Part 2 of 2...
Confronting the gathering political storm
Increasingly, personal anger has a political face in America. Millions of dysfunctional people can create a very difficult situation in a free society. They have a right to be wrong, but their "wrong" can undermine our rights. They are also our brothers and sisters.
Solving the problem, of course, begins with seeing the problem. We know from incidents of "road rage" or "workplace shootings" that angry, hate-filled people are dangerous. They are also hard to reason with; try reasoning with someone who's attempting to run you off the road because you forgot to signal. We are talking here about "political road rage"; it's a slower burn, but the intent is the same -- running you off the road.
As we observe the political scene, the politics of rage will become more and more obvious. Make your own list of radicals and you'll see that rage has many faces and many "reasons" to demand justice. Watch those angry faces on talk television. See how difficult it is for others to reason with them and how rarely they accept anyone else's point of view. Here's the secret: For these political road ragers - in whatever category of public or private life - it is no longer about debate or logic. In that sense, we have reached the end of debate, which is a civilized method of dialogue involving two groups seeking the truth. Fascists, as we know from history, don't debate free thinkers. They choke them out of existence.
Make no mistake: We are headed for what President George Bush called "the silly season" back in 1992. Of course, "silly" doesn't describe it anymore than "tricks" are what the two "Democrats" were up to in Alabama. The election period will get more and more emotionalized as we get close to the vote - by whatever means necessary, from the race card, to Christian bashing, to class warfare, to corporation bashing, to fear-mongering of all kinds. What Ronald Reagan called the "Iron Triangle" will be in full gear: The angry special interest groups will be out in force demonstrating and calling press conferences; the liberal media will cooperate with cameras rolling; and hysterical Democrat politicians will make outrageous statements like, "They're coming for our children." All this, focused on emotionalizing the atmosphere of the presidential debates where Al Gore will do his best to "rip the lungs out" of George W. Bush. It is serious business, provoking anger and fomenting hate - all with a purpose of getting millions of Americans to fear Republicans, or any other opposing party. Then, in this kind of heated atmosphere, people will vote.
The technique of "legislation by hysteria" - emotionalizing debate in Congress and rushing a decision - now becomes "election by hysteria." Fascists do not operate in a calm, considered environment. Inflammatory language is an essential tool in their kit. Already we are seeing race-baiting Democrats calling on Americans to "Stop the Lynching" because of the tragic hanging death of a local black teenager in Mississippi, which authorities so far have indicated is a likely suicide and which, in any event, is an isolated incident. Remember the black church burning scare in the '96 election cycle? That turned out to be a sham, but it made headlines, created anger, caused fear and it galvanized voters. That tactic is applied aggressively to every issue in every political arena, local, state or national. If you haven't recognized it before, it will now be transparent.
Holding on to truth
The key to successfully confronting the New Fascist movement is, first, to see it for what it is. Fascism inspires an emotionalized, cultic allegiance, and many of these people can't see what they are trapped in. If we rage back at them, it pushes them deeper into this alien loyalty. So the second key is to be forceful but remain calm - to understand that they need our help. I don't mean a weak, simpering, "can't we all get along" kind of help, but a focused, forceful desire to draw the line for their own sake as well as ours. They need us to resist them with strength, but they don't need our rage. They got that as children.
The principle here is something Mahatma Gandhi, the great liberator of India, called "force of righteousness," "love force," or "soul force." Gandhi was a great admirer of Judeo-Christian thinking and Americans will recognize the wisdom. He coined a new Indian word for it, Satyagraha. The root meaning is "holding on to truth," and "not hating back" is one of the keys to this truth.
Of course, fascists reject the idea of a truth higher than the party, and hate is their driving impulse. This puts them at odds with America's "under God" religious heritage, and as a result, America has suffered a great deal of pain and confusion in recent decades. The fascist corruption movement (which puts power, material wealth, personal pleasure and everything else above what's right) has all but destroyed the social fabric of our society, much to the horror of most Americans. In this respect, mainstream Americans also deal with an anger problem. Nevertheless, the hope for America's future lies in love. It may sound corny, but in the end, it is the only way to avoid civil conflict. Permissive weakness will drive these "children" crazy, but so will judgmental anger.
When the leaders of the corruption movement understand that "the game is up" - that we see them for what they are without hate - they may hate and fear us all the more. At that point, they must get the kind of love that good parents deliver: Tough love. Consider a mother who warns her son that he is getting too close to the street, but the child gets closer. Does the mother stop the child with a gentle voice? Of course not. An aggressive shout is what's needed to frighten the boy away from danger. Now let's take it a step further. Despite the mother's shout, the boy rebelliously runs toward the street where there are cars coming. At that moment, for the sake of the child, the mother rushes to use force and yanks the child out of danger.
We must be as determined in our love for these "unloved children" as they are absolutely determined to get revenge on the "establishment" they associate with the parents who abandoned them in one way or another. I confess I am talking about myself since in my angry youth I was once on their side.
Most of us are reachable. Former radical leftist David Horowitz is a classic example. Or consider Jane Fonda's recent desire to turn her life around, which has been reported in these pages, and which Fonda now talks about with Oprah Winfrey in the current issue of "O" magazine. Fonda's mother committed suicide when she was 12. That kind of shock is inconceivable to most of us. What a lonely, painful journey it must have been for that little girl, especially since her father Henry Fonda was aloof and incapable of giving her the love she needed. Many of us remember her angry youth in the 1970s. Now, we are coming to understand it. Courageously facing the mistakes of her past, Jane Fonda looks to the future with a renewed determination to change. I believe there are people like this in every political and social sphere within my party. People who are looking to do what is right - people who can change their angry ways.
Coming home to America
When it comes to a dysfunctional, angry childhood, Jane Fonda has lots of company. Think of how many of other famous liberal Democrats have already admitted serious parental problems from sexual abuse to alcoholism to abandonment, either physical or emotional. It is a remarkably talented group of people, from Barbara Streisand to Rosie O'Donnell to Bill Clinton to Gloria Steinem. If we truly knew the length and breadth of this list of cultural and political leaders, and the details of their personal suffering, we would all be shocked - and touched. Don't be distracted by their political labels. When they were children, these people deserved love, and they didn't get it. Can we blame them for being angry?
I know how they feel. My parents were divorced when I was five. I spent some lonely years in boarding school until I was 9 years old. You bet I was afraid - and angry. The world is supposed to be a safe place for 5-year-olds, not a hostile environment. My suffering was small compared to the list above, but I can tell you that by the time I reached college age my anger manifested, and not only politically. I was rebellious in my moral behavior too. The "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" socialist creed of the 1960s and '70s didn't just affect the Clintons and a few other famous people. There were millions of us.
Some of us functionally recovered from our anger, but some didn't - and there are many angry children coming up in the generations behind the "baby boomers," younger people who don't remember the America we remember. They need to believe in something and we need to give them something genuinely good - because the New Fascists have a dream to sell, too. And it isn't the American dream.
How Democrats can reclaim the party
The following is especially important for the mainstream Democratic leadership to read. The corruption movement with its fascist tendencies is not yet a determined majority in America. However, its strength is threefold: Its adherents have access to great combined wealth; they have huge influence on our culture; and most importantly, they have not yet been clearly identified in the minds of average Americans. Most Americans still think the Democratic Party is "liberal," even "liberal to moderate." They may distrust the president and the rest of the PC crowd, but they don't see the larger problem.
Let me be clear. This is not about President Clinton. The current corruption goes way beyond him. It started before him and it will undoubtedly survive him. Consider that Newsweek's "Thought Police" issue was published in December 1990, two years before Clinton's presidency. Even then, Newsweek raised the specter of what it called "New McCarthyism," describing the "politically correct" movement among liberal-leftists as essentially "Marxist" and "totalitarian," an extremist belief system determined to root out and destroy all those in the mainstream who oppose it.
If you are wondering how this belief system has affected liberalism in the last decade, just read the words of long-time, liberal Democrat commentator Mark Shields writing in the Washington Post last month: "Today to be a liberal there is one test," said a frustrated Shields. "Unqualified support for all legal abortions ideally joined by an almost libertarian commitment to no societal limits on individual behavior or autonomy."
Although increasingly dominant in our culture, this PC ethic is still only one element of the New Fascism, and Bill Clinton's personal anger and radical Sixties "no-limits" attitude is only the most current catalyst to the dark impulse that has risen before in human history. Remember, Clinton is a victim too - and has the potential to recover.
Once Democrats like Shields start to recognize in large numbers what has happened to our party, the fascist power base will be greatly weakened - mainstream Democrats will all back away from it. Catholic Democrats will certainly run the other way. So will most teachers. I'm sure church-going African Americans and Latinos won't stand for it - and neither will patriotic union workers. If that is a dream, it is a good dream. And like the one of Dr. King's, it is up to us to make the dream a reality.
Conclusion: Our awakening
Many middle-aged and older Americans will remember the famous World War II movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai," in which Japanese prisoner Col. Nickolson, a British officer played by Alec Guinness, is forced to lead his fellow prisoners in building a bridge for the Japanese. Under great hardship and to rally his men's morale, Col. Nickolson sets out to prove the superiority of British freedom over Japanese tyranny by building a great bridge. Under his leadership, the prisoners succeed marvelously. They demonstrate to the Japanese what inner-inspired free men can do. It's a magnificent bridge. But there's a tragedy coming in the story: Due to the pride he takes in the impressive bridge, built to last long after the war, Col. Nickolson ends up on the wrong side when British commandos come to destroy the bridge. For a moment he resists his own countrymen, warning the Japanese.
After several of the commandos die in the struggle to blow up the bridge, Col. Nickolson realizes to his horror that his passionate dedication to "the cause" has led him to forget his first loyalty - his country. Severely wounded, and with his last bit of energy, he blows up the bridge himself.
It is time to detonate the lie the Democratic Party is becoming. It's time to call on the people who are the keepers of the flame in the party - President Carter, Sen. Byrd, Sen. Moynihan, Sen. Leiberman, Sen. Nunn and all the rest of you who remember the true Democratic Party: We need you and we need you now.
Stop this totalitarian "party first" madness! Stop the moral decline, and help us return to the values and traditions of our parents and those of our once-great party. If you cannot change the party, if the levers of power are totally controlled by the New Fascists among us, from Hollywood to Washington to Wall Street, then please tell us. Talk to the people. Sound the alarm so that America will know the danger it truly faces. Yes, it will temporarily diminish the Democratic Party, but like a beautiful garden, once weeded and pruned, it will come back stronger than ever as the patriotic party of "the little guy."
When Newsweek reporters told Americans about the growing totalitarian ethic on our college campuses at the end of the Cold War, they revealed a core ingredient of the New Fascism, something impossible for most Americans to even imagine:
The failure of Marxist systems throughout the world has not noticeably dimmed the allure of left-wing politics for American academics. Even today, says David Littlejohn of Berkeley's Graduate School of Literature, "an overwhelming proportion of our courses are taught by people who really hate the system."
(Newsweek, Dec. 24, 1990)
"Hate the system. ..." What if such people got complete control of one of our two major parties? I say they are very close to doing it. But more, let's say they succeed. What if these New Fascists go on to corrupt our military, our police, our courts, and even our Congress and our governmental agencies with this same anti-American ethic? If that happens, then by any analysis we will no longer have a "culture war" in America, but rather a "cold civil war," ready to heat up the moment government establishes laws that tyrannize the American conscience.
Right now we have two parties that are becoming like two different countries - which are increasingly acting like enemies. God forbid it, and please make us again one nation, a shining city on a hill for all the world to see, where love can reign and truth prevail, and where freedom can be enjoyed by all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Just is a veteran radio talk-show host, WorldNetDaily columnist and speaker whose television appearances include "Hannity & Colmes" and "Politically Incorrect." |
