Jim Jones 30th anniversary; Jonestown; American Thinker; Orwell's Children; Bruce Walker

Bruce Walker commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown cult suicides in American Thinker:

Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans like you and I, had become so decoupled from reality and morality that they could be led to surrender everything, even their lives, intoxicated only with the venom of modern Leftism. These were Orwell's Children.

We are drifting into the sort of horrific future he described. Too many of us for comfort or solace have become just like the denizens of Jonestown: Orwell's children -- a new generation of creature enraged into constant militancy against eternal enemies, oblivious to the notion of a Blessed Creator, melded into the consciousness of the party hive, divorced from history, hypnotized by images, inoculated against reason, stripped of family, and existing only to serve the cause.

Jim Jones was not simply "another religious preacher" as the left has (and will) undoubtedly repeat. He was a leftist who used leftist tactics and methods:

Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell.

In other words, Jonestown was like a DNC convention or editorial board meeting at the New York Times.

Read all of Walker's article.

Also, read my post from 2007, in which I detail some of the connections between Jones and the San Francisco Democrat machine. Jones was as responsible as any other single individual for the Democrat takeover of San Francisco city politics. The politicians of the San Francisco Democrat party (including some famous names) rewarded him well.

Niall Ferguson; War of the World; Part III; PBS; Cold War; Cuban Missile Crisis; Guatemala, Bosnia

Click here for my notes on Part I and Part II of Niall Ferguson's documentary.

In Part III of this maligned documentary, Ferguson explodes myths and explores little known facts about the Cold War.

• Ferguson reveals that JFK's seeming success in the Cuban missile crisis was not such a success after all. JFK agreed to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey in exchange for Kruschev's withdrawal of missiles from Cuba. (Conservatives have known this for decades, but nobody has ever paid attention before.) Ferguson further reveals that Kennedy wanted this deal to remain secret.
• The documentary mentions the Guatemalan coup of 1954, in which the Soviet puppet government was removed. Ferguson shows some film in which evidence of the regime's Soviet ties was revealed.
• Ferguson downplays the role of Nixon's Chinese diplomacy, stressing that U.S. efforts to court China resulted in the growth of China as a superpower (including China's role in backing the Kmehr Rouge in Cambodia and the subsequent killing fields).
• In discussing Soviet recruitment in the third world, the documentary refers to "third world Lenins" that followed the Soviet lead - while showing film of dictators like Saddam Hussein and Qaddafi.
  

Ferguson repeated the usual obligatory moonbattery about CIA backed regimes in South America killing thousands of their citizens and he downplayed the role of Reagan and Thatcher in winning the cold war against the Soviet Union. Ferguson's theory credits (who else?) Gorbachev. This is to be expected from almost any PBS documentary. But he adds much that the left in this country would not like. Any history that confirms old conservative Cold War theories can't be all bad.

Ferguson also discusses the Bosnian civil war from the early 1990's. But he fails to credit the centuries old influence of Islam in this long suppressed struggle.

Ferguson attributes the 20th century War of the World to economic conditions and ethnic strife occurring on the fault lines of competing or declining empires. He references Poland, Cambodia and Bosnia as examples where these conditions led to some of the worst such violence of the century. He then points to the modern day middle east as an example in which history may repeat itself.

In fact, the Islamic world meets most of Ferguson's criteria. If we think of the Islamic world as an expanding empire and substitute religion for ethnicity, we have the recipe for a repeat of the worst slaughter of the 20th century. Everywhere Islam borders another religion [India, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Israel, Kosovo], brutal war exists. Ferguson missed this point.

As he did in Parts I and II, Ferguson lumped Hitler, Stalin and Mao into one group. This treatment contrasts with the MSM/DNC, who spent more than half a century trying to place their ideologies on the opposite ends of the political spectrum (with Reagan always a little closer to Hitler while we never quite heard who the leftist politicians were close to). We must think of totalitarianism like Ferguson instead of simply using one form of it (Nazism) as a handbag to swing at Republicans.

Ferguson's perspective contained the obvious, obligatory anti-Americanism, but that may have been simply the price Ferguson paid for the documentary to see the light of day. The documentary is worthwhile if one already has some knowledge of the 20th century and can place the relevant facts into context. If one can remember how the MSM/DNC tried to deny vigorously some of the facts set forth by Ferguson (even where he misinterprets those facts), one can benefit from this documentary.
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visit counter added 7-14-08

Quote of the day - William Buckley [China, Nixon]

We have lost - irretrievably - any remaining sense of moral mission in the world . . . When Mr. Nixon, as he regularly did, made reference to the oustanding differences between our two 'systems,' he made it sound as if there are, after all, those who prefer gingham to calico.

William Buckley, writing of President Nixon's joint communique with the Communist Chinese, March 17, 1972 - National Review - as quoted by John Judis in William F. Buckley, Jr., Patron Saint of the Conservatives, p. 337.

B. Hussein Obama wants to meet with North Korea, Iran, Hugo Chavez, etc.; Salvador de Madariaga

B. Hussein Obama's "debate" comment that he would be willing to conduct direct one-on-one talks with various rogue states has created a firestorm of criticism and created an opportunity for Hillary! to highlight her own "experience." She proved that even a stopped clock is right twice a day when she said “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes.”

What that answer hinted at was the massive propaganda benefits for dictators that result from meetings with American leaders. Opposition exists within Iran, Syria, Venezuela and even North Korea. The dictators of those countries seek to demonstrate to the opposition that their cause is hopeless. Should an American president make a personal appearance with Ahmedinejad or Kim Jong-Il (even a silly, ineffective president such as B. Hussein Obama or Hillary!), such appearance would signal to the internal opposition that the United States will not help them and that resistance is hopeless. Kim Jong-Il, Chavez and Ahmedinejad need the American leadership to give them legitimacy internally. We should not play into their hands.

This is especially true where we know that those dictators are committed to world revolution in any case.

Salvador de Madariaga

As I do in many cases, I find it useful to cite an old book. In 1960, Salvador de Madariaga wrote "The Blowing Up of the Parthenon." In this book, which focused on the cold war, the author warned of the dangers of American-Soviet summit meetings, as they tended to demoralize the internal opposition within Russia.

1960

[It is ironic that a book dedicated to helping the West fight the cold war would bear a title related to the destruction of the Parthenon due to Islamic storage of munitions.] If I thought that a little history would make a difference to the Democrats, I would recommend that they read Madariaga's book. At least it might help the rest of us keep the issues straight as the Democrats give the appearance of fighting with each other.



Barry Goldwater echoed these thoughts when he wrote that "the only summit meeting that can succeed is one that does not take place." Why Not Victory? (1962), p. 65. Goldwater wrote that the communists do not attend a summit unless they believe they hold the upper hand or can use the meeting for propaganda purposes:

They come to the conference table with two things in mind - possible real or propaganda advantage to them. And when we come to that table seriously seeking agreements in areas of contention, we automatically conceed them the advantage because they don't care about agreeemnts.

[Leftists stopped reading this post the moment they saw the word "Victory."]

It took decades to win the cold war. This victory was won despite Democrat and leftist obstruction. Today, it is apparent that most of the left has forgotten the lessons of the cold war, while some on the left will do no more than hint at those lessons solely to gain temporary political advantage.

Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov explains the role of "useful idiots."

A commenter left a link to the following video from 1983:



In the video, a former Soviet official describes the purpose of "useful idiots" in the west and the role they play in destabilizing western countries in preparation for tyrannical regimes coming to power.