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Modern totalitarians don't need the old rationalizations: for the worker - for racial purity - for the proletariat... whatever.

Those are the old horrors.

This is a new type of class warfare - and even that's not right - - it's so much more primal than that class warfare... The 'new' is 'us against them'... simple - uncomplicated by phony justifications. Us vs Them.

The left can't be defined philosophically. Think about it... What do inner city blacks have in common with white upper class gay men? Nothing. What do Jewish intellectuals have in common with Muslim immigrants? Nothing. What do TSA rent-a-cops have to do with illegal immigrants? Nothing. And Occupy astroturfers - what connection is there with them and white liberal elites? Nothing. The whole mess has devolved into who's team gets the spoils.

Irish - you're dressing up what democrats are doing - don't bother. It's a movement based on envy - that's the only glue between groups in 'the left'.

J: You identify critical contradictions in the uneasy political coalition of the U.S. Left. But I think there is a common thread among these groups. They all want to use the power of the state to achieve greater economic security and consumption without producing more or taking economic risks as well as enhanced hedonistic license. They recognize correctly that they are more likely to achieve these goals by creating a mass political movement.

While understandable, such a movement is easily swayed by demagogues that promise to fulfill their material and sensual desires — bread and circus if you will — in return for political support. We know from history that a nation of decadent citizens led by ambitious demagogues or unscrupulous ideologues never ends well.

How we turn this around is anyone’s guess. Frankly, I am not optimistic. The upcoming election may be this country's last chance for redemption. After 2012, the deck will be stacked against any candidate that does not offer a direct quid pro quo of stuff for votes.

Perhaps our only hope is that the decay will be long and mostly pleasant, as with Rome rather than swift and tumultuous, as with Athens and the Peloponnesian War.