Last Saturday I went on a quest to find the source of rising leftist hatred. I wanted to get behind the facades fronting websites and Facebook posts, as well as the provocative clickbait that covers the edges of browser pages. I needed to get inside the movement — the Petrograd Soviet, so to speak — to hear the Bolsheviki recite Marx, shout slogans, and call for worldwide revolution.
While I consider politics the genesis of coercion and compulsion, I am drawn to the machinations that make up the political process. Since I like to hear from all sources, I subscribe to emails from leftist organizations (and right ones as well), including ProgressOhio, whose website states it is the state’s leading progressive organization. A while back, they sent an email inviting subscribers to a We are Progress training summit hosted by Generation Progress, the youth outreach arm of the Center for American Progress (things get murky when you try to put all the organizations together). The summit included speakers from various other Ohio organizations (most small, flying well under the radar, so to speak). I decided to attend to find the source of hatred, expecting there would be calls for blood in the streets.
After I entered the meeting, sat down, and observed, I found the assumed agitators reserved and reasonable, with no revolution proposed. The hate was, for the most part, nonexistent. In fact, I empathized with many of the speakers. Sure their means were wrong, but their ends made some sense. Let me explain.
The summit was small, close to 50 attendees, with at least half being speakers or other members of the various organizations represented. Most were young and clean cut. A very ordinary crowd for an event held on a community college campus. During one session, local Ohio organizations were allowed 15 minutes to present their current agendas. The first organization to speak was Planned Parenthood, who subdued their vile inclinations and simply called for a national sexual education curriculum, never mentioning what their wicked curriculum would entail.
Next up was a speaker from the Ohio Environmental Council, seeking support for legislation to mandate that entities wanting to frack have sufficient funds for post-fracking cleanup. He also wanted legislation to force farms to reduce runoff to protect lakes and waterways. I did not find his ends to be offensive. Sure, while his means were off, his ends were reasonable (i.e. less pollution). Any disparity between means and ends could be easily rectified, assuming the leaders of the council were willing to read Rothbard’s, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution.”1
Then things got a little weird. The speaker for the People’s Justice Project noted that, five times a day, she “centered” herself on her commitment to “independent black power,” leading the audience in a chant of, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” However, her passion was reducing mass incarceration. To that end, she wanted simple drug possession reduced to a misdemeanor from a felony. I agreed, not with the chant that channeled Assata Shakur and Karl Marx, but with any retreat from the so-called war on drugs.
Finally, the last speaker pleaded for donations to his organization that assists refugees relocating to Cleveland. He took a jab at the Trump administration, but it was only half-hearted. I found him to be a committed advocate for others. No revolutionary here, either.
This is the left of my youth, sincerely committed, yet misguided. It is the left that directed my steps when registering as a conscientious objector back in the 1980s. It is the left that desires change, but mistakenly sees more government as the solution. A left that rejects private property, but only because it doesn’t understand the moral and ethical principles underpinning private ownership, though it generally respects self-ownership (not including Planned Parenthood, of course). A left that challenges authority more than it desires collectivism. It is, to continue the analogy from above, the Russian workers in the soviets, soldiers on the lines or in the garrisons, and the peasants in the fields, seeking an end to the war, yet being driven toward revolution.
So what is inspiring the growing hate from the left?
As I allude to above, the speakers came from various small entities, all tied together by ProgressOhio and its nefarious, associated organizations. If you follow those organizations backwards, you find they are funded by, or associated with, other entities and individuals. As you go back farther and deeper, you begin to encounter the same names over and over again. It is as if a vanguard exists — an elite cadre akin to Lenin’s view of the role of the Bolshevik Party, agitating all toward revolution. A vanguard that guides disparate groups, such as those at the summit, into collective action.
Unlike the Russian soldiers, workers, and peasants, who were united to end the war, there is no obvious unifying theme among the grassroots organizations at the summit. Why does an environmentalist care about the struggles of recent refugees? So a theme must be created, which appears to be, from my observations, a combination of anti-Trumpism and pro LGBTQ slogans. Whatever it is, it seems to be working.
The speakers I heard were not fomenting revolution — individually. Yet, they are unknowingly being directed from above to foment revolution collectively. A powerful alliance is manufacturing hate and manipulating opinions. This cabal, which cares nothing about the environment, mass incarceration, refugees, or even the LGBTQ community, is seducing the sincere, but misguided, perverting their actions from holding rational discussions at summits to manning barricades in the street. It is an insidious force that generates hate through propaganda, converting the interesting and pleasant souls at the summit into vile spectres, seeking the blood of anyone who dares resist the planks of the manifesto. A force that desires power over all.
I did not find the true source of leftist hate — the scheming vanguard, though I found a hint of its trail. But I did learn something important: we either endeavor to spread the truth of liberty and property to all, or I end up plaintively pleading, at the sharp end of a bayonet, to the folks manning the pickets, “Don’t you remember me? I sat next to you at the summit.”
Note:
1. This is similar to the plethora of organizations on the right, such as those united in a genuine belief that marijuana is vile and remain illegal.
Here is a good, quick Ben Shapiro essay on what creates common cause between these groups that seem to even have antithetical opposed world views.
https://www.prageru.com/videos/what-intersectionality
So, the Soviet agitprop committee (AKA George Soros, Bill Gates, et al.) still funds and directs a plethora of subservient organizations, which each fund and direct a plethora of organizations. The ‘useful idiots’ are a never ending well from which they draw support and manpower.
Some things never change. Only the names are changed, to protect the guilty.
People need money to run organisations. If the organisation has some political motive, one is more likely to get the money from rich people or rich organisations with similar political stances.
Now, there are two possibilities. The people needing the money go look for it themselves and end up with the few rich ones, or the rich ones are actively creating more and more front orgs.
The second possibility is much more sinister, and in line with the scheming vanguard.
We are all useful idiots to someone.
Awhile ago, I figured out that my conservative friends and my liberal friends weren’t all that far apart on the ends. The means to getting to the end is always where the strife happens. Liberty is a terrible thing. Somehow we have to let other people be idiots. At the same time, we have to keep the roads open, the food flowing, and the consumers consuming. There are disconnects that happen when you keep both of those metrics under scrutiny.
Speak for yourself, Brad. I’m not useful.
I’m with Cricket, Brad, speak for yourself. I’m not useful either.
But because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold, nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth. Apocalypse 3: 16
It is always good to listen and learn from those whose viewpoints are different from our own, honoring our Father by seeking their good while enjoying and protecting the freedoms we’ve been given.
I also feel we need to exercise caution on the marijuana front; there is much to learn and digest (no pun intended) about the new threats from the high potency vape-able, edible variants targeted to ever younger audiences amid a dearth of rational legal controls.
https://learnaboutsam.org/resource/
Wait. This Jim Fedako?
https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/21895/#comment-171668
Hatred these days is found on Foxnews and the right alone.
If nothing, the left is try to save the from a minority of old ignorant white male that suddenly fell in love with communists oligarchs. Trump was elected from hatred and extreme racism.
Sylvia – “old ignorant white male” – sexist and racist much, you bigot? Let’s throw in ageist, too, while we’re at it.
Now get off my lawn.
My guess is that you recognize yourself
Why are you trolls so boring? And why do you have such poor grammar? Is being stupid and barely literate the only qualifications for the job?
“communists oligarchs” Heh. Those who escape the bloody clutches and live to tell the tale are especially despised by the tribe. Coming soon to a town near you.
“Hatred these days is found on Foxnews and the right alone. “
No. Listen:
“Hatred these days is found on Foxnews and the right alone.”
“Hatred these days is found on Foxnews and the right alone.”
Wow.
” And why do you have such poor grammar?”
At least, unlike Trump and is administration, English is my second language.
acricketchirps,
Is there anything Tucker Carlson says that is not racist?
Judge Jeanine (who the damned named her judge), calling democrat “demon rats” isn’t inflammatory and uncivil.
Michelle Wolf got a boatload of sh** for saying tha Sarah Sanders is a liar and bad at doing her makeup, while both things are true.
Hannity supported Clive Bundy a guy that doesn’t even recognizes the validity of the USA government while waving the US flag.
Somehow for your president kneeling for the flag is an insult to it. Yet the ultimate reverence to God is to kneel before him.
“Alone”… Wow!
“Hatred …
these days…
is found on Foxnews and the right…
…
alone.“
That’s the most fantastic thing I’ve ever read on a Briggs comment stream—not excluding Shecky.
@Silvain Allard
Most of your arguments make no sense with all the grammar mistakes. The one that makes sense is easily refutable, as a flag is not God, and neither is a country.
No,
A flag is not God. Neither is a human who died. Yet when people kneel it is a mark of deference except to the people who follow false God or false prophet like Trump.
Kneeling during the anthem was deference and not protest? Think about that.
Kneeling during a viewing is to pray to God for the soul of the deceased. Well, maybe not to French Canadians.
Kneeling is a respectful way to bring to attention a cultural problem where police officer kills unarmed Black man faster than they can see it. Where people call the police, and arrest black men seating peacefully even after there friend arrived. Where whites call the police because a little sold water. Or a white woman calling the police on fellow student that lives in the same building. Or when a black professor is arrested booking into is own house.
Dav ask yourself,
Why is it always the billionaire that claims that the rule are unfair to him?
Why is it always the guy with the gun that is afraid to die? Yet the guy who has no gun is never afraid to die.
Guess the Sylly-ness is unavoidable.
Stones and glass houses, etc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/24/over-policing-in-black-communities-is-a-canadian-crisis-too/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.66323b461f59
Trump’s fault presumably.
And surely the fault of all those misguided Canadian Geese who voted for him.
But then, it is the WaPo after all.
1) It would be hard for Trump to be responsible since these are old news from several years ago.
2) the police officers were charged with man slaughter (which is very rare in the US)
It would be hard for Trump to be responsible since these are old news from several years ago
What? You’re letting facts get in the way? There’s hope for you yet.
officers were charged with man slaughter
For Abdirahman Abdi’s death but what about “Andrew Loku, Bony Jean-Pierre and Pierre Coriolan, all black men killed by law enforcement in Canada in recent years?”
Charged does not necessarily mean found guilty and, in the Abdi case, it hasn’t gone to trial yet (hey, it’s only been 2 years!) and is a judge-only trial.
Maybe you should clean up your own crap before pointing fingers, eh, pot?
Let’s put the numbers in contexte
Total fatal police shootings/law enforcement homicides per year
United States 930
Canada 25
Germany 8
Australia 5
United Kingdom 2
Japan 0
Yes, we still have ways have work to do, but there is no comparison
Hmm. You waited a whole day to respond? I had given up on you.
Reminds me of one of my first trips to the Bahamas. It was early March and there was an article in the Nassau paper about a recent traffic fatality bringing the annual total to two. The article lamented it as a disturbing trend. They didn’t say “Oh, well. Just two. Look at how many there are in the U.S.”
You, on the other hand, have taken the opposite tack with the 25 Canadian deaths. Your outrage is directed entirely toward the U.S. Effectively, “Oh, well. Just 25. Look at how many there are in the U.S.”
You also withheld them until it was pointed out that Canada isn’t free of sin either.
So what happened to your outrage over the Canadian deaths?
You’re a real piece of work, Sylly.
Unlike you I do have work and a life.
When I do get aware of such unwarranted shootings I’m just as outraged. Not all shootings are unwarranted. In Montreal, there was the shootings of Alain Magloire which a video showed. He was going to strike a cop fallen at his feet with a hammer.
I never heard of the other story you linked to before. And I don’t know the result of the trial in this case. But there were several cop sent to prison for unjustified killing. Something that doesn’t happens often.
Even to show any kind of comparisons adjusted for total population the USA should be at 250, you are at 930 and maybe more.