Leftists Hitler and Jihadists
I have written before about the left-right spectrum of politics in the US, and the fact that Hitler, by this measure, was very much on the American left. He was defended by the American left, in fact, until falling out with the Soviet Union.
On the right are those favoring a limited government, contained and constrained by the US Constitution. On left are those who would avoid this, from the openly communist to the mere anti-capitalist to those pushing for an ever-increasing role of government to anarchists. The anarchists are an interesting case; by destroying the Constitutional republican government, they hasten the implementation of a totalitarian replacement. This was true in Russia a hundred years ago, and they advocate in the same direction in the US today. Anarchists are clearly leftists, and make common cause with the communists at frequent opportunity.
Now we have an oddity in the US: Tea Party types, who advocate a smaller role for government, are called “fascists” and “theocrats” and “Nazis” by the left. I know of no conservative US politician, activist, or professor calling for a theocracy in the US, while I could point to the opposite - avowed communist professors and activists - at great length. Because of the US general disdain for communism, US politicians rarely openly espouse that label, and even socialism is somewhat disfavored, as when the Democratic Socialist Party renamed themselves the New Party two decades ago.
But the “fascist” and “Nazi” business is a misconception, I think. This article in Forbes Magazine on-line looks at Hitler’s national socialism (it is what “Nazi” was short for) and compares it to the US political spectrum, including the current administration.
In US academia, “Marxists” and “jihadists” seems to be more of a flavoring than points on a spectrum. It appears, from too little evidence so far, that most Marxist professors are jihadist apologists. That most are also climate catastrophists is no surprise, of course, as the goals of that movement align very nicely with communist totalitarianism.
Jihadist Marxists?
The jihadist support by Marxists seems odd, at first glance, since the jihadists will destroy the communists once they get control, just as they did in Iran in 1979 to the communists who fought side-by-side with them to get rid of the Shaw. Once he was gone, the Ayatollah gathered up the communists (the Tudeh Party) with mass arrests in 1982 as they consolidated power, and mass executions in 1988.
US Marxist professors supporting the jihadist movement, simply because they also hate the US and capitalism, seems short-sighted. But alignments on the left between America’s enemies can be surprising, as when Usama bin Ladin overtly campaigned for John Kerry in 2004 and Kim Jong Il ran Kerry advertisements regularly on North Korean state radio.
This writer, two years ago, reported on the number of Marxist professors (in the context of Climategate) and naively suggested a sort of “affirmative action” for conservatives in academia, to broaden viewpoints. He did not seem to realize that the lack of conservative hires in academia is quite intentional, no matter how qualified one is, allowing a conservative political view to be known during the interview means that you’re done.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Originally published at DeHavelle.com. You can comment here or there.