Posted on 03/20/2005 4:07:04 PM PST by freeholland
The last time anyone has bothered to look, we entered a new millennium back in 2000, and are currently living in the 21st Century. One would be inclined assume (based on their monikers) that those calling themselves 'progressive' or 'radical' would be looking toward the future and would be predisposed to welcome change and innovation.
This assumption would be wrong. The very terms 'progressive', and 'radical' or 'RAD', are good examples of the FUBARING of language by the likes of one of their 'leading lights' Herbert Marcuse, and really mean their opposite. Incidentally, the use here of the term 'RADS', is meant to be an umbrella that covers various self proclaimed and self anointed 'progressives', 'elites', 'intellectuals' (more likely pseudo than not), 'multicultural basket weavers', 'deconstructionists', 'environmental advocates', 'legislating from the bench legalistas', 'neo Luddites', 'cultural Marxists', 'economic Marxists', 'collectivists', 'relativists', 'PC pukes', 'pundit pukes', 'dirigistes and/or other kinds of kontrol freaks', and the MSM [Main Stream Media], and an assortment of other like minded 'penumbral fellow travelers'. A common trait for this coven of RADS is their inclination to look backward rather than forward.
Interestingly enough, even the Marcusian 'double speak' that seems to be the current 'lingua franca' of the RADS, is backwards looking insofar as it seems to imitate the twisting, distortion, and inversion of language described in Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, both of which were written in the previous century, along with the writings and rantings of Marcuse. It's possible that Orwell himself foresaw where this was heading.
"... some ideas are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them..."
George Orwell
The 'new speak' of today's RADS is really a manifestation of 'Back to the future', in this case 1984. Of course that is only the beginning.
DOMESTIC RADS
The RADS really base what passes for their 'ideas' on obsolete 19th Century constructs (economic Marxism) which in the 20th Century (in spite and/or possibly because of Lenin) proved to be unworkable in the economic realm. They ignore the fact that economic Marxism on a large scale and in spite of the use of 'deadly means of enforcement', was a failure and led to the collapse (and it was as much an economic collapse as a political collapse) of the USSR. They continue to advocate collectivism even though it has been shown not to work in spite of over 160 million innocent victims in the 20th Century, murdered by collectivist kontrol freaks of various sorts in the name of 'Social Justice and Equality'.
Even as they profess to ignore the rotting carcass of the T-Rex (i.e. the economic failure of collectivism and economic Marxism) in the room to outsiders, many of them paradoxically provide evidence that they are indeed aware of this T-Rex carcass, because they try to bring it back to life via a mouth to mouth infusion of 'cultural Marxism'.
'Cultural Marxism' is manifested primarily in things like 'Political Correctness' (which BTW originated appropriately enough in Stalinist Russia) and the plethora of penumbral outgrowths from this base (the 'ethos' of the scum of the 60's comes to mind). Unfortunately, it's alive and well in the ACADEMIC as well as POP CULTURE of today.
Speaking of RAD RETRO thinking, the current flap over Harvard's Larry Summers discloses that RADS with so-called academic credentials are totally ignoring any and all the work that's been done by Psychologists in the past century or so regarding the relative influence of Nature vs. Nurture (it's about 50/50), as well as recent findings in Molecular Biology and Genetics.
These RADS continue to insist on the Stalinist 'blank slate' model, which posits that everyone is born as a totally 'blank slate' on which 'environmental factors' can be engineered and manipulated to write just about anything. The very idea that there might be a hereditary component to any phenomenon is rejected as total apostasy because it does not jibe with Stalinist and/or Collectivist doctrine, and erroneous notions regarding EQUALITY.
It's no accident that these RADS have also anointed themselves to be the 'behavioral engineers' who will naturally be doing all the 'writing' on these 'blank slates'. It's a sort of 'Eliza Doolitle' paradigm, which when taken to extremes, suggests that even a Chimpanzee can be taught to say
"The rain in Spain is mainly on the plain." with the proper British upper class intonation.
Of course, if in FACT there are traits and tendencies that are there at birth, that are different for different individuals and groups, and that are out of the reach of these 'elite behavioral engineers', then the need for such 'elites' becomes less than obvious. The reason that this kind of RETRO thinking regarding SCIENCE even gets a hearing is because of the DUMBING DOWN and INDIFFERENCE of the general public. That's SCARY!
ISLAMIC RADS
Islamic Radicals and/or Terrorists seem to surpass the US and European RADS in the degree to which they are backward looking. Their jihad is aimed at turning the clock back to Medieval times. In their view, what makes the US the 'Great Satan', is as much its 'modernity' as the fact that its people are seen by the Islamic RADS as 'immoral infidels'. In their view 'modernity' inexorably leads to spawning 'Great Satans'.
The fact that the Islamic RADS may well be on the brink of having operational nuclear WMDs (they already have Chemical and Biological WMDs) in their arsenal (SEE: Iran) is not to be taken lightly. Has anyone noticed how similar Iran's resistance to inspections, denial that they have WMDs, and general waltzing around with the Euro's and the UN, seems to be to what happened with the same players vis-a-vis Iraq back in 2002? Will some Euro or US RAD eventually claim that Iran's WMD capability is also allegedly a myth, just as in Iraq??
Apparently Euro and US RADS believe that what count as 'real' WMD's are nothing less than massive and numerous silos full of ICBMs with nuclear tipped MIRVs, that such things were not found in Iraq, and even Iran doesn't have anything like this even as we speak, and therefore everyone is safe and Islamic RAD WMDs are a myth. The Euro/US RADS apparently also believe that Chemical and Biological WMDs, which could come in massive lethal doses in containers as small as attache cases... don't count as WMD's. How many such attache cases could have been moved to somewhere else or still be hidden in Iraq (roughly the same area as Texas)? Even though it amounts to attempting the impossible, i.e. proving a negative, the Euro/US RADS believe with Metaphysical Certitude that such weapons never existed in Iraq and don't exist today.
They can't seem to think outside the ICBM box when it comes to recognizing what can constitute a WMD (on 9/11, airplanes with kamikaze guidance systems were used as WMDs), and they also ignore the fact that Islamic RADS have a 'backward looking', primitive, low tech, RETRO WMD to which only demographers seem to be paying any attention. The WMD that Islamic RADS have already deployed in most Euro countries (without any overt effort on their part) is 'THE POPULATION BOMB'.
Given the aging and dying of native Euro's that's not being replenished by new births, and the prodigious fecundity of largely unassimilated Muslim immigrants in Euro countries, it's entirely possible that within another generation or so, Muslim immigrants may make up 30% or more of the population of Euro countries. Given how these immigrants are already influencing Euro foreign policy (for instance, the Muslims in France who make up 10% of the population, may well have had some influence on France opposing the Liberation of Iraq), it's not unreasonable to see this 'POPULATION BOMB' providing a fertile base and 'fifth column' for Islamic RADS in the not too distant future.
What goes around...
LINUX RADS
Is it possible that Linux ZEALOTS (another variety of RADS) are really backward looking Luddites of sorts? It's not exactly beyond the realm of possibility. Here they are, waging a virtual jihad in trying to impose Linux on the rest of the world.
Consider however, that Linux is really UNIX reverse engineered by Linus Torvalds to run on Intel machines. Torvalds did not invent a 'brand new operating system'. In fact, prior to Linux there were already other UNIX like Operating Systems running on Intel machines such as Minix, Coherent etc. Coherent even supported X-windows.
UNIX itself is close to 35 years old, and Linux is a virtual clone of UNIX. The Linux RADS are proceeding with apostolic zeal in trying to convert us to a 35 year old OS. Perhaps if this distraction did not exist, someone (possibly someone other than Microsoft) would have come up with an OS appropriate to the 21st century by now.
CONCLUSION
The tendency for RADS of various sorts to be 'backward looking' is more pervasive than what's been mentioned here. It would almost seem that RADS are 'conservative' and 'retrograde' and 'reactionary' in the sense that they are 'clinging to the past and the Status Quo', while today's Conservatives are actually more RADICAL insofar as they are the ones who are pushing for reform and change and innovation, and seem to be looking toward the future.
Things would probably be OK if these differences in perspective were to be worked out in the 'marketplace of ideas'. However, the reality is that there may currently not be anything resembling a 'marketplace of ideas' because the RADS have an Ideological Oligopoly on the Means of Information, and are not about to allow dissenting ideas to take seed, let alone flourish. Unfortunately, today's Academia (part of the Ideological Oligopoly) with its totalitarian suppression of diversity in ideas, and its pernicious dumbing down and corrosion of standards via Political Correctness, is hardly the place where new forward looking ideas are likely to originate.
20th Century 'modernism' and 'post modernism' is no longer 'modern' in the 21st Century. Ultimately, the 'baggage' of past thinking that has proven to not work as intended, should be abandoned and allowed to remain in the 19th and 20th Centuries where it originated, and we should look forward to developing fresh new thinking that's appropriate for the 21st Century. Perhaps part of this forward looking thinking will consist of breaking the stranglehold of the Ideological Information Oligopoly by finding new ways to disseminate information. There are signs that this is already well under way.
They're called "progressives" because they get progressively more stupid & insane w/each passing year.
bump
Please don't confuse things with facts and/or logic. When the big numbers change on the year, we are supposed to enter a new era, i.e., we are to trash everything of value that mankind has learned up to that point. That way, anyone who was a miserable failure under the old standards gets to start with a clean slate.
The one's who are confused are the mathematically disinclined ... they do not understand a calendar begins with 1, not zero. We have March first, not March zeroth and we started the first millenium with year 1 AD, not year 0 AD. So centuries start in 1701, 1801, 1901, 2001.
A humorous anecdote about this was the NY Times celebrated the start of the new 20th century in 1901, with a big headline on their front page ... then celebrated the start of the new millenium in 2000 ... meaning the 20th century for the NY Times was only 99 years long!
The one's who are confused are the mathematically disinclined ... they do not understand a calendar begins with 1, not zero. We have March first, not March zeroth and we started the first millenium with year 1 AD, not year 0 AD. So centuries start in 1701, 1801, 1901, 2001.
A humorous anecdote about this was the NY Times celebrated the start of the new 20th century in 1901, with a big headline on their front page ... then celebrated the start of the new millenium in 2000 ... meaning the 20th century for the NY Times was only 99 years long!
The Retro-Rad I long for is squeezing a gas pump handle and having it dispense the gas immediately. May I have an "Amen?"
"13.9/ga"
The lowest I remember it being was 26.9/ga. "Those were the days," says this 50 yr. old geezer. Before Star Wars, there were Gas Wars.
.......and have it cost $1.50 per gallon tops, guaranteed, forever........domestically extracted, refined and delivered.....all made in the USA....24/7. After that is "signed, sealed and delivered," I'll say "AMEN!"
After that is "signed, sealed and delivered," I'll say "AMEN!"
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I'm with ya! I'll hold back until then.
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