FROM DON SURBER
An Essay: January 31, 2014
An essay instead of a scoreboard tonight. I needed a break. Critical comments are appreciated.
On November 18, 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev addressed Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow. He declared, “My vas pokhoronim” -- we will bury you. That was an odd reaction to the landslide re-election 12 days earlier of that paragon of Americanism and World War II hero, General Eisenhower as the 34th president. The United States was the most prosperous, most technologically advanced, and best-armed nation in the world. Bury us? How?
Nearly seven years later, the premier was more specific in an address in Yugoslavia on August 24, 1963, as he said, “I once said, ‘We will bury you,’ and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.”
His statement alluded to a sentence in the first chapter of the “Communist Manifesto,” first published 125 years earlier, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”
But again, Nikita Khrushchev appeared to be speaking out of his hat. While the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech three days later, the masses in America were quite content in living their American dream in the suburbs. Even the Negroes -- to use the parlance of the day -- seemed content at least outside of the Deep South. Appearances often deceive.
On July 10, 1991, as the last Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin took office, Khrushchev’s bravado seemed misplaced. It was the United States that outlasted the Soviet Union, which would formally dissolve on Christmas Day 1991. When the proletariat rose, it was against their Marxist masters, who had refused to tear down that wall. A gratified American president, the affable George H.W. Bush, talked of a New World Order led by the triumphant United States, which would enjoy a peace dividend now that the Cold War was at last over.
However, as patriotic Americans would learn to their regret two decades later, the Cold War would have no winner. As Kris Kristofferson wrote and Frank Sinatra sang, “Any more it doesn't matter/ Who's right or wrong/ We've been injuring each other/ For much too long/ And it's too late to try to save /What might have been/ It's over/ Nobody wins.”
For the seeds sown by Stalin 80 years earlier would become the plants that bloomed later -- some before the fall, some during the fall and at least one after the fall -- that would poison America. Just as the engineers and lawyers of Osama bin Laden would exploit flaws in the design of the Twin Towers and federal anti-skyjacking regulations, the Stalinists would use against the United States the problems inherent in a capitalistic nation that adheres to the rule of law. In a Soviet system, victory is defined not as getting ahead of the other fellow but rather by having him fall behind you. The Cardinal Sin that marks communism the most is Envy. Thomas Aquinas said, “Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life. Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.”
Envy is a powerful force and a great recruiter because it allows a person to blame others for his own failings. The Soviets were not alone in employing this tool of the devil, particularly against the rich. Envy of the rich predates communism by centuries, but under the communist-inspired liberalism of 21st century it has grown.
And certainly aiding the Soviets were people who were not their agents but nonetheless bought the line that the United States is worse than Russia. In 1947, Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises coined the phrase “useful idiots” to describe “confused and misguided sympathizers” of Stalin and communism. They are harpies -- Aello, Celaeno, and Ocypete -- luring men to the rocky shoals of civilization with their entertainment. One of the cleverest of these harpies was Pete Seeger, the Harvard-educated banjo-picker who became a millionaire thanks to his copyrighted songs of the downtrodden. There is no denial of his affection for Stalin.
Witness his protest of the draft in 1940: “When my poor old mother died I was sitting by her side/ A-promising to war I’d never go/ But now I’m wearing khaki jeans and eating army beans/ And I’m told that J. P. Morgan loves me so.”
His pacifism was acquired only because at the time, the Soviet Union was an ally of Germany. Earlier, Seeger was an ardent supporter but not a member of the Lincoln Brigade of American socialists who fought on the communist side in the Spanish civil war in 1937 and 1938. After Hitler and Stalin had a falling out in World War II, Seeger as part of the band, the Almanacs, released a “Dear Mr. President” album supporting the allies. He also supported Israel in its infancy, but sided with the Palestinians later on as the tides of Moscow changed. He was a member of the Soviet-funded Communist Party USA but after blacklisting in the 1950s made party membership economically inconvenient, Seeger claimed to have a falling out over the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which the Soviets quashed. Later, Seeger attended a hearing but refused to testify before Congress. A jury later convicted him of contempt of Congress, but won acquittal upon appeal. The charge was bogus as Congress should not be able to compel a citizen to testify at a hearing. Government officials, yes. The rest of us, no. Still, his refusal to testify showed the slipperiness of Seeger, who had more masks than a Halloween shop.
But Seeger and his fellow travelers were on the right side in the civil rights movement, even if their motivation was the exploitation of a public division in an open society. For the Vietnam War, Seeger flipped back to pacifism to exploit the nation's inherent wariness of war. Like many other communist-inspired minstrels, Seeger used traditional songs to push his political views, which is fine; his right and all that. No one should accuse him of lawbreaking for he was not a criminal and he likely never broke a law in his lifetime. He was just a tool.
And a phony one at that, for the reality is that he was a millionaire songwriter who posed as a spokesman for the poor who wanted the American dream, he held great contempt for that dream as he showed in his biggest hit, “Little Boxes,” a mockery of suburbia written by lifelong Wobbly Malvina Reynolds: “Little boxes on the hillside/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky/ Little boxes/ Little boxes/ Little boxes all the same/ There’s a green one and a pink one/ And a blue one and a yellow one,” et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Not all of us can afford to live in Nob Hill or Tribeca. The career arc of Malvina Reynolds ran from the violent labor movement of the 1930s to “Sesame Street” in the 1970s. (Has that show ever featured a conservative?)
But pretense and facades are a great part of the liberal movement in America. Their Harvard educations are hidden in their appeals to the hardscrabble people. Their dream of a proletariat rising against the capitalists is foolhardy because despite the popularity of hating others who are successful, the Eat The Rich mentality cannot eclipse the desire to be rich and enjoy the spoils of hard work. This is why Seeger died a millionaire rather than giving his money away. We are individuals, which is why while Envy is a great recruiter, few re-enlist in a movement that calls for people to voluntarily sacrifice their individual for a common good; virgins never leap into the volcano to appease the gods but are bound and pushed.
Communism was doomed to fail because of its requirement that people submit their individualism. But Soviet agents and their fellow travelers did severely weaken the nation. Victory would ironically go to hedonism, the bastard child of capitalism that divides the villagers to conquer the village. Appeals to pleasure work; Lolliard used to the slogan “Alive With Pleasure” to push its Newport brand of cigarettes past Kool cigarettes of R.J. Reynolds among black smokers in the 1980s. And just as “Alive With Pleasure” cigarettes can kill a man, self-pleasure can kill a nation.
Pleasure was a luxury too sinful for early capitalists, who preferred work and worship to the pleasures of the flesh. Or at least that’s what they told themselves. Most of them most of the time succeeded. And for those times they failed, well, heaven like church has a place for sinners.
The success of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century led to the affluence of the early 20th century that made possible the end to child labor and the reduction of the workweek to 40 hours over five days. The consumer revolution led to cleaner cities as automotive transportation replaced animal transportation, which reduced the spread of disease through urine and manure. Likewise, housewives saw automated washers and electric irons, which reduced the burden of their labors.
The radio came along just in time to fill those leisure hours with entertainment. Instead of charging subscription fees, radio stations turned to the more lucrative revenue stream of commercial advertisements. Newspapers, too, kept their subscription fees low as they used paid circulation as a sales pitch to advertisers. The advertising industry learned quickly the power of pleasure and no pleasure is greater than sex. Limits were pushed. Magazines and motion pictures also emphasized pleasure in their editorial content with early Hollywood riding afoul of would-be censors repeatedly against the protests of adherents of prudence. The early 20th century is when the nation by a wide majority finally adopted the Prohibition sought by the temperance movement since the Republican Party formed in 1854.
Oddly enough, the Great Depression brought an end to temperance but also the imposition of the Hays Code upon Hollywood studios, which were run mainly by Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms of Europe. They created an America that was inclusive to all, except the American Indian, the Asian or the African-American -- although Farina and Buckwheat were equals in the Our Gang comedies. By the 1950s everything was so cozy that beer commercials and the Ricardos sleeping in beds separated by a nightstand ushered in the television era. Wholesome family entertainment was the norm.
But along came a man named Hugh Hefner who succeeded in lifting postal restrictions on nudity. He and other hedonists pushed various envelopes incrementally until by the 20th anniversary of his historic Playboy magazine, “Deep Throat” was a mainstream movie. Pornography quickly fell out of the hands of the Mafia and into the grip of entrepreneurs, who became pioneers in each new technology that came along from VCR to the Internet in their quest for profits.
However, with pornography came new mores. The acceptance of abortion, drugs and casual sex (including homosexuality) was a byproduct of the pleasure movement. Wholesome family entertainment became the exception.
The movement from hard work to hard pleasure seems natural; the rise of hedonism (which dates to Socrates) alone would not be enough to bring the nation down. Indeed, man should seek a balance between work and play. But the Soviets and their communist movement had weakened the nation. A welfare state in which where millions have no purpose in their lives is quite susceptible to hedonism, as the crack cocaine epidemic in Compton and other welfare ghettos in the 1980s shows. Over time the dole expanded, retracted a little, and boomed -- to the point where barely half the nation’s adults bother with a job.
Entertainers, perhaps inspired by Soviet-linked predecessors, went from espousing pro-American views (think John Wayne) to espousing anti-American views (think Jane Fonda). Both reflected the market. In the Korean War, no actress would risk her career manning anti-aircraft artillery in Pyongyang. Two decades later, actresses risked their careers when they appeared at USO shows with Bob Hope in Vietnam.
The generational shift in attitudes -- exploited by communists -- eventually widened into a geographic divide where urban attitudes conflicted with rural morals. The division the communists sought was between the haves and the have nots. The reality is that in the 21st century, the division is between those who feel entitled and those who feel forgotten. The latter won key elections in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2010. The former won in 2006, 2008 and 2012. The entitled won. Whether the victory is permanent is up to their opponents and their willingness to counterpunch. Before they counterpunch, they must know where to hit. And to place the target, they need to know the weakness of the enemy.
We are in a hole. Don't let them bury us.
On November 18, 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev addressed Western ambassadors at the Polish embassy in Moscow. He declared, “My vas pokhoronim” -- we will bury you. That was an odd reaction to the landslide re-election 12 days earlier of that paragon of Americanism and World War II hero, General Eisenhower as the 34th president. The United States was the most prosperous, most technologically advanced, and best-armed nation in the world. Bury us? How?
Nearly seven years later, the premier was more specific in an address in Yugoslavia on August 24, 1963, as he said, “I once said, ‘We will bury you,’ and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.”
His statement alluded to a sentence in the first chapter of the “Communist Manifesto,” first published 125 years earlier, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”
But again, Nikita Khrushchev appeared to be speaking out of his hat. While the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech three days later, the masses in America were quite content in living their American dream in the suburbs. Even the Negroes -- to use the parlance of the day -- seemed content at least outside of the Deep South. Appearances often deceive.
On July 10, 1991, as the last Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin took office, Khrushchev’s bravado seemed misplaced. It was the United States that outlasted the Soviet Union, which would formally dissolve on Christmas Day 1991. When the proletariat rose, it was against their Marxist masters, who had refused to tear down that wall. A gratified American president, the affable George H.W. Bush, talked of a New World Order led by the triumphant United States, which would enjoy a peace dividend now that the Cold War was at last over.
However, as patriotic Americans would learn to their regret two decades later, the Cold War would have no winner. As Kris Kristofferson wrote and Frank Sinatra sang, “Any more it doesn't matter/ Who's right or wrong/ We've been injuring each other/ For much too long/ And it's too late to try to save /What might have been/ It's over/ Nobody wins.”
For the seeds sown by Stalin 80 years earlier would become the plants that bloomed later -- some before the fall, some during the fall and at least one after the fall -- that would poison America. Just as the engineers and lawyers of Osama bin Laden would exploit flaws in the design of the Twin Towers and federal anti-skyjacking regulations, the Stalinists would use against the United States the problems inherent in a capitalistic nation that adheres to the rule of law. In a Soviet system, victory is defined not as getting ahead of the other fellow but rather by having him fall behind you. The Cardinal Sin that marks communism the most is Envy. Thomas Aquinas said, “Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life. Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.”
Envy is a powerful force and a great recruiter because it allows a person to blame others for his own failings. The Soviets were not alone in employing this tool of the devil, particularly against the rich. Envy of the rich predates communism by centuries, but under the communist-inspired liberalism of 21st century it has grown.
And certainly aiding the Soviets were people who were not their agents but nonetheless bought the line that the United States is worse than Russia. In 1947, Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises coined the phrase “useful idiots” to describe “confused and misguided sympathizers” of Stalin and communism. They are harpies -- Aello, Celaeno, and Ocypete -- luring men to the rocky shoals of civilization with their entertainment. One of the cleverest of these harpies was Pete Seeger, the Harvard-educated banjo-picker who became a millionaire thanks to his copyrighted songs of the downtrodden. There is no denial of his affection for Stalin.
Witness his protest of the draft in 1940: “When my poor old mother died I was sitting by her side/ A-promising to war I’d never go/ But now I’m wearing khaki jeans and eating army beans/ And I’m told that J. P. Morgan loves me so.”
His pacifism was acquired only because at the time, the Soviet Union was an ally of Germany. Earlier, Seeger was an ardent supporter but not a member of the Lincoln Brigade of American socialists who fought on the communist side in the Spanish civil war in 1937 and 1938. After Hitler and Stalin had a falling out in World War II, Seeger as part of the band, the Almanacs, released a “Dear Mr. President” album supporting the allies. He also supported Israel in its infancy, but sided with the Palestinians later on as the tides of Moscow changed. He was a member of the Soviet-funded Communist Party USA but after blacklisting in the 1950s made party membership economically inconvenient, Seeger claimed to have a falling out over the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which the Soviets quashed. Later, Seeger attended a hearing but refused to testify before Congress. A jury later convicted him of contempt of Congress, but won acquittal upon appeal. The charge was bogus as Congress should not be able to compel a citizen to testify at a hearing. Government officials, yes. The rest of us, no. Still, his refusal to testify showed the slipperiness of Seeger, who had more masks than a Halloween shop.
But Seeger and his fellow travelers were on the right side in the civil rights movement, even if their motivation was the exploitation of a public division in an open society. For the Vietnam War, Seeger flipped back to pacifism to exploit the nation's inherent wariness of war. Like many other communist-inspired minstrels, Seeger used traditional songs to push his political views, which is fine; his right and all that. No one should accuse him of lawbreaking for he was not a criminal and he likely never broke a law in his lifetime. He was just a tool.
And a phony one at that, for the reality is that he was a millionaire songwriter who posed as a spokesman for the poor who wanted the American dream, he held great contempt for that dream as he showed in his biggest hit, “Little Boxes,” a mockery of suburbia written by lifelong Wobbly Malvina Reynolds: “Little boxes on the hillside/ Little boxes made of ticky tacky/ Little boxes/ Little boxes/ Little boxes all the same/ There’s a green one and a pink one/ And a blue one and a yellow one,” et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. Not all of us can afford to live in Nob Hill or Tribeca. The career arc of Malvina Reynolds ran from the violent labor movement of the 1930s to “Sesame Street” in the 1970s. (Has that show ever featured a conservative?)
But pretense and facades are a great part of the liberal movement in America. Their Harvard educations are hidden in their appeals to the hardscrabble people. Their dream of a proletariat rising against the capitalists is foolhardy because despite the popularity of hating others who are successful, the Eat The Rich mentality cannot eclipse the desire to be rich and enjoy the spoils of hard work. This is why Seeger died a millionaire rather than giving his money away. We are individuals, which is why while Envy is a great recruiter, few re-enlist in a movement that calls for people to voluntarily sacrifice their individual for a common good; virgins never leap into the volcano to appease the gods but are bound and pushed.
Communism was doomed to fail because of its requirement that people submit their individualism. But Soviet agents and their fellow travelers did severely weaken the nation. Victory would ironically go to hedonism, the bastard child of capitalism that divides the villagers to conquer the village. Appeals to pleasure work; Lolliard used to the slogan “Alive With Pleasure” to push its Newport brand of cigarettes past Kool cigarettes of R.J. Reynolds among black smokers in the 1980s. And just as “Alive With Pleasure” cigarettes can kill a man, self-pleasure can kill a nation.
Pleasure was a luxury too sinful for early capitalists, who preferred work and worship to the pleasures of the flesh. Or at least that’s what they told themselves. Most of them most of the time succeeded. And for those times they failed, well, heaven like church has a place for sinners.
The success of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century led to the affluence of the early 20th century that made possible the end to child labor and the reduction of the workweek to 40 hours over five days. The consumer revolution led to cleaner cities as automotive transportation replaced animal transportation, which reduced the spread of disease through urine and manure. Likewise, housewives saw automated washers and electric irons, which reduced the burden of their labors.
The radio came along just in time to fill those leisure hours with entertainment. Instead of charging subscription fees, radio stations turned to the more lucrative revenue stream of commercial advertisements. Newspapers, too, kept their subscription fees low as they used paid circulation as a sales pitch to advertisers. The advertising industry learned quickly the power of pleasure and no pleasure is greater than sex. Limits were pushed. Magazines and motion pictures also emphasized pleasure in their editorial content with early Hollywood riding afoul of would-be censors repeatedly against the protests of adherents of prudence. The early 20th century is when the nation by a wide majority finally adopted the Prohibition sought by the temperance movement since the Republican Party formed in 1854.
Oddly enough, the Great Depression brought an end to temperance but also the imposition of the Hays Code upon Hollywood studios, which were run mainly by Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms of Europe. They created an America that was inclusive to all, except the American Indian, the Asian or the African-American -- although Farina and Buckwheat were equals in the Our Gang comedies. By the 1950s everything was so cozy that beer commercials and the Ricardos sleeping in beds separated by a nightstand ushered in the television era. Wholesome family entertainment was the norm.
But along came a man named Hugh Hefner who succeeded in lifting postal restrictions on nudity. He and other hedonists pushed various envelopes incrementally until by the 20th anniversary of his historic Playboy magazine, “Deep Throat” was a mainstream movie. Pornography quickly fell out of the hands of the Mafia and into the grip of entrepreneurs, who became pioneers in each new technology that came along from VCR to the Internet in their quest for profits.
However, with pornography came new mores. The acceptance of abortion, drugs and casual sex (including homosexuality) was a byproduct of the pleasure movement. Wholesome family entertainment became the exception.
The movement from hard work to hard pleasure seems natural; the rise of hedonism (which dates to Socrates) alone would not be enough to bring the nation down. Indeed, man should seek a balance between work and play. But the Soviets and their communist movement had weakened the nation. A welfare state in which where millions have no purpose in their lives is quite susceptible to hedonism, as the crack cocaine epidemic in Compton and other welfare ghettos in the 1980s shows. Over time the dole expanded, retracted a little, and boomed -- to the point where barely half the nation’s adults bother with a job.
Entertainers, perhaps inspired by Soviet-linked predecessors, went from espousing pro-American views (think John Wayne) to espousing anti-American views (think Jane Fonda). Both reflected the market. In the Korean War, no actress would risk her career manning anti-aircraft artillery in Pyongyang. Two decades later, actresses risked their careers when they appeared at USO shows with Bob Hope in Vietnam.
The generational shift in attitudes -- exploited by communists -- eventually widened into a geographic divide where urban attitudes conflicted with rural morals. The division the communists sought was between the haves and the have nots. The reality is that in the 21st century, the division is between those who feel entitled and those who feel forgotten. The latter won key elections in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2010. The former won in 2006, 2008 and 2012. The entitled won. Whether the victory is permanent is up to their opponents and their willingness to counterpunch. Before they counterpunch, they must know where to hit. And to place the target, they need to know the weakness of the enemy.
We are in a hole. Don't let them bury us.
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