The original shield of the Fabian Society. Yes that is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
This whole idea of Political Correctness - a term we hear ad nauseum but perhaps only loosely understand - where does it come from? How does Marxism fit together with what we observe around us these days? Or is this all one of those odd Internet theories making a mountain out of a molehill?
At one time the whole West was very aware of ideological threats and took steps to protect itself. There was a time when America introduced a law forbidding the entry of ideological enemies into the country. These days the proposition that proponents of Sharia, or even violent jihad, be prevented entry is considered somehow improperly discriminatory and racist. Madness.
Is there a simple explanation for our current lack of acuity? What can we do about regaining it?
Below is a 50 minute talk given by journalist and Yale graduate Diana West. She has authored the one book which I have found to be unquestionably the most helpful in understanding the debilitation of Western thought over the last hundred years. That book is American Betrayal.
I started reading about Communism because a couple of years ago I picked up a book which suggested that the way to defeat Islam(ism) was to follow the same process by which the West defeated Communism - win the ideological war. Understand the threat of Sharia and defeat it with better ideas as without a following, there can be no attacks, cultural or violent, from Islam.
Well I started reading it but immediately became frustrated as I realised that I didn't understand Communism. I don't know about you but Communism is not a topic that featured much in my education and it doesn't feature much in our culture. In fact when I discuss Communism with some acquaintances they were of the opinion that it was a very good thing that had simply been abused by nasty people. Guys like Stalin had ruined a great idea. This I find quite a common view.
So I thought I'd better read up on Communism.
Diana West's book is the single most useful volume of all of these for me anyway in understanding Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Trotskyism; Maoism; Bolshevism, Menshevism and their historical ideological threats to the West - with Pacepa's a close second. Progressivism, Cultural Marxism, Political Correctness - it's all there.
West started out writing a book on the infiltration of the American government by Islamist sympathisers and supporters but soon found the problem was much bigger and much older than the last 20 years.
Frankly the book makes so much sense of the modern world that it is the one single book I must recommend to anyone who is trying to grasp what has happened to us over the last hundred years. I can go so far as to say that without it, you just cannot understand what you are looking at in Western culture today. You won't understand why we are so vulnerable - in fact, on the brink of collapse.
West is well studied in this area, her book has hundreds of footnotes. I do encourage everyone to read it (I read it twice when I bought it too). In the interim do watch her talk below.
At one time the whole West was very aware of ideological threats and took steps to protect itself. There was a time when America introduced a law forbidding the entry of ideological enemies into the country. These days the proposition that proponents of Sharia, or even violent jihad, be prevented entry is considered somehow improperly discriminatory and racist. Madness.
Is there a simple explanation for our current lack of acuity? What can we do about regaining it?
Below is a 50 minute talk given by journalist and Yale graduate Diana West. She has authored the one book which I have found to be unquestionably the most helpful in understanding the debilitation of Western thought over the last hundred years. That book is American Betrayal.
I started reading about Communism because a couple of years ago I picked up a book which suggested that the way to defeat Islam(ism) was to follow the same process by which the West defeated Communism - win the ideological war. Understand the threat of Sharia and defeat it with better ideas as without a following, there can be no attacks, cultural or violent, from Islam.
Well I started reading it but immediately became frustrated as I realised that I didn't understand Communism. I don't know about you but Communism is not a topic that featured much in my education and it doesn't feature much in our culture. In fact when I discuss Communism with some acquaintances they were of the opinion that it was a very good thing that had simply been abused by nasty people. Guys like Stalin had ruined a great idea. This I find quite a common view.
So I thought I'd better read up on Communism.
- I read Ion Pacepa's book "Disinformation", twice, - Pacepa was the highest ranking Communist defector to the West, having been head of Romania's equivalent of the KGB;
- I read M. Stanton Evans' thick volume "Blacklisted by History" about Senator Joe McCarthy and his Communist "witch hunts";
- Whittaker Chambers' lengthy book "Witness" (Chambers was an American who, along with people such as Elizabeth Bentley, left Communism and their roles in the US government to turn on their former colleagues such as Alger Hiss. BTW Hiss was one of at least 12 confirmed Communist agents uncovered and convicted by McCarthy's so-called witch hunts);
- I read Bella Dodd's "School of Darkness" - Dodd was involved in the early Teachers Unions in America and was a Communist until, like Chambers, she became a Christian;
- I read some Solzhenitsyn and Skousen's classic "The Naked Communist";
- I also read "The Communist Manifesto" and another book by Lenin (the name of which escapes me at the moment);
- and I even read Ron Jeffery's book "Red runs the Vistula" - Jeffery was a Pom working with the Polish underground against the Nazis in WW2. He details how he went to Britain with information from contacts in the German hierarchy who wanted the end the war only to be corralled by a couple of British intelligence officers whose names you may recognise - Kim Philby and Donald McLean. Yes the famous Communist spies prevented an early end to the war so that our Soviet allies could take as much land as possible. How many lives did that cost?
Diana West's book is the single most useful volume of all of these for me anyway in understanding Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Trotskyism; Maoism; Bolshevism, Menshevism and their historical ideological threats to the West - with Pacepa's a close second. Progressivism, Cultural Marxism, Political Correctness - it's all there.
West started out writing a book on the infiltration of the American government by Islamist sympathisers and supporters but soon found the problem was much bigger and much older than the last 20 years.
Frankly the book makes so much sense of the modern world that it is the one single book I must recommend to anyone who is trying to grasp what has happened to us over the last hundred years. I can go so far as to say that without it, you just cannot understand what you are looking at in Western culture today. You won't understand why we are so vulnerable - in fact, on the brink of collapse.
West is well studied in this area, her book has hundreds of footnotes. I do encourage everyone to read it (I read it twice when I bought it too). In the interim do watch her talk below.
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