HISTORY TRUMPS HYPERBOLE

Published on Newsmax.

The outrage over foreign meddling in America’s political system is justified.

Declaring it the worst ever experienced is not.

Since its founding, America’s principles and civil culture have been a major influence across the world. Undermining or redirecting America’s influence has been a magnet for meddling.

Initially, England and France tried to manipulate America. The leaders of the French Revolution funded Philip Freneau to undermine Alexander Hamilton. Anthony Murray, British Minister to the United States, conspired with Vice President Aaron Burr to establish a rival country in parts of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican southwest.

Several European nations were ready to intervene in America’s Civil War, until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation morally isolated the South.

When World War I erupted, Germany’s main concern was keeping America out of the war. Their meddling in America’s politics successfully delayed U.S. involvement from August 1914 until April 1917. President Woodrow Wilson staunchly maintained American neutrality, despite German U-Boats sinking U.S. vessels. The reason was Germany’s highly successful strategic effort to turn Mexico into a credible threat. 

The Mexican Revolution provided the perfect environment for German mischief. Germany armed various factions and promoted the “Plan of San Diego”, which detailed Mexico’s reclaiming Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Even before the war, Germany promoting fears of a Mexican invasion pulled America into a bloody confrontation in Veracruz in April 1914.

There are indications that Germany funded and inspired Pancho Villa’s March 9, 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico. This led to the U.S. invading northern Mexico (March 1916 - February 1917) to hunt down Villa. The invasion further diverted America’s attention away from Europe and soured U.S.-Mexican relations.

Germany’s most creative method for keeping America out of World War I was a fifteen-part “Preparedness Serial” called “Patria”. In 1916, the German Foreign Ministry convinced William Randolph Hearst to produce this adventure story about Japan helping Mexico reclaim the American Southwest.

“Patria” was a major production. It starred Irene Castle, one of the early “mega-stars” of Hollywood and Broadway. Castle’s character uses her family fortune to thwart the Japan-Mexico plot against America. The movie played to packed houses across America and ignited paranoia about the growing menace on America’s southern border.

“Patria”, along with other German machinations, clouded the political landscape and kept America neutral until April 1917. These elaborate ruses, along with the invasion chasing Pancho Villa, may have continued to keep America out of WWI except that Germany’s next move was intercepted by British Intelligence. The infamous “Zimmermann telegram” exposed German support for Mexico invading America. The British delivered this incendiary message to President Wilson on February 24, 1917. Even then, Wilson’s obsessing over Mexican expansion delayed America’s declaration of war on Germany until April 6, 1917.

In the 1930s, the rise of Nazism in Germany led to a new round of foreign meddling in America. The German-American Bund, funded by the Nazis, established local organizations, including youth summer camps, across the U.S. Their goal was to mobilize the 25 percent of American’s with German heritage into a political counter-force. They also wanted to deflect concerns of Nazism in the hopes of delaying American involvement in the coming world war.

During the “Cold War” (1945-1989) the Soviet Union spent over $1 billion on creating and supporting political movements designed to undermine American resolve. This included various “Peace Councils” advocating for the U.S. to end its nuclear program and disarm.

Soviet meddling in U.S. politics peaked during the Vietnam War, when they launched dozens of front groups to turn American opinion against the war. Many of these group raised doubt about the legitimacy of America’s political system. John Kerry’s “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” was used to alienate Americans from veterans in order to demoralize the country.

Soviet-backed groups tried to stop President Ronald Reagan’s deployment of Pershing II Missiles in Europe in the1980s. In 1985, even Time Magazine admitted that the apocalyptic “nuclear winter” arguments were developed by the Soviets to “give antinuclear groups in the U.S. and Europe some fresh ammunition against America's arms buildup.”

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire gave America a brief respite from foreign meddling. Then the information age brought easier access to America. Today, China, Russia, Radical Islam, Iran, and an array of minor players, are using cyberwarfare to disrupt America, including efforts to “hack” our voting systems. They are becoming increasingly adept at filling social media with fake news, fake events, and fake commentary.  

Major General James Jackson, the longest serving of George Washington’s officers in the American Revolution, issued the immortal warning that should guide us today:  

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

Let the sentinels on the watch-tower sleep not, and slumber not.”

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

KILLING OUR PAST

Published on Newsmax.              #ALT-LEFT

America’s identity is in danger of being destroyed before our very eyes.

ALT-LEFT activists on the streets, in academia, the media, and government are wantonly assaulting the physical touch stones that support our nation’s civic culture.  There is no turning back from chaos if the connective fabric of our society vanishes.

America is unique.  It is a country based upon ideas - not geography, language, or tribe.  Our historic sites and markers ground us in who we are, and why we are. 

History is about collective memory and frames of reference.  Statues and historic sites are there to commemorate and remind, not to celebrate. Knowing and discussing our origin is fundamental to a civic culture where shared values hold us together.  Civil dialogue with those we disagree is the structure that allows our institutions, our communities, and ourselves to exist. 

Our Constitution is about forming “a more perfect union”.  This means America is always a work in progress.  The Constitution itself is the greatest “rules of engagement” for collective action that has ever been written.  Looking beyond ourselves reaffirms our nation and our individual and collective roles in it.

Recent actions erasing history are unraveling our civic fabric.  For one group to anoint itself as morally entitled to determine what should be saved and what should be destroyed is the very essence of tyranny and fanaticism.

Humans have attempted to alter collective memory since competing Pharaohs chiseled away Cartouches and defaced hieroglyphs.  Carthage was destroyed, Rome was sacked.  Mongol hordes obliterated cities along the Silk Road.  Islamic hordes burned the Library of Alexandria.  Vikings ravaged monasteries and burned centuries old manuscripts.  Cromwell’s Puritan army smashed stained glass windows in countless churches.

World history has been saved by those who transcended their immediate impulse for destruction.  Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella calmed their Christian fervor when they saw the wonder of the Alhambra.  Napoleon’s armies avoided destroying European cities and towns during nearly twenty years of war. 

The Twentieth Century saw a disturbing shift in how history was viewed.  The rise of Communism and Nazism led to intentionally obliterating history on a strategic scale.  Worse, the followers of these dogmas made fabricating history a priority.  Destroying reality and then faking an alternative became one of the greatest threats to civilization.  Cultural treasures were lost to the ages as the Nazi’s raped Europe, the Soviets raped Eastern Europe, and Mao’s minions unleashed their Cultural Revolution.

The 21^st Century brought a new wave of Islamic hordes whose primary mission is to destroy anything, and anyone, not sufficiently promoting their fanaticism.  From the Taliban blowing up thousand year old Buddhist statues, to ISIS smashing the Tomb of Abraham and leveling Palmyra, the erasure of irreplaceable historic sites and artifacts has known no bounds.

ALT-LEFT vandalism against statues they deem offensive is now threatening America.  The chorus of ALT-LEFT commentators from the media, academia, and politics has woven a tapestry of excuses justifying official and unofficial destruction and desecration. 

America’s Civil War was complex and controversial in its genesis, conduct, and aftermath.  Our Civil War tore apart families, friends, communities, and the nation.  It killed 2.5 percent of the U.S. population and impacted all who lived during the war. Its ramifications ripple through America to this day.  The nuances of 21^st Century American voting patterns, politics, law, culture, and language are better understood, the more one delves into Civil War history. 

Arrogance and ignorance are fueling the current wave of mayhem.  The ALT-LEFT’s clarion call for ridding America of racist Southern symbols becomes indecipherable babble when people torch a bust of Abraham Lincoln, spray paint the Lincoln Memorial, attack a Joan of Arc statue, and deface statues of Catholic Saints. 

There is clearly more going on. 

Fanaticism is all about intolerance and silencing opponents.  It is all about indoctrination and erasing individualism.  Fanatics are not satisfied until they completely destroy independent thought.  Their dream is a “hive mind” - thinking and acting as one.  Like Bumble bees, ALT-LEFT, Islamic Terrorists, and Communists want to anoint one leader who is all powerful, surrounded by blind devotion.  Their goal is the end of civilization, the end of humankind as we know it. 

The ALT-LEFT, and its supporters, have this bigger goal in mind. 

George Orwell, a Socialist who grew to understand the threat of tyranny, sent us a timeless warning: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]

smf53@aol.com  304-716-6235