Today’s ‘Progressives’: Repeating the Mistakes of Yesterday’s Communists
History does not simply repeat itself, wrote Karl Marx. It often happens that the first round of a phenomenon is a tragedy; the second round is a farce. So is it today as millions of young people devote themselves to extreme left-wing causes, including the destruction of their own countries, democracy, and liberty all in the name of some utopia that will never be attained and whose promotion will make human life worse.
Here is how Bertram Wolfe, one such person of that earlier generation, later wrote of his infatuation with Communism in the 1920s and 1930s:
Dreams of cosmopolitanism and internationalism … in an ever more open society, dreams of … curbs upon dictatorial power and autocratic power, dreams of the final abolition of serfdom … of a greater respect for human life and human dignity, of gentler and juster laws, equal for all and binding on all, dreams of liberty, equality and brotherhood and of a new humanity, free in spirit and intelligence, free in critical inquiry mastery to an ever greater extent of nature, of man’s own nature, and his social institutions.
He continued:
For me, as for most sensitive persons, the existing society had many obvious defects … shortcomings from our dreams of perfection. One felt superior when he noted and criticized these imperfections and offered a learned-sounding…remedy that cured everything at once. … How nice to think that one had answers to all problems, cures for all ills, a simple, certain, manifest remedy backed by books of enormous learning. … And how wonderful, when one did not understand the past or the present, to be so certain of the future.
After twenty years devotion to the cause — he and his wife even choosing not to have children in a misguided effort to devote themselves to the world’s betterment — Wolfe broke with Communism over his disgust at the 1930s Soviet purge trials that framed and murdered the very leaders who had made the Russian Revolution. But it took almost another decade for him to repudiate Marxism and understand where he’d gone wrong.
Typical of the radical in transition, he at first berated his foreign hero — in this case, Stalin — for letting down the cause, telling a 1938 rally:
He has made infinitely harder the task of those of us who love the Soviet Union and would make the world understand its wonders of achievement, of those who would defend it against attack from the ruling class of all lands.
But then he came to comprehend that this was no miscommunication but the fundamental evil of the cause to which he’d devoted his life. He was horrified to discover that he had been helping tyranny when he thought he was helping to create a better society.
Then, Wolfe crossed the line from having been almost always wrong to being almost always right. The cause of that transition was Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the September 11 for that generation.
Wolfe’s background had equipped him to comprehend what few others saw: the Allies would win the war but afterward the USSR would be Europe’s most powerful country and would extend its empire ever further westward. If Stalin wasn’t stopped, the result would be another terrible war.
Wolfe could find no one willing to publish these ideas until May 1943, when a small magazine accepted such an article. Wherever Wolfe spoke, Communists disrupted the lectures. Hecklers called him a fascist and Trotskyite, but ultimately, due to the USSR’s own actions, America woke up and understood that this analyisis was right. Wolfe’s book on the USSR explaining his views, Three Who Made a Revolution, sold just one hundred copies the first year, 1948. By 1970, it had sold 300,000.
All of these things, along with the USSR’s repressive, dictatorial nature, may seem obvious today (for the relatively few who still remember them), but they were barely known in 1948, the year that the Communist-front Progressive Party ran a serious, though ultimately failed, presidential campaign. In theory, the United States might have had a soft-line, basically pro-Communist president in the midst of the Cold War.
Fascinating stuff. I know a few campus commies from the 60s. One runs a union local. Another is a retired juco prof. The union leader is still hardcore-as she has risen in the ranks, unions have gotten smaller and smaller.
The prof is desperately trying to make his life appear worthwhile. On a fat pension, he writes books and pays to have them published. He’ll tell anyone who will listen that the FBI bugged his phone back in the day…(I was there, and he wasn’t doing anything anybody would have cared about. In fact, the rads said he wasn’t doing enough.)
The thing is most people don’t want to admit that they’ve acted like fools.
And some people can’t admit it.
On and on it goes, then.
When it comes to ‘progressives’ (a disingenuous term for enemies of human freedom and dignity), they cannot admit that the premises upon which they’ve built their existence are breathtakingly wrong. None of them – none – can survive a first principles argument.
Thus, for a progressive to admit that they’ve been wrong is to admit that their entire existence, their raison d’etre is an empty, shrieking fraud.
They don’t accept first principles. That’s the problem.
It’s no use arguing with them, because their belief system is radically different. Just like you can’t persuade a Christian to become an athiest, or vice versa, you can’t persuade a progressive that low taxes are good for the economy and the country. The discussion won’t even be about taxes. For them, it will be about either: a) getting other people to buy them stuff, or b) ‘fairness’; depending on whether they are a thief liberal or an idealogue liberal (the tiny tiny minority).
They can’t be persuaded. There can be no compromise or middle ground with people 100% devoted to their beliefs; any semblence of compromise is only a tactical delay toward their untimate goal of forcing you to acquiesce to them. Discussions are fruitless. To them, a discussion is simply an opportunity to trick somebody else. They have to be defeated.
Or else they will defeat us.
Yes. Thomas Sowell illustrated the fundamental conflict between the constrained vision of conservatives and the unconstrained vision of the left: http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Visions-Ideological-Political-Struggles/dp/0465081428. It made me realize why I could not get through to many of my leftist friends.
Yup. They firmly believe that rich have to pay more taxes “because they SHOULD.”
…An idea from the people who constantly tell me that “you can’t legislate morality.”
Sometimes, and it can’t be more than once a month while trawling the depths of political discussion one comes across something that is immediately identifiable as a seedling.
Tiny, fragile and most importantly, pure potential.
That’s what this essay is, a seedling. A new term “the third left” and a perfectly beautifully crafted course to chart the current rag-tag bunch of left wing political ratbags directly back to their true selves. They’re not new, we’ve been here before almost exactly 100 years ago. Last time they were stopped in the west by the greatest calamity to ever befall humanity. This time, I fear that we won’t have the a singular entity to point to, to say that’s why your ideas are evil.
I pray that this seedling of thought grows and multiplies, for it’s this sort of concise disarmament that need to be brought against the hydra of the third left, the totalitarians enablers of out time.
The “third left” (good term) may see themselves as the valiant vanguard of a new, better civilization, but it’s interesting to note that they use the same excuses as their forebears.
The main excuse being that those who went before weren’t smart enough to do it right- but this lot, being an enlightened elite’ who are infinitely smarter and more sophisticated, won’t make the same mistakes.
Somehow they remind me irresistibly of the “wise heads” who as late as the 19th and early 20th century clung to the phlogiston theory of combustion in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Simply put, we are dealing with people who refuse to see reality.
Which probably explains why it is virtually impossible to reason with a “progressive”. He (or she) simply is not using the same form of ratiocination as everyone else. The result is very much as though one were trying to explain modern cosmology (post-Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton) to a Babylonian astronomer-priest. He “knows” that those planets moving against the background of fixed stars are gods in the sky, moving back and forth at their whim, and using those movements to send messages to Earth- which the astronomer-priest “interprets” for the good of all (and incidentally to maintain his own power and influence). You are telling him it’s nothing of the sort.
The modern progressive, like the astronomer-priest, concludes that he is right, and you are a heretic who should be stoned to death.
clear ether
eon
“The “third left” (good term) may see themselves as the valiant vanguard of a new, better civilization”
Don’t fall for the ruse.
They are thieves. The high-minded talk is the shell game. Follow the money. There may be a few librarians who love reading Marx, but not many of them.
If you don’t believe it, try to think of a well-known high-minded idealogue: Pelosi, Reid, Schummer, Franks, Dodd, Waters, Rangel, Obama, Hillary, Bubba, Soros?
Get real, they are thieves who have found an easier and safer crime than breaking into houses.
“They are thieves. The high-minded talk is the shell game. Follow the money. There may be a few librarians who love reading Marx, but not many of them.”
As sure as the night follows day, the thugs will take over the welfare state and turn it against everyone.
I think this point needs to be hammered home to the wet progressive idealists. Their ideals may be noble and sweet, but the system that is required to implement it consolidates far too much power and will *always* attract and ultimately be taken over by the ruthless and power hungry. Witness Stalin, Hitler, basically every single Socialist dictatorship.
And when the thugs take over the left, which it looks like they have over there and over here. The wet progressives are the first ones against the wall. How quickly Obama turned on his “base”, and how much he, Gibbs, Axlerod, Reid and the rest of the new powermongers on the left seem to openly despise the wets.
Being brutal and power-hungry is a description of a particular character-type. But Leftists who are brutal and power hungry have unleashed terror and created totalitarian states that are their creations alone. Nobody else has matched them. Because Leftism is an ideology of death. Part One: destruction of existing societies, cultures, religions. Then, Part Two: the destruction of large groups of people. The targets never disappear, if you’ll notice. Since one aspect of Leftism is the denial of Human Nature, which is hard-wired and universal, they ultimately hate all people, because the masses never accept Leftist atheism, communism, and anti-humanism. In any event, no Leftist regime anywhere at any time has ever stopped killing people until the regime itself is destroyed.
Elizabeth Becker described in her When the War Was Over how the Khmer Rouge first attacked the capitalist, educated or westernized portions of the population. When Cambodia’s problems didn’t go away, they attacked “traitors” within their own ranks. When their problems still didn’t go away, they attacked the Vietnamese, who were not amused. Apparently, it never occurred to them to examine their own assumptions.
I urge everyone to share this article everywhere. We obviously cannot rely on the failed media to report on any of this nor will our children learn it in school. It is entirely up to us to raise the alarm and keep at it until we become impossible to ignore or ridicule any further.
It takes a while to learn lessons. It’s why diplomaed adolescents entering the adult world undergo apprentice training. Some people are gifted in the lessons of life and do not need diplomas except as social polish.
But is the lesson that the fundamental essence of the cause/s to which a life is devoted really the lesson to learn ? On surface yes. But THE essential is that ALL institutional havanas are man-made designed on the material to hand : the lives, ambitions, and methods of the designers and engineers of “paradise”, the utopia, as well as the plan and putative ends. The student must be alert OR educated to the TRUTH in the designers. The CHARACTER displayed in their life’s behaviours that are fundamental to the designs. Provenance IS important.
Earthly paradise, utopia / erewhon to ensnare university trained to enthrone themselves as sophisticaed nobility. To sneer at the in life successful without the imprimatur of these betters.
The virulent attacks of these self arrogated “best and brightest” to the foundations and walls: the Constitution of the USA and the architecture of government in TRI-Partite agencies of the USA cannot be accidental. That nation as living example of non-utopian, unmistakeable success, providing in freedom the “greatest good to the greatest number”.
Comparison with their failed utopia the prison state of the Soviet Union is affront to them, their vanity, as theoriticians and engineers of utopia. The “best and brightest” of their time. Structural faults and inadequate foundations based on their theories, principles,and ethos, plus their management including gulags leading to its implosion.
The attacks are now virulent on foundations of the USA for final destruction. The Judeo-Christian philosophy essential in the founding of this nation. The Constitution of the USA which protects in Law the Rights defined in the Declaration of Independence based on the Judeo-Christianity of the designers.AND the call to arms of all those citizens who knew that to keep their Rights it would be up to them as citizen soldiers.
If you want anything done, you must do it yourself. The essential, the nucleus, the core of the USA.
For the headline of this article to call these “mistakes” is a mistake.
Excellent job Mr. Rubin and a very lucid essay on the dangers we face today.
Sometimes I think the left’s love affair with that which threatens them the most is nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome.
The Left has no love affair with what threatens them most. No humans act that way. The Left in America or in Europe is threatened most by white people and by their religion, Christianity. Why do so many Euro- and American-Jews support Mohammedanism? No ideological affinity here, but they do share a common enemy — European peoples and Christian civilization. Jews are some of the most intelligent humans on the planet. And they don’t know the Mohammedans wish them ill? Get real! As they see their interests, it’s more urgent to cripple and destroy Christianity and its culture right now than to fight the Mohammedans. As they both share a common objective, they unite in a marriage of convenience — against Americans. I see no better explanation of the behavior involved.
At heart the conservative is a free man or woman. At heart the leftist is a totalitarian.
At heart the leftist is a totalitarian.
Or a slave mentality with a death wish. The corollary of the will to power, for which some of the Left is more powerful than any drug, is the desire to submit.
Breathtaking, isn’t it?
In Communism, the party was all powerful and full devotion to whatever the party said was required. In the Iranian theocracy, religion has become the new political party. In Iran, full devotion to whatever the mullahs (i.e., the religion) says is required and the religion is all powerful, even having the power of life and death over people.
To me, totalitarianism is totalitarianism, whether it is communism, fascism, or a tyranny of religion. That’s why we have to be on our guard so much here in the United States. This creeping statism and liberalism in our government is nothing more than a form of tyranny and has nothing to do with what our founding fathers wanted for this nation. They are to be stopped at every turn and we should fight them with every last ounce of energy we have. Even to end up like a European socialist state, like France, would be a disaster for us. No, it is up to us to stop these people. Liberals only make up 20% of the voting public. That means 80% disagree with them. Last time I checked, 80 was bigger than 20. Time to make the liberals understand that.
You are not speaking the truth. There is no total devotion in Iran to the mullahs. Even in public. If there would be, one man in restaurant in Tehran wouldn’t be telling me that gays are horrible prosecuted, that European marriage life is far superior to the Iranian one. And another boy wouldn’t be telling me in very crowded underground train that he drinks illegal alcohol very often.
You just couldn’t do that in communist countries in 50s and 60s, when they were absolutely totalitarian. Trust me, I know, since I live in one of them.
How are you so sure that your founding fathers wouldn’t be todays liberals? After all, American Revolutionary war was struggle between conservative English and progressive Americans. Am I wrong?
The American Revolution was in many respects a Revolution by conservatives and reactionaries far more the leftist revolutions in France and Russia, where the reactionaries were the royals being overthrown and the revolutionaries had never held any real power before. America’s experience in 1770 is that since 1607 and 1620 — roughly 150 years, they had pretty much achieved their goal of fleeing the elites of Europe in order to rule themselves. The English Ruling Class in Pitt’s First World War had exhausted the Treasury as usual and were deeply in debt. They had protected the colonists, with the colonists’ help, from the French and Indians so felt entitled to start tapping the wealth of the New Continent which the colonists had pretty much created by themselves, notwithstanding the brief war against the French and Indians that had just ended. The colonies that were old would not stand for this change in taxation (South of Maine). The relatively new and wide open colonies just conquered (Canada) had no reason to throw out the English since to do so would subject them possibly to the resugent French who still remained. From this the American Revolution clearly qualifies as a conservative revolution from the right, and that is why the conservatives that led it drafted the two greatest conservative legal documents ever seen — The Declaration and the Constitution. Because it was a revolution from the Right it succeeded in reaction where the two revolutions from the Left (France and Russia) ultimately failed in reactin.
I rest my case.
My comment, “I think you are very wrong,” was obviously directed to Liuk, not to you.
(And in that comment I was referring to the real Edmund Burke and not your nic!!!)
I think you are very wrong. Many would argue that the American Revolution was more animated by a desire to enjoy and build on traditional English liberties than by a desire for utopian innovation. But that is a complicated subject for a blog.
What I would suggest is a look at Edmund Burke, one of the severest critics of the French Revolution but one of the staunchest supporters of the colonials in their argument against Britain. Burke understood the difference between the two movements, and it was precisely the radical Progressivism of the French that he detested.
1) “Third Left” reminds me of the term “third way”, which was even a phrase Tony Blair used. Problem being the first time it was used, as another path between capitalism and communism, it was applied to Benito Mussolini. So when anyone talks about being a “third way,” they are advocating fascism. Now there is a broad spectrum in fascism, and it doesn’t have to include anti-semitism or racism, but at it’s core, the “third way” is fascism.
2)”dreams of the final abolition of serfdom” The problem being, communism, socialism and fascism are all modern day variants of feudalism. A bit more sophisticated, but still a system where the benighted peasantry is made to listen to their betters, who know more and thus should be in a position to order them around. And the modern variant does away with the distinction between church and state, as religion is belief in the state.
Interesting stuff, and some valid questions. But … but … WRONG conclusion in th title, “Today’s ‘Progressives’: Repeating the Mistakes of Yesterday’s Communists”
The communists didn’t make any mistakes, nor are today’s ‘progressives’ making any. They KNOW the evil that is their ideology. AND they know that it does nothing but destroy — destroy everything that is of value to humans; first and foremost, freedom of an individual. And it is this KNOWLEDGE that drives them. They are, deliberately out there to destroy. Even the lowest denominator Leftist knows what exactly he is proposing and promoting. The Leftists are not fools, or not even making some ‘mistake’ or ‘error in judgement’. It is we, the FREE who are making a mistake in thinking that they don’t know. Now, the case of Wolfe, and in modern times, the case of David Horowitz, for example is DIFFERENT, in the sense that they were just blind followers of the Leftist gods, and at one point they saw the error in their own judgement. A true Leftist — such as Obama today, or Castro — they are NOT under any illusions of ‘doing good’. They know exactly what they are doing it, why, and its destructive effects, and they do it, not despite that knowledge, but BECAUSE of that knowledge. Of course most of the Democratic voting youth and sundry ‘intellectuals’ are merely victims of the Leftist ploys and indoctrination, but the real Leftists hardly ever have an epiphany as to the (hitherto unonoticed) evil of their ideology. They START with that evil. And their entire life proceeds from it. And that explains why Wolfe and Horowitz are the rarest of exceptions rather than a more frequent phenomenon. Just read what the Leftists have been saying for decades now, and you will see the evidence of what i am saying scattered all around. Most of the times, for public consumption, they speak total nonsense about ‘compassion’, and doing ‘good’, and etc., but listen to what they say to each other. Listen to their extremely cynical, and to-the-point, strategy and ideology classes.
It’s all by design. A brilliant strategy has insured success.
I get criticized for being unnecessarily conspiratorial. To me it’s obvious. Oh I don’t imagine that communist perverts in 1946 wrote down a plan to attack the US financial system in September 2008 and insert a mixed-race Manchurian who they had trained from birth in 1961. Life doesn’t work that way, and no detailed plan could have survived the flux of events for decades.
What they did do was lay down a strategic framework that has been followed brilliantly. Dominate the universities, the media and the unions. Educate subsequent generations of radicals. Fragment the country by creating social fissures wherever possible: race; religion; class; wealth, etc. Pit class against class. Never rest. Emphasize the flaws in the system and society. Rub on them like sandpaper on stone. Break down the institutions that help people be independent: families, churches, small businesses. Demonize the strengths that made the country great: freedom, independence, hard-work, spirituality, small town values, Judeo-Christian morality…find the flaws and have the media focus only on the bad, never the good. Indeed, propagandize the good into the bad.
Mix and stir. Breed the occasional messianic figure. Inject catalysts into the mixture as needed.
It could have gone in a thousand different directions. We might already have become another Europe. We might have already had a race war. We might have already had a class war. We might be only five decades into a fifty decade process. They didn’t know. But they did know that the ingredients (i.e., the strategy), if maintained for enough time, would eventually break down the culture and cause crises that they could exploit.
And that is exactly what has happened. They sowed the seeds of financial ruin in many ways, but significantly with their “Loans to Deadbeats” program formally known as Community Reinvestment. That stewed for decades and was perfectly poised for exploitation in 2008. Did they know it was the secret sauce? No more than Black Power, or abortion, or MTV, or rap music was the secret sauce; CRA was just another spice in the mix; but the one that paid off big-time. And they had their man at the ready starting in 2004. Certainly, they expected a longer gestation period, and probably never expected the success he has had, but 2008 presented the opportunity and they seized it, because that is what they do.
So here we are: at the edge of societal oblivion, from our perspective; the triumph of history, from their perspective.
Are there millions of secret communists ready to rip their shirts open and bare themselves to the world if their leaders can just push the country over the brink? Of course not; a secret cabal of card-carrying communists would have been stupidity beyond belief. The media, “professors”, Hollywood? True believers they are…convinced that what has been spooned into their brains by generations of radicals is what the country desperately needs…because that is all they have ever heard and they have been taught to be followers, not independent thinkers; and because they have been taught to think of themselves as the only true patriots of humanity. Perhaps there are a few thousand, at most, formal subversives who openly admit among themselves that they are the spawn of a 6-decade strategy to bring down the greatest threat to totalitarianism the world has ever known. The United States of America.
WWII was practice. The Cold War was practice. Terrorism is a distraction. This is the war for the future.
ProReason, I agree with your assessment in entirety with one exception. Terrorism is not only a distraction, but also a totalitarian variant that has collectivism as a philosophy at its core. Its emergence as a world threatening force has only come about due to the presence of oil in their midst. And this powerful financial windfall will not abate any time soon nor will there be any enlightening anytime soon as the winds are in their sails aided by fellow traveling totalitarians here in the West. The fundamental principles of Islam revolve around the collectivist Umma, not the individual. The importance of the individual is subservient to the Umma as well as subservient to the Imam. Questioning authority gets you killed. This collectivist orientation explains why no human advances of any consequence emerge from that region. It is not Marxian in origin but it is similar enough in its current well-financed manifestation that it is as grave a threat as anything else on the horizon.
I agree with what you say. Terrorism is the means to another form of totalitarianism, different from Marxism in its outward manifestations, but similar in the the core philosophy of complete and ruthless control of the population.
However, I have a hard time viewing Islam as a threat at the same level as marxism. The only thing keeping us from easily stopping it is marxism itself. The marxists keep it alive because it is convenient to do so. If they succeed in once again taking total control of the West (which they have not controlled since their predecessors lost power beginning in 1776), Islam will be eradicated completely within a few months or years, depending on when they get around to it.
My view is that the radical marxists and Islam are in an alliance of convenience. That is why Obama does nothing about it, other than harrass people, which he finds amusing and useful because it is one of many ways he keeps the public stirred up and distracted from his more important activities in totally undermining this country in every way, shape and form.
All I can say is 1.4 Billion people and 1300 years of history ain’t beanbag. I am not nearly as sanguine as you as to how easily it can be defeated. If anything it has more staying power than the atheistic communist variant because it adds a spiritual element that occupies a position of respect.
There is no question that there is an alliance of convenience but in my eyes it remains to be seen who might emerge from the alliance as the victor. The failure of past totalitarian systems can be attributed to many things but in my eyes, chief among them are the lack of true believers. In an atheistic Marxist Society the survival depends increasingly on the police state to maintain order. The folks lose their appetite for utopia when it descends into something less heavenly. Islam on the other hand has 1.4 Billion members and not that they are all zealots but a majority of them support the expansion of Islam. This collection of human will makes the Soviet Union look like amateur hour. What previously kept them a backwater in civilizational development still exists but now they have the capital to buy what they could not produce on their own. It is the spiritual element that gives them the staying power to generate new recruits as well as the commitment to carry out their assignments.
The last bulwark is the American military which the foreign commies still have no hope of defeating in an open fight. Fragging by American Muslims wearing the uniform is now known and has been repeated, and no one in power says anything. One other chink the left thinks might work is putting gays in the military openly. Have gays serve without announcing it — would not work. I am not sure it will work but certain people on the left think it might. What they really need back is the draft. But to fight who? The foreign leftists really have not had a meaningful army since the Soviets lost 20 million. But wait. Now China has 36 million men with no prospect of ever finding a wife but with no navy. Hmmmm. What to do?
My view is that the reason the West has not stopped Islam is because the marxist totalitarian wannabes want Islam around.
Imagine a world without Eric Holder, Obama, Kerry, etc. Immediately, the danger and horror of radical Islam would become immediately obvious, and the nonsense of patdowns, refusing to name the enemy, collateral damage, necessary force, etc. would end. Immediately, people would say “hey, the mf’s intend to wipe us off the face of the earth.” Immediately, our vastly superior military would be put on alert the use for which it exists.
But it wouldn’t even be necessary to be violent more than once in demonstration mode. The mere fact of a realistic and massive threat would stop Terrorism in its tracks. The mullahs would decline to put their lives and their lands at risk of certain annihilation. The terror would end. At that point, it would only be necessary to monitor the situation diplomatically, not by rub-down artists at the airport. If a few wild-card Islamisists acted up, verbal instructions to the Mullah’s would suffice.
Basically, Islamic terrorism is a guerilla war in the country of the enemy, and an enemy who has not just overwhelming military superiority, but effectively infinite military superiority. The ridiculous guerilla war doesn’t have to continue for even a day. If they hadn’t attacked us and weren’t continuing to attack us, I wouldn’t care. They could hate each other and kill each other to their hearts content.
But of course, the ship of fools does continue, and the only reason it does is because we have foolishly agreed to conditions that no sane person protecting his family would agree to in a billion years. The “complexities” are ridiculous and bogus; they are just another form of sedition against this country. The conditions are set, not by radical muslims, but by the far more dangerous enemy that is trying to destroy the US from the inside.
Any rational person knows this to be true. Not only would it stop the terror, many thousands of lives would be saved, and Islamic countries would become productive world citizens.
If we had failed to confront Japan and Germany, we would speaking Japanese and German today. Yet that is exactly what we do for an enemy that wouldn’t last a week in a battle with either of those two countries.
(note: I mean no offense to anyone who has lost family or friends to these barbarians. It is tragic that the problem has not been put to rest and that horrible losses will continue until the problem reaches the point where the violence will inevitable kill millions more.)
please email I me I would like to talk to you offline.
mayberry701 at gmail dot com
I’ve said this before over and over, but it’s worth repeating: Read F.A. Hayek’s book “The Road to Serfdom.” Read it and pass it along to all your friends, family, and colleagues. Hayek lays everything out in this book: how progressives (the socialists and communists among us) must eliminate the Rule of Law (look at what Eric Holder has done–the Black Panther case, the suit against Arizona); how Truth must be undermined; how class warfare must be stirred up; how everyone must be mediocre so that equality exists; how the State must replace religion (Christianity is being demonized in America). There is much more in this book. While I was reading it, I was stunned to realize the parallels to what is happening in America right now. Read it. We must be educated about what the left is trying to do and fight back.
I don’t believe in that conspiracy stuff for a second. When you’re talking about staunch liberals you’re talking about ad hoc and opportunistic morons who knee jerk their way into the future like an 18th century doctor trying to combat malaria because of the bad air. “Mal – aria”, bad air.
Politically correct liberals have only the following as a loose ideology:
Everyone in the world is equally capable and should be compared to the best among us and brought up to that standard no matter the consequences.
Success equals immorality in some fashion little understood, failure morality. Intent means nothing – only the ability to carry out that intent.
White people are endemic racists who can only be cured by surrounding them with people of color.
The history of America basically amounts to one great crime and this must be redressed.
Minorities are in prisons out of all proportion to their actual numbers because of white people and this is the same with education.
Once an American hits a certain income bracket they are officially deemed immoral and their wages can be garnished. (liberals themselves excused).
I am in fact my brothers keeper in a legal and not charitable sense and liberals will introduce legislation pertinent to this fact.
The rights of the entirety of the Third World equal American rights. (European Americans themselves excluded.)
One cannot predict the actions of people by their skin color unless they are white.
Emily Post wrote that the least guest at your party should not be made to feel small and so you should show your genitals at the airport.
John Wayne was a frickin’ moron.
WRITE THE BOOK! I’ll buy it. Your summation is incisive! Or, write it on you’re blog, if you haven’t already, James.
Superb commentary.
Thanks.
I urge you all to see this video. it will open your eyes and explain what modern day progressives are really re-skinned socialists.
http://www.amazon.com/Agenda-Grinding-America-Curtis-Bowers/dp/B003Z3CZGG
Agenda: Grinding America Down
When Idaho Legislator Curtis Bowers wrote a “letter to the editor” about the drastic changes in America’s culture, it became the feature story on the evening news, people protested at the Capitol, and for weeks the local newspapers were filled with responses. He realized then… he’d hit on something. Ask almost anyone and you’ll hear, “Communism is dead! The Berlin Wall came down.” Thought the word communism isn’t used anymore, this film will show the ideas behind it are alive and well. Join Bowers for a fascinating look at the people and groups that have successfully targeted America’s morality and freedom in their effort to grind America down. It’s a well documented AGENDA.
President Obama’s close friend is Bill Ayers, communist terrorist, who wants to set up a communist dictatorship in the U.S, killing at least 25 million people in a gulag. He dedicated a book in 1972 to Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert Kennedy, and, as of 9/2001, writing in the NY Times, had not changed his mind. He wants to be a tyrant, since he is infallible.
It’s a bit ironic, that I have been working on an Essay with a working title currently “The Five Myths of Leftism”, many of the thoughts of which are contained in yours, Barry.
1)The Left is Anti-War.
This myth could be exploded in a thousand ways, leftism is not in the slightest anti-war (or anti-violence). It will resort to snuff fantasies in a heartbeat, (Bush 43 being an almost constant object of their bloodlust, Cheney, Palin and Rush following closely behind), calling terrorists by any name but that…and their victims “Little Eichmann’s”.
Leftists are not in the slightest anti-war, they are simply rooting against the West and rooting particularly against America and Israel.
2)Leftists are against the bullying of the “little guy”, against strong-arm tactics and prefer intellectual, calm, reasoned debate.
Quite the contrary, the hallmark of leftism is confrontational bullying, threats and blackmail, blackballing, ostracizing, shouting down and drowning out of principled dissenters, skeptics and critics. When the leftist forms an opinion, it immediately becomes “settled science” and anyone who dares to disagree is marginalized, ridiculed and slandered into silence.
3)Leftism is the ideology for the “average Joe”, it is a populist notion, a champion of the working class and a tireless fighter for the protections of Middle America.
The working stiff, Joe Sixpack is a prop. Leftism is an elitist fantasy that steps on the necks of Middle Americans, could not care less about them, scoffs at their patriotism, belittles their intelligence and undermines their values at every turn.
Leftism needs the masses to be “organized” and then needs to churn up resentment in the “organized masses” so that it can implement state control over those very masses. It does not respect the worker, it respects the power of the union, feeds the union, bloats the union coffers and paralyzes the economy, in order to destroy it.
4)Leftism cares about the “minority victims” who are oppressed by the majority.
Leftism doesn’t care one whit about its “victims du jour”, in fact, it doesn’t prevent them from being “victimized”, it creates the “victimization” and promotes, enhances and advances the victim status of anyone and everyone who be made “martyrs for the cause”.
Leftism has no use for harmony. It thrives on chaos, confusion and resentment. Keeping people in a permanent state of agitation is like oxygen to leftists.
Leftism is perfectly at ease with demonizing certain religions, certain ethnic groups, certain people are perfectly ok to stigmatize.
5) Leftism speaks “truth to power”.
Leftism doesn’t speak truth to anyone. Socialism or Communism are hidden from view. The leftist media outlets, as well as academia, Hollywood and now…nearly the whole of the Democratic Party, try to disguise the true intent of leftist ideology from the masses. Truth is a trifling thing. It not only doesn’t matter, it is an impediment to the imposition of leftist ideals and must be quashed.
Leftism, therefore, is a sham. It’s a con. It’s a flim-flam game designed to look like something else, other than what it truly is…so that it will be injected into our body politic under our noses and without recognition.
If you shine a light on it, you will be ignored. If your light on it becomes effective you will be called a McCarthyite.
It is and has been so injected. Against what I believe is the will and intent of the people. And, for the most part…we won’t do a damn thing about it.
cfBleachers, great post. I have one to add although to some of us it is hard to imagine but here it goes. 6) Leftism is good for the economy. You only need go back a brief 1 or 2 years and the public opinion gave the Democrats a double digit margin in terms of who could be trusted to “manage” the economy. By virtue of the obfuscation generated by the various media and cultural outlets dominated by the left, this margin was not surprising as the devastation brought about by their “social and economic justice” policies was horrific, and although inaccurately blamed on Bush, there is an argument that he did precious little to blunt its impact. Nevertheless, we have witnessed two years of leftist political domination and the economic results have been predictable to those with eyes willing to see. But the fundamental question that never gets addressed is “Where is there anywhere in this world, an example of a successful economic model that began life as a socialist enterprise?”
omo
The answer to your question (I presume it was rhetorical, but, I’ll answer it anyway)…no place on earth.
Slight quibble, in that we have had more than two years of leftist fiscal insanity. Having a fairly decent depth and breadth in the macro and micro real estate world, I understand and see things that might not interest others to dig down deep enough, and I have come to a personal conclusions that the vast impact of the socialist tinkerers in real estate…is the single largest reason for this global recession. It is a thousand piece dominoes game to be sure, but real estate was at the front of the line.
Socialists are the Chicago Cubs. (communists are the Oakland Raiders)
And, socialists in charge of the economy are double play combination of Tinkerers (leave it)Ever (to) Chance.
Much like the Cubs, socialist tinkerers are always lovable losers. They are sad sacks who look like they might finally, this year…accomplish something, and by August 2nd they collapse like a wet dishrag and fall into comical ineptitude…and say, “wait til next (year) time”.
They are a pastel image, ivy-covered walls, and abject failure of epic proportions. They haven’t won in over 100 years and they attribute that to goats and fickle winds. It is neither.
Winning actually would spoil the image. In this instance, nothing succeeds like horrific failure. It is the living martyrdom that leftists and the Cubs and their fans share in common.
We don’t need leftism, omo, to understand pathetic results. We only need to pay attention. And we need to stop believing in faux martyrdom. There is absolutely nothing wrong with success, achievement and winning. Losers don’t like to compete and they have a real internal rage at those who achieve success. When we stop worshiping losing and stop glorifying faux martyrdom…we will have finally exposed leftism for the fraud that it has become.
cfbleachers, You cracked me up with the baseball analogy and particularly with the reference to the lovable loser Cubs. And I accept your point that leftists have been in charge of the purse strings for more than 2 years. Correction duly noted. And the socialist policies in our real estate financing markets are precisely what I was referring to as I am with you on that issue. I go one step further in my blame assessment in terms of the timing of the wreckage and credit Chuck Schumer for his June 2008 letter exposing the precarious financial condition of IndyMac bank which initiated a run on the bank. This brazen act was the tipping point of the meltdown and it worked even better than Schumer could have ever dreamed. (Unfortunately he is without a doubt the smartest guy on their side of the aisle and the most dangerous).
But your assessment of the tinkerers brings to mind FDR and his populist but destructive policies. While his adminstration has done lasting damage to our nation and inspired new generations of FDR wannabes, there is greater attraction to the cause than simply celebrating failure. The first and foremost is moral superiority and the opportunity for sanctimony as a basis for social policy. In other words, it is the envy that gets em hooked but it is the sanctimony that keeps them in the fold.
Chuck Schumer (Unfortunately he is without a doubt the smartest guy on their side of the aisle and the most dangerous).
Amen. He is a shadow wandering the halls of D.C. Some ask if he lives or is merely the walking re-incarnation of something that was evil eons ago and has come back to the living to re-take his annointed throne.
Then again, how can a Nancy Pelosi face the world and conclude that she regrets “NOTHING”.
I know many progressives and do my best not to get into a discussion as it is essentially a fools errand. Still how in all of eternity can these people not at least read or understand history, if nothing else. Furthermore, don’t they get at all that many of them will be the biggest losers should American Democracy morph into socialism which will morph into national socialism, which will morph into communism/marxism.
Sure I’ll go down in the first round of the purge, but they will be right behind me screaming.
The Second Amendment is critical to this cause. I will be a rebel at 61 or whenever it begins and you can count on it.
So puzzling.
There is almost certainly going to be a major confrontation between Obama and the House within the next 6 months. The incoming mostly tea part inspired freshman are hopefully not going to go along with business as usual. How its going t play out is uncertain. We may see a government shut down if Obama refuses to deal. Hang onto your hats guys.
Are the lefties going to give up on their utopian dreams? The vast majority will not. A few months back I (shudder) visited HuffPo. The outrage du jour was that Sarah Palin had made some statement to the effect that the majority of the founders were Christian. There over TEN THOUSAND mostly hateful comments.
Personally, I’m stocking up on popcorn and Mountain Dew.
cheers
eon
You’re not stockpiling H50BMG? Didn’t think you’d let yourself to go out that way!
I don’t use anything that heavy. And what I do use, I have enough of already.
(BTW, I only drink Diet Dew, and don’t put butter or salt on my popcorn.)
cheers
eon
To me it is not a case of the Russian people being content but with lacking the ability to express their discontent. In this sense they are as much a failed nation and for the same reasons as the entirety of the Third World and their ideology would seem to have little to do with it other than their utter lack of one.
It is ironic that the Russian people like to contrast themselves as revolutionaries when in fact this was shown and taught to Europe by America and the Russians were the last to jump on the bandwagon among powerful polities and 100 years after France, whose language the upper Russian crust spoke except for the liberty, equality and fraternity part. What Russians share with the Third World is an utter lack of the concept of the greater good. That alone is a damn good reason to choke off immigration to the US because these Magna Carta-less morons carry a disease that doesn’t build libraries but ignores the idea.
Communism reminds me of Corbusier’s high rise apt. buildings in France – they should work but have no understanding of human nature and this is the difference between America’s founding fathers and European pedants like Marx. In this sense, Obama is entirely a pedant since he has done incredibly well in a country he portrays as racist and capitalist and cannot understand since he has no understanding of the nature of reality himself, residing in and reacting to a land that literally does not exist.
Interesting point about inability to grasp the concept of the common good. When I served in Vietnam I once saw where we or the local VN government had laid down gravel along the side of the paved road. Some local women were there helping themselves to the gravel. That the road could have been improved for all was unimportant to them.
When are the American people going to wake up to the fact that our government is in dire need of adult supervision?
News Flash: Todays Communists bad as yesterdays Communists.
Why o why did we let them march through the institutions?
It never fails to amaze as to how hypocritical and contradictory the actions of a typical Leftist are to that of their espoused philosophies. If one were to compare their behaviors against their dialogue, one would be certain that they were analyzing 2 completely different people.
They can’t say what they intend to do. Nobody would support them. So lying becomes like a second skin. You can’t count the times you have seen a liberal politician on TV and said to yourself that every word is a lie. That’s because every word is a lie. If they told the truth, they would never be elected. (and Republicans are nearly as bad).
They also see it as a badge of courage, not a defect. In their minds, it isn’t hypocrisy; it is doing what they have to do to make the world secure for their assumption of total power.
It’s as if your family was under siege by a group of barbarian killers. You wouldn’t hesitate for a second to lie through your teeth to get out of the the jam.
They believe that the country is under siege by US, so it doesn’t bother them in the least to say or do anything necessary to get their way.
And that, btw, is why I know they would be just as violent as the mid-20th centry dictators if they thought they could get away with it. Like Hitler, they see themselves as the ANSWER to the problems of the world, not as evil people in any way. Lying, cheating and ultimately killing is totally justified. In the end, with them in charge, the benefits to the world will be well worth the price.
They believe anyone who doesn’t think like them is at best mentally ill, at worst “evil” (odd coming from moral relativists, but one of the benefits of being a moral relativist is one can hold all the contradictory thoughts one likes).
Witness the immediate pop-mental illness labels they throw around immediately when confronted by someone who questions them: “Xeno PHOBIC”, “Jingoistic”, “Homo PHOBIC”. “Euro PHOBIC”. What the yare really saying is “only a mentally ill person suffering from vague broad illness X could possibly disagree with me on this”
We got to see where such thinking leads when the left takes total power, everybody who doesn’t agree ends up in mental hospitals – or dead. Understand that in the Soviet Union bureaucracy was all, to end up in a mental institution one had to be signed off by a doctor, that doctor worked from the most current policies as handed down to him by the government bureaucracy, the government bureaucracy devised those policies as advised by the most eminent experts and Universities in the field of mental illness in Russia.
At all levels, they all were in agreement that, for example, not believing completely in socialism meant one was obviously deranged and mentally incapable and so should be locked up. With all the science and expert theory necessary to make the decision to institutionalise a perfectly sane person without a single shred of guilt about doing it.
I got to ask Barry Rubin, who is the mainstream media you are talking about? Fox News which has the highest ratings or who…? Wall Street Journal which has the highest circulation or who?
The mainstream television stations are CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN, all of which are left-wing, as are minor stations like MSNBC and PBS.
Fox has the highest ratings of any cable news channel, but it is still only one station with an audience far, far smaller than that of the mainstream channels combined.
The editorial page of the WSJournal is conservative; the news itself, not so much. In any event, it is the only newspaper in the top 15 in circulation that is not left of center.
Let me put it to you this way. If Johnny has 5 green apples and the twelve Smith children have 4 red apples each, Johnny does not have more apples than the Smith children, and green apples are not “mainstream” in that set of 53 apples.
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov after 40 years. Go to U tube and type in Yuri Bezmenov, watch a few of the videos if you really want to know where our society is heading. Keep in mind that these recordings were made 30 years ago, is that scary enough?
Why assume they are mistakes?
May I call your attention to a video film entitiled “The Soviet Union”.
It is a must “see”.
It can be found at http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/28771192
PS I am already a recipient of your Daily Digest.
Progressives, liberals, marxists, socialists, communists all the same thing. It has never worked in the history of mankind and it will always be around. The cure is to stay on top of it and never, never give it a second of ultimate power as we did in 2009. Hows the BS hope and change working for all of you that voted for this abortion. The good news is that all the garbage is comming to the surface at once and its face is everywhere and the American people now know who the real enemy is and action to squash it is underway. Merry Christmas to all.
Great commentary/Discussion. I would like to make an observation that is somewhat off topic.
I’ve noticed here at PJM and other clear/right thinking sites that when an especially lucid article hits at the heart of the left there is very little response or rebuttal from the leftist trolls in the comments section. It’s as if they are completely disarmed and choose not to engage in any of the usual talking points regarding their belief system. Perhaps it’s a “Santa’s not real” moment for them?
Lycian
Leftists don’t debate. They berate.
I grew up hearing that Stalin was a murderer; my father’s hatred of Stalin I did not understand until my mother told me that many of his aunts and uncles left in Ukraine died from the forced famines; his father’s brother killed himself when the collectivization began, unwilling to wait until starvation.
My own children in their 20′s have not been taught about that holocaust, I had to tell them and they were shocked so somehting is very wrong. Now with the very communist-leaning leaders in the Whiter House, the worst fears of my father and others like him are coming true.
Sorry, should be ‘White House’ and ‘something’
Listen to your gut. Read into the real meaning, in between their words. Rise above. Stay the course.