The Subversion of Political Activism in America

 

A Critical Analysis

Of

Anti-Establishment Movements

In America

 

by Phillip Darrell Collins


 

 

Preface
Historically, a majority of anti-Establishment movements has been largely unsuccessfully. For instance, despite the efforts of the sixties counterculture to end the Vietnam War, the Establishment managed to draw the conflict out for several years and gain control of the lucrative drug trade in the Golden Triangle. The same holds true for the anti-WTO movement, which has only succeeded in vandalizing the businesses of small shop owners. These ongoing successions of failure are the results of the Establishment's subversive efforts and political activists' own susceptibility to Hegelian manipulation.

 

The Sixties Counterculture
Romanticized by filmmakers like Oliver Stone and faithfully emulated by Generation X, the sixties counterculture ostensibly represented an enormous grassroots mobilization against the elite. However, in reality, the movement was merely the integral constituent of a Hegelian dialectic designed by the ruling class. The elite laid this dialectical snare through the following tactics:

 

h  The Promulgation of a Hegelian Meme - One of the weaknesses of the sixties counterculture was its own feeble grasp of the political spectrum. Exploiting this systemic Achilles' heel, the elite infused sixties radicals with a meme (a virus of the mind, so-to-speak) that would guarantee the movement's disintegration. Many of the sixties activists were recruited from academic institutions, which have been longtime disseminators of Establishment propaganda. On college campuses abroad, political scientists were already rigorously promoting a Hegelian view of the political spectrum. According to this dialectical framework, the political spectrum could be conceived of as straight line with fascism occupying the far right pole and communism occupying the far left pole. Nestled comfortably in between these two polar extremes was the American system.

 

Communism !X!X!X American system !X!X!X Fascism

 

This spectrum was patently false. Where was there room for the absence of government (anarchy) on this spectrum? Why did Americanism, which is predicated upon limited government and individual liberties, find itself sandwiched between two totalitarian systems? Clearly, this spectrum was disproportionate with reality. In truth, the spectrum drew itself out like this:

 

Communism !X!X!X Fascism !X!X!X American system !X!X!X Anarchy

 

Communism and fascism are merely kissing cousins of the left. The appellation of "communism" comes from the Latin root communis, which means "group" living. Fascism is a derivation of the Italian word fascio, which is translated as "bundle" or "group." Both fascism and communism are forms of coercive group living, or more succinctly, collectivism. The only substantial difference between the two is fascism's limited observance of private property rights, which is ostensible at best given its susceptibility to rigid government regulation. In 1933, the Fuehrer candidly admitted to Hermann Rauschning that: !'the whole of National Socialism is based on Marx!( (Martin, p. 239, 1990).  Nazism (a variant of fascism) is derivative of Marxism. The historical conflicts between communism and fascism were merely feuds between two socialist totalitarian camps, not two dichotomously related forces. This is the true nature of the political spectrum.

 

Ayn Rand probably provided the most eloquent summation of this dialectic:

 

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of !'Freedom or dictatorship?!( into !'Which kind of dictatorship?!( - thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice - according to the proponents of the fraud - is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism) (Rand, p. 180, 1967).

 

However, the counterculture unconsciously subsumed the Establishment's Hegelian meme and assessed the political climate of the time according to the Establishment's Hegelian model of the political spectrum. The memory of Nazi Germany and the atrocities of fascism during World War II were still floating on the surface of public conscious. Frightened by the chimera of "right-wing fascism," sixties radicals aligned themselves with the crypto-Marxist left. Thus, the counterculture only further promulgated the Hegelian dialectic of communism against fascism. Both of these polar extremes represent variants of the same political doctrine: statism. Cloistered within this dialectical framework, the counterculture enshrined the very socialistic machinations of the State that would empower the ruling class.

 

h  Control Through Elite Financing - Although the sixties counterculture mounted opposition against the Establishment, its adherents received funding from the plutocrats themselves. In 1970, an Illinois commission report revealed "!Kthat $192,000 in Federal money and $85,000 in Carnegie Foundation funds were paid to [the] Students for a Democratic Society!Kduring the fall of 1969" (Epperson, p.403, 1985). When undercover police intelligence operative David Gumaer investigated the sources of SDS financing, he:

 

!Ksoon discovered it came through radicals via the United Nations, from the Rockefeller Foundations, the Ford Foundation, United Auto Workers, as well as cigar boxes of American money from the Cuban embassy (Epperson, p. 403, 1985).

 

In his The Strawberry Statement: Notes of A College Revolutionary, former revolutionary Kunen provided the following account of the 1968 S.D.S. (Students for a Democratic Society) national convention:

 

Also at the convention, men from Business International Roundtables-the meetings sponsored by the Business International for their client groups and heads of government-tried to buy up a few radicals. These men are the world's leading industrialists and they convene to decide how our lives are going to go. These are the boys who wrote the Alliance for Progress. They're the left wing of the ruling class. They agreed with us on black control and student control!K
They want McCarthy in. They see fascism as the threat, see it coming from Wallace. The only way McCarthy could win is if the crazies and young radicals act up and make Gene more reasonable.
They offered to finance our demonstrations in Chicago.
We were also offered Esso (Rockefeller) money. They want us to make a lot of radical commotion so they can look more in the center as they move to the left (pg. 116).

 

Before the House and Senate Security Committees, former Communist Party member and FBI informant James Kirk made the following statement:

 

They (sixties radicals) have no idea they are playing into the hands of the Establishment they claim to hate. The radicals think they are fighting the forces of the super-rich, like Rockefeller and Ford, and don't realize that it is precisely such forces which are behind their own revolution, financing it, and using it for their own purposes (Griffin, 1995, pg. 107-108).

 

Eventually, a few of the sixties radicals became aware of this manipulation. One such radical was the leader of SNCC, Stokely Carmichael. James Kirk made the following observations concerning Carmichael:

 

Mr. Carmichael was obviously in the middle of something very important which made him more nervous and tense than in the past!KHe started speaking of things which he said he could not have said before because his research was not finished!K
He repeated the line from the song he liked so well, "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" He kept hitting on the theme that a very large monopoly capitalist money group, the bankers to be exact, was instrumental in fomenting (the) idea that the Jews are the ones actually behind the oppression of the blacks!KIn the agencies of this power, he cited banks, the chief among which were Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan. And the foundations connected with these monoliths (Griffin, 1995, pg. 108).


Apparently, Carmichael's revelations presented a distinct threat to the hidden manipulators. According to researcher Des Griffin: "Within weeks Carmichael had been mysteriously removed from SNCC and the Black Panthers. He had learned too much" (pg. 108)!

 

h  Neutralization by COINTELPRO - Carmichael was but a microcosm of the paradigm shift gradually taking place amongst the sixties radicals. Like many of the power organisms that had originated with the ruling class, the counterculture was developing autonomy. Recognizing this tectonic shift, the elite decided that the movement was no longer a useful machination. In fact, the sixties counterculture had become a potential threat to the ruling class. The movement had to be neutralized. This was accomplished through COINTELPRO, a counter-insurgency program within the FBI. Ostensibly, COINTELPRO was presented as an anti-Communist "counterintelligence program." According to the chief of the COINTELPRO unit:

 

We were trying first to develop intelligence so we would know what they were doing [and] second, to contain the threat.... To stop the spread of communism, to stop the effectiveness of the Communist Party as a vehicle of Soviet intelligence, propaganda and agitation (Wolf, 2002).


However, COINTELPRO's objectives were delineated in such an elastic fashion that they could be extended to encompass almost any form of activism. This elasticity was especially evident in COINTELPRO's use of the vague appellation "New Left." The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations commented on this elasticity:

 

As discussed earlier, the Bureau did not define the term "New Left," and the range of targets went far beyond alleged "subversives" or "extremists." Thus, for example, two student participants in a "free speech" demonstration were targeted because they defended the use of the classic four-letter-word. Significantly, they were made COINTELPRO subjects even though the demonstration "does not appear to be inspired by the New Left" because it "shows obvious disregard for decency and established morality" (Wolf, 2002).

 

Thus, COINTELPRO became America's "morality police." However, the techniques employed by COINTELPRO were anything but moral. William C. Sullivan, former assistant to the Director, provided a candid description of the program's tactics:

 

This is a rough, tough, dirty business, and dangerous. It was dangerous at times. No holds were barred.... We have used [these techniques] against Soviet agents. They have used [them] against us. . . . [The same methods were] brought home against any organization against which we were targeted. We did not differentiate. This is a rough, tough business (Wolf, 2002).


The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations provided a brief synopsis of COINTELPRO's strategy:

 

The Bureau approved 2,370 separate counterintelligence actions. Their techniques ranged from anonymously mailing reprints of newspaper and magazine articles (sometimes Bureau-authored or planted) to group members or supporters to convince them of the error of their ways, to mailing anonymous letters to a member's spouse accusing the target of infidelity; from using informants to raise controversial issues at meetings in order to cause dissent, to the "snitch jacket" (falsely labeling a group member as an informant) and encouraging street warfare between violent groups; from contacting members of a "legitimate group to expose the alleged subversive background of a fellow member to contacting an employer to get a target fired; from attempting to arrange for reporters to interview targets with planted questions, to trying to stop targets from speaking at all; from notifying state and local authorities of a target's criminal law violations, to using the IRS to audit a professor, not just to collect any taxes owing, but to distract him from his political activities (Wolf, 2002).

 

While many researchers characterize COINTELPRO as a "right-wing conspiracy," it must be understood that so-called "left-wing" Communist regimes employed the same tactics. Recall William C. Sullivan's statement: "We have used [these techniques] against Soviet agents. They have used [them] against us. . . ." (Wolf, 2002). This fact reinforces the chimerical nature of the traditional left vs. right dialectic. Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, irrespective of whatever Hegelian appellation the orthodoxy of political science might assign it.

 

The Anti-WTO Movement
The elite's Hegelian strategy of ideological divide and conquer is also evident in the case of the World Trade Organization. Exploiting the intrinsic irrationalism of partisan affiliations, the oligarchs promulgated another fraudulent dialectical struggle between the right-wing and the left-wing.

 

h  "Right-wing" Manipulation - Republicans, neo-conservatives, and other so-called "right-wingers" selectively overlooked the genuine threat posed by the WTO: the further erosion of national sovereignty and destabilization of national economies. Why would they turn their heads and ignore such an obvious danger? Simple. Support of the WTO constituted loyalty to the Republican Party. After all, didn't George Bush support free trade? Doesn't a good Republican support everything that a Republican president supports, irrespective of the economic, political, or moral ramifications? The National Review and other neo-conservative rags printed avid defense polemics for the WTO, thus reiterating a dictum espoused by both major political parties: "Our way or the highway." This rigidity endemic to the two-party system has already resulted in the ostracism of two dissenting voices, Patrick Buchanan and James Trafficant. Such is the irrationality of strict adherence to partisan affiliations.

 

h  "Left-wing" manipulation - Meanwhile, many of the left-wing anti-WTO protesters had no qualms with world government or globalism. They certainly were not heartbroken by the fact that globalist machinations such as the WTO undermined national sovereignty and subordinated national economies to the authority of an onerous global entity. Majorities of the protesters were eco-zealots (i.e., watermelon Marxists, green on the outside and red on the inside) whose only problem was the global elite's disregard for the environmental chimera they dubbed "Gaia." New Republic journalist Robert Wright made the following observation concerning Ralph Nader and other phony left-wing WTO protesters:

 

"Nader and most of the Seattle left would gladly accept a sovereignty-crushing world body if it followed the leftist model of supranational governance found in the European Union" (Wright, 2000).

 

To appease the puppets of this artificially contrived opposition, President Bill Clinton "espoused a future WTO whose member nations would meet global environmental and labor standards or else face sanction" (Wright, 2000).

 

If anything, the WTO conflict represented a feud between elite factions: the Anglo-American Establishment of the west and the European Union of the east. Of course, there is further fragmentation into smaller sub-factions, but these two camps seem to be the major players. Both the eastern and western elites desire a world government. However, the western ruling class seeks to establish what they call a Pax Americana, a New World Order headquartered in America. The eastern elite wants a Pax Europa with the locus of power firmly embedded in Europe.

 

The masses rallied in one of the two camps. The so-called "right-wing" (i.e., conservatives, Republicans, nominal Christians, etc.) aligned themselves with the Anglo-American Establishment. Meanwhile, the so-called "left-wing" (i.e., liberals, radical environmentalists, Democrats, traditional Marxists, etc.) aligned themselves with the oligarchs of the European Union. It must be understood that both sides are intrinsically irrational and wrong. Both are facilitating the formation of a one world socialist totalitarian government. Either way, the free republic of America is doomed should one of these camps succeed. This is the anatomy of the elite's Hegelian dialectic, an ongoing process of divide and conquer.

 

Political Activism and the Second Gulf War
There can be little debate over the illegitimacy of the latest American military campaign in Iraq. Clearly, the war was illegal because it was antithetical to the principles of Americanism. It was never the policy of the Founding Fathers to attack other nations without provocation. Iraq did not overtly attack the United States and the contention that it did through the surrogate apparatus of al-Qaida has never been substantiated. Moreover, a guiding axiom of Americanism has been the avoidance of entangling alliances abroad. The so-called "coalition of nations" that fought Saddam represented one such entangling alliance. Unilaterally, bilaterally, or multilaterally, America's initiation of the war was still wrong. However, infected by Hegelian memes and controlled through elite financing, the antiwar movement only helped to further realize the ruling class' objectives.

 

h  Empowering the UN - Many of the left-wing "antiwar" protesters argued that the United States could not go to war without the approval of the United Nations. Moveon.org trumpeted mantras such as "Inspections work. Wars don't!" Win Without War urged people to tell congress: "Supporting the current UN disarmament mission in Iraq is critical" (Jasper, 2003). Yet, perhaps the most blatantly pro-UN statement was made by Peace Action:

 

The US must do its part to strengthen international legal systems in order for them to be as effective as possible. This means immediately paying US back dues to the United Nations (UN) and working through the UN to strengthen international laws on terrorism and the means to enforce them. The US should also support the International Criminal Court (ICC).... (Jasper, 2003).

 

This contention was a Trojan horse of the UN's globalist masters. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other Freedom documents constitute the only legitimate law of the land, NOT any of the edicts or decrees of the United Nations. This was an obvious ploy to empower the United Nations as a world government and further undermine the sovereignty of the United States. In truth, the so-called "antiwar" protesters would have had little or no trouble with the war had it been officially sanctioned by the United Nations, which has always been a conduit for elitist interests.

 

h  Elite Financing - The left-wing antiwar activists fancied themselves as some sort of grass roots movement, another populist crusade for the twenty-first century. However, a recent article in the Washington Post painted quite a different portrait. Journalist Julia Duin observed: "The American antiwar movement is decked out with all the elements of the counterculture, but it is getting some very establishment funding" (Duin, p. 1, 2003).

 

The Institute for Policy Studies, which is a left-wing think tank with a budget of $2.2 million, had circulated numerous anti-war polemics in recent months (Duin, p.1, 2003). Among the various Establishment institutions financing this entity were the Turner, Ford, MacArthur, and Charles Stewart Mott foundations (Duin, p.1, 2003). The Institute for Policy Studies finds its very origins with the ruling class. New York banks provided the money necessary to establish the IPS as a branch of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (Dope, Inc., p. 547, 1992). James Warburg, son of first Federal Reserve chairman Paul Warburg, was a founding trustee of IPS (Dope, Inc., p. 540, 1992).

 

Eli Pariser, the international campaigns director of Moveon.org, openly admitted that his organization had an operating budget of $300,000 a year (Duin, p. 2, 2003). One major accomplishment that this group boasted was its $3.5 million grossing fund-raiser for liberal political candidates during the 2002 election (Duin, p. 2, 2003). No doubt, these grateful politicians were also major contributors to Moveon.org's $300,000 operating budget. After all, reciprocity is the key to any healthy relationship.

 

h  Manufactured Opposition - Of course, it would be both biased and flatly incorrect to assert that elite manipulation has remained confined solely to the left-wing. The so-called "right-wing" also played an integral role in the manipulation surrounding Bush's war in Iraq. Meanwhile, on the other end of the bogus political spectrum, the Establishment had manufactured its own synthetic opposition. Suddenly, from Fort Wayne to Cleveland and Atlanta to Philadelphia, "pro-war" rallies were launched to support Bush's Iraq campaign (Burkeman, p. 1, 2003). Was this a grass roots response to the antiwar demonstrations? Journalist Oliver Burkeman answers this question:

 

But many of the rallies, it turns out, have been organized and paid for by Clear Channel Inc. - the country's largest radio conglomerate, owning 1,200 stations - which is not only reporting on the war at the same time, but whose links with President Bush stretch back to his earliest, much-criticised financial dealings as governor of Texas. The company has paid advertising costs and for the hire of musicians for the rallies (Burkeman, p. 1, 2003).

 

Predictably, many conservatives, Republicans, and so-called "Christians" flocked to this dialectical camp. As the hawks and the doves engaged in the harlequin antics of a fraudulent ideological melee, the power elite strengthened their grip on society.

 

Conclusion
It is painfully clear that political activism in the United States has been rendered ineffective or, in some cases, detrimental to the activists themselves. A portion of the blame rests on the shoulders of the Establishment, which has controlled movements through elite funding. However, a larger portion of the blame must be shouldered by the activists themselves. Contaminated by Hegelian memes and trapped in dialectical snares, activists continue to help the very plutocrats they claim to hate. Only when activists learn to transcend partisan affiliations and develop some autonomous aptitude will America finally see the fruits of any political activism.


 

 Sources Cited

 

Burkeman, Oliver, "Bush backer sponsoring pro-war rallies," http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4633514,00.html, March 26, 2003.

Duin, Julia, "Foundation cash funds antiwar movement," http://dynamic,washtimes.com/twt-print.cfm?ArticleID=20030402-42181748, April 2, 2003.

Editors of Executive Intelligence Review, Dope Inc., Executive Intelligence Review, Washington, D.C. 1992.

Epperson, Ralph, The Unseen Hand, Publius Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1985.

Griffin, Des, Fourth Reich of the Rich, Emissary Publications, Oregon, 1995.

Kunen, James, The Strawberry Statement, Random House, New York, 1968.

Jasper, William F. "Recycling Radicalism," The New American Magazine Online, http://thenewamerican.com/tna/2003/03-24-2003/vo19no06_radicalism.htm, 2003.

Martin, Malachi, The Keys of this Blood, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1991.

Rand, Ayn, Capitalism: The Unknown Idea, New American Library, Reissue edition, July 1986.  

Wolf, Paul, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports On Intelligence Activities And The Rights Of Americans, http://www.cointel.org, 2002.

Wright, Robert, "Continental Drift," New Republic On-line, http://www.tnr.com/011700/coverstory011700.html, September 17, 2000.

 


Author's Biography
 

Phillip Darrell Collins was the chief editor of The Hidden Face of Terrorism, a book by Paul David Collins. He can be contacted at thefaceunveiled@excite.com. The Hidden Face of Terrorism can be purchased at www.1stbooks.com/bookview/13401.

  


Created & Posted: Saturday, January 17, 2004 23:00:00 -0800


 
 

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