Last
Saturday I went on a quest to find the source of rising leftist hatred. I
needed to get beyond the facades fronting websites and Facebook posts, as well
as the provocative clickbait that covers the edges of browser pages. I needed
to get inside the movement – the Petrograd Soviet, so to speak – to hear the
Bolsheviki recite Marx, shout slogans, and call for worldwide revolution.
While I consider politics the
genesis of coercion and compulsion, I am drawn, ala Murray Rothbard, to the
machinations that make up the political process. Since I like to hear from all
sources, I subscribe to emails from leftist organizations (and right ones as
well), including ProgressOhio, whose website states it is the state’s leading
progressive organization. A while back, they sent an email inviting subscribers
to a We are Progresstraining summit hosted by Generation
Progress, the youth outreach arm of the Center for American Progress (things
get murky when you try to put all the organizations together). The summit
included speakers from various other Ohio organizations (most small, flying well
under the radar, so to speak). I decided to attend to find the source of
hatred, expecting there would be calls for blood in the streets.
After I entered the meeting,
sat down, and observed, I found the assumed agitators reserved and reasonable,
with no revolution proposed. The hate was, for the most part, nonexistent. In
fact, I empathized with many of the speakers. Sure their means were wrong, but
their ends made some sense. Let me explain.
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The
summit was small, close to 50 attendees, with at least half being speakers or
other members of the various organizations represented. Most were young and
clean cut. A very ordinary crowd for an event held on a community college
campus. During one session, local Ohio organizations were allowed 15 minutes to
present their current agendas. The first organization to speak was Planned
Parenthood, who subdued their vile inclinations and simply called for a
national sexual education curriculum, never mentioning what the curriculum
would entail.
Next up was a speaker from
the Ohio Environmental Council, seeking support for legislation to mandate that
entities wanting to frack have sufficient funds for post-fracking cleanup. He
also wanted legislation to force farms to reduce runoff to protect lakes and
waterways. I did not find his ends to be offensive. Sure, while his means were
off, his ends were reasonable (i.e. less pollution). Any disparity between
means and ends could be easily rectified, assuming the leaders of the council
were willing to read Rothbard’s, “Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution.”1
Then
things got a little weird. The speaker for the People’s Justice Project noted
that, five times a day, she “centered” herself on her commitment to
“independent black power,” leading the audience in a chant of, “We have nothing
to lose but our chains.” However, her passion was reducing mass incarceration.
To that end, she wanted simple drug possession reduced to a misdemeanor from a
felony. I agreed, not with the chant that channeled Assata Shakur and Karl
Marx, but with any retreat on the so-called war on drugs.
Finally,
the last speaker pleaded for donations to his organization that assists
refugees relocating to Cleveland. He took a jab at the Trump administration,
but it was only half-hearted. I found him to be a committed advocate for
others. No revolutionary here, either.
This
is the left of my youth, sincerely committed, yet misguided. It is the left
that directed my steps when registering as a conscientious objector back in the
1980s. It is the left that desires change, but mistakenly sees more government
as the solution. A left that rejects private property, but only because it
doesn’t understand the moral and ethical principles underpinning private
ownership, though it generally respects self-ownership (not including Planned
Parenthood, of course). A left that challenges authority more than it desires
collectivism. It is, to continue the analogy from above, the Russian workers in
the soviets, soldiers on the lines or in the garrisons, and the peasants in the
fields, seeking an end to the war, yet being driven toward revolution.
So where is the hate from the
left?
As I
allude to above, the speakers came from various small entities, all tied
together by ProgressOhio and its nefarious, associated organizations. If you
follow those organizations backwards, you find they are funded by, or
associated with, other entities and individuals. As you go back farther and
deeper, you begin to encounter the same names over and over again. It is as if
a vanguard exists – an elite cadre akin to Lenin’s view of the role of the
Bolshevik Party, agitating all toward revolution – that guides disparate
groups, such as those at the summit, into collective action.
Unlike
the Russian soldiers, workers, and peasants, who were united to end the war,
there is no obvious unifying theme among the grassroots leftist organizations
at the summit. Why does an environmentalist care about the struggles of recent
refugees? So a theme must be created, which appears to be, from my
observations, a combination of anti-Trumpism and pro LGBTQ slogans. Whatever it
is, it seems to be working as planned.
The
speakers I heard are not fomenting revolution – individually. Yet, they are
unknowingly being directed from above to foment revolution collectively. A
powerful force is manufacturing hate and manipulating opinions. This force,
which cares nothing about the environment, mass incarceration, refugees, or
even the LGBTQ community, is twisting views of the sincere, but misguided, from
holding rational discussions at summits to manning barricades in the street. An
insidious force that generates hate through propaganda, converting the
interesting and pleasant souls at the summit into vile spectres, seeking the
blood of anyone who dares resist the planks of the manifesto.
I did
not find the true source of leftist hate – the scheming vanguard, though I
found a hint of its trail. But I did learn something important: we either
endeavor to spread the truth of liberty and property to all, or I end up
plaintively pleading, at the sharp end of a bayonet, to the folks manning the
pickets, “Don’t you remember me? I sat next to you at the summit.”
Note:
1.
This is similar to the plethora of organizations on the right, such as those
united in a genuine belief that marijuana is vile and remain illegal.
Jim
Fedako [send him
mail] is a business analyst and homeschooling father of seven who
lives in Lewis Center, OH.
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