Posted on 03/04/2017 10:50:31 PM PST by PCPOET7
How far left was I? So far left my beloved uncle was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in a Communist country. When I returned to his Slovak village to buy him a mass card, the priest refused to sell me one. So far left that a self-identified terrorist proposed marriage to me. So far left I was a two-time Peace Corps volunteer and I have a degree from UC Berkeley. So far left that my Teamster mother used to tell anyone who would listen that she voted for Gus Hall, Communist Party chairman, for president. I wore a button saying “Eat the Rich.” To me it wasn’t a metaphor. I voted Republican in the last presidential election.
Love to hear from those rescued from the Father of Lies. It’s rare that a liberal recognizes the type of people they associate with. God bless her and keep her in the path of freedom and godliness.
Your logic could've applied to Danusha V. Goska (author of the piece) as well.
"We focused so hard on our good intentions. Before our deployment overseas, Peace Corps vetted us for our idealism and “tolerance,” not for our competence or accomplishments. We all wanted to save the world. What depressingly little we did accomplish was often erased with the next drought, landslide, or insurrection.
Peace Corps did not focus on the “small beginnings” necessary to accomplish its grandiose goals. Schools rarely ran, girls and low caste children did not attend, and widespread corruption guaranteed that all students received passing grades. Those students who did learn had no jobs where they could apply their skills, and if they rose above their station, the hereditary big men would sabotage them. Thanks to cultural relativism, we were forbidden to object to rampant sexism or the caste system. “Only intolerant oppressors judge others’ cultures.
I volunteered with the Sisters of Charity. For them, I pumped cold water from a well and washed lice out of homeless people’s clothing. The sisters did not want to save the world. Someone already had. The sisters focused on the small things, as their founder, Mother Teresa, advised, “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love.” Delousing homeless people’s clothing was one of my few concrete accomplishments."
Very apt.
Wow, amazing piece.
Good article, thanks for posting. I was raised in the SF bay area, so naturally I as a teen I was all into the hippie movement. My parents were lefties, albeit ones with morals. I eventually became apolitical until I witnessed the difference between Carter and Reagan, so I voted as a republican for Reagan and have never looked back.
A few years ago I was socializing with some friends in the bay area, all of us talking about the good old sixties. All of them were still leftists so they wanted to know what happened to me. I said that nothing happened to me, I still believe in love, peace and liberty to live your life as you wish. It’s the commie leftists movement that became hateful, militant and fascist, criminalizing thought and beliefs they don’t like. Most of my friends thought about it and agreed to a certain extent.
That’s right. I decided from an early age that there are two kinds of people, thinkers and feelers. I never could stand to spend much time with feelers, and that has made my life simpler and happier.
I felt that I was confronting the signature essence of my social life among leftists. We rushed to cast everyone in one of three roles: victim, victimizer, or champion of the oppressed. We lived our lives in a constant state of outraged indignation. I did not want to live that way anymore. I wanted to cultivate a disposition of gratitude. I wanted to see others, not as victims or victimizers, but as potential friends, as loved creations of God. I wanted to understand the point of view of people with whom I disagreed without immediately demonizing them as enemy oppressors..
Many of my students lack awareness of a lot more than vocabulary. They don’t know about believing in themselves, or stick-to-itiveness. They don’t realize that the people who exercise power over them have faced and overcome obstacles. I know they don’t know these things because they tell me. One student confessed that when she realized that one of her teachers had overcome setbacks it changed her own life.
My students do know — because they have been taught this — that America is run by all-powerful racists who will never let them win. My students know — because they have been drilled in this — that the only way they can get ahead is to locate and cultivate those few white liberals who will pity them and scatter crumbs on their supplicant, bowed heads and into their outstretched palms. My students have learned to focus on the worst thing that ever happened to them, assume that it happened because America is unjust, and to recite that story, dirge-like, to whomever is in charge, from the welfare board to college professors, and to await receipt of largesse.
This comes right fro the devil. We have a strong sense of fairness, of justice (as witnesses in the early refrain of children, "that not fair!"), which the devil manipulates to convince souls that it is not fair for benefits (position, possessions, pleasures) to have to be merited or else be realized as voluntary acts of mercy and grace (but which are rejected as such by those who are told that they inherently deserve - it is their "right" what others were worthy of by merit). .
And thus it is also held that it is unjust to punish those who presume to obtain such benefits illicitly, and that the whole system which rewards work/merit accordingly and punishes indolence, etc., (yet can show mercy and grace) is held to be unjust and oppressive by those seduced by the victim-entitlement mentality .
This mentality that one is a victim of a system in which benefits belong to those who merited them (or that receiving what may be voluntarily given by others is not a "right") is fostered by self-righteous power seeking souls, who present themselves as saviors of the oppressed, who obtain positions by promising their clients benefits at the expense of those who earned them. But as history shows, in the end all end up in privations looking to these selfish Stalinist saviors for bread, who alone end up with all the benefits they enticed the proletariat with.
In essence we see this seduction right in the Garden of Eden, (Genesis 3) in which the devil, who previously had presumed to occupy the throne of God (Is, 14) in the first "occupy movement," as with students taking over admin. buildings in the 70's, who "despise dominion" apart from their own), worked to seduce Eve with the "share the wealth" message, that God was unjust in keeping her from a power He retained, malevolently keeping to Himself that which she had the right to, and which she would rightfully obtain by disobedience, rather than being penalized for this presumption.
Her husband, which was not seduced and knew better, followed her lead into sin, thus incurring just penalties, and necessitating the redemption which ultimately is in Christ for those who repent and believe, thanks be to God.
And in contrast to the devil, God is constantly giving at His own expense, "life, breath, and all things," and ultimately "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all," (Rm. 8:32) who "loved me and gave Himself for me," (Gal. 2:20) to give eternal life to as many as believe on Him with effectual faith. (Jn. 5:24)
And who even rewards the faith of believers for doing what only God actually deserves credit for, since He enables and motivates both conversionary faith and the obedience which follows, (Jn. 6:44; 12:32; Acts 11:18; 16:14; Eph. 2:8-10; Phil. 2:12,13) even to overcomers being made to sit in His throne, (Rv. 3;21) in contrast to the prideful presumption of the devil. (Is. 14:14) To God be glory now and forever.
Good article.
I smell Kent State II coming...
Thanks for posting this
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