Richard Fernandez; (sorry! link fixed)
With George Washington declared a racist, along with Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, and Teddy Roosevelt, there is no refuge from absurdity. Marx’s heirs, having freed themselves from moral restraints, have ridiculously proceeded to construct an elaborate system of mores governing every aspect of life. There are now PC formulas for bathrooms, transgender forms of address, Halloween costumes, sexual behavior, speech, food choices, energy consumption, transportation and even mathematics, just to name a few. Among the innumerable rules of virtue there’s even a sacrament of penance, to which Harvey Weinstein has subscribed, declaring his intention to atone for his reported sexual assaults by fighting the NRA.
Not bad for a movement that was going to abolish all truth and morality if the object is comedy. A million little politically correct rules and none of them — by Marx’s own admission — ultimately true. If that isn’t good for laughs, nothing is. Perhaps, the greatest damage Marxism did, apart from inspiring the death of actual persons, was to fill much of the Western world with such sheer craziness it undermines its will to live.
Agreed!
Though, point of order: Hitler was Austrian.
Other great monsters from history, in no particular order:
Woodrow Wilson
Walter Duranty
Walter Cronkite
Captcha: Karl Boat!
We shouldn’t overreact. Marx’s heirs don’t want to control everything. They just want complete control over three itty bitty things: what you say, what you do and what you think. You’ll hardly even miss those unimportant nick nacks of freedom. After all, postmodernists and intersectionality just want to force you under threat of law to be nice, be polite. You’re really fighting against common courtesy by opposing compelled speech, purity oaths and speech codes; by your resentment over an imposed, non-offensive dress code (without cultural appropriation, for instance); by refusing to inernalize progressive Right Think. Shame on you.
It’s not like they’ve opened formal reeducation camps, yet. Just voluntary programs where you can confess the sins of whiteness, masculinity and unearned privilege. Where you can earn redemption through good works (sjw activism) and purchasing indulgences by donating to progressive charities or gender studies programs. Then, like being born again, you’ll be woke…fully human for the first time ever.
/s
If you mock Christians for believing that a virgin woman gave birth to a supernatural child of God 2000 year ago but also believe that a man gave birth to a baby this century…you might be a progressive zealot.
If you mock religious blasphemy and heresy laws but support laws mandating personal pronoun use and forbidding atheists and others from criticising Islam…then you might be a progressive zealot.
If you mock creationism but excommunicate any scientist who deviates slightly from the blank slate theory…you might be a progressive zealot.
Agreed.
I see the Komsomol, and the Red Guard in our future.
LC Bennett, well said. David Suzuki and Al Gore have said Deniers should be jailed. University professors and student groups will no allow speech that deviates.
Oh yes, reeducation camps are in our future.
Orland Figes, if he lives long enough, can write s sequel to his “People’s Tragedy”, only this time with a North American twist.
If you can not believe the Truth – you will believe the lie. The lie of Marxism being but one of many humans have believed to their own detriment because they reject the Truth.
“I see the Komsomol, and the Red Guard in our future.”
I wish I could agree, but I see them in our present.
Martin Luther is the greatest German ever.
The worst?
Emmanuel Kant – not even close.
every “belief” system tries to get rid of it’s opposition by those using that belief system to subvert the freedoms of the people who adhere to it.
Yes it’s always a good thing to listen to the opinions of mass murder worshipers, like ANTIFA, their communist cousins, and other Liberal Progressives.
I figured out the mathematics angle. you know, ‘new’ math and its psychotic cousin ‘common core’.
the thing is, barring the old saying ‘statistics can prove anything’, REAL mathematics is apolitical. it doesnt care a rodent’s tush what your ideology is, but when you ask it stuff like how much inertia is generated by a 50 kilotonne asteroid smacking into this orb @ 30 kms a second, well, it will tell you.
so the leftoids cannot and will not allow such a consistent, predictable and ABSOLUTE measure in their midst. ergo, clobber it asap, in early primary school. penalize and villify any kid who boils down the answer to a single number. ie, solve the friggin equation. this is tantamount to blasphemy on the left. one must be free to ‘interpret’ the results with a proper ‘cultural’ framework. etc etc.
that way everyone ‘passes’ the litmus test. and meanwhile . . . . . . .
Karl Marx and his Hateful Dream of Atheism.
“I wish I could agree, but I see them in our present.”
I do not yet have to keep a packed suitcase under my bed like my great uncles did. However, if such, as a couple of trolls that visit here, have their way, that will soon become a reality.
A philosphical rundown:
Immanuel Kant started it by divorcing reason from reality, saying that we can’t really know anything except through our senses — even though those are the only tools we have. It was really a complaint that human beings are not God.
G. W. F. Hegel picked “reason” but applied it to things that didn’t exist, so he was basically trying to figure out how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Marx claimed to “stand Hegel on his feet” by way of emphasizing the material / metaphysical rather than the mental / epistemological.
Following Marx came the likes of Gramsci, who identified the fact that ideas spread gradually through the culture and thought Marxism could take advantage of it, and …
Marcuse, who realized the “working class” were not overthrowing capitalism so perhaps the underclasses like minorities and immigrants could be recruited in its place. This is where political correctness and critical theory comes from. All of the hypocrisy that would allow non-whites to get away with things that whites couldn’t (including flagrant racism) is geared to this recruitment.
Ayn Rand called Kant “the most evil man in human history”, and this helps explain why.
Where did all the communists go after the Berlin wall fell?
Did they all just ‘get religion’ and become sane?
Doesn’t look that way.
Hitler’s nationality was German, although he didn’t become a German citizen until later in life. “Austria” was a royal house, not a nation, and being Austrian had nothing to do with nationality.
Nowadays, of course, republican Austria is a German national state, and you’re not a real Austrian if you’re not German, but times change.