Articles: To Get Ron Paul's Insanity, You Have To Understand Libertarianism
To "get" Ron Paul you have to understand libertarianism -- an ism every bit as delusional as Marxism. The National Libertarian Party, which first ran a presidential candidate in 1972, hasn't had many wins -- electing 4 state legislators in as many decades, as well as a planning commissioner here and an alderman there. Ron Paul is its greatest success.The Texas congressman is far and away the most prominent proponent of what I like to call rightwing utopianism. Libertarianism is to authentic conservatism what Barack Obama is to 19th century liberalism.Inspired by Ayn Rand (Ron named his son, the future senator, Rand Paul), Libertarianism was an outgrowth of 1960s campus conservatism. Like ideologues of the left, libertarians of the day were on a never-ending quest for ideological purity and the foolish consistency Emerson derided. (They still are.) Unlike traditional conservatives, libertarians came to oppose the Vietnam War and what they called "prohibitionist" drug policies. You must be consistent, libertarians lectured us. If you support economic liberty, then you must support "personal liberty" (legalized abortion, freedom to use soul-destroying drugs) and the libertarian principle applied to foreign policy -- isolationism.During the Cold War, economist Murray Rothbard (one of the foremost libertarian theorists) once observed that if we lost the rest of the world and the Soviets invaded America, we could always take to the hills and launch a guerrilla war, a la "Red Dawn." Libertarians have never been hampered by reality.Some libertarians drifted into anarchy, others organized the National Libertarian Party. Ron Paul was the party's 1988 standard-bearer.I understand libertarians because I was one, from roughly 1968 (when I read "Atlas Shrugged") to 1982. I was a vice chairman of the New York Libertarian Party in the early '70s. When I lived in the Seattle-area, later in the decade, I ran a libertarian supper club, which brought in a young Texas congressman as a speaker. My road to recovery began with "The Conservative Mind" by the great Russell Kirk and Whittaker Chambers' "Witness."Other than abortion, there is no particular on which Ron Paul differs with either libertarianism or the Libertarian Party. Like them, he would legalize hard drugs and abolish age of consent laws, which violate the rights of 24-year-olds to have sex with 14-year-olds.Like the average libertarian, Ron Paul is a dogmatic isolationist.Rothbard believed our involvement in the Second World War was a tragedy:"Our entry into World War II was the crucial act in foisting a permanent militarization upon the economy and society, in bringing to the country a permanent garrison state, an overweening military-industrial complex...."A former aide to the congressman, Eric Dondero says Paul told him the United States had no business being involved in World War II. "When pressed, he often brings up conspiracy theories like FDR knew about the attacks of Pearl Harbor weeks before hand.The 2010 platform of the National Libertarian Party sets forth a foreign policy difficult to distinguish from the lunacy of Michael Moore and Code Pink: The former provides:"Our foreign policy should emphasize defense against attack from abroad and enhance the likelihood of peace by avoiding foreign entanglements. We should end the current U.S. government policy of foreign intervention, including military and economic aid."In 1973, Rothbard observed:"The libertarian position, generally, is to minimize State power as much as possible, down to zero, and isolationism is the full expression (of that doctrine) in foreign affairs."Not only does Paul march in lockstep with Rothbard and the L.P., he even believes the United States should have no opinion on foreign developments. Thus, Dr. Paul was the only member of the House of Representatives to vote against a 2005 resolution condemning Ahmadinejad's call to "wipe Israel off the map" and a 2009 resolution "expressing support" for Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators.And yes, Ron Paul has intimated, on more than one occasion, that the United States is to blame for the 9/11 massacre. He claims al-Qaeda slaughtered 3,000 U.S. civilians because America is "bombing them," because we have military bases in the sacred sand pit and because we support Israel over the dear Palestinians. Wonder who he blames for the Muslin conquest of Constantinople in 1453? The CIA wasn't around then, was it? Or for the Christmas bombings of Nigerian churches?In a 2003 speech, Paul said we should pay attention to bin Laden, when he explained his grievances against America.:"The U.S. defiles Islam with its bases ... its initiation of war against Iraq (notwithstanding Saddam's pacifism), with 12 years of persistent bombing, and weapons being used against the Palestinians, as the Palestinian territory shrinks and Israel's occupation expands."As you'd expect, Paul is insouciant about nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's incinerate-the-Jews/establish-a-worldwide-caliphate regime . Why wouldn't they want nukes? "Internationally, they'd be given more respect." Besides, "they are surrounded." (If only Israel would stop threatening to push the Shiites into the sea.) What's Tehran going to do with one or two nuclear weapons, Paul asks? Why Israel has dozens. Hint: The Iranians crazy enough to use them. A nuclear war would be just the thing to usher in the 12th imam.On the Jewish state, Paul doesn't deviate one iota from L.P. party-line. Libertarians view Israel as the engine that drives what they call U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Israel is said to sap our resources, drag us into their wars and make the Muslims -- who are otherwise peace-loving and well-disposed to our way of life -- hate us.In his essay, "War Guilt in the Middle East," Rothbard excoriated Israel's "aggression against Middle East Arabs," "confiscation of Arab lands" and its "refusal to let these refugees (Palestinians) return and return the property taken from them." He had nothing to say about the equal number of Jews driven from Arab lands by pogroms at the time of Israel's founding.Dondero says his ex-boss loathes Israel and "sides with the Palestinians and supports their calls for the abolishment of the Jewish state, and the return of Israel, all of it, to the Arabs." While Dr. Paul hotly denies that he's anti-Israel (his campaign calls Dondero a "disgruntled" ex-aide) everything he's done or said about the Middle East seems to confirm the charge.Ayn Rand, who unintentionally provided the impetus for the movement, disdained libertarians, calling them "right-wing hippies.' She was unequivocal in her support for Israel, which she explained this way in a 1974 appearance: "When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."Ron Paul may be delusional, but he is a consistent. Neither mass murder, terrorism, the advance of militant Islam, nor nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatical regimes will shake a libertarian's faith in his dogma: We have no foreign enemies. If certain states want to kill us, it's our fault. Nothing is worth fighting for -- unless it's abolishing the Federal Reserve System.I'd like to follow Ron Paul around to Republican gatherings, pointing at him and shouting "stranger, danger" Stranger this you cannot get.Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/12/to_get_ron_paul_you.html#ixzz1i6Bseb4V
FORGED IN FAITH: A blog about Faith, Social Issues, Politics, Life and Family from a Christian perspective.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
THE NEW COVENANT, ISRAEL AND JESUS
Before the cross, Israel was both a political and a spiritual kingdom in a geographical location. After the cross it became God’s spiritual kingdom, not a worldly place or power (John 18:36), with all believers in Christ as citizens. Simply, it was not a place but a spiritual condition. It was the condition of being born again through belief in Jesus.
Martin Luther explained this traditional view in his classic commentary on Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Discussing Galatians 6:16, Luther wrote the following passage.
“When Paul adds: ‘And upon the Israel of God,’ he touches the false apostles and the Jews who gloried and bragged that they were the people of God, that they had the law and the promises. So it is as if Paul said: ‘They are the Israel of God, those with faithful Abraham who believe in the promises of God offered in Christ, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, and not they which are the begotten of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob after the flesh.’ But this entire matter was handled before in the third chapter.” (See Galatians 3:7 ff, especially 3:26-29.)
Without question, Jesus said His kingdom of the New Covenant was not a worldly or political entity. In the red letters of John 18:36 (RSV) Jesus explained, “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship was of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews.”
Next, it is clear that entry into God’s kingdom does not come through a blood relationship to Abraham, but through faith in Jesus. Checking Jesus’ words again, we see He said the Jews were satanic and not children of Abraham.
The record of this is Jesus’ statement, “If you were Abraham’s children you would do what Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me... You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” (John 8:31-57, esp. 39-44 RSV.)
Paul, himself a Jew, fully knew the Jewish misunderstanding about salvation through race rather than through faith. He gave us the famous Galatians chapter three explanation, secured by verses 26-29. (RSV.)
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one n Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
This shows that the Old Covenant, with Jews the covenanted people, was replaced by the New Covenant of faith through Jesus Christ. The new holy nation (Kingdom of God; Kingdom of Heaven) is made up of all who are one in Christ. Spiritual Israel has replaced the earlier worldly Israel since the cross and Jesus’ resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross, the old Covenant died with him (Matthew 27:50,51). When he arose, the new covenant arose with him.
The theology of this change is more formally explained in Hebrews, chapters seven through ten, (especially 8:6,7,13 and 10:9,10). Replacement of the Old Covenant means that with Jesus, God abolishes the first covenant to establish the second or New Covenant. (Hebrews 8:7 & 13.)
Clearly, there is only one covenant, the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. Since the Old Covenant is gone, vanished away, there are no covenantal promises or prophesies remaining in it for the Jews and a Jewish Israel. These now belong to the new Israel of God by faith.
The impossibility of two covenants, one Christian and one for Jews, is obvious. Jesus said He is the way, and no one can come to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). This excluded a Jewish covenant given through race with promises and prophecies that substitutes for Jesus’ covenant.
To do an overkill on this point, we may review the fourth chapter of Romans and the second chapter of Peter’s first letter.
In the Roman letter Paul assures us, in the promise to Abraham and all his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the “righteousness of faith.” (Romans 4:13, RSV.)
The Apostle Peter taught the True Israel truth in another way. Christians, the entire body of Christ, are now God’s chosen people. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you have not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” (I Peter 2:9, RSV.)
The conclusion is that Christians, the Body of Christ, are now God’s holy nation, the true Israel under the Gospel, since Jesus’ salvation. Christians are the inheritors of Abraham’s promises through faith in Christ The old Israel and the Old Covenant to the Jews ceased and vanished. That covenant ended when Jesus died on the cross. Promises and prophesies to BC Israel now belong totally to those under the New Covenant. Those closed for Israel of the Jews on the first Easter Sunday.
Christian faith is in the shed blood of Jesus purchasing our New Covenant with God at his cross. By grace, both Jew and non-Jew can come into the new Israel of God through faith, not by race or by works.
Heresy is to teach that a Jew, by virtue of his race (flesh), is still a chosen one of God through the Old Covenant. The same heresy claims that a collection of Jews (even agnostics, atheists, and secularists) who inhabit the political Israeli state is still a chosen people under the Old Covenant, receiving the promises and prophesies of that covenant just because they are born Jews and live in a nation calling itself “Israel.”
Also countering this heresy is the historical disproof of claims about the Israeli republic. Contemporary Israel is NOT the first Jewish state since the Old Testament prophecies were written, it is the third.
All end-time prophecies arising out of the Israeli state in relation to events in the Middle East rest on a common mistake. That mistake is the belief that the 1948 restoration of Israel is the first and only restoration since the Old Testament times. This is taught by all speculative end-time prophets, who believed restoration has not occurred before and that it signifies something very unique.
History contradicts this belief. The fact is that there were two independent Israeli monarchies, with temples, in the inter-testament period between the Old and New Testament writings. Contemporary Israel is outside the Torah because is not a monarchy and does not have the necessary Temple.
The first kingdom was reestablished after the Maccabean revolt occurring about 152 BC. Israel won its independence from the Seleucids, a “tribe” (nation) from the north (Syria) in that year after a long and bloody struggle.
Jewish patriots recaptured and cleansed the temple, an event commemorated by the ‘Festival of Lights’. The restored monarchy, known as the Hasmonaean Dynasty, gave a period of peace and prosperity from 152-65 BC It had a fully restored priesthood, and temple worship, according to the law. The monarchy ended in civil war, with two Hasmonaean heirs struggling for the throne.
Roman interest in the area began about 65 BC Herod the Great neutralized Roman influence through diplomacy and entered the conflict as a third contender for the throne. He won the civil war in 37 BC and became king. This was the second kingdom.
Herod’s reign began with independence from Rome, even though Israel later became a puppet state by his death in 4 AD. That later servitude of Israel obscures the fact that Herod was first independent. Thus, in the beginning under Herod’s rule, Israel was allied with, but not subject to, Roman rule. Therefore, Herod’s independent monarchy was the second time Israel was an independent nation between the close of the Old Testament and 1948.
Lacking the Temple, the ark, a priestly hierarchy, regular blood sacrifices, and the annual Day of Atonement, modern Israel lacks what the Torah requires. Israel lost all of these religious necessities in 70 AD, when Titus’ Roman troops sacked Jerusalem. Modern Israel can not become Old Testament, covenanted, Israel unless the religious requirements of the law are met. Since it has not, and cannot, met those requirements, it is not Biblical Israel and is not a beneficiary of Old Testament prophecies and promises. In fact, Old Covenant (Torah) Judaism does not exist. It has vanished and is replaced by the New Covenant as Jeremiah prophesied. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Any restoration of covenanted Israel would subvert Jesus’ exclusive New Covenant. Israel can never be in a Torah relationship with God, and under His anointment, without blood atonement. It cannot have atonement without blood sacrifices. It cannot have blood sacrifices without its temple and priests, using the prescribed religious artifacts which remain lost and unrecoverable.
A restoration of ancient Israel’s Torah religion would necessarily be a competitor religion to Christianity in the same way Islam, Hinduism, and other Pagan religions based on works contradict Jesus’ New Covenant that is based on faith. and freely given grace. It would deny and replace Jesus and his Gospel.
The new Israel, God’s true Israel, a holy nation, is in fact the fellowship of true followers of Jesus, where ever they are. This body of Christ, the whole collection of Christians, received atonement through the one final sacrifice of Jesus’ shed blood on the cross. Jesus remains the high priest, the only mediator between man and God.
Through Jesus’ final work, anyone can become a temple by receiving the Holy Spirit. Our body, not a building, becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit through the baptism given by Jesus’ sacrificial blood and free grace. This is the New Covenant which replaces that vanished Old Covenant. It is the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven.
Consequently, all claims that the Republic of Israel is a restoration of Old Testament Israel fail. Israel is not Torah Israel since it is neither a monarchy nor does it have a functioning temple. It is not spiritual Israel because the body of Christ is God’s true spiritual Israel. Finally, it is the third restoration, and not the first as is mistakenly asserted.
Since the Israeli state is not Biblical Israel, all speculations and conclusions from Middle East events have no end-time significance. Any concept which starts in error also ends in error. A bad tree cannot yield good fruit, according to Jesus. (Matthew 7:18.)
Knowing we cannot rest our end-time hopes on the Israeli state and the political events of the Middle East, we must find a surer barometer. In our hope for the “soon” coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we want to know the signs to be inspected.
The directions which we can follow are simple and easy to find in the New Testament. We need only search the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles on this subject. We do not search the Old Covenant prophets.
First, we look to Jesus. What did He say? He never bothered to speak on His second coming until directly questioned about it. When asked, He answered fully in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew. He said there must be catastrophic climatic and political tribulations before He comes. But, even before that, all nations must be made disciples of Jesus by the preaching and teaching of His Gospel. (Matthew 28:18-20, esp. 28:19; also Mark 13:3-36, and Luke 21:7:36.)
Paul helped to clarify end-time signs by writing to the Thessalonians. There he said Jesus would not come again until the “son of perdition . . . takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God”. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, esp. 3 & 4, RSV.) Since there is no temple in Jerusalem, this event is not in sight.
A more complete list of “the things which shall be” is written in John’s Revelation 4:1-22:5. Few can agree on the exact meanings of these complex allegories. More debate is expended on Revelation than any other scripture. Debate and divisiveness are unnecessary regardless of interpretations. The meaning of Revelation is unknown and no two people have ever agreed on it. Its purpose is totally misunderstood. (See http://www.revelation-101.org/ )
We can always go back to the basic Source for understanding. What did Jesus say? What did He command us to do for Him before the end can come?
“Go therefore and make disciples (matheteuo) of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:19 RSV, and NKJV, Strong, Vines, Dakes, etc.)
We have our work cut out for us if we want to see Jesus come in the flesh anytime soon. At least half of the world’s population has not even heard Jesus’ name, much less been converted and discipled. We will never fulfill this commandment while debating and speculating on Middle East events.
What shall we do? What is our next move? What would Jesus have us do? More speculation and debate or more Jesus?
We might start by thinking how we might convince 1.2 billion Muslims, 1 billion Hindus, 1+ billion Pagans following other spiritual concepts, the innumerable agnostics, Jews, and lost “System Christians” to God’s True Israel. What ideas can you offer?
It appears that in the 2,000 years since Jesus sacrifice, of the 6.4 inhabitants of Earth only 400, 000,000 are in God’s True Israel. The score is 6 billion out of the Kingdom, 400 million in it. What can be done to change that?
JESUS, THE TRUE ISRAEL OF GOD.
Many devoted Christians hope the end of these “last days” is near. Seeking signs to prove Jesus’ physical return is imminent, their attention has been fixed upon the Republic of Israel since its founding on May 14, 1948, when this new Israeli state brought to an end nearly 2,000 years of Jewish statelessness. A new look at Old Testament prophecy has resulted.
The hasty conclusion that twentieth century Israel is a restoration of Old Testament covenanted Israel is causing many Christians to watch Middle Eastern political events and speculate on their end-time meanings. Too many quickly forget the major Old Testament prophets foresaw a "New Covenant" and not the restoration of the "Old Covenant" (Jeremiah 31:31 ff.)
Renewed emphasis on the Old Testament and some of its prophetic books has resulted in large scale neglect of New Covenant theology. Old Testament study about the vanished covenanted Israel has replaced New Testament teachings about God’s true Israel. Incorrectly equating the new Israeli republic with the Old Testament Israel is the result.
This has brought a return of the Jewish heresy which plagued Paul’s ministry and the early church. That heresy teaches that Jews are, in some way, more important to God than any other people. The idea of Jewish “chosen-ness” even after Jesus implies that the Old Covenant, or parts of it, is still in effect. Strange new teachings abound that belittle the Gospel by contemptuously calling it “Replacement Theology.”
Emphasizing Old Testament teachings of the Jew’s spiritual exclusiveness and superiority in God’s eyes misses how the New Covenant, reported in the New Testament, changed that doctrine. The natural byproduct of BC doctrines is that today’s Israeli state is felt to be the same as BC Israel. Articulate teachers press this belief from every direction by every media.
Strong emotions stemming from end-time hopes can numb theological logic which should be warning that something is amiss. Everyone should be asking: “If Jews are so special to God, and Israel, because of the Jews, is the most important place on earth, what’s with being a Christian? What happened to the Christian’s first place with God?”
Clear reasoning should tell us that current Jewish/Israel/Zionist teachings relegate Christians to second class citizenship in God’s plan of action!
Logic shows that such Zionist theories yield two covenants, with the old one of the Jews having priority to the New Covenant of Jesus. That implies the New Testament is a fraud – which is what Jews assert. Two covenants can’t be if we are to read and believe the New Testament.
The Christian message is about only one covenant, the one Jesus brought with His blood on the cross. If Jesus’ Covenant is the one and only, then any teaching contrary to that is heretical. Christians do not accept two covenants, one of faith and the other of race. Jews do not accept Jesus’ Covenant of freely given faith and grace. Jews, in our times, insist non-Jews, are outside of God's favor and are "Goyim "- heretics - who can never be "chosen" people of God for lacking a Jewish mother.
This is a real problem in our times - too many people teaching too many end-time theories, all starting from the existence of the Israeli state. Using the prophetic books of the Old Testament, while ignoring the New Testament message, yields incorrect conclusions.
From this overabundance of speculative prophecy, soothsaying and much pure fiction, comes many contradictions. Resulting confusion, debate, and division within the body of Christ dampens our love for one another. Because of these differences, we experience an erosion of our peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. In short, we are arguing about unproven nonessentials when we should be sharing love and agreeing on New Covenant essentials. Our calling is to be peacemakers, not debaters.
Being an imitator of Christ is different than being a commentator on the implications of international political and economic events. Christians are required to be experts on the words of Jesus rather than those of some soon-to-pass prognosticator who promotes peculiar prophecies.
Too often we are found studying the latest paperback book's opinions on the meaning of the most recent event in the Middle East, instead of using our time to study the words of Jesus, the “red letters” of the New Testament.
Granting the importance of Jesus’ return, how do we study about it? How do we find the truth about our continuing hope for his final coming? We must commit ourselves to finding the truth, in spite of our fondest hopes and most pleasing opinions. Truth, regardless of its comfort, or lack of it, must be our primary goal. God requires truthfulness from us. This requirement directs us in a single-minded search for it, regardless of the consequences. We cannot be guilty of passing on hear-say opinions obtained from unknown people.
To satisfy ourselves, we need to do our own search for the end-time truth. We need to know we have found the truth, and not simply blindly followed another’s untested opinions.
The primary trustworthy source of information is Jesus’ actual words. These are the red letter sayings of Jesus in the New Testament. Because He is our Teacher and Master, we always look to Him first. Before accepting any spiritual teaching or opinion, we must find His words,
We must test each idea by asking, “What did Jesus say?” When we look to His words we usually find the answer we need with little difficulty.
Measuring all ideas against Jesus’ words gives us a foundation of understanding to which we can add more information from history. So, the source of historical records, for a Christian, is first the Bible and then secular records.
In studying the Bible, Christians place primary importance on the New Testament, so we study it in an orderly way: Jesus’ words first, then the balance of the New Testament in the order in which it is preserved, and finally the Old Testament in its preserved order. This prevents our taking scripture out of context with resulting invented doctrines, too often contrary to God’s order of thought and transmission.
Last, we look to reliable secular historical records about our religion. These records are important because they give information on events which occurred after the Bible was completed. Studying all such available records, after the Bible, usually reveals full historical truth.
To find the truth about God’s true Israel and its relation to the end-time, we must apply this test and search all these sources.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
MUSLIM PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIAN
Arab regimes not overthrown by the “Arab Spring” are under mounting international pressure; these include the secular Assad regime of Syria, where Christians, who comprise some 10% of the population, are fearful of the future, having seen the effects of democracy in neighboring nations such as Iraq, where, since the fall of the Saddam regime, Christians have been all but decimated.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that “Christians are being refused refugee status [in the U.S.] and face persecution and many times certain death for their religious beliefs under Sharia, while whole Muslim communities are entering the U.S. by the tens of thousands per month despite the fact that they face no religious persecution.”
Categorized by theme, November’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.
Churches
Ethiopia: More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church, while screaming “Allahu Akbar” (and thus clearly positing their attack in an Islamic framework); the church was built on land used by Christians for more than 60 years, but now a court has ruled that it was built “without a permit.”Indonesia: Hundreds of “hard-line” Muslims rallied to decry the “arrogance” of a beleaguered church that, though kept shuttered by authorities, has been ordered open by the Supreme Court. Church members have been forced to hold services on the sidewalk, even as Indonesia’s leading Muslim clerics warned Christians that it would be “wise and sensible” for the church to yield to “the feelings of the local believers, specifically Muslims.”
Iran: The nation’s minister of intelligence said that house churches in his country are a threat to Iranian youth, and acknowledged a new series of efforts to fight the growth of the house church movement in Iran.
(READ MORE BELOW)
MUSLIM PERSECUTION
THE LEFT AND ITS TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
…But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count me out
Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right
… You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
…But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow
“Historian” Michael Kazin, who writes for such scholarly periodicals as The Nation, has written a book purporting to tell the story of both the successes and failures of the American Left. It is about how the Left “Changed a Nation” but failed to ever get a majority of Americans to back an all-out socialist or communist government. Kazin completely leaves out the most important point — one crystallized by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in their 1968 song Revolution: “But when you talk about destruction/ Don’t you know that you can count me out…” Indeed, the author completely ignores the violence and destruction that characterized the political Left, not only in the 1960s, but throughout the century.
E.J. Dionne loves Kazin’s new book, calling it a “masterwork” that can inspire young progressives about their noble heritage. Eric Altermann calls it a “tour de force of good scholarship.” One can’t help but wonder, however, how the victims of the American Left will embrace Kazin’s tactic of whitewashing the violence out of the history of American leftism. To be sure, what will the family of Betty Van Patter, who was murdered by the Black Panthers, think? Kazin only reports that the Panthers “advocated violence, but discusses none of the actual crimes of this criminal gang – spelled out powerfully by David Horowitz in his memoir Radical Son.
My guess is that the neither the family of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell, the San Francisco police officer who was killed by a bomb set by the Weather Underground (run by Obama mentor Bill Ayers) nor Officer Robert Fogarty, who was severely wounded in the blast, would be amused by Kazin’s affectionate recounting of the terrorist group as the “most inept terrorists on the planet,” only mentioning the members who blew themselves up while making a bomb to plant at an upcoming Fort Dix dance to take out not only soldiers, but their families as well.
The people of Poland will also probably not consider the central tragedy of the Hitler-Stalin Pact to be the crisis of conscience and bad PR it caused for the American Communist Party.
This is not even mentioning the 150 million human beings murdered in the last century by the governments supported by the Communist Party USA, which Kazin romanticizes in “American Dreamers,” and without whom we would apparently be a society of slave-holders, surfs whose women would not be allowed to vote or get a job
HOW THE LEFT CHANGED AMERICA
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