By Matthew Ehret for the Saker Blog
Donald Trump’s 1776 Commission announced on in Constitution Hall on September 17 has ruffled more than a few feathers across the radical left who have been clearly exposed as nothing more than ideological post-truth mobs who are driven by impulses that threaten to tear America down into Civil War. While I am not saying that everything about America’s past is as peachy clean as many Americans, including the President, wish to believe, the fact is that this commission represents an extremely important defense of history and the Constitution itself at a time when it is most needed.
In honor of this effort to fight off the cultural Marxists that have infused twisted narratives into the psyches of citizens for too many decades that profess a view that nothing but hypocrisy and slavery gave rise to America, I would like to do something a bit different. In this short essay, I will shed light on some of the positive traditions of the too-often forgotten America whose Father of Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, shaped not merely a revolution of 13 independent-minded colonies against the British Empire, but rather a global movement stretching from France, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Prussia, India and Africa!
Without this global perspective and an appreciation for the international array of global patriots who risked their lives for the American cause, then the true heritage of America as a kindred spirit with Russia and China would remain forgotten when it is needed most sitting as we are on the cusp of a new world war.
America’s Revolution as an International Affair
As I laid out in a recent paper “Why Canada Failed the Ben Franklin Challenge of 1776”, Franklin’s sad return to the Continental Congress in New York from Quebec in May, 1776 was one of the few defeats suffered by the statesman. Franklin’s decades of work to bring the French Colony of Quebec into the independence movement was sabotaged by 1) the slavish illiteracy rampant among the peasants of the feudal system inherited from France, and 2) the rampant corruption of the Catholic clergy elite which signed a devil’s pact with the British Empire to keep the peasants locked into the empire. These factors would play into the collapse of the French Revolution in 1789 as we will see shortly.
One month after this failed effort, a four-man committee led by Franklin drafted the Declaration of Independence on July 2nd and made public on July 4th proclaiming:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Although a slave owning degenerate named Thomas Jefferson is sadly given sole credit for this document (fueling the argument of those proclaiming America to be a nation built on hypocrisy), the fact is that the great abolitionist Ben Franklin guided the writing of this document from start to finish. Over 40 corrections to Jefferson’s drafts were made by the old statesman including the erasure of Jefferson’s desired wording of “property” derived from his love of John Locke for the higher Leibnizian idea of “happiness” preferred by Franklin.
Franklin had already fought to unite the colonies for over twenty years beginning with his 1754 Plan of Union at the outset of the French-Indian War adopted by the Albany Congress, but rejected by the individual colonies who were always kept divided amongst themselves. Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon had its origins not in 1776, but actually during the battle of 1754 and it was an open secret that the British Elite of the 18th century collaborated closely with French oligarchical families to keep the troublesome colonialists subjugated, and underdeveloped as part of the “balance of power” game of empire.
After Franklin’s July 4, 1776 success, he knew that America’s fate hinged upon his ability to engage the international network of statesmen, and scientists whom he had organized over the course of 40 years and especially since his 1752 discovery of electricity made him an international sensation earning him the title “Prometheus of America”.
This post-1776 phase of his plan took him to France where he was made America’s ambassador in Paris. It was here, that Franklin arranged the French-American Treaty of Alliance of 1778 that turned the tide of the revolution towards the American cause which had zero chance of success before this moment.
Franklin had already organized his allies in Prussia where Friedrich the Great voiced open support for the cause and the great military strategist Wilhelm von Steuben became the Inspector General of the Continental Army providing military drills and modern military techniques to the undisciplined “citizen soldiers” of the USA. The republican Polish military engineer and colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko served as Brigadier-General in the Continental Army and the young Marquis Lafayette who arrived illegally in America along with other French troops before the 1778 alliance treaty, made invaluable contributions to the cause. Over twenty generals of the Continental Congress were Irishmen, and many led the later efforts to create an Irish revolution in 1798-99.
In his ambassadorial station in France, Franklin met many members of the European intelligentsia- including key Russian figures. Among them included a young woman named Ekaterina Dashkova–the young friend and confidante of Catherine the Great and president of the Russian Academy of Sciences who became friends with the elder scientist and was soon inducted into Franklin’s Philosophical Society (becoming the society’s first woman and first Russian). In turn, Dashkova made Franklin the first American member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1781. It was through these connections that Franklin played a leading role in organizing the League of Armed Neutrality under the helm of Catherine the Great which ensured that vital supplies and arms would make their way from Europe to America without being blocked by British ships. Within the first 12 months, this League grew to include the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Prussia. To this day, Russia’s league created the foundations of Maritime law.
This early alliance sewed the seeds of a larger tradition of U.S.-Russia friendship which saved both nations and which were covered in a recent conference titled The Historic Clash Between Open vs Closed Systems on August 15.
Franklin’s French networks had deep connections into India as well, which made themselves felt in the French-Indian alliance of 1780 that saw pro-American Muslim leader Hydar Ali lead thousands of Indian soldiers on a march across Western Ghats where they attacked the strategic British Base of Fort St. George near the Port town of Madras. Ali was supported by French troops on land and sea under the command of Admiral Suffren. Hydar Ali had already defeated the British in 1760 and represented a powerful independence force in India that kept British oligarchs up at night (It would still be many years before Britain would gain control of this “Crown Jewel” of the empire).
During this conflict, Hydar Ali’s forces innovated rockets which decimated British troops, and forced Britain to re-direct over 20% of their naval fleet from fighting in the Americas- this was a vital boon to the French and American forces a world away. Hydar Ali’s son Tipu Sultan even wrote a message to the Continental Congress in 1781 saying: “every blow that is struck in the cause of American liberty throughout the world, in France, India, and elsewhere and so long as a single insolent savage tyrant remains the struggle shall continue.”
America’s flagship of the Continental fleet was named the Hydar Ali in his honor.
In Morocco, the French were able to arrange an important dialogue between Emperor Sidi Mohammed and American officials which saved American shipping from the ravages of Barbary pirates who ruled the coasts of Africa and the Straits of Gibraltar. During the opening of the war, the British made sure to inform these Barbary pirates of American shipping and used these forces against American ships bound for Europe. Sidi Mohammed agreed to supply protection for America’s ships and guaranteed them safe harbor from the Tunisian and Algerian pirates. Soon the Continental Congress had passed an act which called for Franklin to lead a team of negotiators to work out a deal with Morocco and other North African countries.
Although international political chaos and the constant treachery and intrigue within America during its early years resulted in very little progress on this front, it is noteworthy that Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize America’s independence on December 20, 1777.
Even though Franklin didn’t appear to have any direct contact with the Chinese during this period (who were busy fending off the British Empire’s lusting dogs of the East India Company who were preparing a new phase of Asiatic expansion), Chinese thought did figure prominently in the thinking of Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin had published many writings on Confucius from 1737-1757, which shaped many points of wisdom in the Poor Richards Almanac. Writing to a friend in 1747, Franklin stated “Confucius was my example. I followed Confucius”. As Professor David Wang points out, many of his insights into civil administration and law derived from his studies of China. On Franklin’s over arching Confucian world view, Dr. Wang stated:
“Benjamin Franklin’s interest in Chinese civilization was so wide that it included all substances from Confucius philosophy to industrial technologies. Then the question is why Franklin spent so much time and energy on studying Chinese civilization. Franklin believed that “what assurance of the Future can be better founded than that which is built on Experience of the Past?”. Franklin’s strive to draw wisdom from Chinese civilization was based on his belief that China was “the most ancient, and from long Experience the wisest of Nations”. For Franklin, obtaining positive elements from Chinese civilization was important for developing the American way of life.”
While there are many more chapters to this international story, the lesson I wanted readers to come away with is that America was both more than you thought it was and also less than it was meant to be.
According to the intentions of such renaissance men as Franklin, the American cause was never meant to be a “local issue” defined by 13 rebelling colonies, but rather a new age of reason for all mankind.
Kindred spirits across Europe watched in horror as the first European nation to attempt revolution led by Lafayette and other leaders of Franklin’s network (who made the American cause a success) was overthrown by a Jacobin “color revolution”. The noble origins of the June 20, 1789 Tennis Court Oath which kick started the French Revolution were soon lost as a bloodbath (directed by British assets from the Foreign Office) channelled the rage of France’s peasant population against ALL of the elite, corrupt and noble alike, proclaiming “the revolution has no need of scientists”. The sound of the guillotine lopping off the heads of the great revolutionary astronomer/mayor of Paris Jean-Sylvain Bailey and chemist Antoine Lavoisier still resonates as a shame of France. Lafayette only saved his head long enough to end up in an Austrian dungeon for 5 years as punishment for fighting to overthrow hereditary systems and was immortalized in Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio in 1805.
The pro-humanist forces of Europe slowly came undone during the Napoleonic wars which culminated in the 1815 Congress of Vienna and Holy Alliance which re-established “peace” by banning dangerous books, teaching, and art that might awaken revolutionary feelings in the minds and hearts of Europeans. These Orwellian laws were outlined in the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and ruined more than a few lives of great statesmen and teachers. This story was told in my paper “Kissinger’s Adoration of the 1815 Congress of Vienna”.
During this time, the British Empire came out again as a force of evil preparing a new phase of its global conquest with a crushing of the Hydar Ali spirit in India and a new age of opium wars against China.
In spite of this growing darkness, great poets who dreamed of that better age of reason produced some of the greatest and under-appreciated poetry with Percy Shelley and John Keats leading that movement in Britain, Robbie Burns in Scotland and such figures as Schubert, Heine, Schumann and Beethoven representing this spark in Vienna and Germany. Palmerston-Mazzini’s “Young Europe” anarchist mobs were periodically deployed to disrupt constructive nationalist tendencies throughout this period- laying the groundwork for “color revolutions” of the 20-21st centuries.
Beethoven’s 1824 Ninth Symphony setting Schiller’s great poem an “Ode to Joy” to music was a celebration of that dreamed-of age of brotherhood and creative reason which Franklin devoted his life to accomplishing and which today’s multipolar alliance has again awoken as a potential alternative to an age of darkness, war and collapse facing humanity in the 21st century.
The author delivered a lecture on July 1, 2020 on this topic viewable here:
https://youtu.be/MAJxCwruZoQ
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation
Q: Is America Worth Saving?
A1: A fair hint is what I wrote just over a week ago:
A2: Another hint is imagining a global plebiscite where every person at least 18 years of age is allowed to vote on which country and people on the planet it would be most welcome to get rid of. What would be the most likely outcome?
A1 cuts both ways. Yes, our leadership has effectively been forced upon us by conspiracies from without and within, but sadly, at the current time at least, it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t also reflect the moral fiber of the majority of our citizenry.
A2 is much less ambiguous. In spite of what most Americans believe, or perhaps even because of it, a global plebiscite would likely be overwhelmingly in favor of jettisoning the US, or the federal government that poses as the US anyway. Not that the US government will ever allow or pay attention to such a straw poll in the first place. Hence the current political charade, where we’re being offered two different flavors of the same fascist globalist Zionist agenda. Step right up and pick your poison folks!
Nussiminen,
Re A1, agree wholeheartedly. To my mind it’s a sad indictment of the USians. When I was there as a student many moons ago, pre 9-11, I found the average yank — the ones I met anyway — to be friendly, generous, helpful and open to other cultures even if they (yanks) were somewhat insular — major baseball competition in North America called “World Series”; 45 minutes of news devoted to American national and local news including the one about the dog stuck up a tree and its subsequent rescue, and a whole 15 mins about the RoW. People got along in class although some of the blacks tended to stick together in what a black lecturer jokingly called the “hood”.
I have lots of good memories of my time there but they’re just fond memories now of a place and a people that used to be.
Show me where conspiracies do not happen, and I will show you a country without any people. To conspire is human. It’s intent that matters, and sometimes intent is misguided, and often this fact is found out after it’s too late to avoid the consequences. This is why we learn to value wisdom over mere opinion.
Unbalanced.
Was the support of other countries for the American revolution because they wanted to be part of the new Enlightenment or because they fought against the British Empire for a bigger share of the world’s loot.
Yes.
Greece and France also shaped big revolutions.
But the missed the power, the population, the energy means that made the difference: abundance of coal and oil , in the precise timing where coal and oild were demanded.
The industrial power, the extremely egoistic spirit of their upper classes and resulting wars made the US the most criminal state in world History. And this is not a figure of speech.
Both by any, qualitative and quantitive type of measurements.
Anon
I am afraid this article is misleading. Lot’s of details are given and the word “freemason” is left out. The creation of the US back in 1776 was one gigantic trap, the beginning of globalization which we have today.
Washington and his pals were nothing more than freemasons, private agents of the Rothschild’s banking family, who began their globalist policies by creating the US. They used George Washington, a freemason, to start an insurrection which was called a “revolution”. The Rothschild’s also financed King George, ie. they financed both sides, a little trick they kept on repeating, the most notorious example being Hitler, financed by both London and New York.
Why was the US created ? Answer: For subversion. Geography was used to create an artificial state and nation, the American nation, which back in 1776 did not exist. This precedent was to be repeated, like with the creation of the Ukrainian, Bosnian, Kosovar, etc. “states” and “nations”, which in reality do not exist. When the US “revolution” was concluded, you had mass emigration of immigrants back to Europe, with one English commentator of the day stating that there wasn’t a single village and town in England which did not have American immigrants, who could not understand why they became “Americans”, as they spoke the English language.
The second reason why the US was created was to trap France into war and insurrection, ie. revolution. In 1776 it was the most powerful country in Continental Europe, with the largest population, if one does not count Russia. It was also the most vulnerable country, keeping feudal traditions. While England was introducing the first industrial revolution, the chief question in France was if the aristocracy should pay taxes, it being the privilege of the peasantry, manufacturers and merchants. France was ripe for an insurrection, and the Rothschild’s exploited this. It was guided into war with England, which depleted the French treasury, as the aristocracy payed no taxes. The monarchy then reintroduced old feudal taxation which was previously forgotten. The Rothschild’s and their freemason agents step in, a “revolution” ensues and heads start rolling. The French aristocracy was decimated. A “citizen” state was created, where banking passes into the hands of private bankers, the Rothschild’s intention all along, both for France and the rest of the world. Subsequently a Corsican by the name of Napoleon appears, introduces order after the horrors of the revolution, but does not oppose private banking. The Rothschild’s generously reward him, giving him the money for his invasion and break up of Russia. He fails. A new candidate is needed for this task. Germany was permitted to unite and was subsequently, on two occasions, used for invasions of Russia. The second invasion of Russia (1941) ensued after the banker sponsored Russian “revolution” of 1917 failed. Illuminati agent Lenin dies of syphilis in 1924 and is replaced by Stalin, who was not banker controlled. And the result ? A second rate “artist” by the name of Hitler pops up in 1925, subsequently assuming control of Germany, with historians going out of their way to conceal the involvement of London and New York bankers in his creation and subsequent war (Russia needed to be invaded, broken up and plundered and it’s population reduced, so that the old Khazarian kingdom, which briefly existed in southern Russia, could have be resurrected. The Khazars, also known as “Jews”, never forgave the Russians and Persians for destroying their kingdom, as if they had any right to it, bearing in mind Khazars moved into Russia from Asia. This explains the current animosity in the West towards Russia and Iran, Khazarian orchestrated).
And the US ? It is still an obedient Rothschild’s colony, doing it’s dirty work and paving the way for globalization, a world wide global empire ruled by private bankers and corporations. The US has been at war for 93 % of it’s existence. Why so many wars and who benefited ? Why, for example, were the Korean and Vietnam wars fought ? The answer is ‘geopolitics’. Both Korea and Vietnam have borders with China. The intent was for China to be destabilized, after which US troops, backed by NATO would, in a pincer movement, pour into China from Korea and Vietnam, introducing “democracy” and placing puppets in control of the country, little Guaidos. The intent was to prevent the creation of a Russian-Chinese alliance and in the process isolating Russia. The plan failed. Today we do indeed have a Russian-Chinese economic alliance.
Can the US survive ? It will depend on the decisions taken by it’s London masters. The US Federal Reserve, a private central bank, is Rothschild’s controlled. The HQ of the freemasons in Washington DC controls the Government and the politicians in Congress. The commander in chief of all freemasons is Prince Philip, husband to the Queen of England. The current riots in the US have been provoked by Soros and his banker pals. And the motive for these riots ? The removal of Trump or the breakup of the US, something the Rothschild’s tried in 1861-1865, when they provoked the US Civil War ? We shall see. It will depend if the US in it’s current form and shape is still useful to the Rothschild’s. The breakup of the US is not impossible. It’s chief weakness is it’s diversity. The different ethnic groups did not assimilate. This can be seen in the current riots. Personally I am not an optimist the US can survive. A catalyst, like a financial crash, would probably lead to the break up of the country.
It is to note how the Masonic temple in Alexandria perched on a hill is overlooking the rest of Washington D.C.
@“freemason” is left out
One could not fail to notice that the ‘Khazars’ are even more ‘left out’.
Although I don’t pretend to be an expert on Masonry, I asked this line of questions to people in the know, and they told me there were different groups of Masonry, Freemen and Scottish Rite, and they operated against each other, not unlike intelligence agencies. It was emphasized that masonry was an organizational tool used by both sides in the US vs Britain struggle, not one monolithic influence.
The only revolution in America was against King George outlawing slavery and being decidedly against land speculation on Indian lands. Anything else is window dressing.
King George actually took petty criminals who were on death row and sold them as slaves to help the founding of America, this started in 1685 and lead to the need of further slaves brought and sold from Africa, so this statement simple is not true.
Exactly. The real slave flag is the stars and stripes, not the stars and bars.
Truth is elusive. How to find it?
Do we find it among “the British elite”, or the “French oligarchic families”? Or, indeed in the much vaunted constitution of Jefferson-Franklin? Was Catherine of Russia so pure? Or Friedrich the Great? Did her sister, Ekaterina Dashkova scratch Benjamin’s back when they joined each other’s prestigious academies? Were Hydar Ali’s motives entirely altruistic when he opposed the East India Company? Do worthy principles underlie all revolutions?
Coming to the present time, the United Nations Organisation was set up as a fully representative body of independent sovereign nations. What has it turned into? Is it free from bias and corruption?
The sad truth is that HUMANS are corruptible, whatever their colour, race, or creed. Many are also greedy. They can be bought. Their votes can be bought. Their political allegiance can be bought. Sovereign countries whose printed pieces of paper are valued as international “currency” have a decided advantage. Their ‘printed paper’ can buy votes and allegiance.
Those who criticise Russia and China may do so for a reason, and that reason may have more to do with ‘power politics and international trade’ than any genuine desire to ascertain truth.
There is one sad TRUTH we can all believe in — human corruptibility and propensity to lie: the greater the power, the greater the propensity to resort to untruth, otherwise known as “FAKE NEWS”. John Dalberg-Acton is best remembered for his aphorism: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This observation of the human brain in action ought to tell us all we need to know about the future of humankind and its propensity for addiction, be it to sex, drugs, greed, or power.
To David Kennedy
David, in the present, mad, confusing times it’s very difficult to keep the optimism and the hopes for the better. Humans have all these traits you have mentioned, without doubt, but not all of them succumb to these. Lots have inner strength and inherent integrity to resist. Lots of them also have FAITH, whether religious or simply a faith in fellow human beings and what is right. Please, try to look on the brighter side – humanity, despite all the horrows, every terrible setback, EVERYTHING it had to go thru, is still here, still strong and is still fighting to survive and hopefully prosper. Have faith.
Katerina, yes you are right. There are so many good people in the world, past, present, and future. Yes, their simplicity and basic fellow-feeling gives hope, and also makes one weep that such behaviour is not dominant, unlike those who portray the over-riding weaknesses of the human brain.
I read the article with interest. Matthew Ehret has a trenchant intellect and a straightforward and convincing way of expressing himself. It is easy to be both informed and misled.
Humans have been around for 2 million years or so; perhaps 10 or 12 thousand years of settled existence, so-called civilisation. There have been great teachers: Confucius, Gautama Buddha, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohamed among those who are better known. What have we learnt? So many things. And knowledge is expanding exponentially. Is such knowledge bearable? Is it compatible with the simplicity of the humble?
Matthew Ehret questions the future of America – is it worth saving? The wider question applies to humankind – is it worth saving (in its present form)? His negative examples of humankind – as exemplified by the British Empire (and Imperialists everywhere and at all times) – ring true, his positive examples less so.
But, Katerina, thank you so much for your kind reply. It is much appreciated.
@David Kennedy – Thanks a lot David for an apropos comment.
The article is skillfully talks about interaction of competing interests , but fails to connect them to the bigger picture, namely the Human nature. So at best it can be said to be fragmentary or biased if one were to use political language.
@ Katrina
I get u Katrina, however instead of the word “succumb” in your comment , perhaps the words; “ignorance” & “awareness” might do a better job. Ignorance of what it means to be “Human” is prevalent & that degrades the entire species to living automatons.
All vectors of the spectrum of human nature condense into two opposing views of man. Man as an animal, who must be tamed and managed, and used along the way by the powerful, or man as a creative human being, who should be gently guided towards wisdom to unfold his uniquely human potential to do good, and entitled to the liberty to do so. These were the two ideological sides of the American revolution.
Here is a question this essay raised in my mind. Is it possible that a civil war in the US would be beneficial for the rest of the world? The US government would be weakened and distracted from tormenting other countries. Just look at the destruction we have caused since WWII through interventions and coups.
On a lighter side, the writer mentions Canada’s failure to join the revolution. Was that really a failure? When we visited everyone told us to stay on the Canadian side. And they were right. From what we saw during our trip we were convinced Canada would be a better place to live if not for the cold.
I have long since come to the conclusion that a Confederate victory in the Amerikastani Civil War would have been one of the best things ever. Slavery was already doomed by the industrial revolution; the status of blacks in the Southern states was in any case soon reduced to apartheid levels by Jim Crow laws. A divided, weakened Amerikastan would have been an Amerikastan that could not rampage across the world as the psychopathic hegemonic tyrannocracy that it is today.
It is easy to criticize a medieval watch maker he did not make Apple watches.
Wikipedia says of Mazzini: “His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations…” so I do not grasp your angle here. How was he disrupting “constructive nationalist tendencies” then? He was public enemy number one to aristocratic power elites everywhere. Are you looking for evidence in his network of protectors when exiled in London? Good to see him getting any mention at all since he has been out of fashion with our intelligentsia, but there are many valances to the anarchist epithet – you seem to deploy it here as some variety of swear word?
Beyond the whirlpool of Wikipedia: “Mazzini was an original, if not very systematic, political thinker. He put forward principled arguments in support of various progressive
causes, from universal suffrage and social justice to women’s enfranchisement.
Perhaps most fundamentally, he argued for a reshaping of the European political order on the basis of two seminal principles: democracy and national selfdetermination.
These claims were extremely radical in his time, when most of continental Europe was still under the rule of hereditary kingships and multinational empires such as the Habsburgs and the Ottomans.” (http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9042.pdf)
Was it the democratic part of his seminal principles or the self-determined nationalism that you find non-constructive?
Given that France under Louis Napoleon, was busily organizing a military intervention to crush Mazzini’s political experiment in Rome and reinstate the Pope, this must form a backdrop to British foreign secretary Lord Palmerston’s choice of words when he “reportedly described Mazzini’s diplomatic dispatches from Rome as ‘models of reasoning and argument’.” Quoted in Martin Wight, Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory: Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, and Mazzini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
I find the rest of your piece compelling. Mazzini is however a complex topic and cannot be handled flippantly.
‘slave owning degenerate named Thomas Jefferson’ … really? If the ‘degenerate’ refers to the false accusation that Jefferson fathered children by Sally Hemings, do some more research. To dismiss Jefferson like that, means the article stopped at that point, as far as I am concerned.
On Jefferson, try this:
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy: Report of the Scholars Commission
by Robert F. Turner (Author)
The author’s disrespectful remarks about patriot Thomas Jefferson are not appreciated.
Ehret is a LaRouche-ite. LaRouche-ites HATE Jefferson, LOVE Hamilton. So it ever will be, apparently, even though LaRouche himself has blown the coop.
Ah you see no one can agree on anything.not back then and not now as the countries being torn apart mostly in dis-agreements from with in. which includes the political circus known as government.It seems everyone has their hero’s and even hero’s are human with their many faults, even Washington had his faults,and,its best to sort those faults out before you worship them.History is written by the victors not by the defeated thus history is always one sided with no room for any dis-agreements, for its written and repeated as if it were the truth rather then self blown up self admiration..!!
Hah. I had no idea people were still taking sides on the Founders. And that the LaRouchites were still around. It seems to me we have better things to worry about than arguing about Jefferson’s character. Throw the first stone, you who… :-)
What happened to LaRouche?
BlueDogg, we don’t have to agree. All we need to do is being civil to one another. What a boring world it would be if we all agree, no?
I vaguely remember that there were several episodes where Franklyn had to “pull rank” on Jefferson, because he went off the rails towards embracing the thinking of the British, and couldn’t see it. “Degenerate” is used for emphasis, most would say too harsh a word.
But most of those who say so are not aware of those events to begin with, nor their implications against Franklyn’s intended design of the new republic. I am not the one to provide the resolution, I read it long ago and my memory is fuzzy, I just remember it being a thing often missed by Jefferson enthusiasts, and that this unawareness cascades into other misinterpretations on Jefferson’s thinking.
The comparison of Jefferson’s Pursuit of Property, vs Leibnitz’s Pursuit of Happiness pushed by Franklyn, is illustrative to this point. At first glance it appears an unsubstantial difference, but in comparing the thought of Empire vs that of A Free Republic, it is all the difference, and here you can see Jefferson thinking like a Brit.
If I had read this article before I donated….I wouldn’t have. I take exception to Pres Thomas Jefferson being dismissed as a slave owning degenerate. He was a slave owner. It was legal at the time, even though many, if not most, considered it immoral. He inherited most of his. He called slavery holding a wolf by the ear. Don’t believe 99% of whatever you have read about his relationship, or lack thereof, with Sally Hemings, this is highly politicized, and with the exception of DNA evidence of the youngest son, there is none further. I would point you to the work of a number of Jefferson historians’ work that preceeded that particular argument, and to sworn statements by his family members. A grandson gave written testimony that he slept within earshot of his grandfather’s bedroom until his grandfather died, and Sally Hemings did not share his bed. The innuendo existed during his lifetime. Most Jefferson historians who worked before the committee made their pronouncements, believed that Sally’s children were fathered by Thomas’ younger brother Randolph, who would have the same Y DNA as Thomas, and would also explain any son of Sally who might look like a Jefferson. Sally stopped having children when Randolph married, and the last one was born after Jefferson was 68 years old, when he already suffered a number of health problems. Randolph taught a half dozen slaves at Monticello to play the fiddle, and was frequently in the slave quarters until late at night. The only surviving description of Sally was written by Randolph. His own estate was a few miles from Monticello, and he stayed at Monticello, visiting for days at a time when Thomas was home. As for the most recent discovery, of ‘Sally Hemings’ room’ at Monticello, there is no evidence it was ever used as a bedroom, but possibly may have been used by her to perform her work, which was the cleaning and maintenance of Jefferson’s clothing.. She was known to have used a different room on the other side of the house for her bedroom, which she shared for years with one of the Carr brothers.
The revolution was only fought to protect slavery as King George was abolishing it. Then, as now, semi lofty sounding notions were floated to obscure the true intent of the aggression against former friends and to hide it from, and blaming it on, the populace.
Jefferson was a slaver and a land speculator in defiance of the king….which Was illegal then….as was George Washington.
Removed. Mod.
Well, whether or not the USA is worth saving or not, it would be savagely ironic if it were reduced to a Russian rump of the USSR by lopping off California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts and New York.
You know, a few ‘Colour Revolutions’ funded by wealthy unaccountable foreign interests; trashing of the validity of any elections favouring traditional Republicans or Democrats; declaring as Governors of those independent ‘States’ people who got under 25% of the votes cast; applying viscious sanctions to Canada and Mexico if they continue to trade with ‘rump USA’; forcing Bolivia and Afghanistan to sell their vital metallic ores to China first, so that they can be sold at inflated prices to rump USA afterwards; oh, and how about telling all Americans they have to forget about Thanksgiving and celebrate Diwali and Hanukkah instead?
‘We hold it to be self-evident that if you treat the rest of the world like a POS, then the rest of the world may be tempted to do the same in return, especially when you are sinking into oblivion, rather than arrogantly ruling the roost like tinpot dictators….’
Just theorising of course. Scenario planning.
Another thing the State Department covers its backside by doing…..
“We hold it to be self-evident that if you treat the rest of the world like a POS, then the rest of the world may be tempted to do the same in return,”
“.. if it were reduced to a Russian rump of the USSR by lopping off California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts and New York.”
Facility is conditioned by framing, including answering yes to the question – do you think your opponent is as stupid as you are? – enhance by belief of some in sole and/or prime agency, rendering “strategies” hopes and wishes.
Consequently spectators tend to ponder what is and extrapolate “scenario planning” -an oxymoron in practice, but a popular belief with some – there-upon, whilst practitioners tend to ponder how-tos and engage in their implementation, evaluation and modification..
The problem with think tanks is they are like a used car lot for off-the-shelf or boutique artificial narratives, take your pick.
They operate suspiciously like there is no truth, only opinion, or a battle between closely-held secret methods of persuasion.
That assumption itself has self-fulfilling consequences, which supports the philosophy of tyrants, leading to more of the same. It’s like taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Assume our “model of reality” is simply a battle between opinions, and thus the “justice of the stronger” wins by default, and we are doomed, because it removes the only edifice upon which civilization of free people can build. And objective truth is precisely what is being targeted by the behavioral science power brokers common among “think” tanks. In reality they should be called “bs engineering tanks”
Aside from all the power struggles and Machiavellian strategies, truth matters right around the time when the killer asteroid arrives into the atmosphere, as we argue over gender studies and geopolitics using the latest opinion-forming social media engines.
Truth matters precisely when being right expands beneficial futures, and being wrong destroys them.
For matters of consequence, both think-tanks and their opinions are a symptom of a larger cultural shift which can’t tell the difference, because truth itself is seen as something only suckers entertain.
And that’s why Russia and China are mopping the floor with us, when it comes right down to it, especially in math and engineering. You can’t persuade an airplane to fly; the wings have to be true. And the same is true for national and international policy.
The motivated people of the west need to stop collectively acting like used car salesmen and re-study what it means to actually know something, rather than gloating over precious opinions and skills of persuasion.
What in all the million miserable millstones of Mars is a “cultural Marxist”? I’m tired of people who throw around words that have no meaning.
I think ’Cultural Marxist’, while it’s not a scientifically accurate concept, does come across as a good description (and a ditto pejorative also) of the following phenomenon:
The most vivid expression of ’Cultural Marxism’ today is, of course, the militant Globo-Homo degenerates and the ’tolerance’ they crave of everybody else and with the entire ideological swamp of Western imperialism backing them up.
Lenin hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
But still I have to agree that the CM meme is being overused. And this is regrettable because it tends to obscure the fact that classical, ossified Marxism shares the same Euro-centric, imperialist Weltanschau which is the hallmark of CM; Russophobia especially. Where they differ is that while classical ossified Marxism eulogises the ’advanced’ Western workers (an embarrasingly clear case of unrequited love/flattery), CM, by contrast, eulogises the wealthy, unprincipled bourgeois-bohème. In fact, each and every one of these French pretend-philosophers such as BHL, Derrida, Cohn-Bendit etc. are such specimina to the hilt.
Re Cultural Marxist. It’s blurred, but the creation as a mental trap is not, if only the victims look. But that is admitting they goofed up, so they turn away from insights that could lead them out of their self-imposed mental cave.
To them, the “disadvantaged ones”:
The issue with all the critical race theory protestors and rioters, is that they are running around thinking they know something Uber-special, when what they claim to know was designed in the 1940’s by psychological war experts and communists to mislead the gullible into participating. It’s highly effective at capturing minds and turning them into raving no-thinkers. Because it’s about emotion, not reason.
The Frankfurt School project of the 1940’s was to create a cannon fodder youth brigade, to bash targeted nations, usually financed by unscrupulous oligarchs with privilege of the .001 percent, with actual goals serving the ultra-rich, not anyone else, and certainly not people of color or diverse backgrounds.
The suspicious victim of such synthetic mental programming can look it up, and see all their favorite buzzwords already crafted for your consumption in the 1940’s. It’s chief trick is to oversimplify every predicate around a struggle between a disadvantaged group, and an imaginary enemy which usually is everyone else. Conversation is reduced to circular reasoning, further isolating the victims within their cult of believers.
Rioters target and burn Joe’s garage with Molotov cocktails, completely missing that Joe has more shared grievances with the protestors than any oligarch or Foundation funding the whole affair. The ideology fools the young into attacking the fabric of everyday people, while the rich laugh at us all from their castles and yachts. How ironic. Eventually the awful truth will emerge: You have been Used.
Rioters and race grievance people: How about taking a deep breath, and actually look to see if your head was caught in a mental trap set decades ago? The “elite” are taking advantage of youthful ignorance, and getting you sent to jail, ruining your lives early on, all for a lie. What a tragedy.
Civilization is so much more than a power struggle. Our destiny is the stars, not simply who gets access to an overpriced condo on the beach, or government handouts.
There will be a dark age if the riots are allowed to expand without limit, and most of us would die from the after effects. So it’s a dead end, literally and figuratively. Go read what your college professor decried the most, and you might be pleasantly surprised that there is more to the story than was let on.
Is America worth saving? the question assumes that it is America that needs saving rather than the rest of the world that needs to repent for abandoning U.S. leadership and principles.
My real point is that we are infected with a virus which has made us blind, stupid, and arrogant and we don’t even know we are sick and will never know until it has run its course. I hope we survive it but it remains to be seen if we have the mettle of countries like Russia who survived their near death experience in the 90’s.
We in the U.S. who like to brag about how great we are, can we survive adversity that we inflict on other countries like Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen … ?
Mr Ehret approaches this discussion with some amusing delusion that the USA has always been a force for good and the British State has always been a force for evil. It does rather beg the question: ‘Is Mr Ehret sufficiently unbiased to be fit to lead a discussion about this important topic?’
For the majority of its existence, the USA has been a State openly embracing slavery and racial segregation. That is not true of the UK, even if slavery was a core business of the transient British Empire and treating workers like filth is a badge of management potential in Britain.
Whilst the UK built much of its private wealth as international drug dealers, the USA nowadays uses global narcotics and human trafficking to fund the illegal activities of the CIA and its funded black ops. We evolved beyond it, the USA grew into it.
Both nations have a contempt for educating their own if they can steal better educated foreigners for less money. There is no equality in being born in the USA if you could get a better education somewhere else then be welcomed as an immigrant….
The crux question which is never posed is this: ‘just what is an acceptably low level of State probity in the real world, as opposed to highfalutin concepts of nirvana dreamed up by alcoholic dope-smoking philosophers and their descendants found in tenured posts of academia?’
The other question Mr Ehret should pose is this: ‘which would you prefer to resurrect: ancient Athens or ancient Rome?’
“The other question Mr Ehret should pose is this: ‘which would you prefer to resurrect: ancient Athens or ancient Rome?’”
Many spectators tend to pose questions that cannot be acted upon, as you and Mr. Ehret both illustrate.
Goodnight sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
@amusing delusion that the USA has always been a force for good
That’s hitting the nail on the head! America was the place where all revolutions were concocted, planned and supported, the moment it was intoxicated with the fumes of ‘exceptionalism’ and ‘manifest destiny’ to quash ‘tyrannies’, spread ‘liberty, ‘democracy’, ‘equality’, atheism, and the ‘pursuit of happiness’ in this wretched world. And be compensated for its endeavors by ‘opening’ all societies for the unbridled exploitation of their resources by their international bankers by destroying all traditional ways of life all over the world, Christianity in the first place.
The British State was at times a force for evil, but there are some redeeming features. America was always a force for evil.
You throw out the baby with the bath water. Most of history pre-America consisted of lords and peasants.
The spreading of education via the churches eventually led to the creation of the French nation, and later America, because the people were able to understand “profound conceptions concerning man and nature”, as Shelly put it. In Europe, people could better see their own potential (and that of better government) as a result of developing a more potent form of creative reason based on the Judeo-Christian-Greek ideas. They escaped from a mental cage.
The entire idea of a middle-class is dependent on the predicate of average people gaining access to true education, as opposed to remaining under the oligarchical thumb of Kings and oligarchs. In other words, prior to this nation-state development, 99 percent of all races were effectively and often literally slaves. The idea of a government serving the people is relatively new in the scheme of things, with the USA being the high water mark.
The USA as founded, and the founding documents intent, was about getting away from the British usury and manipulation, not more of the same. That’s the baby you are throwing out.
The US Treasury is now $26 trillion in debt to the financial capitalists, because the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 handed over the right to coin money and regulate its value thereof to private banks.
Christopher Hollis writes: “So long as a few people have the privilege of inventing money, no one in the country except those few people can really own any private property at all. The rest of us and our fancied property are but tenants-at-will of the bankers in the sense that the bankers can, at any time they wish, force us to surrender it. It is idle to say that in practice this does not happen. In practice, this happens every day. Two hundred years ago Berkeley prophesied that it would happen. One hundred years ago Cobbett showed that it was happening. Today we see it happening all around us.”
“tenants at will” own property? The banker can only force you to give up your property if they have a stake in it, ie. mortage. No mortage? Bank can’t touch you. If you have a deed to a property (anyone for that matter) read what it says………..you will be listed as ‘tennant’ not ‘owner’. You may own the house and all chattle, but the land, you rent from the State/Government. Fail to pay land rent and the State/Gov will take everything, auction it off for arrears, and give one the left overs once the lawyers are done. People with mobile homes, while a favorite target of tornados, can always hitch up and move. Hard to do with a house, barn, animals, livelihood. Freemin? What’s that?
What needs to be done is the reinstatment of ‘bankruptsy’ where, if the bank makes bad loans (greedy wee bastards), instead of ‘tax’ payers bailing them out………..the banks go……………Bankrupt.
Cheers, M
“…slave-owning degenerate”. Really? The Chinese had slaves. Everyone did. And what is wrong with hereditary monarchy? China wise? China was a hereditary monarchy.
The purpose of all revolutions was to destroy the West. it was instigated in secret, as was the American revolution by the freemasons. The power behind it was and is the bank and behind the bank is the Sanhedrin that uses usury a a tool of power, and advocates judaic supremacy, preached for five thousand years.
Большое Спасибо. We need more analistes like this…
Congratulations from Brazil – São Paulo
As someone with an M.A. in History, having graduated in 1989,and never having stopped learning since, I can say with absolute certaintly that this statement is categoricaly incorrect, banally anti-Catholic, and anti-Monarchist invective, void of all truth:
“Franklin’s decades of work to bring the French Colony of Quebec into the independence movement was sabotaged by 1) the slavish illiteracy rampant among the peasants of the feudal system inherited from France, and 2) the rampant corruption of the Catholic clergy elite which signed a devil’s pact with the British Empire to keep the peasants locked into the empire. These factors would play into the collapse of the French Revolution in 1789 as we will see shortly.”
Yes the current war in America is a battle against the same evil forces they have fought before.
Elements of the British elites are the enemy along with their associates who setup the EU.
The EU being a rebranded Nazis State.
It is in essence a battle between those who want to control others and those who do not want to be controlled (like Russia and Eastern Europe and common people everywhere).
Those forces are in fact the moneychangers of Europe who have for the past 2.2 centuries others fronting for them – eg Napoleon, Hitler, Musolini. Among their ranks are many of the monarchs of Europe who seek to retain the same power that had in the olden days.
They had always tried to suppress the settlement of America and once they lost it in 1776 they did everything they could to regain control and when they did by 1900 they sought to run it into debt and wreck it partially by making it their running dog war machine – makings its military cannon fodder in achieving the aims of their EU masters – war after war to ensure other countries toed the line.
Yes America must be saved.
And it must team up with Russia to solve world problems and deal with the evil forces of Europe who are the main problem in the world.
Wow, that article was a powerhouse. That’s the America we know and love, and is certainly worth saving as a model. The problem has been encroachment and capture by men having the very same ideas which drove our old British enemy.
Leibnitz vs Locke sums it up neatly. When I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a wall sized image of Locke was prominently featured in the museum display, with Leibnitz nowhere to be found. Even at the Hall itself, the truth is hidden from the masses. But when you read Leibnitz, it is clear this principle of happiness was his, not Locke’s, and there are many other profound examples.
There are two general types of men forming the historical divide. There are men who by their philosophy and nature use and manipulate all, in order to gain wealth, power, and influence, and those who live honestly, think constructively, and build their world on higher moral ground. That distinction is what the 1776 fight was about, and what today’s fight is about.
Thanks for a good article, I look forward to more from you.