All Bad Things: None Dare...The END

We are finally done with this book, but like all terrible books it is not done with us. I mentioned in the very first post on this book that Allen's work is surprisingly and depressingly influential. To repeat that point, I was paraphrasing the co-host of the "Knowledge Fight" Podcast who said that this book was like the Velvet Underground. No one really bought their albums but those that did, all started their own bands. Allen's work is like that: every major conspiracy theorist you've heard of, has read this book. 

Further, this book is the central political position of the John Birch Society. While the two aren't related in the sense that Allen wrote the book for them (unlike what he says Marx did for the Illuminati), the positions that they both take are nearly identical. We should absolutely care about this work because this book and the JBS are the current US Conservative movement...I guess with the exception that I would find it hard that the JBS would be siding with Russia as the current GOP is doing. A quick read of their website and I cannot find any statement about the current Ukrainian invasion. 

The JBS believed that former president Trump was the JBS ideal president. This is saying something considering the rules he broke and his general incompetence. Cheap shot aside, what needs to be understood is that this is not fringe stuff anymore, it is the mainstream. The Overton window on the acceptable political dialogue has shifted so much that conversations about the "Deep State/Tri-Lateral Commission/Council on Foreign Relations/Illuminati" (it's all the same thing)  are normal political conversations that we have to have. 

Most of what this book does is contribute to the feeling of knowledge without the actual giving of knowledge. People can claim that they've read this book, but they haven't gained any real information from doing so. Instead, what they have is an emotional reaction that the reader cannot explain. They know that they are supposed to hate the CFR, but they don't really know what it is, what it does, or what the CFRs recommendations are. The CFR serves the same role as the "devil" does in Christianity/Islam. It's just a placeholder to blame all of the ills of the world. 

This is why Allen cannot use the actual definitions of "socialism" or "communism." I'm surprised he even admitted this early on in the book. Experts, people that know what they are talking about, recognize that a political position isn't a danger to anyone. Even the idea of a "conservative" isn't bad as a political philosophy the problem is always extremism. Allen's view of the world is different, it's not a political position it's a constant call to action--this is dangerous in and of itself. 

I'll argue by analogy. If you blame a crisis on, say debt and interest making that debt insurmountable; and the solution to this is aggressive bank reform--then there's no issue. The position is going to make some enemies and you'll have a hard time getting everything pushed through. That's the normal political process and maybe blaming the banking system is too nebulous an enemy, but we are not saying anything out of the ordinary. If, instead, the person began calling for the blood of the bankers, attempting to whip everyone into a frenzy over the concept of debt slavery, and describing the financial system in a way that isn't factually accurate, wouldn't make sense if it were accurate, and that the system is personally attacking you. Now, we've got a problem. The problem is that this is a political position based solely on fear and stroking the violent masturbatory fantasies of revenge. When this minority becomes the majority, the temperature needs to be tamped down or else you end up with something like we saw on January 6th of 2021. 

Allen would very likely reply that this is exactly what Marx did with the Communist Manifesto. He'd be absolutely wrong in doing so, and would completely betray that he has never read it. The Manifesto is a call to arms, but it's about a very specific situation and is not the basis for the Socialist movement. That would be Das Kapital, the much larger and much less read book. There is no political philosophy that Allen is pushing, he--and the JBS are not for anything they are merely against. 

You might think that they were pro-America, pro-Democracy; but they certainly are not the latter. They only want certain people to be able to vote. The JBS did call the civil rights movements of the 60s Communist plots. Allen and his ilk are not for America, they are for a country that only exists in their heads and only existed in their heads. For all of their posturing about "The Consitution", they do not want anyone to actually read it to find out that it is a pretty boring document that merely describes the formation of a government. Yet, the idea of it is far more important to them than the actual reality of it because Allen knows that his readers have not and are not going to read it. Pocket Constitutions are like Pocket Bibles, they are meant for show. 

Reading this book is important to understand the germ of the mindset that permeates my country's political landscape right now. I just wish it was better written, had more factual support, and a more coherent position--in short I just wish it was a different book and that we had different consequences from it.