I didn't know you were a leftist that far into your adult life.
The strongest anti-leftists seem to be former leftists -- they know the inside facts, the hidden knowledge.
Suggested reading about kindred spirits:
Why I am no longer a brain-dead liberal -- an article by playwright David Mamet. available online with just a search. The man is a master of words. His non-fiction is delicious to read. If you find these two non-fiction books of his, used and cheap, they are worth picking up: The Wicked Son, and The Secret Knowledge.
An interesting history of leftism in America is: Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, by David Horowitz. Horowitz was a quintessential "red diaper baby" born to American communists. Probably not worth ordering with international shipping, but if you see it for sale used at a decent price.
Another famous former socialist is Michael Savage, though I'm unsure of which of his books to recommend, he is a prolific author. Not a word-master like Mamet, and not as cerebral as Horowitz, but lots of gutsy common sense.
@Books - I was a Leftist by the definition I gave in my post - and by that definition Mamet, Savage and Savage are all Leftists (being lapsed Jews - or liberal/ Reformed, non-observant Jews which is the same thing). Strings of divorces is another giveaway.
People that have turned against some aspects of political correctness (but usually remainining keen on some aspect of the sexual revolution) but who are Not primarily-religious have merely transitioned to a different type of Leftist.
17 November 2019 at 14:33
Robert Wickiewicz said...
Good article, I am a life-long liberal, usually voted Democratic, but I viewed inequality and its possible remedies in economic terms. I flipped and voted for Trump in 2016 because I am sick of the anti-white racism and anti-Christian bigotry on the left. I wonder if Trump represents a change or just a rear-guard action. I am not optimistic.
17 November 2019 at 15:39
Sean Fowler said...
Leftism seems to have triggered an autoimmune response among our native populations. Mass immigration and tolerance of deviant destructive behavior, has, according to leftist doctrine, turned, what was earlier regarded as an oppressed group, the white heterosexual, native, working population or anyone who objects into oppressors. And as we know, according to Marxist/leftist /communist/PC doctrine, oppressors need to be irradication. So our natural immune response of protecting ourselves against invasive elements and guarding against perversion has been suppressed and made criminal.
Untempered virtues such as tolerance, inclusiveness, charity etc and the drive for equality along with the criminalization of discrimination, ie thinking, evaluating or differentiating have left us without the ability to defend ourselves against transgression. Furthermore, constant shaming and the promotion of white guilt, through the education system and MSM has made us turn our immune systems upon ourselves.
To what extent this was an organic process or a pathogen concocted in a lab is open to speculation. Personally I think pathogens seek a chink in the armor. The fall of Christianity compromised the immune system, movements such as environmentalism, feminism, workers rights were hijacked. Evil exploits virtue. The similarity between between PC and Bolshevik Soviet mind control leads me to believe that much was honed and perfected there and unleashed upon the west through their compatriots in the msm and educational facilities.
@RW - So far as I can see nothing substantive has happened to stop, never mind reverse, the Leftward totalitarian trend. Not surprising given that voting/ democracy are part of Leftism.
@SF - There will only be a cure when people want one, and are prepared to sacrifice to have it. The sexual revolution or resentment/ entitlement trap most people within Leftism (and - presumably - self-chosen damnation).
Because the mass population is demotivated and psychotic in their incoherence of thinking; this would entail a large and powerful Christian revival, and this would have to come first.
17 November 2019 at 16:40
Joseph A. said...
Your story gives me hope -- like Kristor's story, whose father is a good example of the religious Left. My own personal anecdote is my graduate school roommate's mother. She was the most pious, almost fanatical Roman Catholic that I had known to that time (and maybe since). When the family goes anywhere in the car, they pray the rosary together the entire way. She devotes most of her hours to religion and charity. A daughter became a nun, and we thought for some time that my friend would enter the priesthood (he ended up married with a clan of kids, but teaching philosophy at a seminary). Anyway, I was shocked -- deeply shocked -- to learn that this lay-Mother Angelica was a 60s bra-burning radical feminist and leftwing ideologue in her younger days. I don't know her Damascus Road story, but she is walking, praying evidence that those savages in the streets could be tomorrow's martyrs and heroes. May it happen, Lord!
19 November 2019 at 03:48
I have noticed (in my shallow, headline-perusing way of keeping in touch with current affairs) that both in the UK and the USA there is a pseudo-revival of 'socialism' as an explicit political platform in the coming elections - or indeed crypto-communism in the case of the UK Labour Party - where the leader Jeremy Corbyn, and the shadow Chancellor John McDonnell are both revolutionary communists.
But there are no real socialists or communists now; or at least none in public life or positions of power. Not a single one. The species is extinct.
The Old Left (dominant up to the middle 1960s) was primarily economic in its focus - hence the role of Karl Marx as a founding figure. The primary unit of analysis was class.
The New Left which took over, marked a massive change - leading incrementally to the Left as we now know it everywhere - where there is a 'rainbow' coalition of multiple 'units of analysis' including strands such as anti-white antiracism, feminism, pro-non-biological sexuality and sexual identification, anti-native/ pro-immigrationism etc.
(It is important to recognise that dishonesty is foundational to the New Left - without systemic lying there have no policies. Their first, and continued, lie was to suppress and demonise the mass of common observation backed by science that psychological, as well as physical, attributes differ between classes, sexes and races - and these differences are substantially hereditary. This fact invalidates the totality of New Left policy - or rather reveals it as purposively evil.)
In the UK, the watershed came with Enoch Powell's 1968 defence of the native, white working class men against the damage of mass immigration; in which the Establishment Left all united against Powell, and against the native male white working classes that had previously been (ostensibly) their main focus and highest priority.
At that time; the trades union representatives of native, white working class men still had a major role in UK government and public policy; after that time the Left was progressively and completely taken-over by the upper middle classes ('student revolutionaries' and bureaucrats) and a few of their tame puppets. Leftist policy became focused on psychology rather than economics.
What happened to the Old Left? Almost without exception they became the New Left.
Some, like the current crop of politicians claiming to be socialists, maintained Marxist economics and a kind of nostalgic affection for The Working Class; but in practice these are merely window-dressing - and are utterly swamped and negated by the vast New Left agenda.
The modern pseudo-socialists see Marxist economics merely as a means to the end of getting control of the apparatus of the state, and extending direct state control into all institutions - where it will be used to pursue a New Left agenda: e.g. pro-mass immigration and the sexual revolution.
(The same applies to the Green/ Environmentalist agenda. It has been selected, distorted and lied about to rationalise the totalitarian takeover of everything. The Left has always been totalitarian, hence destructive; but the New Left's aim is much more wholly destructive than the Old Left. The Old Left aimed at the total destruction of Christianity specifically and tradition in general; but the New Left aims at the inversion of values - which is a more advanced and complete type of evil.)
The native, white male working class will be destroyed or converted into an underclass (indeed, this has already mostly happened).
That is the difference between socialism 60 years ago and 'socialism' now.
In the past sincere socialists wanted a Marxist Proletarian economic utopia; now 'socialists' want their hands on the coercive and propaganda power of the state to enforce a New Left agenda that has no place for the Proletariat.
And nowadays there are no sincere socialists in mainstream public discourse: Not A Single One. They are all liars, serving the Satanic agenda - the only distinction on the Left is between the few high level strategists of deliberate evil, and the mass of low level dupes and psychos.
Note: New readers should be aware that I was a serious (but anachronistic) Old Left 'Fabian'-type socialist for a few years from my middle teens, reading the theory and history going back to the late 19th century, and the earlier precursors of socialism. I joined the Labour Party on my 16th birthday, and gave branch lectures and held some representative roles before I had left school. I rapidly became disillusioned with the mainstream Labour Party but went through several other types and degrees of Leftism, including the most extreme form of anarchism I could find; not finally and fully abandoning Leftism (including New Leftism) until after I became a Christian about a decade ago. Indeed, it was only after becoming a Christian when I realised that the entirety of actual (and possible) non-religious/ secular politics is a variant of Leftism.
"The 'new socialism' is a fake"
6 Comments -
I didn't know you were a leftist that far into your adult life.
The strongest anti-leftists seem to be former leftists -- they know the inside facts, the hidden knowledge.
Suggested reading about kindred spirits:
Why I am no longer a brain-dead liberal -- an article by playwright David Mamet. available online with just a search. The man is a master of words. His non-fiction is delicious to read. If you find these two non-fiction books of his, used and cheap, they are worth picking up: The Wicked Son, and The Secret Knowledge.
An interesting history of leftism in America is: Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, by David Horowitz. Horowitz was a quintessential "red diaper baby" born to American communists. Probably not worth ordering with international shipping, but if you see it for sale used at a decent price.
Another famous former socialist is Michael Savage, though I'm unsure of which of his books to recommend, he is a prolific author. Not a word-master like Mamet, and not as cerebral as Horowitz, but lots of gutsy common sense.
-Books.
17 November 2019 at 13:01
@Books - I was a Leftist by the definition I gave in my post - and by that definition Mamet, Savage and Savage are all Leftists (being lapsed Jews - or liberal/ Reformed, non-observant Jews which is the same thing). Strings of divorces is another giveaway.
People that have turned against some aspects of political correctness (but usually remainining keen on some aspect of the sexual revolution) but who are Not primarily-religious have merely transitioned to a different type of Leftist.
17 November 2019 at 14:33
Good article,
I am a life-long liberal, usually voted Democratic, but I viewed inequality and its possible remedies in economic terms. I flipped and voted for Trump in 2016 because I am sick of the anti-white racism and anti-Christian bigotry on the left. I wonder if Trump represents a change or just a rear-guard action. I am not optimistic.
17 November 2019 at 15:39
Leftism seems to have triggered an autoimmune response among our native populations. Mass immigration and tolerance of deviant destructive behavior, has, according to leftist doctrine, turned, what was earlier regarded as an oppressed group, the white heterosexual, native, working population or anyone who objects into oppressors. And as we know, according to Marxist/leftist /communist/PC doctrine, oppressors need to be irradication. So our natural immune response of protecting ourselves against invasive elements and guarding against perversion has been suppressed and made criminal.
Untempered virtues such as tolerance, inclusiveness, charity etc and the drive for equality along with the criminalization of discrimination, ie thinking, evaluating or differentiating have left us without the ability to defend ourselves against transgression. Furthermore, constant shaming and the promotion of white guilt, through the education system and MSM has made us turn our immune systems upon ourselves.
To what extent this was an organic process or a pathogen concocted in a lab is open to speculation. Personally I think pathogens seek a chink in the armor. The fall of Christianity compromised the immune system, movements such as environmentalism, feminism, workers rights were hijacked. Evil exploits virtue. The similarity between between PC and Bolshevik Soviet mind control leads me to believe that much was honed and perfected there and unleashed upon the west through their compatriots in the msm and educational facilities.
As for the cure?
17 November 2019 at 15:52
@RW - So far as I can see nothing substantive has happened to stop, never mind reverse, the Leftward totalitarian trend. Not surprising given that voting/ democracy are part of Leftism.
@SF - There will only be a cure when people want one, and are prepared to sacrifice to have it. The sexual revolution or resentment/ entitlement trap most people within Leftism (and - presumably - self-chosen damnation).
Because the mass population is demotivated and psychotic in their incoherence of thinking; this would entail a large and powerful Christian revival, and this would have to come first.
17 November 2019 at 16:40
Your story gives me hope -- like Kristor's story, whose father is a good example of the religious Left. My own personal anecdote is my graduate school roommate's mother. She was the most pious, almost fanatical Roman Catholic that I had known to that time (and maybe since). When the family goes anywhere in the car, they pray the rosary together the entire way. She devotes most of her hours to religion and charity. A daughter became a nun, and we thought for some time that my friend would enter the priesthood (he ended up married with a clan of kids, but teaching philosophy at a seminary). Anyway, I was shocked -- deeply shocked -- to learn that this lay-Mother Angelica was a 60s bra-burning radical feminist and leftwing ideologue in her younger days. I don't know her Damascus Road story, but she is walking, praying evidence that those savages in the streets could be tomorrow's martyrs and heroes. May it happen, Lord!
19 November 2019 at 03:48