The global economy is in trouble. According to the Telegraph (UK) the Royal Bank of Scotland has advised its clients “to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months” as inflation, driven by high energy prices, paralyzes major banks. It is a sad fact that oil prices refuse to subside. We are told that the Saudis recently attempted to bring the price of oil down – but they’ve failed.
The pain will continue as losses continue to mount. There will be political promises – with an emphasis on the word “political.” On one side we have Senator John McCain, on the other side we have Senator Barrack Obama. Writing in The Wall Street Journal on June 19, Karl Rove warned that both candidates for the White House “can be economically illiterate and irresponsibly populist.” Both candidates pander to the notion that oil companies are making obscene profits.
But oil companies are not the problem, and if we don’t get some perspective the economic crisis will become a political crisis, and the political crisis will lead to social upheaval. I fear that America’s leaders have missed the danger, being focused on the Middle East and election politics. Underneath the surface, for many years, Western values and ideals have been under attack on American college campuses, in churches, on television, in books and on the Internet. And I would argue, though few would concur, that the ground has been prepared for something further.
In the 2007 documentary film titled Zeitgeist, we are told that Christianity is a false religion, 9/11 was an inside job, and the evil central bankers are behind a system of enslavement and pauperization. We are said to be the victims of an elite conspiracy that uses religion, politics and money to control our lives. The film appeals to paranoia, with a series of twists. What the film fails to do, of course, is point out that Christianity, the U.S. government and central banking gave humanity the most successful society in history. Three generations of Americans have enjoyed a high living standard and exceptional personal freedom. That we have misused our wealth is another matter; that we have become a permissive, narcissistic society is more fundamental in driving policy than ideology or party politics. But that merely describes our vulnerability.
It must be repeated that the values of Christianity, the Republic and capitalism have been under attack from totalitarian challengers for decades. Whether you approve of Western values and traditions doesn’t change the truth of this statement. A challenge has been underway, and this challenge has international implications – grand strategic implications. The ideas expressed in the Zeitgeist documentary are the cardinal ideas of those who would overthrow “the powers that be.” Consider this challenge to the system in the context of what is happening economically, and what must happen politically. The name of the game is to blame. There is an attack underway against traditional religious authority, existing political authority and the economic system as represented by “central bankers.” The attack is taking place on many levels simultaneously. It has been underway for decades and may soon accelerate.
If there has been a conspiracy, it is not a conspiracy of religious authorities, George W. Bush or the central bankers. Instead of an establishment conspiracy, there is a revolutionary conspiracy aimed against the Christian faith, Uncle Sam and capitalism. The Zeitgeist documentary suggests that faith and patriotism are swindles, that the bedrock of our society is a lie. Yet the documentary uses manipulation and deception to put over its message. A speech by President Kennedy on the Conspiracy of international Communism is taken out of context and made to sound like a speech against a secret cabal that killed him in Dallas.
In the war for control of the world, liars masquerade as truth-tellers while the leaders of the free world are demonized as “malefactors of great wealth” or “warmongers.” Conspiracy theory has been an important vehicle for advancing a totalitarian agenda of subversion and revolutionary agitation. It is used to discredit our leaders on the eve of the next war. What gives the totalitarian impulse away, in this particular film, is its animus against the most basic structures of Western Civilization. It should be kept in mind, first and foremost, that those who have sought the eradication of Christianity, constitutional government and capitalism were previously known as “Communists.” Their legacy is that of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. The lesser lights of the movement include such luminaries as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, Ho Chi Minh and Kim Jong Il (among others).
If the “Revolution is now,” as the film says, then this revolution has much in common with the Nazi revolution in Germany – which was steeped in conspiracy theory. Hitler always maintained that the bankers, also known as “the Jews,” exemplified the wickedness of capitalism and the decadence of market culture. “My feelings against Americanism are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance,” said Adolf Hitler. America is part of a “poisonous materialist civilization,” said the Japanese intellectuals under Gen. Hideki Tojo. The destruction of the West was Lenin’s dream, and Stalin’s grand design. In China the top leadership tells its cadres that they must prepare for a future war against the United States.
Anti-Western ideology animated the Axis in World War II and the Communist Bloc during the Cold War. It animates al Qaeda and the Iranian clerical regime. If you look to American domestic politics, anti-Western ideology animated the sixties radicals as it continues to animate the anti-war movement. George W. Bush is unfairly maligned as a liar and a warmonger. In fact, he is nothing more than a well-meaning man who has been ill-served by his advisors and betrayed by his own intelligence service. His mistakes are not those of a master conspirator. The logic of totalitarian rhetoric automatically assumes that 9/11 was an inside job because it is intolerable to allow capitalism and the Republic any moral high ground whatsoever. All measures of national defense are hereby denounced as illegitimate. All U.S. officials are villains, crooks or dupes. The Republic itself is nothing more than a system of exploitation that must be overthrown. Listen for these words. Do not be taken in by the drumbeat of anti-Western propaganda.
