The world of socialism is built on a deep secret.  I learned of this founding secret from an old friend.  Now it can be told.

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce American Thinker readers to an old schoolmate of mine; one with whom, after being out of touch for decades, I've exchanged political thoughts via e-mail over the past several years. 

Damian Housman has come a long way since our days at Manhattan's Junior High School #104.  He's a retired USAF lt. colonel who flew as a navigator in C-141s and a weapons systems officer in F-4s, and has been all over the world.  His civilian credits include public affairs work for the Air Force and for local law enforcement, plus working for a Washington PR firm.  And he is a former field editor of International Combat Arms.

In addition to being well-traveled, well-read, and well-spoken, he's analytical and insightful.  He is certainly an American Thinker.  And some of his recent comments struck me as worth sharing with a wider audience. 

In discussing the Oslo mass-murderer being branded as a "right-winger," Damian pointed out the following, of which the mainstream media managed to be ignorant or to conveniently ignore:

What passes for the "right" in Europe is just another form of socialism. They called this guy "right wing" saying he was part of a Swedish Nazi forum. But Nazi means National Socialist, and nothing like what the right in the USA would be. 

Here, the right is the home of those who believe in the Constitution as the law of the land. It is the opposite of the lawless liberals, socialists, Marxists, communists, Bolsheviks and other assorted Democrats. That a "right wing" socialist in Europe goes off the deep end, and attacks "left wing" socialists is neither surprising nor new.

But here's the real bombshell that Damian dropped on me, challenging the notion that socialism's goal is the betterment of mankind and that those who lead socialist movements are idealistic "true believers": 

What is socialism, whether Bolshevik, Menshevik, national, Maoist, social democrat, liberal, or whatever flavor you can name?  A set of economic principles?  Political values?  An attitude?  Don't head off to a dictionary or Google-land for this.

I commend to you Solzhenitsyn's "Lenin In Zurich", a book I read years ago.  It is fiction, yet invaluable to the understanding of the last century, and the next.  I am about to share with you a secret known to few: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Deng, Pol Pot, Castro, and Solzhenitsyn himself.  And me.  And now you. 

Socialism does not exist except in the imagination of the true believer and the useful idiot.  None of the names I listed believed there was such a thing as socialism.  They knew it for what it was:  a means of fooling mass numbers of people into following them, and thus achieving power.  Political power.  Military power.  Economic power.  Absolute power. 

As you read Lenin in Zurich you understand that Lenin doesn't believe a word of the ideological nonsense he spouts.  He translates his agenda, long term and immediate, into terms that are palatable to his mass following. 

How else can one explain his statement that "Switzerland is the most revolutionary country on the face of the earth!"?  He said it because Swiss men each kept a firearm at home for reserve military duties.  He wanted to entice the Swiss to revolt, using their weapons, and this was a way of putting it in his followers' ideological framework.  He later said the same thing about America, and for the same reason.  Neither worked.  Lenin In Zurich presents the litany of techniques which can be copied by any tyrant.

The leader need not continue to spout socialist claptrap, except to continue to fool his flock.  And they are willing fools.  Given the socialist framework, the flock will fill in the blanks themselves, centralizing power in the center.  All to the advantage of the boss, who doesn't give a damn about the flock. 

That's why we still hear communist dupes who tell us socialism failed in the Soviet Union because it wasn't done properly.  The leaders didn't quite get it right.  Not so.  Socialism failed in the Soviet Union because socialism does not exist.

So, what can we say about the United States today?  Our leader, and those who are his helpmates, do appear to be committed socialists.  That means they haven't looked behind the curtain.  They don't know the magician's trick.  

Who is our Lenin?  Who is our Stalin?  Who is our Mao?  This would have to be someone who knows socialism is meaningful only to his willing fools.  Someone who will capitalize when a socialist government in America is complete.  My money is on George Soros, but I could be mistaken.  Whoever it is, when he has achieved power, we had all better watch out.

One of my favorite films, The Usual Suspects, contains the memorable and oft-quoted line, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist."

Perhaps the greatest trick socialism ever pulled was convincing the world that it does exist!