Monday, October 27, 2008

The Ideology of Cancellation

"The ideology of cancelation is the conviction that the happiness of peoples and the progress of nations require the cancelation of everything born of the traditional order: fatherland, family, morals, upbringing, identity. These are the legacy of a dark and retrograde world. This liquidation of the past will not be carried out in the old way--with red banners flying and heads mounted on stakes. Such methods will no longer do, because they frighten the masses. What we are faced with is a movement soft and gentle in appearance, heavily cloaked in ritual invocations of dialogue and peace. This "sub-revolution" does not focus on the structure that holds up state power--the economy, the military--but pays attention instead to the true foundations of collective life: belief systems, customs, education. The nation is a decaying concept; the family is an institution from the past; religion is a superstition; morality is but a question of perspective; the law should adjust to circumstances. This is the mind-set that is being imposed on Spain from the corridors of power."
Chronicles magazine has an article in its current edition written by Spanish journalist Jose Javier Esparza, entitled SPAIN EMBRACES CHANGE .

Until the last sentence, you may have thought we were talking about the second term of President Barack Obama. But Spain has had a twenty year head start on socialism, and is in the forefront of defining its latest incarnation.

Esparza describes the Three Lefts as seen throughout the 20Th century up until now. The First Left was "revolutionary and red": Russia in 1917, Spain in 1934, 36; "The First Left ended up drowning in a bloodbath of the Gulag and the Cheka."

The Second Left, per Esparza, was reformist and white: "...the British Labor movement, Swedish and German social decomcracies...Its paradise was Sweden. The Second Left collapsed and died, a casualty of the mere inability to keep up the level of public spending required by the welfare state..."

The Third Left has risen out of the ashes of its grandparents and parents. "Its great challenge is to construct a new theoretical paradigm...[it took] its inspiration...from the Sexual Revolution, the Latin American insurgency,...libertarian pipe dreams..."

The author argues that this socialist ideology made its first appearance in the West during the '60's. Stop me if you've heard this before somewhere. The therapeutic relaxation of traditional values is well advanced in our own society and throughout the west.
"The condemnation of history brings with it an implicit messianic hope: If things have been this way until today, it is now up to the left to effect change, to return us to the righteous path. And the disintegration of Spain will not be called such, but rather an improvement in harmony; and a pact with terrorists will not be called a capitulation, but a message of peace."
Esparza concludes (bold print mine):
"This mind set has every potential to take root in other societies--wherever the people do not know who they are and where they are going. It is the instinct to surrender to the barbarian, a phenomenon observed in all historical instances of decay; today, it is spreading throughout Europe. This instinct first arises in the privileged classes and may be described as an inclination to back down in the face of an external threat. Here, the fear of losing what one possesses enters into the equation, as does a certain kind of guilty conscience, a disquieting feeling of having benefited from some injustice. Thus, frequently, we hear cries that "They're not so bad," or "Aren't we the ones who pose the real threat?" At this point, the only thing left to do is to throw open the gates."


We aren't here yet, are we? And Obama himself probably does not have aspirations to take us there, at least directly. But the point is: these things are being painstakingly planned. There is an agenda that is leading us to be lulled asleep, to "forget who we are and where we are going". Those who wish these things upon us are in positions of great power. Esparza makes the case that Spain's political leadership is full steam ahead to establish a new kind of Socialism, a third great experiment which is NOT at all akin to the great American experiment.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

When such world-wide movements happen, the common people feel powerless to effect change or to have hope.
If any "good" will come from a victory of the left, Christians will need to rely more on God, who rules over all things. This election, more than any other, brings us to understand that we are not to put our trust in princes or kings or presidents, but in God.
Also note, that the Gospel is most effective when the Church does not have wordly acclaim or "power." The Gospel works quietly to turn hearts to Christ (as happened in ancient Rome and is happening in China). The Gospel is the only real power Christians have in this world to change hearts. It needs to be proclaimed and God will do the rest.

Bruce Gee said...

Good post! It is so, um, paradoxical--to use once again a word we're overusing in our book club--that we as believers regularly pray (in our hearts and in our actual prayers) for wealth, peace, good times, security. Yet what is "best" for us as sinful believers is the very opposite. God always rescues us out of the midst of affliction. But how to deal with the good times?