Posted on 12/31/2019 3:28:43 AM PST by Kaslin
It is not easy to understand what the left -- as opposed to liberals -- stands for. If you ask a Christian what to read to learn the basics of Christianity, you will be told the Bible. If you ask a (religious) Jew, you will be told the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. If you ask a Mormon, you will be told the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Ask a Muslim and you will be told the Quran.
But if you ask a leftist what one or two books you should read to understand leftism, every leftist will give you a different answer -- or need some time to think it over. Few, if any, will suggest Marx's "Das Kapital" because almost no leftists have read it and because you will either not finish the book or reject it as incoherent.
So, then, how is one to understand what leftism stands for?
The truth is it is almost impossible. What leftist in history would have ever imagined that to be a leftist, one would have to believe that men give birth or men have periods, or that it is fair to women to have to compete in sports with biological males who identify as females?
There are two primary reasons it is so difficult, if not impossible, to define leftism. One is that it ultimately stands for chaos:
-- Open borders.
-- "Nonbinary" genders.
-- Nonsensical and scatological "art."
"Music" without tonality, melody or harmony.
-- Drag Queen Story Hour for 5-year-olds.
-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse civilizations.
-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse art.
-- Removal of Shakespeare's picture from a university English department because he was a white male.
-- The end of all use of fossil fuels -- even in transportation (as per the recent recommendation by the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization).
-- The dismantling of capitalism, the economic engine that has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty.
And much more.
The other major reason it is impossible to define leftism is that it is emotion-based. Leftism consists of causes that give those who otherwise lack meaning something to cling to for meaning.
Two things about Greta Thunberg, Time magazine's 2019 person of the year, embody these explanations.
With regard to chaos, here is what Greta Thunberg wrote at the beginning of the month: "The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fuelled it. We need to dismantle them all."
Greta Thunberg, like all leftists, seeks to dismantle just about everything. As former President Barack Obama said five days before the 2008 election, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
As regards emotion and meaning, the Guardian reports, this is what Thunberg's father just told the BBC: "Greta Thunberg's father has opened up about how activism helped his daughter out of depression ... how activism had changed the outlook of the teenager, who suffered from depression for 'three or four years' before she began her school strike protest outside the Swedish parliament. She was now 'very happy', he said ... 'She stopped talking ... she stopped going to school,' he said of her illness."
The post-Judeo-Christian world the left has created has left a vast number of the West's citizens, especially more and more young people, with no meaning. This Grand-Canyon-sized hole is filled by leftist causes.
The fact is life is better, safer and more affluent, and offers more opportunities for more people, than ever before in history. Just about all emotionally stable, mature people should be walking around the West almost delirious at their good fortune. Americans in particular should feel this way. But leftists (again, as opposed to many liberals) are not usually emotionally stable and are certainly not mature. That is why depression among young Americans (and perhaps Swedes) is at the highest levels ever recorded. So, like Greta, they look to left-wing causes to find meaning and emotional fulfillment. Until she embraced climate crisis activism -- a chance, as she sees it, to literally save the world -- Greta Thunberg was so depressed "she stopped talking." But thanks to climate activism and other left-wing activism, she is now "very happy" (an assessment I suspect many observers find hard to believe).
Feminism and "fighting patriarchy" (in an age when American women have more opportunities than ever before and more opportunities than women almost anywhere else in the world), fighting racism (in the least racist multiracial society in history), fighting white supremacy (which has almost disappeared from American life) and fighting on behalf of myriad other leftist causes -- in other words, fundamentally transforming society -- gives meaning to people with no meaning.
None of that is morally or rationally coherent. But it is very emotionally satisfying. Just ask Greta Thunberg's dad.
There are globalist on the left and the right. It is not enough to defeat just the socialists, the parasitic globalists must be defeated too. Global corporatists and their love of one sided trade sucks. It’s a race to the bottom.
For a book about leftism, I suggest 1984.
“The left will stop at nothing, do anything to further their mentally ill agenda including child exploitation.“
The children are the social Marxists’ future. Have been for many decades. Our children have been specifically targeted a century by our pubic schools, news, media, churches and now social media.
We had John Dewey’s early 1900’s Progressive (Marxist) influence, followed by The Frankfurt School’s mid-1900’s social Marxist plan for children, then Hollywood’s 1950’s communist influences, then NEA’s No God push in our schools, then the 1960’s CPUSA push of college youts for war protests, drug use and wanton fornication, then the 1980’s sitcoms ridiculing parents, then the 1990’s queer push, then the 2000’s self-esteem facade, and now social media feeding their ignorant arrogance.
Greta exhibits the bipolarity of a suicide. I will be very surprised if she lives another 5 years. At 79 and in poor condition, I can say the same about myself.
One of the reasons they hate Donald Trump so much, IMO. President Trump isn't one for one-sided deals.
2 societies come to mind, both in the Southern hemisphehre. S Africa and Venezuela. Both were stable, wealthy nations with relatively low crime and little discernible corruption. In both cases liberalism gained popularity as the populations believed themselves immune from catastrophe. Stability and well being proved themselves fleeting conditions as anger and lust for power destroyed these two beautiful countries. It will be a long, hard road back for both.
1984.
I think Animal Farm is more appropriate for the libs.
More their reading level.
They want the power to control every aspect of your life. Climate alarmism is just one tool they use towards that end. Total control of healthcare is another.
As Horowitz said the issue is never the issue, just a means to an end.
Drunk on Activism. Wants to equalize the pain by bringing everyone to her level.
Her clothing was made by industry. She should make her own clothes from scratch or die trying.
She should eat wild lettuce forms and anything she can herself harvest, like road kill.
Her parents are complicit. Drug baby born nuts.
Will only get worse. Photos from earlier time makes her appear normal.
Bad genes kicking in. She needs to be in a rubber room.
When they are out of power they show us what they will be like when they are in power.
This abused mentally ill girl will eventually ax-murder her abusive leftist parents just before she kills her self. So sad...
2031 big year when abillion libs see that the world is still inhabitable
Murder/Suicide,
Greta has That
going for Her.
bkmk
I finally found something to show FREEPERS what I mean.
See if the first 10 seconds of this Killjoys clip of the arch-villain “The Lady” doesn’t remind you of this little snot Greta:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO2aVaqI2Jg
“2 societies come to mind, both in the Southern hemisphere. S Africa and Venezuela...” [Louis Foxwell, post 27]
The southernmost point in Venezuela is still about 2/3 of a degree north of the Equator. Not quite 46 statute miles.
“For a book about leftism”
Forget leftism.
For a book about globohomo capitalism taking over, read Brave New World. Our problem isn’t Marxism, it’s Soma.
Actually, I don’t know who is better for Republicans. The squad,pocahontas or Gerta!
They all send voters our way since only the insane would vote for any of those bozettes. (female bozo)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.