I hate to admit it but just a few short years ago I was a Neocon, and I’m not proud of it. Like so many others today I was bewitched by what I thought at the time was patriotism. I genuinely believed that if we could just elect some good, God Fearing Republicans all would be well.
One of my earliest memories of my budding Neoconism occurred when I was ten years old. It was 1968 and the Vietnam War was raging. Lt. William Calley, Jr. was on trial for his part in the My Lai massacre where up to 500 civilian’s, men, women and children, were mercilessly slaughtered by US troops in the South Vietnamese village of My Lai. The exact number of dead was unknowable because of the mutilation of bodies that occurred.
The small evangelical church our family attended was led by a rabid psychopath preacher. He ordered his congregation to call their Congressman’s office and demand Lt. Calley be released from his war crimes trial. To hear him tell it Lt. Calley was a great patriot who was just doing his job killing “gooks” over there so we wouldn’t have to fight them over here. Ahh the love of Christ personified!
Sound familiar?
My father grew up on a farm in North Carolina during the 20s and 30’s. He taught me that FDR was a great man because he’d worked feverishly to rescue the nation from the economic ravages of the Great Depression. The message was big government is benevolent and can do things for the little people they can’t do for themselves. Not a word was said about FDR’s outright theft of private citizens gold holdings with Executive Order #6102 on April 5th, 1933, but I digress.
When I was in my early 20’s a man I had great respect for taught me the difference between Democrats and Republicans, at least in his opinion. “Republicians want to feed the golden goose so she’ll lay more eggs while Democrats want to kill the golden goose and feed it to their ne’r-do-well voters.”
Over the next thirty years I was busy building a successful business and raising a family. Like so many others I had my head down working hard and didn’t give much thought to what was really going on in D.C. or for that matter the world.
By the time I reached my late 40’s the business was doing well and the kids were grown and gone. Life had slowed down a little. But three things happened that shook me out of my complacency and caused me to start digging for answers.
The first was the economic implosion of 2008, which appeared to come out of nowhere. So much of what happened didn’t make any sense at all so I began searching for answers. The second event that rocked my world was the election of Barack Obama. No, it wasn’t because he was black but because it appeared to me his election was preordained by some unseen power.
The third was the realization that when Republicans had full control of Congress during the Bush Jr. administration nothing changed in Washington. All the campaign talk about fiscal responsibility and smaller government turned out to be nothing but hot air. When Republicans had the power to actually cut spending and federal bureaucracy they did the exact opposite! I began to realize there was no real difference between Republicans and Democrats. They were all part of the same big spending, big government team and did not represent “we the people.”
So many questions without legitimate answers caused me to start digging.
What I discovered was the startling fact that so many of the alleged “conspiracy theories” I’d previously brushed off so glibly were indeed based on facts, not theories.
Somehow I stumbled across the work of the late Dr. Stanley Monteith, a retired orthopedic surgeon in Oakland, California. Dr. Monteith shared his own awakening occurred when President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas in November 1963. From that date forward he worked tirelessly to uncover the truth about what was really happening in the world.
His short book, “The Brotherhood of Darkness” first published September 1 of 2000 was quite an eye opener for me. I remembered a quote I read when I was building my business that said, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” I would have quickly dismissed much of the material in Dr. Monteith’s book in years past as utter nonsense; quite the “conspiracy theory!”
Perhaps one of my most poignant discoveries was that there is a huge difference in the way “normal” people think compared to the way Neocon psychopaths think. Most normal people simply can’t imagine other humans could be so heartless, coldblooded and calculating as to knowingly participate in a heinous crime like murdering the President of the United States.
So because “they” would never do anything like that themselves they quickly dismiss out of hand that anyone else could either. And that’s one of the primary tools the psychopaths use against the general population. Their actions are so repulsive, so degenerate, so inhuman that normal people simply can’t comprehend or accept the fact that the psychopaths among us would gladly act against the laws of God and man for their own personal benefit.
Dr. Monteith’s book introduced me to other books like Fletcher Prouty’s “The Secret Team”, John Perkins, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, G. Edward Griffin’s “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, Smedley Butler’s, “War is a Racket” and Carol Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope” to name a few.
What I discovered was the hardcore Neocons have much more in common with serial killers like Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler than they do with patriots like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. It took a while to digest and come to grips with the startling facts I was learning. It turned out the truth was much different from what I’d been taught most of my life.
Very quickly I learned that many of my friends were unwilling to even consider the facts I’d uncovered. The truth was so horrendous that it was much easier to poo poo the facts as “Conspiracy Theory” than to critically face facts and think about the stunning ramifications of the truth.
So I have sympathy and compassion for the emotional, unthinking citizens who embrace the lies of psychopath Neocons who wrap themselves in the flag of Patriotism as a diversion. Hopefully, some will learn the truth and have the courage to face it.
Jeff Harris and his wife DeAnn own Puddle Moon Farm, an organic grass fed beef and pastured pork farm in South Carolina.
