subversion" and that's a phrase that I'm afraid some Americans don't understand. When the Soviets use the phrase "ideological subversion" what do they mean by it? 
 

YURI BEZMENOV: Ideological subversion is the process which is [a] legitimate, old word, and open. You can see it with your own eyes. All American mass media has to do is to "unplug bananas" from their ears, open up their eyes, and they can see it. There is no mystery. It has nothing to do with espionage. I know that espionage intelligence gathering looks more romantic. It sells more deodorants through the advertising. That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all. 

According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower [of the KGB] is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country. It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. 

The first stage being "demoralization". It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of [their] enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least 3 generation of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism; American patriotism.

Most of the activity of the department [KGB] was to compile huge amount / volume of information, on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publisher, editors, journalists, uh actors, educationalists, professors of political science. Members of parliament, representatives of business circles. 

Most of these people were divided roughly into two groups: those who would tow the Soviet foreign policy, they would be promoted to positions of power through media and public manipulation; [and] those who refuse the Soviet influence in their own country would be character assassinated OR executed physically, come Revolution.
 

Same way as in a small town of Hua in South Vietnam; several thousands of Vietnamese were executed in one night when the city was captured by [the] Viet Cong for only two days; and American CIA could never figure out -- how could [the communists] possibly know each Individual, where he lives, where to get him; [in order that they] would be arrested in one night basically in four hours before dawn, put on a van, driven out of the city limits and shot.

The answer is very simple. Long before communists occupy the city, there was extensive network of informers; local Vietnamese citizens who knew absolutely everything about people who are instrumental in public opinion - including Barbers and Taxi Drivers. 

Everyone who was sympathetic to United States was executed. Same thing was done under the guidance of the Soviet Embassy in Hanoi, and same thing I was doing in New Delhi. To my horror, I discovered that in the files were people who were doomed to execution. There were names of pro-Soviet Journalists, with whom I was personally friendly.

ED GRIFFIN: Pro Soviet?

YURI BEZMENOV: Yes, absolutely. They were idealistically minded leftist communists who had made several visits to the USSR; and yet the KGB decided, that come Revolution, or drastic changes in political structure of India - they will have to go.

ED GRIFFIN: Why is that?

YURI BEZMENOV: Because they know too much. Simply, because, you see the useful idiots; the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of Soviet or Communist or Socialist or whatever system; when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That's why my KGB instructors specifically made the point, "never bother with leftists, forget about these political prostitutes -- aim higher" this was my instruction. Try to get into, uh, large circulation, established conservative media. Reach filthy rich movie makers, intellectuals in so-called academic circles. Cynical, ego-centric people who can look into your eyes with angelic expression and tell you a lie. This are the most recruitable people; people who lack moral principals - who are either too greedy or too, uh, suffer from self-importance, uh, they feel that they matter a lot. Uh, these are the people who KGB wanted very much to recruit. 

ED GRIFFIN: But to eliminate the others; to execute the others, don't they serve some purpose - wouldn't they be the one's to rely on?

YURI BEZMENOV: No they serve purpose only [up] to the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in [the] United States; all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion; only to destabilize a nation. When the job is completed, they are not needed anymore. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned - when they see that Marxist-Leninist come to power. Obviously they get offended; they think that THEY will come to power. That will never happen, of course; they will be lined up against the wall and shot. But they may turn into the most bitter enemies of Marxist-Leninists when they come to power; and that's what happened in Nicaragua. You remember most of these former Marxist-Leninists were either put to prison or one of them split and now he's working against the Sandinistas.

It happened in Grenada when Maurice Bishop, he was already a Marxist - he was executed by the new Marxists who was more Marxist than this Marxist. Same happened in Afghanistan, when, uh, first there was Taraki he was killed by Amin, then Amin was killed by Karmal with the help of KGB. Same happened in Bangladesh where Mujibur Rahman, very pro-soviet leftist; was assassinated by his own Marxist-Leninist military comrades.

It's the same pattern everywhere. The moment they serve their purpose, all the useful idiots are either executed entirely; all the idealistically minded Marxists. Or exiled, or put in prisons like in Cuba many former Marxists are in Cuba, and in prison. 

So basically America is Stuck, with demoralization; and unless, even if you start right now this minute; you start educating new generation of Americans - it will still take you 15 to 20 years to turn the tide of uh, ideological perception of reality; uh back to normalcy and patriotism. 

The result? The result you can see -- most of the people who graduated in the 60's, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can't get rid of to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.

ED GRIFFIN: And yet these people who have been programmed and as you say [are] in place and who are favorable to an opening with the Soviet concept -- these are the very people who would be marked for extermination in this country? 
 

YURI BEZMENOV: Most of them, yes. Simply because the psychological shock when they will see in [the] future what the beautiful society of EQUALITY and social justice means in practice, obviously they will revolt. They will be very unhappy [and] frustrated people, and Marxist Leninist regime does not tolerate these people. Obviously they will join the [ranks] of dissenters; dissidents. 

Unlike the present [1984] United States there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America.

[Now] you can get popular like Daniel Ellsberg and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for being a dissident [and] for criticizing your Pentagon. In [the] future these people will simply be [he makes a squishy noise] squashed like cockroaches for criticizing the government. Nobody is going to pay them nothing for their beautiful [and] noble ideas of EQUALITY. This they don't understand and it will be the greatest shock for them, of course. 

The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years. Actually, it's over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards. As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him the concentration camps...he will refuse to believe it.... until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. 
 

When the military boot crashes - then he will understand. But not before that. That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization. 

The next stage is destabilization.... this time, subverter does not care about your ideas and the patterns of your consumption. Whether you eat junk food and get fat and flabby doesn't matter any more.

It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters is essentials; economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some... sensitive areas such as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago when I landed in this part of the world that the process will go that fast. 

The next stage of course is crisis, which may take only up to 6 weeks to bring a country to the verge of crisis. You can see it in Central America now; and after crisis, with the violent change of power structure and economy, you have the period of so called "normalization" [which] it may last indefinitely. Normalization is a cynical expression, borrower from Soviet Propaganda. When the Soviet tanks moved into Czechoslovakia in 1968, comrade Brezhnev said "Now the situation in brotherly Czechoslovakia is normalized". This is what will happen in [the] United States if you allow all the shmucks to bring the country to crisis.

To promise people all kinds of goodies, and the paradise on Earth. Uh to destabilize your economy to eliminate the principal of free market competition; and to put a big brother government in Washington D.C.; with benevolent dictators like [1984] Walter Mondale [2008 Obama] who will promise lots of things - Never mind whether the promises are fulfilled or not. He [the dictator] will go to Moscow to kiss the bottoms of a new generation of Soviet Assassins. Never mind [nothing to see here, move along], he will create false illusions that the situation is under control. 

Situation is NOT under control. Situation is disgustingly out of control.

Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system train another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime. False. United States is in a state of war; undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov of course - it's the system. However, ridiculous it may sound, [it is] the world Communist system, or the world Communist conspiracy. Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot. If you're not scared by now, nothing can scare you. You don't have to be paranoid about it. What actually happens now; that unlike myself, you have literally several years to live on unless United States wake up. The time bomb is ticking. With every second the disaster is coming closer. Unlike myself, you will have nowhere to defect to, unless you want to live in Antarctica with penguins. 

This is it, this is the last country with freedom and possibility.

ED GRIFFIN: Okay, so what do we do? What is your recommendation to the American people? 

YURI BEZMENOV: Well, the immediate thing that comes to mind is, of course, there must be a very strong national effort to educate people in the spirit of REAL patriotism, number one. Number two, to explain [to] them the real danger of socialist, communist, welfare state, Big Brother government. If people fail to grasp the impending danger; nothing ever will help the United States. You may kiss goodbye your freedoms.... All this freedom will vanish in 5 seconds - including your precious lives.

The moment at least part of [the] United States population is convinced that the danger is real, they have to FORCE their government, and I'm not talking about sending letters, signing petitions, and all this beautiful, noble activity, I'm talking about FORCING [the] United States government to stop aiding Communism....

When Good Men Do Nothing

 "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

That quote couldn't be more true today.

The other day I posted a quote from Cicero that lamented the decline of Rome into despotism under Julius Caesar because of an indifferent, indolent, disorganized and cowardly society, with a parallel to our own situation since Obama's reelection (though perhaps since his first election).

"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'" (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

A friend who lives in Romania understood this quote very well, since his country is the land of former communist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, a man who had some parallels to our own Comrade Barack.  My friend provided an extremely relevant and important article on Cicero that expands on the Roman parallel perfectly,  Standing Up When It is Too Late. I lightly abridge and reformat for emphasis, but I think it is so important that I provide most of the article here for you to contemplate directly:

There is a letter by Marcus Tullius Cicero, dated 18 December 50 B.C. This letter was written to his friend Atticus on the eve of the Roman Civil War. He wrote as follows:

"The political situation alarms me deeply, and so far I have found scarcely anybody who is not for giving Caesar what he demands rather than fighting it out." 

To explain the situation in brief, G. Julius Caesar had demanded the right to circumvent the Roman constitution, to break laws with impunity, to extend his command over a large army by using that army to threaten the Senate of Rome.

 "And why should we start standing up to him now?" asked Cicero. The next day he wrote to Atticus: "We should have stood up to him [Caesar] when he was weak, and that would have been easy. Now we have to deal with eleven legions...." 

Though he hated the idea of civil war, the only course, said Cicero, was to follow "the honest men or whoever may be called such, even if they plunge."

And who were these "honest men"?

"I don't know of any," wrote Cicero in the same letter. "There are honest individuals, but [there are no honest groups]." ... "None were frightened of living under an autocracy", he lamented. The capitalists, especially, "never have objected to that, so long as they were left in peace." 

But civil war occurred nonetheless, because people are not free to be dishonest forever. They must admit to certain responsibilities, and oppose the advance of evil. The previous inclination to look away, to do nothing, to shrug off responsibility, proves in the end to be no more than a delaying tactic. They attempted to put off calamity, Cicero suggested, and made it all the more calamitous. That is all.

Why did the Roman Senate suddenly stand up to Caesar? What triggered their resistance? As with all free people, they began with policies of procrastination and appeasement. They hoped that the problem (i.e., Caesar) would go away. In the end, however, they discovered their mistake. Everyone still hoped for peace, though none believed it was possible. Everyone wanted to avoid war, but nobody saw a way out. Pompey stood before the Senate and gave voice to what everyone thought.

"If we give Caesar the consulship, it will mean the subversion of the constitution." [said Cicero] 

In other words, it would mean the end of Rome, the end of the republic, the destruction of their country.

 ...Why do free people fall into complacency? Why are threats ignored until the eleventh hour?

"Surely," wrote Cicero at the end of Caesar's dictatorship, "our present sufferings are all too well deserved. For had we not allowed outrages to go unpunished on all sides, it would never have been possible for a single individual to seize tyrannical power." Caesar's cause was not right, but evil, Cicero explained. "Mere confiscations of the property of individual citizens were far from enough to satisfy him. Whole provinces and countries succumbed to his onslaught, in one comprehensive universal catastrophe.." 

As for the city of Rome, Cicero lamented, "nothing is left ...the real Rome is gone forever."

Republics are slow to defend themselves against enemies that advance, like Caesar, under camouflage. But make no mistake, republics always defend. Groups and categories of men may not be honest or brave, but when they are finally confronted with the truth -- as individuals -- they see no other course. They stand up and fight. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Caesar was struck down in the Senate and killed by thrusting daggers. It is all too true, of course.

"We should have stood up to him when he was weak," Cicero lamented. 

The problem with republican government is its tardiness; or rather, tardiness in the face of danger. As Machiavelli wrote,

"The institutions normally used by republics are slow in functioning. No assembly or magistrate can do everything alone. In many cases, they have to consult with one another, and to reconcile their diverse views takes time. Where there is a question of remedying a situation that will not brook delay, such a procedure is dangerous." 

Machiavelli concluded, therefore, "...that republics in imminent danger, having no recourse to dictatorship ... will always be ruined when some grave misfortune befalls them."

This is the weakness of republican government. Here is the ground on which it dies. An obvious threat, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor is not the greatest danger. It is the subtle, camouflaged threat, that creeps up from behind. It is this camouflage that gives reluctant men a way out. "We need not fight. We need not make a fuss. There is nothing to fear."

When this is the prevailing view, people who understand a given threat may ask: "What is to be done?"

 As long as we are isolated individuals, there is nothing to do. The individual may be honest with himself, but groups are not honest. What prevails overall is an optimistic dismissal. "The threat isn't real."

This is how Hitler got so far. This is how Communism took over so many countries, and continues today under camouflage. There is nothing the individual can do that will sway the crowd. And as we are a republic, our political system operates according to the psychology of a crowd. The majority are caught up in the fads and media trends of the moment. Cynical and empty publicity characterizes much of our public discourse.

 Are the Russians and Chinese arming themselves against us? Is Venezuela becoming a military bulwark for Communism in Latin America? Is Mexico being destabilized by the Russian mafia (via the Mexican mafia)? Has Canada been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence allied with Chinese organized crime? Are socialist revolutionaries inside the U.S. government subverting the nation's nuclear deterrent, foreign policy, and border security?

The crowd says "no" because that is what they want to believe. But one day the country will awaken. Then, and only then, Americans will stop going along as if nothing serious hangs over them. Will it be too late? Perhaps it will be too late to save the republic. But it will not be too late to save the country.

Footnote:
Cicero has an extensive fascinating history.  From the Wiki, I offer you a sampling:

Marcus Tullius Cicero (January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and constitutionalist. ..Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance... The peak of Cicero's authority and prestige came during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and his impact on leading Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Montesquieu was substantial. His works rank among the most influential in European culture, and today still constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for the writing and revision of Roman history... Cicero also had an influence on modern astronomy.

"...He is credited with transforming Latin from a modest utilitarian language into a versatile literary medium capable of expressing abstract and complicated thoughts with clarity.[61] Julius Caesar praised Cicero's achievement by saying “it is more important to have greatly extended the frontiers of the Roman spirit than the frontiers of the Roman empire"... Nicolaus Copernicus, searching for ancient views on earth motion, say that he "first ... found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the earth to move."

"...Cicero the republican inspired the Founding Fathers of the United States and the revolutionaries of the French Revolution.[70] John Adams said of him "As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight."[71] Jefferson names Cicero as one of a handful of major figures who contributed to a tradition “of public right” that informed his draft of the Declaration of Independence and shaped American understandings of "the common sense" basis for the right of revolution."


In Cicero's time, 
...Caesar, seeking the legitimacy an endorsement by a senior senator would provide, courted Cicero's favour, but even so Cicero slipped out of Italy... Eventually, he provoked the hostility of his fellow senator Cato, who told him that he would have been of more use to the cause of the optimates if he had stayed in Rome. After Caesar's victory at Pharsalus, Cicero returned to Rome only very cautiously. Caesar pardoned him and Cicero tried to adjust to the situation and maintain his political work, hoping that Caesar might revive the Republic and its institutions.

...Cicero, however, was taken completely by surprise when the Liberatores assassinated Caesar on the ides of March, 44 BC. Cicero was not included in the conspiracy, even though the conspirators were sure of his sympathy. Marcus Junius Brutus called out Cicero's name, asking him to restore the republic when he lifted the bloodstained dagger after the assassination. A letter Cicero wrote in February 43 BC to Trebonius, one of the conspirators, began, "How I could wish that you had invited me to that most glorious banquet on the Ides of March"

Cicero became a popular leader during the period of instability following the assassination. He had no respect for Mark Antony, who was scheming to take revenge upon Caesar's murderers.

...Cicero and all of his contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state, and reportedly, Octavian argued for two days against Cicero being added to the list.

Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted among the proscribed. He was viewed with sympathy by a large segment of the public and many people refused to report that they had seen him. He was caught December 7, 43 BC leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside where he hoped to embark on a ship destined for Macedonia. When his killers – Herennius (a centurion) and Popilius (a tribune) – arrived, Cicero's own slaves said they had not seen him, but he was given away by Philologus, a freed slave of his brother Quintus Cicero.

Cicero's last words are said to have been, "There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly." He bowed to his captors, leaning his head out of the litter in a gladiatorial gesture to ease the task. By baring his neck and throat to the soldiers, he was indicating that he wouldn't resist. According to Plutarch, Herennius first slew him, then cut off his head. On Antony's instructions his hands, which had penned the Philippics against Antony, were cut off as well; these were nailed along with his head on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum according to the tradition of Marius and Sulla, both of whom had displayed the heads of their enemies in the Forum. Cicero was the only victim of the proscriptions to be displayed in that manner. According to Cassius Dio (in a story often mistakenly attributed to Plutarch), Antony's wife Fulvia took Cicero's head, pulled out his tongue, and jabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin in final revenge against Cicero's power of speech.

Trevor Loudon's Urgent Message On the Extreme Danger Posed by Obama

I urge you to listen to this entire 30 minute video, by Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand blogger who first exposed Obama's communist connections, including his mentor Frank Marshall Davis, Van Jones, and many more.

In essence, he is making a plea to vote Obama out of office if we are to save the world from absolute rule by Russia and China, caused by Obama's goal of eviscerating the United States military deterrent, which the destruction of the U.S. economy serves the end of (via policies such as "stimulus", Obamacare, blocking oil development, etc).

Loudon makes an eloquent, passionate case in the most factual manner, based on his years of research, much of which is documented in his book, Barack Obama and the Enemies Within, which I highly recommend.  (It is available at the Pacific Freedom Foundation, or on Amazon.com.)  I wrote a post in May ("Follow the Network") that quoted a few passages from it to highlight the veracity of his approach.

Loudon's method is not to assert what Obama is, but to show you the evidence, and let you reach your own conclusions -- if you dare.  His objective is a simple one:

"...The United States is the last, best hope for mankind. If freedom falls in America, it falls in every corner of the globe...."

I've written many blog posts on the danger of Obama, on his nihilist psychology, and his subversive goals, which rest overtly on the unilateral elimination of our nuclear deterrent in a second term (and I mean "eliminate unilaterally") and on his Soviet connections.  (See, as a sampling, "Good Night, America", "Psychology of a Killer", "Obama's End Game", "Psychology of a Spiritual Looter", "The Next Phase in Obama's Rush Towards Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament", etc.)

I reached all my own conclusions independently of Loudon, who I only learned about some months ago.  Our conclusions are identical:  As evidenced by his extensive connections not only to the communist internationale, but his links to the old KGB and their replacements today, there is no question that Obama is acting deliberately, methodically and with malice aforethought  on behalf of Russia -- but also as a matter of principle, because destruction of the good is his only raison d'etre, his only reason for being -- to destroy the United States and the United States military as a deterrent force in the world.

Loudon's concern is the short-term, existential survival of the United States and the world posed by a second Obama term, and the desperate need to get him out of office, now. His video summarizes only a few aspects of the evidence, which includes

"...Alice Palmer, a woman who got Obama his first job in politics, was effectively a Soviet agent. ..."She was with the World Peace Council, the Soviet Union's number one international front. The Soviets put billions of rubles into this..."

On Obama's personal mentor from the age of 10 years:

"Frank Marshall Davis, communist, possible Soviet spy ...The FBI ...put together a 600 page file on the man ...he was seen photographing obscure Hawaiian beaches with a camera with a telescopic lens. They suspected military espionage, because they put Davis on "security index A", which was reserved for only the most dangerous communists..."

Then there is Obama's present Chief of Staff in the White House:

"Valerie Jarrett, Obama's closest advisor, his most trusted friend -- her whole family was involved in the far left radical movement. Her maternal grandfather Robert Taylor was affiliated in the 1930s with the American Peace Mobilization, the communist party's main front at the time. ...her father Vernon Jarrett ...was a member of the American Youth for Democracy, which became the Communist Party USA. ...Jarrett was writing their press releases and propaganda, with Frank Marshall Davis..."

Draw your own conclusions after listening to him. Loudon lays out the key facts, as well as offering his credentials, background and motivations.  I think this is important enough that I made my own transcript of his entire video, for those who prefer to read, if that's what it takes to motivate you.

I also suggest you take a look at Loudon's blog.  Most of the information from his book originally was published there.

Transcript (abridged slightly, a few sentences re-phrased for brevity):

...Why should I care about the internal politics of the United States? There are two basic reasons. The first is simple gratitude. My country is only free because of the huge sacrifice of the U.S. in WWII in the battles of Guadalcanal, Coral Sea and Midway.... without that huge sacrifice, my country would have been subjugated by the Japanese Imperial Army.

The second reason is a little more selfish... the United States is the last, best hope for mankind. If freedom falls in America, it falls in every corner of the globe. If you lose your military superiority, you lose your world leadership. The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Cubans, the North Koreans and their allies will carve up this globe amongst themselves.

...A lot of people email me and they say, if Obama gets back in again, can we come and live in New Zealand? I say, really, there is nowhere to run now. Just 1500 miles north of my country lie the beautiful Fijian islands. They now have a Marxist government. The Chinese are training the Fijian military and building big hydroelectric dams. Fiji is now a Chinese client state.

Just a few months ago, the Australian minister of defense was in China and a top Chinese official embarassed him publicly. He said, "Now is the time for Australia to choose. Do you stay under American protection, or do you come under Chinese protection?"

It's happening now because the bad guys of the world are getting bolder and bolder because of the leadership they see coming out of your White House. And all around the world your allies.... are very, very concerned because they see that your President seems to love the bad guys. ... this is creating a huge amount of instability, and people are looking to see which bully they have to curry favor with because they see that the United States is no longer a dependable ally. It's a very serious situation as far as world liberty goes.

There's a big world power play in action right now. In 1984, New Zealand elected a socialist labor government, and one of the first things they did was enact legislation banning nuclear warships in our harbors. As the United States was the only country sending nuclear warships to our harbors, that killed, overnight, the Australian-New Zealand-U.S. military alliance, ANZUS, stone cold dead, and it hasn't been revived to this day. Now how would it happen at the height of the cold war, a Western country could so willingly turn its back on the Western alliance?

A few years after this event, I had the pleasure of interviewing over several months, a New Zealander who infiltrated the local communist party for our security intelligence services, the equivalent of the American FBI. The guy was a government spy inside the communist party. In 1983 he was given the greatest honor any communist could enjoy, he was sent to Moscow to train at Lenin's institute for higher learning. This was a huge place, 3500 students, many of them on 7 year courses... this was a training ground for the future world communist leadership. There were people there from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Thailand, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece. Virtually every country was represented, except for one, the United States. The only reason there were no Americans there was that at some point, your government had told the Soviet Union, if there were any Americans caught training at that institute, there would be war. The Soviets respected that, but what they would do instead, they would train Canadians, or Mexicans or New Zealanders in the doctrines they wanted promoted, and those people would go and train the American communists.

My friend, sat down in a room, with the other three members of his delegation, with members of the KGB, and the Lenin institute, and they had a plan. This was the time of the massive anti-nuclear marches through Europe. ...There were real fears NATO might break up. The Soviets were funding these peace marches, funding the local communist parties that organized them, because they wanted NATO to break up. ... It is important to remember, that to Moscow, the American military and military alliances have always been the number one target, because your military is the only thing standing between them and what they want, which is world domination.

The plan was this. They had the big thing going on in Europe, but how about breaking away some country in the Western alliance, somewhere outside Europe, and the psychological and propaganda impact of that will spur on the peace movement in Europe, and lead to the destruction of NATO.

So they picked on New Zealand because we were small, socially liberal and the communists were strong, and they controlled our peace movement and they had infiltrated our labor party. They knew they couldn't sell it as anti-American, because most Kiwis were pro-American, so this had to be New Zealand standing up for peace, Kiwis standing against the nuclear arms race, New Zealand striking an independent foreign policy. Chest thumping patriotic stuff. So they worked out the slogans, they worked out the psychology, and the small delegation left Moscow and returned to New Zealand. They had secret meetings with the New Zealand labor party, with the peace movement, with the labor unions, and they mounted a campaign. In a few short months, that legislation was in front of our parliament and passed, and our alliance with the United States was killed stone cold dead. Even today, the conservatives don't dare overturn it. And hardly one of them would have any idea that those policies were designed in Moscow by the KB at Lenin's Institute for Higher Learning.

That is how a whole nation can be duped by a foreign power, ... that is what happened to my country, and that is what is happening to your country.

Why is this relevant to the United States? The Left has an agenda for America... Mr. Obama has a background in the hard Left. He's a red diaper baby, he was brought up in the Marxist movement his entire life. ...His first mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, who started out in the communist movement of Chicago in the 1940's... in 1948 he left Chicago and moved to Hawaii. Why would he do that? Comrade Stalin had ordered the American communist party to put as many members as possible to Hawaii because that is where Pearl Harbor was. Stalin wanted as many spies as he could get on the island, and as many agitators as he could get to close the bases down.

...The FBI had watched Davis for 19 years and were very concerned about him. They put together a 600 page file on the man. They were getting regular reports that he was seen photographing obscure Hawaiian beaches with a camera with a telescopic lens. They suspected military espionage, because they put Davis on "security index A", which was reserved for only the most dangerous communists, and if war had broken out with the Soviet Union, Davis could have been arrested immediately.

This was the man who was chosen, in 1970, to be the mentor to Barack Obama, who had just returned from Indonesia. That choice was made by Obama's grandfather, Stanley Dunham. Mr. Obama mentions Davis 22 times in his book "Dreams from my Father".

The next significant mentor to Obama was a woman named Alice Palmer. She was an Illinois State Senator, and she got Obama his first job. She guided him ...in the mid-90's. Alice Palmer had a very strong background in the communist movement. She was with the World Peace Council, the Soviet Union's number one international front.

The Soviets put billions of rubles into this. It still exists and was designed to agitate against your military, your military alliances, against Star Wars, against any weapons system that might give the United States superiority over its enemies.

Alice Palmer was heavily involved in it. She was also involved with an affiliate, the U.S. Peace Council, as an executive member. Alice Palmer also ran a network of black communist journalists in the United States, called the Black Press Institute, and she took several of these people, in 1985, for a trip to the Soviet Union, East Germany, and communist Czechoslovakia. She was also in Moscow in 1986, covering the annual conference of the communist party of the Soviet Union. In the same year she was elected as North American Vice President of the Organization of Journalists, a bona fide Soviet front.

So Alice Palmer, a woman who got Obama his first job in politics, was effectively a Soviet agent.

So you've got Frank Marshall Davis, communist, possible Soviet spy, Alice Palmer, Democrat, definite Soviet agent, both involved in anti-military activities on behalf of the communist party or the Soviet Union.

Today, Valerie Jarrett, Obama's closest advisor, his most trusted friend -- her whole family was involved in the far left radical movement. Her maternal grandfather Robert Taylor was affiliated in the 1930s with the American Peace Mobilization, the communist party's main front at the time, and their job was to keep American troops out of World War 2... At that time, Stalin was still allied with Nazi Germany. When Hitler betrayed Stalin, overnight the American Peace Mobilization became the American People's Mobilization, the most pro-war organization in the United States. And Robert Taylor was involved with that, alongside Frank Marshall Davis.

On the other side of Valerie Jarrett's family was her father Vernon Jarrett. ...in 1946, Jarrett was a member of the American Youth for Democracy, which became the Communist Party USA. In 1948 Vernon Jarrett served on the Packinghouse Workers Strike Committee, their publicity committee, a communist labor union and Jarrett was writing their press releases and propaganda, with Frank Marshall Davis.

The two most powerful people in America, Barack Obama, and his chief advisor, Valerie Jarrett can both trace their political lineage back to the Chicago communist party of the 1940's and specifically to Frank Marshall Davis.

Another person associated with the American Peace Mobilization group was a man named Hugh DeLacy, a card-carrying member of the communist party. He ended up settling in Santa Cruz, where he was a friend with a local congressman, Leon Panetta, who is now your Secretary of Defense (after Obama first appointed him to head the CIA). The Panettas and DeLacys were very good friends, they had parties at each others houses. When DeLacy died, four people read eulogies at his funeral. One was Panetta, and the other three were all members of a Marxist organization called Democratic Socialists of America. Panetta and DeLacy had corresponded over 10 years about opposing Reagan's policies of containing communism, opposing Star Wars, cutting the U.S. military.

DeLacy was a friend of another man, John Stuart Service, who had been part of the Soviet spy ring in the 1940s that worked to tilt U.S. State Department policy toward the Chinese communists. With the help of Service, DeLacy was given a free month-long trip to China to meet with two American expatriates who were working for the communist Chinese. Service was also working other others including those with the KGB spy ring in the State Department. ...He was in close contact with 5 members of the KGB and 1 communist spy. This was the man who was best friends with Panetta, your current Secretary of Defense.

That brings me to the real agenda of the Left -- to destroy your military. That's what this is all about. This is why the Soviets have funded the Peace movements and United States Communist Party, because their number one objective has always been to bring your military to its knees.

And now you have a situation in the United States, where your Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama, is working with your Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, to slash your military budget to ribbons. Mr. Obama has even got a paper commission to cut your U.S. nuclear arsenal down to 292 nuclear weapons. The Russians alone have more than 1500 -- that we know about. Yet Mr. Obama thinks it is a wise course of action to cut whole chunks out of the Army, whole chunks out of the Navy, weapons systems cancelled -- and who is cheering him on? None other than Vladimir Putin himself.

In March of this year, Mr. Obama did a very significant thing. He was in Korea talking to the Russian President, Mr. Medvedev, and said "I need more space. When I get reelected, I will have more flexibility to deal with you." and Medvedev answered, "I will pass your message on to Vladimir, we are with you."

That is the single most significant thing your President has said in his entire term of office. It is not about bringing your country down economically -- that's part of it -- it is not about health care -- that's part of it, too. The big agenda is to wreck your economy to the point that Americans will accept the gutting of their military. That is the agenda. Nothing else comes close as far as the communists, as far as the Russians, as far as all their allies are concerned, because there is no way back for you from that point.

This is not about a depression because Americans can survive a depression. This is not about losing your rights, because Americans can stand up and take them back. But have you ever been in the position before where your Commander in Chief and your Secretary of Defense have been giving your number one enemy everything it wants?

And project it forward, Ladies and Gentlemen, if Obama gets four more years, how much military will you have left? And how effective will it be?

And think about this: if in 4 more years your military is way run down, and the Russians have increased their armaments, the Chinese have built up their blue water navy in the Pacific, Iran has nuclear weapons, and a future Republican comes along to run for President, and he says, I'm going to rebuild the U.S. military to its former levels, to its former power –

Do you think for one minute the Russians and the Chinese and their allies will sit on their hands and let you guys do it? Do you think, when they've got you exactly where they want you they will entertain letting you rebuild your military might?

There is really no way back. This is about getting rid of your President, or allowing him to destroy your military capability, your ability to defend your country and defend your allies, taking you to a point where there is no return. Because if this continues, not only will you be not able to defend your allies, like Israel or Japan or Taiwan or Australia, but you'll not be able to defend even your homeland, and you will have no alternative but to accept some United Nations "Super-State" or face the combined military might of Russia and China and all their crazy allies and not a friend in the world to come to your aid.

This is about the survival of the free world. If America goes, we all go. If you lose your military dominance, the bad guys are going to take over, and there will be no where left to run. China will dominate the Pacific, Russia will dominate Europe. China will dominate Africa, Iran will dominate the Middle East, and there will be no safe havens left.

If some people think a world led by America isn't so hot, a world led by Russia and China will be a whole different ballgame, and I think the consequences of that will be quite horrific.

My message is, this election, more than anything else, is America going down the path of peace through security, or the path of destruction by gutting your military?

That is the alternative. It is America's survival at stake, and the survival of the whole Western world. I urge every American to consider that when they go to the ballots. That is the number one question that should be uppermost in their minds when they go to vote.

(end transcript)

Postscript:  Meanwhile there was a news story today, Putin flexes muscle in big test of Russia's nuclear arsenal...

(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin took a leading role in the latest tests of Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, the most comprehensive since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

The exercises, held mostly on Friday, featured prominently in news reports on state television which seemed aimed to show Russians and the world that Putin is the hands-on chief of a resurgent power.

Tests involving command systems and all three components of the nuclear "triad" - land and sea-launched long-range nuclear missiles and strategic bombers - were conducted "under the personal leadership of Vladimir Putin", the Kremlin said.

An RS-12M Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile was launched from the Plesetsk site in northern Russia, and a submarine test-launched another ICBM from the Sea of Okhotsk, the Defence Ministry said.

Long-range Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers fired four guided missiles that hit their targets on a testing range in the northwestern Komi region, it said.

"Exercises of the strategic nuclear forces were conducted on such a scale for the first time in the modern history of Russia," the Kremlin statement said...