I think its a gene certain people possess that makes them think they know what's best for others. If this type of individual is not religious by nature, the tendency is toward a secular zealotry as manifested in Marxism. If the tendency is religious, they become fanatics, such as evangelical Christians or lunatic Muslims touting suicide bombs. The similarities are striking. Both groups are oblivious to factual reality and revert to emotional rants if confronted with an argument that refutes their opinion. And both secular and religious zealots are convinced that those that disagree with them are doomed to either a life of perpetual guilt or a fiery hell.
It was to the secular zealots in the US that the Soviets directed their active measures from the 1930s on, planting seeds of anti-Western, anti-democratic propaganda on fallow and receptive DNA. Oleg Kalugin, the most effective KGB agent in the USand later head of counterintelligence in Moscow, just smiles when asked how he and his colleagues were so effective in their mission to turn mostly young Americans against their own country in the 1960s and 70s.
How about the Students for a Democratic Society? I asked Oleg. Oh Bernie, they already felt the same way so it was easy.
In the same manner that TV evangelists exploit millions of people by tapping into their propensity to want to believe in religion, Kalugin and the KGB targeted the secular variety of the same type to persuade them to dedicate themselves to world socialismheaven on earth in other words. The Student Movement then, despite its romantic faade and fierce dedication, was composed of nothing more than useful idiotsvery much the same type of people they disdained for sending money to Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker. In retrospect it should be renamed the Stupid Movement.
Oleg Kalugin was in town for the first Raleigh International Spy Conference, founded by yours truly and sponsored by Metro and the NC Museum of History Associates (see Rick Smiths coverage of the conference in this issue). He was accompanied by Brian Kelley, the CIA officer the FBI thought was Robert Hanssen; Keith Melton, the spy tradecraft guru; Nigel West, the UK intelligence expert; Hayden Peake, the curator for CIAs Historic Intelligence Collection; and Chris Andrew of Cambridge, indisputably the worlds leading intelligence scholar. The theme was The KGB in America and the revelations were fast and furious.
After the opening session, moderator Jim Leutze (recently retired as chancellor of UNC-Wilmington), reacting to the hard cold facts that the Soviet Union on its own caused the Cold War, said, This could not be discussed on college campuses over the past 40 years. What he meant was that the accepted view in academia is that the US was either equally or more to blame for the Cold War than the Soviet Union. Why then were the intellectual and academic luminaries of the West so committed to the Soviet view? And worse, why did they enforce a moratorium on any discussion to the contrary?
The answer is that the so-called intellectual class in the US (and Europe) was suckered into the secular religion of world socialism as embodied by the Soviet Union. Like the low-brow slobs they so denigrate who sit in front of their television sets believing every word uttered by the religious hucksters, the majority of academics pledged not money, but their intellectual credibility to the church of communism.
Those on campus who did not fall for the Soviet cause were forced to keep their mouths shut and go along for fear of being shunted off to the gulag of the ostracized, their tenure denied and their role in academic affairs curtailed. The campus zealots intimidated the non-believing cowards and freedom of speech and the fair exchange if ideas were stifled. And this tyrannical condition has not abated significantly since the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of socialist theory. It continues its nasty little wars by other means, personified by speech codes, fatuous curriculum replacing the canon of Western civilization, and the tyranny of the politically correct apparatchiks who monitor what is said in class to ensure there is no hint of chauvinism, racism or homophobia.
Oleg, who became an American citizen just last month, just smiles.
NOTES FROM LA-LA LAND
The otherwise unappealing Christopher Hitchens, the unkempt former communist Brit who has no love for America, writes in Vanity Fair that Iraq is benefiting daily from the US occupation. On a recent visit he witnessed the exhumation of 3000 bodies out of an estimated 15,000 buried at 62 mass gravesites, another verification that Saddam was a monster on a level with Hitler and Stalin. He is impressed with our troops and their accomplishments in restoring the infrastructure and laying the groundwork for a democratic Iraq. Why then are our news outlets dedicated to denigrating our efforts?
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...And, no surprise to me, the former head of Romanian intelligence services during the Cold War, Ion Mihai Pacepa, wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal that Yasser Arafat is actually an invention of the KGB. Turns out Arafat is Egyptian, not Palestinian. He was hired and made over by the KGB to establish a war of terror against "imperial-Zionism" - paid for by Moscow where Arafat and others were trained in their dirty work at the Balishikha special-ops school. Of course President Jimmy Carter embraced Arafat and worked behind the scenes to help the Soviet pawn win the Noble Prize for Peace.
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A friend was describing to me the immensity of the abandoned textile plants dotting the Piedmont landscape and it occurred to me they would make great casinos. North Carolina needs to drop the Lottery (another friend in the Legislature explained to me how the referendum is a political football: Democrats, following the advice of James Carville, think it brings out their people so the Republicans block it) and move on to legalize casino gambling, horseracing and sports betting. Billions of dollars are leaving North Carolina annually in out of state Lottery purchases, junkets to Las Vegas and the dozens of new casinos in nearby states, online wagering and illegal gambling. The newly unemployed can be trained for the thousands of new jobs legalization would create. The state would have revenues pouring in that would stop the Legislature from taxing us all to death, and people would be free from the fun-hating secular and religious snobs who don't trust their own fellow citizens. Best of all, senior citizens love casinos because they offer a diversity of activities, are full of life and, best of all, they are secure.
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The move by Gordon Ghee, president of Vanderbilt to bring college athletics back into the universitys administrative reach makes sense. Big-time athletics are the result of decisions made to save money by having booster clubs fund college sports. This has led to corruption created by television money controlled by entities that do not report to the schools administration. I served on a committee that reviewed the activities of basketball coach Jim Valvano at NC State and was shocked to learn that the coach didn't work for the school. Its time for a change.
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The best candidate in the Republican field for governor is Fern Shubert, profiled in Metro a year ago in recognition of her singular dedication to pointing out that the education bureaucracy in the state is failing our children and our future. Fern is an accountant and wants to apply her sharp pencil to the budget, among other issues that you can learn more about at her Web site: www.forfern.com.
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The threat from Islamic terrorists will be joined by the looming threat of the European Union and a return to the primacy of the Catholic Church and the invincibility of the Pope, according to a piece from Londons Spectator in which writer Adrian Hilton puts forth the case that Euro ministers are influenced by the Holy See that is lobbying for a deeper cohesive force for the EU. Already the European Court of Justice has pronounced its infallibility stating that political criticism of its leaders is akin to the most extreme forms of blasphemy.
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Add to that the anti-American hostility festering in France and Germany where 20 percent of the electorate believes that the US planned the 9-11 attacks in order to have an excuse to invade Iraq and establish world domination. Der Spiegel magazine thought it a serious enough problem in German politics that it published a 16-page section attempting to debunk the conspiracy theories.
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A tip of the hat to Progress Energy. During Isabel the regional power company, highly criticized for its response program during the ice storm of 2002, was ready with a workable telephone reporting system for power outages and a fast response time to address problem areas
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