American Thinker (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/the_lefts_lust_for_revolutiona.html)
By James Lewis
"Everything must be different!" or "Alles muss anders sein!" was a slogan of the Nazi Party. It is also the heart's desire of every Leftist since Karl Marx.
...
Marx thought that class struggle was the engine of history, but "deconstructionism," postmodernism, and the like have now generalized the class struggle to include race, class and gender, plus post-colonial revenge against the West, anti-rationalism, anti-scientific and anti-technology hatred, multiculturalism, militant Gays, transsexual gender benders, radical feminism, Afrocentrism, anti-Americanism, "man-boy lovers," the cultural assault against the traditional family, anti-Zionism, militant atheism, and all the other rabble-rousing "isms" of the Left. The key to all these movements is just one basic craving, that Everything must be different!
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A trip through history that complete misses the mark.
A transsexual gender bender? Is that someone who transitions from one gender to the next and then represents as the previous gender? Also note how the writer went on the usual track of attack from the Conservatives/Religious Right by suggesting pedophilia is something inherent in the alternative lifestyles that they do not agree with at the moment. Guess that is why so many priests have been nailed. ::)
Commenting on LITs bringing up the pedophilia angle.
I've hated how the political and religious fundamentalists have used that to defend their bigotry, hatred and their "right" or "freedom" to bash in defense of the godliness of their idea of society.
Although I delight in being an 'aunt' to the children of my sisters and friends who feel comfortable with me, I'm actually afraid to be around children, and seek to avoid their company.
You see, young children are really, really good at reading trans people. And I shudder to think what would happen if a young son or daughter identified me as a 'man' to their mother or father...
Karen
The sorts of demonization that James Lewis showed in that quote are generally used in diatribes political and social by all parties, pretty much, regardless of stance.
Why? IMO, it is generally easier to make the point about demons than it is to make the point about real life human beings I disagree with.
I recall years ago Patrick Buchanan insisting that the Left was waging a cultural war against the homegrown values of American culture. He never mentioned that bigotry, prejudice, hatred and a desire to kill all that was different than me was the the basis of a lot he called American culture. Of course, why would he? His point was that all these demonic people were trying to undermine white picket fences, going to church on Sunday, men on top, and het marriages. He did NOT say that his comfort was being attacked because he was uncomfortable with people doing and being in ways he would not do or be. A statement like that would have garnered him little politically and socially. He was out to win a heart and what passed for a mind, not to be reasonable and call things what they were.
He did not mention either that if there is a war that his side of that war was viciously attacking me and others with stereotyped and untrue generalizations. Dialogue is simply not possible if I, a human, am talking with demons. How can I possibly hold my own, or expect reasonable conversation with demons?
All is fair in propaganda. Goebbels and others have established that beyond dispute in the past century. I am sure that Assyrian rulers and their propagandists did the same when they were busy consolidating their empire at the expense of all those godless and demonic people they were slaughtering ruthlessly.
I suspect human nature has only been changed when an individual is willing to change her own prejudices and actually view her interlocutors as other humans rather than demons. Lewis is just another tired and prejudiced voice chanting the same mantra as Asshurbanipal chanted as he released the dogs of war on the Fertile Crescent and the Middle East 3000 or so years ago.
The saddest part of the entire situation is the point that Karen makes: what harm might ensue to one of us should some child inform their demon cautious parent that one of us "used to be a man" (or woman.) Or that the genderqueer down the street had spoken to her?
The language is always uncaring about real human beings. The victory in the propaganda war trumps all else for such individuals as Lewis.
Nichole
Hmm... I wonder where the writer would categorize a government where:
- One person can authorize surveillance of its citizens without court approval (recent extension of the patriot act by congress with this provision added)
- One person can authorize the seizure of personal property without recourse or court approval (recent executive order http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html)
- Habeas corpus is suspended. You can be arrested and not charged. You can be held for as long as it wants.
- Manipulation of the press by hiring its own press members to present the news.
- Reporting of "the war" is severely restricted.
Interesting... no?
Cindi
Yuuck! I actually read it now (well, skim-read it,) and I feel somehow dirtied by the experience.
I feel as if that person was trying to pick a fight with the left 'demons' he sees.
I hope to god that this and all the other radical-right behaviour I'm seeing of late is somehow a last hurrah before the pendulum swings back the other way.
Karen
You know Karen, I'm still in awe at how some people equate leftist thinking with governments controlled by dictators. I don't think it a fine line between what Karl Marx wrote of communism and how it was implemented. I haven't studied Marxist writings, so I'm out of my league here. So I won't delve into what I think of "communism". But I really don't think that Marx meant his type of government to be one of tyranny and despotism.
I will tell you that Democrats do not associate themselves with criminal autocrats! If anything, wouldn't these self imposed rulers might be better aligned with a leader that appoints himself as "the decider"?
I long for the day when the right wing really stood for fiscal responsibility and smaller government. It is everything they say it is not. It is closer aligned to a flailing monarchy than we would ever wish to admit.
Hey, check out the antonyms for despot. Guess what... one of them is "democrat". Have your right wing nut case loones look that one up!
Cindi
Its so funny, since left, means left of center, this center itself varies wildly from country to country, a centrist in Canada could be considered a communist in some other country
In the us, since the center is way to the right compared to most other western nations, I'd say the democrats are a center right party and the republicains would be considered way right.
Quote from: Keira on August 16, 2007, 02:29:37 AM
Its so funny, since left, means left of center, this center itself varies wildly from country to country, a centrist in Canada could be considered a communist in some other country
In the us, since the center is way to the right compared to most other western nations, I'd say the democrats are a center right party and the republicains would be considered way right.
I agree with you Keira in the idea you present. I believe that the Democrats represent a wide spectrum of Americans from left wing to centralists to right wing. I believe that the Republicans have lost all sense of sanity and want to have a monarchy.
I'm serious. I think that's where they want to go.
Cindi
Left/right is a false dichotomy. I like the two-dimensional model used here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/
Quote from: Cindi Jones on August 16, 2007, 01:54:00 AM
I long for the day when the right wing really stood for fiscal responsibility and smaller government. It is everything they say it is not. It is closer aligned to a flailing monarchy than we would ever wish to admit.
You said it!
What we need today is not this political baseball game between the red team and the blue team, but people on both sides who want to reduce the control of government over our lives, rather than increasing it, as the Bush administration is doing (to put things lightly!), as the Democrat-controlled Congress quietly complies.
Ron Paul, a representative and presidential candidate, is one such person. Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, is another -- he once let pigs loose on the state assembly floor to protest their "pork-barrel" projects. Dennis Kucinich, another U.S. representative and presidential candidate, seems to be another, although I disagree with much of his politics, especially on economic issues.
When did the republican really stand for less government? For republican, less government, means less of everything that can make US society more egalitarian, and more that makes it ruled by the few (especially centered on defense and laisez faire economics). Tax cuts to the rich never trickle down, and is usually invested, often overseas,
Quote from: Keira on August 16, 2007, 04:52:52 PM
When did the republican really stand for less government? For republican, less government, means less of everything that can make US society more egalitarian, and more that makes it ruled by the few (especially centered on defense and laisez faire economics). Tax cuts to the rich never trickle down, and is usually invested, often overseas,
You are correct of course when discussing current trends. I look back to the party which sponsored Ike Eisenhower. Ike would have been considered a left wing communist by today's standards.
I was thinking today about what brought down the Roman empire. The empire squandered its wealth. I will never say this was the primary cause. But it wasn't for their sexual proclivities as so many self righteous proclaim either.
I wondered if we are not doing the same... squandering our own wealth. We are transferring wealth from the middle and lower classes to the upper classes and to companies outside the country. While we are in so many ways better off than we were in the times of the robber barons, I do see us returning to an era not dissimilar... except the wealth holders will have no investment in our country.
But I digress... back to the subject at hand...
Given Bush's track record, who in the world would consciously hand him the keys?
The answer is of course: "We" have already done so with our acquiescence.
Cindi