Daily blog: It’s November 17th, and the new normal is not new.
Hitler ushered in a new normal by using mass media propaganda, which expanded his appeal to the rest of the country. He also used the Reichstag building fire as a pretext to seize emergency powers.
In Russia, Stalin ushered in a new normal by using several different methods, including fear, the cult of personality, education and youth groups, propaganda, purges, force and compulsion.
Lenin ushered in a new normal by issuing a series of decrees, the first of which was a Decree on Land, which drew heavily upon the Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s platform. The decrees declared that the aristocracy’s landed estates and The Russian Orthodox Church should be confiscated, taken into national ownership, and redistributed among the local government’s peasants.
Pol Pot also ushered in a new normal by transforming Cambodia into a one-party state called Democratic Kampuchea. A government that forcibly relocated the urban population to the countryside to work on collective farms.
And finally, in China, Mao ushered in a new normal by introducing a campaign to erase the Capitalist and traditional Chinese influences of the People’s Republic. Schools were closed and Chinese youth directed to take the lead in change, resulting in youth gangs known as the Red Guards attacking undesirable citizens. The chaos led to martial law, Communist Party purges, and 1.5 million deaths.
So, as you can see, The New Normal is not new.
And finally, for all those who want the government to take care of them, I will leave you with this quote.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” –Thomas Jefferson
Timothy French 