As I have mentioned a time or two, I was a political nerd in a very politically engaged family from an early age. As a kid I read National Review and opinion columns in the local paper, and as a family we watched Crossfire and The McLaughlin Group (I met John McLaughlin at their studios, not kidding, when he was standing next to me at a urinal).
Back in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up there was definitely a liberal “type”, or rather there were two types of liberals. There were the old school liberals like my maternal grandparents who believed that the social programs of FDR’s New Deal saved America. They were mostly more recent immigrants and working class. They also were not huge fans of the coloreds or the slanty eyed devils (aka Japanese) or Arabs or anyone who wasn’t White. The other kind of liberal were younger, the bleeding hearts who grew up in the 50s and 60s and saw their classmates get drafted to fight in Vietnam, often coming home in flag draped coffins. They were the Michael “Meathead” Stivic types from the Archie Bunker show, always yammering about civil rights and free expression and how awful war is and how they hated The Man.
The times they have changed. A lot.
John Wilder had one of the better takes on the whole General Milley calling the ChiComs to reassure them that he would commit treason give them a head up before we attacked them, a post that is thoughtful and historically grounded with none of the hysteria or empty bluster: General Milley, The Vanguard Of The American Caesar
Sure there was never any real reason to think we would attack China, Trump certainly didn’t have any plans to do so, but just in case Milley was letting the Chinese know he had their back. The revelation of this obscene action has led to the creation of a new Orange Man Bad narrative: we were on the precipice of nuclear war with China because Trump is crazy and only General Milley bravely circumventing the chain of command and violating the civilian control of the military saved us from annihilation.
They really believe this.
As John explains, the civilian control of the military is there for a reason. The military doesn’t pick and choose who to kill, that is the job of the civilian government elected (theoretically) by the people. When that line is blurred? Trouble.
What’s dangerous is that it sets the military up as being able to define the noun. They get to do all the killing of people and breaking of stuff, but now they get to pick who they kill and what stuff they break. That’s the dangerous point – the Rubicon.
Milley is temporarily being lifted up as some sort of folk hero by the left and that is pretty damn weird. My comment on John’s post (and please RTWT):
Without a basic understanding of history it is hard to comprehend how radical the political shift in America has been. As a relatively astute political observer as a yute in the 70s and 80s I couldn’t imagine a Democrat/liberal person cheering on a general who had gone rogue like this. Those people hated the military. Today the “my body, my choice” people are in the vanguard of demanding people be held down to be injected or summarily shot, and either is fine, and applauding people accused of trespass being held in solitary confinement and without bail. It is remarkable and not in a good way.
That is my basic point here. In my lifetime the Left has moved from free love and civil rights and borderline anarchist free expression to authoritarianism and a slavish devotion to war and the military. How many Democrats have expressed their glee at the thought of using the military to crush dissenters in the U.S.? These are the same people who screeched for decades about the killing of students at Kent State 1970 and they are openly aroused at the idea of soldiers shooting right-wingers.
At first this seemed weird to me. How could people in a political movement change that drastically? But it quickly dawned on me that the hippie era was just a brief aberration, a momentary and temporary shift in leftist ideology driven by spoiled kids who wanted to smoke pot, hump in public and above all not go to Vietnam. The core of leftist ideology was never about free love and flower power, it has always been about control and domination. That is why today’s left looks a lot more like the the Chinese Red Guard from the Cultural Revolution (see: The Cultural Revolution, Take Two!) and very little like the long haired dope smokers of the 60s and 70s.
The Left has never been about justice or equality or peace, those are bullshit buzzwords used briefly. It has always been about controlling and dominating others.
So the real change in my lifetime was not a wholesale shift away from the core of American liberalism, it was simply a reverting to kind by the ideological step-children of Stalin and Mao. Treating our political and cultural enemies as merely wayward hippies is a lethal error. They cannot be reasoned or bargained with. There is only one way to win this struggle or merely survive it and that won’t happen in the comment section of social media or via the ballot box.
preach it brother
They hated "the man", until they became "the man". Before you can bring about the transformation of a country or peoples {western man}, you must first change the culture. And before you can change the culture {Christian prior to 1960s-70s}, you must first destroy the moral fiber of people and corrupt them. Once this is done, you can do anything to them. Turn them into animals, because they think and behave like animals. It's been a long march, one that began allot longer than most realize. This goes back much farther than the 1960s. If you had to point to an event that kicked off this silent revolution, I would say it was World War One. Anyone that believes the bullshit we were all taught in junior high history class about the world's powers going to war because Archduke Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo is a fool.
The Dictator about to take the stage will pander to and get the support of whatever side can give him the most. The other side will merely lose, or at least stop fighting. Then he'll purge the land of unwantables and enemies, because reasons. Much a lot like when the losers in Rome's civil wars got purged. I see a very different North America than we knew.
I'm thankful my "red/black pilled" journey happened some time ago. I was very much an anti-authority,anti-war/MIC, anti "Moral Majority" liberal kid in the early to mid 80's. I credit Ronald Raygun and his Iran Contra "I dont recall…" bullshit and the petty tyrant Pete Wilson (CA Governor) for turning me into a Democrat. George Bush Sr. sealed the deal, that corrupt piece of human garbage. That being said, I have nothing in common with today's liberals nor do I believe in or stand for anything the Dem agenda espouses. I officially left the party as a voter in'16, tho I was far from a party line voter by then, and in my perspective they've gone even further into batshit crazy town over the last 5 years. I'm frankly embarrassed to have been taken in by those hucksters and I wish for them nothing but sorrow and pain. Im glad I snapped out of it before these more recent turn of events, the cognitive dissonance would likely drive me insane.
I don't see a clean way out of this mess, I predict misery aplenty in the coming few years. We haven't been represented for a long, long time and I see no indication they plan to start representing us Citizens now.
The Left is composed of three factions: Liberals, Socialists and Progressives.
The transformation you've observed was caused by the ascendancy of the Liberals over the Socialists followed by the ascendancy of the Progressives over the Liberals.
Socialists -》Liberals -》Progressives
The Liberal phase stands out as an exception because unlike Socialism and Progressivism it does not spring from the same Marxist root.
Marxism is best understood not as an ideology but as a strategy, an evolved form of divide and conquer.
Marxist root: Divide society into oppressors and oppressed. Incite the oppressed into conflict. Conquer both after the parties exhaust themselves.
Class Marxism: Rich are oppressors, poor are oppressed. Destroy the rich for utopia.
Cultural Marxism: Whites, heteros and males are oppressors, POC, gays and females are oppressed. Destroy Whites, heteros and males for utopia.
Class marxists call themselves Socialists whereas cultural marxists go by Progressives.
Marxism weaponizes envy, or more technically, ressentiment. From wikipedia (under ressentiment):
"Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure on to an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external "evil.""
Class marxism is monodimensional. It divides society along one line. The ressentiment of the unproductive is incited against the overproductive, the rich.
Cultural marxism is multidimensional. It divides society along multiple lines, thus:
The ressentiment of the losers of history is incited against the winners, Whites.
The ressentiment of unattractive women is incited against the rejecters, males.
The ressentiment of the abnormals is incited against the normals, heteros.
Unlike class marxists who, in theory, could be appeased via wealth redistribution, cultural marxists cannot be appeased.
The envy felt by blacks whose history consists of mud huts can only be appeased by erasing all of history.
The envy felt by childless wall impactees against happy couples with children can only be appeased by erasing the concept of family.
The envy felt by homosexuals toward the heterosexual norm without which society could not exist can only be appeased by erasing the definition of normality and, by extension, society itself.
I am reminded of a TV debate I saw decades ago where Pat Buchanan asked a homosexual why, if sodomy is normal, are suicide rates among homosexuals so high. Because intolerance. Pat then asked why then are suicide rates in tolerant San Francisco the same as elsewhere. The reply was: because of you.
Because Pat exists.
To the homosexual mind the source of all evils is the fact that some guy in Oklahoma does't like him. The only solution: persecution and elimination.
To the black mind the source of all evil is the fact that some guy in Oklahoma thinks they're primitives. The only solution: persecution and elimination.
To the feminist mind the source of all evil is the fact that some guy in Oklahoma thinks they're too old to marry. The only solution: persecution and elimination.
Class marxists aim to appease their ressentiment by seizing the means of production.
Cultural marxists aim to appease their ressentiment by seizing the means of persecution.
Stalin and Mao were class marxists who viewed persecution as an unfortunate necessity toward their objective of remaking the economic system.
Today’s Leftists are cultural marxists who view persecution as the sole objective.
The Left has not reverted to kind. It has evolved into something worse.
Exactly right, Arthur – it's about raw, naked power. Everyone who helps them get it is useful.
Until they aren't.