Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee

New York Observer ^ | 10/9/02 | Ron Rosenbaum

[Wright is right!]

This writer is screaming for an editor.

Makes me recall Churchill's admonition to his frothily-verbose Minister of War:

"Prithee tell me on one side of a single sheet of paper what you plan to do to win this war."

Michael

[antidisestablishment]

Wow, what a damning indictiment of the Left. Nothing like a lover scorned, eh?

[jalisco555]

I think he is having a crisis of conscience and needed to work it out on paper. At least he came to the right conclusion, however wordily.

[jalisco555]

I've had a soft spot for Rosenbaum for a long time. His book Explaining Hitler is really very good.

[sharktrager]

I'm glad he's seen some of the errors of his ways, but...

1) The Soviet Union was not "the only one to stand up to Hitler" in the 30's. Stalin not only allowed Hitler's invasion of Poland, he invaded Poland himself. The USSR only opposed Hitler because Hitler attacked them. This stance doesn't exactly take any courage.

2) The ignorant teacher at the protest? Not only did the writer help create him, he helped make the teacher's union one of the most powerful, if ill informed, political forces in the nation.

3) Where was the "values crowd when Dr. King needed them"? Well, lots of them were upset with his adultry and communist leanings. That does, after all, go against what they believe.

4) "I don’t believe in making people pledge at all—there’s something collectivist about it." . Since when is someone from the left opposed to anything being collectivist? Does he even understand the meaning of the word?

When you get right down to it, the author seems to have realized much of the foolishness of the left, but is still unwilling to recognize that, on the issues he has discussed, if the left is wrong, the right must be right. He's afraid to admit that, and until he can, I see him as what the USSR would have called a "useful fool".

[RooRoobird14]

LOL, this guy really needed to vent A LOT--but at least he arrived at the correct conclusions.

Welcome to the side the Good Guys are on, sir!!!

[Fracas]

Perhaps we could introduce him to Chris Matthews....

[Riley]

"Prithee tell me on one side of a single sheet of paper what you plan to do to win this war."

Did anyone have the wit to produce a bedsheet-sized sheet of paper? :-)

[js1138]

bump

[sterl_ryu]

Vanity, but if you took marxism and post modernism out of the Left what would be left?(sorry)

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I think he’s more ill-informed and lazy than dumb

While the author has many salient points, I think he missed the boat on this one.  The evidence (in denial by Daschle and company) is that he is very sharp.

[DLfromthedesert]

A whole lot of people who believed in what King was doing are now part of the Right. Like Bill Bennett, like myself, who also came of age during Viet Nam, and was on the wrong side.

[jalisco555]

I think Rosenbaum is in the process of totally revising his worldview. He has a long way to go and it will take time but eventually he may well become one of us.

[MTRatt]

It's nice to see another "Awakening" in progress.

How many of us here, including myself, spent time on the left before realizing we had been duped?

[Puddleglum]

I think you're right about his working out on paper the footwork of his conscience. Also, he's writing to pseudo-intellectuals in their own cant.

It's a very damning critique of the Left's pseudo-intellectualism.

[section9]

Nope, I ain't buyin.

He condemns the Left without truly breaking from it.

He doesn't really want to leave the Roach Motel, that's what jumps out at me. He wants to stay. He wants the left to Change Their Ways so he can stay.

But it won't, and he can't really decide what to do except issue this wringing of hands.

He doesn't have the guts to leave the temple and become a conservative.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[MoralSense]

Yep. He sure has to think a lot to come up with some obvious truths, doesn't he?

[Kenyon]

Ron Rosenbaum is first rate - in the tradition of Murray Kempton, but with a different style of writing.

[habs4ever]

He is a really tedious writer, and to say that Bush is ill informed and lazy, based on his own impressions? This guy is all over the map, with one confused mind.