Here is a Settlement Project interview with Affirm America podcast host Marquis Van De Mark. Marquis and Affirm America gave us the chance to say a bit about what Settement is, and what it does.
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Affirm America Host, Marquis Van De Mark (MV):
Welcome back to Affirm America podcast. I’m the host, Marquis Van De Mark. And we’re glad that you’re here with us today on the Affirm America podcast. We have our first guest on our premier podcast today. It’s a good friend of mine, I’ve got to know him over the last 500 days on our nightly prayer call. And it’s been really a wonderful experience. We didn’t actually know each other very much before the prayer call. But we’ve gotten to know each other through our prayers. And it’s been an incredible journey for us all that have joined over the last 500 days. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Kaufmann. A little bit about his bio, then we’ll talk a little bit about his project, which I think you’ll find to be very interesting. Dr. Frank Kaufmann presently works in areas related to academic life, religion and peace, and spiritual education and formation. As such, he runs New World Encyclopedia as its editor-in-chief, Professors World Peace Academy PWPA, 12 Gates Foundation, and teaches and consults with organizations on matters related to spiritual life and growth. A small sampling of Dr. Kaufmann’s professional record includes, negotiations with the United States White House, the Kremlin, Grand Muftis and Muslim representatives during the first Gulf War, involvement with the Indian government during the 1993 Ayodhya Mosque riots and violence, and work in refugee camps in Eritrea, and Croatia, at different times during regional wars in these respective areas. So, he’s very well informed, a world traveler, has been in multiple countries and worked on many fronts. We’re happy to have him here with us today to share a little bit about The Settlement Project. So, let me introduce to you, Dr. Frank Kaufmann. Hey, Frank, how’re you doing?
Settlement Project President Dr. Frank Kaufmann (FK):
Very good, Marquis, happy to be with you. Thanks for inviting me on.
MV: My pleasure. It’s been good to get to know you, Frank, over the years that we’ve been praying every night, and to see the fruits of our prayer effort, manifested now in our Affirm America podcast, is the testament to prayer with action. And that’s right, this will be something that the American people can be inspired about. And then hopefully, we can offer some solutions to the confusion that the American people are seeing every day in our society, the erosion of our values, and just the outright lurch to the far left socialism and communism. It’s, I mean, who would have thought, right? Who would we be in a situation today?
FK: The speed, the speed is a shock. How fast we went from here to there. I think this is what has people alarmed. No, chance to react. Suddenly, realities we never dreamt of are upon us just in a blink.
MV: Yeah, and it’s, it’s, it’s amazing that it’s I mean, it happens so quickly. But you know, it’s this has been a long march, right? We studied that through communism and Marxism, you know, started back in the 20s and 30s. You know, when the communists tried to come over and promote their communist ideology, and they couldn’t, couldn’t do it, you know, straight ahead. So they went, they got into the universities, right. And they’ve been working there. Yeah, indoctrinating and teaching and…
FK: Yeah, there were elements of that philosophy that would never work in America. They recognized that and modified both their teachings and their strategies. I think the fall of several communist empires, especially the Soviet Union, put moral conservatives and constitutional conservatives to sleep while those modifications were taking place. It’s kind of like pulling up to a red light on a Friday night, and then you’re looking at a car that’s been changed in so many ways inside. You think you’ve got this, and all of a sudden you’re walking home.
MV: Yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, it’s just astounding what’s been going on. And like you said, I think with the COVID virus and the lockdowns and everything, I think the Left just saw a good opportunity to really take advantage and accelerate what’s been going on, I think, also had a lot to do with it.
FK: Yeah. There’s a limit to what you know and what you suspect. But what you suspect isn’t always wrong. Even so you have to speak cautiously about things you don’t know. Was COVID actually employed in rigging the election? Highly likely. Have I met the guy that did it? Do I have the file card that says it was done? I can’t say that. But it certainly looks that way.
MV: Yes, suspicious, a lot of red flags, right, going off
FK: A lot of red flags, a lot of evidence. And even as we all know, people were bragging, bragging about it. So we have that much evidence at least.
MV: That’s right. That’s right. So we, you know, we see all these things. And, you know, we prayed about it over the last 500 days, and, you know, many things came out of it. Again, we have our podcast, but we also have a project that you’re working on, called The Settlement Project. So tell us tell us a little bit about what the Settlement Project, you know, how it started, what it’s about, let our audience know a little bit about what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. I think just knowing what it is, I think it’s a good resource for people to go to to find out information that maybe might be hard to find in some of the outlets that are available out there, you know, in the mainstream media, or you have to dig for it. So tell us a little bit about it.
FK: Yeah, it’s certainly not available in the mainstream media. That’s for sure. But Settlement provides an immediate point of access to get a lot of the information we need. There’s also a lot of other great outlets for information. Once conservatives realized we were getting locked down and censored, a lot of beautiful work started springing up. Greenwald with Substack and Rumble. It’s all great work. People have found a way to speak. But we’re still at a disadvantage because of the market dominance of anti first amendment censors, like Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
So The Settlement Project arose out of an inspiration that befell me that I actually hoped would be taken up by others with greater expertise than mine. The inspiration essentially was this: It’s normal that world powers would want to attack America. It’s simply the plain old world of power. Just like on the football field. You do battle. America’s very powerful. There are other countries also that are big and powerful. It’s natural that they would want to take America on. This is normal. So countries like Russia, or China that are big, want to challenge American supremacy. This is normal human behavior. The problem is that the Soviet Union, in the early part of the 20th century, adopted an ideology, which produced totalitarianism, and introduced means of acquiring power, that is not just simple, head to head combat, like on a football field. They believed in every kind of use to destroy America. But it didn’t work here.
The interest to continue to destroy America never went away, even though the Soviet Union abandoned as a Marxist confederacy. But the ideology, especially the tactics never went away. As such America remains under threat, we can expect that, that’s okay. It’s to be expected.
But when you’re under threat, it’s important to know who your enemy is, right?
MV: That’s what I was gonna say.
FK: Who’s your enemy? How are they thinking? What are their strategies? What are they drawing upon? What do they believe about the nature of the world?
If you walk into a boxing ring, and your enemy lives in a worldview where it’s fine to put brass knuckles inside the boxing gloves, you should know that about your opponent, you’re a fool not to know how they view the world. And so what I came to be inspired or discover is that what was once Soviet era Marxism is no longer the same enemy that now still seeks the destruction of a free America. The inspiration that came to me is that the old enemy split into two separate both geographical and tactical agents. On the ideological front, Europeans and later Americans altered Marxist ideology into a number of new philosophical forces that drive the hatred of America and that drive the willingness to destabilize America. like for example, the riots of 2020 summer. They’re informed by a philosophical mentality. People call it Marxism, but if they’re inaccurate, if they’re wrong about exactly what it is, it will be harder to stop. They retain Marxist techniques, but they don’t retain the Marxist worldview.
These two things split since the fall of the Soviet Union, the worldview is one thing, but the techniques remain. So people on the conservative Right are trying to attack what they think is Marxism. But really it splintered out into ideologies even more difficult to combat, postmodern critical theory. Now we’re just starting to get language. You hear a lot of people talk about CRT. That has come into the language, yes. But postmodernism is not just CRT. What is the worldview and philosophy that’s informing transgender therapy for little kids? That’s not CRT, right? Basically, it’s kind of like whack-a-mole or like hitting a ball of mercury with a hammer. It splinters, it changes. And so that’s what I call the Atlantic, pincer side, the Atlantic flank of the attack on America, the whole philosophical re-formation, and modification and alteration of Marxist ideology, which was developed in Europe, and then infiltrated all the US institutions, which you described in your intro, as you’re introducing Affirm America.
MV: Yes.
FK: And then on the Pacific side, China became the primary state actor that is determined to destroy America, both externally militarily and from within, through spying, through cyber theft, and so forth. So when the enemy was communism and Soviet Union, you had a single thing, and that was met and defeated. Not easily. It took great leaders to wake up America. America was hard to wake up. But now the state actor is different. The state actor comes from a different culture, Russia is primarily a Christian culture. China’s a culture that’s difficult for Americans to understand, even if it weren’t communist, What do Americans know about the relationship between Confucius and Lao Tzu? What do they know about the father son relationship in China? Russia was more recognizable. So the determination to destroy free America now split in many ways on the Atlantic Leftist tactics of Marxism split from the philosophical foundation. Critical theory and postmodernism is not a Marxist theory of economics. It’s not, it’s just not
MV: Yeah, makes sense.
FK: The China mentality and the reasons for its Marxist appeal are not Russia’s. Russia’s was the excesses of the monarchy, and uprising against the bourgeoisie. Whereas with China, its impetus or drive is that they were humiliated by the West, particularly from the Opium Wars and by Great Britain, the loss of Hong Kong and so forth. They’re driven by entirely different origins. So I wake up with this inspiration, that the same enemy of America has taken on many new angles, shapes, and if we’re going to just come out with a blunderbuss, we’re dead in the water.
So what I did, because political activism is not my history and not my life, as you read, I’ve been involved in peace negotiations in war areas. But I’m a patriot. I’ve always been a patriot. I love my country. I’m grateful that God has protected and blessed America. But I wanted to awaken or activate attention to new types of communism, new centers of communism, modification of the philosophy. So with that inspiration, I went to many high sources among relationships. I went to all the places I could find to try to activate concern in the philosophical and academic community. I went to Asia, I went to friends and colleagues and institutions in Korea, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific, I tried to find activists, tried to link them. But all I found was people asleep. I couldn’t find anyone. They said, “Oh, that’s a nice idea.” But everyone I knew was asleep. They lost their passion.
MV: That’s scary.
FK: It was scary. I went through a dark night of the soul. I became scared by that. And I said, if no one will do it, I have to do it, but I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it. That’s The Settlement Project. But now it’s a strong operation. That’s how it came to be. It’s the old reluctant Messiah story. You know, it’s like, I didn’t want to do this, but I had to [said sarcastically, tongue in cheek], But that really is my experience. If this work can get taken up by the right people, I am happy to close Settlement down. I am not trying to run an organization.
That’s how it came to pas. Now it’s producing very good work. It’s attracting a lot of support. It’s just a niche. It’s just a niche. For example, I don’t have anybody volunteering in Arizona on the audit. But thank God for those brothers and sisters. Ya know what I’m saying.
MV: Yeah, absolutely.
FK: Sebastian Gorka, all the geniuses out there who just want to help. For me, it’s this small insight of identifying the exact shape of the enemy, precisely what drives the people who are determined to destroy the freedoms in our country.
MV: That’s great. And I’ve taken a look at your website, and it’s actually very detailed. And I can see that there has been a lot of energy and, and inspiration put into the content. What’s the website address so people can look up the Settlement Project, Dr. Kaufmann, where they can find it?
FK: It’s very simple. It’s ‘s’, like surely, ‘s’ or settlement, ‘p’ project. sp12.org, sp, the number one two.org.
MV: Okay, that’s very simple, very easy to remember, sp12.org, I like very simple URLs, it’s easy for people to find.
FK: I’m sure you’ll have it in the notes below. Also, I’m sure
MV: Yes, well, we’ll link to it and our website with the content transcripts, you can find it there. And so, tell us a little bit about what your goals are, ultimately, with the Settlement Project. Where, what do you hope to see in the future? Tell us a little bit about where you feel it’s headed?
FK: Well, let me tell you about a couple of contemporary projects of The Settlement Project. And that will point a little bit to the future. A lot of our work is producing content, which makes it clear for all patriots to get what is the nature of critical theory, of postmodernism, etc. Nobody needs to spend a lot of time learning that stuff. It’s vile, it’s destructive, it’s disrespectful,
MV: it’s confusing too,
FK: it’s confusing, and that’s part of the advantage they have.
MV: You bet.
FK: And so one of the major things we do both in smaller pieces, in e-booklets, in content on our site, is for a good, honest, hard working patriots to know exactly what they’re looking at when there’s some Harvard guy looking down their noses at them, throwing up squid ink and smoke. The conservatives are punching here, punching there. It’s like one of those superhero movies with this super fast guy who’s behind you and in front of you. We’re trying to stop the camera and say, This is you. ” We got you on film. We got you on tape, enlarge that picture.” We’re doing a lot of constant work to make it perfectly clear what has been done to the philosophy that makes the smug depraved soul say “Marxism Hahaha, what are you going to do? Attack me with an Edsel or a Model T?” To which we have to be able to say, “I’ll tell you exactly what you are and exactly what’s wrong with the way you think and why the way you think produces tyranny, and ultimately produces death every time. You can laugh all you like about socialism or Marxism. Laugh all you like I can show anybody, clearly that what you believe is the case about reality will produce gulags, will produce Hitler’s gas chambers. It always does. It always has.”
So this is our work. It is to make it clear, so that people do not have to waste their time with this smug, elusive rarefied academic trickery. We’re producing a lot of booklets, a lot of essays, and we’re writing a brief, solid readable book, which does a handful of things. It explains Marxism briefly. We already know what that is. And it traces the thread, the rope bridge between Marxism and what is the philosophical nature of the enemy.
MV: Excellent, excellent.
FK: And finally produces a clear counter proposal. Read it, like it, if you like it, join it. Here’s a proposal to ponder; A loving father and daughter. Is that a relationship of oppression? That’s not oppression. How’s that? There’s a counter proposal for understanding hierarchy. What is the other proposal? What is the proposal of those who are working to destroy America? Of those trying to blind police with laser pens? What is their world? What do they believe about the world? Our writing is, about options for reading the exact same data? That’s that book. It will be short. It will be readable. It’s kind of a step down transformer so you don’t have to struggle through this smug, elusive manipulation by the Left.
MV: Absolutely. And it’s needed too, because, you know, most people out here, you know, the moms and the middle class, you know, they they don’t know what Marxism is it’s, they don’t know what, you know, post postmodern critical theories about they don’t, you know, that’s, they don’t even know what CRT means, you know, it’s it can mean cart in Amazon or something, you know, they don’t know what, what it means.
FK: And it’s not that these people are not geniuses and not brilliant. You know, they’re doing 20 things that I could never do.
MV: Exactly.
FK: There’s a Mom running the house with three kids, soccer practice and all else. And, to me, that’s a genius, I bow down before these people
MV: Absolutely.
FK: I don’t know who’s smarter, or not smarter. That’s not the point. People don’t have to bother with this stuff. It’s not good stuff anyway. That’s part of why we’re putting it out there.
MV: Make it simple for the common person to understand, that hopefully, that’s what our podcast is about is to take a, you know, a complicated issue and bring it down to, you know, common sense, understanding that we can all relate to and you know, what we can do about it, right?
FK: Exactly right. What we can do about it as Americans. We have to.We can’t just sit around on the sidelines now, and be fat and happy. And just take freedoms we take for granted. We can see how quickly things have changed just in the last year or a year or two. And, you know, we need to be upfront and really in the fight. Some of us are a little bit more activist types, but even, you know, the soccer moms and dads that are working, they need to be aware of what’s going on as well. We’re in this together. Everybody’s doing their part, everybody.
MV: Exactly, yeah, so very good. Well, sp12.org. Go check it out. And you can donate to I’m sure that Dr. Kaufmann can always use additional funding. So please feel free to make a contribution. You can also go to AffirmAmerica.com and sign up for our newsletter. And also you can make contributions there to help us get the message out and the content that we’re presenting today. So I want to thank Dr. Kaufmann for joining us today. Hopefully, we can meet on a weekly or monthly basis, Dr. Kaufmann.
FK: That would be good, even for particular issues. We can, yes, try to shed a little light together. That would be great.
MV: That’d be great. Let’s talk about that. Let’s add that into our episodes. And some people might like to read, but I know when they’re driving around, they can listen to our podcast or watch us on Youtube or video and our desires to get the message out.