Not even in his worst nightmares could Franz Kafka “imagine” such dystopia – he could only bear tearful witness in slack-jawed dumbfoundment!
Check out this link:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/30050/nyt-celebrates-marxs-birthday-op-ed-happy-birthday-ben-shapiro
Carpe diem I shall seize the opportunity to address any and all “USEFUL IDIOTS”, especially those who are even unaware that they are “USEFUL IDIOTS” aka “Cultural Marxists”.
First of all, let us be clear here: Cultural Marxism is NOT just some misappropriated simpleton “snarl word”, to smear the presumed compassionate and well-intentioned high ideals of the Left, dontchya know. (my gorge rises)
Yes – yes… OK – let us all agree that the term “Cultural Marxism” has been misappropriated by silly conspiracy theorists, particularly by the “alt-right” – whatever that term is supposed to mean. That said, Cultural Marxism still remains a real phenomenon – a legacy of postmodernism and “Critical Theory” – a legacy most foul and murderous and championed by USEFUL IDIOTS!
Useful idiots? … those would include socially progressive Social Justice Warriors who who persist in posting Che Guevara posters above cinderblock bookshelves in university dorms stocked with unread textbooks on gender studies, race studies, and intersectionality, dontchya know.
Useful Idiots? … those would include virtue-signaling historically illiterate iconoclast undergrads who desecrate Confederate Flags without noticing their intellectual light-weight professors still remain Lynyrd Skynyrd fans. Historically illiterate iconoclasts who even now consider demolishing Mount Rushmore after tearing down the last statue to General Robert E. Lee. Yes, Lee, whose views on slavery were far more enlightened than Abraham Lincoln’s. Virtue-signaling Social Justice Warriors indeed – morons – all of them! I’ll bet they never even heard of Shelby Foote.
Useful idiots? … those would include those demonic professors who cut their teeth during the student riots of 1968. Virtue-signally professors who still enjoy playing Pete Seeger folk songs – Seeger, that nostalgic Stalinist who released an embarrassingly ill-timed and quickly recalled album titled “Songs of John Doe” – an album which PRAISED the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact! Bastard! Sons-of-a-Bitch! Pete Seeger and all like him can rot in Hell!
Useful Idiots? … A Pox on all of you who would celebrate May 1 and sing the Internationale! Yes! Go to Hell, all of you! Even you, who may be too embarrassed to sing the Internationale and sing instead Cultural Marxism’s new anthem – John Lennon’s song “Imagine”. Yes! Imagine even how virtue-signaling BDS SJWs who persist in singing that Lennon song, echoing in the same streets, but a generation ago, with the same the resounding resonance of the Horst Wesel Lied. Imagine BDS SJWs, who share the same Jew-Hatred of those very terrorists still attacking even as we speak, innocent victims in cities across Europe – Yes! … and witness our European leaders even singing that John Lennon song, while marching arm-in-arm over paving stones freshly spattered with the blood of innocent victims – victims to Jew-hating terrorists… a hatred shared by Cultural Marxism.
Yes indeed – today is May 1 – a day to commemorate the victims of Marxism both past, present and future. Rot in Hell – all of you who take pleasure in celebrating whatever this day stands for.
Let us pray that all universities be purged of Humanity Departments – indoctinators of Cultural Marxism – destroyers of civilization – groomers of sex-offenders and desecrators of all Western Culture holds dear. The pseudo-atheist anti-Semitic Cultural Marxist indoctrination of the Left must be extirpated once and for all. Amen!
I meant to say:
“… gender-dysphoric groomers of sex-offenders…”
You’ve got an amazing collection of stereotypes there.
The useless idiots didn’t really work out…
Glen Davidson
Hmmm… interesting rebuttal.
Yes – I can understand why you would say so… given I could be accused of over simplistic and binary over-generalization.
But therein lies the rub. The virtue-signalling Cultural Marxists infesting our campuses are just that: “Useful Idiots” (Stalin’s term or Lenin’s depending on your source) and prone to simplistic and binary over-generalization
Which creates a problem: Subtler and more insightful minds would understandably pillory any analysis along my lines to accusations of simplistic and binary over-generalization, when in fact it is those whom I denigrate are exactly such – making subtler and more sophisticated analysis impossible.
One of my dearest friends was a Jew who participated in Germany’s Spartakusaufstand! He needed to escape Nazi Germany and voluntarily moved to Stalin’s USSR to become the head engineer of a tractor institute which eventually became a tank factory. Amazing story his…
His Russian wife and only child disappeared into the Gulags and he was traded back to Nazi Germany for six Soviet pilots captured during the Spanish Civil War.
The story of how he escaped the Concentration Camps is fascinating and long.
Let me just say – that having barely escaped the evils of both Marxism and Nazism, he was an interesting fellow to engage in conversation.
Let me also add – that he would fully approve my missive, were he still alive.
John Lenin?
rereading my missive – I realize that I may be easily misunderstood – especially regarding misappropriated symbols such as Confederate Flags
Just to make sure my views on history are not misidentified as either racist or revisionist
The late Shelby Foote was a gentleman and a scholar! He has provided the best explanation I am aware of – how today’s simplistic binary mindset of virtue-signaling SJWs, regarding the Confederate Flag and statues to Confederate Soldiers, remain entirely misplaced and betrays a complete and total disregard for history.
Shelby Foote – was absolutely correct when claiming:
“People who say that slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as people who say that slavery had everything to do with the war…”
The reality of history cannot be encapsulated in a 280-character tweet! … which poses difficulties for SJWs whose cerebral capacities remain most limited.
For example, an objective reading of history would confirm that Robert E. Lee views on slavery were little different than the views of President Abraham Lincoln. That remains a difficult historical question to address objectively, given Lincoln appeared to tracing the trajectory of an upward arc of enlightened thinking – but equality and universal suffrage for blacks was not on Lincoln’s agenda by the day he was assassinated.
Or so it would seem
cute
New York Times promoted Stalin at the height of his purges.
“In 1932 Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for a series of reports about the Soviet Union, 11 of them published in June 1931. He was criticized for his subsequent denial of widespread famine (1932–1933) in the USSR, most particularly the mass starvation in Ukraine. Years later, there were calls to revoke his Pulitzer; The New York Times, which submitted his works for the prize in 1932, wrote that his later articles denying the famine constituted “some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper.”
Wikipedia.
There were, briefly, people who decried the demolition of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan and the destruction of statues in Iraq.
But the tears have been wiped away and the desire to preserve history, warts and all, has been lost.
Students and activists are unironically recapitulating the atrocities of the Taliban and ISIS.
If I got off your lawn, would you stop yelling at me?
Hmm . . . systematically refute an angry, ill-informed rant about the Frankfurt School or do something productive with my day?
Decisions, decisions . . .
I was thinking of just responding with “I know you are, but what am I?” But it seemed too similar to the style and substance of the OP.
petrushka – We are on the same wavelength
History may not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme!
The avant-garde perennially persist in shameless delight of any who would dare to pull the tail feathers of the American Eagle, only to be shamed a generation later.
Walter Duranty was the paragon of “useful idiots” for his generation!
It would be most remiss to mention Duranty and fail to mention the hero of this time – Malcolm Muggeridge
Typical of most intelligent men, Muggeridge typified the old trope:
If you are not a socialist by age 20 – you have no heart. If you are not a conservative by age 30 – you have no brain.
Muggeridge was an avowed atheist if not agnostic for most of his life, before converting to Christianity. Maybe that would explain why his absence of mention in today’s mainstream
http://www.garethjones.org/soviet_articles/soviet_and_the_peasantry_2.htm
“Angry” you betchya!
“Ill-informed” I dare ya!
FTR & for the benefit of those unfamiliar with so-called “Critical Theory” and the influence of the “Frankfurt School” on American campuses
here is a quick outline in very broad brush strokes
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-12/birth-cultural-marxism-how-frankfurt-school-changed-america
You never struck me a a Cultural Marxist… you are far too intelligent.
Was that a yes or a no?
I believe it was C D Broad who said that people become more conservative as they amass more items they’d like to conserve.
Hi John
I may be misunderstanding you…
Let’s see where we agree:
The rise of far-right extremism extolling neo-nazism/neo-fascism is revolting. Agreed?
So, any screed execrating such evil should be applauded. Agreed?
For example, the Neo-Nazi Charlottesville Rally was an abomination. Agreed?
And, President Trump’s reaction thereto was similarly abominable. Agreed?
In fact, any such egregious venality should be subject to “We call BS”! Agreed?
I do trust we are in agreement so far…
However, the rise of far-left extremism extolling Marxism is no less revolting. Agreed?
Just to be clear here – I draw your attention to:
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/POSTWWII.HTM
and some delightful light reading
Therefore, on this anniversary of anniversaries which celebrates venality on a scale which eclipses Nazism and Fascism – we should both agree that righteous anger is not misplaced. And while evil of any political extreme should be called out – on May 1 especially – the victims of Marxism should not be forgotten.
Where do we disagree?
You should have written your last post first. If you go back and read your OP you’ll find it goes significantly farther than the platitudes in your ass-kissy response to john.
Because, really, it’s YOU who is feeding polarizing flames here. You think everybody who disagrees with you about anything must be a SJW and cultural Marxist, when in fact there are many more gradations in political views around than are contemplated in your hateful screeds.
And I’ll even give you an example. I believe the two seniors who tried to “out” Prof. Jaworski of Fordham based on nothing but gossip they might have heard someplace, should be severely disciplined. They’re entirely full of righteous bullshit, imo, even if it turns out to be the case that Jaworski really is a scumbag.
The thing is, you are kinda like those girls in your us v. them mentality. Your OP is nothing but a venomous rant, with the clear intent to polarize. Same kind of righteous indignation as is on display among Fordham ‘feminists.’
I have always been confused by the term “cultural Marxism”. However, Mung’s comment has jogged my memory. Yes, now I recall that nearly 50 years ago there was a major upsurge of Cultural Marxism
which you can see here.
My closest encounter with Nazis was getting on an airplane immediately after Lincoln Rockwell got off. At the time I wondered if there might be an unexploded bomb still on board.
There’s nothing to refute, it’s just a pile of rhetoric, name-calling, stereotypes and assertions. The whole thing could be summed up as “I dislike Marxism and Marxists, they’re bad!”.
I’ll just leave this here: How “Cultural Marxism” became the Far-Right’s Scapegoat.
White American men are a bigger domestic terrorist threat than Muslim foreigners
Is that per capita, or in total? That’s very important.
Just for the record I am not a social justice warrior.
I am a social justice monk.
1. “64-year-old white man from Nevada”: Interesting how quickly this disappeared from the news, Just poof.
2. “20-year-old white Nazi sympathizer”: Dead woman was not actually hit by the car, not that that excuses the guy. Not much follow up news.
3. 66-year-old white man from Illinois: Obviously a right winger.
Actually, Americans are more likely to die of measles than by violence.
Moved a post to guano.
I had to sit next to a Nazi on a plane once. Very unpleasant.
Also, most of my father’s family was killed by them (mother, father, and one sibling).
Funny how those have the same initials as ‘single Jewish woman’ and ‘single Jewish man,’ which, of course, is what they used to stand for in the old Boston Phoenix classifieds!
I suspect, or conjecture, that SJWness created and feeds Trump.
Quick Reality Check:
The inspiration for my OP was the confluence of two coincidences:
1- Today’s still popular celebration of May 1 in many European cities; a less than trivial factoid which defies credulity
2- this OP in the New York Times by an Associate Professor of Philosophy who remains proud to declare himself part of Cultural Marxism’s modern vanguard
Reality Check continued ( and no I am not making this up) the OP was entitled (drum roll please)
Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!
… excuse me!? How so?!
Well for those of you who cannot be bothered to look up confirmatory links to my posted contentions. I will attempt to spell it out in simple enough terms that SOME present may even understand.
Modern Cultural Marxists sing from the same hymnal as this author who cites (and I quote)
Ergo my citation of John Lennon’s hymn. I cannot claim originality, others more eloquent have done greater justice to this indictment of Postmodern Newspeak
https://www.steynonline.com/7298/imagine-there-no-imagination
Here is yet another seminal semiotic citation:
Intersectional identity politics in all its gory detail… Fer cryin’ out loud: Orwelll’s novel 1984 was intended to be a clarion warning and not an instruction manual!
Again, I claim no originality. Jordan Peterson is gaining much traction on Canadian Campuses (Thank G-D!). He elucidates my contentions more eloquently than I could ever hope:
May 1 is an auspicious day to expose “Cultural Marxism” aka “Critical Theory” aka “Postmodernism” for the evil it was, is and promises to continue
Just wait until the immanent bicentennial of Karl Marx’s Birthday occurs… then we shall really have much data to discuss
The Black Book of Communism
What I’d like to know is whether you get that disagreeing with you about, e.g., Muslim immigration or black lives matter does not necessarily make one a ‘cultural Marxist’. That is, do you understand that sharing all of your views isn’t really the criteria here? Because, well, you aren’t exactly a moderate, you know?
Do you get this? If so, people can have rational discussions with you; if not, you’re just one more polarizing demagogue wannabe. And there’s enough of that coming from the White House, thanks.
I pretty much ignore this kind of politics except to watch it as a spectator.
I find myself rooting for most liberal goals — equality of opportunity, the end of bullying, end of poverty, and so forth — and being dismayed at the clumsiness and counterproductive methods employed by progressives.
I suppose in one sense I am a Marxist, in that I think in the time scale of centuries, things get better. And My definition of better is not fundamentally different from that of the progs on this site.
As with many other things, I just doubt that politicians and activists are actually having positive effects.
walto
every time I read your offerings; I am reminded of Poe’s Law
The irony is delicious!
I remain baffled how you fail to realize how you epitomize exactly what I denigrate while I simultaneously have preempted your rebuttals in earlier posts, apparently without your realization of as much
i see from this that you just want to fight and brag. As indicated, I see enough of that on twitter.
Enjoy your rant fest!
I’m going to hang on to this.
Hi rumraket
I see your YouTube citation and raise you one RationalWiki
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
My OP was premeditated more than some less worthy opponents would surmise. I anticipated a rebuttal along lines you suggested – ergo the fourth paragraph of the original OP
Let’s be clear and FTR: I am NO fan of the far-right and as mentioned on an earlier occasion I in fact self-identify as a Common-Sense-Extremist aka belonging to the Pragmatist Wing of Classical British Liberalism
FYR#2: Compassion is not an exclusive monopoly of the Left: explaining how Canadians can speak of “Red Tories” and “Progressive Conservatives”
The Left’s puerile reductio ad absurdum your YouTube pretends to illustrate is typical of their simplistic binary mindset. Check out the absurd waltoesque syllogism in the RationalWiki
Talk about guilt by misappropriated association !!!
Jordan Peterson does an excellent job of slicing through such semantic Gordian Knots.
If you are a fan of YouTube, I recommend Jordan Peterson
Best regards
Says the jerkoff who doesn’t give a rat’s ass for the people dying by the thousands in the Mediterranean sea while celebrating that those who are trying to help them are prosecuted
I’ll let Master Skywalker have the last word here.
LIAR !!!
We have had this exchange before and you have deliberately misrepresented me!
Allow me to give you the benefit of a doubt and accord you far more courtesy than you deserve!
We agree that offering asylum is (for the most part) made with altruistic intentions… You yourself pretend to be altruistic and claim praise for your kindness and generosity
But I ask you to reexamine your argument:
You cannot avoid conceding that current misguided and Soros-inspired European policy will inevitably bring more murderers and rapists into Europe ( don’t take my word for it – just read what ISIS says… or Erdogan for that matter)
That means current policy will inevitably result in the murder and rape of more INNOCENT Europeans as well as innocent asylum seekers while millions who are less hardy and unable to surmount hypocritically set obstacles, continue to perish in the Middle East by their millions
That means you are comfortable with a policy that will result in the murder of countless migrants and Europeans and the rape of countless (migrant and European) girls, because you are motivated by good intentions…
Your good intentions intend to prevent the even greater slaughter of innocent Syrians and other oppressed peoples suffering genocide… the increase in Europe’s violent crime is an unfortunate but necessary price to pay
I think I have summarized your argument correctly?
Here is where I disagree and where your argument fails:
You are correct that we cannot stand by and do nothing while innocent Syrians and others suffer genocide and atrocity
We are obligated under the UN Charter (Germany especially) to intervene whenever and wherever Genocide occurs! That means we must sent in the military. Will the lives of European soldiers be lost… Yes, that will be an unfortunate but necessary price to pay, but ( and this the important bit)… countless millions (especially women,children and the old who are unable to flee) will be rescued!
So where are we? You and I juxtapose two unfortunate but necessary prices to pay
I suggest that the price you suggest is too costly and does not achieve the intended goal of stopping genocide and atrocity
QED
He’s worried about ‘Soros-inspired’ plans.
I think it’s nobel of Europeans to take in the refugees. I wonder who started and promoted the wars in Syria and Libya.
Couldn’t possibly be a dispute over pipelines, could it?
Like I already said: “… for the most part…” Agreed!
It has become war by proxy by proxy… Russia’s only Mediterranean ports are in Syria… so Russia backs Iran backs Syria
… so America backs Saudi Arabia backs Israel
Otherwise the war would have been long finished
I do not pretend to understand who the good and bad guys are, but I’m sure it’s about money. And the power that money buys.
Someone wanted Assad gone and was willing to destroy a nation to do it.
And Libya. Destroyed.
And of course the Russians have backed Assad for decades.
All the virtue signaling in the world doesn’t absolve the guilt.
petrushka,
Check out PBS FRONTLINE on Saudi Arabia vs Iran
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/bitter-rivals-iran-and-saudi-arabia/
the Middle East makes for very unusual bed-fellows
Israel learns from history and does not repeat an earlier and very tragic mistake
http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-israel-became-a-defender-of-the-syrian-people/
Yes.
No. Doesn’t follow at all.
Yes. But what’s that supposed to be an example of?
Yes.
Yes. This is becoming tedious.
I don’t think you’re describing a real phenomenon. What you link below certainly says nothing about it.
I think you are misunderstanding to the point of absurdity. Marx was not a big fan of genocide, and you can’t lay it on him. Lenin and his heirs would be more to the point.
First, you seem to be addicted to unreasonable rants, filled with unwarranted leaps and dubious “facts”. I’m most annoyed, though by your claims about Confederate monuments and about the origins of the U.S. Civil War, both of which are horrendously wrong. And your hiding behind Shelby Foote.
Any NYT support for marx is fine with me because IT DISCREDITS them morally and intellectually. REALLY I mean this!
Further supporting him is a rejection of his opposition WHICH is our democratic/ natural rights/free enterprise and religious civilization.
marx is not responsible for any evil or injustice unless he advocated it , which he probably didn’t.
the thing about him is he was plain dumb wrong. only the most backward nations implemented his ideas.The soviets and Chinese until these days etc.
So Marx is just boring to me as he was a failure in his conclusions on economy.
marx was wrong about seeing that the wealth was created by the labour of the great numbers. its also wrong to see it created by capitailism.
Abe Lincoln was right. he first said labour was the superior of capital but then changed it to the skill/intelligence of the worker, not the labour, and this leading to more capital and more chance to progress.
Marx was only right if he had a hunch the capitalistis/means of production were truly not the creators of wealth. Hm hard to say. anyways he tapped into the majority of backward nations with a conclusion THEY deserved more and this led to revolution.
Marx was anti-Christian, anti-religious (he was a Jew and this probably coloured it)
and so this alone would remove a people getting gods extra blessings.
Cultural marxists is a myth. those claimed to be so are just old fashioned identity fighters.
Marxism in North America is a embarrassment in real peoples lives. its dead if it was ever alive here. I understand in bRitain they give it some credibility still but thats why britain has less credibility these days in all things intellectual, social, and political.
Sorry mom!