Waay back in 1970 a Soviet defector warned us about what's happening today

I wrote the piece below in 2015.  Current events prompted me to re-post it.

Yuri Bezmenov was the son of a high-ranking Soviet army officer.  He attended elite schools in Moscow and later worked as a propagandist for the KGB.  Eventually he became disillusioned with communism and in 1970 he defected to Canada.  He spent the rest of his life explaining that the Soviet strategic plan for defeating the U.S. was not on the "kinetic" battlefield but by getting our "elites" to disparage and discredit virtually everything about our principles and way of life.

If they succeeded, there would be no need for war, as the U.S. would no longer have the will and means to oppose communism. 

Bezmenov tried tried to warn us.  No one wanted to listen.

Stage One: Demoralization – Rejection of any notion of American exceptionalism, rejection of fundamental founding principles, deprecation of religion (portraying believers, especially Christians, as unenlightened, "uncool"), leading to a loss of any semblance of national identity.  (Remember "I'm going to fundamentally change America"?  Pressure by elites on peers and academics to convince them that the values set forth by the Founders were inherently flawed, racist, sexist, etc.  Get the "elites" to re-write our history, to make Americans--especially students--question the legitimacy of all American achievements--and thus to believe our founding principles aren't worth defending.

Stage Two: Destabilization – Using economic, financial, and national security crises to get Americans to accept government rules they normally wouldn't have tolerated.  Inciting racial conflict.  Push for higher government benefits for victim groups that must eventually bankrupt the government (Cloward-Piven).  Make unemployment and welfare benefits as attractive as jobs to many people.  Use crises to elect politicians who will promise more "free" benefits ("Hope and change").  Push the idea that jobs are--and should be--created not by private enterprise but by government.  Push the idea that economic recovery and public safety demand passage of laws that exceed all previous government authority (the trillion-dollar "Stimulus" bill, "cash for clunkers," bailout of AIG, more regulations on industry, Obamacare, president violating U.S. immigration laws by executive order, using the IRS to punish conservative groups, etc).

Stage Three: Normalization – A period in which people are so overwhelmed by the destabilization that they begin to accept a ‘new normal’.  Media elites push stories to persuade people to accept losses of freedoms and abandonment of our founding principles.  Thus when a Democrat U.S. senator proposes jailing anyone who argues that global warming isn't caused by humans via CO2 emissions, and no one bats an eye.  Yale students can sign a petition calling for eliminating the First Amendment and no one in the Mainstream Media is critical.  Unprecedented, intrusive government control is gradually accepted as “just the way things are.”

Next up: – Federal registration of all guns;  federal regulation of the internet (already proposed);  Democrat-appointed FCC commissioners creating a "rule" requiring that anyone stating a "political opinion" on the internet must first obtain a license from the FCC;  confiscation of handguns in cities deemed to be "emergency areas" due to a high rate of shootings.  Of course this will be billed as merely a temporary measure and anyone who opposes it will be called a racist, since most of the victims will be black.  Next:  Making it a crime to collect rainwater that falls on your own land (the state of Oregon already fined a family for this "crime"!).  Making it a crime to plant certain legal crops without government permission (a principle upheld by the U.S. supreme court way back in 1946!).  Making it a crime to plant a vegetable garden in your own front yard.  (That too has already happened.)

History provides ample warning signs to anyone who wishes to see.  Current events are similarly full of warning signs. Socialism has never worked anywhere it’s been tried, and an all-powerful, untouchable government is a huge danger. Yet leftist "elites" and low-info voters are eager to do anything to hasten the end of freedom, capitalism and free markets.

If it wasn't so tragic it would be a matter of great amusement to watch both groups--"elites" and anarchist thugs--systematically destroying the greatest system for human achievement ever known.

I wrote the above in 2015, five years before the Chinese virus started the Democrat party's push for total control.   Five years ago some of it seemed over-the-top, un-possible.  But in the past year...

 

A KGB defector predicted exactly what we're seeing in the U.S. today--in 1984

Yuri Bezmenov was a KGB operative for years.  He gradually became horrified by the communist system, and in 1970 he defected to Canada.  In 1984 he was interviewed on video, which is the clip below.

He claims that for decades the former Soviet Union has been carrying out a long-range plan to turn the U.S. into a communist nation. The plan is a slow process called ideological subversion or "active measures."  In effect it's psychological warfare.

The first phase was to corrupt our education system, so that young Americans wouldn't know anything about the principles, beliefs or morality of the Founders, but would instead believe the highest goal for an "advanced society" was achieving absolute equality of outcome--which would be enshrined above all else. 

But how can that be achieved when some people work hard, study hard and sacrifice, while others sneer at all three of those principles? Ah, you're starting to see the flaw.

Bezmenov claimed that by 1984 all of what he called the "opinion shapers" in the U.S.--the media and Hollywood--were amoral idiots, products of the 70's.  These faux-intellectuals sneered at religion, and in fact had no core beliefs, so constantly looked for causes they could get excited about.

Here's a partial transcript of his 1984 interview. I've edited it to remove quirks in the language.

Interviewer:  You spoke several times before about ideological subversion.  When the Soviets use that phrase, what do they mean?

Bezmenov: Ideological subversion is a process which is overt and open.  You can see it with your own eyes.  All you have to do-- all American mass media has to do-- is to  open up their eyes and they can see it. There is no mystery. [It has] nothing to do with espionage.

What it  means is **to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of accurate information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their community or their country.**

It’s a huge process that happens very slowly.  It's divided into four stages.  First is demoralization.  It takes 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation, because this is the minimum time it takes to educate one generation of students.  In this phase, Marxist-Leninist ideology is pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).

The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties--drop-outs or fake intellectuals--are now [this was in 1984] occupying positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them.

Ring any bells ?

They are contaminated--programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain way. It's impossible to change their mind.  Even if you expose them to authentic information, you still can't change their basic perception or behavior.  For those people the process of demoralization is irreversible.

To [rid your] society of these people you'd need another 15 to 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common-sense people, who would act in the interests of the United States.

Interviewer:  And yet you say those people who have been ‘programmed’ and [are] in place and who are favorable to an opening with the Soviet concept... are the very people who would be marked for execution after a communist revolution?

Bezmenov: Most of them, yes.  Because the psychological shock when they finally see what the "beautiful society" of ‘equality’ and ‘social justice’ really means, they will revolt. They will be very unhappy, frustrated people, and a Marxist regime does not tolerate such people.

Unlike in [the] present United States there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America. Here you can get popular like Daniel Ellsberg or rich like Jane Fonda for being a ‘dissident,’ for criticizing your Pentagon.  But in the future these people will be simply squashed. In the soviet system nobody will pay them for their beautiful, noble ideas of equality. They don't understand this so it will be a great shock for them.

The demoralization process in [the] United States has already been completed.  Most of it is done by Americans to Americans, thanks to [a] lack of moral standards.

And as I mentioned before, even exposing a young American to true information doesn't matter anymore, because someone who's been demoralized is unable to recognize such information as true.  Facts mean nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, documents, pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it. That's the [tragedy] of demoralization.

So basically America is stuck with demoralization.  Even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start educating [a] new generation of American[s], it would still take you fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide back to pride and patriotism.

The next stage is destabilization.  It takes only two to five years to destabilize a nation—what matters [are] economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some areas, in such sensitive areas as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in [the] United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe, fourteen years ago when I landed in this part of the world, that the process [would go] that fast.

The next stage is crisis. It may take only up to six weeks to bring a country to the verge of crisis. You can see it in Central America now [1984].

Anyone think crisis has hit the U.S. in the last three weeks or so?

Finally, after crisis, with a violent change of power, structure, and economy, you have so-called "normalization."  "Normalization" is a cynical expression from Soviet propaganda. When the Soviet tanks moved into Czechoslovakia in ‘68, Comrade Brezhnev said, ‘Now the situation in brotherly Czechoslovakia is normalized.’

This is what will happen in [the] United States if you allow all these schmucks to bring the country to crisis, to promise people all kind[s] of goodies and the paradise on earth, to destabilize your economy, to eliminate the principle of free market competition, and to put [a] Big Brother government in Washington, D.C. with benevolent dictators like Walter Mondale, who will promise lots of thing[s], never mind whether the promises are fulfillable or not. He will go to Moscow to kiss the bottoms of [a] new generation of Soviet assassins.  He will create false illusions that the situation is under control.  But the situation is not under control.  It is disgustingly out of control.

Most of the American politicians, media, and educational system trains another generation of people who think they are living in peacetime.  False.  [The] United States is in a state of war: undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system. And the initiator of this war is not Comrade Andropov, of course.  It's the system.  However ridiculous it may sound, [it is] the world Communist system or Communist conspiracy. Whether I scare some people or not, I don't give a hoot.  If you are not scared by now, nothing can scare you.

But you don’t have to be paranoid about it. What actually happens now [is] that unlike [me], you have literally several years to live on unless [the] United States [wakes] up. The time bomb is ticking: with every second [he snaps his fingers], the disaster is coming closer and closer. Unlike [me], you will have nowhere to defect to.  This is the last country of freedom and possibility.

Interviewer:  Okay, so what can we do? What is your recommendation to the American people?

Bezmenov:  The immediate thing that comes to my mind is that there must be a very strong national effort to educate people in the spirit of real patriotism, number one. Number two, to explain [to] them the real danger of socialist, communist, whatever, welfare state, Big Brother government. If people fail to grasp the danger of that development, nothing ever can help [the] United States. You may kiss good bye to your freedom, including freedoms [for] homosexuals, [for] prison inmate[s]; all this freedom will vanish, evaporate.  Including your precious lives.

The second thing: [at] the moment at least part of [the] United States population is convinced that the danger is real. They have to force their government, and I'm not talking about sending letters, signing petitions, and all this beautiful, noble activity. I'm talking about forcing [the] United States government to stop aiding Communism. Because there is no other problem more burning and urgent than to stop the Soviet military-industrial complex from destroying whatever is left of the free world. And it is very easy to do: no credits, no technology, no money, no political or diplomatic recognition, and of course no such idiocy as grain deals to [the] USSR.

So basic[ally], two very simple... maybe two simplistic answers or solutions, but nevertheless they are the only solutions: educate yourself, [and] understand what’s going on around you. You are not living at [a] time of peace. You are in a state of war and you have precious little time to save yourselves.  There’s not much time left for convulsions to the beautiful disco music. Very soon it will go--virtually overnight.

I know Americans don’t like to listen to things which are unpleasant, but I have defected not to tell you the stories about such idiocy as microfilm, James Bond-type espionage. This is garbage.  I have come to talk to you about survival. It’s a question of [the] survival of this system. You may ask me what is [in it] for me. Survival, obviously. Because I like... as I said, I am now in your boat. If it sinks, we sink together.

There is no other place on this planet to defect to.

https://youtu.be/vLqHv0xgOlc

Sign of the times?

Sign of the times:

The Colosseum in Rome was originally faced with gleaming white marble.  But today the walls are dull and pockmarked at regular intervals.  That's because after the sack of Rome looters stole the marble facing.  Then they started chiseling out the bronze clips that fastened the marble to the structural walls.

As metals go, bronze is relatively valuable.

In short order all that was left was thousands of holes where the bronze clips had been.

Fast-forward to modern California:  Historian and author Victor Davis Hansen owns a farm in the Central Valley, far from the teeming cities.  He reports that theft of any and all metal objects from all the farms in his area has become epidemic.

He also reports that in many of the towns in his area thieves are prying the bronze dedication plaques from buildings like libraries, banks and other historic structures.

As an aside, Hanson also reports that in a large number of automobile accidents in his area the driver simply abandons the car and flees on foot.  The cars are unregistered and have never been tagged by the new "owner."  If the driver is found he is invariably driving without a license or insurance--both of which, of course, are required by law.

Which shows yet again that U.S. laws mean nothing to illegal immigrants.  After all, they broke a big one when they entered, yet the emperor gave them amnesty, which clearly show the illegals that neither the federal nor state government is serious about enforcing these "laws."

With the emperor having clearly signaled that he won't take any action to limit the flood of illegals entering the country, how much longer can small farmers in California's central valley withstand the constant stream of theft?  Can the nation ever recover back to anything like stable civilization?

Statue of baby Jesus stolen from Nativity scene at Massachusetts church

Sacred Hearts parish church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, put up its annual manger scene for Christmas.

Early on Christmas morning someone stole the figure of baby Jesus and replaced it with a pig's head.

There are a bunch of sick people in this world.  And a larger group that merely hates Christians and Christianity.

One has to wonder what it is with these people that makes them hate Christ, and those who believe.

If Christ had preached hate, or exhorted his followers to kill those who didn't follow Him, or to loot their possessions, or to impose a tax on them, it would be understandable.  But He did none of those things, instead preaching love and forgiveness even to one's enemies.

Hard to figure.  And sick.  Whether or not mentally ill.

And maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me these incidents are becoming more frequent.

Lawsuit insanity, part 457,496

A deli owner in New York got drunk and wrecked his car.  Most of us would have been arrested but in this case the cops liked the guy because he let 'em eat free at his deli, so they just drove him home.

Thirty minutes later the guy got in another of his cars--still drunk--and soon crashed a second time, this time killing himself.

Now his mother has filed a $30 Million dollar lawsuit against the cops, claiming her son's death is their fault.  See, they should have known the guy would get in another car right away and go get in another wreck, I guess.

I realize anyone can sue for anything, but given the current state of insanity in this country it wouldn't surprise me a bit if the town council settled the case for a few million.  After all, it's not their money.

Editor of grad-student paper at CUNY openly calls for violence. Media and government yawn.

The editor of a university newspaper for grad students at City University of New York (CUNY) wrote an editorial in the Dec. 3 issue of "The Advocate" titled "In support of violence."  In it the author--who somehow managed to study in Cuba at some point--openly calls for violence against "state representatives."  Here are his words:

The acts of looting, destruction of property and violence directed towards state representatives is not only warranted, it is necessary.

The problem with the protesters’ violence in Ferguson is that it is unorganized. If the violence was to be organized, and the protesters armed — more so than the few that sparingly are — then the brunt of social pressures would not be laid onto middling proprietors [of looted small businesses], but unto those deserving the most virulent response of an enraged populace. 

What is needed now is to take the next step from indiscriminate attacks to ones directly pointed at state power as well as at the lackeys and apologists who allow it to prosper.

As the title says, this asshole is clearly encouraging violence.  If a white guy wrote this the Department of Injustice would have him in jail so fast it'd make your head swim.  But this asshole gets a free pass.  Gee, wonder why?

Survey of 16-19 year olds shows a majority thinks everything should be free

Recently a Boston university released a study of "Generation Z"-- 16-to-19 year olds.  Some of the results are both easily predictable and don't bode well for the continuation of the U.S. as a viable nation.

Among the results:  Over half said anyone who wants to should be able to become a U.S. citizen.

Interesting.  I'm not surprised:  College students are known to be woefully naive in terms of how big systems work in the long term.  This is not an indictment:  We were all there at that age.  Fortunately back then at least a fair number of our professors weren't ultra-leftists and showed us how to analyze such things.  Hint:  The answer was *not* "If it feels good, do it."

Almost two-thirds (64 per­cent) of the subjects said they thought health­care should be free.  We suspect this group did not include people trying to go to med school, but we could be wrong.

One wonders why the study didn't ask 'em if they thought food and housing should also be free.  After all, you can die just as quickly for lack of either of those two as for lack of free medical care, so wouldn't the same argument apply to all three?

One wonders how farmers would react to such a plan.  Wait, I'm pretty sure our Z respondents would simply say "the government will pay them a fair price for growing food, and everything will work just fine."

But if that's true, why isn't Cuba awash in food?  They have a great, warm climate with plenty of rain, and lots of people looking for jobs and food.  Why isn't it working for them?

Wait, I know the Left's answer to that one:  The eeevil U.S. "blockade"!  Except no such blockade ever existed.  Other nations have always been free to trade with Cuba, and have.  Yet Cuba--with all salaries officially capped at $20 per month--yes, special snowflakes, you read that right--is short of everything.

But other socialist paradises exist.  At least paradise for the ruler and members of his family.  Consider Venezuela--like Cuba, shortages of everything.  They even ration coffee, fer cryin' out loud.  In one of the biggest coffee-growing nations.  How does this happen? 

The former Soviet Union has had communism/socialism longer than anywhere else--and had shortages of *everything*, including food.   But no one tells you about it.  You might wonder why that is.

Another totally unsurprising result:  By 53 to 30 percent, they said college should be free for everyone.

And finally, by an even wider margin (53 to 25) they agreed that "Government needs to do more to help students pay for college if they can't afford it, even if it means raising taxes on other people."

One has to ask:  Who ARE these alien teenagers?  Surely you've raised your kids far better, right?  Where did these people get the notion that everything they "need" (want) should be "free"?

Which of course really means someone else pays for it.

Wait, isn't that exactly what socialism promises?

Isn't that what the emperor promised with Obamacare?  How can it be possible to give health insurance to "millions" of people who couldn't afford it, and still have the average family save $2,500 a year?  How many idiots bought that outrageous bullshit?

Wait, I know:  The parents of 53 percent of Generation Z.

Lord, our nation is doomed without Your help.