True leftists will, of course deny any such connection. For decades now they have insisted that what the National Socialist Party did during WWII is not connected in any way whatsoever with the political left; but instead is a hallmark of the political right.
This "misdirection" is actually itself as much a fundamental characteristic of the left as is its committment to violence to achieve its ends; as is the complete inability to appreciate the disastrous consequences of their ideology in the real world. Somehow, the political left always finds a way to blame the right for their own failures, and even for their own bad behavior.
The "Who, me??" innocence that is always displayed in such cases becomes rather tiring...but then, that is the goal: to overwhelm you with their protestations of innocent virtue so that you will forget the truth.
Case in point from Wretchard, who is talking about recent anarchist terrorism in Europe:
Anarchy is back. The Guardian’s list of the 20 most significant developments of 2010 citing Wikileaks and the “student” riots in Britain among them, along with the failure of “old politics” — parliamentary leftism — is consistent with the atmosphere of crisis. But since nothing is ever the fault of the Left, that of course, means that a crisis is developing on the right and the Guardian article obligingly concludes that America’s politics is on the verge of collapse because “reason is close to impossible with the Tea Party … adherence to common values is disintegrating. The American centre is crumbling, and with it economic, social and political power.” But this is misdirection.
It is the welfare state, that is in crisis and the Left is divided on the question of how to fix it. Anarchists, who are the cannon fodder of the extreme left, are sending the message that the Old Leftist politics has failed. The British Pakistani Leftist Tariq Ali recently wrote a book entitled The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad in which he claims that people like Obama are “incapable of dealing with the right”. Obama, like Nick Clegg in Britain, is regarded as the symbol of the leftist politics that has sold out. They aren’t radical enough.AMY GOODMAN: Robert Gibbs, the White House press spokesperson, going after the so-called “professional left”? Your thoughts?
TARIQ ALI: Well, I mean, it’s interesting that they are incapable of dealing with the right. With the right, it’s conciliation. That’s what they feel they have to appeal to. With critics from the left, they tend to be very harsh, as if they are saying to us, “You don’t know how lucky you are.” But why are we lucky? I mean, you know, we judge people not by how they look or what they say, but by what they do. And what Obama has been doing is, you know, to put it mildly, extremely disappointing at home, and abroad it’s murderous. On Palestine, on Iran, no changes at all. So, one has to spell this out, because if they don’t realize that they’re doing this, they’re going to get more shocks. And Rahm Emanuel refers to people on the liberal left who are critical of Obama, and he uses a bad swear word and then says, “effing retards”—well, we’ll see who the retards are after the midterms, Amy. That’s all I can say.
That is at any rate, all he can think. Tariq Ali, who confused the liberal critics Rahm was calling “retards” with the Tea Party, demonstrates the cardinal principal that even when criticizing the Left, always blame it on the Right. No matter; it sounded good. Maybe the idea he was looking for is that the “netroots” are disappointed; having hoped to inherit the earth they are finding, to their chagrin, that they have not. But since such catastrophes cannot be the consequences of their own ideology, the problems must be caused by a failure to apply revolutionary principles ruthlessly and thoroughly. The anarchist activity on the extreme Left suggests some within are ready to move onto the next phase: internal rectification.
It is always interesting to me as a psychiatrist how the left side of the political spectrum continually employs the psychological defense mechanism of projection. Projection is an elegantly simple defense mechanism. You simply take your own unacceptable thoughts, feelings, behaviors and impulses and put them into some other individual or group. That way, you don't have to take responsibility for those thoughts, feelings or behaviors. Another payoff for utilization of this particular defense is that by eliminating these unacceptable items from your own psyche, you magically begin to feel morally superior to the object(s) of your projection. You become their victim, even as you victimize them! Amazing!
This defense mechanism is not limited to the left side of the political spectrum, of course. Any individual or group can use it, particularly when their worldview is falling apart.
At the extreme of this psychological strategy, are outright paranoia and delusion; two stalwart psychological mechanisms which can always be tapped when the stress of daily projection becomes too much. As an example of this in the extreme, consider almost the entire world population of Muslims, who have a deep psychological need to blame Israel and the Jews for their religion's inadequacies and refusal to acknowledge human nature. This psychological need is a reflection of the deeply flawed philosophical underpinnings of Islamism; which just so happen to be shared by the political left (but that is a topic for another day).
Complex delusional systems and conspiracies will serve to help keep a distance from reality--and that is necessary to maintain a crumbling worldview. And, as Wretchard notes, The worldview that is falling apart today happens to be the one of the ttotalitarian left--and they are hard-pressed to keep it together.
It is not a coincidence that the "cannon fodder" of the extreme left (as Wretchard refers to anarchists) are making their presence known, even as we witness an increase in the terrorism of radical Islam. Bernard Lewis has made the case that Islam, which was very comfortable with National Socialism, effortlessly shifted to Soviet-style communism after the war. What we are witnessing today is the historical confluence of all forms of leftism; be it the soft socialism of Europe; hard-core communism from North Korea and Venezuela, and varying levels of fascism in the Islamic world. All represent nothing more than the utopian fantasies of the totalitarian mindset.
It is this same mindset, rooted in collectivist hubris and moral relativism, that forms the basis for almost all leftist thought today. And, as Lewis so astutely suggests, it is also the basis for the rise of Islamofascism over the last half century.
The alliance between historical remants of those failed 20th century ideologies--responsible between them for more human misery and death than ever before known in history--and the Islamic fanatics (who represent the 21st century totalitarian mindset) is clearly visible in the precepts of postmodernism political correctness and multiculturalism, which dovetail perfectly into the rhetoric that rationalizes terroism and the behavior that appeases and enables it. Their mutual goal and utopian dream is to control the minds of men.
The tyranny that each group desires to impose is not viable in a world where human thought is free; and thus, the purpose of postmodern philosophy is nothing less than to undermine mankind's perception of reality itself.
We see the results of this new alliance in the use of postmodern rhetoric and the behavior of today's political left everywhere we turn. Is it very surprising that the anarchists of the left would resort to terrorism, when they admire it so much--not the least for the ability "to apply revolutionary principles ruthlessly and thoroughly"?
This sympathetic and synergistic interaction of the seemingly very different totalitarian mindsets--terrorism in the name of religion combined with the secular neo-marxist fascism of the left--have created a very toxic brew, made even more lethal by the rhetorical and political strategies of postmodernism. The result is a pure and perfect poison that threatens to destroy all human values; all human decency and all human civilization.
As I noted in an earlier post ("When it comes to understanding human nature, socialism gets failing Marx"):
Human nature is what it is. This is not tragic, it is simple truth.
When it comes to understanding human nature, the left and their do-gooder utopian fantasies get failing marksMarx. They have a persistent biological fantasy that human nature is 'perfectable'; and that by some magical means, the implementation of their 'perfect' ideology will force people to behave in some 'perfect' fashion. Their delusional biological and psychological hallucinations about human nature always end in misery, suffering and death for large numbers of imperfect homo sapiens wherever it is implemented. No matter how many times this happens, the die-hard Marxists, communists, socialists and all their variants and heirs keep trying force humans into some "ideal" state.
And if you think I am being overly dramatic about the degree of human misery and the utter disregard for human life inherent in leftist ideology (which only wants to help you 'for your own good' and to transform you into the perfect human ideal they worship, i.e., the "new man") then watch this riveting video: (h/t to a reader who gave me the link to the Frontpagemag.com post). It will haunt you--and you will never again be able to listen to the "Obamas" (i.e., the pretty faces with the slick rhetoric) of the left in the same way:
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