Socialist Opportunism
by JIM BEERS
George Bernard Shaw was a lifelong advocate of Socialism and was a cohort and longtime ally of Sydney Webb, long considered the founder and leader of the British Fabian Socialist Movement. They first met in 1879 as they explored using Marxist dialogue in debate. Webb founded the Fabian Society in 1887. This Society and its many succeeding permutations has influenced the growth of Socialism up to the present day every bit as much as Lenin, Mao, and Putin have influenced the parallel permutations of Communism. Sydney Webb and his wife Beatrice steered the Fabians and Socialist activities in both Britain and the US until her death in 1943 and his in 1948. They were both Communist and Russian apologizers as well as radical individuals that worked for the overthrow of the established order through whatever means became available.
While Shaw was an enthusiastic Socialist, Chesterton, like HG Wells and others, had briefly entertained Socialist leanings as a young man but then rejected them after considering the impracticality of the promises and the natural trajectory of placing such power in the hands of any elite oligarchy. This intelligent rejection of Socialism was evidently widespread in Britain in the early half of the last century and probably gave rise to the famous comment attributed to Churchill that "Any man who is not a Liberal by 21, has no heart. Any man that is not a Conservative by 25, has no brain".
In the debate between Shaw and Chesterton there were three things that caught my eye as relevant to the United States situation being acted out in Washington today.
First, Shaw played off the class envy present in most gatherings by recounting the truly sordid history of British nobles laying claim to Scottish estates and then "clearing" the Scottish families off the land because they "might frighten the deer". This brought to mind the current pillorying of rich executives and bankers for driving families from their homes by foreclosures. Who among us could resist cheering that "they" "should get their's"? One can also recall similar accusations by Russian Communists about teachers and landowners and entrepreneurs as the "cause" of all hardship that should be swept away by Socialist (or in Russia) government representing "the people".
Second, Shaw recounted a man that died "the other day" and his estate had to pay "four and a half million pounds death duty". He then explained that the man "made all his money by the labour of men who received twenty-six shillings a week". One hears echoes of the Executive bonuses and company private jets and "obscene" salaries enjoyed today by those "getting government money". The cheers for not only "keeping people in their homes" but now to have government dictate what "the rich" are allowed to earn must have been as deafening then as now.
Third, Shaw blurted something out that any good Socialist "handler" today would have stifled in a New York second. Shaw said, "I have always, since I got clear on the subject of Socialism, said, Don't put in the foreground the nationalization of the means of production and exchange: you will never get there if you begin with them. You have to begin with the distribution of wealth." I leave it to you to compare that to the class envy, hatred of the rich, and setting the rich against the not-so-rich going on today in Washington AS THEY NATIONALIZE BANKS AND UTILITIES AND INSURANCE COMPANIES. Always terming it "temporary" (yeah, right!) and necessary in view of the "crisis" (that Chief of Staff Emmanuel reminds us should never be "wasted"). As we ask each other "don't they realize 'that' (whatever is the 'that' of the moment) will "discourage business" or "raise energy prices" or "violate the Constitution", etc; the answer ought to be in every case "of course they do but that is not the point, the point is to establish their own autonomy before they lose their absolute lock on power by nationalizing everything and that government that will control everything under their own irrevocable power" (think Democrat Party "machines" that have ruled some American cities like Milwaukee for a century or other family machines for only decades like Chicago). That is what Shaw was saying, get everyone lathered up about the other guy and then seize control of everything "for the common man" and, since "no one else can do it" (like the current Treasury Secretary) assume and hold power forever to reach "paradise" like Stalin and Mugabe and Chavez and every other tin pot dictatorship since time immemorial intends.
Now I am not painting some vast Socialist conspiracy here but I am saying we are facing a rule by unfettered and committed Socialists that have made many changes to our American Constitutional way of life in the past 100 years. From the Constitutional Amendments under Wilson and the "Deal?" under FDR and the "Great Society" under LBJ there has been a series of radical changes that are debilitating to our society and may be termed semi-permanent in nature.
Since LBJ, with the exception of President Reagan, we have had a series of Presidents that agreed either enthusiastically or somewhat tepidly with the idea of an "evolving" Constitution that would permit an ever-bigger central government entwined with UN treaties and bureaucracies that likewise grow in size and authority. Whether it is the totally ineffective "oversight" of Sadaam, Iranian nuclear weaponry, or North Korean nuclear shenanigans; or the totally unjustifiable climate "change" schemes of Kyoto and soon Denmark: world government and uncontrollable government from unanswerable politicians and bureaucrats is always embraced and never questioned regardless of the facts. In other words, just as individual rights and State's rights are subsumed into the burgeoning US central government; so national US interests and identities are to be subsumed into international UN government "black holes".
Today's Socialists, like Shaw and his compadres, share certain attributes:
- An unlimited view of the amount of earnings and property that government can claim for its' own.
- A belief that all rights (speech, religion, press, guns, assembly, etc.) come not from a Creator or from an inviolable contract like a Constitution but rather from the power of government as government sees fit.
- A belief that "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" are merely rhetorical flourishes that might justify government changes by giving the impression that individuals might benefit.
- A distrust of military power as a protection against external threats but a confidence in it as a means of internal control.
- Full confidence in their ability to control every facet of society better than any non-government entity or individuals.
- Certainty that there is no God and that religion, like health care and matters of life and death is best managed by government.
- Rejection of any binding limits on governmental authority or any changes they believe are necessary.
The foregoing is not comprehensive because Socialism expands and contracts as necessary like a python preparing to consume its prey. Shaw and his associates never imagined that their list of things that would aid in the move toward Socialism would one day include race and sex preferences, abortion rights, same sex marriage, environmental extremism, animal "rights, and governmental land acquisition and closure. These matters; just like "free" education, "free" health care, and a "guaranteed" wage have become lures for enticing citizens to support unsustainable Socialist goals based on narrow individual expectations. Women's organizations, ethnic organizations, environmental organizations, animal "rights" organizations, abortion groups, euthanasia groups, and others have joined historic Socialism support groups like union, pacifist, communist, and anti-established order (for a host of reasons) groups in looking to a New Socialist Order as a means to their particular ends despite the effect on the rights of others.
It is a simple truth that most urban and Democrat politicians are Socialist believers in large measure. From guns to religion to defense, the Socialist aspects of Democrat policies are indisputable. For 50 years now, the Socialist aspects of Republican politicians have increased. What is termed "moderate" Republican political policies is really an acceptance of the inevitability of Socialist change. Look at McCain or Specter or actually the majority of Republicans in Washington: they support Kyoto (which even if based on fact which it isn't) instead of advocating a US program based on States Rights and a scientific approach to practical solutions; they pursue an external Treaty that modifies the Constitution and makes us more subject to world government and hostile powers in a dangerous world. Take the McCain-Feingold law that exempted Native Americans (i.e."Casinos"), campaign cheating and lobbying power in campaigns needed only full and timely disclosure: instead we got a confusing new law that helped defeat one of its authors while he tied himself in financial knots and his challenger collected Billions more than imaginable and we still know not from whom. Take ex-Treasury Secretary Paulson and all those Republicans that helped spend the nation into penury in recent years, they are all at best Socialists-Lite, at worst, closet communists.
One further observation, still grim but somewhat amusing, seems relevant. While Shaw cited the British Landlords clearing rural Scots off the land so as not to "frighten the deer" as a way to incite hatred and class envy and thereby to enlist Socialist volunteers: today Socialist environmental extremists and animal "rights" radicals from The Nature Conservancy and The Wilderness Society to The Defenders of Wildlife and The Humane Society of the United States are responsible for vacating swaths of rural America and driving more and more rural residents, just like those rural Scots, from their homes and ways of life. While the excuse is no longer frightening "the deer"; "endangered species habitat" or "introduced wolves" are even more bizarre reasons for such cruel human oppression. Could it be that some clever anti-Socialist might one day incite an anti-Socialist Movement from the ruination of so many rural lives, families, livelihoods, and communities just like the Socialists have done for a century and a half now with stories of cruel Landlords and Capitalist greed?
Eighty years ago, neither Shaw nor GK Chesterton could have imagined Scotland gaining independence from the descendants of those British Nobility Landlords that so incited 1928 British workmen to embrace Socialism. Today, while Britain (like us) continues to descend into a shambles; Scots unflinchingly embrace independence and unashamedly embrace developing the oil off their shores, not as green Americans who shun it but, as free men that look to it for revenue and sustenance. Perhaps, just perhaps, there is true hope for our children or grandchildren one day.
It is getting harder and harder to imagine any relief from this American Socialist orgy in Washington, that is in full throat like baying hounds, for our generation. Decades of timidity and belief in "getting along" and not being "extreme" or "offensive" while lounging in financial comfort instead of doing what it took to defend our freedoms is a debt now coming due. The Socialists have nibbled away at our Constitution like a termite colony unnoticed in the foundation and walls. The descendants of Webb and Shaw long disguised as American politicians and bureaucrats are in control right now and the only question seems to be will they unmask one more time and turn out to actually be the descendants of Lenin and Trotsky?
Jim Beers
4 March 2009
This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)
Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@comcast.net
- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
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