American Renaissance There Is Not a Truth Existing Which I Fear Or Would Wish Unknown to the Whole World

American Renaissance There is not a truth existing which I fear or would wish unknown to the whole world. — Thomas Jefferson Vol. 14 No. 7 July 2003 Zimbabwe: 23 Years of Black Rule The view from neighbor- ing white farmers off the land, and kill- consolidating power beyond the slight- ing and muzzling political opponents— est threat, he seemed to think his fame ing South Africa. have finally forced a reluctant world to would reduce Mr. Mandela to insignifi- recognize him for the brute that he is. cance. by Arthur Kemp Whatever the motives, in early 2000, Zimbabwe launched a program imbabwe—when it was ruled of violence and ethnic cleansing by whites and known as Rho- against whites, and began systematic Zdesia—was the most prosper- terror against black Zimbabweans ous nation in southern Africa. When who dared to oppose the government. black rule began in 1980, the country had excellent railroads, good high- Ethnic Cleansing ways, and clean, well run towns. It was rich in gold, chromium, platinum, The campaign against whites has and coal, and Rhodesia was such an been simple but effective. Truckloads agricultural success it exported food. of self-styled “war veterans”—the It has now been reduced to a shattered vast majority of whom are far too ruin, facing famine, with whites and young to have fought the white re- black dissenters murdered and tor- gime in the bush war that ended 22 tured. years ago—show up at white farms, It is fashionable to blame the where they camp out, get drunk, country’s failures on the man who has threaten the farmer and his family, been president since 1980, Robert Thabo Mbeki (left) and Robert Mugabe— and beat up black workers. The official Mugabe. Even the famous white South bad news for the whites of southern Africa. fiction is that this is a spontaneous move- African liberal Dorris Lessing writes of There seem to be two additional moment of Zimbabwean peasants who have his “arbitrary cruelties,” and tells us tives beyond his usual avarice and cru- lost patience with the refusal of whites “crimes have been committed in the elty behind Mr. Mugabe’s current cam- to give up land they “stole” from blacks, name of political correctness.” Mr. paigns. Since his government had pil- but the invading convoys are clearly sup- Mugabe is undoubtedly a bad character, laged every other source of wealth, in- ported and supplied by the government. but so are most of the people who rule cluding the mining sector, the 4,000 or The police refuse to evict the “war vet- African countries. It is possible he has- so white farmers who continued to be erans,” and the government has ratified tened Zimbabwe’s decline but decline the backbone of the economy were the the occupations by issuing decrees to was inevitable once blacks took over revoke white ownership. institutions built by whites. Most farmers have managed to get out In the eyes of the world, black rule is In the eyes of the world, alive, but 11 have not. The first two to so fine a thing it must never be spoiled black rule is so fine a die were David Stevens and Martin Olds. by describing it accurately. The press thing it must never be Their murders, which took place in 2000, therefore ignored the thievery and anti- spoiled by describing it set the tone for the ethnic cleansing that white hatred of Zimbabwe’s new gov- has followed. ernment. It looked the other way when accurately. David Stevens, who shared profits Mr. Mugabe’s North Korean-trained with his workers, was a member of the Fifth Brigade killed thousands of Nde- only source of prosperity still available opposition party, Movement for Demo- bele tribesmen for failing to support their for “redistribution,” that is to say, ap- cratic Change (MDC). On April 15, new president from the Shona tribe. propriation by Mr. Mugabe’s friends. At 2000, Mugabe-supporters attacked him When, as early as the mid-1980s, the the same time, Mr. Mugabe appears to on his farm in the Macheke area, about United Nations reported that the Mugabe have been deeply envious of the world’s 60 miles east of Harare. He managed to government was as greedy and corrupt adulation of Nelson Mandela next door escape to police protection, but the mob as any in Africa, there was silence in the in South Africa. By making one final and of “veterans” stormed the police station West. Mr. Mugabe’s latest antics—driv- dramatic “anti-colonial” gesture, and by Continued on page 3 American Renaissance - 1 - July 2003 The New Deal ideology was not dis- tinct from that of the Progressive Era from which it emerged. As historian William S. Leuchtenberg writes in Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (p. 33), “The New Dealers shared John Dewey’s conviction that organized social intelligence could shape society, and some, like [A.A.] Berle [Jr.], reflected the hope of the Social Gospel of creat- ing a Kingdom of God on earth.” Sociologist and historian E. Digby Baltzell in his classic work, The Protes- tant Establishment, also discussed the importance of Boas as well as of John B. Watson, founder of behaviorist psy- chology, and his brother-in-law, New Poverty, the “most rounded and power- Deal Interior Secretary Harold C. Ickes, Letters from Readers ful note in a growing chorus,” helped who was so solicitous of blacks that he Sir — While I appreciate Prof. Steven popularize the idea that “an environment was sometimes called the “Secretary for Farron’s description of my review of that had been made by human beings and Negro Affairs.” “It is important to see,” Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate in the could be changed by human beings” Baltzell wrote (p. 271), “that the New March 2003 issue of AR as “perceptive,” “determined all men, institutions, and Deal’s efforts to change the economic I have to disagree with him and main- ideas,” and that “legislating a better en- and cultural environment, largely tain what I said in the review, that “much vironment, particularly a better eco- through legislating greater equality of of what the Progressive Era, the New nomic environment, could bring about conditions between classes of men, were Deal, and the Great Society did or tried a better world, and bring it about before a reflection of the whole intellectual cli- to do was justified in terms of the blank unconscionable centuries.” Goldman mate of opinion at the time. In almost slate doctrine.” Prof. Farron writes that also discusses the role and impact of every area of intellectual endeavor—in he “cannot see how any of the programs Franz Boas himself on Progressivist the theories of crime, in law, in religion, of the Progressives . or New Deal . thought and policies about race. and in the arts—there was general agree- were motivated or justified by” that con- ment as to the sickness of the bourgeois cept. society and the need for environmental But the “blank slate doctrine” is es- reform.” sentially the idea that the minds and be- Prof. Farron describes the reforms of havior of human beings are not the prod- the Progressive and New Deal eras as ucts of nature or genetic inheritance but consisting of “direct election of senators, of the social environment. As historian referendum and recall at the state and George E. Mowry wrote of the intellec- municipal level” and “social security tual atmosphere of the American Pro- [and] the National Labor Relations Act.” gressive movement in The Era of These were certainly reforms of those Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of eras, but much of their theoretical ratio- Modern America, 1900-1912 (p. 37), nalization as well as that of the many “Central to this new intellectual formu- other measures supported by reformers lation was the firm belief that to a con- in these periods was grounded in the siderable degree man could make and John Dewey environmentalism advanced not only by remake his own world . Both the ris- Historians Arthur S. Link and Rich- Boas and Watson, but also by even ear- ing social sciences and the new social ard L. McCormick write in their mono- lier environmentalists such as Charles H. gospel promised that basically men were graph, Progressivism (p. 24): “Since Cooley, Lester Frank Ward, John Dewey, more alike than different and that they social scientists accepted environmen- and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. As were not evil by inheritance, but, if any- talist and interventionist assumptions Baltzell also writes (p. 162), “All were thing, were inclined by their own nature implicitly, they believed that knowledge opposed to racism, Social Darwinism, to be good. the great inequalities of natural laws would make it possible imperialism, and all forms of hereditary existing among them at the moment were to devise and apply solutions to improve determinism; and all assumed the mal- not natural, and from the viewpoint of the human condition. This faith under- leability of human nature which was ca- social peace and human welfare were pinned the methods used by almost all pable of responding to improved social decidedly bad.” reformers of the time: investigation of conditions,” and (quoting Dewey), Historian Eric Goldman in his stan- the facts and application of social-sci- “there must be a change in objective ar- dard account of Progressive Era politi- ence knowledge to their analysis; en- rangements and institutions; we must cal thought, Rendezvous with Destiny trusting trained experts to decide what work on the environment, not merely in (pp.

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