The climax of the New Left in American politics continues, built as much on faith as is the rise of the religious right among conservatives, bolstering the idea that a new dark age looms over Western civilization. For those inclined to think that’s hyperbole, if the success of Duck Dynasty and its supporters’ intimidation campaign to pressure a television network to rescind a suspension does not demonstrate wider cultural acceptance of archaic ideas, there’s today’s stark battle of words and ideas between gay celebrities, too. More on this later.
For now, consider the possible election of a New Left blank slate, merely the latest such candidate, as mayor of Chicago. His name is Jesus Garcia, though apparently he goes by the name Chuy (pronounced chewy), and he is the subject of a blistering report in the New York Times. The article by Julie Bosmanmarch begins:
When asked for his position on the pressing issues facing Chicago, Jesus G. Garcia, the man trying to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel, often has an answer — and sometimes more than one. When Mr. Garcia was recently asked what he would do about the red-light cameras that endlessly irk Chicagoans, he said that he would keep some of them. But almost two weeks ago, he had said he would get rid of them all. On the nearly 50 public schools that Mr. Emanuel closed during his first term, Mr. Garcia initially said that he would reopen some of them. Later, he said that he has “not committed” to such a move. As recently as January, Mr. Garcia said he opposed using public parkland for an Obama presidential library. Then this month, he reversed course, saying that he would support using parkland for a library.
So, in the wake of other New Left blank slate candidates in recent years, such as Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio—to the extent they were blank slates to obscure, distract or divert from their New Left political philosophy—how do Chicagoans respond to this elusive candidate who “presents himself as a warm, inclusive alternative” to Chicago’s incumbent mayor, himself a New Leftist, Rahm Emanuel, nicknamed “Rahmbo” for being an abrasive power-luster?
Judging by Garcia’s unexpected electoral success, pushing Emanuel into a runoff as a New Left Democrat who’s too pro-capitalist (!) for Chicago, and the Times piece, Chicagoans may be ready to swap a government-controlled economy for a government-controlled life. This is what they’re likely to get under Jesus Garcia, 58, a county commissioner, former alderman and Chicago community organizer like Obama. Garcia, who came to America as a child, admires Cesar Chavez and seeks to impose “social justice” with more government control imposed by more police officers, giving government-run schools “back to the people” which usually means less school choice, more school dictates and higher taxes. As the Times described the views of one voter, Rosa Alfaro: “[S]he is not sure how Mr. Garcia would fix the pension crisis, or pay for the new police officers he has promised to hire, or improve the struggling public schools. But she is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
In the words of one of his biggest backers, people have faith in Jesus Garcia: “They’ll trust him, they’ll believe in him.”
With faith—in the state (“public” schools, TSA, NSA, DWP, ObamaCare, etc.), in God, in the collective—rising above reason, and Mayor DeBlasio and President Obama among others as examples of radical New Left politicians taking enormous power over people’s lives in real, demonstrable terms, Jesus Garcia may become mayor of Chicago. Will Chicago’s people have faith in the blank slate Jesus Garcia? No one in Chicagoland should be surprised if and when people will.
Rational, secular and freedom-loving Americans should look to pop superstar Elton John for an example of what to do when others go by faith and announce an intention to impose their dogma on everyone. Gay fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, a former couple who created Dolce & Gabbana, told an Italian magazine that they oppose gay adoptions. In true Duck Dynasty/Islamic state/Iranian ayatollah fashion, the gay designers proclaimed:
The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”
Speaking as a religious fundamentalist, Dolce said that procreation “must be an act of love”, adding: “You are born to a mother and a father – or at least that’s how it should be…I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Uteri [for] rent, semen chosen from a catalog. The family is not a fad. In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging.”
When Elton John, who with his married partner has “synthetic” kids, promptly denounced them and called for a boycott of Dolce & Gabbana, pointing out that in vitro fertilization, which the Pope also condemns, adds value to the lives of heterosexuals and homosexuals alike, the designers affirmed their position and denounced Elton John as being close-minded, a favorite ploy of religionists, projecting their own bigotry to deflect from their irrationality.
This is the new faith, the new dogma, the new religion, same as the old. Watch for conservatives to rally around Dolce & Gabbana. Watch for leftists to rally against the designers, if not exactly around Elton John, a great artist with an independent, rational mind. The backlash against the New Left‘s incessant egalitarianism, pushing the transgendered as the same as gays, for instance, and other irrational ideas such as state-sponsored abortion and health care, is a stronger, more virulent strain of religious faith in fundamentalism. Besides the kneeling quarterback, Duck Dynasty patriarch, preacher, priest, pope, rabbi, mullah or ayatollah, add the gay fashion designer to those doubling down for a newer, darker age of faith, not reason.
It is fast approaching, it is happening and it is real. Watch it. Look to the rare, exceptional individual, such as Elton John, to act like a man, which is to say to act in his self-interest, defend his values—in this case, his family—and speak out against injustice with neither equivocation nor hesitation. He is the hero. He is the one who acts, who matters. He is the civilized man. He is the enlightened man: a man of both reason and action. This type of man is the avenger. Emulate this type of man if you want to live free.
Go ahead and feel free to boycott Dolce & Gabbana—also Duck Dynasty and absolutely reject and oppose dealings with religious dictatorships such as Iran—but above all stop putting others first and speak up for reason and justice. Start by naming the irrational when you see it, hear it and notice it going unnoticed, silently sanctioned, implying everyone’s consent. Don’t go quietly into the darkest times, places and chambers. Think, study, speak up, self-activate and don’t let up. Do it fast—or be damned to live under someone’s “supernatural sense of belonging”, whatever New Left or conservative religion or gang claims you as one of its own.
Merchandise links
Buy The Diving Board by Elton John
Buy The Union by Elton John & Leon Russell
Reference links
My Thoughts on Activism by Scott Holleran