The Road Ahead

Bear with me, while I try to tie some things together.

This morning Paul Gottfried had a smart article, for those who find history meaningful:

Biden’s Soviet ‘Antifacism’

The “antifascist” party coalition Biden plans to build resembles the early stage of the Soviet seizure of power in Eastern Europe after World War II.

Gottfried draws a parallel between the Zhou regime’s strategy and the common strategy of most movements of the Left. Draw a distinction between the “extreme” opposition and the responsible or moderate opposition—people the regime can work with. Then gradually marginalize the moderates. That’s exactly the roadmap that Zhou sketched in his much mocked harangue last week:

The distinction that Biden made between the MAGA extremists, who threaten the Constitution and democracy, and “mainstream Republicans,” with whom he and the Democrats are willing to deal, is typical of the marginalization of conservative opposition in other Western countries. Those self-described opposition leaders who show themselves to be ideologically compatible with the ruling class will be tolerated, while a more vigorous opposition will not.

In this country, the designated “extremists” are already at the mercy of the Secret Service and FBI, and will soon be dealing with an expanded IRS that will undoubtedly be used to hound them. They will also suffer the fury of the mobs that the rulers can unleash on a dime. Mob action marked the “Summer of Love” in 2020 and was on display at the homes of Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Extremist” parties in other “democracies” have also begun to lose their civil rights and must now worry about their physical safety.

The “antifascist” party coalition Biden plans to build also resembles the early stage of the Soviet seizure of power in Eastern Europe, after World War II. The declaration of a Communist Party takeover was typically preceded by the organization of a progressive coalition of “antifascists,” who would assist the Communists in combating a supposed right-wing danger. Once the Communists consolidated enough power with Soviet assistance, they would remove the non-Communist progressives from the government and rule by themselves.

In the current leftist model, however, servile accommodationists will be allowed to remain, as window dressing for a leftist dictatorship.

Exactly. A common feature of Communist dictatorships was official opposition parties—which didn’t oppose.

Next question: Why do they think this is possible? Outside of the historical fact that it has worked before? Social science—psychology—provides the answer, as sketched out at Zerohedge a couple of days ago:

5 Psychological Experiments That Explain The Modern World

The article is from the Off-Guardian and seeks to explain what’s so puzzling to normals:

The world is a confusing place. People do things that don’t make any sense, think things that aren’t supported by facts, endure things they do not need to endure, and viciously attack those who try to bring these things to their attention.

Here are the five psychological experiments that explain it all. Which is to say, that explain the tactics being deployed against us:

1. THE MILGRAM EXPERIMENT

2. THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT

3. THE ASCH EXPERIMENT

4. FESTINGER’S COGNITIVE DISSONANCE EXPERIMENT

5. THE MONKEY LADDER

The article explains the experiments and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results. While they differ in detail, the basic conclusion can be understood from the Asch Experiment:

Around one-third of people will either pretend to change their minds for the sake of conformity or, more alarmingly, will actually alter their beliefs if they find themselves in the minority.

I have read elsewhere that that percentage is more than enough to create a critical mass that appears to be unstoppable. Appearances, of course, are deceiving—but that’s OK, as far as the Left is concerned. If you believe, as good Leftists do, that the end justifies the means, then deception is not only fun, it’s also morally uplifting. People can be manipulated. The Big Lie works. Don’t be discouraged by initial opposition or ridicule—keep lying:

But the point of this article is not to just make you, the reader, understand these experiments…it is also meant to remind you that they do.

The people in charge, the elite, the 1%, “The Party”. The powers that be – or shouldn’t be – whatever you want to call them.

They know these experiments. They have studied them. They’ve probably replicated them countless times on grand scales and in unethical ways we can barely imagine. Who knows exactly what takes place in the dank dark dungeons of the deep state?

Just remember, they know how the human mind works.

• They know they can make people do anything if they reassure them they won’t be held responsible.

• They know that they can rely on people to abuse any power they’re given, OR believe they are powerless if they’re treated that way.

• They know that peer pressure will change a lot of people’s minds even in the face of undeniable reality, especially if you make them feel completely alone.

• They know that if you offer people only a small reward for completing a task, they will make up their own psychological justification for taking it.

• They know that people will mindlessly do whatever everyone else is doing without ever asking for a reason.

And they know that people will happily believe something that never happened if it is repeated often enough.

They know all of this. And they use that knowledge all the time – All. The. Time.

Where is this heading? Toward pure evil. It’s all around us, but this article is an excellent example:

The Transgender Movement Isn’t Just Targeting Kids, It’s Targeting Families

The point isn’t just to break down the ‘gender binary.’ It’s to break down the family in order to reshape society.

To rephrase this just a bit: The point isn’t just pure evil; it’s also a recognition that the family is the major barrier to reshaping society. If you think this goes all the way back to It Takes A Village, well, you’re right. That’s always the goal of totalitarians—break down all societal structures so that in the end the individual is all on his own, facing Leviathan, the all powerful State. Oh wait, that means that Classical Liberalism, Libertarianism, enables totalitarianism, since it wants to create a “society” that’s really just an agglomeration of atomic individuals? Yes. The Left can absolutely cooperate with those kinds of Republicans.

How evil is this? This evil—and this is happening all around the country:

Evidence continues to mount that a concerted effort is underway between major hospitals and public school systems to indoctrinate children with transgender ideology and push harmful, sometimes irreversible, medical procedures on minors — sometimes without the knowledge or consent of parents. 

The point of the indoctrination, though, isn’t only to create more “gender-nonconforming” students. It’s to break down family structures and parental authority. The goal isn’t simply to teach and encourage transgenderism in our schools. It’s to lay claim to the students themselves, over and against their parents and families, for purposes that go far beyond the promotion of gender identity. After all, you can’t very well reshape society according to your utopian vision if something as solid as a family is standing in the way.

The solution is to break down the family. Most recently, Christopher Rufo reported this week that the largest children’s hospital in Chicago has partnered with local school districts to promote a radical transgender agenda, including sexually explicit materials that push “kink,” “BDSM,” and “trans-friendly” sex toys for children.

Need more examples?

World transgender health org poised to give hospitals green light to lower age for youth surgeries

Irish teacher suspended from school, jailed over transgender pronouns flap

Does this help explain why churches were shut down in the name of disease prevention … but not “gay” bathhouses? People gathering for anonymous sex doesn’t create a community, but people gathering to strengthen the bonds of shared moral and metaphysical beliefs does. And that is always disapproved by the totalitarian state.

This should also explain why Trump is so loathed. And why if Putin didn’t exist he’d have had to have been created. The totalitarian state needs demons to distract people from tough realities:

Sweden, Austria Start Bailing Out Energy Companies Triggering Europe's "Minsky Moment"

Nevertheless, all is not hopeless. Here I excerpt the head from a much longer article which I highly recommend—if for no other reason, then to buck you up. Remember that 1/3 cited in the Asch Experiment, above? It pops up here, too—on the losing end:

Chile dodges a socialist bullet

By Monica Showalter

In today's happy news, Chile's voters have decisively, overwhelmingly rejected a full blown socialist rewrite of their 40-year constitution that otherwise has served them so well.

According to the lefty U.K. Guardian (whose account was less biased than that of the New York Times):

Chileans have voted comprehensively against a new, progressive constitution that had been drafted to replace the 1980 document written under Gen Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

With 96% of the votes counted in Sunday's plebiscite, the rejection camp had 61.9% support compared with 38.1% for approval amid what appeared to be a heavy turnout with long lines at polling states. Voting was mandatory.

Senator Ximena Rincón, one of the leaders of the reject campaign, described the victory as "clear and emphatic", and called for a new constitutional convention to be convened.

Wow, two to one! That's a hell of a margin.

Suffice to say, what the Chilean voters rejected was all the siren song promises of the left — free health care, free education, free abortion on demand (something that dates to the Bolsheviks), animal rights, tree rights, other greenie nonsense, state control of resources, gender parity in government, transgender privileges, government pensions with an expropriation of private pensions, government jobs to anyone who wanted one, a "plurinational" state with Indian tribes on an equal footing to the government, and a total loss of individual rights to come with it.  The president could run for consecutive terms, the way Hugo Chávez used to do, and the Senate would be eliminated, as a thing of the past.

In short, they voted "no" on turning their country into a socialist hellhole.

Now we see why the Trump appointees to the SCOTUS are turning out to be so important. The ruling this term against the Administrative State (West Virginia v. EPA) could turn out to be the opening salvo in a monumental struggle against Leviathan:

Biden's Ambitious Emissions-Reduction Goals To Be Accelerated By Executive Orders

Those executive orders will be challenged, and the Trump judges give us hope.

This is also a reminder of how important the midterm elections are. The notion of not voting, of making the perfect the enemy of the merely OK? No, that’s irresponsible. There is hope. Trump’s resistance to the MAL Raid, the progress in uncovering Leftist government collusion with Big Tech. It’s meaningful, and the example of Chile gives us reason to continue the struggle.