by Smitty
Look no further than Salon for your daily dose o’ dreck. “Why won’t America embrace the left?” moans Mandy Van Deven, whose name appears just above a picture that answers the mail on why Americans cannot abide propaganda-peddling putzes of the Lefty variety.
The eloquent, conservative, Baptist, Republican image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. placed on the left of a triptych with Michael Moore and FDR? Really? You think that Dr. King would look at the horror of debt and aborted children wrought by the Left in the name of Progress and not join the nearest Tea Party in his indignation?
You think that by co-opting the image of King you can airbrush history, because Americans have not caught on to the the Left’s recreational dishonesty? You’re sadly mistaken, Mandy. Successful propaganda, like a magic show, is predicated upon a willing audience. Apparently there is a Michael Kazin, who does something to history at Georgtown University (some might call it teaching), and has dropped by Salon for an interview. Mandy introduces her topic:
What has the left really accomplished over the past two centuries? FDR’s New Deal remains one of the great American success stories. In the ’60s, leftist politics created a massive countercultural movement — and sexual and feminist revolutions. The civil rights movement transformed both American society and the American soul. But, if you compare the accomplishments of the American left to those of other parts of the world, like Western Europe, its record is remarkably dismal, with a surprising lack of real political and social impact.
At least, that’s the main takeaway from “American Dreamers,” a new book by Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University, which covers nearly 200 years of struggle for civil rights, sexual equality and radical rebellion. His book explores the way the national conversation has been changed by union organizers, gay rights activists and feminists. He also writes about how their techniques have now been adopted by the Tea Party movement. From Michael Moore to “Wall-E,” he argues that, although the left has been successful at transforming American culture, when it comes to practical change, it’s been woefully unsuccessful.
What has the left really accomplished over the past two centuries? FDR’s New Deal remains one of the great American success stories.
Anyone who’s read Amity Shlaes knows that the FDR’s New Deal, even if you blow by the anti-Constitutional rejection of limited government that it embodied, has proven an economic disaster over the last 75-ish years. So Mandy is either simple, or a propaganda monger.
In the ’60s, leftist politics created a massive countercultural movement — and sexual and feminist revolutions. The civil rights movement transformed both American society and the American soul.
I’m about halfway through the latest Ann Coulter, Demonic and she recounts in much detail just how cool the Weathermen, the campus loonies, et al. were.
. . .covers nearly 200 years of struggle for civil rights, sexual equality and radical rebellion. His book explores the way the national conversation has been changed by union organizers, gay rights activists and feminists. He also writes about how their techniques have now been adopted by the Tea Party movement.
Kazin doesn’t seem too interested in the struggle for liberty, which is the heart of American Exceptionalism, and predates all of the union/gay/feminist twaddle. If we have liberty, all else follows. It is the sheer genius of the Left to take the teleological point of America, liberty, and obscure it with so much chrome and tailfin (“inter-species economic reproductive voting justice”) that no one can quite figure out what the Left is on about anymore. However, if Noam Chomsky says it, the muddle will be served with erudite-sounding faux authority.
Screw your nonsense, Kazin: the Tea Parties are about burning through your intellectual fog, not adding to it.
I’m going to stop after the first question, for reasons of time. However, I trust other bloggers can get on the fisk train and help out.
In the book, you argue that the left has been very successful at changing American culture — but not at making real economic or political change. Why?
It’s easier to get people to think about things differently than it is to construct institutions that alter the basic building blocks of society. When leftists talk about having a vision of how things might be different, they attract an audience and create a new way of perceiving things. It’s a different issue altogether to go up against entrenched structures of wealth and political power. There are few obstacles to talking differently, singing different kinds of songs, or making a different kind of art, but it takes a sustained movement of millions of people to really change the structures, and that is much harder to organize. Also, most Americans accept the basic ground rules of capitalist society. The ideas are that if you work hard you can get ahead and that it’s better to be self-employed than employed by the people. They believe that the basics of a capitalist society are just or can be made just with small alterations. Americans want capitalism to work well for everybody, which is somewhat of a contradiction in terms since capitalism is about people competing with each other to get ahead, and everyone’s not going to be able to do well at the same time. That’s simply not possible.
. . .construct institutions that alter the basic building blocks of society.
First, identify the problem you think you’re about solving. There are few more painful people in life than those who’ve fallen in love with change for change’s sake. They’re either stupid, diabolical, or a fine blend of both.
. . .vision of how things might be different. . .
There is nothing new under the sun, twerp. Among the very old things one can find are pixie dust peddlers, in which ignoble line you stand. Your ‘different’ future boils down to feudalism, and we don’t want it.
. . .it takes a sustained movement of millions of people to really change the structures, and that is much harder to organize. . .
Iron fist, velvet glove.
Americans want capitalism to work well for everybody, which is somewhat of a contradiction in terms since capitalism is about people competing with each other to get ahead, and everyone’s not going to be able to do well at the same time. That’s simply not possible.
It really depends on your definition of ‘ahead’, doesn’t it? By the one-dimensional metric of money, you can bin people easily into haves and have-nots, the better to incite the less reflective into class warfare, no? Your attention is drawn to Bill Whittle for any number of excellent rebuttals.
The Progressive Left is withering under the weight of conservative dialogue in the information age. The more the American people talk to each other, the more they realize the Left are nothing but theives, albeit well-dressed. They want to steal our liberty and replace it with lame substitutes.
(via Memeorandum)
