by A. C. Kleinheider

Last week, I wrote about Tennessee Representative Henri Brooks´ refusal to recite the Pledge Allegiance, as is the custom in her legislative chamber.

I noted that the Pledge was actually written by a socialist with the intent of solidifying the concept of an "indivisible" Union after the War Between the States. Her protest thus seemed misguided (and ignorant) considering her politics.

While I thought Rep. Brooks´ "protest" was merely a result of her lack of education and tact, a certain Mr. Jim Boyd did not take the incident in as much stride as I did.

From a town on the outskirts of Nashville, Mr. Boyd sees himself as a true-blue patriot. In fact, Jim Boyd is a candidate to succeed Don Sundquist as Governor of the State of Tennessee on the US Patriot Party ticket. Mr. Boyd saw Rep. Brooks´ refusal to Pledge as an affront to his nation — the work of a traitor. Mr. Boyd decided to take his rage at Rep. Brooks to the streets. Mr. Boyd stuffed a woman´s black pantsuit and red cotton-blend jacket with newspaper, stapled a computer printout of Brooks´ face to a stuffed head, propped his little "scarecrow" on a wooden stand and then, in front of cameras and witnesses, set it ablaze.

Mr. Boyd´s was a rather juvenile and excessive public protest. However, he was genuinely disgruntled and he had a legitimate right to protest. Others did not see it that way. An Op/Ed piece was written in a local paper entitled When the Thin Veneer of Civilization is Ripped Away which very subtly links (and, I would submit, unfairly) Mr. Boyd´s protest with those demented folks who fought to preserve forced segregation in the South back in the 60´s.

Ms. Brooks also saw dangerous undertones in Mr. Boyd´s protest.

She called the Feds.

That´s right. One man, in front of more cameras than onlookers, burns a scarecrow for twenty seconds on the Capitol steps and she summons the FBI. Ms. Brooks defied tradition and manners in order to make a political point against the Federal Government. Fine. Perfect. You go, girl. But for her to then turn around and seek the protection of the Federal Government is rank hypocrisy.

It reminds me of a story I once heard about a drug dealer calling 911 inconsolable because his drugs and money were stolen. Unfortunately, Brooks´ hypocrisy of trying to tear down the system from inside is all too common.

It is the trademark of the revolutionary Marxist. Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), an Italian Communist intellectual, developed a worldview around the concept of "hegemony". From Gramsci's perspective, a social system is sustained when a majority of its inhabitants internalize and accept the system's values and premises. Revolution could not succeed until a cultural war had been waged to undermine the hegemonic values that sustained the system. This required the revolutionary to infiltrate the society´s institutions — the schools, the churches, the media, the government and all voluntary organizations. When the "dominant" ideas had been discarded then "the system" could be transformed.

I believe that this is the kind of individual Representative Brooks is. She has no objection to an oppressive Federal government. She simply has a problem with who is running it. By protesting the Pledge of Allegiance and the flag, Brooks wasn´t merely trying to exercise her free speech rights. She was trying to undermine patriotic feeling from within the system. Brooks happily accepts the rights and privileges bestowed upon her and then brazenly uses her leverage to crush and terrify her political opponents. To her, politics is not about Constitutions and patriotism; it is about raw power. That is why she will not pledge and that is why she called in the Federal government. She has no commitment to principles, only power.

One would think that the socialist-authored Pledge would be a suitably revolutionary text for the Revolutionary Marxist considering its central point (that our nation is "indivisible") is anathema to any founding constitutional principles. It seems, however, that those who wish to subvert our nation and culture disagree. These revolutionaries see the pledge as too outwardly "patriotic" leaving those who recite it closed to their revolutionary ideas. Maybe they are right and maybe they are wrong.

Regardless, Conservatives need to be aware that there are folks burrowing themselves deep inside the institutions of our society. These individuals' political conclusions are not merely misdirected or misguided — they are revolutionary. This Gramscian process is already well underway. Those on the Right must recognize this and work, not merely to conserve what is left, but to take back that which has been lost.

June 20, 2001

Copyright © 2001 A. C. Kleinheider