“I mean really., who could be against an organization opposed to the evils of Nazism?”
Helen Gahagan-Douglas (Photo below)
The Pink Lady
In the western world, Communists operate similarly to Amway vendors. Amway salespeople have been trained for years to create their own unique business names and are strongly encouraged to deny any association with Amway itself- maker of the slapdash merchandise they peddle. Like the luckless Amway distributors, Communists too suffer under a damaged brand. Most consider them for what they are: miserable merchants of failed and unwanted ideas. Yet, the differences between the two are of course, obvious. For most of us, the uninvited visit by an Amway distributor is akin to that early Saturday morning rap on your front door from a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A mere annoyance.
With Communists, it’s different. Communism has long history of brutal, dictatorial governance which represses individual liberty coupled with the mass murder of political opponents. Under Communism, people live in misery. That’s why in most communist countries, past and present, there are high walls and/or paramilitary border guards to keep people from fleeing the anguish and despair they experience in their “worker’s paradise.”
The disdain people harbor toward Communism, is not merely because Marxist policies have failed horribly and caused human suffering on a mass scale wherever they’ve been attempted. It’s primarily because when it comes to mass murder, the Communists have made the NAZIs look like a girls Sunday school choir. Stalin alone: 50 to 60 million murdered (some Russian historians suggest more). Moa Zedong: 80 to 100 million people sent to their deaths. Pol Pot: 3 million. The Communist Vietnamese: A cool million- give or take. Hence, Communists are abhorred worldwide- particularly by those who are forced to lived under this evil ideology.
Thus, like Amway distributors, Communists in free countries, also tend to distance themselves from their radioactive label. To accomplish this, they set up what are known a “Front Groups.” Yes, just like Amway merchants, Communists are also urged to give their organizations names that don’t contain certain despised words such as, for example…, “Communism” or “Marxism.” In fact, the names Communists use for their front organizations often have the most ridiculously virtuous and altruistic sounding designations such as, “The U.S. Peace Council, “The American League of Peace and Democracy, The National Lawyers Guild” or “The National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.”
How does a Communist Front Organization work, you ask? Well, its purpose is to help validate or at least make palatable, certain Communist objectives and ideas. Leftist, from Lenin to today’s woke generation are always seeking validation for both their poor lifestyle choices as well as their illogical and overly emotional political dogma.
Perhaps the most notorious of the many Communist Front Organizations in American history, was the calculably misbranded and benevolently named “Hollywood Anti-Nazi League.” The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League’s objective was to at once promote anti-Nazi themes in Motion Pictures and Radio dramas as well as to use the power of Hollywood to change American public opinion on U.S. involvement in World War II and in particular, Communism itself. The later was and remains a hard sell- to be sure. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Americans were overwhelmingly against sending their sons to die in another “European war.” That however, didn’t stop Communists from trying through the power of motion pictures, to change American public opinion on the matter.
Thousands of otherwise loyal and patriotic Americans joined the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. These were the well-meaning yet, gullible people, mostly from the Entertainment Industry, for whom Communists going back to Lennin, have laughingly referred to as the “Useful Idiots.” These were the naïve liberals of whom the Communists who ran the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, delighted in mocking behind their backs. Fortunately, undercover federal agents eventually infiltrated the League, which was well into its death throes when its Communist leadership pulled the plug on the operation. This, on orders directly from Moscow, following The German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact which was signed in 1939.
Suddenly, the NAZIs weren’t so bad anymore- at least to the Communists. Yes, the NAZIs were only evil until they cut a deal with Comrade Stalin to invade and divide between themselves, Poland- a then democratic nation.
In fact, the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League was formed by an actual foreign Communist Agent, Otto Katz, who was trained in espionage and subversion in the Soviet Union and was later arrested and deported after his status was uncovered by the U.S. Government. Katz founded the organization with the help of other American Communists Party members including, an American Crypto-Communist and failed aspiring screen actress named Helen Gahagan.
The latter, Ms. Gahagan, was a college dropout of modest intellectual appetites. She had enjoyed steady work on Broadway from 1923 through the early 1930s , due to her pleasantly passable signing voice and her well received talent as a chorus dancer. She was also a fine stage actress and earned solid reviews in couple of Off-Broadway plays.
Ms. Gahagan left Broadway in the early 1930s to make an attempt at her dream of stardom in the motion picture industry. This is where her career difficulties began. Unlike the stages of Broadway, where audience members view performers from afar and where heavy stage make-up is plied to cover a multitude of flaws, Hollywood films frequently rely on close-up shots of screen actors’ faces.
While it would be unfair to characterize Ms. Gahagan as homely, as she was certainly not, her unremarkable facial symmetry made her an unmarketable commodity in the picture show medium. Ms. Gahagan, despite her best efforts, was only able to secure a single supporting role in the forgettable B-Movie, She (1935). The producers hired Ms. Gahagan as they found her somewhat irregular features and slightly crooked smile suitable for the minor role of the film’s Evil Queen villain, which she eventually played. Shall we somewhat charitably say that this role didn’t exactly thrust Ms. Gahagan into some type of tormented inner struggle of the soul to explore her character’s deepest motivations. Nor did it require her to stretch her talents as a actress to their outermost limits. After the film’s less than well received release, Ms. Gahagan’s cachet as a film actress waned further into oblivion, ensuring that her first film role would also be her last. Hence, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, there are Stars for Woody Woodpecker, Lassie and Rin Tin Tin but, not Helen Gahagan.
Now, officially a failure and under economic hardship yet, too proud to return to Broadway in disgrace, Ms. Gahagan gravitated toward far-left politics and just like most malcontents in our society today, she became enamored with Marxist political theory. Yet, her otherwise slavish devotion to Karl Marx would cause her not the slightest moral quandary in her later aggressively pursuing and ultimately marrying a wealthy husband- an “enemy of the people.” That Husband was screen star and suave Hollywood leading man, Melvyn Douglas. Thus, Helen Gahagan would become Helen Gahagan Douglas, or at least she would remember to incorporate her husband’s name when she sought political office.
With the wealth, celebrity and social connections of her husband, the newly arrived Ms. Gahagan-Douglas would spend the rest of her days championing every cause that if adopted, would have hurt her ostensible country of citizenship, The United States of America, and helped the Communist world. She was a tireless benefactor for the later and a devout critic of the former until the very day she drew her last breath. Fortunately for our society, none of the major causes championed by the onetime aspiring cinema actress amounted to much- other than causing her to accumulate a rather thick FBI file. This brings us to how the piously self-important Ms. Gahagan-Douglas would unwittingly played a decisive role in catapulting the career of one of the 20th Century’s most prominent anti-Communists. This would be her only legitimate claim to fame.
In 1944, Ms. Gahagan-Douglas, with her husband’s connections and copious amounts of his money, managed to get herself elected to one of the most Left-leaning congressional districts in California. This was the first steady, full-time job she had held in her life. Then in 1950, Ms. Gahagan-Douglas, drunk on her own vainglory, boldly announced that she would mount a primary challenge against the popular incumbent Democratic Senator- a Liberal New Dealer named Sheridan Downey. Downy, who supported every New Deal policy of FDR, was apparently not far enough Left for Ms. Gahanna-Douglas and her rich Marxist friends. Senator Downey was as shocked as anyone, when Ms. Gahagan-Douglas declared, seemingly out of the blue and over the protests of the California Democratic Party, that she would challengesllc the beloved and long serving Senator. With seemingly unlimited money coming in from her husband and his Hollywood friends, as well as from hardened Leftists from all parts of the country, Gahagan-Douglas was able to dwarf Democratic Senator Downey’s message. She attacked Downey with vicious slurs against his character and misrepresented his voting record.
She knowingly engaged in outright lies, calling the liberal Senator, “a tool of big business and oilmen.” In response, Downey brought up Gahagan-Douglas’ longtime support of Soviet tyranny then, when the timing couldn’t possibly have been worse, Senator Downey became ill. Forced to leave after being diagnosed with potentially life threatening health issues. He would spend the next four months confined to a bed, in the Bethesda Naval Hospital, leaving Ms. Douglas with a free run of the board. Downey’s sudden illness sent mainstream Democrats into a panic.
On the last day one could legally file to run for the U.S. Senate in California, the establishment of the California Democratic Party was able to persuade businessman, WWI hero and civic booster, Manchester Boddy, to jump into the race. Boddy, also a New Deal liberal, was the publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News. He was a man best known for his progressive values, business acumen and high moral character. Boddy entered the race far too late and in the end, it was Gahanna-Douglas’ money and media savvy, as well as her willingness to smear her opponents, that carried her to the surprise primary victory and the Democratic nomination for US Senator.
The nomination of Ms. Gahagan-Douglas alarmed many California Democrats. For most establishment Democrats, her message seemed downright UnAmerican. Soon, a committee was formed by California’s Democratic leaders, so panicked over Gahagan-Douglas’ Leftist rhetoric, that they decided to support her Republican opponent in the 1950 California U.S. Senate election. Even the sitting Democratic President Harry Truman, was reluctant to endorse Gahagan-Douglas and only later would do so half-heartedly. Many other national Democrats, including future US President John F. Kennedy, would donate money to Ms. Gahagan-Dougals’ Republican opponent. Who was that Republican opponent?
It was none other than future Vice-President and President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Nixon had already made a name for himself by aggressively pursuing Communist subversives as a member of Congress.
While Nixon would have had an uphill battle in unseating Senator Sheridan Downey, as more California Democrats flocked toward Nixon with their money and endorsements, it became clear that Gahagan-Douglas was destined to be a pushover for Nixon. Nixon was urged to call out Gahagan-Douglas’ Communism. Concerned FBI agents leaked details of her Communists activities and parts of her FBI file to the Nixon Campaign. Nixon declined to act on this information, citing overkill. He instead simply referred to her as the “Pink Lady.” Quite a charitable description given who and more importantly, what she really was. Gahagan-Douglas lost to Nixon in a landslide. The “Pink Lady’s” political career was abruptly and permanently ended- although, not her radical Marxist activism. Nixon, propelled to the National Stage as a Communist slayer, was chosen as General Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952 and served eight years as Vice-Present. He would later go on to be elected and reelected President of the United States.
The Pink Lady who, more than anyone, propelled Nixon’s meteoric rise, would spend the remaining few decades of her life as a bitter, humorless troglodyte- like Dickens’ Miss Havisham. She became enveloped in a black cloaked, self-consumed, downward spiral of hatred toward both America and its people. Over time, the public seemed to forget who she even was or for that matter, care about the issues she advocated for. Media interest in her ebbed profoundly.
Gahagan-Douglas: In her prime (L) and shortly before her death (R).
On the eve of Ronald Reagan’s historic election as President, The Pink Lady died a lonely death in despair. Most Americans had forgotten who she was and few took the time to read even the modest obituary space, afforded her passing, on the very most back pages of their daily newspapers.
Prior to her unheeded demise, she had become a recluse. She remained holed up in her Manhattan Co-Op Apartment- a modern Norma Desmond, ready for her close up but lacking any takers.
She had moved as far away from California as she could, the state whose people had so wounded her frail amour propre in their overwhelming rejection of her as an Actress, Politician and even as a person. She was said to be broken in spirit and perpetually angry at the ignorant and unwashed masses of voters who always seemed quick to reject her and her various Leftist causes or issues de jour. “Those dumb, ignorant voters,” she would sometimes be heard mumbling under her breath, as she stumbled listlessly around her apartment in her threadbare, rumpled and often dirty, pink bathrobe. Others during her last years, including her housekeeper, reported her as often muttering incoherently, to herself, “They’re all racists you know! All of them!”
Editor’s Introduction: In 2016, a Reddit story posted by user, u/Jermmz77,exploded across the internet. It was this true story, reprinted word for word below, of a young man who traveled across the country to visit Slab City.
Slab City is a former military base, located in Southern California’s Sonoran desert, that was taken over by the dregs of society many years ago. It’s Liberal to Left-Wing proponents prefer to portray it as a majestic, if not utopian world, inhabited by the type of principled, incorruptible souls who would prefer drop out of our unscrupulous, materialistic, and dog-eat-dog society, rather than participate in it. “The last free place on Earth,” they call it. Really? It’s been deceivingly puffed as a type of year round “Burning Man Lite” for the impoverished. Those naive simpletons who swallow this bait, soon become disillusioned after entering the Big Slab. Hence the oft repeated joke: “What has twenty-four legs and nine teeth?” Punchline: “The first dozen residents you meet in Slab City.”
The unpleasant truth is that Slab City has always been a weigh station for society’s undesirables. It’s lawless, anything goes reputation draws in the most unsavory of our societal bottom feeders. Included too, are the harmless, as well as gullible, young people, in search of a 1960s style, hippiesque redux. Those hapless thrill seekers, drawn by the illusory lure of free love, peace and drugs, often experience a “bad trip.” I’m not just referring to the unsatisfactory acid, they pop there. When snakes drop LSD they undoubtedly hallucinate about being surrounded by the human inhabitants of Slab City. For every one hirsute, young, free spirit in search of the ultimate hootenanny, there are at least four other hardened Slab inhabitants who have either: a) done serious prison time; b) been committed to a metal hospital; c) are presently wanted fugitives from justice; d) look like they could be cast as the antagonist in an 80s style slasher movie; e) all of the above.
Just ask Poe Delwyn Black, an otherwise honorable and altruistic 21-year-old trans man, with a big heart and kind demeanor, who made “the pilgrimage” to the Big Slab in 2021. Oh, wait a minute, I remember now…It’s starting to come back to me…you can’t ask Poe Delwyn Black because, well… he’s dead. Yes, tragically, this nice young man was murdered in Slab City. Hauntingly, young Poe Delwyn Black’s mutilated body, chalked with dozens of stab wounds, was recovered from the same canal, North of the Big Slab, where u/Jermmz77, fled for his life from a crazed mob of Slab residents. This drug frenzied pack of depraved miscreants, with an eerie resemblance to the mutants from the classic film, The Hills Have Eyes, (1977) hunted and stalked u/Jermmz77 like a trophy boar. Of course, the authorities have no promising leads in Poe Delwyn Black’s murder as “nobody saw nothing.” Naturally. News Story here:
Back to the story of u/Jermmz77. You can read for yourself his harrowing account below. Unsurprisingly, the politically correct thought police at Reddit took down his story. Because we stand against this type of Orwellian censorship, we have reprinted his story, word for word and unedited below.
Story follows:
I was hunted in Slab City
A tiny history lesson on Slab City for those that have no idea what it is. I first became aware of it in the Sean Penn directed movie about the life of Christopher McCandless, “Into the Wild”. In Alexander SuperTramp’s (A name Chris chose for himself) travels around the US before ultimately dying in an abandoned bus in Alaska, he spends time at Slab City.
It was originally an army base, it looks peaceful and loving, a hippie utopia. He visits Salvation Mountain. It is a monument right outside of Slab City that was built over the course of 30 years by Leonard Knight. A crazy old Slabber, but full of love like nobody you’ve ever seen. He built it out of Hay bales covered in adobe, items he found in the desert and covered it in over 300,000 cans of paint, all donated. Leonard has since died, and his mountain is a tourist attraction. Without him to do the constant maintenance on his creation, it will slowly crumble to nothing.
I researched the Slabs a bit just out of curiosity. Even thoughhough it is in the damn Imperial desert in California, it has a water source. What I believe to be the Colorado River is redirected along side the Slabs. There is a natural hot spring where these fuckers bathe in each others filthy body stew. There is a makeshift Library, an internet café, a bunch of little social clubs you can join and even a hostel for teenage runaways that takes any sort of miniscule donation. There is a church and they actually feed the Slabbers on Saturday’s. And of course, there is “The Range”. Saturday night’s entertainment. A stage set in front of a hundred of the worst condition couches and chairs you’ll ever see. Have you ever seen a stained couch on the sidewalk with holes and springs poking out and a “free” sign on it? Well, I assure you it ended up at The Range. Anyway, it’s a talent show of sorts. Possibly the only talent it has ever seen was an acoustic song sung by Kirsten Stuart in the movie.
So that’s Slab City. The state of California is trying to sell the land and evict all of the squatters, Snowbirds (retirement age RV’ers) tweakers, criminals, hippies and lowlifes. Had I written this before my actual experience there I would have said they are trying to evict the loving hippie commune that just want a simple life and deserve to have this one forgotten piece of desert. But, I’ve been there and opinions change. So, I figured if I ever want to check out this place before it is sold or Salvation Mountain crumbles to dust, now is the time.
That’s why I went. Just to check it out, camp for a week or so…maybe longer if I liked the vibe. I had enough supplies to last me and my dog for months. Now on with my horror story…
I left on 11/3/15 at 7am with my trusty road dog named Cooper. He is an Italian Greyhound/Pit bull mix. I wanted to get there as fast as possible. New Hampshire to southern California, just over 3000 miles in a Honda Civic with NO radio. I only stayed at 2 Motels long enough to get a full night sleep and took a 3 hour nap at a rest stop. There isn’t much to say about the entire length of the US when you’re rushing through it. I arrived at Slab City on 11/6/15 at 9:30pm having spent only $300 on gas, not bad at all. Being so late at night and as dark as I’ve ever seen, I had no idea where to go. I didn’t want to infringe on someone’s established site. I drove down a dirt road that could shake the bolts loose on your car. I saw a spot I could pull in with nobody around. I got out and looked into the darkness and filled Coopers bowls with food and water. I was expecting to hear people, maybe rowdy people or talking or music, something. It was completely silent, at 9:30pm. NOTHING. I then realized that I am making a lot of noise when A flashlight came on in the distance. I’ve been opening and closing my doors and my dog eating is echoing in the distance. I realize that I’m the asshole.
I was expecting all sorts of noise from these people and it was just me. They have some sort of silence at night rule and I’m breaking it, badly. The flashlight points in my direction so I decide to move on to a new location. Sorry folks, my bad. I continue down the a road with a makeshift street sign that says Coachella Rd. I will camp on this road because it’s so dark and I have NO idea how this place is set up. I pass the library sign and I drive over a mile down this road where nobody is camped, maybe the extreme antisocial and me. I find an empty lot and pull in, turn my car to face the road and arm myself with my hunting knife, just in case.
I open the sun roof and see the galaxy for the first time ever in my life. It was pretty amazing. I just stared at the sky for hours. A truck drove by, stopped at my car and shined a spotlight at me. Maybe to see if it was abandoned? I moved around a bit and it drove off. Finally got some uncomfortable sleep in the drivers seat of my car that couldn’t recline due to supplies stuffed behind it. The next night will be better, right?
The suns rises and there is still a chill in the air. I decide to look for a new spot that has a large enough bush or tree to hide my vehicle and tent from any passersby. I find the perfect spot just a few hundred feet back towards the heart of the City. I pull my car behind a very large bush, set up my 4 man-2 room tent and tie off a tarp to the tree for shade.
Now that I can actually see, this desert is trashed. Sun scorched cans litter the ground, there are tires that have been burned, there is the classic sign of car windows being smashed out, There are lots of female boots that belong in an 80’s hair metal video, there is children’s toys, glass bottles and jars in shapes I’ve never seen before and very old electronics that someone had a serious problem with. Every piece of early technology had its circuit boards ripped out and smashed.
I collected large food cans and empty paint cans. I used them to block off the entrance to my new property line. It is wise not to cross makeshift property lines in the Slabs. Assume everyone is armed, crazy and has a small army of angry dogs.
Now I have to search for this aqueduct. Even in the winter months it gets to be in the 90’s so water is vital. I soon realize that the river is actually across the street from me. I just have to walk a bit into the desert and there it is. Easy access, couldn’t have been better positioned. I won’t have to lug liters of water for miles. There is no way in hell I would ever drink this water straight from the source. I brought a life-straw gravity fed filter and I planned to boil it after that. However, I brought 5 gallons of water with me and wouldn’t need to worry about it for a couple of days.
Now is the time to take a walk into the heart of the city and see what it’s all about. I passed Indian reservations on my way to California that made me sad. Some of the American Indian’s live very poorly in little shanty towns. Well, they were living in the lap of luxury compared to some of these folks. I pass a tarp in a bush that someone calls a ceiling to their home. I pass a dog house for people that’s made out of pallets. I pass two small planks of ply wood that lean against each other to form the most claustrophobic tent I’ve ever seen. You would have to crawl into it and the point of the tent would be inches from your face. “OCCUPIED” spray painted on the side. I’m hoping it’s so nobody scavenges the wood and not because the dude came home one day and someone else crawled into his cubby hole and made it their own.
The further in you go, the more community you start to see. Multiple shacks and broken down vehicles all in close proximity. I pass the signs to the library. I look up the road to see what it looks like and it doesn’t look too inviting. I don’t know what I thought a desert library would look like but I wasn’t expecting pallets, torn tarps and anything else that can almost form a solid wall. MAYBE I’ll check that out later.
I pass the “Internet Café”. For a small donation you can charge your electronics, use the WIFI and they serve coffee in the morning. I’ll definitely stop there today. I start to pass various social clubs. “The Oasis Club” I still don’t know what that’s all about. Then I pass a more sinister looking club. A dark shack with tattered black fabric and tarps blowing in the breezy. It had a very pirate like look to it. The black sign with white lettering read “The Cannibal Club: If you’re not a member, you get eaten”. I hope that’s a joke. Later that night, that sign would bounce around in my head and make me reconsider if it actually was a joke or not.
So with all this extreme poverty and hand built “homes” there is the complete opposite, The Snowbird community. The retirement folks that park for free for the winter before heading out in the spring. RV’s costing $250,000. They stick together and have a pretty good community watch going. They’re old and don’t have much else to do than watch what’s happening around them, plus dogs.
Everyone I pass on the road is friendly. A smile, A wave, A “good morning”. I head back to camp to make some breakfast and charge my phone. I don’t get a signal but I would play some app games to pass the time until dusk when The Range starts drawing people in. I charge my phone for about 30 minutes using my car. 5%-in 30 minutes. This is not good and a waste of gas, so I decide to head back to the internet café, charge up, leech some WIFI and mingle with the natives. This is where I do everything wrong and make myself a nice juicy target for at the very least robbery, an ass kicking and quite possibly murder.
There is a dog problem at the slabs. It seems everyone has at least one and many have giant packs of dogs. I’m talking 10-20 dogs and they all go bat shit crazy as you walk pass. Don’t expect anyone to tell their dog to Sssshhhh or even attempt to restrain it as it follows you down the road growling and making advancements toward you. My poor dog Cooper (the only leashed dog in the slabs) is not an aggressive dog at all. He’ll warn me if someone approaches but he generally loves all people and doesn’t know how to deal with packs of dogs growling and showing their teeth to him.
I arrive at the internet café which is a small camper with a shaded addition built on, Couches and power outlets. I walk to the gate where I hear people talking. I ask who is in charge and how this place works. An old bearded man tells me they accept donations. I’m always generous, I can’t help it. I step inside and a cloud of deer flys lifts off the occupants. I was not prepared for that, these people gave zero shits that they were covered in flys. I can’t help swatting the fuckers away and that was very out of place here. The older gentleman tells me I can put my dog in the pen behind the shack. I check it out and there is a large crazy looking female pit bull in there. Her owner tells me she can be really bitchy sometimes but encourages me to feed my dear dog to it. I decline.
Besides the nice old man, there is a woman in her late 40’s knitting mushroom shaped lighter holders that hang from your neck. Weird but what did I expect? There is a dreadlocked Hippie chick in her early 20’s. She is mildly pregnant and actually quite beautiful. She is a Slab City 10 or a real world 6.5 Beside her curled up in fetal position with his head on her lap is her filthy bearded boyfriend. He is much too stoned to do anything at all but lay there. There is a dreadlocked drifter looking kid in his early 20’s. He sits silently by himself never saying a word. So I offer my donation to the old man. I hand him a crisp $20. I was not expecting the reaction but he basically told me I can use their service forever and he is used to 10 cent donations for the week. And with that single stupid move on my part, I set off a chain of events.
I plug in my phone and sit on the couch and shoot the shit with the old man and the knitting lady. All very easy conversation. They tell me a bit about them and ask me a bit about me. Where are you from? what made you come here? how long are you going to be here? It all flowed as natural conversation and I’m an idiot. So after a while of talking the drifter kid gets up and leaves. I forgot he was even there. Oh yeah, 8 phones charging by solar panel while the old dude uses his lap top is not a quick thing. I’m going to be here for hours. Then I start noticing the preggo chick keeps looking at me with a strange expression on her face. At the time I took it as her being super high and me looking so out of place. First off, I am clean. No dirt, no holes in my shoes, a dog on a leash, a nice phone, my arm tattooed with a sleeve that obviously cost a shit ton of money. Thinking back to her expression, I think she knew I fucked up and she taking in the details of someone that is going to have something horrible happen to him.
10 or so minutes after the silent dreadheaded drifter kid leaves, in pops a new drifter kid. Early 20’s as well. Tall and lanky. Blonde hair covering one of his eyes. I know this is shocking but everyone I have been near did not have any sort of over powering odor. Maybe the constant breeze kept the stinks away, who knows…but this kid stunk like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. I can only describe it as sweaty unwiped ass and rotting potatoes. Everything about him was a bad sign. He had a large knife on his side. He had a rat face. He had toes poking out through his shoes. He had muck caked to his clothes. In contrast to my professional tattoo, he was covered in words and doodles that looked like he took pen ink and a hypodermic needle and went to town on himself. But that smell, it was unforgivable.
I can’t remember what he said to me. I just remember him saying “Hey we have to give the new guys a hard time, ya know” He sits on the couch and my lovable dog isn’t loving this kid at all. He gives the kid a serious look for a second. Rat face says something to the effect of “I wouldn’t think about it dog, I have a (I can’t remember what kind of dog he said, but he said it’s the best hunting dog in the world and she can track anything) she might be smaller than you but she’s stronger”.
This kid gives me the creeps, and my dog too. Thankfully an ancient man with a walking stick enters looking like a thousand year old scarecrow and freaks the fuck out of Cooper. He goes into a barking panic, thankfully not giving the man a heart attack but definitely startling him. I use this as my cue to get the fuck out of there. I leave my phone to charge and say I’ll be back later for it. The café boss says ok, not a problem and says he’ll see me at The Range and tells me it starts filling up as soon as the sun begins to set. I apologize to the old scarecrow but he doesn’t even acknowledge me.
I head back to camp to get my car and hopefully my phone will be mostly charged when I stop off at the café before heading to Salvation Mountain. I hike my mile back to camp, explore the desert a bit and then head out to grab my phone and see the mountain. I arrive back at the Café to find nobody there. That’s ok with me. My phone is still charging thankfully. I pick it up and it is at 73% good enough for me.
I drive down to Salvation Mountain which I should have seen on my way into Slab City but it was so dark, even my headlights didn’t allow me a glimpse of it. To my surprise there was about 100 people at the mountain. Not typical Slabbers, none actually. Tourists from all over the world. Lots of beautiful Asian girls, photographers and families. I didn ‘t know until later but it was Leonard Knights birthday. The photos of this place are nothing special, it looks like a mess. It looks small but it looks interesting. In person it is actually much more impressive. Tunnels, caves, nooks, all painted with odd sculptures. Leonard gave over 600,000 tours of his mountain in his life time and every last person sought him out. That’s pretty impressive for a dude living in the desert. I may also be exaggerating that number, but it’s something ridiculous like that.
It’s getting late and I want to check out the night’s entertainment at The Range. I park my car back at camp and decide to walk to the festivities. I pack a small bag with a flashlight, a dog bowl and a bottle of water. I fill a 20 oz. bottle about 1/3 the way with rum and the rest with coke. Off we go.
It’s already dark, I didn’t plan my timing very well. We are confronted by packs of dogs. It seems in the dark they are even worse. Luckily none attacked and Cooper didn’t provoke them, scary either way.
We arrive at The Range and cars are parked all over. All the couches are filled and people are standing in groups all around chatting. I decide to stand way in the back because there are dogs everywhere and I don’t want Cooper to cause a disturbance.
A 20 something dark skinned girl gets on the mic and says that they will be featuring a 45 minute documentary about Leonard Knight because it was his birthday…who knew? It was fairly interesting. The guy was obviously crazy but completely harmless. I was expecting him to be some sort of icon to the slabbers but most paid no attention and many just talked through it and smoked whatever their drug of choice was.
There was a handful of people standing in the back with me. The girl on the mic came up to me and asked me to sit on the couch. I explained that my dog is freaked out and I don’t want to be a distraction. She says it’s ok and insists I sit in the back row. Fine, whatever. She didn’t ask anybody else to take a seat.
I sit down beside a man that looks like your typical filthy bearded bench sleeping bum. Cooper immediately liked him, in fact he was the only person that Cooper acted like his normal self around. That instantly made him cool with me. We talked for a bit and it was a cool conversation. I took a swig from my rum and Coke and then offered it to the bum. “It’s all yours, Buddy” He was very thankful. I don’t think he receives much kindness for no reason. He chugged that bottle in an instant. I made it potent and said it was so good.
A group of dogs comes by and start freaking Cooper out. I hold his leash tight and keep him close. The guy to my right says I need to just let them work it out. Let them fight, they usually stop. Then he tells me about a pit bull that he just beat to death with a bat because it wouldn’t stop. What the fuck kind of person says that nonchalantly like it happens all the time to a person they don’t know?
Now that guy gets up and leaves…good. But the dreadhead drifter and the rat faced ass scented drifter kid both come and sit right beside me. They say hi to the bum and he says hi back in a subdued, don’t talk to me sort of way that for whatever reason instantly put me on high alert.
I started to become hyper aware of everything. Dreadhead kid gets up after 2 minutes and heads to a group of people to my left. Ass scented kid gets up a minute later and heads to a group of people to my right. My heart starts pounding because I suddenly feel like I need to get out of here quick.
I stand and put on my dark blue jacket because it’s getting chilly. The bum looks at me with worry in his eyes and says “you be real careful on your way back to camp ok” I smiled and said “I’ll see you again”. Trying to play off the sudden realization that something bad is going to happen if I don’t hide fast. I hop off the platform the couches are on and walk calmly. As soon as I am around the corner and out of sight, I start sprinting in absolute darkness.
I take my hunting knife out of its sheath. I don’t know the layout. This is not the place you want to suddenly run onto someone’s spot. I get off the road immediately and try to find cover. About 2 minutes after I start running, 3 cars come speeding out of the lot where everyone was parking. I duck behind a bush and hold Cooper down. All of the cars branch off in different directions. We run when we can and duck as the cars turn around whip up and down these little side streets of dirt. We duck behind another bush but Cooper is freaked out by how frantic I am and backs out of his harness. And that’s it, he sprints like the Greyhound he is into the darkness.
This is not good but I can’t call for him and I still need to be on the move as more cars are driving around. Off in the distance are city lights, an actual city. That is the only direction I can go as I will be running off into harsh desert in any other direction. Those lights are my goal.
I know the nearest city is 5 miles away and I need to get there. There are also three towers of red lights flashing. I thought they were a truck stop, A boarder patrol check point or something with normal people. I would later find out that they mark the stopping point for freight trains. But for now I don’t know what they are but that’s where I need to go.
I start running towards these lights and find myself trespassing. Dogs bark as an alarm that I’m in the area. A man comes out yelling “you better get out of here” He then shines a light on me and starts yelling “There he is, there he is” He then proceeds to start barking himself setting off all the other dogs in the area. I try to zig zag my way out of the light while running as fast as I can. In full sprint, suddenly the earth drops out from under my feet. I slam face first into some sort of ditch. I lose my knife, my phone, my car keys and now have a mouthful of desert sand.
The cars are now coming toward me, they know where I am. No time to feel around for any of my shit. I still grip Coopers harness though. I just get up and run. I come to the aqueduct. It’s too wide and fast flowing for me to attempt crossing but I think about it. I lay on the ground and watch the cars to see where they are going. I notice one cross over this river. So there is a bridge across. A wait for that car to gain some distance and I cross the bridge into open desert and the city I need to reach.
I come across a canal. Thick trees line it but it looks like I can jump mostly across to the other side. I jump in and realize it’s a thick muddy swamp. Why does this exist here? I climb the embankment and the crusty dirt just crumbles making it hard to climb and also leaving a very big sign that I was there. I discard Coopers harness. I should have left it in the swamp, instead I left it on the bank. I’m making terrible decisions left and right.
I see a flash light bobbing in the distance at this point. I run a bit into the distance and throw myself to the ground behind a bush. I catch my breath for a moment and watch the light. He is walking along the canal and sure enough, there’s a huge disturbance in the mud and a dog harness. His flash light starts blinking repeatedly. And here come the cars. I watch them set up at each side road lighting up the roads so I’ll be seen if I cross.
There are many more cars now. 3 with lights pointing straight down the dirt roads and a few more pointed into the desert. I now see a bright yellow LED light with one of the cars. I army crawl for a bit but it’s slow and is destroying my knees and elbows. I then employ the barrel roll technique. It doesn’t hurt but I can only go so far before getting dizzy as shit. I roll my way to a clearing where there is no brush, no bushes and no trees.
The light bobs towards me but I still can’t judge how far it is. I lay still on the ground hoping I’ll just look like anything other than a person. I’m positioned so I can look down my chest, passed my feet and directly at the light.
Then I start to hear the crunch of the footsteps. This guy is very close. I make the decision to make a run for it again. If I can get to some more cover I might be able to hide. I roll to my chest, up to my knees and run in a half crouch directly straight from the light hoping that I can gain a bit of distance before he can really make out that it’s me. That doesn’t work out too well. I run to bushes, dive in and look back to see if I was spotted.
Now I see the flashlight bobbing and a green LED light is shining. Immediately I understood the significance of the LED’s. Cars start changing their positions. I start rolling to my left. I am so disoriented at this point. Dizzy, thirsty and my throat is scratched raw from sand, I can barely swallow. I lay behind a bush for a while and watch. The single flash light turned into 3 and there is now a group of 8-10 walking shoulder to shoulder, moving very slowly, like a rescue team looking for a missing person. I will stay as far from that group as possible. I hear someone make a wolf call in the distance. It sounds like a younger voice so I blame it on the rat faced shit kid. Then I remember what he said about his hunting dog, She can track anything. I then decided that should get into some water for a bit in case this dog is with them.
At this time I hear a roar coming from the distance. I have no idea what it is but it is big and it is moving fast. It’s a freight train and it passed in front of the cars that were lighting up the desert. I jump to my feet and sprint for as fast as I can. This is a long train. It gave me about a full minute to run before I had to dive into some more shrubs. I noticed the train stopped at the towers with the red flashing lights. I believe there is civilization just beyond these tracks or maybe I can hop onto a train or maybe I can alert a conductor or one of those patrol guys that look for train hoppers.
I roll back to the swamp canal again. I have a pretty good idea of where everybody is due to the utter darkness I’m crawling around in and their only hope of finding me is using those flashlights. I can’t judge the distance but I can’t here the crunching of footsteps either. I roll down the embankment of the swamp canal and stay in the water for a good distance. I am so thirsty and my throat so torn up that I say fuck the parasites and other bullshit, I need to hydrate and clear my esophagus if I plan to keep going. I lift handfuls of muck water to my face and slurp away. I manage to drink some but every swallow is agony.
Because I stopped to drink, my feet sunk deeply into the sediment. As I lifted my feet to move on, my shoes were sucked right off my feet. I didn’t even care. Because I was in the canal, I can longer see any of the lights so I don’t know if they are closing in on me or if the splashing and sloshing of water is drawing their attention. I just have no idea.
I move forward as fast as I could while fighting the suction and plants that are constantly holding me back. It then dawns on me that unless I fully submerge myself, this may not cause a hunting dog to lose my sent. I say fuck it and climb up the side of the embankment opposite of the side I rolled in. I catch my breath for a few moments and peek my head down the road both ways. I can see a car is parked on the road in the direction I just came from, headlights pointing in the direction I want to move. I look to the flashing red lights and I can see a row of vehicles have parked along the train tracks and their headlights are all facing into the desert. My way is blocked. I can’t tell exactly how many cars there are but I can’t get through.
They are evenly spaced and close enough that I can’t even consider moving closer to my escape route. I see that the red tower cars have a yellow LED. They know I’m at least in the area. I sit and watch the foot patrols for a while.
I’m amazingly calm considering that I am pretty sure that I’ll be found at some point. I am cornered into this area. They just haven’t found me YET. I think about Cooper and if he got attacked by a pack of dogs or caught by a crazy guy that will bash his head in. I think about my family and how I haven’t been the greatest person in the world lately.
I actually pray for a minute, I am not religious at all. Hands in classic pray formation “Please, if I live through this I’ll be better”. What the fuck, it couldn’t hurt. I then started to plan out what I would do when I actually was found. Should I try reasoning with them? “Good chase guys, you win…I’ll show you to my camp, take it all, just let me go please” or would I just bum rush the first person and go down swinging assuming that I would be attacked anyway and what do I have to lose?
I hear a car coming down the road that runs parallel to the canal I’m in. It moves slowly and I try to duck even tighter into the embankment. It doesn’t see me and keep going. I then see the patrol of 3 is along side the canal I am in . The flashlights are not bobbing . They are scanning into the canal.
I continue along the canal while clinging to the embankment as best I can. I come to some sort of a concrete tunnel that the water is flowing into and comes out the other side. I climb the structure and move on a bit further. I feel like they must be gaining on me and I need to hide the best I can. I’m struggling through bushes and swamp trees and they have flat ground to walk.
About 30 feet after the concrete water tunnel is some pretty thick bushes and branches. Most likely as good as it’s going to get to hide in. I wind my body through the stick and branches and sit still for a bit. Now they are closer and I can see what they are doing. One guy is pushing branches and sticks aside while the other 2 are scanning the canal. They seem to be very thorough so I have a limited amount of time to hide myself. I crawl deeper into a bush.
They are close now, just beyond the concrete. I can’t risk making any noise so I just sit silently and watch, this is where I’ll be found.
My heart starts pounding again as they are searching the brush and canal right before the concrete tunnel. One guy climbs down onto the tunnel and lights up the canal in the direction they just came from and them toward my direction. And then they left. They just stopped.
I couldn’t risk moving to see where they went so I just stayed put and felt like the luckiest person on the planet.
I can hear the trains every so often. Maybe every 45 minutes, maybe every hour, I have no idea. I am now shivering uncontrollably. I am wet up to my waist and it has to be in the 40’s. I think about a podcast I listened to about a week before leaving. Wim Hof was the guest and he spoke of breathing techniques that allow him to endure freezing temperatures. He climbed Mt. Everest in shorts while shirtless, clearly he knows his shit. I try to use those techniques. Breathe in in in in in in out in in in in in out. It was a nice distraction but it did nothing for my shivers or the cold wet clothes.
Feeling a bit safe I crawl up the embankment for a peek. I don’t see the patrol. The cars are still pointing into the desert. A yellow LED is still on. I see a red LED off in the distance, no sign of a green LED. I can see a flashlight moving back and forth in the air a very short distance. I think someone was on top of a van or camper for a higher vantage point. I crawl back to my safe space.
I think the sun must be coming up soon. They will find me pretty fast when it does. I am wearing all blue and it might be a great color for hiding in the dark but It will stand out like a sore thumb in the desert light.
I crawl further into the bushes and lay on my back all twisted between sticks that have no give. My body cramps up for the awful position. I begin to pull sand and mud and twigs onto my body. I need to cover up as much as possible. I break twigs off the branches all around me and do my best to build some camouflage around me. A little dirt on the face and I’m as hidden as I ever will be.
I don’t know how long I’m there before the sun finally begins to rise. I hear a vehicle coming down the road. Are they leaving or looking? A mother bird decides she doesn’t like me in her bush and starts making so much noise. I would have broken that birds neck if I could reach her. Seriously, She wouldn’t shut the fuck up. Squawking at me while staying out of reach.
The sun is up. I hear nothing. A sit a bit longer. I decide I need to see if they are still searching. I crawl back up the embankment and look left and right. I see nothing. I can now see the towers. To my surprise, there is nothing there. This is just a random place the trains stop? Beyond the tracks are fields, empty fields. No cover at all. And way beyond that is Niland, California. 5 miles away. If I’m going to make a run for it there will be nothing between them and myself for 5 miles.
I know these desert people wake up early because you want to do the physical labor before the cool early sun becomes the hot mid morning sun. So these people have been up for a very long time looking for me. They must be exhausted and wasted quite a bit of resources, Gas and battery power. I felt like they was a decent chance that they think I got away somehow and just went to sleep angry and tired. Time to make my move.
Now, I estimate the train tracks are about 200 yards away. I also suck at judging distance, SO… My plan was to sprint all the way to the tracks and get low to see if anyone spotted me. Well, I ran for about a minute before collapsing to the ground out of breath. I looked back frantically ,scanning the area. I am way outside the actual camping area of the city so I can only see a couple wooden shacks and a camper way off in the distance. I Catch my breath and run again. It took me about 8 bursts of running to make it to the tracks that I planned on running to in one effortless sprint. I did however feel a bit more confident that I wasn’t noticed.
I make it to the road that the cars were lined up on that runs beside the tracks. I cross the tracks and another swampy canal. This whole time pain has not been a concern of mine. A raw throat and a few cramps that I dealt with but my mind was elsewhere. And then came the fields from hell. I have very sensitive feet. I can’t walk on the beach, grass and certainly not a road barefoot. I am never barefoot. Now I find myself wearing wet socks and crossing fields of sun baked soil. The dirt was in baseball sized clumps and felt like walking on lava rocks. These fields never seemed to end and I had to cross 3 industrial sized lots of them. At a certain point I found it easier to smash my heel into the clumps with each step in hopes of turning it to dust. The pain was awful. But I just limped forward. As long as I wasn’t running, I could keep going. After crossing the 3 fields I came to the highway. THANK GOD!!!
The highway way no easier on the feet. This was some rough grave they pave these highways with. I tried flagging down cars, I tried throwing up my praying hand gesture, I tried putting my hand to my head, thumb to ear, pinky to mouth in the international phone sign. I tried everything. Nobody wants to help someone that looks the way I did. Filth head to toe, no shoes, limping.
I can’t blame them for not stopping so I needed a new plan. About a mile down the highway I found a cardboard box that held canned goods. A few hundred steps further and I found a shredded tire from a tractor trailer. I used it to write” PLEASE CALL 911”. This way nobody would have to stop for the psycho looking guy but they can at least call. But nobody did.
I walked 3 more miles showing that sign to every passing vehicle in each direction. I came up to a fence with 3 Mexican guys raking up some debris. I stumbled up to them and asked if they had a cell phone. One of them did and I asked him to call 911…and he did. I collapsed to the ground and sat and waited for my rescue.
The Sherriff arrived. He rolled down his window and asked if I was the one that needed help. Because it wasn’t obvious to him. I said yes and asked if he had any water. He said he’d get me one. The Sherriff stepped out of his SUV vehicle, gave me the water bottle and asked what happened to me. I took a painful swig of the water and the first words out of my dumb mouth were “I was being hunted”. He instantly went into high alert asshole mode. “Hands behind your head, turn around” he grabbed my wrists firmly and began to frisk me. He yelled out to the Mexicans “Did this guy threaten you?” the replied “no, he needed help”. “YOU’RE SURE YOU DIDN’T FEEL THREATENED?” “yes”.
That was all of the story he ever wanted to hear. He asked me what drugs I smoked. I told him I never smoked anything in my life other than weed and I haven’t even smoke that in 6 months. He said he didn’t believe me and I’m not telling him everything. Which is funny because he didn’t let me tell him anything at all. I volunteered for a drug test to prove it. He said we don’t have time for that. He said in the biggest asshole attitude he could muster “What do you want me to do?” I said, file a police report. “And what will that accomplish?”
At this point I just thought fuck it and asked if he could drive me to my camp so I could retrieve my wallet. He said yes and implied that he would leave me there. I told him if he was going to leave me there that I’d rather not go. He really wanted to see my ID, so he said depending how things go, he’d bring me back to Niland to call for a tow truck.
On the way to Slab City, he was running my name, SSN, address and all that and kept asking the same questions in different ways. I AM NOT HIGH. I told him exactly why I was there and how long I was staying. He was getting pissed off because he couldn’t hear me. Sorry asshole, I ate sand and my voice is destroyed but you don’t want to know anything about that. (no, I did not say that to him)
We arrive at my camp and he sees my tin can barrier and tells me I have been here way longer than a day. I guess my 15 minutes of gathering cans that litter the area cannot be done in a single day. To my surprise and relief, Cooper is at the camp. Amazing! He approaches me with his head hung low. Poor guy, he didn’t do anything wrong. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t stay hidden if he didn’t escape.
I give him my ID and he runs it again. No warrants, no jail time, no nothing…happy asshole? At a certain point on the ride to town he comes around and realizes that I’m not a tweaker. He starts being much nicer to me and offers the number to 3 tow truck companies and a lock smith to make a new key. Hell, he even called my mother the next day to check on me and see if I was ok and the car got towed. I’m just bitter about the ¾ of the way he treated me and the fact that he didn’t even want to hear my story even after he realized I am not a meth head or high on anything.
The tow truck guy told me he picks of vehicle from Slab City all the time and he doesn’t go there unarmed. He said he had to pick up a camper with a dead man in the back and while he was pulling away, 2 men were trying to get into the camper to loot it. He had to tell them he called the police and scare them off with a pipe. Lovely place.
So, moral of the story…
I’m a dumbass and Slab City is free of charge, free from the law and is truly the last free place in America AND IT SUCKS!
$300 Supplies to spend up to a month camping in Slab City plus what I already had
$300 gas to drive to California from New Hampshire
$150 motel rooms
$30 fast food
$600 Samsung Galaxy lost to the desert
$150 new cheap ass Android phone
$150 hunting knife lost to the desert
$250 tow to nearest city
$250 locksmith (2 days to make key)
$210 motels
$50 food
$300 gas from California to New Hampshire
My nightmare cost me a grand total of $2740 for 9:30pm Fri- 7:00am Sun
John Wayne Preferred to Handle his Communist, Would-Be Assassins Himself
Nobody knows exactly how many people were sent to their deaths by Joseph Stalin. Many objective historians put the minimum number at 60 million. Most Russian researchers, who have examined the once top-secret Soviet archives, agree with the 60 million minimum figure. Stalin, like most people who become Communists or Socialists, had significant psychological problems. He was a paranoid man who saw enemies everywhere and who could not tolerate opposing viewpoints- even when those viewpoints were proven to be correct. Sound familiar? Every part of pre-Soviet, Russian history which was in conflict with his communist ideology had to either be revised, publicly repudiated or eliminated from history books altogether. Gee, I’m glad this doesn’t happen anymore.
Stalin was the man who famously said, “a single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.” In the mass murder department, Stalin dwarfed Hitler’s six million murders which amounted to little more than a so-so calendar year for the Soviet dictator. While Hitler preferred to finish off his victims with poisonous gas, Stalin believed his victims should first be tortured then, placed in gulags or “work camps” under minimal rations until they died from starvation, disease or the regular beatings the condemned received from NKVD camp guards. Stalin’s view was that the condemned should be of use to the Communist state as they were slowly killed off- men, women, their children and the elderly.
Joseph Stalin was a huge fan of American western movies and would often have the latest American Western films rushed into the Soviet Union the USSR’s best actors would hastily dub over the dialogue in Russian. He would often keep his underlings such as Nikita Khrushchev, Gregory Malenkov and the incredibly evil head of the Soviet secret police, Lavrentiy Beria, with him until the wee hours watching American Western movies.
After each movie, Stalin would critique the film, to his underbosses, for both for its political content and artistry. He saw himself, like a Western movie hero. As a protector who, after gunning down his antagonist, rode off into the sunset, content with having saved the day.
When Soviet filmmaker and Communist Party member, Sergei Gerasimov, attended a so called “peace conference” held in New York City in 1949, he learned about John Wayne and his anti-communist beliefs from other American Communists who had organized the event. These American communists, knowing that Gerasimov had Stalin’s ear, told the Soviet filmmaker to relay to Stalin that, “something needed to be done with John Wayne.” Communist all over the world despised Wayne for his film characters who represented the American values of freedom, self-reliance and the individual over the collective. Wayne himself was an outspoken critic of both communism and its ugly, evil twin- socialism.
Knowing that Stalin admired Wayne, when Gerasimov returned to the Soviet Union he immediately told the dictator about John Wayne. Stalin became furious over Wayne and his films were banned in the USSR theresfter. Interestingly enough, Stalin continued to have Western films brought into the Soviet Union for his viewing which starred the likes of Randolph Scott, Tim Holt, Tex Ritter, Gene Audrey and even Ronald Reagan. In a strange twist of fate, that neither Stalin nor anyone else could have predicted, it would later be Reagan who as the US President, would place the Communist empire of evil onto the ash heap of history.
Stalin seethed for weeks over the revelation about John Wayne. Stalin himself had identified with Wayne more so than any other cinematic Western hero. Soon, a plan was put in place. Stalin ordered Beria to dispatch NKVD assassins to California to assassinate Wayne. Stalin also involved local American Communist Party members, who were accustomed to taking their orders from Moscow, to assist. Local American communist cells in Southern California had already been threatening Wayne as well as other anti-Communist movie stars such as Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, Randolph Scott and Bob Hope.
According to Michael Munn, a film historian and author of “John Wayne — The Man Behind The Myth,” Wayne learned of the plan through FBI agents. Other sources corroborate Munn’s claim with some indicating that Wayne first laughed them off saying, “they wouldn’t dare.” Finally, when FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover personally telephoned Wayne about the plot, an annoyed Duke told Hoover, “Let them come. I’ll take care of them on myself!”
Wayne was quite serious. He was appalled by the notion that he needed the government’s help in dispatching what he referred to as, “some communist scum.” Unlike traditional actors who can affect different characters, physical traits and accents, John Wayne was merely a performer who simply portrayed himself, as he really was, on film. Wayne or “Duke” as he was fondly referred to by his industry peers, was every bit the man’s man he portrayed on the silver screen. The sharp shooting former USC football star felt he could handle the Red assassins on his own. “Besides,” Duke said, “The FBI will be far nicer to those Communist bastards than I will be.
The communist assassins, first sent to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico, eventually made their way into the United States through the porous and largely unguarded Mexican/US border. Some things just never change. Wayne kept in touch with the FBI and some of his stuntman friends (Wayne himself performed his own film stunts) infiltrated various Communist Party cells in the Los Angeles area at Wayne’s request. These plants were able to provide Wayne with even more intelligence that the FBI.
According to Munn’s book, Wayne and tough guy Hollywood scriptwriter, Jimmy Grant, were waiting for the Communist assassins who were assisted in their murderous plot by local American Communist Party members. When the Soviet NKDV killers made their way onto Wayne’s property, the Duke and Grant got the drop on them. Other sources, apart from Munn, say Wayne disarmed the Soviets then, “roughed them both up pretty good.” Duke was amused over how the communist agents cowered before him.
Wayne and Grant tied up the two assassins and placed them in the trunk of Duke’s car. The pair drove their would be assassins, under cover of a moonless night, to a deserted section of the Southern California coast. On a deserted beach, Duke and Grant staged a mock execution. Duke laughed over how the supposedly Soviet tough guys pleaded for their lives- as so often most Communists do near the point of their demise. Wayne decided he had had enough amusement from the bungling assassins and called one of his FBI contacts who picked up the beaten and embarrassed pair. Munn explains, in his book that the NKDV assassins chose to stay in the United States and work with the FBI. I suppose after seeing America, in all it’s abundance, it must have been an easy choice for them to make. It appeared that not even Soviet NKDV agents would want to return to their communist homeland after seeing how well people lived in these United States. The NKDV agents were also instrumental in identifying American Communist traitors within the United States.
Yet, as Munn’s book points out, there would be more communist plots to kill Wayne. The book also explains how Soviet agents tried to assassinate John Wayne on the set of 1953’s Hondo in Mexico. After the Russian assassins failed, a group of American communists, from a cell within the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, also failed in their later attempt. Still later, as Duke visited soldiers and Marines in Vietnam during the 1960s, where he was enthusiastically received by the G.I.s, a captured North Vietnamese sniper claimed that he was hired by communists to take the actor out on his visit to troops there. Duke, was again amused to hear of these incidents and seemed saddened that the government got to his would be killers, “before I could have some fun with them.” Liberals forever hated Duke for his criticisms of Communism which they undoubtedly recognized as being too similar to their own dysfunctional views. Lenin praised socialism as the pathway to communism while recognizing that Western liberalism was the pathway to socialism.
Shortly after his inauguration, in late January of 1981, newly minted President Ronald Reagan began a series of meetings with key advisors and administration officials. The subject of these meetings concerned the formation of Reagan’s plan to bring down the communist and totalitarian Soviet Union. Reagan understood the innate flaws of both communist ideology and the application of Marxist principles in governance. In short, Reagan realized that Communism, like it’s watered down siblings- socialism and liberalism, simply doesn’t work. He was aware of the severe problems adherence to communist doctrine had visited upon the people of the Soviet Union and it’s Eastern European allies. Namely, the harsh and massive shortages in food and housing as well as the the stores, all across the nation, which were bare of basic consumer goods. Much like we see in the few remaining communist countries in the world today: Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.
Reagan told his advisors and select cabinet secretaries that the status quo, of perpetual proxy wars while the Communists and Free world remained locked in a high stakes cold war, was unacceptable. Further, that Communism was a evil system and that the United States should focus on victory over the the USSR as opposed to an antagonistically tense Cold War status quo. The new Reagan policy toward the Soviet Union and it’s communist allies represented a radical break from break past administrations which had settled for mere coexistence and, in some cases, appeasement.
Reagan proclaimed that Marxism-Leninism would be left on the “ash heap of history.” On March 8, 1983, with his program to bring down the Soviets having already been placed into action, Reagan proclaimed in his famous “Evil Empire” speech, “I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written.”
This speech was given by Reagan a year after Reagan’s covert attack to bring down the USSR was initiated. As Reagan defense secretary Casper Weinberger would later say, “We adopted a comprehensive strategy that included economic warfare, to attack Soviet weaknesses. It was a silent campaign, working through allies and using other measures. It was a strategic offensive, designed to shift the focus of the superpower struggle to the Soviet bloc, even the soviet union itself.” It was a bold plan. A stroke of genius on Reagan’s part.
The objectives and particulars of the offensive were set forth in a series of highly classified national security decision directives (NSDD) from Reagan to the applicable agency and department heads. NSDD-66 mandated that it would be the policy of the United States government to, “disrupt the Soviet economy by attacking a strategic triad of critical recourses that were deemed vital for the Soviet Union’s survival. The plan also called for direct covert action against the Soviet Union and it’s allies worldwide.
On the military side, the United States, under Reagan’s directives revamped it’s military with new equipment, vehicles, tanks and aircraft. This entire transformation of the United States military also included new systems which were significantly more technologically advanced than their counterparts in the Soviet Union. Reagan also directed the deployment of intermediate range nuclear missiles to US military bases in western Europe. These military advancements and deployments alone, sent the Soviet leaders into a panic and and caused them to divert significant resources from their civilian populace in a desperate attempt to keep up with the Reagan’s new American military. This worsened the USSR’s economic woes.
The Reagan offensive to take down the Soviet Union included the following:
The covert financial, intelligence and logistical support to the anti-communist Solidarity movement in Poland.
Heavy financial support to the Afghan rebels fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan.An orchestrated campaign to dramatically devalue the Soviet currency by driving down the price of oil and working with NATO allied countries to limit Soviet natural gas imports.
A sophisticated and detailed psychological operation to to fuel indecision and fear among Soviet leaders.
A worldwide campaign to limit Soviet access to high technology.
A widespread technological campaign designed to disrupt the Soviet economy.
An aggressive high-tech revamping and build-up of the US military which caused the USSR to severely strain and ultimately, exacerbate it’s resources. This included the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
Reagan’s plan succeed and had put the USSR and it allies on their heels within six years of the plan’s implementation. Yet, liberals are still fond of saying the hackneyed slogan, “Gorbachev ended the Cold War, not Reagan.” Yet, many of the Soviet leaders of the era seem to take strong exception to theh liberal slogan pertaining to their demise.
General Oleg Kalugin, an unrepentant communist and KGB leader said, “American (Reagan’s) policy in the 1980’s was a catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Yevgenny Novikov, another communist and former senior staff member of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee said that Ronald Reagan’s policies toward the USSR “were a major factor in the demise of the Soviet system.”
Communist and former Soviet Foreign Minister, Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, told a conference at Princeton University that Reagan policies such as the Strategic Defense Initiative accelerated the decline of the Soviet Union.
In the fall of 1990, at a conference, organized in Moscow, which was put on at Harvard’s Kennedy School, liberals filled the hall to hear Communist officials from the former Soviet Union speak on the future of the new Russian Federation as well as that of the Communist ideology. Naturally, Ted Kennedy and some of his you his younger relatives were present. All through the audience, liberals were sadly lamenting the death of Communism and the fact the United States would now go unchecked in world affairs. To those liberals, as well as the liberals of today, the real enemy isn’t totalitarian Marxism but, the United States itself. Somber liberal voices could be heard, throughout the hall, trying desperately explain away the collapse of the Communist bloc countries.
“Really, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries only failed because they were not true representations of Socialism or Communism,” said a Harvard student with a straight face.
“Communism had done so much for the poor and oppressed masses in Europe,” professed a saddened leftist women who conveniently forgot to recall the 60 million murdered by Soviet and Eastern Bloc governments as well as the millions more who were enslaved in the various gulags.
Many in the crowd were simply looking for excuses for the USSR’s demise as well as assurances that there was still a future for Communism in our world. Thus, this progressive crowd was rocked to their core when when former leading communist and key Soviet economist Boris Pinsker took to the podium to address the crowd of his ideological kissing cousins- the liberal/progressive crowd in attendance.
The lefty American crowd warmly applauded Comrade Pinsker as he was introduced and walked up to the podium. At last we will learn the real reason for the collapse of the Communist governments and learn about the road map back the Socialism, the crowd seemed to collectively think to itself. They would soon be disappointed.
After a few introductory remarks, the former Soviet economist cut to the chase.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Pinsker began to speak through his Russian accent, “If it had not been for the Reagan defense buildup and if the United States had not demonstrated it’s willingness to stand up for freedom by devoting considerable sums of money to defend it, I would not be sitting here today having a free and open discussion between Russians and Americans. Ronald Reagan and his policies brought down my country and it’s strategic allies in Eastern Europe.” There was a brief pause as the liberal/progressive audience members looked at each other in frantically perplexed ways. Then it began. They hissed and then booed their erstwhile ideological ally. Some yelled out, “No!” Pinsker continued through the ruckus, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, ladies and gentlemen but, Ronald Reagan’s policies ruined our great Socialist experiment. I was, after all there.” The liberal audience continued to boo and hiss- now even louder. Select audience members bellowed out disparaging remarks. Ted Kennedy shook his head disapprovingly. Harvard professors wore looks of scorn. Another former Communists official, on the panel spoke out, “He speaks the truth!” More jeers from the audience followed. The scene recalled one of Ronald Reagans more famous sayings, “A liberal is someone who will defend, to their death, your right to agree with them.”
What the former Communist officials failed to realize is that American liberals can’t accept nor afford to have history accurately recorded as it would serve as a repudiation of everything they believe in. Instead of admitting the truth, they instead choose the easier route of distorting and revising historical facts- a tactic they learned well from their ideological bedfellows, the Communists themselves. Reagan himself would not have been surprised by the leftist crowd’s response. He knew all about liberals, socialist and communists from his years in Hollywood.
Reagan started off his adult life as a liberal Democrat- for sixteen years. He saw how Communists infiltrated the major movie studios. How they attempted to place, with some success, Communist ideology into film scripts. How they recruited actors, directors and writers. He witnessed, while serving as President of the Screen Actors Guild, how Communists with the help of their liberal benefactors, sought to take over the actor’s union. When Reagan, still himself a liberal, rebuffed the Communist subversion within his union, they threatened his life and also repeatedly threatened to have someone attack him by throwing acid in his face in order to ruin his successful and highly lucrative career as a screen actor.
It was the fact that so many liberals, in Hollywood, were willing to accommodate, if not overtly promote the Communist cause, that caused Reagan to reconsider his own liberal values. After continued threats of violence from local Communists in the Southern California area, Reagan finally decided to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American activities. Reagan named the names as a friendly witness, and our country and society was better off for it.
As he often shared with his closest advisors, going back to his days as a successful Governor of California, “Liberalism, Socialism and Communism are all headed toward the same place- just at different speeds.” That “same place” was the end of capitalism, free speech, property rights, due process and complete government control of our daily lives. It’s still to this day, the very goal of the Liberal/Socialist/Communist Alliance. Only now, they’re much further along than in Ronald Reagan’s time.
After the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, those formerly enslaved by that tyrannical system tore down monuments to their former oppressors. While this was happening, certain American Leftists were more than happy to salvage some of these memorials to Communism like the one pictured above which was relocated to the more welcoming community of Seattle – where it stands to this day. Rest assured, ANTIFA and BLM will not be tearing down this particular statue of an old, dead white male.
The Naked Communist – Sixty Years On
By William Haupt III – The Center Square
“There is little difference between Socialism and Communism. Both control resources without private enterprise. In both, government has the first and last say on everything.”
– Barack Obama (Criticizing both Socialism and Communism
Those of us who lived through the horrors of the Cold War, ran for cover under our desks when the air raid sirens were tested, and witnessed Cubans on makeshift rafts navigating the Florida Straits escaping to the U.S. can’t fathom why anyone would choose socialism over capitalism? When we see socialist, Bernie Sanders winning primaries and his largest group of supporters is age 30 and under, we wonder how can history repeat itself so easily, in our own lifetime; in a country like ours?
We were reminded daily of the evils of communism and socialism by parents, teachers, ministers and rabbis. TV reporters fed us a constant diet of stories about the struggles and hardships behind the Iron Curtain. Everyday our newspapers would show graphic images and report on the tragedies and cruelty that those living within the Eastern Bloc suffered at the hands of despotic leaders. We feared this would happen to us if we did not vigilantly defend our own liberty here on American soil.
Marxist Vladimir Lenin knew communism would be a tough sell so he turned to socialism to achieve communism. By convincing the gullible and jaundiced they’d collectively control all economic and social resources, he created a new brand of communism – Leninism. In his “State and Revolution”, he wrote:
“…socialism is just the lower phase of communism used to facilitate true communist puerility which is its highest phase. Karl Marx believed socialism was the easiest road to pure communism.”
– Karl Marx
In the early 1960s during the height of the Red Scare, political theorist Cleon Skousen released a shocking book, “The Naked Communist.” It became an immediate best seller around the globe. It was even used as a reference book for the CIA, the FBI, and the White House. It found its way into homes throughout the U.S. and overseas. It was excerpted and translated into seven languages.
Cleon Skousen was an FBI agent, and an adviser to presidents and universities about the dangers of Communist infiltration into our institutions. He lectured in every state in North America and over 60 countries. He was a scholar of law and history and specialized in the U.S. Constitution. In his book he reveals how communists pacifically take control of a nation with progressive engineering.
“Communists possess the fortitude and knowledge to slowly reengineer society.”
– Cleon Skousen
Critics considered Skousen a radical whose theories were extreme since he used analogies and hypotheticals to exemplify how communists and socialists work. Yet this was necessary at a time few Americans realized how they had infiltrated our nation. He illustrates how they maneuver their way into society through the youth of a nation with socialism, which is the precursor to communism. When society one day realizes “how it is now”, is not “how it was” back then, and how it “will be in the future” there is no turning back because their youth will now consider totalitarianism status quo.
His insightful rendering unveils the deceptive nature of communism. It contains a quintessence of over a hundred treatises on socialism and communism written by Marx, Lenin and other socialists. He details how communists and socialists strategically infiltrate an existing political party to achieve their objectives and spread propaganda through spoon-fed information to the media. This was the first time anyone defined how people in capitalist nations are persuaded to choose communism or socialism at the expense of their liberty and freedom.
Skousen shocked America and the rest of the free world, pointing out how easily this is done while few people are aware it is happening to them.
“We must replace individualism with collectivism without society knowing about it.”
– Vladimir Lenin
The book depicts the geopolitical strategy of the Marxist–Leninist Soviets’ plan to take control of all governments outside of the Communist Bloc. With the Cold War raging, this book filled an urgent need to explain modern totalitarianism. People learned the tactics communists and socialists use in political parties, unions and patriotic organizations to gain political and social influence in a society. They assume key leadership roles and slowly introduce anti-democratic dogma and leftist ideology.
Skousen claimed history is proof communists and socialists stick to their tried and true basic and successful tactics within set time-tables to reach their goals. He pointed out that they had already invaded mainstream media and were weakening our nation with passive acceptance of socialism and communism. A key stratagem is to destroy the family to impair the bonding unity that creates and molds character and morality. This will also diminish their interest in Judeo-Christian religions.
His penetrating look into geopolitical future contained 45 communist goals to turn capitalism into a communist-socialist state. We can safely say 40 of them have been achieved in America under the guise of liberalism. Jimmy Carter handed them education when he created the Department of Education in 1979. Now progressives use public schools to indoctrinate our youth with Common Core teaching materials.
“It is essential that we educate the educator so we control how they educate others.”
– Karl Marx
Under Obama’s extensive government social engineering, federalists control our healthcare and support a large underclass. Parents today surrender their siblings to government approved pre-K education. This has dramatically affected family bonding and moral development with our youth. It has limited the augmentation of their Judeo-Christian faith education at home and in schools. As a result of this, fewer young Americans attend weekly family church services than at any time in history.
Cleon Skousen wrote, “A communist’s most vital tool is the media.” Socialists invaded our news rooms during the Cold War to spread acceptance of communism and have moved public opinion to the left since. They skew news on elections to elect leftists and excoriate conservative politicians. They pre-sold Barack Obama and facilitated his re-engineering of our socio-economic architecture. They have done everything in their power to destroy the successful presidency of Donald Trump.”
Whether Cleon Skousen was an insightful political analyst or psychic clairvoyant, his message was perspicacious. He critiqued the formula communists and socialists use to take control of a nation. It’s daunting to see how many of their goals are etched in the U.S. today.
Goal 15 was to “Capture a political party.” We need not look any further than the presidency of Barack Obama and the rise of socialism within the Democratic Party today to validate Cleon Skousen’s warnings 60 years ago. He told us this will happen in America if we fall asleep at the wheel as guardians of our democracy.
Marx told us, “Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical.” This is what the liberal controlled media has done to our political environment, and we have bought into this without cognition. We’ve taken their bait, hook, line and sinker. And now they are ready to finish the job next election.
“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can feed them small doses of socialism, until they awake to find they have true communism.”
Fulgencio Batista made the cover of Time Magazine after his being elected President of Cuba in 1940
He murdered peasants he suspected of disloyalty, ordered mass public executions of thousands of his opponents, dragged long-haired youth off the street and sent them off to work camps, banned free speech and filled the prisons with thousands of those political opponents of his that he didn’t murder outright and his name was Fulgencio Batista? Right?
Wait a minute…hold on…now, I remember…no, no, no – actually it was Batista’s successor who did all of those things and his name was Fidel Castro.
Perhaps if Batista had been as brutal as his successor, Castro, he might have remained in power and ultimately, the people of Cuba would have benefited. He was not – unfortunately for the majority of people living in Cuba. In fact, Batista was rather lenient in dealing with revolutionaries. Exhibit “A,” when the Castro Brothers led their first unsuccessful revolution to overthrow the Batista government, they were sentenced to prison. Later, Castro would summarily (that means without due process of the law) execute people who had done only a fraction of what the Castro brothers themselves had done years earlier. In fact, feeling sorry for the young Fidel and his brother, Batista commuted their sentences and they ended up spending less than two years in prison. That alone, as much as anything, represents the stark differences in styles of governance between Batista and Fidel Castro.
Batista, after winning election in 1940, established a constitution and attracted industries which created jobs for Cuban workers. Before he was illegally ousted from office in a revolution marked by a bloodbath of mass executions, Cubans enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Latin America. The previous fact is undisputed and documented in numerous studies and comparative economic reports from the era.
So, let’s examine the charges against Batista – shall we?
Charge One: Batista was a dictator.
Yes, although first elected, he did later refuse to step down but he was also fighting a subversive revolutionary force. Oh, I almost forgot, Fidel was also a dictator who, unlike Batista, had never been elected to so much as the office of Dog Catcher. I don’t know, point to Batista on this one.
Charge Two: Batista murdered people.
No, not really. Batista himself disliked the death penalty which is why he spared Castro, and those like him, the first time for trying to overthrow his government – a death penalty offense even in the United States.
Further, the court’s system in Cuba worked quite well under Batista and yes, on rare occasions, people were executed in Cuba while Batista was President. However, these were for horrific criminal acts and ordered by courts of law and not by Batista himself- no mass murder (such as was ordered by Castro) to be found here. What can I say? The point goes to Batista – an easy call.
Charge Three: Evil Batista allowed the establishment of large casinos, hotels, night clubs which a) brought in organized crime; b) encouraged prostitution, and c) exploited the workers.
Really? Those casinos, hotels and clubs filled the tax coffers of the Cuban government and helped provide a largely unskilled Cuban workforce with tens of thousands of jobs. The casinos never measured up to Las Vegas but, they were great and, when combined with the pristine beaches and natural beauty of Cuba, they drew millions of tourists who injected nearly a billion dollars into the Cuban economy – a lot of money in the 1950s.
Organized crime you say? Wow, I’m glad there’s none of that in America. If so, what harm did they do? Prostitution you say? Since the dawn of man, there have been prostitutes. There were and are plenty of prostitutes under the Castro dictatorship – still today. For many women, the meager food rations and allowances afforded them, under Castro’s failed Marxist policies, forced them to prostitution. Yes, kinda like what’s happening today in another failed Marxist country, Venezuela.
Finally the accusations that these casinos exploited workers – really? For many casino workers these jobs were the first substantial incomes they ever earned.
Charge Four: Batista allowed Bell Telephone to come into Cuba and set up a monopoly.
Yes, he most certainly did. Bell Telephone was already a monopoly in the United States and the Cuban telephone system was broken-down and unreliable. Batista wanted to modernize and expand the national telephone network that would allow the county to enjoy a single interconnected telecommunications network like the United States. Yes, Bell Telephone did give Batista a gold plated telephone for his office – oooohhhhhhh! For shame! Of course had there been another private telecommunications company capable of doing this, he might considered them but, alas, there were no others.
Charge Five: Batista had people tortured.
Yes, although not quite on the scale of the United States and it’s allies in the Global War on Terror. Certainly nowhere near the size of scope of the the wholesale torture practiced by Castro.
As the revolution progressed, Castro and his Communist friends began murdering private citizens, engaging in theft on a mass scale and engaging in terroristic acts against private and governmental properties and offices. Some relatively limited torture techniques were successfully used to gain useful information in the Cuban government’s defense against the Communist terrorists. Boo Hoo! The poor little terrorist babies!
What these Cuban officials did, at the time, is a relative drop in the bucket to the wide spread murder and heinous campaigns of torture visited upon Castro’s enemies – real or imagined. Since Castro’s gaining power, torture has been and remains widespread in Cuba. In Havana today, there is a giant steel rendering of Che Guevara’s face. It is affixed to the secret police building where anyone who is even suspected of disagreeing with the Castros may be sent to be tortured or, excuse me, “questioned,” by the secret police. In fact, even daring to attempt escape that little hell hole island, by boat or homemade raft, is enough to get one jailed and tortured – oh, excuse me, I mean “taken into custody and questioned.” If Cuba is such a worker’s paradise, why do on average, Cuban-American exhales, living in the United States, earn 29 times as much as the average Cuban who lives in Cuba? Hmm.
Final Thoughts
After the Castro Brothers overthrew the Cuban Government and executed and or tortured tens of thousands of people, the formerly productive corporate and large, large privately owned farms were seized, broken up, and given to the peasants. Yet, they never produced the same amount of food again and Cuba went from being a net exporter of agricultural products to relying heavily on subsidies from the Soviet Union. The factories stop producing and the Cuban GDP went into a free fall. The casinos were emptied out and many thousands thousands lost their jobs or owned tourist dependent businesses that failed. There was mass unemployment and while everyone received a roof over their head and ration cards, the cities were transformed, almost overnight it seemed, into giant slums.
The entire infrastructure began to collapse as there were no longer enough skilled technicians to keep it going. The beautiful modern phone network set up by Ma Bell was mostly dismantled. Fidel didn’t like the idea of widespread phone availability as the phone lines could been used to coordinate resistance to the Castro dictatorship just as the communist rebels had used them against Batista.
Liberals like to blame Communist Cuba’s economic downfall on the United States Embargo. How convenient? The problem was and is that liberals are unwilling to accept the fact that the Cuban system failed not because of the US but because, in the most simplistic of terms, Communism just doesn’t work. It never ever has and never will.
Perhaps liberals have never been able to except the failures of Communism because well, Communism is just a little too close to their own flawed ideology.. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and ask a liberal to explain why Communist country “X” (take you pick) failed? Then, watch them with true knee jerk speed say, “Well, County “X” was never really a true representation of proper socialism.” Go ahead and try it out on a liberal. It works every time.
Paul Harvey is Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
Is wasn’t that long ago when Paul Harvey was a household name in America. Beloved by Democrats and Republicans alike,, he was heard daily on our televisions and radios with his trademark staccato delivery of the day’s news mixed with a little of his commentary. His news and commentary segments were short, to the point and mixed, seamlessly, with commercial endorsements which he read personally. His shows would later incorporate stories of popular historical figures and the obstacles they successfully overcame in their lives.
So popular were Harvey’s commentary’s that the radio division of ABC offered him a $100 Million contract in 2005 to continue broadcasting his daily segments of news and commentary. He was already over 80 years of age at the time.
People would time there breaks at work in order that they could tune in to his five minute afternoon commentaries. These millions of daily listeners were just as likely to include middle-aged Afro-American women as they were white, male construction workers. Americans loved Paul Harvey’s inspirational stories and takes on the news and history. Yet, one small demographic despised Paul Harvey: Those small numbers of people who comprise the radical, atheistic left.
Paul Harvey was always quick to expose those perennial malcontents of the professional left for their frequent efforts to subvert our culture and way of life. Paul knew that to succeed, the left must, by necessity, seek to disguise their true motives and intentions. Paul loved to expose them – to shine the light of truth on their Un-American activities. Paul was a close friend of longtime FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover and worked regularly with him to root out Communist front groups and subversion lurking in academia, Hollywood, television and publishing. In this regard, he became the eyes and ears for loyal, patriotic Americans of all races and religions.
Today, Paul Harvey is still known as a prophet of sorts. In 1965 Paul, a devout Christian, began to toy with the idea of if I were the devil, what strategy and actions would I take, as Satan, to subvert and destroy the most godly nation on earth?
The result is a truly prophetic broadcast delivered that year titled, “If I Were the Devil.” A complete transcript of this broadcast can be found below. When you read it, please keep in mind it was delivered over 50 years ago then think of how much of the “Devil’s” agenda has already been fulfilled.
PAUL HARVEY’S ‘IF I WERE THE DEVIL’ TRANSCRIPT
If I were the devil … If I were the Prince of Darkness, I’d want to engulf the whole world in darkness. And I’d have a third of it’s real estate, and four-fifths of its population, but I wouldn’t be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree — Thee.
So I’d set about however necessary to take over the United States. I’d subvert the churches first — I’d begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: ‘Do as you please.’
“To the young, I would whisper that ‘The Bible is a myth.’ I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what’s bad is good, and what’s good is ‘square.’ And the old, I would teach to pray, after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington…’
“And then I’d get organized. I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting, so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I’d threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I’d pedal narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I’d tranquilize the rest with pills.
“If I were the devil I’d soon have families that war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves; until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings I’d have mesmerizing media fanning the flames. If I were the devil I would encourage schools to refine young intellects, but neglect to discipline emotions — just let those run wild, until before you knew it, you’d have to have drug sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.
“Within a decade I’d have prisons overflowing, I’d have judges promoting pornography — soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls, and church money. If I were the devil I’d make the symbols of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.
“If I were the devil I’d take from those, and who have, and give to those wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And what do you bet? I could get whole states to promote gambling as thee way to get rich? I would caution against extremes and hard work, in Patriotism, in moral conduct. I would convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on the TV is the way to be. And thus I could undress you in public, and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil I’d just keep right on doing on what he’s doing. Paul Harvey, good day.”
Yes, there once was a time when Hollywood actually supported American values
With the abrupt collapse of global Communism in the late 1980s, much has been gleaned from the billions of pages which comprise the former Soviet Union’s archives which held the most secret of the Communist nations state secrets. Chief among these included the planned infiltration of Hollywood by Soviet Agents, American Communists and their reliably “useful idiots” of America’s liberal artistic intelligentsia.
The Communist were quite successful at inserting their subversive messaging into films and radio dramas during the 1940s and 50’s. Enough so to prompt a scathing, sworn testimony before congress from Hollywood’s king of the era, Jack Warner. Mr. Warner admitted that people:
“with un-American leanings have infiltrated the film industry. They tried to insert into scripts certain things which, in my opinion, are Un-American.”
What were these “Un-American” messages that the Communist inserted into hollywood films? For starters, “capitalist” or business people were always to be portrayed as, greedy, evil exploiters of the their workers. Class struggle was a reoccurring theme in screenplays written by Communists. Patriotism and Christian values were the province of cinematic villains.
The ultimate goal of the Communists was to normalize immorality. These Marxist infiltrators knew that the key to subverting American society was to attack Individualism, Christian values and morality. The Red infiltrators pushed the limits of the Hollywood production code in an effort to normalize divorce, homosexuality, promiscuity and even the very institution of marriage.
These dark years prompted the formation, by the Hollywood elite of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPAPAI, also MPA). The “Alliance” was comprised of a who’s who of Hollywood heavyweights which included the likes of Jack Warner, Walt Disney, Cecil B. DeMille, John Ford, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Jack Benny, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Milton Berle, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck and so many, many more – too many to mention here.
These legends of the screen formed the Alliance for one reason: To combat the growing Communist/Progressive threat to subvert American culture and society through the clandestine infiltration of the motion picture industry. Many members were instrumental in infiltrating leftist cells and reporting the names of the insidious perpetrators and traitors to the studio management and to the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Affairs.
Of course the Leftist/Progressive/Communists screamed foul and that it was a “witch hunt” against otherwise loyal Americans. Unfortunately for them, the evidence proved overwhelmingly that they were up to no good. For decades following these events, misinformed liberals tried desperately to rehabilitate these Communist infiltrators – acting as the Marxist Left’s dependable puppets to the end. However, these cries of foul were soon silenced after the former Soviet KGB achieves became public follwing the collapse of the USSR. Then, it was all spelled out, with incontrovertible evidence, that the plan existed all along. Names were named and perhaps not so surprisingly, they matched, with uncanny precision, the very names of the Communist/Leftist/Progressive anti-American subversives that the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals had named to the House Committee on Un-American Affairs.
Below is the Alliance’s “Statement of Purpose” and the contents of a flyer they produced. Yes, you heroes of the silver screen turned out to be heroes in real life!
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.
Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.
In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”
As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.
As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.
The group produced a pamphlet in 1948. The contents of that pamphlet are as follows:
The purpose of the Communists in Hollywood is not the production of political movies openly advocating Communism. Their purpose is to corrupt our moral premises by corrupting non-political movies — by introducing small, casual bits of propaganda into innocent stories — thus making people absorb the basic principles of Collectivism by indirection and implication.
The principle of free speech requires that we do not use police force to forbid the Communists the expression of their ideas — which means that we do not pass laws forbidding them to speak. But the principle of free speech does not require that we furnish the Communists with the means to preach their ideas, and does not imply that we owe them jobs and support to advocate our own destruction at our own expense.
Many today know Curtis Bowers as a successful filmmaker. His two extraordinary documentary films are:
1) Agenda: Grinding America Down (2010) and it’s sequel,
2) Agenda 2 Masters of Deceit (2014)
I would strongly recommend these films to any patriotic citizen who is concerned about the future of our country. Yet, before he made these films, Curtis Bowers was a member of the Idaho Legislature in 2008 when he penned the Op-Ed which is reprinted below.
As has been documented on this site, those prominent citizens, throughout our nation’s history, who have challenged Communism, have often been subjected to the most vicious of campaigns against their honor. Many have been destroyed. Not Curtis Bowers. After he penned his Op-Ed in 2008, the ensuing campaign of hate, promulgated by the usual suspects who came crawling out of the woodwork, only confirmed to him that he had hit a nerve and was on the right track. Far from feeling the need to retreat from the extreme left and their useful idiots in the media, Bowers went on to produce, write and direct two award winning films further exposing the left’s true agenda.
The 2008 Op-Ed, which started it all, is reprinted below:
The start of a new year is always a time of reflection as we learn from the past and prepare for the future. An unusual opportunity I had years ago is especially significant today, in light of the many issues facing Americans.
In 1992 I read that the Communist Party USA was gathering at the University of California, Berkeley. I was curious to see what they had to say about the Berlin Wall coming down and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Would they give up, or did they have a different approach? I decided to go and find out.
I assumed it would be a bunch of radical college students, so to fit the part, I grew a goatee, got a revolutionary T-shirt and put on some ratty jeans. After getting checked into my dorm room on campus, I went over to the conference hall for the first meeting. I was amazed to see a room filled with 50-, 60- and 70-year-old men and women, professionally dressed with their briefcases.
For the next several days I listened, took notes and talked to the leadership. The plan they unfolded had nothing to do with guns, bombs or violence. They acknowledged their disappointment with what had happened in the Soviet Union but felt they could still “take America down.” This time, instead of using force from the outside, they would use public policy from the inside.
They had a three part agenda. They would use their manpower, influence and funds to back anything that would destroy our families, businesses and culture.
Firstly, to destroy the family, they would promote co-habitation instead of marriage. They would also try to get children away from their mothers into government programs at the earliest age possible. They felt the best way to do this was to promote the feminist movement, which had been very effective at making women discontent with marriage and motherhood.
Secondly, to destroy businesses, they aimed to wipe out the profit potential that motivated people to start them. If people couldn’t make good money off their ideas and hard work, they would eventually be content working for someone else. They were sure the environmental movement (modest at the time) was the only vehicle capable of creating enough regulation and expense to discourage business growth.
Finally, to destroy our culture, they needed us to abandon our heritage of religion and morality. They believed the homosexual movement, if accepted, would begin to effectively extinguish these values.
At the time they laid out this strategy, I wasn’t overly impressed. It seemed very unrealistic and certainly not something to worry about in my lifetime. Yet as I sit in my office, recall their plan and consider where America is today, I am shocked.
Our first woman presidential candidate talks about how degrading it is to be a stay-at-home mom. Businesses are closing down or moving daily to other countries because environmental regulations are too excessive to make a profit. And legislation is being considered in Washington, D.C. that makes it a crime to discuss in public any opposition to the homosexual lifestyle. As the old advertisement said, “You’ve come a long way, baby!”
When we see many mainstream politicians and activist judges with the same agenda that just 16 years ago was that of Communist strategists, it is time for patriotic Americans to wake up and get involved.
— Curtis Bowers was a member of the Idaho State Legislature
Francis Walter was a humble man, born in 1894, from the stock of Main Street America – the Lehigh Valley area of eastern Pennsylvania. Known, in his youth, as a natural leader with a keen mind and a disarming wit, young Francis Walter went on, in his early adult years to achieve financial success in the steel and banking industries. Yet in 1917, while many similarly successful young men (such as Joseph Kennedy Sr.) were looking for ways to avoid service during WWI, Walter joined the US navy without hesitation. He would later earn an officer’s commission and during WWII, aged well into his 40s, Walter would again step forward to serve his nation.
While in his 30s, he was urged by leaders throughout his community to run for an open seat in the United States House of Representatives. He would go on to represent the Lehigh Valley area in congress for thirty years. Congressman Walter was a member of the Democratic Party and a loyal supporter of President Franklin Roosevelt and the idea that the government had a responsibility to help the “little guy” who was willing to work hard to better himself. He was a strong proponent of the New Deal policies of FDR.
As a member of congress and later, Chairman of the House committee on Un-American Affairs, he would develop a growing concern over the efforts of foreign governmental backed subversive activity in the United States. In the years leading up the Second World War, Congressman Walter, stood firm in fighting the influence and espionage of the Axis alliance of Fascist nations including Imperial Japan and the Nazi government of German leader Adolph Hitler. After WWII, Congressman Walter became alarmed by a new threat to American security.
Soviet sponsored and funded Communism had tried, unsuccessfully so, for decades to gain influence and a voice in US policy and governmental circles. However, in the 1940s, these Marxist agents had seen considerable growth and success toward achieving their initial aims. This was due, in large part, to the uneasy and loose alliance with the Soviet Union during WWII. This short-lived and dangerous partnership helped US Communists to give their poisonous and untenable ideology, validation in limited circles of American society. Further, as the Communists sanitized their message to sound similar to New Deal policies during the Great Depression, some well meaning yet, gullible, souls where tricked in to buying into the this secret, cult like movement. Communists first started to gain a foothold in academia, radio, organized labor and motion pictures as well as in our own government. Taking their marching orders from the Kremlin, this secret, undercover Communist movement was beginning to spread to influential corners in American society.
Congressman Walter and many others, Democrat and Republican alike, began to be concerned by the fast spreading wave of Communism infiltration in American cultural and governmental circles. It would not be long before the fight against Communist sponsored espionage became a priority of the US Government. Leading that important and ultimately victorious, fight was Congressman Francis Walter – the humble son of the Lehigh Valley. Working hand-in-hand with the various US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Congressman Walter, the fighting New Deal Democrat, was able to slowly undercover the Communist plan to subvert American society and it’s security apparatus. What disturbed him most was how Communist were camouflaging themselves as liberal and praying on the gullible. They recruited many of their hapless followers by plying them with emotional liberal arguments as opposed to logic. It was no surprise when, decades later after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it turned out that many of the so called “liberals” were in fact working for the enemies of America.
Through the thousands of hours of work in coordination with his committee and virtually every security organ of the US Government, Congressman Walter read into the record a detailed list of Communist objectives, based on their own communiques, words and policies, concerning their planned destruction of the United states. These became known officially as the “Communist Goals” list and they were read into The Congressional Record on January 10, 1963 and while supported by overwhelmingly by the American people in a January 23, 1963 Gallup Poll, the goals were also supported by the vast majority of members or congress and lauded by President John F. Kennedy, Vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy as well as the Joint Chiefs of staff.
Less than three decades later, the ‘Communist Goals” would be verified by the opening of the Security Achieves of the former Soviet Union.
The goals, as published, were as follows:
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. (“It Takes A village” authors note) Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use [“]united force[“] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court
Thanks to patriots like Democratic Congressman Walter, Communism was eventually destroyed as a global theat. A future President would read Congressman Walter’s list in January of 1963. He was shocked by it and some eighteen years later, the day he took the oath of office as our 40th President of the United States, he would, later that day, meet with his military chiefs of staff and tell them, “I’m sick and tired of trying to contain Communism and our new policy will be to destroy it as a viable threat.’ This president would later develop a plan that would drag the Soviet Union and it’s puppets into a ramped up cold war, which would ultimately bankrupt them and cause their people, at long last, to rise up in a successful revolt. That Communist slaying President was the great Ronald Reagan.
Despite our victory over communism abroad, one can tell, from fifty-five year-old list above, that there is still work to be done. Interestingly enough, another future US President would also read Congressman Walter’s list as a child. His father, a rags to riches real estate developer who posted the goals on the kitchen wall of his family home. As the young boy grew, he never forgot the “Communist Goals” list or its implications. That boy would one day himself become President and his name is Donald Trump. He will make sure that those lingering issues from the get stomped out.
The Historical Truth Project 