This article by Spencer Sunshine of Political Research Associates (led by “former” Stalinist Chip Berlet and funded by the Ford Foundation. representatives of the left-wing of capitalism) is well worth reading because it’s an excellent illustration of the pathology, paranoia, and hypocrisy that dominates the particular strand of the hard left that “Sunshine” represents.
This guy is specifically arguing that “progressives” (whatever that means) should exclude from their midst not only the “far right” (presumably everything from moderate conservatives to Nazis) but also anyone from the left, libertarians, “people of color,” presumably gays, LGBTs, etc. that do not toe the leftist party line, or who are judged guilty by association. Sunshine puts his cards on the table to a much greater degree than most leftists. This actually works to our advantage because he’s allowing the “totalitarian humanists” to be seen for what they really are. The implicit racial arrogance of white leftism is also exposed. This guy is essentially taking it upon himself to decide how minorities should go about being minorities, and what is an appropriate range or mode of thought for “people of color.” This is standard white leftist racial paternalism.
I’ve always found the racism of these hard left types to be rather astounding. I first noticed it when I was part of the the hard left years ago, and it’s become much more obvious with time. They vacillate between viewing minorities as children who need rescuing, as weaklings who can’t do anything for themselves, or as pawns to be used as tools of the “revolution.” Nothing pisses them off more than a minority that doesn’t play the leftist game. Such a person immediately becomes a “self-hater,” “Uncle Tom,” “opportunist,” “sell out,” etc. The racist tradition within the context of the historic US racial caste system was for white supremacists to regard a self-assertive or independently minded non-white person as an “uppity n—–” who “doesn’t know his place.” I see that kind of attitude on the Left as well, although it’s masked behind a humanitarian or egalitarian charade.
Also, Sunshine’s lack of any sincere or principled anti-authoritarian values is demonstrated by his failure to exclude totalitarian leftists from “progressive” circles such as the pro-North Korean Workers World Party, the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party (allies of the Pol Potist Sendoro Luminoso), the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, Spartacist League, or International Socialist Organization (disciples of the chief perpetrator of Krondstadt), etc, etc etc. He even mentions his inclusive attitude towards “liberal Democrats” (the ruling party of the mother country of the empire, and the only party to ever use nuclear weapons in war).
If this kind of thinking is explicitly adopted by the more reactionary sectors of the Left, it will work to our advantage because it will leave large sectors of well-meaning anti-system people who would otherwise be drawn to the Left without a political home. Meanwhile, we will be there to welcome them.
Some of this stuff is funny. This passage here sounds like Bob Larson raving about Satanic rock in the 80s:
Progressive groups should come up with their own criteria for people who want to move away from Far Right politics and toward progressive political communities. Recommendations for this include: 1) requiring the person make a public statement disavowing Far Right views, and posting it in their former group’s media; 2) turning over all Far Right books, t-shirts, buttons, etc. to antifascists—especially patches or other insignia of any organizations they were members of; 3) removing all Far Right contacts on social media, and not attending events (either social, cultural, or political) hosted by these individuals or groups; 4) making a sincere statement of why their former views were problematic, with apologies made to anyone hurt by their actions. (The letter written by former White nationalist Derek Black, son of Stormfront founder Don Black, is exemplary.23) If they want to become actively involved as progressive political organizers, they should also 5) be required to go through a debrief to provide information about their former Rightist group’s structures, membership, recruiting tactics, and beliefs.
Another funny part is his repeated assertion that when “far right” groups have “people of color” among their members, well, that only goes to show how deceitfully racist they are.
Perhaps Spencer Sunshine is really some kind of right-wing undercover operative whose real goal is to undermine the Left by making it as boring as possible. Kids in particular like to join radical movements for excitement, adventure, and rebellion, and not to be lectured to by a bunch of dour puritans.
I was at a libertarian-anarchist conference in Acapulco a couple weeks age, and one thing I realized while I was there is just how big anti-system currents outside this reactionary left nonsense are getting to be, from the various strands of the radical right to libertarians to Russia Today-style leftists to the conspiracy milieu to leftists, progressives, anarchists, minorities, gays, etc who are tired of these overbearing politically correct left-fascists/neo-Stalnists. A whole new wave of radical political undercurrents is growing from the bottom up and eventually these left-fascist assholes are going to be overrun. I suspect we will see a lot more anti-System people coming our way in the future as more and more leftists become frustrated with the basket case state of the Left.
We’ve got guys like Spencer Sunshine out there doing their part to make it known we exist, and likely driving plenty of people towards us with their attitude. I’m increasingly getting messages from leftists saying things like, “I used to think you were a scumbag, but I’m coming around to your position more and more.”
In more recent times, I’ve noticed that the Left really is starting to implode due to the constant fighting among the rival PC factions over who’s most oppressed and all that. The left-anarchists, for example, can hardly even have public gatherings anymore without physical altercations breaking out. I’m talking about fistfights between transgendereds and feminists, or between vegans and vegetarians, or other comparable instances of lunacy. The reason they hate us isn’t merely because we blur the left/right distinction, or because they think we’re fascists. These people all hate each other, and I think it’s reflective of their psychological makeups as much as anything else. The social left in its present form attracts a lot of psychologically damaged and pathological people, and fringe politics provides them with a forum for acting out.
(This is a book that gives some insight into the nature of these left-wing “watchdog” groups, although it was published in 1997 so some of the info is obviously dated. But it still contains good nuggets of info on guys like Chip Berlet and Morris Dees. http://www.lairdwilcox.com/publish/watchdogs.html)
It might also be helpful to identify fault lines on the Left we can use to our advantage. Exposing the establishment connections and funding of the “watchdogs” would be one of these. So would providing an alternative forum for people on the Left who are tired of the crap, and are interested in finding new ways, thereby encouraging mass defections from the Left. Another might be to create rifts between these left-fascist/neo-Stalinist factions by hammering away at the fact that they’re basically a mixture of anarcho-communists, Stalinists, and Trots, and persistently pointing out the history of bloodshed between these groups.
The main thing the totalitarian Left is afraid of is our ability to “take the game away” from them. Matthew Lyons has said that repeatedly, for example. They know that tendencies like ours offer a very open ended paradigm that is able to move past the usual barriers of left and right, uniting all kinds of anarchists and other radicals, members of different racial and religious groups, adherents of different economic philosophies, etc. against the System. This is terrifying to both establishment leftists like the SPLC, who seek to advance themselves within the context of the system, and the hard leftists, who envision some kind of totalitarian revolution led and controlled by themselves, or for whom participation in radical politics is simply a manifestation of personal pathologies.
As has often been pointed out the terms “left” and “right” in politics are difficult.
For example Bastiat, who wanted a much smaller government, insisted on sitting on the left of the French National Assembly (after all he wanted fundamental change – which is how he defined the term “left”) next to socialists who disagreed with him and, indeed, wanted the state (under the name “the people”) to control much more, not much less, – indeed control everything.
Was President Warren Harding, who massively reduced taxes and government spending (the real reason this man is the most libelled President in American history – the establishment will forgive someone making promises to roll back the state to get elected, what they will never forgive is someone who actually keeps promises to roll back the state) a leftist?
But if Warren Harding, who greatly reduced the size and scope of government (both in the economic realm and in doing such things as releasing Woodrow Wilson’s political prisoners and so on) was a leftist, what was “Lenin” – who massively expanded government (both in the economic realm – and his reign of terror).
Warren Harding and “Lenin” governed in the same period – and followed lines of policy that were opposites, they can not both be “leftists” or “rightists”.
This is one of many examples of why, although I use the terms myself, the terms “left” and “right” in politics are difficult.
What to do?
Ask whether someone supports private ownership and freedom of use of the means of “production, distribution and exchange”.
Private ownership is not enough on its own – for example farm land under the German National Socialists was “privately owned”, but farmers could not sell “their land” and how they farmed was dictated by the state (or “the people”, das volk, as the National Socialists put it) under the general Nazi doctrine that “the common good comes before the individual good”.
People who such slogans as “the good of the community comes before private property rights” (as many people do) should be more careful of their origins.
On the economic policies of the German National Socialists and Italian Fascists, how they trampled on private property rights, Mises and Hayek wrote more than 70 years ago – yet the Hollywood (really NKVD) view of history, that the Fascists and Nazis were the tools of the “capitalists”, persist.
Lies in Britain were similar – in J.P. Priestly’s “The Foreman Went To France”, supposedly set in 1940, a noble British worker goes to France to get things out before the evil capitalist factory owners can hand it over to their “Nazi” (the term “National Socialist”) friends.
In reality in 1940 – National Socialist Germany was ally of the Soviet Union, and the real friends of the “Nazis” in the France of 1940 were the Communists, busy organising strikes and sabotage. But such things did not appear in films in Britain (any more than in the United States).
On “race”.
The work the Frankfurt School of Marxism (“Political Correctness”, “Critical Theory” – or whatever name it goes by this week….) have obscured the reality of the opinions of Karl Marx.
All the efforts by both Red Flag Marxists and Black Flag “anarchists” (there are other other forms of anarchist) to turn blacks (and women, and homosexuals and…..) against the “capitalists” should not obscure the fact that Karl Marx himself was a “nasty bit of work” as the saying goes – filled with prejudices against black people (whom he regarded as subhuman) as well as others.
As Queen Victoria was fond of saying – prejudice against skin colour (“colour prejudice”) is one of the more absurd prejudices.
I think the terms left and right are largely useless, though I admit to using them myself, guilty as charged. There may be some merit in using them narrowly, in that the “left” are generally egalitarian while the “right” see natural hierarchy in society so, I dunno, Marx versus Nietzsche, or something. But even that is dubious. All authoritarians end up as deeply hierarchical, even if the left tend to be ruling “on behalf of the people”.
For me, it’s just liberalism versus everything else. Because everything else is some form of authoritarianism. Communism, sharia and fascism are all authoritarian, collectivist, cultic forms of organisation. Their methods are much the same.
I do not like Nietzsche’s determinism (although it is an unusual form of it – the eternal repeating of all actions over the extreme long term). Or is false choice between Apollo (the God of false dreams to N.) and D. the God of squalid horror (with Nietzsche choosing the latter).
Although N. almost escapes his own false choice when he briefly talks of Athena – but then he forgets what he himself has written.
However, the rap against him is wrong.
The rap being that he was a proto Nazi or some such.
There are three defining features of a German National Socialist.
Economic (and other) collectivism – “the common good comes before individual rights”.
German (ethic) nationalism.
And anti-Semitism.
Fred N. DESPISED – collectivists, and German racial nationalists, and he despised anti-Semites .
The “proto Nazi” title far better fits his sister – who published at least one book under her brother’s name.
The sister ended up creating a racially pure commune in Paraguay (of all places).
The German commune is still there – they are physically and mentally inferior to their neighbours (possibly due to inbreeding).