Cultural Marxism and the Politically Correct

I had posted about this excellent speech: The Origins of Political Correctness which links Marxism to today's epidemic of Politically Correct behaviour and professional victimhood. Also this one: Why Isn't Socialism Dead? on why Socialism still attracts followers after such a long failed history. Now, Fjordman guesting at The Gates of Vienna takes us all to school with this long but wonderfully written essay/rant.

Political Correctness � The Revenge of Marxism
I have heard people who have grown up in former Communist countries say that we in the West are at least as brainwashed by Multiculturalism and Political Correctness as they ever were with Communism, perhaps more so. Even in the heyday of the East Bloc, there were active dissident groups in these countries. The scary thing is, I sometimes believe they are right.

But how is that possible? Don�t we have free speech here? And we have no Gulag?

The simple fact is that we never won the Cold War as decisively as we should have. Yes, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union collapsed. This removed the military threat to the West, and the most hardcore, economic Marxism suffered a blow as a credible alternative. However, one of the really big mistakes we made after the Cold War ended was to declare that Socialism was now dead, and thus no longer anything to worry about. Here we are, nearly a generation later, discovering that Marxist rhetoric and thinking have penetrated every single stratum of our society, from the Universities to the media. Islamic terrorism is explained as caused by �poverty, oppression and marginalization,� a classic, Marxist interpretation.

What happened is that while the �hard� Marxism of the Soviet Union may have collapsed, at least for now, the �soft� Marxism of the Western Left has actually grown stronger, in part because we deemed it to be less threatening. The �hard� Marxists had intercontinental nuclear missiles and openly said that they would �bury� us. The soft Marxists talk about tolerance and may seem less threatening, but their goal of overthrowing the evil, capitalist West remains the same. In fact, they are more dangerous precisely because they hide their true goals under different labels. Perhaps we should call it �stealth Socialism� instead of soft Socialism.

It is impossi9ble to excerpt a small amount and deliver the strength of this essay. Plan to spend about 15 minutes reading it. I'll leave you with one little snippet:

Cultural Marxism has roots as far back as the 1920s, when some Socialist thinkers advocated attacking the cultural base of Western civilization to pave the way for the Socialist transition. Cultural Marxism is thus not something �new.� It has coexisted with economic Marxism for generations, but it received a great boost in the West from the 1960s and 70s onwards. As the Soviet Union fell apart and China embraced capitalism, the economic Marxists joined in on the �cultural� train, too, as it was now the only game in town. They don�t have a viable alternative to present, but they don�t care. They truly believe that we, the West, are so evil and exploitative that literally anything would be better, even the Islamic Caliphate.

The rest is just as good and spot on...