Posted on 05/30/2005 11:13:25 AM PDT by wagglebee
Communism is alive and well, says "The End of Time" author David Horowitz.
And he should know. The son of Communist parents and a former Communist himself, he has crusaded against the Marxist left on college campuses and written books exposing the influence of the left on America's political culture.
In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Horowitz spoke about his new book and the Marxist domination of today's Democratic party.
In his book, Horowitz writes about his views on life and death, and explains his belief in the destructive nature of Utopia-driven ideologies, noting: "The desire for more than is possible is the cause of greater human misery than any other."
He places Communism in that category, and recalls how his father devoted his life in the pursuit of "more than is possible." Horowitz explains how since leaving the party he has devoted his life to fighting Marxism in all its forms, not as a conservative ideologue, but as a seeker after truth and the meaning of life.
"'The End of Time' is not a political book," Horowitz told NewsMax.com. "It's a philosophical book and while it talks about political themes, it does so from a very foundational point of view. It's not a book for people who want to know what I think about the judicial nominations."
In our interview, as he did in "The End of Time," he stressed his belief that far from being a threat in the past, Communism is a real force in American politics today.
NM: In your book you write about Communism and its appeal. Is communism still alive today?
DH: Communism is alive and well.
NM: Is it alive and well in the Democratic Party?
DH: The Democratic party is very close to being the [Communist-controlled Progressive] party of Henry Wallace.
NM: In other words, a Marxist Party?
DH: In my book "Unholy Alliance" I laid out what I called the mind of the left and showed the absolute continuity of the critique of capitalism in America between 1940 and 2003. Today's left sees the world pretty much in the same terms as the Stalinists did.
What has happened is that it has lost its faith in the working class, so its agenda is entirely negative. They've dropped the dictatorship of the proletariat and they all say they're democrats, but so did Lenin.
The vast bulk of the American left is a Communist left and they've introduced some fascist ideas like "identity politics," which is straight out of Mussolini. They don't talk about the working class, they talk about women and race. There's not much that they've learned from the history of the 20th century.
NM: In Whittaker Chambers' book "Witness" he saw this struggle as being either the great social wars of the 20th century, or the wars of faith.
DH: Chambers was a believer and I'm an agnostic with a great respect for believers. But the Islamic radicals are believers and it's not a secular belief, it's a religious belief.
There are believers who come both in secular and religious forms and they think they can take the work of salvation in their own hands.
These are all liberation theologians whether they are on the left or the right, and they are extraordinarily dangerous people precisely because they think they are in some ways talking to God or doing his work, and if you are doing God's work, it would justify anything.
I think you have to do what's right but without proposing to yourself that you can save the world.
NM: But don't we have some responsibility for doing what we believe is right?
DH: Yes. There's a passage in the book where I deal with my wife April talking about my "mission." My mission is a personal mission – to undo what I did as a leftist, to witness to the truth that I learned and to try to save even if it's only one or two individuals. That's what I do.
There are things that are beyond me. You have to think of Mohammed Atta or Timothy McVeigh – I wouldn't go blowing up federal buildings even for an end that I thought was good. They thought that what they were doing was noble.
One has to fight the good fight but one shouldn't delude oneself into thinking of oneself as a redeemer. Leftists – they call themselves "progressives" - are the arch reactionaries. When they get into arguments they are rude, they step on you, they kick you in the groin and they would kill you if they had the opportunity - you can see it in their passions. That's the sign of people who are intoxicated with their own self-righteousness. You don't really see that with conservatives.
NM: Is that what we are seeing now in the battles on Capitol Hill? It seems to be sheer hatred on the part of the left.
DH: That's because they think they are saving the world from the devil, which is us.
NM: Are the young being indoctrinated into Marxism?
DH: There's an unbelievable number of people on the campuses indoctrinating kids in the worst prejudices of the left. There are a lot of people of faith on campuses, but they are blacklisted from being on the faculty.
NM: How deep has this indoctrination gone?
DH: The Democratic party has never been such a left wing party and I think that comes directly out of the campuses. The whole Howard Dean campaign is what shifted the Democratic party to the far left. You had three Democratic front-runners - Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt - who were all supporters of the war until the Deaniacs came along. And who were the Deaniacs? They were the campus Communists.
The reason you have a blacklist and the reason you have indoctrination, which you've never had before on such a scale, is that you have the generation of the 1960s radicals who to avoid the draft and keep organizing against the war stayed in school and got student deferments and went on to became professors.
They are not academics, they're political activists. Do you think the woman who invited Susan Rosenberg, a convicted bomber, to be a visiting professor at Hamilton and followed that by inviting Ward Churchill – the closest thing to a campus terrorist guerilla – is an academic? Do you think she's a scholar? She's actually the daughter of a Communist lawyer, Victor Rabinowitz, whose closest friend is Leonard Boudin, another Communist whose daughter Cathy was a Weather Underground terrorist.
These people have infiltrated the academic world and converted it and largely captured the Democratic party in the process.
NM: The Democrats' objections to certain judges nominated to the federal bench are the result of their being pushed very hard by their prime supporters, which is the abortion industry and the gay lobby, and in many ways don't they seem to have been captive to that as much as they are captive to a leftist agenda?
DH: I don't see the abortion or gay lobbies as special interest groups. I see them as just part of the left. The gay lobby is not interested in gay people – they care about their radical agenda. The same thing with the abortionists.
Take another group, the feminist lobby. When Bill Clinton started abusing women you didn't hear a peep out of them because their agenda isn't women – their agenda is getting their people into power. Because what they are about is changing the world.
In SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) they used to say "The issue is never the issue, the revolution is the issue." That's the way I look at this. This is a power struggle. It's not about judges, it's not about abortion - it's to stop the Bush agenda.
Here's Janice Rogers Brown, a black female, daughter of a sharecropper. Everything in their overt agenda should lead them to say, "This is great! We care about the equality of women. Half the country is Republican. We have a Republican black woman. Now those racist Republicans will have to respect a black woman."
But that's not what their agenda is. The way they see it is, ‘My God, if the party of Satan gets a black woman in there, they will fool people into thinking they are not the party of Satan.' So the cause is what it's about. The issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution.
NM: How would you define the Bush agenda?
DH: From the standpoint of the left? They are psychotic these days. They are living in an alternate reality. They make no sense whatever when they are talking about Bush.
As a conservative, I think the man has risen to the hour in terms of the war on terror. He's very Churchillian in that. This is what he'll be remembered for. He saved us an enormous amount of grief and he's done it against unbelievable odds and in the face of the most horrific attacks on a sitting president in history.
If we hadn't gone to war when we did, Saddam's weapons laboratories would be booming; he would be funding terrorists and arming them all over the world; Gadhafi would still have his chemical weapons lab, the largest in the third world, and he'd have his nuclear weapons lab; there wouldn't be a democracy movement in the Middle East; it's very possible that Pakistan would now be an Islamic nuclear state; and the United States would have been so weakened it would have incited much challenge to its power. It's hard to imagine what would have happened.
The reality is that we haven't been attacked since 2001. There's not a living human being who would have bet on September 12, 2001 that we would not be attacked again on our own soil in four years. All of that is due to George Bush and his aggressive war on terror. He's one of the great figures of recent times.
NM: Your wife April is apparently a believer. She made the statement that when she gets to the afterlife she wants you to be there, and she's afraid that if you don't believe you won't be there. Has she had any impact on you in that respect?
DH: You can't make somebody a believer. She wanted me to open my heart, so yes, she has had an impact – I will keep my heart open.
NM: Is "The End of Time" your last will and testament?
DH: "Hopefully that's premature. When you reach your 60s as I did when I began this, you can see the horizon coming. I have a passage in the book where I talk about how 20 years is like a lifetime. Well, 80 is pretty old even these days. It's time to think about those things. It's a book for people who have reached a certain age."
Got to love DH.
And absolutely right about everything. My diapers weren't red, but they were a deep shade of pink, and we shared a lot of places and ideas growing up in the NYC 1950s.
Nobody knows the Left like David Horowitz, and nobody is as observant and incisive as he.
Horowitz' echoes what freepers have been saying all along.
moveon.org = Communist Party = demoncRATS
Yeah, I've always thought that Horowitz was a pompous ass, but he knows the left inside and out.
Its unfortunate that socialist scum hyjacked the former party of Zell Miller.
A political activist named Dave was just arriving in Hell and was told he had a choice to make. He could go to Capitalist Hell or to Communist Hell.
Naturally, Dave wanted to compare the two, so he wandered over to Capitalist Hell. There outside the door was Rockefeller, looking bored. "What's it like in there?", asked Dave. "Well," he replied, "in Capitalist Hell, they flay you alive, boil you in oil, chain you to a rock and let a vulture tear your liver out, and cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives."
"That's terrible!!", gasped Dave. "I'm going to check out Communist Hell!" He went over to Communist Hell, where he discovered a huge line of people waiting to get in. The line circled around the lobby seven times before receding off into the horizon. Dave pushed his way through to the head of the line, where he found Karl Marx busily signing people in. Dave asked Karl what Communist Hell was like.
"In Communist Hell," said Marx impatiently, "they flay you alive, boil you in oil, chain you to a rock and let vultures tear out your liver, and cut you up into small pieces with sharp knives."
"But ... but that's the same as Capitalist Hell!", protested Dave.
"True," sighed Marx, "but sometimes we don't have oil, sometimes we don't have knives ... "
Fine article. One unimportant correction. The woman who invited Susan Rosenberg is Victor Rabinowitz's daughter-in-law, not his daughter. I went to high school many years ago with her husband.
I think....people who are steadfast and vocal about their beliefs...get labeled.
I happen to like people that know where they've been, know who they are, and where they are going.
FRegards,
And you won't find the dumb republicans referring to them as socialists. They will still refer to them as my good friend. - tom
bookmark
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.-- C. S. Lewis
I think C.S. got it right.
FMCDH(BITS)
Excellent interview.
FMCDH(BITS)
It is not the issue.....it is the agenda .
LOL that' good. I haven't heard that one before.
How about Union Square on a Friday night where American Communists and capitalists vigorously debated which system was best. Since almost none of the Communists had ever been to Stalin's Russia, it was hard to take them seriously.
I find Horowitz to be the most compelling political writer out there because of his perfect understanding of the motives and tactics of the Left. It's like having an informant working for us.
Here's a rare photo of Yeltsin struggling with a Marxist.
Too bad the left is blinded by their own hatred and selfishness.
More precisely ... 'My good friend from the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from south Dakota'. I gag everytime I hear the 'gentleman from' or 'gentlewoman from' characterization. The english language needs a more definitive term applicable specifically to 100 prostitutes in a chamber.
Bill and Hillary are at the Yankee's World Series sitting in the first row, with the Secret Service people directly behind them.
One of the Secret Service guys leans forward and whispers something to Bill.
At first, Clinton stares at the guy, looks at Hillary, looks back at the agent, and shakes his head "no".
The agent then says, "Mr. President, it was an unanimous request of the entire team, from the owner of the team to the bat boy."
Bill hesitates, but begins to change his mind when the agent tells him the fans would love it!
Bill shrugs his shoulders and says, "O-Kay! If that is what the people want. C'mere Hilly baby...".
With that, Bill gets up, grabs Hillary by her collar and the seat of her pants, lifts her up, and tosses her right over the wall onto the field.
She gets up kicking, swearing, screaming, "Bill you!*%$%**!!! .."
The crowd goes absolutely wild. Fans are jumping up & down, cheering, hooting & hollering, and high-fiving.
Bill is bowing, smiling and waving to the crowd. He leans over to the agent and says, "How about that! I would have never believed how much everyone would enjoy that!"
Noticing the agent has gone totally pale, he asks what is wrong.
The agent replies, "Sir, I said they want you to throw out the first Pitch!".
True... a revolution could seriously hamper beer deliverys, Oprah and Dr. Phil on TV.. and worse of all the football and baseball schedule.. TV stations could be targets as well as brewerys.. and leftist MSM reporters after becoming instant revolutionarys could be HUNG anyway..
NAH! a revolution would put the kibosh on most lifesytles..
not to speak of blood.. many freepers are averse to blood.. especially their own.. Some freepers are mini or maxi Neville Chamberlains.. they talk a good game but are wroth to play one..
The game is afoote, and we are losing.. Americas public are pretty much socialists already.. Do you know of, say, a republican that would turn DOWN a government check.?.
Few and far between, they are.. -Yoda
Horowitz is brilliant and incredibly prolific. He is a great patriot. Please, read any of his books, Freople. They are all intellectual gold mines.
Actually we have 54 Congressmen who are quite candid concerning their ties to Socialism.
We seem to have no problem dealing with enemies outside our country. It is the enemies within that we seem to be impotent to deal with.
I love this man.
No ... you are NOT wrong
read later
Absolutely. Destructive Generation and Radical Son were two of the best political books out there. I couldn't believe that a guy who was the Columbia-educated version of Forrest Gump in the uber-Left was now a Reaganite conservative. And this guy goes to places like Berkeley and Madison, and tells them they're commies.
In a perfect world, some indie filmmaker good make a great film adaptation of Radical Son with a sountrack of 60's music. But if that happened, it was also mean that hell frozed over.
I've been at it about 10 fewer years than you but have reached the same conclusion. Your last sentence is particularly true and disillusioning. I felt when I came to FR I'd find lots of like-minded people. Not true -- in fact, many on FR work actively to discredit Horowitz and his work.
It's refreshing to find a thread where more than a few posters are pro-Horowitz. In my opinion he's the only political activist in America who knows how to battle the Left effectively. The awareness that very few conservatives really pay attention to him and all his predecessors like Whittaker Chambers is like watching a classic Greek tragedy unfold in all its horrifying inevitability.
I just learned of him, maybe, six months ago.
Spread the word. Two of his best "beginner" books IMO are "Destructive Generation" and "Deconstructing the Left," both available in soft cover. They were co-authored with his long-time writing collaborator Peter Collier, another former Commie. Opinions vary but I think his best book so far is "The Politics of Bad Faith: the Radical Assault on America's Future."
The Framers of America's founding documents did not believe ANY mere man (including professing Christians) - or ANY of his institutions - could be entrusted with absolute power. Our whole governmental structure and the objective rule of law that undergirds it was specifically designed to thwart any possible tyrannical take-over.
This Scripture underlies everything they did:
"Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew ALL men ... he knew what was in man..."John 2:24
Emory Report November 29, 1999 Volume 52, No. 13
"...Marci Hamilton ... [is] a nationally recognized expert on constitutional and copyright law. ....
Her forthcoming book, Copyright and the Constitution, examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of copyright law and asserts that the American "copyright regime" is grounded in Calvinism, resulting in a philosophy that favors the product over the producer.
Calvinism? Hamilton's interest in the intersection of Calvinist theology and political philosophy emerged early in her career when she began reading the work of leading constitutional law scholars. She was puzzled by their "theme of a system of self-rule." "They talked about it as if it were in existence," she said. "My gut reaction was that direct democracy and self-rule are a myth that doesn't really exist."
What Hamilton found was that a "deep and abiding distrust of human motives that permeates Calvinist theology also permeates the Constitution." Her investigation of that issue has led to another forthcoming book, tentatively titled The Reformed Constitution: What the Framers Meant by Representation.
That our country's form of government is a republic instead of a pure democracy is no accident, according to Hamilton. The constitutional framers "expressly rejected direct democracy. Instead, the Constitution constructs a representative system of government that places all ruling power in the hands of elected officials."
And the people? Their power is limited to the voting booth and communication with their elected representatives, she said.
"The Constitution is not built on faith in the people, but rather on distrust of all social entities, including the people." ...
..Two of the most important framers, James Wilson and James Madison, were steeped in Presbyterian precepts.
It is Calvinism, Hamilton argued, that "more than any other Protestant theology, brings together the seeming paradox that man's will is corrupt by nature but also capable of doing good." In other words, Calvinism holds that "we can hope for the best but expect the worst from each other and from the social institutions humans devise."
"Neither Calvin nor the framers stop at distrust, however," Hamilton said. "They also embrace an extraordinary theology of hope. The framers, like Calvin, were reformers." -Elaine Justice
He applies the tactics he learned as a leftist against his old friends. It's so refreshing to see somebody on the right doing this; it takes a lot of intellectual courage to confront the left so relentlessly on the campus. He has the energy and persistence of the convert. I think the only way we on the right can prevail is by knowing where and how to be confrontational against the bullying antics of the left. Horowitz gets it.
Forgot to add -- your movie idea is great. But as you note, Hell is not ready to freeze over just yet.
I would love to see in person, DH or Ann Coulter address a group of Marxist collegians. Neither suffers fools easily.
Bump!
Yes. That was perhaps the most disturbing thing about the candidacy of Senator Kerry: he was so far to the left that the Communist Party USA literally was out pounding the sidewalks for him. There was so little to distinguish the Democrats from the communists that the CPUSA had no difficulty endorsing and openly support Senator Kerry's election.
If you look at their website, the CPUSA's positions are indistinguishable from the current obstructionist Democrats.
Think about that. It is simply unheard of since the Wallace days for any major U.S. party to be so far to the left, and I am not sure that if any previous ones were so wholly to the left as the current Democratic party. Even in 1972 with Senator McGovern's nomination there was still a right wing to the Democratic party but, today, it is completely withered.
The closest thing to a right wing of the Democratic Party would be Zell Miller, Joe Lieberman and (on most matters of national security) Dick Gephardt. Gephardt and Lieberman were quickly silenced early on in last year's primaries and Miller has effectively quit the party.
Outstanding post. Great American!
What's so sad is seeng the people who go to the polls and vote for candates in the democrat party and they do not have any Idea what they are voting for. They vote the democrat ticket because their daddy and grand dadday voted that way.
I can't make out whats going on in that cartoon, what is it?
Marxism the left, and fascism the right.
It's the new freedom.
You can't really make it out but the casket says "Communism."
If you read Mao and Stalin you will find large areas, for instance political legitimacy, the nature of the popular will, etc., using the same words the Nazis used.
Looks to me that Hitler and Mussolini were Leftists. Mussolini always claimed to be a Leftist. Communism mixed with racism is the Nazi trip. Hitler said Communists made excellent Nazis. Those people were, are, all Leftists.
>>Looks to me that Hitler and Mussolini were Leftists.
You are correct, that's because they were. They were only a shade different from the Communists.
F.A. Hayek covers this very well in The Road to Serfdom. He was there, in Europe in the 1930s, and is a political economist, so he was in a very good position to observe and well-understand their close similarity.
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