From the Pen of David Horowitz: November 19, 2009
[Richard ]Rorty views the Vietnam War as the decisive event converting the American left to the Marxist revolutionary paradigm. He describes the war as “an atrocity of which Americans should be deeply ashamed.” Along with the “endless humiliation inflicted on African-Americans,” the War persuaded the New Left, which had previously recognized the “errors” of Marxism, that something was “deeply wrong with their country, and not just mistakes correctable by reforms.” As a result, they became neo-Marxists and revolutionaries.
In Rorty’s view, that revolutionary vision is now irretrievably dead, killed by the failures of 20th Century utopias and the non-market economies on which they were based. The fall of Communism made Marxism untenable. Rorty is realist enough to recognize this truth, but remains leftist enough to believe that rather than vindicating its capitalist opponents, its death offers new opportunities for the left to advance its socialist agendas. With Communism no longer an issue, the previously divided factions of the left can now unite in a new version of the old Popular Front, the anti-fascist coalition between Stalinists and liberals of the 1930s. According to Rorty, it is time to dispense with distinctions like “Old Left,” and “New Left,” which once reflected differing attitudes towards the Soviet bloc. It is also time to erase the distinction between socialists and liberals, since it is easy to see that the two share similar egalitarian goals, once the (metaphysical) idea of overthrowing capitalism is abandoned.
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NewsReal Blog 
I agree with the comment. It has been obvious to me for quite some time that from the Seventies the ideological change of the Democratic party was pushed by the the (Humanities) academic left, whose great (Social Constructivist) project I coin as “Fantasizing Victimology.” To use Althusser’s (hawhaw) term, a large percentage of institutiuonal thinkers like Rorty are the new “Ideological State Apparatuses.”
As always, the economic disasters caused by, to use Horowitz’s term, the “metaphysical” or social constructivist (read fantasizing victimolgy fictions) remedies, pushes the pragmatic American public back to the economic and political center/right, as we are witnessing now.
Nonsense. Nonsense. Nonsense. Rorty can go jump in a flaming volcano. Let us reject his false revisionist “atrocity” paradigm. The left invented the shame of Vietnam, they marketed it under false pretenses to a naive public, and they turned the lie into a legend of fiction and subterfuge using the tactics of cultural Marxist against a public unused to propaganda manipulation. The left actively assisted the North Vietnamese in undermining our nation.
The Vietnam War was a noble and just cause. The Vietnam War was a treaty obligation which the United States upheld according to its agreement with SEATO. The communists were infesting Southeast Asia like termites. We held the line. We gave up on this war, and that is our shame. Our shame was Cuba. Our shame was Czechoslavakia. Our shame was Yugoslavia. Our shame is the Sudan. If Vietnam is our shame, than so is World War Two. Nonsense.
The Vietnam War was mishandled by a government that did not understand the new paradigm at work in the world, and by a military that was hobbled by interfering bureaucrats in Washington.
Ho Chi Minh had NO RIGHT to assume that he could communize Vietnam without any election. This is the bottom line. Fighting french colonialism was the rationale. But how does trading one bad thing for another make it better? The people of Vietnam were FORCED to accept communism. The last president of Vietnam settled in the US after his escape, and repeatedly said that the United States let the people of Vietnam down. And the people of Vietnam are living in misery and deprivation today. Because of Communism, they, like the Cubans, have no opportunity to contribute anything to the human race except another testimony of human degridation.
There is absolutely no boundary when it comes to fighting Marxism. Perhaps we will learn that when we see the mushroom cloud rise over Washington DC. When we see our children and women living in shacks and picking through garbage dumps for food.
You nailed it.
The sad thing about the leftist programs instituded throughout the world, in most cases they have often led to euthanatizing the opposition, thus creating a society of apathy.
The Left does not appologize or admit that for which they are wrong. They move on to the next opportunity to gain power and control lives. The Left is goal oriented not process oriented. Therefore, controlling others is paramount. Commonly accepted rules of accepted behavior in a process of interaction mean nothing to them. Probably, Leftists scratch their heads in wonder that we do not comprehend this too.
Underlying leftist thought is the inability to accept Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” description of a free market economy. Hence, they feel compelled to have a Central Authority planning and running the economy and society.
We conservatives need to sell people on the validity of Smith’s invisible hand insight. It has to start at a young age – grade school, high school, and continue into college. Relentlessly. Otherwise, we’ll always be susceptible to ceding control of our lives to a charismatic, courageous, intelligent politician – who turns out to be a shallow leftist demagogue – after he gets into office.
I suspect the longing for a Central Authority ordering society is rooted deeply in our DNA – has tribal, Stone Age roots. It needs to be strongly countered.
F. A. Hayek’s Nobel Prize-winning work on wages and prices set by millions of individuals and businesses freely pursuing their own self-interest comprising a highly efficient “distributed information system” is an extension of Smith’s invisible hand insight. His work needs to be extended and popularized so it can be caught to school children, college classes, etc. In addition, in order for a free society to work, the vast majority of its citizens must behave in an ethical way – follow the Golden Rule in their daily activities. Otherwise, it simply won’t work. Our Founding Fathers understood that, but sometimes I think we “moderns” have lost that insight.
Good idea. Would have been nice if we conservatives had managed to maintain control of the education system, rather than abdicating to the Marxists.
Not to mention the fact that we are allowing revolutionaries, anarchists, bandits, rabble rousers and hatemongers to run wild and unchecked through our society. Soon, they will not feel the need to share the microphone with you any longer. Once they gain control of the press completely, it will be the Night of the Long Knives in America.
I think that we in the United States need to come to the grips with the fact that we can no longer allow destructive and subversive elements to run wild in our society, openly fomenting rebellion and sowing bad ideas in the name of achieveing power. We cannot allow our freedom to be abused by those who would use freedom to take away freedom.
Bring back the Smith Act. Purge this country of traitors. They’re breaking the law. Enforce it or just let the bad guys win.
Mark,
Progressives never let the truth obscure their delusions and need to inflict damage. This is seen in their core principle of teaching, inforcing and building on the “victimology” perception that is necessary for their acceptance,growth and power. Without the perceived victims, the lure of their theology of social and economic justice/equity has no footing. The “victims” are their army of foot soldiers. Obedient and everfaithful to the cause of equity among all, they march to the bidding of those that will eventually order their destruction once their usefulness is exhausted. America has become a society of the non-educated holding to the belief that they require the supervision and support of the government. Generational apathy immorality and self-centeredness plagues America. We have a generation of sociopaths that cannot see beyond their immediate needs. As a society we are in need of a transfusion of values, integrity, and purpose.