By Dorsey M. Deaton, Ph.D.
Editor’s note: This is the final part of a three-part series featured this week on WND’s Commentary page. Read Part 1, “Before we lose this nation, here’s a reminder of our values, “ and Part 2, “Historical foundations the woke minority hopes to ‘cancel.'”
We use the same words, but they must have a different dictionary. I say “traditional values”; but they say “prejudice.” I say “religious conviction”; but they say “hate speech.” When I say “God and country,” they say “Fascist!” How can everything be described as “racist”? Do they all think that way? Where did they learn this stuff? Unfortunately, more of them think that way than you would expect. And, they have learned from a radical faction that has been actively working to take over American culture for decades. Their goal is to transform the United States into a collective utopia with their elite in power and control. They are closer than ever to that takeover. Want to know how this has come about? Read on for a short explanation.
Provoked by the early inequities of European industrialization, Karl Marx and other ideologues began to preach and provoke the uprising of the oppressed masses to take over their countries. When the masses failed to rise up, except in Russia under Lenin, other minds turned to the new pain of psychological repression recently uncovered by Freud as a way to alert and organize the misfortunate. What had stood in their way before they identified as Western civilization, Christianity and the traditional family. These must be pulled down if a new world order is to come. This ideology became known as “cultural Marxism” or “multi-culturalism” and was spread by the Frankfurt School of Marxists who fled to Columbia University, in New York City, during the Nazi control of Germany. Led by Herbert Marcuse, these thinkers spread their ideas through the counterculture of the 1960s. He taught a deliberate discipline guiding “the long march through the institutions” (education, journalism, entertainment, bureaucracy and mainline churches). To avoid the Vietnam draft, these students stayed in graduate schools, becoming tenured professors who spread their message across the disciplines through classes and shared lecturers.
The key component in their emphasis on promoting “victimhood” was not on logical facts but on feeling oppressed, even with “microaggressions.” Looking for “offended” factions to enlist and agitate was not hard in the wake of the civil rights, feminist and LGBT revolutions. Since the only standard was redress or even revenge for perceived offenses, normal morality was dispensed as “irrelevant.” All tactics were justified in correcting the past injustices, real and imagined: lying, bullying, stigmatizing, silencing, and even hypocrisy and inconsistency on their part. When you have attained commitment to this political cult, you can describe yourself as “woke.”
A major tenet of this “political correctness” was the wide use of “Critical Theory” attacking constantly every value and tenet of the past for its failures without a clear criterion or suggested improvement. How can traditional values withstand such an onslaught? Even American history has been twisted to falsely portray Columbus as a genocidal monster and George Washington a slave driver; neither of which is true. This “Cancel Culture” aims to rewrite our history and destroy our traditional values. Pulling down statues is only symbolic of what these mobs want to do. A naturalized immigrant friend just asked today, “How can people who were born here hate this country so much?” Even the governor of New York insisted, in 2018, “America was never really that great.”
This mentality has progressively taken over the Democratic Party, attempting to rally minorities, women, gays and others with “Identity Politics,” mobilizing their “exploitation” to turn out votes and donations. Saul Alinsky developed these tactics in his “Rules for Radicals” to take control of communities. Hillary Clinton met with Alinsky for her senior thesis on him, and Barack Obama came up through the community organizing role and the anti-American cadre of the post-’60s. With the Sanders and Warren delegates joining the Biden candidacy, you can see how far left he is being pulled away from the center.
The mainstream media have been co-opted to present the multicultural case and discredit its opponents, even lying and hiding contrary facts. The polls, fact checkers and social media platforms are also shown to be compromised, some by the money and presence of plutocratic billionaires like George Soros. Now, they have weaponized a pandemic and the unnecessary death of a black suspect to bring strict controls, protests and even violence to accomplish their ends.
What can be done? Stand up where you are. Speak now, or forever hold your peace. Most of the sheep being led to the slaughter are called “useful fools” by the Cultural Marxists, even though in fact they may just be truly concerned about some of the issues being aggravated by the agitators. Try to alert those in your influence to the stakes. This election may well be the last chance we will ever have to reverse the direction.
Remember that Lincoln said, “America is too strong to be taken from without; it will only fall from within.” Feel free to share this information or challenge my viewpoint if you wish. It’s still a free country, for now.
Dorsey M. Deaton, Ph.D., Emory University, 1970, is a retired professor of U.S. History, GSU.
