Posted on 10/22/2004 5:33:24 PM PDT by GoldwaterBooster
The Missing Left Wing
By Mark Q. Rhoads
(Washington, DC---) Consider this odd fact. If you use the Google search engine to look for the phrase "right wing" you come up with 2,490,000 entries. But if you use the same engine to search for the phrase "left wing" there are only 1,050,000 entries. The phrase "right wing" is used 2.4 times more often than "left wing."
Why is that? One might expect a closer parity for two terms that describe opposing points on a political spectrum. Of course some entries don’t have any political context, such as those describing the left or right wing of a bird or airplane. But I’d be very surprised if there are more than twice as many turkeys or airplanes with right wings only.
No, there is a linguistic and cultural bias that compels writers to refer to the "right wing" as a pejorative adjective while they simultaneously refrain from using "left wing" to describe the ultra-liberal side of the spectrum. For 80 years the American Left Wing has hidden behind more pleasing terms such as "progressive" and "liberal." Then, as the term "liberal" itself was overused to camouflage extreme positions in the 1960s, it too began to assume pejorative connotations. So pejorative in fact that in 2004 Senator John Kerry is running away from the term as fast as he can even though he was once proud to call himself a liberal and has the voting record to prove it.
It is only a "label" as Senator Kerry insisted in one of his debates with President Bush? Other countries use more precise language. French politicians also call themselves “progressives" but it is commonly understood as a synonym for socialists. In Britain, the socialist tradition is simply called "The Left." But in America, academics use the term "liberal" as a huge rubber band to stretch around a diverse menagerie of people that range from moderate Republicans all the way to extreme left wing Democrats. Some, such as Senator Kerry, embrace positions alarmingly close to those of “social democrats” in Europe.
Liberal writers were once happy to condemn their opponents as “ultra conservative” when the simple term “conservative” was no longer sufficiently insulting in the 1980s. But of course the person who is “ultra liberal” is a much rarer breed. Maybe that is why the Google search matches 53,000 entries for “ultra conservative” but again well less than half or only 23,000 entries for “ultra liberal.” The ratio is amazingly similar, it seems again there are 2.3 times as many ultra conservatives and there are ultra liberals.
The "labels" in the U.S. do mean less than those in other countries precisely because American partisans often find political advantage in making their positions as warm and fuzzy as possible with the emphasis on fuzzy.
There is a robust American Left Wing that can trace its roots to the English Fabian Socialists founded by writers such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw. It was transplanted to this country by literary heroes such as Jack London and Upton Sinclair about 100 years ago and inspired the formation of clubs such as the American Fabian Society and the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS).
ISS dropped the word "socialist" during the Red Scare of the 1920s and took on different names as it split into various factions over the decades. ISS became the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID), Students for Democratic Action (SDA), and finally Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Port Huron, Michigan in 1962.
What’s the difference between a "liberal" in America and a member of the socialist-inspired "left wing?" Its very hard to tell because the Left Wing has done a great disservice to more moderate and traditional liberals by co-opting the latter label as camouflage. Liberals of the 1950s were for noble goals such as an end to racial discrimination, helping the poor, and support for the peaceful resolution of international conflicts based on democratic ideals of human rights in UN forums.
But the campaign for racial equality morphed into racial preferences designed to correct past injustice but carrying the seeds for future injustice to different people. The UN abandoned democratic values in favor of the lowest common denominator of bigotry embraced by General Assembly members, twenty percent of which are the most repressive regimes in the world. The extreme Left pushed the welfare state far beyond reason. Most tragically, the Left embraced a presumption of guilt on the part of U.S. foreign policy in almost all human rights or freedom initiatives. This self-loathing of America was always part of the American Left but not part of the more moderate liberal tradition after World War II. Liberal Democratic senators such as Paul Douglas of Illinois, Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, and Henry Jackson of Washington were strong supporters of spreading democracy and resisting all forms of totalitarianism abroad.
The reason one finds more than twice as many references to "right wing" or “ultra conservative” on Google is that a huge majority of liberal writers, reporters, pundits, and academics are too uncomfortable describing themselves or close friends as "left wing" or “ultra liberal” even though many of them are.
They believe in the supremacy of the benevolent state over the individual and that liberal elites can govern the rest of us better than we can. They see no distinction at all between society at large and the role of government in society. They believe that government with its monopoly on the use of force and coercion, rather than voluntary persuasion, is the ultimate engine for social reform. Traditional liberals love America and are just as patriotic as traditional conservatives. But the illiberal Left Wing in America is intolerant of dissent on the campus and clings to a pathological default position that America is not a beneficial agent for good in the world.
In their final debate, President Bush was far too generous in describing Senator Kerry’s positions as those on the "far left bank" of the political main stream. Kerry is light years from any main stream. He is lost on the left bank of the leftward most tributary very far away from most Americans. Kerry is wrong; labels do matter if they accurately cut to the heart of his core political identity.
Mark Q. Rhoads is a former editorial writer for The Chicago Sun-Times.
pinging because we were discussing something similar to this.
OK.
For the sake of discussion, let's say that I completely agreed with this article. So what is the proffered solution?
There's plenty of content out there that criticizes the radical left. (Justifiably so, in my view), but not a whole lot that takes us from "the radical left is a bunch of yo-yo's" to how this gets fixed in the long term.
I think the point I am trying to make it that is intellectually honest, moral, and important to call things by their proper names. Radical professors call Bush a "Nazi" all day long and don't worry that anyone will call them irresponsible even though they are. But conservative writers shrink from calling Kerry a "socialist" even though they have far more legitimate justification based on so many of his speeches and voting record. Conservative writers don't want to people to think they are crazoid McCarthyites. By being too reserved, they voluntarily surrender to the thought and language police of the American Left Wing.
A few people who are Left Wing are willing to embrace the title and do not hide behind more benign labels. But not many. There is a tradition with the Left Wing in America of flying under false colors more so than conservatives who just are what they are. I think I can tell the difference between an honest liberal and a Left Winger. The Left Winger almost always impugns the motives of anyone who disagrees with them in extreme terms. Not so the honest liberal who loves to debate on the merits. To the extent that Left Wingers are driving Kerry strategy right now, they are turning off a small number of voters who realize at some level that the rhetoric is far too extreme.
Last point. When Reagan called the former Soviet Union the "evil empire" in 1983, everyone ridiculed him--even some conservative writers who consider themselves sophisticated. But Reagan was speaking the truth and eventually that phrase "evil empire" took hold of the imagination of people even inside the USSR. That is why it is important to call things by their proper names if one legitimately reasons from an honest premise. Kerry might not realize he is a socialist fellow traveler and he might resent the label in his own mind. But European Social Democrats have no problem seeing a potential ally in Kerry for a host of legitimate reasons for them.
Word have power. This is a lesson that the left has known for quite some time. They're quite good at manipulating the language. My gunnies know that especially well: terms such as "assault weapon" and "common sense gun safety" are all terms handed to us by the left. They are now in common usage.
I recomment that you re-visit your Alinsky. Same old tricks, different decade.
I know where the missing "Left Wing" are: they're vandalizing Bush/Cheney HQ all over the country.
That is even more so the case when you are not outstandingly intelligent, as is true of your typical reporter or teacher, and doubly true of those who are in the public eye primarliy because they are eye candy or an excellent singer.
Leftism is the unthinking assumption that things are the way they are because of conditions which are susceptible of easy definition and easy modification. Expertise in a given field lies precisely in understanding fairly clearly why that is not so in that particular field - why the conventional way of doing things is pretty hard to improve on. Everyone is a conservative about the things that they actually know. Indeed, even newsmen are conservative about doing the newspaper business, in the sense that you can't easily convince them to do other than what all other newsmen will do in a given situation, however "liberal" that thing might be to you.
In fact, predicting what newsmen will do in a given situation, and exploiting it - that is, Public Relations - is IMHO the essence of leftism. PR is undemocratic in the sense that it is founded on the idea that the people can be sold on anything.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Nothing new here that I can see. Unless and until such time as most conservatives realize that not only our own faux press but also the worldwide media is the single most dangerous enemy our republic faces, NOTHING will change. It will only get worse. The foreign media is turning the rest of the world against America just a surely as our domestic propagandists are turning Americans against America.
Recognizing and identifying the enemy is only part of the problem though, isn't it. Another poster asked the only relevant question concerning the socialists/leftists, and particularly the propagandists; "What can be done about it"?
FGS
You ARE doing something about it. You are participating in one of the better blogs in the country that many people read to become better informed. There is a ripple effect from this since the next time you get into a conversation with a person who is not informed, you can at least plant a seed regarding their pet cause that they might not have thought about before. This, the blog, internet news sites, this is the new media that is going to replace the old broadcast TV media. No one has a monopoly on this media and the economic barriers to entry are very low compared with owning just one radio low-watt radio station. There are more than 120 million people getting news from primary sources on the Internet. TV ratings for all commercial news shows are dropping like a stone because they are losing information-seekers to talk radio, cable, and the Internet. This is just as revolutionary as when TV replaced radio news fifty years ago.
I suppose it's just not happening fast enough to suit me. The media presents a clear and present danger to our republic IMHO. Few seem to realize the extent of the danger. Fewer still seem to have a clue what to do about it. The media's methods are insidious; their actions treasonous. We the people should have called 'em on it years ago. Where are the magabuck conservatives that could easily counter this assault on our culture? FoxNews is a breath of fresh air, but even they are caught up in "fair and balanced". The lies of the left are difficult to refute on the spot, even by, say, a Brit Hume.
A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)
This is not just a quaint little quote; it's the gospel IMO! And what makes this truism so dangerous should be obvious; it may take hours or days to offer up a rebuttal to a fantastic tale from the left, but by then the audience has moved on to a new playoff game or the back nine. The damage is done. The leftists/socialists know this and use it to its full advantage.
The rise in talk radio and the internet has thrown a wrench in the works, but I wouldn't bet on it being a permanent solution to the problem, but I will diligently pray for the best.
FGS
Yes, that certainly is hopeful. It can get so discouraging, tho ,when a major political party is able to nominate an outright traitor and still poll competively . . .
Thanks for the ping. I think the author gives a fine overview of left and right. The traditional, patriotic liberals (like Henry "Scoop" Jackson) were purged from the Democratic Party and are now called "neoconservatives." The article is also very illustrative of how dominant leftists are in the media.
Media bias bump.
Preach it brother! No truer words were ever spoken. We as a nation have been divided by the rats and their media cheerleaders, but have not been conquered........yet. History is not encouraging either is it?
FGS
I don't intend to be discouraging (actually I'm quite optimistic about the future of freedom right now), but I think that these are times when thinking completely outside the box will be necessary.
It's been 40 years since Barry Goldwater sparked the re-birth of conservative politics in the US and 24 years since Ronald Reagan was first elected. I don't think that anyone can say with a straight face that conservatism has ultimately won against socialism.
I look forward to the post-election threads when we get to talk about these things in much greater depth.
Yeah, me too. The thing that really concerns me and others here is the fact that someone like a John Kerry is actually running for president of our country on a major party's ticket. If he is not soundly defeated by something approaching a landslide, I think we're in trouble as a nation.
See ya on the 3rd.
FGS
I don't think it's going to be a landslide. I guess we'll all know on the 3rd. Or so I hope.
I'm planning on sitting out FR from about now till at least a few days after the election.
Lessons learned: best to let emotions run their course, and be sure to duck when the furniture starts flying. I look forward to seeing you then.
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