Posted on 11/29/2011 3:51:21 AM PST by goldstategop
The radical is always the more glamorous. People wear Che Guevara tee-shirts. They don’t wear Samuel Gompers, A. Phillip Randolph, Edouard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, or Jean Jaures tee-shirts, yet those largely forgotten social democratic and labor heroes achieved far more benefit for reform and workers without murdering a lot of people.
Rosa Luxembourg, the nastiest rich spoiled brat in Zamosc, is fondly remembered though her career was a disaster and helped create the conditions that eventually brought about Nazism. Who knows about Frances Perkins, who did far more to help workers and was the first woman ever to be in the cabinet of an American president?
Thus, two things are certain. The extremist has better public relations and the extremist fails. Either he’s defeated, perhaps killed (dying the secular equivalent of the martyr’s death) or gains power, becomes horribly repressive, and messes up society big-time.
More here:
When Romanticism Trumps Reason, You Get Radical Chic Catastrophes
I'll leave Dr. Rubin with the final word how the radical has subverted and taken over the Democratic Party - and he says it far better than I can:
"All of these reflections come as a result of the open revival of the far left in the West, and especially in America. In recent years, the far left has prospered by pretending to be liberal. All of the dreams in the 1930s about infiltrating liberal organizations and taking over the Democratic Party have now come true. But that doesn’t seem to be enough as the Occupy movement seeks to bring back the good old days of Stalinism. To hold such a position means that no one ever taught you at university anything about democratic political philosophy or the gaping holes in Marxism, not to mention the record of what Communism did when it was in power."
Indeed.
“the Occupy movement seeks to bring back the good old days of Stalinism.”
From Wikipedia…
After Stalin’s stroke, Beria claimed to have poisoned Stalin, aborting a final purge of Old Bolsheviks Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov for which Stalin had been laying the groundwork in the year prior to his death. He announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had “saved [us] all” (according to Molotov’s memoirs).
When the head of the police kills the country’s leader and announces that he “saved us all” we can only imagine how good the days of Stalinism were. Incidentally, those who were saved immediately got rid of Beria.
good article
The Soviet leaders feared Beria would do the same thing to them.
Revolutions do devour their own children. The Far Left is taking the Alinsky strategy to the max.
There’s a script being played out now.
A Communist mass executioner is fondly remembered because of his violent death. His crimes against humanity are largely forgotten today.
History is chock full of examples from the Spanish Inquisition, the Jacobins, Bolsheviks, Nazis and Khmer Rouge. The Animal Farm keeps being played out.
The logic of a revolution is the complete eradication of the old order. And we can add Iran to that list. Upon taking power, Khomeini personally ordered the mass execution of figures belonging to the old regime in carefully orchestrated show trials. A dictatorship does not change its spots and we have people in the West alive today who have no first-hand experience with true tyranny.
Lowlifes pooping on police cars isn't the stuff of high drama - - or melodrama...
Seeing the mighty fall, a hero of the lost cause, the intense dreamer - yes - romantic.
Trust fund babies not wanting to cook for homeless drug addicts infiltrating their ranks... Fancy restaurant food 'donated', endless squabbling... and sloth... not so much...
The Occupy movement may be rabble but their leaders are sincere in wanting to destroy capitalism. Their madness does have a purpose - to discredit the system and pave the way for something new in its place.
Stalin’s death is certainly enigmatic. I know in 2003, a group of Russian and American historians said that, in their view, Stalin was murdered by warfarin (rat poison). To the best of my knowledge, no autopsy has ever been done on Stalin, and perhaps by now it’s far too late.
His death was certainly convenient; he’d just launched another purge, The Doctor’s Plot, (directed against the Jewish population) which would naturally have led to even more purges as people would be caught up as conspirators in the original plot.
I could believe Stalin was murdered, and if so, Lavrenty Beria certainly did a distinct service to the people of Russia. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished, so the rest of the Politburo put Beria out of the way posthaste (most likely fearing he’d do the same to them!).
If you’re going to mention the Spanish Inquisition in the same sentence with the Nazis and the commies, don’t forget to include the Protestant witch hunts.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE..
Oh, Bugger!
Don’t get your religious panties in a wad. It was a point of illustration regarding zealots engaging in cleansing, not an indictment of Catholicism.
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