The Cultural Seduction of America
Part 1
Mike Scruggs
After nearly four years of destructive economic policies and ever bolder attacks on the country’s Constitutional and Judeo-Christian religious and cultural foundations, people are rightly beginning to ask who Barack Obama really is. What religious, philosophical, and political ideas form the worldview that drives him? What motives and economic and social goals underlie the glittering charisma of his media appearances? To whom or what does he consider himself accountable? Where is he taking us? Is he being honest with us or is he systematically deceiving us? The magnitude of our economic and social concerns demand that we seek substance rather than the happy-clappy reassurances of a mainstream media that has largely abandoned its duty to political and moral discernment.
Several weeks ago I wrote an article listing many of the President’s appalling attacks on
Biblical Christianity. This article, in the May 17 issue of the Tribune Papers, “Obama’s Shocking Anti-Christian Record,” may be read online at theashevilletribune.com. One of his most disturbing policy actions has been to remove the name, words, and symbols of Christ from military funeral services. In addition, he has significantly reduced the ability of military chaplains to use the name of Christ and to minister to military personnel. Moreover, the President’s foreign policy is continually undermining the security of Israel. Though he sometimes claims to be a Christian, he demonstrates little respect for Biblical doctrines while continually praising and uplifting Islam, the Koran, and the teachings of Muhammad.
Many believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. He does seem to favor Islam far above any other religion, especially Biblical Christianity. Considering his liberal view of Biblical truth and increasing attacks on and repression of Christian teachings, symbols, and orthodox Gospel preaching, Christianity does not seem to be the center of his worldview. Conservative author Dinesh D’Souza believes Obama’s worldview has been heavily influenced by anti-colonialism. I believe, however, that the strongest component of Barack Obama’s worldview is Marxism, but not so much the Marxism of Karl Marx as his later followers, who began after World War I to emphasize the necessity of overthrowing both Western culture and Christianity before a Communist revolution was possible. This is sometimes called “Cultural Marxism.” I prefer the term Neo-Marxism because the old values of materialism and the class struggle against capitalism are still there, but important new cultural dimensions have been added.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) remains one of the most influential writers, philosophers, and revolutionaries in world history. He is considered the father of Communism. He believed that political power is determined by the class that owns the means of production and that capitalism was so corrupt and exploitive of the working class that it would inevitably fall. Revolutionary proletarian workers would then hold the means of production. This new ruling class would implement Communist methods of production and distribution of wealth. He also thought that Communist revolutions were most likely to occur when workers refused to fight the wars of the ruling capitalist class. Like the leaders of the French Revolution in 1789, Marx was a materialist and hostile toward Christianity. Although he wrote much of the philosophical outline and socialist dogma of Communism, he did not elaborate on its methods of implementation.
Following World War I, the principal Communist philosophers were disappointed that the war had sparked only one revolution—the Russian Revolution of 1917 that led to the establishment of the Soviet Union under Lenin in 1922. The proletariat class of other European nations fought loyally against the enemies of their countries. Two Marxist academics, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, decided that Communist revolutions were not likely to be successful where Christianity and Western culture were strong. Christianity and the influence of historical Western culture had to be destroyed before Communist or Socialist governments could come to power.
Gramsci described the “Long March” through the cultural institutions that had to come before truly revolutionary socialist government. First, the arts, the universities, schools, literature, and the news and cultural media had to be infiltrated and dominated by revolutionary socialists. Everything that influenced culture had to be infiltrated and dominated, even the churches, before truly socialist revolution was possible. Once in power, the grip of Communism could be tightened doctrine by doctrine, until there could be no resistance. Gramsci and Lukacs were soon joined by others at the University of Frankfurt in Germany. This academic department became known as the Institute for Social Research or just the Frankfurt School.
By the 1930s, under the influence of Max Horkheimer, Cultural Marxism was a full-blown ideology designed to undermine nations by means of social radicalism. The concepts we now know as “political correctness” and “multiculturalism” were developed there. Distorted concepts of “tolerance” and misguided applications of “diversity” were developed as revolutionary tools. Sexual freedom was vigorously promoted as an issue to undermine both Christianity and Western culture.
Because of the rise of Hitler, the Frankfurt School was moved to Columbia University in New York until the end of World War II. From Columbia the Frankfurt School revolutionaries spread their influence to Hollywood, television, music, the arts, and every field of entertainment. Homosexual approval and rights, feminism, racial identity and grievances, and victim identities became major planks in undermining American culture and religion. Many Marxist student groups and front organizations were active in exploiting these issues during the Vietnam War.
John Drew, a former Marxist revolutionary, now turned conservative, met Barack Obama at Occidental College in 1976. He says now of Obama, that he “was a committed Marxist dedicated to the overthrow of the American capitalist system.” Obama is still a Neo-Marxist antagonist of traditional American economic freedom, culture and values.
