Wednesday, November 05, 2008

The readiness is all

If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all …

Hamlet

Let us not fool ourselves. This is no time for comforting illusions.

Obama's victory is real. I have no doubt his ACORN bandits produced many phony registrations, but they were not the deciding factor. It is equally true that the Stupid Party opposed Obama with a weak, aggressively uninteresting liberal twit: if Obama did not deserve to win, McCain assuredly deserved to lose. But the shift that yesterday's result signified wasn't down to McCain's mediocrity.

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So it comes now, but if it had not, it would have come later. I mean the triumph in America of social, and perhaps economic, Marxism that Obama — all right, president-elect Obama — represents. A majority of our citizens have bought the whole package: income leveling, more useless and grandiose spending programs to try to guarantee equality of outcomes in every aspect of life, a racial and ethnic spoils system, white guilt over events that mostly took place before our grandparents were born, wide open borders designed for race replacement, amnesty for illegals, appeasement as the keystone of foreign policy.

And while it remains to be seen how far The Chosen One will try to carry his thin-skinned unwillingness to tolerate criticism and opposition, there is every possibility that he and his henchmen in Congress and the federal bureaucracy will try to suppress conservative talk radio and restrict freedom of speech and the press (including the Web) through soft-totalitarian "hate speech" codes like those in Europe.


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When Hamlet spoke of readiness, he meant readiness to die, whether now or later. Socially and politically, the death we have to be ready for is the death of the traditional America, the one that rewarded intelligence and enterprise, that believed in individuals rather than tribes, that saw government as a necessary evil to be minimized, not worshipped as a savior and sacrificed to. We have to be ready for the death of that because we have no choice: it's here, now.

We've lost. America is occupied territory. It came about while we collectively (not all individuals) were busy salivating over the latest computer technology, flipping houses, trading stocks, climbing the corporate ladder, and watching the Super Dooper Whooper Bowl. Meanwhile, the pod people were infiltrating every institution of American life in crafty Gramscian mode. Not familiar with Gramsci? John Fonte sums up a key principle of this Marxist's strategy:
Far from being content with a mere uprising, therefore, Gramsci believed that it was necessary first to delegitimize the dominant belief systems of the predominant groups and to create a "counter-hegemony" (i.e., a new system of values for the subordinate groups) before the marginalized could be empowered. Moreover, because hegemonic values permeate all spheres of civil society -- schools, churches, the media, voluntary associations -- civil society itself, he argued, is the great battleground in the struggle for hegemony, the "war of position." From this point, too, followed a corollary for which Gramsci should be known (and which is echoed in the feminist slogan) -- that all life is "political." Thus, private life, the work place, religion, philosophy, art, and literature, and civil society, in general, are contested battlegrounds in the struggle to achieve societal transformation.
Whether as a conscious plan or not, the pod people have been following Gramsci's blueprint for 40 years and have been spectacularly successful. Let's be brutally honest — they have outsmarted the country club Republicans, the George Will-type bow-tied conservatives, the Buckley gang, and the "values voters."

The pod people have captured the educational system, from kindergarten through the hallowed Ivy League halls of academe; the judiciary; the federal and state bureaucracies; the entertainment industry; the mainstream media; even to some extent, the military. They were in power by the time Bill Clinton groped his first victim. They would be in power today if Barack Obama had never been born. His win is only the cherry on top of the cake, an outward and visible symbol of an inward and spiritual rot.

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For the good of the Resistance, it is better that Obama and his racial-grievance Mafia come now, rather than later, because each day that passes means more immigration and race replacement, more schoolchildren brainwashed, more anti-traditional-America propaganda downloaded through the TV screen. That would have been equally true if McCain had read the victory speech; McCain, the open borders apostle, the craven candidate who couldn't bear to mention Reverend Wright, whose mission seemed to be to sacrifice himself on the altar of multi-culturalism.

Obama is not about "change" — he is the status quo, the emblem of the decadence of constitutional principles that has quietly replaced liberty.
Obama and his followers do not want change. They would dread real change. Because that would be a reversal of the status quo. It would be the American people realizing what has been put over on them while they were chasing their dreams of a bigger house and an SUV with satellite navigation.

To replace the America of groups competing for government largesse, of reverse discrimination, of the dominant State as Father and Mother, it will mean adopting the Gramscian method in reverse. Like a liberating army, the people will have to take back the institutions that they so carelessly abandoned. It might involve a great deal of risk.

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Obama, the embodiment of Leftist ideology, basks in the adulation of the crowd and the media who have enlisted as his servants. He is the culmination of "the long march through the institutions."

The Resistance continues.

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11 comments:

David Foster said...

A lot of this has to do with the rise of what this article refers to as "the creative class" but which might be better referred to as "the credentialed classes."

leadpb said...

Excellent distillation, Rick. I think many of us have intensely pondered the problem of traditionalism's lack of everyday appeal since it is just damn Old and so lacks the shine and lustre of that SUV and new golf set. But after a long enough stint of metastasizing liberalism (not yet!) wouldn't genuine conservatism strike many as novel and fresh? Especially if we were in a real bind where we all felt some discernible pain. Isn't this really the problem-- a lack of marketing appeal for a product that really is great under the hood? I suspect it is, as usual, a timing thing, in which case please excuse me while I go stock more pillow cases.

On Gramsci, that slick-haired little bastard, you make a good point about turning the game on the opposition. The problem I see with this is that his requirement of "all" being political tends to eliminate good faith dealing and other odd habits that have brought us a long way from the swamp, such as higher vision, spirituality, boundless innovation and other items that stand on their own merit. You can politicize anything you like, but how would the maintenance of these things square with what is essentially the strategic virtuosity of a clever weasel?

Terry Morris said...

...wide open borders designed for race replacement, amnesty for illegals, appeasement as the keystone of foreign policy.

Yes, liberalism is such a pervasive dominating influence in our society that at this very moment in time I admit I'm not seeing a clear pathway, a viable pathway to recovery. Certainly nothing's going to change in the short term.

What has been accomplished in Oklahoma, Arizona, etc., in the way of dealing with the immigration situation, is now, I tend to think, likely to be shortly undone by the all-powerful central authority. My assessment may be all wrong on this (I hope it is), but my impression has been that even states like mine had to be dragged kicking and screaming -- kicking and screaming that immigration is a "federal issue", why won't the feds do something about this?! -- into writing our own immigration restriction laws. I think states like Oklahoma and Arizona, et al, will be more than willing to go along with whatever the new Congress comes up with (amnesty, and a pathway to citizenship for incompatible third-worlders, etc...).

The real undercurrent in modern America is a strict adherence to the belief that the central government is responsible to "keep us safe" and to micro-manage virtually all aspects of our daily lives. And did I mention to keep us safe? We no longer, as a people, do for ourselves as a matter of being responsible, productive, independent, self-governing freedom lovers. Therefore, now that we have unity in the central government, why should we concern ourselves any longer with the issue of immigration at the state and local levels of government? The feds will finally come to our rescue, thank goodness.

I predict that states like Oklahoma and Arizona (neither of which is a "conservative" state by my estimation) will happily go along with a federal "comprehensive immigration reform" package when it comes to fruition. That simply means that while our laws will probably remain on the books, they'll go the way of the ninth and tenth amendments, U.S. Constitution, which is to say they'll become, for all intents and purposes, dead letters, subject to interpretation and clarification by the federal government, all laws (deemed by the feds) to the contrary notwithstanding. ...

Rick Darby said...

Good points, all of you.

The posting was written in some haste and was perhaps not as clear as it might have been.

In saying that we need to be ready for the death of traditional America, I meant that we have to acknowledge it, not accept it. Any strategy for renewal of a more traditional America must start with an honest recognition that the opposition is in almost complete control and that the majority of the country supports them, actively or passively. We can't pretend that there is some vast population in the heartland ready to rebel when the word is given.

In short, we have to start over. We've got to take back the institutions of society that the Left has captured and made its own. That does not mean that we will reverse institutional political bias to one of our liking, but that we will restore institutions to their original purpose, whether it's teaching, research, reporting, or resolving disputes in court.

We want to return large areas of our society and culture to non-political status.

Terry Morris said...

Rick, your last post is very interesting, and I agree with you 100% that we must reclaim our institutions and restore them to their original purpose, which is probably no surprise to you, but nonetheless.

My apologies if my thoughts tended to the derailment of your intentions in the initial entry. But what I was getting at with bemoaning what I see as coming down the pike on immigration, etc., is that we were actually beginning to make some progress in the way of restoring the states and the local communities to operate within their own spheres to govern their own affairs thus relieving the national government of this necessity and freeing it up to concern itself more with that which it was originally designed to govern. Hussein Obama change simply means all of that progress, whatever it amounts to in reality (which is probably not a whole lot insofar as peoples' philosophies and attitudes have undergone any significant change), is about to be undone. So we've effectively taken two steps forward and thr... eighteen steps back. But you're right, of course, and I've said it myself many many times before over the last ten or fifteen years, that the United States is now inhabited by a dependent people. Most Americans, I think, are socialists to one degree or another. But I digress...

I wonder, though, whether you've begun to develop any ideas or stategies that you are persuaded might effect our purposes in these regards?

Rick Darby said...

Terry,

Like so many of us, I'm trying to work out what can be done to restore limited and constitutional government. I may post an entry on the subject later this week.

For a short answer: local and state governments seem like the best strongholds and centers for counterattack. I'm not sure why you believe Obama can, or will, do in any progress that has been made there. Federalism has taken a hit, beginning with the New Deal, but not below the waterline. State and local politicians are less powerful than their analogues in Washington -- maybe that can be changed -- but they have to look their constituents in the eye a lot more often. Moreover, even the monied interests have a hard time lobbying in thousands of local jurisdictions.

Terry Morris said...

Well, the eighteen steps back comment was a purposeful overreach for effect, don't ya know. I was mainly speaking to recent progress made by states like Oklahoma and Arizona on the immigration issue. I just hate to see all that effort and all that progress in the right direction go to waste under Obama and a Congress friendly to his change policies. It's not that I think Obama can achieve anything by himself, but with the help of a friendly Congress he can do a lot of damage in a short span of time.

leadpb said...

Since it has been hinted at above at and is one of my favored hopes for the future (infra-Federal hierarchies): perhaps in the inevitable expansion of a socialized and consolidated Federal government the greatest resistance will come from states without massive urban centers. The latter appear doomed to who knows what sort of socio-economic and political grotesqueries. But I have a feeling that the a broad and sedimentary American ethos in individuals, families and communities comparatively free from the hypnosis of the Fed is alive and well in both numbers and geography of no minor significance.

I suppose this is my answer to this from Rick (but not written with it in mind):

"We can't pretend that there is some vast population in the heartland ready to rebel when the word is given."

True, but neither can we pretend at the same time that any helpful phalanx is ensconced in our cities.

Rick Darby said...

Leadpb, No one would be happier than me if you are right. But I still think, strategically, it's a mistake to count on some great reservoir of the old America, ready to burst out.

We've got to accept that "we" -- and of course that "we" includes a varied group, united only in opposition to State control and enforced multi-culturalism -- have lost. Not permanently, but for now, lost. The Left has succeeded brilliantly in occupying our society's centers of power and influence. That realization is necessary if we are to summon up what it takes for our own "long march through the institutions" to restore a Republic based on individual liberty and responsibility.

To be sure, there are pockets of resistance, and most of them are away from urban dominated areas. The struggle will be most useful in the beginning at the state and local level. But with federal power as great as it is, there is no alternative to planning a long campaign that must ultimately plant the flag on the mountain top.

leadpb said...

Thank you. Beautifully said.

MnMark said...

It seems to me that what is crucially needed is an organization for people like us who want to preserve traditional America and our traditional American people, beliefs, and culture. We need an organization that is both a social group and the nucleus of a future political action and perhaps even revolutionary group. I want to belong to an organization where can I go on Friday nights and meet with a whole bunch of people who think like I do, and socialize with them, make business contacts, discuss current affairs, strategy, and so on, as well as attend lectures about aspects of our history, hear speakers discuss their strategic vision, etc. I feel isolated as it is now. In my real life pretty much everyone I know is a liberal. I feel like we traditionalists are spread around and our only interaction is through blog postings. I want to be able to build a network of local personal relationships with "my people".

I think part of the reason this hasn't really happened is that we've nominally been the majority for the entire history of the country. It seems like only groups who are minorities in some sense (racial, political, etc) get organized and form social groups like that. The majority don't have to because the whole society is their social network. But we traditionalists are a minority now and we need a way to start coming together in person and not just as abstract entities online.

One thing that will be necessary for this group, though, I think, will be some kind of well-considered plan to maintain anonymity. I think we can bet that the Left will persecute us in whatever way possible, as has happened with donors to the Prop 8 campaign in California, and to the members of the BNP in the UK, where the membership list was published and people are losing their jobs. We need an organization that cleverly takes advantage of perhaps, internet and encryption technologies, or perhaps techniques used by underground resistence groups in history, that allow us to find one another and socialize and build ties, without exposing ourselves to being easily harrassed by leftists who would try to get us fired or otherwise persecuted for belonging to a traditionalist organization.

Just a few thoughts that keep rattling around in my head.