Suicide of the Liberals

When I saw the title, "Suicide of the Liberals" in the October, 2020, First Things, I thought it would be "our" liberals who wave their little flags at "peaceful" protests led by BLM, and donate to racial justice causes, and meet with other faculty at the university to promote reeducation workshops on American history. But, no. It was about what happened in Russia in the first 20 years of the 20th century--i.e. the Russian Revolution. As the author points out:

"Revolutions never succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society. Yet revolutionaries seldom conceal that their success entails the seizure of all wealth, the suppression of dissenting opinion, and the murder of class enemies.

There were many groups colluding and cooperating in bringing down the Russian government--the Maximalists, the Socialist Revolutionaries, Kadets, Mensheviks, populists, anarchists, and the Bolsheviks, who finally gained control. The author reports that the liberals in Russian society (referred to as the intelligents) well-educated, not particularly wealthy or of high social class, with a regulated life and obligatory beliefs for a "moral" person, with a devotion not unlike a strict religion.

The Russian liberals of the early 20th century had great distain for anything conservative and could excuse all manner of violence and intolerance as noble and understandable. Like robbery, extortion, murder and demands to abolish the police. Better to side with people a mile to one's left than be associated with anyone an inch to one's right.

There wasn't a word in this article by Gary Saul Morson about 2020 and what is happening in our country, but it certainly sounded familiar. Like Twitter and Facebook yesterday shutting down the Biden China story and the President's press secretary. Or critical race theory appearing in government departments and medical schools attached to major universities. People being threatened or having careers destroyed over a different opinion in politics. Or a candidate for vice president twisting history to fit her wish for a liberal supreme court justice. The willingness to move a mile left and not an inch to the right. Yes, very familiar indeed.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals?

How did I get on these lists?

 

I get about four offers a day to review a book the marketer will send me. For all I know these marketers are all the same person, just using different names--Diane, Kathy, Louise, etc. Some titles are no brainers--fantasy, or murder mysteries, or an extremely obscure soldier of the Civil War. Easy to say No. I don't take those, and once made the mistake of accepting a bio of a guy who had been on the bachelor TV program.  I've been turning everything down (I've been sick), plus I have about twelve inches of books waiting for me to open them. But today's offer looked good. It was about Justice Scalia. How timely. But as I read through the summary, I see the author was going to club the reader (and Scalia) with liberal blather, fake news, and real bias. Not surprising when I took a second look at the publisher. So I responded to the poor woman who probably makes about $5/hr doing this from her home office. 

"Thanks for the offer—this looked good until I saw that [author] thinks Scalia’s philosophy was “flawed.” Nope and No. Norma"

Currently on my table, some opened, read part through, just waiting for me to stop reading my gift books from Mother's Day and Christmas.

"Navigating the road of infertility," by Chrissie Lee Kahan and Aaron Michael Kahan. King Kahan Publishing, c2016  This is really pretty good for a privately published book, and Mrs. Kahan is a school principal who is a good writer. Although it's about their struggles with infertility, it's mainly about their challenges with the foster care system.  They were willing to adopt an older child, even with learning problems, and ran into huge road blocks. The insensitivity of the "system" especially for the needs of the child surprised me, and yet didn't.  I used to chat with an adoption lawyer at Panera's and heard some real horror stories.

"Caught in the Revolution; Petrograd, Russia, 1917--a world on the edge," by Helenn Rappoport, St. Martin's Press, NY: 2016.  I was a Russian major in college so I also had a lot of Russian and Soviet history. Many of my professors had survived WWII and were children during WWI.  In 2006 we visited St. Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad).  This is so meticulously researched it's enough to make a librarian cry.  Due for book sales this month, February 2017.

"Continental ambitions; Roman Catholics in North America," by Kevin Starr. Ignatius Press, 2016.  I was ambitious to even accept this HUGE compilation (639 p.) about an era of history and religion of which I know nothing.  Not only am I a Lutheran (church history started 500 years ago for Lutherans), but it seems to begin in the middle of a thought, "Resistance grows against the genocide and enslavement of indigenous people." That's in 1511--before Martin Luther's 95 theses.  I'm in deep water here. So there is a lot of Spanish history and I think we studies some of this in 6th grade and in my college Spanish classes.  I've gone on the internet to review some of Starr's other titles, and he's impressive--State Librarian for California and professor of history at the University of Southern California.  This is a quality book--even has color plates.