Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion

We civilized people all try more or less to live normal lives, doing what we can for ourselves, our families and friends, and our nation. Some of us do wrong, such as stealing or otherwise hurting people with the goal of getting more for ourselves. This book, Radicals, by David Horowitz, shows us that some of us are radically different. It is imperative that we understand these people if we are to live together. It is very difficult to understand these radicals, but we must. For this reason, I give the book five stars.One aspect is on page 59 "the suppression of inconvenient facts and the shunning of perspectives..." This means it may not be possible to discuss matters with radicals by bringing up facts. An example of this is (page 113) "During the Cold War, American progressives denied Communist crimes and alternately defended them." On page 171, "Progressive principles are based upon ideas about a world that does not exist."The key idea is on page 182, "the radical's real world efforts are directed to subverting and destroying the society he lives in. He is a nihilist... Everything that exists deserves to perish."Horowitz brings several examples from world leaders who are radicals whose goal is destruction. This idea is extremely difficult for most people to accept. We know there are evil people, such as Madoff, who take other people's money for their own benefit. We know there are some people who kill just for the sake of killing, such as serial killers. However, we cannot accept the idea that people who talk and write as intelligent, civilized people are actually interested only in causing as much destruction as possible. We must accept this reality and know how to defend our society from the destructive effects of these radical people. The first step is identifying such people. The next step is to fight them in self-defense, realizing that we cannot reason or compromise with them.The classical example of an evil, destructive radical is Adolf Hitler. Although he spoke of the wonderful 1000 year long future of Germany, the truth is that he only wanted destruction. For example, look at the Battle of the Bulge. Prior to this battle, Germany essentially lost the war. All of Hitler's generals opposed fighting the Battle of the Bulge. Nevertheless, Hitler insisted in fighting, and, of course, suffered terrible losses.As Hitler rose in power, he started making things very hard for the Jews, who quietly accepted things. Had they fought and not compromised, they may have lived. They did not realize the true evil radical nature of Hitler. Had Horowitz's book been in print then, Jews would have realized the radical nature of Hitler and fought his policies early enough while they could still fight. Well, the book is in print now, and I strongly encourage people to read this book carefully.The key point is that some people are dangerous radicals. The question is how can we know that a group is radical and then take action to protect ourselves. Since the danger from such radicals is so extreme, we need to be proactive even if we suspect radicalism, for waiting for clarity may be too late to save our lives and country.Horowitz's book makes us think carefully about our current leaders, and to entertain questions that they may also be radicals, interested only in destruction and not interested in improving the welfare of us citizens. We must not allow ourselves to dismiss questions that our leaders, media people, and others may not have our best interests at heart, in spite of what they say.We need to fully clarify the principles underlying our leaders' policies and actions. We need to examine in detail the consequences of these principles. Finally, we need look at other times and places, looking at historical examples of government actions based upon these principles, to test if following these principles lead to the expected results of greater prosperity and happiness. Again, we need to understand these three steps: statement of the principles, logical consequences, and empirical and historical verification. If leaders' statements and policies fail these three steps, then we may want to consider that the leaders are radicals, and then take steps to defend ourselves and survive.

David Horowitz's eye opening look at several case studies of representatives of the radical left is both informative and sincere in its effort to understand the motivation and world view of these would be revolutionary crusaders. A common trait among them is a lack of introspection or concept of what their radical dream world would actually look like. Their goal is basically to tear everything down and see what comes up.As a college student who had a brief attraction to the left and its iconic hero at that time Che Guevara I was a regular reader of Horowitz's political magazine Ramparts. Ironically it was a cover of one of Rampart's issues that first gave me a twinge and a new awareness that something was not right with this movement. It was a picture of a little boy holding a North Vietnamese flag. I felt it inherently wrong to use a child for a political prop as if he had any idea what the flag meant. Some on the left would say that it's the same thing when you hand an American child an American flag, however, the obvious difference is that if a child is an American there is nothing wrong with him holding the symbol of his country. He can decide himself when he is older what the flag should symbolize and work to make that goal a realization.Horowitz's conversion from radical leftist to conservative started with a gut wrenching epiphany after the murder of his friend who he reccomended to a job as an accountant for the Black Panthers. My slow journey from radical wannabe to libertarian/conservative was less dramatic. Observation of what the left said they stood for and believed and what they actually did never matched up. Their heroes like Mao ( who killed more people then either Hitler or Stalin )and Che Guevara ( a murderer who as the director for Cuban agrarian reform felt workers should work part time for free for the interests of the state. Hardly a pro union notion)were hardly worthy of the admiration heaped upon them.The best analysis is of the amoral and ruthless Saul Alinsky who was a firm believer of the ends justifying any means even though the end goal was never clarified except as a vague collectivist paradise. Alinsky is hailed by progressives and liberals to this day from Barack Obama, to Hilary Clinton to Chris Matthews of MSNBC who called him "one of my heroes". It makes you wonder if they have actually ever read his chilling and mendacious philsophy of social activismHorowitz, by focusing on specific individual stories, shines a light on what they actually believe as opposed to the images they wish to project.

I'd previously read Destructivr Generation by the same author which I'd read whilst lying on a beach in the Seychelles. Not even the scantily clad women passing by distracted me. In other words it was riveting. This book too falls into the same category. But before I talk about it further I'd like to say that what strikes me about Horrowitz's books is that you feel like you are receiving knowledge and understanding obtained from his life experiences and the desire to understand what makes some people choose evil over good.Radical's looks into the life history of four such people. People who, with the information readily available to them (if they had bothered to seek it out) about the terrible attrocities committed by adherants to the communist ideology, nevertheless still persued that ideology with vigour and conviction, despite such evidence.Some of these people like Cathy Boudin knowingly murdered without remorse, innocent people, in persuit of their objectives. The end justified the means in their view. The same mindset that led to the deaths of innocrnts in the French Revolution, The Russian revolution, in Cambodia under Pol Pott and in Germany undrr Hitler's racist form of socialism National Socialism.Amidst the welter of apologists for communist attrocities in the media, in our schools and Universities and among leftist politicians, David Horrowitz is one of the very few authors who shines a light on evil for our benefit.Finally, if you are young and are already attached to socialist or communist ideology, read this book and see how lives have been ruined by it. Doing so could, quite literally, save your life.

This cannot be too highly recommended. Horowitz made the journey, and these essays show a commonsense, humane detached look at the facts of the various radical movements which started in the sixties and whose results are still developing. Brilliant, illuminating and insightful. Read it.

very interesting

Excellent read

"The personal is political" - was (and IS) one of the cries of the New Left. People who took the Frankfurt School idea of Cultural collectivism (collectivism under the ironic label of "freedom") to its final conclusions. Everything, no matter how personal, being political - indeed the more personal something was, the more polticial it was to be.For someone who has always been "on the right" (in my case a culturally conservative libertarian) this is an alien world - but David Horowitz is from this world (born into it - and once one of its leading members) and knows it well.He shows that a leftist is not just a "thing" - something over there trying to kill me, unless I can kill "it" first. Leftists are human beings - yes human beings whose victory would bring (ironically in the name of "freedom" and "liberation") totalitarianism and the brutal murder of endless millions of people, but human beings just the same.David Horowitz also shows that the first victims of leftists are not their enemies "on the right" - but THEMSELVES, their own spirit. The doctrine that the personal is political is an intensely powerful political weapon - but it also has two edges, it destroys the very people who seek to use it.The spiritual (and I do not mean "spiritual" in a religious sense) and, in some cases, physical deaths of leading members of the New Left is a gut ripping story - terrible because they are human beings (as this book clearly shows).To someone used to seeing leftists from the outside (basically as sneering, lying, space monsters) this book came as a profound shock.Of course when I next encounter a leftist (and I, or someone I love, is subjected to their lies and condescending sneering) the temptation will be to go back to thinking about them as "it", but I hope I will be able to hold on to the truth that they are human beings - and, indeed, the first victims of the very ideology they seek to impose on everyone else.