..............The short answer is that it was not the Communist Party that made the left, but the (small 'c') communist Idea. It is the idea, as old as the Tower of Babel, that humanity can build a highway to Heaven. It is the idea of returning to an Earthly Paradise, a garden of social harmony and justice. It is the idea that inspires Jewish radicals and liberals of a tikkun olam, a healing of the cosmic order. It is the Enlightenment illusion of the perfectibility of man. And it is the siren song of the serpent in Eden: "Eat of this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and you shall be as God."
The intoxicating vision of a social redemption achieved by Them-this is what creates the left, and makes the believers so self-righteous.
And it did so long before Karl Marx. It is the vision of this redemption that continues to inspire and animate them despite the still-fresh ruins of their Communist dreams.
It is this same idea that is found in the Social Gospel which impressed the youthful Hillary Clinton at the United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, Illinois. She later encountered the same idea in the New Left at Yale and in the Venceremos Brigade in Communist Cuba, and in the writings of the New Leftist who introduced her to the "politics of meaning" even after she had become America's First Lady. It is the idea that drives her comrades in the Children's Defense Fund, the National Organization for Women, the Al Sharpton House of Justice and the other progressive causes which for that reason still look to her as a political leader.
For these self-appointed social redeemers, the goal-"social justice"-is not about rectifying particular injustices, which would be practical and modest, and therefore conservative. Their crusade is about rectifying injustice in the very order of things. "Social Justice" for them is about a world reborn, a world in which prejudice and violence are absent, in which everyone is equal and equally advantaged and without fundamentally conflicting desires. It is a world that could only come into being through a re-structuring of human nature and of society itself.
Even though they are too prudent and self-protective to name this future anymore, the post-Communist left still passionately believes it possible. But it is a world that has never existed and never will. Moreover, as the gulags and graveyards of the last century attest, to attempt the impossible is to invite the catastrophic in the world we know.
But the fall of Communism taught the progressives who were its supporters very little. Above all, it failed to teach them the connection between their utopian ideals and the destructive consequences that flowed from them. The fall of Communism has had a cautionary impact only on the overt agendas of the political left. The arrogance that drives them has hardly diminished. The left is like a millenarian sect that erroneously predicted the end of the world, and now must regroup to revitalize its faith.
No matter how opportunistically the left's agendas have been modified, however, no matter how circumspectly its goals have been set, no matter how generous its concessions to political reality, the faithful have not given up their self-justifying belief that they can bring about a social redemption. In other words, a world in which human consciousness is changed, human relations refashioned, social institutions transformed, and in which "social justice" prevails.
Because the transformation progressives seek is ultimately total, the power they seek must be total as well. In the end, the redemption they envision cannot be achieved as a political compromise, even though compromises may be struck along the way. Their brave new world can ultimately be secured only by the complete surrender of the resisting force. In short, the transformation of the world requires the permanent entrenchment of the saints in power. Therefore, everything is justified that serves to achieve the continuance of Them. .........
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39611fde5615.htm
There are Jews who are religious and observant of their faith. There are also those who are secular atheists or agnostic at best (Larry King considers himself agnostic).
Some atheist "Jews" like Art Spiegelman (who would fall on the left politically, he even had an exclusive audience with John Kerry, to kick the tires so to speak) have been so bold as to ask what is there that can be examined to "unite" Jews as a culture without falling back on religion or the Holocaust.
They are like people without a nation. They turn their back on their faith yet they still want to "belong".
The best home that a man constructs for himself will only be used by him for upwards of 100 years. Of which he will spend roughly one third of that time asleep.
Perhaps they should be giving some thought to the possible existence of an afterlife.
Also they should realize that constructing a society where the government "gives" everything to the citizen can also take away "everything" or control conditions by which they bestow things. A man who provides for himself does not get lazy or comfortable. He is accountable and can reap the rewards. The ant and the grasshoper is not a new tale.
Nice, thanks
well said. Any references available to Hillary's favorite writers and particularly useful quotes from her? Let's build an index of these to have handy as she seeks to arrogate herself to POTUS, or Queen.
Phew! You sure put a lot of thinking into that post!
I was up earlier and had to retreat back to bed so I'm just reading your post now. I agree, there is a Tower of Babel mentality to the Left's movement that man can solve his own problems. The mantra seems to be John Lennon's theme song "Imagine"....imagine there's no God, is it in a nutshell.
Well, we must keep our eyes focused on the Light and trust He will guide us through these perilous times. We need to maintain the 50% plus advantage, that's for sure, to keep America on the right path.