The revolutionary heart of Communism is not the theatrical appeal: Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain. It is a simple statement of Karl Marx, further simplified for handy use: Philosophers have explained the world; it is necessary to change the world. Communists are bound together by no secret oath. The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world. Their power, whose nature baffles the rest of the world, because in a large measure the rest of the world has lost that power, is the power to hold convictions and to act on them. It is the same power that moves mountains; it is also an unfailing power to move men. Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die to bear witnessfor its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it.
It is not new. It is, in fact, mans second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: Ye shall be as gods. It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and mans relationship to God. The Communist vision is fhe vision of Man without God.
Alger Hiss and the other members of the "Old Left" communists sought to effect their change by concealing their true beliefs and undermining society from within, from positions in government and the media and academia.
The Old Left was dealt a crippling blow by Kruschev's "secret speech" in which the crimes and the cult of personality under Stalin were revealed.
The New Left of the 1960s despised the cringing secretiveness of the Old Left, and openly announced their aims to all -- a revolution, to be achieved through violence to the extent necessary. William Ayers and Bernadine Dhorn and the other terrorists and revolutionaries of the time held press conferences and issued press releases to announce their crimes, which in their minds were acts of revolution acts like those by the Bolsheviks of czarist Russia.
The failure of the New Left has led to the rise of the New New Left. The former members of the New Left, and those of the generation that came after, such as Barack Obama, now follow in the wake of Saul Alinsky. The "change" they seek is no different, but now they again, like the Old Left, conceal the extent of their ambitions and seek to work "within the system" in order to destroy it.
Exactly - thanks for the excerpt from Witness....
Exactly. Excellent synopsis.
The CHANGE O and Ayers and Dohrn seek is nothing other than te DESTRUCTION of our Free Nation. Period.