The threat to human freedom is primarily coming from the Left, according to a New York University professor of global liberal studies.
In a Facebook post made Wednesday, Professor Michael Rectenwald described many leftists as “embryonic, wannabe totalitarians,” echoing the slogan of FrontPage Magazine: “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
Rectenwald described the Left as far more threatening to liberty than the “alt-right” or assorted racial nationalist movements recently hyped by assorted news media outlets and politicians.
Read Rectenwald’s statement below.
What follows in no way represents any condoning of, agreement with, or complicity in defending the alt-right or their fellow white nationalist travelers. I abjure, denounce, and disavow them entirely.
But I decry a greater, more salient and pervasive threat than that which they represent. The threat I see is greater because it has the institutional authority of academia, the mass media, social media and sectors of corporate America behind it, justifying it. Why or how corporate capitalists condone and support the use of Red Guard Cultural Revolution tactics like those employed under Mao is a mystery, but it is not utterly inexplicable. These tactics work to control and trammel, to contain and exert power over and discipline the mass of subjects under their sway. It is one means of doing so and it also has the advantage of appearing “progressive.” So “progressive” that it would allow the carriers of this pernicious ideology to destroy thousands to make the millions obey.
The danger I see is this: the actually-existing Left consists of authoritarian, embryonic, wannabe totalitarians. They would sooner cut your tongue out than allow you to utter a syllable with which they disagree. They are monsters and quickly resembling the Red Guard students of the Maoist Cultural Revolution. And the powers that be are actually behind them, supporting them, and cheering them on.
We are in a cultural crisis, not merely a culture war. The fate of all liberty is at stake.
Left-wing and Democrat-aligned news media outlets like CNN, Buzzfeed, MSNBC, CNN, BuzzFeed, MSNBC, The New York Times, and The Washington Post regularly hype white racial nationalism as powerful social forces aligned with President Donald Trump and the broader conservative and right-wing movements.
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