BY JACK PHILLIPS | Epoch Times
Antifa
members and counter protesters gather during a No-to-Marxism rally at Martin
Luther King Jr. Park in Berkeley, Calif., on Aug. 27, 2017. (Amy
Osborne/AFP/Getty Images)
More than 120 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed
an open letter warning
that the United States is embroiled in an existential fight and urged “all
citizens” to get involved in local and state politics.
“We are in a fight for our survival as a Constitutional
Republic like no other time since our founding in 1776. The conflict is between
supporters of Socialism and Marxism vs. supporters of Constitutional freedom
and liberty,” states the letter (pdf), which was signed by 124 former military leaders,
released by “Flag Officers 4 America.”
The letter also posited that opposition to proposed bills
and laws that would strengthen election initiatives has troublesome
implications.
“Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal
vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State
Legislature’s approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc.
Today, many are calling such commonsense controls ‘racist’ in an attempt to
avoid having fair and honest elections,” the letter states.
According to the Flag Officers 4 America website, it’s a
group of former military leaders who “pledged to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies,” whether “domestic” or
“foreign.”
Of note, signatories of the letter include retired Army
Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc—a Senate candidate in New Hampshire, retired Army Lt.
Gen. William Boykin, and retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter—who was
the deputy national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan.
“China is the greatest external threat to America.
Establishing cooperative relations with the Chinese Communist Party emboldens
them to continue progress toward world domination, militarily, economically,
politically, and technologically. We must impose more sanctions and
restrictions to impede their world domination goal and protect America’s
interests,” the letter says.
Other threats they listed include the United States
reentering the Iran nuclear deal, illegal immigration, and the stoppage of
the Keystone XL Pipeline project. President Joe Biden issued an order halting
the pipeline project early in his presidency.
Meanwhile, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the retired
military leaders said that lockdown orders affecting schools and businesses are
tantamount to “population control actions.”
“We must support and hold accountable politicians who
will act to counter Socialism, Marxism and Progressivism, support our
Constitutional Republic, and insist on fiscally responsible governing while
focusing on all Americans, especially the middle class, not special interest or
extremist groups which are used to divide us into warring factions,” the letter
states.
The letter concluded by urging “all citizens to get
involved now at the local, state and/or national level to elect political
representatives who will act to Save America, our Constitutional Republic, and
hold those currently in office accountable.”
Some former military members questioned the purpose of
the letter.
Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former head of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said that the letter “hurts the military and by extension, it
hurts the country” and said it contains GOP “talking points,” according to
Politico.
Meanwhile, in France, dozens of retired generals were
sanctioned after they recently sent a letter warning about a possible civil war
over the “protection of our civilizational values.” They blamed France’s
leadership for not dealing with what they described as unfettered immigration
into the country.
_______________
RELATED
ARTICLE
How
‘Woke’ May Be Leading Us to Civil War
By Roger L. Simon | Epoch Times
A
statue of Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in Ferrara, Italy, on Sept. 25,
2018. Savonarola enforced a 1497 version of cancel culture on Florence, Italy,
according to Roger L. Simon. (Gianni Careddu via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA
4.0)
The other day, I wrote that “woke” was
the new conformism.
It is, of course, but I undersold it. It’s much more than
that and more dangerous.
As Tal Bachman notes at Steynonline, it’s now our state
religion, a state religion in a country that—constitutionally and for good
reason—isn’t supposed to have one.
But “Wokism” is yet more than that, too. It’s a mass
psychosis similar to many that have arisen throughout history when the masses
followed leaders who, in their zeal or self-interest, took them to disastrous
ends.
A good example was when the Dominican friar Girolamo
Savonarola—in a 1497 version of “cancel culture”—swept up everything secular in
Florence from some of the most extraordinary paintings and sculpture of all time
to the works of Boccaccio and burned them in the so-called Bonfire of the
Vanities.
Being Jewish, I am also reminded of the bizarre tale
of Sabbatai
Zevi, the 17th-century Sephardic rabbi who proclaimed himself the
long-awaited true messiah of the Jews, garnered thousands of followers, and
then ended up leaving them completely in the lurch when he converted to Islam.
(Interestingly, Bachman writes that “wokism” resembles Islam structurally.)
Closer to our time, the great Italian director Federico
Fellini, in his film “La Dolce Vita” (1960), shows us what seems like hundreds
of people rushing about, tears streaming, trampling each other, believing
reports that the Madonna has been sighted. As the scene progresses, the crowd
grows, with more and more people convinced of the sighting.
Of course, what Fellini documents is more or less
harmless—not so “woke.” This psychosis has a political dimension and the
capability of changing a society, which it has already done.
Face Excommunication
“Woke” gains adherents much in the manner of “est”—the
cult-like Erhard Seminars Training—that I attended in the 1970s at
the behest of a movie producer interested in making a film about it. (It never
happened.)
If you’re too in, you’re out.
For est, several hundred people sat in a large conference
room listening to the “training” for hours under instructions not to get up,
even to go to the bathroom, until they raised their hands signaling they “got
it” (i.e., effectively joined the cult). Nature’s calling being what it is,
most eventually did.
Although operationally similar, “woke” is exponentially
more perilous than the now-defunct est training. Our position in society, our
livelihoods, and our children’s educations and futures are being held over our
heads, not our mere use of a restroom.
An iron-fisted, ideologically extreme minority has our
country under its thumb—play along or face ex-communication. This is stronger
than anything in our history and almost identical to what we see and have seen
in totalitarian countries.
It’s a psychosis approaching mass hallucination. In
Franco’s Spain, they shouted, “Viva la muerte!” (“Long live death!”) Here we
are asked to proclaim just as loudly “Black Lives Matter,” to display signs
saying as much on our lawns, although we never thought otherwise and always
thought (naively, we are told) that all lives mattered.
All key aspects, most parts of them anyway, of our
society “get it” as they did in est (i.e., now believe in ”woke”) or, yet more
ominously, cynically say they do—the media, the corporations (“Better woke than
broke!”), the government bureaucracy, the Democratic Party, the Department of
Justice, the FBI, the military (yikes!), entertainment, the university system,
the K–12 system, the medical community, the scientific community (incredibly),
the religious community (sadly), and on and on.
All, to one extent or another, believe in “woke”
except—the people.
Most of the people anyway.
Most of what used to be called the common men (or women)
in the street roll their eyes at “woke”—including even some silent, but
browbeaten, Democrats—and do their best to move on, although many realize that
“woke” and its sister “social justice” are in essence euphemisms for an
ideology far more totalitarian than any ever in control of this country,
communism.
Rebellion Brewing
How long can this gaping dichotomy continue?
How long before they stop rolling their eyes?
A rebellion against “woke” is brewing, particularly in
red states, some of which are banning or have already banned critical race
theory in their schools, among other pushbacks. (Kudos to Rep. Mark Green, Republican of Tennessee and
Iraq War veteran, for introducing legislation to block critical race theory
training at U.S. military academies.)
But will that be enough against a federal government that
lives and breathes this evil ideology and that is essentially governed by a
homegrown politburo—the thought that Biden acts by himself is
ludicrous—determined to impose it?
As this imposition increases, the “contradictions,” as
the Marxists would say, are heightened.
What the extremist ideology of “woke” actually provokes
is talk of—and not just talk—secession and even civil war.
Few of us have heard anything like that in our lifetimes.
But now it’s real. We have been driven apart as never before. We have been
awakened indeed.
Anything can happen and some of us, who would never have
considered anything like secession and civil war, suddenly do—highly disturbing
to us as those thoughts may be.
So why do we even tolerate “woke”?
Bachman gives us a quotation from Austrian philosopher
Karl Popper that is remarkably apposite for our times:
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of
tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant,
if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of
the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
From Antifa to BLM (whose leader apparently identifies with the mass murderer Chairman Mao)
to the willfully blind talking heads of left-wing cable TV, no one is as
intolerant as the ”woke” folks. They break all domestic records in that regard.
Time to stop tolerating them.
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist,
Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large
for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT”
(fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our
Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). He can be found on
Parler as @rogerlsimon
