Bob, the left is quietly giving up on equality, like it quietly gave up on central planning. I was in the Revolutionary Book Store in Manhattan, proudly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, in September and asked to see the books beating a drum for central planning. There were none. There were plenty of books accusing “capitalism” of trying to force a universal McDonalization and Disneyfication on the world and as causing increasing inequality. Yes, the leftist belief in equality continues. When I told the proprietor my observation about the lack of panting for central planning and said that leftist today are opposed to capitalism because of its universalist ambitions (and that the opposition to the war in Iraq made them mad because they would be quite content if the Iraqis choose whatever form of gummint they want and most definitely did not want America imposing “democracy” upon them, the proprietor was quite interested.
But he’s not quite ready to give up on equality. When I told him that the left would abandon equality, too, as having failed just like central planning, he suddently became “busy.”
Watch for the little signs. Notice that antt-war rallies have fewer “Against War and Racism” banners.
The left will side with the particularists, the right with the universalists. The only serious racial egalitarians are on the right. They want us all to be saved, irregardless of race. The left just wants to have jobs promoting equality. Remember, when the Berlin Wall fell, there were more commies in West Germany (mostly professors) than in East Germany (zero).
Sure, the past success of 20TH CENTURY leftist rent-seeking for equality continues in the present. There are more than zero true believers among the left. This is called culture lag. And there’s a whole industry still living off it. (Didn’t a certain book, A Plague on Both Your Houses, once say something along these lines?) It’s the passion that has left the 20TH CENTURY left.
Bob, join me in being a 21ST CENTURY leftist.
Comment by Trager Smith — 3/30/2007
http://www.nationalsalvation.net/
#1 by Dave on 04/02/2007 - 6:48 pm
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There is a big drought in the availability of rent for equality, hence a big drought in classic leftists.
But don’t tell that to any incoming freshmen lacking a bent for mathematics, engineering, or chemistry.
God forbid the little tot might actually undertake to compute the meaning of follow-you-to-the-grave non-dischargeable college debts or the little lad might also inquire as to whether the job Mommy Professor was training him for actually existed.
This is the real reason our current batch of young leftists distain McDonalds. So many of them work there.
Nonetheless, knowing the inevitability of disappointment in her charges, Mommy Professor is clever enough to be provocative. Accordingly, she has reinvented the old time standby of “back to the land/everything local” romanticism to justify the drought in rent for equality.
And this is what our McDonald’s employee consoles himself with until he becomes old enough to become bitter.
#2 by mderpelding on 04/02/2007 - 10:19 pm
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How about being a 21ST CENTURY WHITE MAN?
Jews see themselves as Jews.
African-Americans see themselves as African-Americans.
Sunnis see themselves as Sunnis.
The Han see themselves as the Han.
And on and on ad infinitum.
But white people see themselves as “left” and “right”?
What the hell does that mean?
Can anybody provide a creditable definition of “left and right” that any two people can agree on?
Well…the Judas goat is going this way so I guess we should all follow.
#3 by Pain on 04/03/2007 - 11:37 am
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“Bob, join me in being a 21ST CENTURY leftist.”
Say the right thing now, and Libanon might come back. Remember that the Reagan Revolution and the would-be Reformed Party were products of a strange union of left and right.
This may sound strange, but really it is traditional. Agrarians, and especially Southern traditionalists, have always held ideas that today sound like cross-over or hybrid politics. They have always represented the best of the “left” and the “right.”
This is the tradition of Jefferson and Calhoun. This is the 21st century.