Dear Carrol, 
 
I've just been reading a psycho article titled "The Frankfurt School: Conspiracy to Corrupt" that I ran across while researching Marcuse. So I welcome your observations. 
 
Apparently the christian right believes The New Left wants to demasculate American males and institute matriarchy -- by means of feminism and removal of the father's ultimate authority in the family. 
 
Sex education in schools is a leftist conspiracy too, a "vehicle for secular humanism" How many people I wonder subscribe to these beliefs? 
 
I am shocked. I thought the birthers were bad enough, but there is a lot more madness where that came from. 
 
In fact this is not irrelevant to TSE. He spoke against Russell's atheism as a threat to society. 
 
Diana 
 
Sent from my iPod 
 
On Jan 21, 2010, at 3:21 PM, Carrol Cox <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
 
> Oh well. I and others have discussed at great length over several > years 
> the following points, but I don't have the energy this week to try to 
> develop any of them in a post or posts for this list. Since this 
> discussion, despite its lack of relevance to Eliot, seems to be 
> continuing, perhaps the following naked propositons will at least > offer 
> some new or different bones to chew. As offered here they are 
> oversimplified and undeveloped, so it would be redundant to point that 
> out. 
> 
> ---------- 
> 
> In U.S. history, significant social cchange has occurred only as a 
> direct or indirect result of the actions of a minority acting outside 
> the electoral system. This is true even of the obvious exception, 
> Licoln's administration. The _very_ small abolitionist movement 
> (interlnked with the intrnational left, freaked the Slavedrivers out > of 
> their ever-loving minds, so that they split the Democratic Party _and_ 
> when as a result a candidate pledge NOT to interfere with slavery but 
> only to limit its exent was elected, they split the Union and the 
> consequent Civil War brought about the abolition of slavery. It is > very 
> doubtful that without John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry Lincoln > would 
> have been elected. 
> 
> The politician most resonsible for the passign of the Civil Rights 
> legilation in the '60s was a racist pig, Republican Senator Everett 
> Dirksen, who proclaimed it an idea whose time had come. By this he > mant, 
> "those people" (inclujding rioters in Watts) are going to make the 
> nation near to ugovernable if we don't try to satisfy them to some 
> extent. 
> 
> Last year, in a speech to a Bankers group, Obama told them "I'm the 
> only thing standing between you and tghe men in pitchforks." Whether 
> that is true or not at the present time, it accurately indicates the 
> role the DP has played for over a century in blunting and absorbing 
> social protest movements. It is the great barrier to significant > change 
> in the United States. (The Kennedy brothers, for example, worked > hard to 
> head off both the March on Washinggton and the growth of the > Mississippi 
> Fredom Democratic Party. Fortunately they failed. 
> 
> The Populist Movement died when it was absorbed into the DP. 
> 
> Roosevelt's creation of social security was mainly to head off the 
> gathering popularity of the Townsend Plan. The only really new > actionof 
> his Administration was the creation of the WPA, which was already > being 
> replaced by the PWA when the war made both unnecessary. Roosevelt 
> brought on renewed unemployment in 1938 by his moves towards balancing 
> the budget. 
> 
> The Nixon Administration followed the geneal strtegy of Bismack a 
> century ealier. It was two-pronged, and intended to bring the '60s 
> movement to a halt. On the one hand, a considerable batch of > "prgressive 
> legilation (e.g. OSHA). On the other hand the lauching of a program > to 
> build the machinerery of repression, the political wrapping of which > was 
> the War on Drugs. (Clinton and Bush both 'improved' that repressive 
> machinery, especially Clinton with his "Effective Death Penalty and 
> Anti-Terrorism Act." He also "ended welfare as we have known it," with 
> much (unreported) misery since then. Probably Monica saved Social 
> Secuity. (Nixon had planned in 1969 to drop a nuclear bomb on the 
> Chinese installations in North Vietnam through which aid from China > and 
> the USSR reached North Vietnam. He was demoralized by the size and 
> miltancy of the November Moratorium that year and changed his plans. > The 
> anti-war movment, however, was already weakening, and was dealt its 
> deathblow by the presidential candidacy of George McGovern. 
> 
> The conservative swing of u.s. politics began with several actions by 
> the Carte Administration: 
> 
> 1. His refusal to anwer a letter from Bishop Romero, leading to the 
> murder of Romero and the beginning of the U.S. ravaging of the > people of 
> Central America 
> 
> 2. His sponsoring of Indonesia's campaign of terror in East Timor > ( the 
> weapons for that coming frm the United States) 
> 
> 3. Airline deregulation 
> 
> 4. Appointment of Vokcker as Fed Chairman 
> 
> 5. His launching of the Afghanistan War through CIA intervention. 
> 
> 6. Allowing the ex-Shah to come to the U.S. and his insane intended 
> helicopter 'rescue' operation. 
> 
> ------ 
> 
> In human history as in human evolution* Contingency remains in many > ways 
> the decisive factor. (*Cf. the asteroid that destroyed the diosaurs, 
> making room for mamals and thus eventually for primates.) Mass social 
> movements cannot be willed into existence, though their appearance may 
> be deflected or delayed by the 10s of thousands of well-meaning people 
> who remained attached to thefutile hope of social change through the 
> election of "good people." 
> 
> Carrol 
> 
> P.S. A perhaps apocryphal but perhaps actual anecdote in Illinois 
> politics. A man goes to an Alderman's offie in Chcago to request > support 
> in running for some local or state election. The Alderman asks, "Who 
> sent you?" The man replies, "No one sent me, I came on my own." "We 
> don't talk to somebody nobody sent." Someone sent Obama when he ran > for 
> the State Senate? 
> 
> In 1948 (and this is hard history) Stevenson wanted to run for the 
> Senate; dogulas wanted to run for Governor. Jake Arvey said, no, > Douglas 
> run for Senate, Tevenson for Governor. Jake Arvy was an attorney fot > he 
> Chicago Mob, and involved in their move to Las Vegas. 
>