NEO-COMMUNISM: Naming the Enemy
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by Richard Poe Thursday, October 20, 2005 5:27 pm Eastern Time |
Archives 66 Comments |
We conservatives need to rethink our tactics. Now that Republican Congressman and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been arrested at the order of a leftist judge, even the most complacent cigar-and-brandy-snifter Republican must be wondering whether the time has come to take off the gloves. Stop wondering. The time has come. Our leftist adversaries make no pretense of following Marquis of Queensberry Rules, nor should we.
The first step in our counteroffensive must be to retake the English language. No longer should we flatter our Bolshevist foes with such dainty labels as “liberal” or “progressive.” Let us call them by their true name: communists.
Then again, we could call them “neo-communists.” David Horowitz coined this term in a series of FrontPage articles in 2003. (1) He later refined the concept in his book Unholy Alliance. (2) The word has much to commend it.
“How to identify the political left?” asks Horowitz. “Current usage refers to everyone left of center as `liberal.’ … Yet… when terror-hugging radicals like Ramsey Clark and Communist hacks like Angela Davis are referred to as `liberals’ — as they routinely are — the obfuscation works to their advantage… The term `liberal’ should be reserved for those who occupy the center of the political spectrum; those to the left should be referred to as leftists, which is what they are.”
Next we must distinguish between the soft left and the “hard” left, writes Horowitz – between those who merely affect leftist sentiments and “those who are dedicated enemies of America and its purposes”. Calling the latter Communists (with a capital “C”) would imply that they are members of the Communist Party USA, which most are not. Still, their critique of America borrows much from the yellowed archives of Soviet-era Pravda.
Horowitz writes:”The purpose of the term `neo-communist’ is to identify a segment of the left that regards the United States as the root cause of international evil… ”
The hard left believes that America prospers only by impoverishing others. In their view, we Americans can redeem ourselves only through self-annihilation, by laying down our arms, dismantling our industries, giving up our wealth and opening our borders to the world’s hungry masses. To put it another way, the only good America is a dead America.
That being the case, any pirates, brigands, cutthroats or other species of ruffians who oppose America must be welcomed as natural allies of the left, be they Islamofascist mullahs, Kyrghyzian narco-terrorists, deranged neo-luddite letter-bombers or power-mad Wall Street hedge fund managers with Hungarian accents.
“This is the neo-communist creed,” concludes Horowitz. “Therefore, let us call such radicals neo-communists, or neo-coms (or small `c’ communists) for short.”
Sounds like a plan to me.
by Richard Poe
October 20, 2005 05:27 PM ET
Cross-posted from MoonbatCentral.com 10.20.05
NOTES
1. David Horowitz, “Neo-Communism“, FrontPageMagazine.com, April 22, 2003; “Taking On The Neo-Coms, Part I“, May 01, 2003; “Taking on the Neo-Coms, Part II“, May 02, 2003
2. David Horowitz, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004), 55-69, 71-77, 79-87, 89-99, 101-19
Comments
66 Responses to “NEO-COMMUNISM: Naming the Enemy”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying about this post...Publius said: “Before Conservatives started fighting back everything was soooooo serene.
Exactly.
Look at it like this: In the few short years since the Internet provided the means for the Right to finally take on the Left in the public “arena of ideas,” we’ve totally kicked ass. I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring.
I’ve been callin’ em traitors, commies, and neo-feudalists for years.
It’s high time everyone else did.
Shortsmall,
Che Guevara and Castro are Uber hip? On what planet? Only uber dorks like those losers. I’ve never seen an attractive person wearing a Gay Guevara t-shirt. Not ever. Only hopeless geeks.
If “neo-coms” isn’t hip enough, how about neo-wimps? Neo-dorks? Neo-geeks? Neo-nerds? Neo-traitors? Neo-cowards? Neo-dhimmis? Neo-dummies? Neo-women?
They’re all fairly accurate, most especially “neo-wimps” and “neo-women.”
By the way, “hip” isn’t hip. “cool” is, was and will always be the the superior adjective. Just look at hip hop. What could possibly be more ridiculous than that? Other than communism/socialism. It cracks me up when dorks think they’re cool.
Kids today snicker at the knickers our founding fathers wore. Those pantaloons look like a cross between peddle pushers and satin leotards. They look positively stylish compared to the clown suits worn by the snot-noses today. Imagine the guffaws 200 years from now when kids see photos of this era’s geekoids.
Poe is correct. Accuracy is important. Fads are not.
Carl2,
you’re living proof of a new Cold War. This one is being waged by pinko quislings such as you and the majority of this country’s “educators” (indoctrinators.)
Shortsmall,
I just read your farewell address. Talk about rank hypocrisy. Your whining claims of victimhood rang false. Like most lefties, you can dish it out but you cant take it.
It’s obvious from your comment on this blog that you hate your own country, its culture and the vast majority of its people. You plainly think communism is a desirable end goal to transform society.
The fact that you singled me out as the prime target of your ire says a lot. I guess I stymied, frustrated and refuted you even more effectively than I thought. If a man is defined by his opponents, I’m glad you’re such a reprobate. You make me look good in comparison.
This may be the “Shortsmall” swansong but we’ll hear from you again under your next alias, wont we, deceiver?
P.S, sorry if I made you cry and throw public temper tantrums. I definitely have a mean streak. I try to direct it toward stinkers like you exclusively. ‘Till next time.
Longtall,
you seem to be dancing. Why?
Anyone who swallows the sludge that Iraq had no connection to 9/11 is completely missing the point of the region’s politics, and why we had a compelling interest to drain the swamp. It’s like saying we should only go after terrorists with a big red al-qaeda stamped on their forehead, and completely ignore all the other Islamo-fascist terrorist groups who wantonly kill civilians, and ignore the swamp that produces these vermin. That’s just so narrow-minded as to be juvenile.
Longtall,
I know you’re still reading at least. I have a piece of the Berlin Wall which I purchased at the Brandenburg Gate. I also saw the Wall in 1972. Where does that fit in your theories?
I also gave my van to a Cuban who tied innertubes together to get here.
INNERTUBES AND WALLS? Economic theory?
longtall writes: “[C]ommunism is an economic theory and not a political doctrine.”
Marimba Man responds: “I have a piece of the Berlin Wall which I purchased at the Brandenburg Gate. … I also gave my van to a Cuban who tied innertubes together to get here. INNERTUBES AND WALLS? Economic theory?”
_________________________________
Before our WordPress system began mysteriously (but nonetheless fortuitously) swallowing up longtall’s posts, I had meant to ask him to list five political ideologies by name which, in his estimation, could properly be described as “political” rather than “economic”.
Personally, I could not do so if asked, and I doubt that longtall could have done it either. Every political ideology of which I am aware ultimately derives from a distinctive set of assumptions concerning economics. Politics and economics cannot be separated.
Longtall’s effort to reduce communism to an “economic theory” is a familiar evasion practiced by “Third Way” leftists, whose entire system of self-justification rests upon the pretense that the form of communism they favor – Gramscian cultural communism – has nothing to do with the fire-and-steel communism of the Soviet era.
In fact, they are but two sides of the same coin. Gramscian communists differ from the Soviet variety only in their circumstances.
Gramscian tactics are designed to be used in situations where communists are out of power and their ideology unpopular – that is, situations in which stealth and subterfuge are necessary for survival. Soviet tactics are unleashed after the communists have succeeded in taking control of the government and no longer need to conceal their intentions.
Richard Poe,
Didn’t Mussolini describe his “Fascism” as a “third way” between capitalism and communism?
As you know, I don’t make any distinctions between Nazism and Communism, beyond the obvious differences between those two leftist ideologies (one was German, one was Russian).
What is it about dialectical materialists that makes them think that if they keep repackaging turds as candy bars somebody will buy one?
Richard Poe brings up Gramscian tactics. This is extremely important to understand as it put the battleground into focus. Rudi Dutschke described Gramscian tactics well as “the long march through the institutions”, the Marxist conquest of universities, schools, the news media, entertainment, churches and other religious bodies, tax-exempt foundations, and other key institutions.
The Gramcian blueprint was composed by Italian Communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci. He understood that the creation of the total state requires the seizure of the “mediating institutions” that insulate the individual from the power of the government, the family, organized religion, and so forth and a systematic redefinition of the culture in order to sustain the new political order.
The battle cry of Gramsci’s disciples is: “Capture the culture!” They believe a transition to socialism must occur on two distinct but interwoven terrains, the state and the economy.” Those seeking the triumph of socialist revolution will not prevail by simply overthrowing “the existing state machinery, or destroying the old institutions, or even bringing into power leaders calling themselves ‘communists.’ Beneath the level of insurrection and statecraft there must be a gradual conquest of social power, initiated by popular subversive forces emerging from within the very heart of capitalist society.
Michael Walzer in the Winter 1996 issue of the Marxist journal Dissent wrote of the contemporary successes of the Gramscian cultural assault upon America. In his writing he evidence that the revolutionary left is winning the “Gramscian ‘war of position,’ ” Walzer approvingly cited, among other developments: “The visible impact of feminism.” “The effects of affirmative action.” “The emergence of gay rights politics, and … the attention paid to it in the media.” “The acceptance of cultural pluralism.” “The transformation of family life,” including “rising divorce rates, changing sexual mores, new household arrangements — and, again, the portrayal of all this in the media.” “The progress of secularization; the fading of religion in general and Christianity in particular from the public sphere, classrooms, textbooks, legal codes, holidays, and so on.” “The virtual abolition of capital punishment.” “The legalization of abortion.” “The first successes in the effort to regulate and limit the private ownership of guns.”
All of these developments, Walzer asserted, were imposed upon our society by “liberal elites,” rather than being driven “by the pressure of a mass movement or a majoritarian party.” These changes, Walzer observed, “reflect the leftism or liberalism of lawyers, judges, federal bureaucrats, professors, school teachers, social workers, journalists, television and screen writers and not the population at large.”
In the humble opinion of this neoconGrunt, Great care has been taken by the architects of the cultural war to make it appear that the onslaught is a spontaneous revolution arising from the masses. However, the most radical changes in American society are being imposed from the top down, are lavishly underwritten by the Left’s Establishment. It is through this two-pronged “scissors strategy” of pressure from above and pressure from below that the assault on America’s cultural institutions has done the most damage.
We live in dangerous times indeed. Let’s not underestimate the opposition.
Richard has it right—a spade is a spade–they are communists!
I have never underestimated the enemies of the U.S. or liberty in general. I have always simplified it to this: The left gets elected by posing as the saviours of the poor and downtrodden, the ‘little guy’, they’re for ‘working families’ and blacks, they hate the mean rich, and sounding other such populist themes. Then upon getting elected they work their asses off in the ‘background’ installing the ideological tenets of Leftism/Marxism/Communism.
How about “post-American Neo Communists?”
I am so tired of fighting “them ” that I am willing to give up. Just let them have their way. It is plain that they will end up with the same results that they heve always ended up with: Complete economic and social tragedy. F–k it. If so many people are so willing to make such a fatal error, let them! The last big communist experiment produced something like 200 million internal executions over 75 years. Lets let them have an even larger experiment this time. The more they kill the better. They kill their own trying to get them to comply with a system that doesn’t work. Better than I can do! We have too many people on the planet anyway.
darkly,
doc
[…] At this point, anything seems possible. Someday soon, our neo-Bolshevist friends may even resign themselves to admitting that George W. Bush is smarter than the celebrated master of "nuance" John Kerry, according to standardized test results. (5) […]
[…] Richard Poe has clearly pointed out what is happening, and what the Republican response should be. Even so, in the case of Tom DeLay, can we not at least hope that the obvious improprieties and abuses of the "Neo-Communist" Left will appall the public to the point of such intense disgust and outrage that the Left will be shunned like the plague? […]