Why Would a Capitalist Hate Capitalism September 25, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, False Consciousness, Freud, Marx, Projection
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Marxists believe in “False Consciousness.” It’s part of their theory of class warfare. False Consciousness is the belief that through the long-term and systemic misrepresentation of reality by the dominant class, the consciousness of the subordinate class is warped in such a way they cannot perceive they’re being exploited.
Marx based his work on the economic relationships he perceived as the true foundation of society. This system teaches that everyone’s class is determined by their ownership of property. Although an atheistic philosophy, Marxism does address the non-physical side of life believing everyone’s personality is made up of their perceptions, thoughts, and emotions. These form the world-view or paradigm by which they interpret and understand the world.
According to Marx there’s an eternal struggle between the interests of the dominant and subordinate classes. To describe how the dominant class shape and control, the non-physical Marx outlined the process by which the dominant class systematically uses education and media to distort the understanding of the subordinate class through the promotion and distribution of errors and lies. If these mind-bending mechanisms didn’t operate the subordinate class, which always vastly outnumbers the dominant class, would see they’re being exploited and rise up to shatter the economic shackles binding them.
As a lifelong student of History and Political Science, of course in the higher educational system of Twentieth Century America, I was required to read multiple volumes of Marx and Freud every semester. The Declaration of Independence was relegated to the dustbin after memorizing the Preamble in a 1960s middle school classroom. The Constitution was discarded after memorizing the preamble to pass a state mandated test in 1963. All I ever heard of the Articles of Confederation was that they were a failure. But every year in College I was required to read the works of Marx and Freud. Every semester avowedly socialist professors mocked anything that smacked of American pride or patriotism.
As a late comer to higher education, I was secure in my beliefs and steadfast in my convictions long before I came in contact with the last bastion of Marxist true believers, America’s intelligentsia. I watched as all around me impressionable young minds were converted from the traditions taught through years of dedicated nurture and love by their parents. I saw the youth of America being taught to reject all that had made America great.
The contradictions and insanities the Marxist Priests in the temple of capitalism foster are clear to all but the illuminati of re-educators and the products of their efforts. Think of the advocates of free speech shouting down anyone who disagrees with them. Look at the anti-war protestors using violence to show their rejection of violence. Consider the proponents of academic freedom blocking the publication of anything not toeing the party line. Liberals granted tenure by conservatives seeking to ensure all voices were heard now routinely deny tenure to conservatives to ensure their voices are not heard.
I never appreciated the study of Freud. I always rebelled against his sexual undertones, simplistic answers and his cookie-cutter approach. Then one day, looking deeper and analyzing further I saw that if nothing else Freud did present and define the concept of projection. Projection, as defined by Freud, is a defense mechanism people automatically use when they feel threatened by or afraid of their own impulses which they then attribute to someone else. I could see this was true because I could discern that Freud was projecting his sexual fantasies and fetishes on everyone else.
I never appreciated Marx either. Perhaps it was that I grew up during the Cold War. Some of my earliest memories are confounded with the duck-and-cover strategy of surviving a direct nuclear attack: duck under your desk and cover your head, or as my first grade teacher explained the first time I took part in the annual race home during Civil Defense Week, “If you can’t run home in 15 minutes you’ll have to stay here and die with the rest of us.” Perhaps my aversion to Marx was based on my personal study of American History and political philosophy which began at age nine and has continued on a daily basis ever since. Whatever it was, I always railed at my yearly required dose of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. Then, after the fall of the Soviet monstrosity and after the end of a generation of fear, I took a fresh look at Marx and I realized he was right about a few things.
I had to admit, as Marx pointed out, economics does affect all aspects of society. And reflecting on the contradictory beliefs of numerous friends and relatives I have to admit false consciousness can most assuredly warp the perceptions and shape the world view of those molded and captured by a social elite.
I have relatives and friends who hate capitalism even though they’ve spent their lives earning excellent salaries working for capitalist enterprises. I know others who’re now enjoying generous pensions. They are living a life of leisure provided for them by the investment of their capitalist employers in 401 Ks and other financial vehicles fueled by capitalist activity. I know one person who vehemently hates capitalism and capitalists, he’s an inventor and an entrepreneur, who built a business, made a fortune, and is now the independent Squire on his multi-million dollar estate.
Congratulations to my Progressive colleagues. You have created a generation of Americans who hate the capitalism which has given them the prosperity to attend your classes and the limited government which has allowed you the freedom to advocate for the end of freedom.
If you want to change the world…..Change the children. Progressives learned this generations ago, Conservatives need to remember it.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dream of Our Forefathers September 18, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: American Dream, Dr. Robert Owens, Progressives
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What is the American Dream? When asked this question most people today are programmed to say “To own your own home.” That may be Freddie and Fannie’s dream. That may be the bubble inflating vote buying politician’s choice for our dream, but that isn’t the American Dream. Owning your own home isn’t the dream people sailed in tiny leaking over-crowded wooden ships across oceans to find. Owning your own home isn’t the dream people fought the Revolution to win and other wars to preserve. We the descendants of the pioneers have been sold a bill of goods. We have embraced a culture of hedonism and self-indulgence financed with a borrowed credit card.
The American Dream is and always has been freedom and opportunity.
This is the Holy Grail for which people have been willing to sacrifice. This is the singularity which made America great. This is the difference which allowed a people who were no people to become a people. Ordinary people from everywhere, members of every race, religion, ethnicity, and culture assimilated and forged into one extraordinary nationality: the American. Freedom and opportunity unleashed the ingenuity and energy of humanity. Rising above the squalid shabbiness of the statists enforced conformity as the citizen began to control and at last benefit from the fruits of their own labor.
By forsaking the dream of our forefathers we have embraced the nightmare of their oppressors forging again the very chains our revolutionary ancestors shattered. From the beginning of time statists of one variety or another have kept their iron heel upon the throat of the general population. Whether they called themselves; chiefs, or kings, emperors or gods those who believe they have a right to command the service of others have always survived as parasites leaching the produce of whomever they were strong enough to compel. Calling them tithes, contributions, donations, or taxes it has always been the same thing, “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is negotiable.”
Following the chiefdoms of the Neolithic villages Priest-kings combined shamanism and dynastic power to create a world wherein the possessions of all became the possessions of the ruler. In Western Civilization there was a brief anomaly when the people of Greece experimented with a new concept, democracy, power to the people. And although this was always a proscribed definition of who constituted “the people.” None-the-less inventiveness, culture and scientific inquiry exploded into a Golden Age. Soon however, wars and corruption brought the brief respite of freedom crashing into the military dictatorship of the Roman Imperium and the statists once again asserted their right to divine privilege and power.
The corruption, taxes, and inflation which always define a statist government brought about the fall of Rome. Replaced in the East by a successor empire so strangled by bureaucracy and state control its very name, “Byzantine” has come to mean the triumph of red tape over individual freedom. In the West the edifice of Caesar devolved into petty kingdoms and barbarian chiefdoms where life was short, brutish, and enslaved. The common laborer became little more than chattel tied to the land and exchanged between their betters as a mere piece of property. These kleptocracies were eventually consolidated into nation-states by whoever clawed their way to the top of the food chain as the strongest or most ruthless oppressor of all. After a few generations they discovered the theory of divine-right, and by using damnation in the after-life as a whip they did their best to turn this life into a living hell.
An eruption of exploration, colonization, and conquest vaulted Western Civilization to the top of the heap translating a recent and fleeting preeminence in technology and organization into a centuries long reign as the political and cultural hegemonic power of the world. The representatives of the divine rights of European Kings penetrated into every corner of the world where they set-up forts and bought the place for beads. Even the few who escaped actual conquest such as Ethiopia and Japan had homegrown statists asserting their right to deny rights to others. By the end of the seventeenth century the regimented sameness which flows from a lack of individual freedom gripped every portion of what was called the civilized world.
Into this world the American Revolution blazed like a comet illuminating the realms of possibility by the light of a national experiment declaring, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After fighting and winning a long war against impossible odds the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave, unfurled its banner proclaiming for the first time in human history that here is a place where divine rights do not belong to kings they belong to all.
For over 100 years the Progressives have sought to supplant our Revolution with their evolution. These radical Evolutionaries have methodically moved America one entitlement at a time from self-reliance and personal responsibility towards the cradle-to-grave conformity which is the hallmark of modern statists. As we face the coming debates, as we prepare for the electoral and legislative battles let us remember that the American dream has always been freedom and opportunity as we reject the materialistic bribes of the Progressive nanny-state. Reject the smothering comforter promised through government programs which will enslave our children and grandchildren and drink once again the heady wine of freedom.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Thugocracy September 11, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Cap-n-trade, Card Check, Dr. Robert Owens, Immigration Reform, net neutrality, TARP
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Extortion, intimidation, and scams: these are the tactics of thugs. On the streets of Chicago there are neighborhoods where the police won’t enter after dark. Gangs of thugs rule the night protecting the neighborhood or engaging in what the police in other places quaintly call extortion, intimidation and other activities common to organized crime.
The difference between the clique that has captured power in the United States and an organized crime family lies more in the magnitude of their scams and the legalized cover which gives them impunity than any other standard. The generational theft and constitutional subversion that the Obama administration and Congress commit on a daily basis is no more morally defensible than the shakedowns and extortions of a local street gang or other community organizers on the Southside of Chicago.
Thugs use intimidation. A liberal application of “Do this or I’ll do that,” as a means of forcing the innocent people, the thugs see as sheep to be fleeced, into doing what they want. The examples of the Obama Administration’s thuggishness abound and are as close as the headlines.
The legal limit of liability for oil spills had been set at 75 million dollars unless gross negligence has been proven. So far nothing has been proven, yet using his tried and true tactic of a bashing with the club of a compliant media and a short meeting behind closed doors President Obama was able to shakedown BP for 20 Billion. Of course, where the 20 billion is and who gets it are items to be filled in later.
The list of beat downs goes on: GM and Chrysler bond holders were pushed into accepting a surrender of their first position so that the companies could be given to the unions and the government. Solvent banks were forced to take TARP money so that consumers would not be able to identify the insolvent banks. After passing a law which mandates who they must insure and for what they must insure them, insurance companies are being pressured not to raise rates to cover their rising expenses and liabilities by the personal intervention of the president. After the BP spill the Obama administration took the opportunity to shut down all American drilling in the Gulf while they lend money and seek to give tax breaks to foreigners to do the same thing. When a federal judge declared the Obama ban on drilling in the Gulf is unconstitutional the Secretary of the Interior announces he’s going to reissue the ban any way abrogating the rule of law.
This highlights the style and tone of our current leadership crew but what’s the goal? Is it personal aggrandizement? Is it systemic change? President Obama has stated that his administration would fundamentally transform America. He has said that he sees himself as a transformative president.
Joining the New Deal, the Great Society, and the Reagan Revolution as a game-changer in American history, the Obama administration’s Progressive transformation of America has passed more major legislation in less than two years than many administrations do in two terms. Building upon TARP, the parting present from the Progressive Bush, President Obama lost no time beginning a spending binge that soon added as much to the deficit as every president from Washington to Ragan.
Within months of assuming power the stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in American History was rammed through a compliant Congress. Its ostensible purpose was to end the recession but which was also meant to take over such diverse things as educational lending and medical records. In the meantime, as the Recession rolls on, the non-stimulating stimulus bill now acts as an election aid for Democrats.
The next shakedown came in the form of an overhaul of the health care industry. This was promoted as the only way to stabilize premiums and insure the mysterious millions the Progressive media tells us are uninsured. Of course now premiums are going through the roof because of the government take-over and according to the Congressional Budget Office the uninsured still will not be insured.
Then came the takeover of the financial industry as a way to save the financial industry. With Senator Dodd adding his, “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works” to Pelosi’s infamous “We Need to Pass Health Care Bill to Find Out What’s In It.” The arrogance of the thugs adds insult to the injuries caused.
Before the electorate have a chance to “throw the bums out” and show them the door in December look for the Cap-N-Tax scam, the card-check unionization bill, net neutrality, open Internet or whatever they want to call a government speed limit on the information super highway, and import-a-voter immigration reform. If these can’t be done legislatively in a lame-duck session before the one-party rubber-stamp leaves town look for a New Year’s present in the form of executive orders or bureaucratic regulation as the vehicle for the change no one hopes for anymore.
These major Progressive goals, both achieved and potential, move the United States from a society based upon free enterprise and personal liberty solidly into the world of the socialist cradle-to-grave welfare state. The only question remaining is will our leaders move from political readjustment to social realignment as America staggers like a battered spouse looking for a shelter in the thugocracy of Chicago’s 51st Ward.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
It’s Easy Being Critical September 4, 2010
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, Equal trade, Income tax holiday, school vouchers, untapped oil reserves
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With the Not Ready for Prime Time Players holding court in the White House and the Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight in Control of Congress it is easy to be critical. However, as our beloved Republic drinks the dregs of the Grapes of Wrath in this, the Season of our Discontent, being critical is not enough. Those of us who believe in limited government, free enterprise and personal liberty need to offer an alternate vision of the future or the Progressive who are seeking to prove that the only problem with all former attempts at a regimented collectivist corporate state was that they weren’t the ones implementing the 5 year plan will win by default.
First we must honestly assess our situation.
The American economy was been derailed by a combination of over regulation, over taxation and crony capitalism’s casino mentality. Since the congressionally mandated housing bubble collapsed dragging the phantom investments of the cronies to the casino floor the bureaucrats who mandated the mess have been in charge of cleaning it up. As a result a cyclical recession which according to the precedent of history should have been over in 14 months (May, 09) has been successfully stretched out for 29 months and counting.
In foreign affairs there is military side and the diplomatic. Militarily, our pre-emptive war in Iraq continues no matter what they call it. Afghanistan is swirling down the drain after the Commander-in-Chief decided it was a good strategy to announce his planned withdrawal date while showcasing the implementation of a surge. Our all volunteer military has performed valiantly and brilliantly however, no matter how sharp or strong the point of a spear is it is only as effective as the person wielding the weapon. Diplomatically, our President bows to foreign leaders, insults our friends and is seen as weak and ineffective by our enemies. Even the European socialists who provide the models for his vision of America and who added their voices to his choir back when he was the Progressive messiah have lately lost their enthusiasm for a leader of the free world who is leading them from the first world to the second.
Culturally, the peace, love and egotism of the boomers continue to plunge America into a cesspool of licentiousness and vanity. The culture of death has progressed from abortion to euthanasia. The celebrity worship has progressed from the adulation of actors and artists to the cult of reality TV where people are now famous for being famous. Our education system, once the envy of the world; produces high school graduates who can’t read their own diplomas, our institutions of higher learning are the bastions of anti-Americanism and Marxist thought, and teachers unions demand more for delivering less.
In an essay-sized capsule these are three major areas that need to be addressed. We know from experience the Progressive’s knee-jerk answer, bigger government, more taxes, more regulations and a continued surrender of America’s position as the world’s sole super-power. What are the alternatives? Or to answer the question the best wife in the world keeps asking, “What can we do?”
Economically: If the TARP funds had been used to buy up the toxic assets as we were told they would be when the Bush Progressives rammed that boondoggle through the toxic assets would now be a memory instead of the sword hanging over our heads. A national income tax holiday for sixty days would have cost less than the failed stimulus that is in reality a slush fund for the Progressive’s major contributors. Let people keep the money they earn in their pockets and they will spend us out of this recession. Allowing us to drill for oil on land in our own country where we have massive untapped reserves and where the technology makes it the safest instead of fifty miles out and a mile down would have eased if not ended our dependence on others and kept hundreds of billions of dollars at home. Equal trade instead of a mythical free trade would keep us competitive in our own market, keep jobs at home and preserved if not expanded our industrial base. An announcement right now that the government was going extend the Bush tax cuts, not impose any more anti-free enterprise regulations or seize any more corporations would promote growth and provide jobs immediately.
Diplomatically; stop insulting our friends and embracing our enemies, stop branding our own States as human rights abusers for trying to protect themselves from an invasion the Federal Government is not only allowing but through their own inaction and policies encouraging. In short, stop bowing and stand up for America! Militarily; you can never end a pre-emptive war too soon. In Afghanistan, we should have gone in, cleaned out the Al Qaeda rat’s nest and squashed the feudal state of the Taliban then left with the promise, “Do it again and we’ll do it again.” Instead we have stayed for one more example that nation-building in a nation that isn’t a nation doesn’t work. Declare victory and come home. Put the troops on the borders and make the homeland secure.
Culturally; this must all start at home. Families need to promote a culture of life instead of a culture of death, honor those to whom honor is due and begin to be the examples our young people deserve. Clean the schools out. End tenure. Provide school vouchers that actually move the funding to the schools people want to support. Offer vocational training to all the students who make it obvious they aren’t interested in intellectual pursuits. Teach American History that is inclusive and yet respectful of humanity’s greatest experiment in freedom and opportunity. Teach political science in such a way that students will gain an understanding of what limited government and personal liberty.
When you are bleeding to death the first thing you must do is stop the bleeding. When you are trapped in a hole the first thing you must do is stop digging. There are answers that encourage freedom and enhance liberty. There are answers that preserve our position and protect or independence. There are solutions to the problems which seem to be overwhelming us: let the free choices of the American people lead us back to economic prosperity, Jettison the Empire to save the Republic, and teach the truth.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 