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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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by Steve Farrell
A half-century ago, in a classic exchange between two men on opposite ends of the moral and political spectrum, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev bragged to American patriot and Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson: "Your grandchildren will live under communism!" To which Secretary Benson enthusiastically replied: "If I have it my way, your grandchildren will live free!" Khrushchev, undeterred, fired back: "Oh, you Americans! You're so gullible! We'll spoon-feed you socialism until you're communists and don't even know it. We'll never have to fire a shot!" (1) Ironically, history has to some degree vindicated both men. A greater degree of liberty has arisen, if only temporarily, behind the Iron Curtain, as was Benson's hope; but nevertheless, Khrushchev was also on target -- truth be told, more on target. For socialism is still alive and well in Russia, throughout the old Soviet empire, on all seven continents, on the isles of the sea, at the U.N., in its regional arrangements, and, as Khrushchev predicted, in the United States. Socialism is not in desperate retreat, as falsely proclaimed by the establishment press, our state university professors and our all-is-well, don't-rock-the-boat political machines. On the contrary; it moves forward confidently, aggressively and, for the most part, uncontested everywhere in the world. If Benson were alive today, he might have surmised that communism was the victor in this ironic twist of events. For despite communism's "demise," Benson consistently held that communism was but a tool in a game of political blackmail whose purpose was not to communize the world but to frighten it into a comfortable merger under socialism. (2) That comfortable merger is the very real threat of our day, and the ordained mediator of the final stages of that merger is the Third Way, whose mission it is to bellow such a merger as the only legitimate choice in politics, a place where social democracy and economic prosperity may safely meet. It is among the Third Wayers today that we find people kooky enough to believe that mass-murdering communism has something as lofty as social democracy to bring to the bargaining table, and that the United States must of necessity bow before the economic clout of countries like Communist China -- granting butchers, avowed enemies and proven deceivers privileges and political might that they do not deserve, which privilege and power will certainly be used not to enhance the economic freedom of their peoples, but to undermine the economic independence of the United States; not to enhance our national security, but to build up their military capability and political leverage against the United States. It has been the unfortunate task of this series of articles to expose this, the Third Way, as a creature in hiding which has come forth out of the badlands of socialism and communism, masked and cloaked in futurism and social democracy. Evidence enough that this is true has been presented. Yet proving the Third Way is a threat is the easy task. Convincing hands-over-their-eyes-don't-tell-me-the-facts Republicans that it is not just the Democratic Party, not just Blair, Schroeder and the EU, and not just "reformed" communists in Russia and China, but their "liberty" party as well -- the Republican Party -- which is knee deep in the Third Way is the far more daunting task. Nonetheless, the claim moves forward, with no shortage of evidence. Building the case for this claim, the last two essays in this series: 1. Demonstrated that the most influential man of 1990's Republicanism, Newt Gingrich, has of his own admission been for 30 years zealously involved with Alvin Toffler and the Third Way movement in a leadership capacity. 2. Exposed the Marxist underpinnings of Toffler's version of the Third Way, which so-called democratic philosophy Mr. Gingrich said was at the core of his own political ideology and the ideology of the Republican Revolution. 3. Pointed to the bold revelation that a trashing of the outmoded U.S. Constitution is the grand key to implementing this strange democratic plan, which will replace or radically reform the U. S. Constitution with a totally 'new' and 'improved' 21st century democracy. A question worth asking, before we proceed, is just how vulnerable is the Republican Party to this socialist philosophy? Surprisingly, leftist Alvin Toffler singled out the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party, as the preferred Third Way party. Why? Because the Republican Party had the largest contingency of centrists and moderates -- perfect fodder for a scheme which thrives on compromising politicians, rather than dedicated ideologues to the left or the right. (3) Fittingly, although heaven rejects the lukewarm, the Third Way recruits them -- for a moderate is someone who loves everybody and loves nothing. He is a servant of the world, not of high principle. He is a seeker of the dingy side of self-interest, and the Third Way has a sales pitch he can't resist, a little bit of something for everyone: progressive thinking, democratic rhetoric, social welfare, "free" markets, corporatism, nationalism and, yet, internationalism -- the kind of political plan which guarantees election or re-election but, deplorably, abandons the greatest system of government the world has ever known. The Plan The Third Way plan to eradicate or drastically alter the U.S. Constitution rests on three pillars: minority power, direct or semi-direct democracy, and decision division. (4) Constitutional Eradicator #1 -- Minority Power Toffler writes: "The first heretical principle of Third Wave [Way] government is that of minority power. It holds that majority rule, the key legitimizing principle of the Second Wave era, is increasingly obsolete. It is not majorities but minorities that count. And our political systems must increasingly reflect that fact." (5) This is so, he says, because American conservatives "[cloak] . . . anti-minority policies in the mantle of a mythical, rather than a real majority." Communists, too, are failing to meet the needs of minorities -- but in their case, it is not by malicious intent but their failure to project their economic assumptions to a post-"industrial mass society." (6) The Third Way is the answer for both camps. How Will the Minority Class Seize Power? Minorities need to be put in charge, but how? A. Toffler offers this advice: "We need new approaches for a democracy of minorities -- with methods whose purpose is to reveal differences," or as Toffler puts it elsewhere, a plan whose methods "multiply the number of minorities," better organize them under one head into a "new majority" and which by design Balkanize America (7) -- as true to the old goals of Marxism as one can get. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote: "We have seen . . . that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat (the minority class under capitalism) to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." Probing for and proclaiming differences are indeed all about divisive leftist politics, and as such these self-appointed Third Way spokesmen for the people take the equally divisive stand that "true" minorities are never conservative minorities. Fellow anticipatory democracy advocate Richard Flacks explains: "Where Negro representation exists, it operates in behalf of Negro middle-class interests and is highly dependent on the beneficence of white-dominated political machines." (8) This must change. Thus, black conservatives like Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell are not black, and should be ignored. Revolutionaries Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are black, and should be icons. It also means that the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated, the emotionally ill, the homeless, or anyone else who is disenfranchised, alienated or sympathetic to the same, are representative of minorities -- and as such should be targeted, given precedence, drawn upon for political strength, and if necessary, called upon to perform acts of violence against the existing order. (9) B. While the Third Way busies itself multiplying minorities, victims and agitators, they are equally busy endeavoring to convince us that they have nothing to do with the very rabble-rousing they facilitate. Toffler writes: "The rising activism of minorities is not the result of a sudden onset of selfishness [or an elite conspiracy]; it is . . . a reflection of the needs of a new system of production which requires for its very existence a far more varied, colorful, open, and diverse society than any we have ever known." (10) That is, it is -- as it always is with communism -- a "spontaneous uprising," the supposed creature of economic determinism. C. Agitation is one thing; giving the agitators more voting power is yet another. Both Gingrich and Toffler advocate exploring radical new methods of making law, such as granting Congress only 50 percent power over any vote, with the other 50 percent coming from a random sample of citizens brought together via the Internet. Other possibilities to be explored include national referendums, policy by polls, drawing lots, creating transient electronic communities, forming "social planning assemblies" from coast to coast -- and, believe it or not, setting up minority-run judicial systems, separate from the state, where minorities will judge the crimes of their youth according to their standards, which will, no doubt, make the rule of law irrelevant and racial divisions deeper. (11) D. Meanwhile, minority power's punch must be aided by a new, more civil, more compromising dialogue between the left and the right. "In yesterday's mass society . . . the 51 percent principle was a decidedly blunt, purely quantitative instrument. Voting to determine the majority tells us nothing about the quality of people's views. It can tell us how many people, at a given moment, want X, but not how badly they want it. Above all, it tells us nothing about what they would be willing to trade off for X. . . . "Instead of seeking simpleminded yes-or-no votes, we need to identify potential trade-offs with questions like: 'If I give up my position on abortion, will you give up yours on nuclear power.' " Notably, Toffler makes it clear throughout each of his books that he despises intransigence when it comes to conservatives and conservative single-issue advocacy groups, but advocates a stubborn, "more than ordinary weight approach" to minority issues, which may understandably have "life or death significance." (12) Yes, the definition of bipartisanship is as you may have suspected: 'Conservatives must compromise! Liberals must fight to the death!' Minority Power Spin-offs Other Third Way policies which increase minority power include the following: Open immigration, full voting rights and social service access for all immigrants and migrant workers as part of free-trade agreements. Education vouchers exclusively for the poor, paid for, almost exclusively, by the middle class. Faith-based subsidies (more wealth transfers) for the benefit of inner city (mostly minority) churches, which mandate social "tolerance" and thus, religious acceptance for deviancy and socialism. Campaign-finance reform measures which target the elimination of negative political speech and single-issue advertising, even as they elevate the influence of the minority/socialist-promoting media. Tax cuts or tax increases which punish the middle class, while favoring the upper and lower classes. The creation of temporary "non-geographical" minority groups and organizations which cross state and/or national borders -- and yet possess advisory and/or policy-making voting power. Regional primaries, which undercut the need to address small-state needs. And, don't forget, the recently espoused plan in "The Economist" to set up a sovereign Mexican-American enclave in the Southwest. Constitutional Eradicator #2 -- Semi-direct Democracy "The second building block of tomorrow's political systems must be the principle of 'semi-direct democracy' -- a shift from depending on representatives to representing ourselves. The mixture of the two is semi-direct democracy," says Toffler. (13) Moving toward a more direct democracy is a key element when it comes to minority power because more direct forms of democracy ever have been and ever will be the preferred tool of choice of most all revolutionaries. Because this is so, the American Founders established a republic, not a democracy. Father of Constitution, Madison couldn't have been more candid when he described democracy as violent, short lived, mob ruled, and communistic in its attitude toward property, religion, and social thought -- being, in truth, the great "leveler," and "the worst of all forms of government." (14) "Ex"-Marxist Toffler, and "tough-minded conservative" Gingrich make no mention of what the Founders saw as democracy's most obnoxious attributes. Instead they hone in on a far less important issue -- its impracticality in a low-tech era -- that is, distance and low-tech communication systems made in person governing impossible. The Internet, they say, solves that problem. Further, the only other objection the Founders had, we are led to believe, is their fear about the emotional factor in more direct democracies -- which is a great fear indeed. Gingrich and Toffler's solution? Random picks of citizens who will be given "10-hour courses," which will, in short order, make instant brilliant citizens, who make informed and reasoned decisions to decide the fate of the greatest nation on earth. (15) Go figure. Constitutional Eradicator #3 -- Decision Division Anti-gridlock decision division, or what Newt Gingrich and now George W. Bush refer to as decentralization, should never be confused with what the Founders described as federalism, or that freedom promoting belief that state and federal governments are completely separate and sovereign entities in delegated areas of responsibility -- which system, in fact, left almost all decision making to the states, the local municipalities, and to the people themselves. Decentralization is not about that -- at all. Left-of-center Third Wayer Alvin Toffler spells out the truth. "Incorporating larger and larger numbers in social decision-making, facilitates feedback. And it is precisely this feedback that is essential to control. To assume control over accelerating change, we shall need still more advanced -- and more democratic -- feedback mechanisms." (16) This is about efficient models of control, not "an unquenchable thirst for freedom." (17) Howard Zinn, another fellow anticipatory democracy laborer, agrees, but takes it a step further, when he confirms that this flexible, futuristic approach to control is really what Marxist/Leninism is all about. "I believe, in the spirit of Marxism -- to declare what something is by declaring what it should be -- Marxism assumes that everything -- including an idea -- takes on a new meaning in each additional moment of time, in each unique historical situation. It tries to avoid academic scholasticism, which pretends to dutifully record, to describe -- forgetting to merely describe is to circumscribe. "Marxism is not a fixed body of dogma, to be put into big black books or little red books, and memorized, but a set of specific propositions about the modern world which are tough and tentative, plus a certain vague and yet exhilarating vision of the future . . . Most of all it is a way of thinking which is intended to promote action." (18) Quoting Marx, Lenin, and Mao -- Zinn then proves a point that any real student of communism should know, communism will innovatively do whatever it takes, period. (19) Decision division/decentralization is part of what it takes in a high tech world. More decision makers, more networked individuals on the spot, so long as they are networked, equals better control -- and equally important -- accelerated change. Toffler nods: "As the rate of change speeds up, the length of time that they [minority mandates] can be ignored shrinks to near nothingness. Hence: "Freedom Now!" (20) Decision Division Specifics Toffler laments: "Some problems cannot be solved on the local level. Others cannot be solved on a national level. Some require action at many levels simultaneously. Moreover, the appropriate place to solve a problem doesn't stay put. It changes over time." (21) The level that seems to be the most important, however, is the one that shifts power up, not down. "Not enough decisions are being made at the transnational level, and the structures needed there are radically underdeveloped . . . Many of the problems that national governments are dealing with are . . . simply beyond their grasp -- too big for any individual government. We desperately need, therefore, to invent imaginative new institutions at the transnational level." And these institutions must have enforcement mechanisms. (22) More than a few decisions, powers, duties, and enforcement powers need to be moved up. Here are a few examples:
Just what is left to move down is not clear. Most of the above have the potential to effect and control every business, every property owner, every individual on earth. Environmental policy and international welfare alone, do that. The next goal, and most important element in implementing the above, they feel, was Newt Gingrich's and now George W. Bush's call for fast track authority for the President -- a power that would permit the Chief Executive to negotiate international/regional treaties without interference from the U.S. Senate. This is not about less government, therefore, but as Toffler says, about "reducing the load of national governments." (24) Indeed. They do, however, want to move some decision making down, and this is where "conservative" Republicans get excited. They shouldn't. Take for instance, corporate democracy, and for that matter the Third Way proposition that workers exercise democratic control over unions -- the latter of which seems palatable. To begin with, the first mistake is to accept the notion that the federal government has the right to step in and tell, or pressure through tax laws and or regulations, how a company or a union must handle its employees or members. This is unconstitutional in a republic. The next mistake is failing to think as Marxists think. Again, from Richard Flanks we read: "Participatory democrats take very seriously a vision of man as citizen; and by taking seriously such a vision, they seek to extend the conception of citizenship beyond the conventional political sphere to all institutions." (italics in original) (25) Which is why Marxists love democracy. Democracy assumes the people have the right to tell a business owner how he must manage his own property -- but no such right exists. More importantly, the communist definition of people control or democracy is, in fact, state control. Third Way decentralization, then, on the corporate level, is a bottom-up formula to assist top down elitists seize control of all the means of production. It's that simple -- no matter what the rhetoric, no matter what the short-term benefits. Other tactics of moving power downward are just as devious. Most especially: Welfare reform -- via federal block grants. Education reform, via federal block grants. Restoring private charity -- via federal block grants. Creating local spokesmen (liberal single issue advocacy groups) -- via federal block grants. And most recently, the insane practice started by President William Clinton and taken to a new level by President George W. Bush of sponsoring Presidential consulting sessions with thugs. Clinton consulted with street gangs, Bush let Marxist radicals in Puerto Rico decide the fate of the US Navy's most critical military training base. (26) Putting Decision Division and Minority Power Together You need to think like a Marxist -- that is, lust for power -- to figure out how the pieces of the puzzle fit together. If you can -- the puzzle is simple. When one Balkanizes a corporation, a state, a nation, or a worldwide conglomerate of nations, even while creating highly responsive, high tech tentacles everywhere -- you are capable of providing Johnny-on-the-spot solutions to racial, sexual, political, national, and economic divides, which in turn intensify the centralization of power. Toffler admits the success plan in pulling off this revolution is about creating pressure from above -- from "elites, sub-elites, and super elites," who share their vision, and "pressure from below," from the agitator, victim class, they inspire. Each will be utilized to "place strategic pressure on existing political systems to accelerate the necessary changes." (27) It's the pincer strategy, and its working. In fact, it is working so well, that these communist thinking elitists are willing to throw around threats at you and me as if they were conquering gods, and we mindless peons who had better kiss their royal rings. The Warning of a True Revolutionary Brute Toffler warns: "[In order to avoid a] blood-drenched drama . . . much depends on the flexibility and intelligence of today's [defenders of Second Wave civilization, that is the defenders of our Constitutional, moral, and social order]. If these groups prove to be as shortsighted, unimaginative, and frightened as most ruling groups in the past, they will rigidly resist the Third Wave and thereby escalate the risks of violence and their own destruction." (28) "To avoid violent upheaval we must begin now to focus on the problem of structural political obsolescence around the world . . . We must launch a public debate over the need for a new political system . . . [launch] a vast process of social learning -- an experiment in anticipatory democracy in many nations at once." (29) This is the thinking, this is the constitutional eradication plan, this is the tough guy threatening of the Third Way -- the admitted "seminal" sourcebook of the Republican Revolution, the decoder for everything Newt, and the game plan of the bipartisan, decentralist, internationalist, compassionate conservative, establishment Republican Party of 2001. Is there such thing as a Democrat In Drag? You had better believe it.
Footnotes: 1. Benson, Ezra Taft. "An Enemy Hath Done This," Salt Lake City, Utah: Parliament Publishers, 1969, p. 320. 2. Ibid. pgs. 170-171. See also, the following Khrushchev quote: "It is not an army, but peace that is required to propagate communist ideas, disseminate them, and establish them in the hearts of men . . . We produce the hydrogen bomb with the sole object of cooling the ambitions of some excessively zealous politicians and generals in the Capitalist countries." 3. Toffler, Alvin and Heidi. "Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave," Atlanta: Turner Publishing, Inc. 1995, pp. 77-78. 4. Toffler, Alvin. "The Third Wave," New York, London, Toronto: Bantam Books, 1980, pp. 416-443. 5. Ibid., p. 419. 6. Ibid., p. 420. 7. Ibid., p. 422. 8.. Stolz, Matthew F. "Politics of the New Left," Beverly Hills, California: Gencoe Press (A Division of the Macmillan Company), pp. 27-28. 9. Ibid., pgs. 27-35, See also Toffler, Alvin. "The Third Wave," pp. 438-439. 10. Toffler, Alvin, "The Third Wave," p. 421. 11. Ibid., pgs. 424-427, See also Toffler, Alvin. "Future Shock," New York, London, Toronto: Bantam Books, 1970, pp. 478-479. Newt Gingrich said of "Future Shock," "If Future Shock had been their only work, the Tofflers would have been recognized as important commentators on the human condition." (from Newt's forward to Toffler's "Creating a New Civilization") 12. Toffler, Alvin, "The Third Wave," p. 423. 13. Ibid., p. 427. 14. Federalist 10, 48; Madison, James. "Journal of the Federal Convention," Vol 2, p. 746-747; Vol.1, pp. 81, 117-119, 181-183. 15. Toffler, Alvin, "The Third Wave," pp. 427-431. 16. Toffler, Alvin, "Future Shock," pp. 475-476. 17. Ibid., p. 475. 18. Stolz, Matthew F. "Politics of the New Left," p. 36. 19. Ibid., pp. 36-45. 20. Toffler, Alvin, "Future Shock," p. 477. 21. Toffler, Alvin, "The Third Wave," p. 431. 22. Ibid., pp. 431-433. 23. Ibid., pp. 431-433, 438. 24. Ibid., p. 434. 25. Stolz, Matthew F. "Politics of the New Left," p. 27. 26. See NewsMax stories: Bush's Pandering to Latinos on Vieques Backfires, Vieques Fallout: Navy Defies Bush and Vieques Decision Stuns Military. 27. Toffler, Alvin. "The Third Way," pp. 441-442. 28. Ibid., pp. 440-441. 29. Ibid., p. 443. Previous -- Next NewsMax contributing columnist Steve Farrell is the former managing editor of Right magazine, a widely published research writer, a former Air Force Communications Security manager, and a graduate student in constitutional law. Have a comment? Contact Steve at Cyours76@yahoo.com Feel free to respond to this article in The Radical Academy Forum. Enrich your life with a book about politics and current events... Enrich your political & social life with a politics or news magazine... |
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