Transforming a society from within

[tonyz]

Buried in an article addressing the Kavanaugh matter was this interesting summary of the progressive agenda.

The excerpt posted below does not specifically address Kavanaugh but describes a path toward the fundamental transformation of America from within.

Complete article at link.

“Essentially the Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual believed that his reason and common sense could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to foment socialist revolution.”

Judge Kavanaugh was understating the problem.
The American Spectator
October 5, 2018, 12:05 am

How is it that so many Americans have allowed institutions and norms to be undermined that were the basis for almost all our prior success? And how could this happen after the United States stood decisively with the forces of good — helping the allied powers to win two world wars and then playing the key role in winning the Cold War.

It has happened because revolutionary ideological forces have been subtly at work to transform society from within — slowly and broadly so as to be almost unnoticed. Most assume that winning the Cold War meant we also defeated the Marxist ideology backing the Soviet Union. Yet a closer look at social history in 20th century America shows that strains of neo-Marxism have proliferated and collectively provided the central transformative ideological force shaping American culture over the last several generations and into the present.

Antonio Gramsci was a leading 20th century Marxist theoretician who argued that communists’ route to taking power in developed, industrialized societies such as the United States would be best achieved through a “long march through the institutions.” This would be a gradual process of radicalization of the cultural institutions — “the superstructure” — of bourgeois society, a process that would in turn transform the values and morals of society. Gramsci believed that as society’s morals were softened, its political and economic foundation would be more easily undermined and restructured.

Cultural Marxism was also advanced by intellectuals from the “Frankfurt School,” who were forced to flee Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. Resettling in the U.S., members of the Frankfurt School, such as Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkeimer, Eric Fromm and Wilhelm Reich, first set up shop at Columbia University, and then later found their way into teaching at various elite universities such as Berkeley, Princeton, Harvard, the New School for Social Research and Brandeis. In the context of American culture, “the long march through the institutions” meant, in the words of Herbert Marcuse, “working against the established institutions while working in them.”

While the Frankfurt School was neo-Marxist, many of its adherents were less interested in economics and redistribution of wealth than in remaking and transforming society through attitudinal and cultural change. They incorporated Marxist class theory into sociology and psychology while also assimilating Freud’s theories on sexuality. Thus, Marx’s theory of the dialectic of perpetual conflict was joined together with Freud’s neurotic ideas, creating a sort of Freudian-Marxism. The amalgam provided a broad-based critique of social problems oriented toward transforming society as a whole — something they called Critical Theory.

While the leaders of the Frankfurt School had limited influence being somewhat ensconced in Berkeley, the New School and Ivy League universities, their Critical Theory ideas were considered avant-garde and received a multiplier effect through other universities and particularly as they were embraced by the teachers’ colleges across the country in the 1950s and 1960s. What was perhaps unique about the cultural Marxists was their “street smarts” recognition that psychological conditioning was more effective than philosophical arguments to achieve the goal of transforming America’s culture.

Essentially the Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual believed that his reason and common sense could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to foment socialist revolution. Their task, therefore, was to undermine both the Judeo-Christian legacy and the foundation for rational reasoning by creating a narrative of destructive criticism affecting every sphere and institution of life, resulting in a loss of any absolute truth or meaning. This then would bring on mass hopelessness and de-stabilize society, setting the stage for bringing down what they saw as the ‘oppressive’ order.

The Critical Theory project emphasized and prioritized the demolition of Christianity and the nuclear family. They also sought to exacerbate race relations and promote massive immigration to destroy national identity. Additional focal points in their agenda encouraged dependency on state benefits and the bending of the legal system to favor perpetrators of crime over victims. And lastly, the agenda sought to dumb down the media and undermine schools’ and teachers’ authority.

An important part of the Critical Theory project of total transformation of society was to break down traditional relationships between men and women by promoting and legitimizing unhinged sexual permissiveness with no cultural or religious restraint. Building on the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, leaders of what came to be known as Postmodernism advanced the wrecking ball cultural deconstruction project right through the turn of the 21stcentury.

Postmodernists have had no use for tradition or any standards of normalcy, believing that all truth is contrived illusion rather than absolute. Homosexuality and transgenderism are not only valid choices, but even preferable for advancing the destruction of the traditional family and society. They also view the scientific method as being useless, with facts too limiting to determine anything — making truth and error two side of the same coin. Thus Fake News did not arise out of reaction to Donald Trump, but more fundamentally as an extension of Postmodernism. Postmodernists were the first advocates of open borders, which was also an extension of the project to destroy national identity and undermine the democratic electoral process.

What is obviously striking is the degree to which this agenda of breakdown and national transformation promoted by a relatively small constituency of cultural Marxists associated with the Frankfurt School and Postmodernism has been accepted and infused into the leadership and operating procedures of the Democrat Party. Illustrative of this was Democrat Presidential candidate flagbearer Hillary Clinton, wherein she proclaimed to the 2015 Women in the World Summit, not long before she launched her 2016 presidential campaign, that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

Since the 2016 election, this breakdown has now erupted in a new civil war. On the one side, we have those who have been shaped both overtly and subliminally by cultural Marxist ideology and on the other side we have those who find grounding and purpose in transcendent values—predominantly associated with Judaism and Christianity.

https://spectator.org/the-whirlwind-is-already-here/

[Team Sergeant]

I take heart in knowing that there are a couple of "speed-bumps" that stop a American socialist revolution dead in it's tracks, the 2nd Amendment and the American military.

It is interesting that they have successfully "weaponized" the internet and mass media, that was a stroke of brilliance, mao, hitler and stalin would be proud.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

I take heart in knowing that there are a couple of "speed-bumps" that stop a American socialist revolution dead in it's tracks, the 2nd Amendment and the American military.

Amen.

And the ballot box.

It is interesting that they have successfully "weaponized" the internet and mass media, that was a stroke of brilliance, mao, hitler and stalin would be proud.

True.

And, fortunately that street runs both ways.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Amen.

And the ballot box.



True.

And, fortunately that street runs both ways.

You think so? Get on twitter/faketube etc and say hitlery is a corrupt thug, see how long that account lasts.

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

You think so? Get on twitter/faketube etc and say hitlery is a corrupt thug, see how long that account lasts.

Point well taken - I avoid sticking sharp sticks in my own eye.

My comment was directed more toward the utility of the Internet in bringing information to light and as a tool for research and communication - for all freedom loving peoples.

But, I stand corrected on the two way nature of treatment relating to non-PC speech.

[tonyz]

Just happened to search the phrase “cultural Marxism” and experienced a similar result as the author of the article posted below. He goes on to explain how the wiki result is flat out wrong as he explores the history of the phrase in an easily readable and informative manner.

The piece in the OP is also an easy to read refresher commenting on the transformation we see before our very eyes.


Cultural Marxism and Its Conspirators
American Spectator
Paul Kangor
April, 3, 2019

Last week I did one of my routine exercises in my Marxism course at Grove City College. In that class, we scour everything on Marx and various strains and offshoots of Marxism. We read all sides — true liberal learning, real diversity, genuine academic pursuit of truth. At this conservative college, we look at all sides, which is what liberal universities claim to do but, under the flag of “diversity” and “tolerance,” frequently shun opposing viewpoints that conflict with leftist orthodoxy. My Marxism course is an interactive class in which we pull up the big computer screen and openly Google terms, ideas, websites, and organizations. We do not shy away, ever, from daily checking Marxists.org, the website of Communist Party USA, The Jacobin, The Militant, you name it. We don’t fear and censor opposing viewpoints. My students will not be left ignorant of what the other side thinks.

Last week, as I do at some point every semester, I Googled the words “cultural Marxism.” I was shocked when the first thing that appeared on the page was this boxed definition:

Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. In contemporary usage, the term Cultural Marxism refers to an anti-semitic conspiracy theory which claims that the Frankfurt School is part of a continual academic and intellectual effort to undermine and destroy Western culture.

Frankfurt School – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School

Whoa. Seriously? After years of looking up “cultural Marxism,” I had not seen that whopper. An “anti-semitic conspiracy theory”? Says who? That’s not a definition; it’s an ad hominem. Actually, it’s a cheap smear. And it’s a smear that countless millions will see daily as their go-to definition for “cultural Marxism.”

It gets worse.

The link then charges: “This conspiracy theory is associated with American religious paleoconservatives such as William S. Lind, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Weyrich; but also holds currency among the alt-right, white nationalist groups, and the neo-reactionary movement.”

Yeah? No kidding? The “neo-reactionary movement”? What’s that?

For years I’ve known about cultural Marxism. My first tutorial on it, and the entirety of the Frankfurt School, came from Herb Romerstein, a friend and mentor to whom I dedicated my book Dupes. Never did Herb say that the charge of cultural Marxism was a slimy anti-Jewish plot. He walked me through the leading lights in the Frankfurt School, and he didn’t single out which ones were Jews

An “anti-semitic conspiracy theory”? That sounds like the very conspiracy-mongering that the anonymous writers are charging as conspiracy-mongering.

This flatly isn’t right. It’s wrong. And it’s a shame. It’s a nasty charge that’s clearly having a pernicious influence. As a case in point, a testimony comes from the UK, where a conservative supporter of Brexit has been accused of peddling the “anti-Semitic trope of ‘Cultural Marxism’.” That’s an actual headline.

The two reporters who wrote that story, slinging that accusation at this unfortunate British conservative, almost certainly Googled a term they knew little to nothing about and landed at the first thing that glared from their screen. The intellectual laziness led to intellectual nastiness — cruelty even, as this is a vicious charge to make against someone, especially if those leveling it really don’t have a good idea of the history of the term.

And yet, in fairness to those two reporters, “cultural Marxism” is unquestionably hard to pin down. It would be nice if everyone could be, well, nice, as we all suffer the ideological folly of the men who devised the inane theories and perverse schools of thought which, for better or worse, have come to be known as “cultural Marxism.” Take it from someone who reads this poison for living. These ideas are not merely confusing, vague, but often incoherent, incomprehensible, rambling, meandering, and, first and foremost, utterly idiotic and completely destructive to mind and soul. When I slog through it, I think not of “trope” but “tripe.” It’s awful junk.

Here are some rudimentary facts:

First off, you will not find a foundational book from, say, the 1930s, called The Cultural Marxism Manifesto. Maybe the best we can say is that cultural Marxism, for lack of a better term, is essentially, and very simply, Marxism applied to cultural goals. To repeat: Marxism applied to cultural goals. This is distinguished from the classical Marxism applied to economics or class goals. It is Marxist theory affixed to culture, and thus referred to commonly and understandably as “cultural Marxism.”

Who first coined the term? It’s hard to say, just as it’s hard to say who first coined the term “communism.” Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848, but they didn’t coin the term communism. No one really knows, for sure.

And the fact is, there are many Marxists today working far more aggressively on the cultural front than the economic front. They are, in effect, cultural Marxists. And no doubt, 99% of them are not Jews. To criticize them and their cultural Marxism would not, by any stretch, be an exercise in anti-Semitism.

Who were some of the early Marxists who applied Marx to culture?

Pivotal was Antonio Gramsci, an Italian, a pioneer of applying Marxist theory to cultural objectives. He was not a Jew, not German, and not a member of the Frankfurt School.

That said, the Frankfurt School was the leading literal “institute” that applied Marxist theory to cultural objectives.

The two leaders of the Frankfurt School were Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who wrote major works on what they called the “culture industry.” This is so well-known that the very same Wikipedia has an entry for “Culture Industry,” a term it rightly credits to its founders, “the critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer,” as Wikipedia says in the first line of the entry, and to the wider Frankfurt School, as it lays out. Adorno and Horkheimer had a chapter called “The Culture Industry” in their book, Dialectic of Enlightenment. (Sounds a little cultural and a little Marxist, eh?)

Two of the most influential members of the Frankfurt School who applied Marxism to culture (and to other areas) were Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm. They were not only cultural Marxists but Freudian Marxists. One might also call Marcuse a sexual Marxist. He was the guru to the 1960s New Left on American college campuses.

An undisputed sexual Marxist who applied sex and Freud and Marx to culture was Wilhelm Reich, who coined the term and wrote the book, The Sexual Revolution. He’s linked to the Frankfurt School, though he was much earlier. He was such a sexual freak, with very disturbing thoughts on the genital stimulation of children (among other things), that the Bolsheviks rejected him.

Georg Lukacs, a Hungarian, a Bolshevik, and a major early influence on the founders of the Frankfurt School, also applied Marxist theory to culture. He was Deputy Commissar for Culture and Education in Bela Kun’s Hungarian Soviet Republic. To repeat: culture and education. Theodor Adorno adored Georg Lukacs.

Most of the guys in the Frankfurt School were Freudians as well as Marxists. Some, like Fromm especially, sought to devise a field of Freudian-Marxism that was anchored in psychoanalysis.

So, cultural Marxists, sexual Marxists. Yes.

Today, in the 21stcentury, much of the more culturally inclined Marxism flies under the banner of what is known throughout the academy as “critical theory.” There are entire academic departments at universities dedicated to critical theory. Tellingly, most of these academic proponents of Marxism are not econ or Poli Sci professors, or historians, all of which know better, but faculty from English departments.

Today, there are even gender Marxists in the academy. There are self-described “queer theorists” and academicians engaged in “intersectionality” who are Marxists focused on cultural work.

This is widely known.

But above all, these Marxists are and were about culture. Culture, culture, culture.




Continued below...

[Old Dog New Trick]

Originally Posted by tonyz

Amen.

And the ballot box.



True.

And, fortunately that street runs both ways.

Tony, how's this working out?


I don't remember this thread and it's a lot to read but if I get the jest of it it's what we've all been talking about and worrying about now for awhile.

Seems we should have listened better when the O said he was going to "Transform America" because for eight years they did. Only they lost the election in 2016 and we found out what was behind door number #3.

I think it's too late now, and the "Ballot Box" has been compromised to the point where whats the point...?

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Old Dog New Trick

Tony, how's this working out?

Like shit.

Still sounding the alarm as politely as possible.

[Box]

When I was growing up I was friends with a kid named Booth - great kid - came from a good family - we were like peas and carrots... we went everywhere together.
Box and Booth - we were raised as red-blooded American patriots - but we both had cousins that weren't worth a fuck...

Voting Booth and Ballot Box.
Those two little mother fuckers both betrayed their family for money and power - now we don't speak anymore.
Recently my second cousin Mail fell in with a bad crowd too. Mail Box hooked up with Voting Booth and Ballot Box last month and the three of them caused a shit show of epic proportions.
I'll probably never trust any of those mother fuckers again.

Most of the Booths and the Boxes are still tight except for those three deceptive untrustworthy pricks Mail, Voting, and Ballot can all suck my ass. They talk a big game but neither of them can do shit on their own. They just sit there motionless - they take take take take take - but they don't actually "do" anything. It took our families a long time to realize that Voting and Ballot were useless if the family didn't demand action. We learned a long time ago that we can't just depend on Voting Booth and Ballot Box to get things done.
It's amazing how many people still pretend that those two motherfuckers are the ones that do all the work.

I'm still good friends with a few members of the Booth family (no relation to Powers - God rest his soul)
-Phone Booth was a good kid but he started hanging around with some kid named Wireless and nobody has seen as much as a glimpse of Phone Booth in years.
-Paint Booth works on cars at a custom shop on the east side and I only see him a few times a year.
-Ticket Booth moved to California and went into show business
-Control Booth went to work for the Defense Department and works in DC - I think he works at the Pentagon but he doesn't talk about work very much.

The Boxes are all doing well...
-Pizza Box went to Culinary School and owns a nationwide chain of eateries
-Shoe Box moved to Milan and works as a male model. He did a joint photoshoot with Zoolander a while back
-Gift Box went to business school and works in retail. He refuses to do business with Dicks
-Tough Box joined the Army and he is deployed all the time.
-Pandora is sitting quietly in the corner waiting for Ballot Box and Voting Booth to show their ass one more time and then all hell is going to break loose.

Once Pandora gets into the fray, this bullshit about fundamentally transforming society is going to get real...
...real quick

Just dont count on Voting Booth and Ballot Box to fix anything - you have to get out there and make things happen if you want things to change.

[Old Dog New Trick]

Just read this whole thing...quite interesting. But, some more or less modern writers are missing whether I'm missing their input or not it seems important to mention them:

Leon Trotsky
Frederick Engles (I think there was a small mention of him with Carl Marx because they wrote the book.)
and of course Vladimir Lenin

I'd throw in Sal Alinsky but he's less of a Marxist and more of a straight up Communist but hey what's the difference in the end...


I'm raising a teenage boy with ADHD who began primary school outside Tacoma WA., (Fife to be exact because it was supposed to be a good school on that real estate guide.) Kindergarten and the 1st grade didn't seem too far off normal but by the time he was entering 2nd and 3rd grades I could see more clearly why he was being used as a special needs child (government funding) and I could also see where common core education was problematic not just for him but for myself to understand what they were doing. Homework was hard just to understand why he had to do simple math three different ways to solve a simple problem. I was constantly being called to the school for one thing or another and got to know everyone in his "scholastic" environment. His 2nd grade teacher ruined him from the second of week of school and I regret not taking him out of that school immediately. But he persisted to say he was happy there and had friendships he wanted to keep and so we all tried to accommodate him. [I never had that in my life, never went to the same school year to year and sometimes only spent months here or there, so I wanted him to have that stability.] That summer the teacher retired and the principle and asst. principle were both fired (let go by the district for academic failures - duh.) The 3rd and 4th grades were better but the damage was done, my son was always playing catch up and struggled with common core lesson plans although he seems very bright and smart. The doctors said he had ADHD and we tried medicine with bad results and little improvement. It was hell...but we persisted and worked closely with counselors and special education teachers that he had on top of his regular teachers throughout the day.

Why am I telling you this...

I took a new job location in Texas, North Houston area and we moved three years ago...he began the 5th Grade from scratch one the first day of a new school year and although lots of information had to be entered on school admittance forms we told them he had been diagnosed with ADHD and ODD but medications only made matters worse and we would not be doing that...that he had been in special needs classes and that they were not going to find his prior school records very welcoming. The school said not a problem we have lots of kids like that - they are boys!

Immediately he felt more at home, the lesson plans were more direct and more challenging too. The teachers were teaching and not preaching the common core crap but more importantly he would come home and tell me, "Dad, this school doesn't talk about homosexuality, transgenderism, racism and religious intolerance, like they did in Washington." My jaw about hit the floor! I suspected it was happening but none of that ever came home, it was all small incremental classes thrown into the curricula in Washington schools from about the beginning in Kindergarten...words from teachers that "It's okay to be different that somethings aren't what they seem. Everyone is special!" Well, bullsh!t, at age five...boys are boys and girls are girls and the pictures on the bathroom door should be an indication that you are one or the other and no confusion should exist. [Now I know why Ellen Page is Elliot Page except that Elliot will probably not be happy with a vagina. But I digress...]

Anyway, my son, he's an 8th grader now, he's doing okay even though it has been a tough act to follow and he's in AFJROTC and excelling there. He's got a really good head on his shoulders and I've been successful at all the important things in his life so far, he knows who he is and what he's not. He knows right from wrong and more importantly lately he knows right from Left.

They don't teach common core in Texas grade school or at least the one he goes to. Can't speak for Houston ISD, I think they are socialist!