I’d like to thank Kate once again for letting me guest blog. It’s been a privilege to share in one of the most robust and varied “comments” communities going. It is, after all, the commentary from readers that makes SDA one of the most interesting places to visit. Thanks all !
Running MediaRight.ca has forced me to read a lot of international opinion writing, and what an eye-opener it’s been. The world, at least within MSM op-ed, is a sea of leftists:
Constructive criticism always recognizes context. In other words, it acknowledges the realities, the history, facts on the ground, efforts made thus far, difficulties, and successes, and in this light it offers alternatives. But, reading the standard leftist diatribes now plugging the pages of the broadsheets, which by the way make up 80% of all op-ed, one would conclude that every step, every utterance, every move, every expenditure, every battle, and every thought ever held or enacted by those prosecuting the Afghan conflict, is flawed.
CLICK
I fully agree. I think it’s a result of the fact, and I use the word with intent, that the left live and operate primarily in a fictional rather than factual world.
First, according to their postmodern phenomenology, there is no objective reality; the only reality is whatever one subjectively experiences. The objective world simply doesn’t exist. This premise opens the door wide and wider to a purely fictional, made-up-by-myself reality, a reality that requires no evidence, no referential accountability, nothing other than my own dogmatic assertion as Author of my world that ‘this is the way it is’.
Along with this rejection of objective empirically grounded and factual reality, is a commitment to another part of the fictional realm. Utopianism. Utopia means ‘no-place’, which means that it doesn’t and cannot exist.
That doesn’t bother the Living Within My Fictional World leftist, for a utopian world is actually a simple textual endeavour. You just write up a description of ‘My Perfect World’, without the troubling messiness of contextual discrepencies, without the fact that the Material World can never photoshop the Pure Fictional World.
And then, you can get all emotional and outraged about the fact that your perfect world isn’t developed. And you can blame it on whoever you choose. Neat.
This mode of existence is actually a very simple and undemanding mode. No need for evidence, no accountability, everything is purely subjective, no need for critical reason, for logic, since everything is a subjective emotional choice. When asked for proof, for evidence, you can just sneer with contempt from your self-imposed High Perch. No work at all.
Reminds me of my daughter’s t-shirt, which encapuslates typical Marxian analysis:
“I’m always right, I am never wrong.
I thought I was wrong once; but I was wrong.”
It is the uncritical acceptance of one’s ideological “Weltanschauung” (world view); even when it ceases to correspond with external reality.
This sort of uncritical examination leads to, for example the evironmental disaster known as the Aral Sea.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3947
Name that pathology:
I dub thee, ARROGANCE!!
When ever I read complaints such as Cjunk’s, complaining that 80% of the MSM is leftist,
and the world is awash in lefties, it reminds me of the old mental patient joke – “I’m the only sane one, it’s the rest of the world that’s crazy”.
Fortunately society has become much more enlightened and no longer institutionalizes those that think the rest of the world is involved in some vast conspiracy against them.
This “comment” by “Harry” is further proof that the Left considers the rest of its fellow citizens (conservative) the enemy, whereas, those who hate and fight against Western civilization are the “friends” of their cause.
Admit it, you would more likely engage in a physical altercation with a conservative, rather than a terrorist that would loooove to see your entire family perish in pain and suffering.
The left has no recollection of history, how conflicts are dealt with and resolved, how we came to be the society we are today. They are stuck in fantasy, which is why they are obsessed with Star Trek rather than the Ancients. You honor every one else’s candy-coated history, but you have no respect for your ancestors.
City TV in Calgary showed BLACKHAWK DOWN the movie last night. Couldn’t catch it all, but after seeing the key battle scenes all I can think is I want our troops to go kill some cockroaches!
HOOAH!
harry, the view that a great deal of the opinion pieces in the MSM are written within a leftist or postmodern perspective is a critical analysis. It has nothing to do with any conspiracy theories and to claim that it is such, is itself a pure fiction, ie, a tactic of the left.
A critical analysis of texts is done via a content analysis of texts. It is a basic strategy in any theoretical analysis. If you were researching, for example, the predominant theories in physics, or biology, or whatever, you would do a content analysis of major texts in the field. It’s like doing the index of a book!
I think it would be non-leftist of you if you would provide some evidence that the MSM is not primarily left and that the view that it is, is ‘a conspiracy’.
[quote]Obsessive, fixated, pathological, obstinate, and mulish, characterize the modern day left[/quote]
You forgot shrill. 😉
Harry said: “Fortunately society has become much more enlightened and no longer institutionalizes those …”
Harry, meet Gulag:
The Soviet Gulag Era in Pictures – 1927 through 1953. “Millions in the wrong place at the wrong time”. kilroy3.gif (272 bytes). Gulag Camps …
okay.com/dunc/gulag.htm
Leftists are born with a tabula rasa, a clean slate; without a memory, without a history.
Upon this blank slate the leftist demagogues write their utopian/dystopian fantasies. These demagogues, eg, Trotsky, Gramsci, et al, are fabulists; liars; con men; ultimately, merchants of Death; the Gulag.
Edmund Burke, 200 years ago, foresaw the gallows awaiting humanity, at the end of the tree-lined grove, planted by the Jacobins, at the time of the French Revolution.
The Humpty Dumpty egg of socialism, built in one country, in due course, falls and breaks.
Sadly, the cycle repeats, in another place. …-
I agree with both the linked essay and ET’s commentary. The link between the two is the “ivory tower” echo chamber created by the insular, tenured, utopian climate of western university systems. I don’t know if this is the result of individualists rejection of the theoretical nature of “lifelong scholarship” (i.e. doers are attracted to doing and therefore gravitate toward “doing” jobs in the private sector, and theorists are attracted to thinking about how they would do things if they ever actually did anything and gravitate toward academic/editorial endeavors), or if it’s due to the institutionalized rejection of independent thought and traditional western values.
Our universities are increasingly hostile to anyone who thinks outside the socialist utopian realm where ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL (except our own). I say this because when you delve into the subtext of this mantra, all other cultures are romanticized and western culture is demonized.
Unfortunately, this warped theology (yes, theology — accepted as gospel without question by the faithful) is spilling out onto our editorial pages, into our governments, and beyond. The question is, has this movement expanded to the point where all western civilization is at risk? I’m afraid the answer is “yes”.
Tom, I agree. I just heard Denis Prager explain why for the Left, politics is 24/7. It’s because it is their religion.
For conservatives, we already have religion, politics has become a way of wresting control and creating balance where otherwise, the left would impose its fascism on us all.
CBCpravda now headlining stuff they know is false.
from Pravdas page this morning.
Controversial study claims more than 600,000 killed in Iraq
Socialism is more than a conspiracy it is a sickness.
Other symptoms besides rabid intolerance for individual freedoms include:
– unconditional Hatred of the US especially the GOP and anything associated with the GOP
– self destructive sympathy for self serving bastards who attack the US in any way shape or form
– self agrandizing and baseless assumption of holding an “enlightened’ existence while willfully ignoring any true moral foundation
– willingness to abuse and denigrate any opposing thought or action which challenges their self appointed righteousness
– a completely undeserved sense of entitlement matched up with a profound cowardice in the face of real commitment or responsibility
– a complete lack of understanding for the concept of INTEGRITY!
Generally behaving as spoiled and petulant children who are badly in need of adult correction.
CBC is using a story from a medical journal.(Lancet) Debatable method for obtaining their stats. What is not clarified with this number: How many of those Iranians were innocent victims of suicide bombs, by Iranians (or Islam terrorists)nowhere near a ‘battlefield’?There is no purpose to presenting that figure without clarifying ’cause of death’…except to make the US military look bad, of course.
I saw enough of Blackhawk Down to make me curious. The true story is frightening.
according to my brother, who was in somalia, that movie is about 90% accurate….and the media…well, they protrayed my brother and his crew as a bunch of savages, when they actually saved thousands of lives risking their own to provide power to somaili hospitals….morons!…..GO ARMY
Actually, the left – the marxist left, anyway – pays enormous attention to history. Have you ever heard of “historical materialism”? 😉
The problem, as always, is that people here think that everyone to the left of them is a leftist! In fact, you are talking about people with radically different political philosophies – everything from liberalism through marxism to anarchism! You need to make some distinctions if you want to advance a coherant, even minimally plausible, critique.
All these comments and I didn’t even see a blog entry… wow!
exile your so full of it i can smell it from here.
exile, because ‘historical materialism’ uses the term ‘history’ doesn’t mean that it, as an ideology, pays any attention to history. Instead, it has merely used the term to imply that society is based within its economy, which is valid but utterly and completely ignores the ecological reality and demographics, and that this economic infrastructure deterministically changes according to immutable and universal laws of social reality (historical determinism). Nothing to do with history, understood as causal results due to real events.
Classical liberalism does not fall under the term of ‘left’; anarchism doesn’t fall under the term of ‘left’. The term refers to an ideology that defines ‘the best society’ as collectivist, that rejects the individual, that is constantly levelling differences to a common level, to a centralist gov’t with a socially engineered agenda of ‘best mode’, to the notion of utopian ‘best mode’ etc.
The left has no recollection of history, how conflicts are dealt with and resolved, how we came to be the society we are today. They are stuck in fantasy, which is why they are obsessed with Star Trek rather than the Ancients. You honor every one else’s candy-coated history, but you have no respect for your ancestors.
City TV in Calgary showed BLACKHAWK DOWN the movie last night. Couldn’t catch it all, but after seeing the key battle scenes all I can think is I want our troops to go kill some cockroaches!
HOOAH!
Posted by: Doug at October 11, 2006
So, to improve one’s knowledge of history, … see a American action film, is that it?
Can you explain what you mean by “kill some cockroaches”?
Please note, this Lancet ‘study’, like the first one, is NOT an actual ‘body count’!! It’s a ‘guess’! A pure guess based on a survey of a small sample number of homes, asking how many have died in x-period (not causes of death, just numbers) and then, without analyzing real causes, and without using real numbers of actual deaths, and ignoring context of different safe and unsafe zones in Iraq- it has ‘guessed’ how many people in total ‘might have died’. This is rubbish.
Again, it’s a guess, not an actual body count.
The first Lancet study was also rubbish. It did the same, took a small sample, asked ‘how many have died’ (not causes, just deaths) and then, ‘averaged’ it out over the whole population, and stated that ‘between 8,000 and 194,000 died! That’s called a ‘confidence interval’ where you give a low estimate and a high estimate and say that you are 95% or ‘extremely’ certain that anywhere between these two horizons was ‘an actual fact’.
The trouble with such an enormous ‘confidence interval’ is that it is scientifically unacceptable. A confidence interval can’t be that large. I could equally say that in one year, anywhere from 1 inch to 100 inches of rain would fall in my town. Wow. Of course I’d be right, with that kind of ‘interval’.
Then, what the Lancet authors did, was to AVERAGE the difference between 8,000 and 194,000 and came up with about 100,000 and the MSM gobbled it up, claiming that 100,000 deaths had actually occurred. Not true. It was a guess and not based on any facts.
Same with this Lancet report. You cannot make an assertion of FACT, which is based on NO FACTS. So, to go into a country, do a small survey, and then, attempt to use this survey’s results as FACTS rather than a guess, and also to claim that all deaths are due to the war, is fallacious. The actual count is about 50,000 not 600,000.
Again, a FACT and a GUESS are not the same; it is fallacious to merge the two. And, your sample population must be an accurate replication of the whole population.
You can go into a population, take a survey sample from ONE city about opinions on favorite coffee, and extrapolate that to the larger population in that same city. You can sample the population in many cities and extrapolate that to an opinion about the population in those cities. Not in other cities. Just those.
But, opinions are not facts. You can’t go in and get an opinion on the number of deaths from a sample population and then, claim that data represents the ACTUAL deaths. And, you can’t assert causality without proof. So, the study, yet again, is rubbish.
Re: Blackhawk Down. If you don’t like the movie then read the book, duh! As someone said above, it is pretty close to being accurate. Somalia was and is a scary place. Make no mistake about that.
BTW, Only thing that will be scurrying around after a NK nuke goes off will be Budd and the cockroaches.
According to video clip at LGF, the Lancet editor has spoken at a Stop the War event with George Galloway. I think he might have a political agenda, don’t you think?
I’ve read through the Lancet report. The authors are obviously heavily anti-war in Iraq. How about their statement, on p.7, ‘there were few violent deaths prior to the invasion”. So much for Saddam Hussein’s repressive violence. According to these people, it didn’t exist. The violent deaths began only with the US/UK ‘invasion’.
And a statement that ‘according to one report, 4 million small arms and light weapons went missing after March 2003′. Sure. Four million. Blame the current insurgency on the Americans who simply left their guns lying around. Don’t mention Iran, Syria or SA.
And “the very large Iraqi majority that blame the US for the violence and support insurgent attacks on the US’.
Their focus is that the deaths are directly attributable to the US/UK; they state that they are aware that most of the deaths are not due to the military but to the insurgents, but in a remarkable feat of illogicality, they claim that IF there had not been any war, then, there would not be any insurgency – and ‘no violent deaths would occur’ in Iraq. Again, “there were few violent deaths prior to the invasion”. p. 7
What they are ignoring is that the release from a repressive, and murderous dictatorship, and the mov’t into a democracy, a political mode that is feared by such neighbours as Iran, Syria, SA, would mean that those neighbours would move into Iraq as insurgents. These authors obviously prefer the Saddam Hussein ‘era of no violence’. There is not one word about the origin of the insurgency, not one word about tribal fighting, not one word about causes of the violence – other than the basic claim that all of is has ONE CAUSE – the US/UK war. Period.
That’s not science; that’s political activism.
Kill some cockroaches:
When a U.S. Marine’s boot stomps on Budd’s puny head and he scream’s “You’ll be hearing from Jack Layton about this.”
ET, you are a very interesting character. You have obviously received some of that institutional education that your fellows so loathe. I find it interesting that the “righties” distrust education so much. Sciences and contemporary philosophy are such inconveniences. Aren’t they?
I have also had the good fortune of a formal education. I feel, therefore, compelled to discuss a few of your assertions.
First of all, you described the synonimity of “left” and “postmodern” to your brood. These are excellent terms to know, to be sure, but you obviously left class early the day that they were explicated.
Postmodernism, which is quite distinct from, and contrary to in many ways, phenomenology, is a philosophy that concerns itself with epistemological issues and language. The philosphy predicates itself, in part, upon the rejection of absolutes. Postmodernists are highly skeptical of what many venerate as objectivity, “transcendental truths.”
If the left is obstinately fixated on this utopia you speak of, then the left is necessarily opposed to postmodern philosophy. You see, Utopia is transcendental; it is an absolute.
The next assertion you make, at least the next irritating enough to respond to, involved fiction as a function of the “left” (whatever you mean by that). It’s interesting to me that you can accuse the “left,” a movement founded by historical philosophers like Marx, of subscribing to fictional history when the “right” is dominated by religious fundamentalists.
Fundamentalists believe that their lives are governed by a sort of magic that forces them to do its bidding. Magic forces created the world in the exact fashion described in the Bible or the Qu’uran. You can simultaneously call a philosophy founded by historians fictional and stories about magic truth? Very interesting. You are quite a character.
Doug, you’re great.
Say something else about guns and stomping!
That was the best arguement against Budd that I could think of too.
More looney, er loony left stuff:
cal 2, look here:Iggy says 600,000 Hezbollians voted for him.
Meanwhile, Liberal MP, Denis Coderre, who marched in the
“We Are All Hezbollah Now” march in Montreal, Iggy’s
national campaign co-chairman, remains national
co-chairman of Iggy’s national campaign.
Is Iggy anti-Israel? Does Iggy support Muslim
Islamist terrorists, aka Hezbollah?
Does Iggy support Taliban Jack and the Taliban? Speak Iggy.
Sue Kadis drank the hemlock, Iggy. Who is next? …-
Campaign organizer abandons Ignatieff
OTTAWA (CP) – Liberal leadership front-runner Michael Ignatieff has lost the support of the co-chair of his Toronto campaign after accusing Israel of committing a war crime. …-
canoe news
“exile, because ‘historical materialism’ uses the term ‘history’ doesn’t mean that it, as an ideology, pays any attention to history. Instead, it has merely used the term to imply that society is based within its economy, which is valid but utterly and completely ignores the ecological reality and demographics, and that this economic infrastructure deterministically changes according to immutable and universal laws of social reality (historical determinism). Nothing to do with history, understood as causal results due to real events.”
Are you suggesting that my acquaintance with historical materialism doesn’t go beyond the name?? That is insulting. I have read a LOT of “historical materialist” work and and, yes, it pays considerable attention to history and no, it is not necessarily deterministic.
“Classical liberalism does not fall under the term of ‘left’; anarchism doesn’t fall under the term of ‘left’. The term refers to an ideology that defines ‘the best society’ as collectivist, that rejects the individual, that is constantly levelling differences to a common level, to a centralist gov’t with a socially engineered agenda of ‘best mode’, to the notion of utopian ‘best mode’ etc.”
I know classical liberalism doesn’t fall under the term “left”. That is part of my point! But neither does “liberalism” as the term is generally used by American commentators. That, too, is part of my point! Anarchism, however, does fall under the term “left”.
More on respect: I know perfectly well what “left” means. My definition would be different from yours, but then, I’m a “leftist” and you’re not. Moreover, I am a well-read leftist with a strong interest in political theory and history. And I read books from all perspectives, unlike many people here.
Forain – prove that the right is dominated by “religious fundamentalists”? That’s crap and you know it – a nice, lame canard that gets trotted out by lefties without statistical evidence. Show us the verifiable numbers on that.
You just blew your gratutitous self-reported “formal education” bio with your drivel. It’s so easy to pick up on the uneducated who are trained(versus educated) to spew back the material of others. Oh, and people can leave college still uneducated, my friend. A distinction, I’m sure that has never crossed your mind. It won’t, but, it will occur to others that encounter your blather.
Your statement…“Fundamentalists believe that their lives are governed by a sort of magic that forces them to do its bidding”… alone demonstrates that you can’t even get your terms defined without contradiction or meaning. Did you even re-read the garbage that you’ve written?
Forain -I’ll reply to your comments; and I hope that you will stick to issues and not move into personal insults. You and I might have different opinions but you have no right to insult me.
As for my use of the term ‘postmodern phenomenology’ there is nothing unacceptable about the term, using ‘phenomenology’ not to refer to Husserl et al’s ideas but to the notion of the analysis and description of consciousness. So, the phrase ‘postmodern phenomenology’ is quite valid.
I am uncertain of your claim that ‘righties’ disdain education. I haven’t heard that; they certainly disdain the superifical ‘what’s your personal opinion’ courses that are found in so many of our sociology and humanities departments. But logic, critical thinking, all of the sciences, history, geography etc all if done with a respect for facts – that’s a basic ‘right’ education.
Postmodernism is not opposite to phenomenalism, since ‘that which is known’ is in itself, a created phenomenon.
As for postmodernism being opposed to the transcendental, in favour of the subjective relative, this relativism refers only to the individual’s interaction with the world – which is subjective. But, this doesn’t preclude the society as a whole undertaking a collective Educational Process that will mould these individual subjective perceptions (phenomena)into a shared ideology. The individual abdicates his personal relativism and accepts a collective perspective.
This shared ideology is utopian, as a created set of phenomena. Whether this is essentialist, as in Derrida’s Writing, which I consider basic Platonic essentialism, or future-oriented, as in Marxism, it is a social construct rather than an objectively grounded ideology.
No, the ‘left’ wasn’t founded by Marx; the idea of socialism is far older than the 19th c, after all. But Marx was most certainly operating within a fictional history. His five stages of mankind are nonsense; he totally and completely ignored the ecological realities and the fact that societies are ‘logical adaptations’ to the different biomes of the planet and their social and political organization is based on this and the size of their population. Not on some essentialist evolutionary path to perfection. Now, that’s religious fundamentalism for you!
No, the ‘right’ is not dominated by religious fundamentalists. The right is dominated by critical thinkers whose ideas are grounded in objective reality.
Fascism is not a ‘right’ ideology but a ‘left’ ideology, understanding the ‘left’ as socialist and collectivist engineering of a population.
exile – when someone is arguing about an issue, and disagrees with you, that doesn’t mean that you ought to be ‘insulted’. It also doesn’t mean that you have to resort to insulting others (you’ve read books unlike some others). You have transformed a disagreement on issues into a personal matter. Why?
Again, the fact that you have read a LOT of historical materialism work doesn’t mean anything, as I’m sure you are aware. I stand by my points – that historical materialism is not grounded in historical facts and causality, that it ignores ecology, demographics and context, and is deterministic in its Hegelian format.
I’ll also disagree with you on anarchism; I don’t see how it can be ‘left’ or ‘right’.
Iggy says: I’m “a “leftist” and you’re not.”
Iggy is a leftist? An archanist? A Liberal? A Jew-hater? Yessirree, Iggy’s a leftist. …-
.. and they [Canada-Israel Committee] have given him an ultimatum… which essentially is that he clarify and apologize … or if not the entire Canadian Jewish community will be apprised of his Jew-hating in either case … !!!
A – Iggy apologizes for calling the Israelis “war criminals”,
or,
B – Don’t apologize and that will be his Liberal legacy …. !!! (voy forums)
Howse about a sampling of the pathology of the left Liberals in Canada? It is a pathology, for sure.
Liberals piggying out on Iggy in Iggynation and elsewhere in Librano$Land.
Diggy this comment at 5:32 PM :
“Good on Ignatieff for calling a spade a spade.”
Lefty Liberals approve of Joos-hating. The Liberal Party of Canada is anti-semitic. …-
Start here:
Kadis resigns from iggy campaign
I’m at the Ignatieff campaign office. Ignatieff is going to announce tha Thornhill MP Susan Kadis is resigning from the campaign over his accusation that Israel has committed war crimes.
Sent from my wireless Blackberry
posted by Jason Cherniak @ 5:11 PM
………………………………………………………………….
Comments:
At 5:13 PM, Anonymous said…
And what exactly are you doing in Iggynation anyways Cherniak?
At 5:32 PM, Jeremy Kirouac said…
Good on Ignatieff for calling a spade a spade. But it’s too late for him.
As Axworthy put it, maybe there’s a future PM here, but his time isn’t now.
At 6:12 PM, Anonymous said…
Evidently this is part of Iggy’s “leave no person unoffended campaign”. First alienate Lebanese-Canadians and Isreal’s critics by saying you didn’t “lose sleep” over Qana. Then offend all of Israel’s supporters by calling Qana a “war crime”.
Can’t wait to see how this strategy works when he’s Liberal leader. Perhaps the idea is to unite the country – against the Liberal Party?
At 7:55 PM, Anonymous said…
Who cares? If an MP wants to be an apologist for crimes committed by a foreign state rather than serve the Canadian public, let that be on her head.
At 8:14 PM, petroom said…
I thought that was a rather unprofessional move on the part of Kadis. Like Anon said, how can you resign over a single statement about a single action of a foreign state. If anything the “not losing sleep” comment was the real kicker.
She’s an MP so it’s all about her short-sightedness and local optics. Will she quietly stay unseen in the background of his campaign? I hope she doesn’t become a Dion supporter but I suppose it helps the numbers game. There’s probably another shoe to drop still.
At 8:38 PM, burlivespipe said…
Hasn’t this guy been married — twice? That’s the average-joe realm where we find out that what we say carry serious, brain-cramping repercussions.
And that Iggy was playing that ol’ Canadian shellgame, talk one thing in french and another in english, is tried ‘n true, but one that has to be used with some restraint… Tossing around bon mots on ‘I didn’t lose any sleep’ or ‘war crimes’ seems to be a typical ivory tower kind of perspective that won’t lose your tenure and may incite a great debate in a crowded auditorium, but to a reporter?
This guy would be essentially bathed in tar tar sauce for the election-fuelled media and would likely have the same positive effect as that poor ol’ BC son, Bob Skelly (during the first press conference during the 1986 provincial election, moments after Vanderzalm had his newser to announce it, Skelly came out, on live TV, made a verbal misstep, gave that ‘deer in the headlights look’ to the whole province, and asked ‘Can we start (the press conference) over?’)… But even funner is seeing the Ignatieffites douse themselves with teflon trying to say that they may disagree with his latest ‘statement’/reason-for-submitting-a-correction’ but they still love this guy. He can win! That’s the brain who calls itself TdHuh? has posted already.
I’m not an Anybody but… kind of guy, but i’m beginning to see a lot of reason to cheer on Volpe to give Iggy the ol’ italian kiss of death.
(from voy forums)
……..
At 8:38 PM said: “…the brain who calls itself TdHuh? has posted already.”
TdHuh is TDH Strategies.
Here is a c/p fromTDH:
“So to those detractors who say that I turn a blind eye to being critical towards my own candidate, this post just demonstrates that that kind of an accusation is completely false. This in no way changes my uneqivocal belief that Ignatieff is still the Liberal party’s best shot at winning the next election, however.”
Conclusion: Liberals will say/do anything for Power Corp., and power[sic].
Speaking of the 600,000 civilians killed in Iraq:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22920_Lancet_Editor-_Certified_Moonbat&only
Penny,
*lol* Prove to me with statistics that the “right” is not dominated by religious fundamentalists. *lol* Is it the policy of this blog that every sweeping generalization need be appended by supportive stats? Have there ever been others?
ET,
Postmodern phenomenology is not a useful term. Postmodern philosophers don’t provide “analysis and description of consciousness.” Again, such notions presume acceptance of hermeneutical systems and that consciousness is somehow static (these are two of the transcendentals that Derrida has no use for). I suggest you read Derrida’s discussion of Saussure before you try to explain postmodernism to your fellows.
Marx is a founding father of philosophy on the “left.” Being first in line doesn’t make one a father, necessarily.
“Fascism is not a ‘right’ ideology but a ‘left’ ideology, understanding the ‘left’ as socialist and collectivist engineering of a population.” There are so many problems with this statement that I don’t know where to begin.
First, Fascism is not an ideology. The word “ideology” is misused in this way, too often. Next, Fascism is the realization of pure conservatism. It is the ultimate extension of individualism, for the dictator at least. To try and assert that Fascism is not the extreme right is an absurd fabrication, a convenience of revisionist history. Any gradeschool textbook explains this quite clearly. The fact is, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were all wonderful “right-wingers.”
Forian wrote:
“To try and assert that Fascism is not the extreme right is an absurd fabrication, a convenience of revisionist history. Any gradeschool textbook explains this quite clearly.”
Mussolini’s own words:
“If the bourgeoisie think they will find lightning conductors in us they are the more deceived; we must start work at once…We want to accustom the working class to real and effectual leadership”.
Disdain for the bourgeoisie, i.e., the ruling class in a capitalist society–and a desire to be a champion and leader for the workers.
Yep. Definitely not leftwing.
“Therefore I desire that this assembly shall accept the revindication of national trades unionism”.
A good union man.
Yep. Definitely not leftwing.
“Fascism repudiates the conception of “economic” happiness”.
Consumerism is bad.
Yep. Definitely not leftwing.
“If the 19th century has been the century of the individual (for liberalism means individualism), it may be conjectured that this is the century of the State.”
Mussolini is talking about Neo-Liberalism (think Ronald Reagan/Margaret Thatcher), not today’s “Liberalism”.
Yep. Definitely not leftwing.
“Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society”.
Totalitarian elitists who shun the will of the people.
Yep. Definitely not leftwing.
I suggest Forian put away his “gradeschool textbook” and read Mussolini himself. And don’t get me started on Hitler, who was also unquestionably a leftist.
We really need to get these Marxist professors out of our universities. Parents paying tens of thousands of dollars annually to churn out young adults who bizarrely swear that Mussolini and Hitler were rightwingers. Yeesh!
forain – you are now moving into irrelevance. You are making claims without substantiation.
The fact that YOU don’t like the phrase ‘postmodern phenomenology’ is irrelevant. Are you saying that, absolutely, it cannot be used and has no meaning? Who are you to dictate the use of words?
Postmodern philosophers most certainly analyze and describe consciousness; they posit that it (consciousness) is a result of the subjective interaction between the agent and the world.
There is no assumption of stasis in a paradigm of consciousness. After all, whether your are working within a Platonic idealism or a Heraclitean flux, the individual consciousness is not static. Hermeneutics is irrelevant in this discussion.
I can’t stand either Derrida or Saussure; Saussure’s semiology is a lynchpin of postmodernism. Derrida is most certainly a Saussurian, which is to say, he operates within a dyadic frame. Derrida posits an essentialist mediator rather than Saussure’s externalist ‘langue’ but the authoritarianism is the same.
Of course fascism is an ideology; the term ideology means a ‘systematic set of concepts’. The fact that you reduce the meaning to a singular and selective one which you don’t provide is irrelevant.
No, fascism is not ‘conservative’; nor is it individualism. The members of a fascist group must abdicate their individual capacity to think and act, and merge with the dictates of an ideology.
Your statement that a grade school book says that fascism is ‘right’ is ungrounded. Prove it. And I’m sure that no grade school outlines political ideologies in terms of ‘left’ and ‘right’.
Instead of grade school textbooks on fascism, try reading Mussolini’s famed two-page outline on fascism. Eatwell’s book on the history is useful as well.
ET, it’s impossible to have a thoughtful conversation with the indoctrinated. They’re too busy rewriting the dictionary, dictating terms of conversation, and making up new rules to suit their warped frame of referrence. Nice try through.
Cjunk asked us to name that pathology, I would like to propose Suicidal Myopia. Not very scientific sounding, but I’m a simple man.
“It (fascism) is the ultimate extension of individualism, for the dictator at least.”
That comment is so absurd, it invalidates any rational thinking gleaned from your so-called ‘formal’ education – which is the point.
I find the most insulting term used by the left is ‘progressive.’
“Buried in the term is the assumption that history is moving inexorably, even if by fits and starts, in a certain direction, one that is understandable to those who possess the secret decoder ring. To them, this is why government is so necessary. It alone can bring order to the chaos and messiness which individuals, left to their own devices, impose on their masters, and on the so-called intellectuals who see so clearly what the rest of us cannot perceive.”
– Thomas Lifson
So much for your “magic forces” argument, forain.
*lol* I feel strangely… at home in this space.
Where to begin…
The Toontown Kid wants to polemicize against gradeschool texts? I would rather read any gradeschool social studies text than Mussolini.
It seems that the self professed “right-wingers” have all been fooled by propoganda that they have had centuries to reject. It’s true Mussolini spoke of himself as some sort of socialist. So did Hitler. In fact, “Nazi” is an abreviation for Nationalsozialist, or National Socialist. The Fascists took great pains to represent themselves as men “of the people,” to deflect opposition. Stalin called himself a communist.
However, the policies of the fascists weren’t oriented towards a collective mentality at all. In fact, when Hitler took power, one of his first actions was to imprison, threaten, and deport trade unionists (a profoundly democratic and collectivist institution). Strange for a socialist, no?
Despite what the fascists will themselves tell you, their policies couldn’t be more “right-wing.” Does union-busting of this sort remind you of any Republican regimes in America? How about any of the puppet-dicatatorships that they have established in South America that kill and torture trade unionists, the jesuits, and socialists. I’ve also heard that the Saskatchewan Party, in Saskatchewan of course, routinely decries trade unionism. Aren’t they the tatters of Grant Devine’s conservatives?
ET,
Meet me some time, if you would like, and I can show you some text books. *lol*
Irwin Daisy,
Welcome to the fray. I’ve much admired you in other threads. Weren’t you the author of the phrase: “If this guy’s [refering to a polygamist] an example of a moderate muslim in our country, we’re in big trouble.” Such general understanding of other faiths you have.
You don’t believe that human kind has progressed throughout history? I’m willing to bet that you’re a free-enterpriser, no? Free enerprise is a relatively new phenomenon. Are you saying it might be possible that a better economic system might be a feudal system or somethin else? Is magic the only explanation for historical progression? Have automobiles, computers, telecommunications not improved throughout history? Might this be due to a “progression” of knowledge and understanding? Or do the “right-wingers” only speak in such terms?
forain – don’t move into personal insults. Don’t make claims that you don’t substantiate. Stick to the issues.
No-one has ‘polemicized’ against grade school texts therefore, your claim is invalid. However, they are not a reliable and valid source of in-depth information. Yes, if you want to understand fascism, then, you must go to the writings and speeches of fascists; therefore, you ought to have read Mussolini/Gentile’s two page outline.
You ought to also have read some historical and analytic texts on fascism, and from what I can gather, you haven’t done this.
Fascism is a collectivist ideology; the fact that it rejected other collectivist ideologies such as socialism/communism, does not mean that it is an individualistic ideology! You have to search for the structure of fascist collectivism, and it is embedded in an essentialist concept of the nation as a force of action and purpose. This nation, usually defined as having an apriori purity of type, is privileged over the individual.
I won’t get into your claim that unions are ‘democratic’ for I don’t accept that conclusion, but, the fact that Hitler rejected them, again, does not mean that German fascism was not collectivist! Your other examples are trivial and irrelevant.
I’ll repeat – stick to the issues. Don’t attempt an argument by insults, and please stop with the ‘lol’, which is a childish attempt to claim superiority without substantiation.
I’ll also comment that the key phrase you are ignoring in Irwin Daisy’s quote was ‘in a certain direction’. The fact that our knowledge base about ourselves and our material environment has increased is without question.
The point is, is social and political organization moving ‘in a certain direction’? That suggests determinism, with the outcome already determined. That, for example, was Marx’s claim. It is that determinism that Irwin Daisy is questioning.
forain,
I was talking about progressive socialism in general and your naive opinion about religious Conservatives. Economics was not mentioned, so how did this enter into the discussion?
In your post you used the perjorative term “magic forces” to distinguish your socialist ideology from ‘fundamentalist’ Conservatives.
In this context (as if it was needed), the rest of my post should be self-explanatory. Magic forces indeed.
“Such general understanding of other faiths you have.”
How in the world did you deduce that from what I said? You have no idea what ‘understanding’ I have.
Despite your self proclaimed ‘formal’ education, you’re proving yourself no smarter than a bag of hammers.
Oh, and quit with the ‘lol.’ It’s not credible for one who claims to have a superior intellect.
“The fact is, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco were all wonderful “right-wingers.”
Well, that didn’t go so “wonderful” for you Forain!
Perhaps you can just give us a couple of “formal education” George Bush derangement parting shots, and we’ll be seeing ya!