The left in its fervour, its 'do good moral high ground' has often been romanticised.
But what are these conventional leftist conceptions about politics and how change happens? These conventions begin with a presumption about who controls 'things'. Who are the power elite in our society? The leftist suspicion that there is an interlocking directorate of wealth and bureaucracy; that there are faceless men who control us, the governing elite. This elite, is presumed by those of a leftist disposition, that 'they' will not right the social wrongs in our society.
And so you have the romantic leftist quest and a promise to the electorate that they will right these wrongs. This is quixotic tilting at windmills at best. For there is in the elite an enlightened element which those of a radical leftist bent wish to sweep away. And without the support of the elite’s more enlightened elements, the leftist radicals remain in the political wilderness,
Occasionally - the abolition of slavery and the victories of the civil rights movement—momentous changes supported by radicals have indeed come to pass. Yet the liberal components of the governing elite have supported major reforms strictly in order to advance purposes of their own. It is revealing when you shine the the torch on sainted leftist figures true goals, Abraham Lincoln and
Franklin D. Roosevelt it is revealing. For instance, Lincoln embraced emancipation only halfway through the Civil War, when it became clear that doing so could speed victory for the North and save the Union, Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed labour’s rights only when he needed to court labour’s votes.
Reforms initiated by radicals have practically always turned into what some might tern 'outright swindles' orchestrated by clever rulers to preserve and reinforce their power. The recent Brown government in the UK, in the view of many, might serve as a prime example. A soft attitude on immigration from their detractors ' viewpoint might be seen as gerrymandering the population to get vote's, pumping billions into the NHS and state sector employment mights also be seen as a device to enfranchise their power base. And when you look at the idealist, leftist czars, Tony Blair et al; their troughing at the the money bucket for personal gain which the vast majority do with alarming alacrity is a pretty unedifying sight.
Lefist or liberal alienated novelists, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, songwriters, left-wing historians and the professoriat of the educational establishment have influenced many and This Land is Your Land might be a great song by Woody Guthrie but is it Stalinist apologetics out of synch with the real world?
The left, positioned on its inevitably crumbling moral high ground has to realise that the tentacles of power are deep and entangled as is Capitalisms' supremo, its God, the 'Market'
Reference: American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation
But what are these conventional leftist conceptions about politics and how change happens? These conventions begin with a presumption about who controls 'things'. Who are the power elite in our society? The leftist suspicion that there is an interlocking directorate of wealth and bureaucracy; that there are faceless men who control us, the governing elite. This elite, is presumed by those of a leftist disposition, that 'they' will not right the social wrongs in our society.
And so you have the romantic leftist quest and a promise to the electorate that they will right these wrongs. This is quixotic tilting at windmills at best. For there is in the elite an enlightened element which those of a radical leftist bent wish to sweep away. And without the support of the elite’s more enlightened elements, the leftist radicals remain in the political wilderness,
Occasionally - the abolition of slavery and the victories of the civil rights movement—momentous changes supported by radicals have indeed come to pass. Yet the liberal components of the governing elite have supported major reforms strictly in order to advance purposes of their own. It is revealing when you shine the the torch on sainted leftist figures true goals, Abraham Lincoln and
Franklin D. Roosevelt it is revealing. For instance, Lincoln embraced emancipation only halfway through the Civil War, when it became clear that doing so could speed victory for the North and save the Union, Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed labour’s rights only when he needed to court labour’s votes.
Reforms initiated by radicals have practically always turned into what some might tern 'outright swindles' orchestrated by clever rulers to preserve and reinforce their power. The recent Brown government in the UK, in the view of many, might serve as a prime example. A soft attitude on immigration from their detractors ' viewpoint might be seen as gerrymandering the population to get vote's, pumping billions into the NHS and state sector employment mights also be seen as a device to enfranchise their power base. And when you look at the idealist, leftist czars, Tony Blair et al; their troughing at the the money bucket for personal gain which the vast majority do with alarming alacrity is a pretty unedifying sight.
Lefist or liberal alienated novelists, poets, playwrights, filmmakers, songwriters, left-wing historians and the professoriat of the educational establishment have influenced many and This Land is Your Land might be a great song by Woody Guthrie but is it Stalinist apologetics out of synch with the real world?
The left, positioned on its inevitably crumbling moral high ground has to realise that the tentacles of power are deep and entangled as is Capitalisms' supremo, its God, the 'Market'
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