Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

Contrast, Conflict, and Victory

By Gordon F. Corbett

 

    When people know little of political philosophy, they need examples to see its effect.  To focus their attention on those examples, they need a reason;  and few things draw the attention like contrast and conflict.

    Many of us have friends who support one of the two ruling parties.  If we let them compare our ideas with their parties' leaders' thinking, they will see how the two philosophies contrast.  When they understand what makes ours superior, they will spread the word among their fellow "grass-rooters."  As more members see these contrasts, more will press their parties' moneyed backers to adopt our ideas.  When the backers refuse, the member-backer clash will generate still more contrast and induce still greater conflict.

    Before we can promote that contrast and deepen its conflict, we must obtain a lot of basic data.

    A simple telephone call let me obtain an important source.

    The Council on Foreign Relations is one of the most important groups in our nation's Establishment.  It was incorporated on 29 July 1921, and although it supposedly wants only to build understanding and friendship between our country and others, the truth is quite different.

    The Council is really a liberal think-tank, lobby, and nexus of influence.  Its members have dominated every presidential cabinet since Herbert Hoover's.  Its magazine, "Foreign Affairs," sometimes prints articles that presage changes in foreign policy.  For instance, its October 1967 issue carried a piece by Richard Nixon that advocated trade with Red China.

    Some time ago, I wanted a new copy of the Council's Annual Report, because it contains a list of current members.  I telephoned.  The courteous lady who took my call sent me one without charge.

    I use my copy's membership-list to determine whether someone on my television screen is a member.  A great many are.  You would be amazed at how many spokesmen and other Very Important Personages belong to this group.

    You can do likewise.  Everyone should know what proportion of his information-providers are C.F.R. members.  For example, annoyed by Fox News' failure to air anything critical of the C.F.R., I decided to look up Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-turned-American-citizen who owns the whole Fox television empire.  What do you know?  There he was, in all his glory.  "We report, you decide?"  Bullfeathers!

    Today, directly and through holding companies, C.F.R. members control practically every American major television and radio station.  Radio stations advertise themselves with their frequency numbers.  "Tune to KGO, 810 on your dial."  Well, the C.F.R. could say, "Tune to KCFR:  everywhere on your dial."  And, the pity of it is, that they are there, and most people do not even know.

    Forty-five years ago, the situation was different.  Dissidents like Clarence Manion and Dan Smoot could buy television and radio time.  Some of them broadcast their views throughout the nation; and with their help, many Americans learned that Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were pushing "One World" abroad and socialism-fascism at home.

    These commentators' listeners and viewers fuelled the Republican revolt that nominated Barry Goldwater, and his nomination lent conservative dissidents confidence, helped to expose more truth, and, thereby, exacerbated the cycle of contrast and conflict.

    How will today's dissidents obtain television or radio time?  Through holding companies, members of the C.F.R. control almost every station in the country.

    One medium yet remains:  the Internet.  The Internet is our last chance.  If we use it vigorously and prudently, we might yet help our uninitiated friends to discover the moral rightness of freedom and to wrest from our Establishment the power they have stolen.
 
 
 

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest /  White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN