{"id":989288,"date":"2021-11-09T11:14:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T16:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=989288"},"modified":"2021-11-09T11:14:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T16:14:51","slug":"this-1972-video-explains-how-the-left-won-the-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/this-1972-video-explains-how-the-left-won-the-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"This 1972 Video Explains How The Left Won The Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthis-1972-video-explains-how-the-left-won-the-culture%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=989288&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In the movie \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Mail,\u201d Tom Hanks says, \u201c\u2019The Godfather\u2019 is the sum of all wisdom.\u201d He\u2019s wrong: <a href=\"https:\/\/therightswriter.com\/2004\/07\/farewell-chairman-bill\/\">William F. Buckley Jr.<\/a> is. Words and phrases from his books, columns, and television shows continue to shed light years after they have expired, like a north star guiding conservatives home. Buried in an interview with an obscure <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thirdmindbooks.com\/pages\/books\/3061\/dotson-rader\/blood-dues\">Sixties radical<\/a> during a forgotten, 49-year-old episode of Buckley\u2019s PBS TV series, \u201cFiring Line,\u201d is the precise blueprint the Left used to transform the culture, radicalize three generations of Americans, and move the U.S. closer to the precipice of adopting socialism. The left-wing activist also revealed &nbsp;jarring but fundamental realities about the Left: \u201cIt\u2019s anti-rational\u201d and has a \u201cgreater tolerance of liquidating a class\u201d of people by mass execution.<\/p>\n<p>The episode \u2014 which was titled \u201cHate America\u201d and which featured Buckley and fellow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hoover.org\/profiles\/arnold-beichman\">conservative intellectual Arnold Beichman<\/a> speaking with a socialist agitator named Dotson Rader (who went on to be an <a href=\"https:\/\/parade.com\/member\/dotsonrader\/\">entertainment reporter<\/a> for Parade magazine) \u2014 was recorded on October 3, 1972. Weeks later, the nation\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=TpCWHQ30Do8\">silent majority<\/a>\u201d would power President Richard Nixon to a historic, <a href=\"https:\/\/thelistwire.usatoday.com\/lists\/the-10-biggest-landslides-in-presidential-election-history\/\">49-state landside<\/a> over the avatar of the New Left, George McGovern. The Left appeared to have suffered a definitive rebuke.<\/p>\n<p>When a triumphant Buckley pressed Rader to name one thing the revolutionary movement had accomplished, he appeared stunned by his guest\u2019s response. Rader essentially gave a precursor to Andrew Breitbart\u2019s dictum that \u201cpolitics is downstream of culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What the Left got right<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of our belief is that the first thing that you change, [the] first thing that occurs before political change is cultural change. You have to change the conscience of people,\u201d said Rader. On that front, \u201cwe\u2019ve made a great deal of achievement. The country has moved left, culturally left.\u201d Countercultural revolutionaries had shifted \u201cthe country as a whole in terms of questions on abortion, on pornography, on greater freedom for the arts,\u201d and other social issues.<\/p>\n<p>To succeed in replacing America\u2019s constitutional system of limited government with a socialist government, \u201cI personally believe you\u2019ve got to change people\u2019s sexual attitudes, people\u2019s attitude towards the church, people\u2019s attitude towards education, towards business,\u201d Rader continued.<\/p>\n<p>He then revealed how the Left would change those values: by promoting practices that vitiated America\u2019s Judeo-Christian moral heritage, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/going-green-the-physical-mental-and-emotional-problems-associated-with-marijuana\">drug use<\/a>, abortion, and \u201csexual promiscuity.\u201d Any one of these, he said, could serve as a \u201cdevice\u201d for the Left to chip away at America\u2019s foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the movie \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Mail,\u201d Tom Hanks says, \u201c\u2019The Godfather\u2019 is the sum of all wisdom.\u201d He\u2019s wrong: William F. Buckley Jr. is. Words and phrases from his books, columns, and television shows continue to shed light years after they have expired, like a north star guiding conservatives home. Buried in an interview with an obscure Sixties radical during a forgotten, 49-year-old episode of Buckley\u2019s PBS TV series, \u201cFiring Line,\u201d is the precise blueprint the Left used to transform the culture, radicalize three generations of Americans, and move the U.S. closer to the precipice of adopting socialism. The left-wing activist also revealed \u00a0jarring but fundamental realities about the Left: \u201cIt\u2019s anti-rational\u201d and has a \u201cgreater tolerance of liquidating a class\u201d of people by mass execution.The episode \u2014 which was titled \u201cHate America\u201d and which featured Buckley and fellow conservative intellectual Arnold Beichman speaking with a socialist agitator named Dotson Rader (who went on to be an entertainment reporter for Parade magazine) \u2014 was recorded on October 3, 1972. Weeks later, the nation\u2019s \u201csilent majority\u201d would power President Richard Nixon to a historic, 49-state landside over the avatar of the New Left, George McGovern. The Left appeared to have suffered a definitive rebuke.When a triumphant Buckley pressed Rader to name one thing the revolutionary movement had accomplished, he appeared stunned by his guest\u2019s response. Rader essentially gave a precursor to Andrew Breitbart\u2019s dictum that \u201cpolitics is downstream of culture.\u201dWhat the Left got right\u201cPart of our belief is that the first thing that you change, [the] first thing that occurs before political change is cultural change. You have to change the conscience of people,\u201d said Rader. On that front, \u201cwe\u2019ve made a great deal of achievement. The country has moved left, culturally left.\u201d Countercultural revolutionaries had shifted \u201cthe country as a whole in terms of questions on abortion, on pornography, on greater freedom for the arts,\u201d and other social issues.To succeed in replacing America\u2019s constitutional system of limited government with a socialist government, \u201cI personally believe you\u2019ve got to change people\u2019s sexual attitudes, people\u2019s attitude towards the church, people\u2019s attitude towards education, towards business,\u201d Rader continued.He then revealed how the Left would change those values: by promoting practices that vitiated America\u2019s Judeo-Christian moral heritage, like drug use, abortion, and \u201csexual promiscuity.\u201d Any one of these, he said, could serve as a \u201cdevice\u201d for the Left to chip away at America\u2019s foundation. \u201cPart of the thrust of the Left has been dropping out of the system,\u201d Rader said:That\u2019s why drugs, for example, are a device, and sexual promiscuity and sexual deviancy is a device. Anything, any device by which a person becomes an outlaw within his own country makes him, by definition, a rebel [and] therefore, natural allies to a revolutionary movement, whether they\u2019re conscious of it or not, are women who undergo illegal abortions, are people on drugs, people who take drugs, homosexuals \u2014 anyone who is by definition an outlaw.In other words, Rader believed the Left would triumph first through culture, not politics. \u201cI think in the last decade an alternative value system has arisen, which is in conflict with the commanding values in this country, and it\u2019s that alternate system which produces subversives,\u201d he said.What the Left really wantsRader went on to reveal a few key truths about the Left, which was just beginning its march through the institutions and toward cultural hegemony:The Left is \u2018anti-rational\u2019: Rader rebuked his conservative counterparts for trying to sway him through rational arguments:You are continually trying to find rationality behind what people do politically, particularly what the Left does politically. The thrust of the Left is against reason. It\u2019s anti-rational. That\u2019s why it\u2019s anarchistic and nihilistic. It\u2019s anti-rational. The \u201cmotivation\u201d of \u201cmost people, including myself\u201d on the Left came about \u201cexperientially rather than intellectually,\u201d Rader admitted. Even when they make a rhetorical argument on behalf of their views, \u201cthe motivation behind these abstractions doesn\u2019t come intellectually; it comes emotionally; it comes out of the gut.\u201d His words reiterate those of Buckley\u2019s former National Review colleague (and former socialist) James Burnham, who wrote in his 1964 book Suicide of the West:Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow.The radical Left is open to liquidating a class\u2019 of people in the name of \u2018justice\u2019: Rader freely admitted that the Left had little interest in treating individuals fairly; it wanted to settle the issue of \u201cjustice\u201d between groups of people. \u201cOne of the differences between this generation and revolutions, say, of the nineteenth century, is we\u2019re not interested fundamentally in equality. We\u2019re fundamentally interested in justice, which means we have greater tolerance of liquidating a class,\u201d he said. Beichman immediately interjected, \u201cWe\u2019re talking about murder. This is the way people get categorized. A class \u2013 Jews, Catholics, and gypsies. You don\u2019t see people. You see Jews, Catholics, and gypsies. \u2026 When you talk about the word \u2018class,\u2019 don\u2019t you see people? Is it that fixed that you can say, \u2018You are to be shot, and you are to live?\u2019 And who the Hell are you to say so?\u201dRader clarified that mass violence is part and parcel of the revolutionary Left. \u201cThe whole ability to function as a revolutionary \u2026 depends upon the ability to depersonalize your enemy. If you personalize your enemy, you can\u2019t act.\u201dThe modern Woke Left, with its embrace of identity politics, Critical Race Theory, and intersectionality (and rejection of kyriarchy), asserts that (mostly) immutable factors make up most important aspects of an individual\u2019s personality: The Left elevates the importance of a person\u2019s race, sex, sexual proclivity, gender identity, and ethnic self-identification, and then deals with everyone according to his membership in these relatively exclusive and impermeable groups. The individual\u2019s personality, and personhood, dissolve into a tangled lot of conjoined group memberships \u2014 and the individual is dealt with accordingly.The Left is motivated by nihilistic virtue signaling: Rader said that he lacked the \u201cphysical courage\u201d to take up arms, and he knew that he would likely be liquidated in the inevitable waves of purges that take place after a left-wing revolution succeeds \u2014 but he supported the revolution, anyway. \u201cI am part of a class, and am part of a privileged class, that would be eliminated. I mean they might get you first, but they\u2019ll get me next,\u201d Rader told the affluent socialite Buckley. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t matter to me. I want revolution to come.\u201d Rader said he had \u201ca psychological need\u201d to support the movement, which he equated with \u201cjustice,\u201d even if it meant his own (presumably unjust) death.What the Right got wrongAlthough Buckley often showed virtually prophetic insight, he and Beichman mocked Rader for highlighting the importance of cultural and moral factors in sustaining the American republic. Buckley joked that Charles Manson embodied Rader\u2019s perfect revolutionary. Beichman retorted that it\u2019s \u201cnot true\u201d that a cultural revolution would change the nation\u2019s politics, because \u201cI don\u2019t think it necessarily follows that a Left culture necessarily produces a Left politics.\u201dFive decades later, the returns are in, and Rader was right.The number of Americans who say religion is \u201cvery important\u201d to them fell from 75% in 1952 to 48% in 2020. That\u2019s significant because religious observance does more than virtually anything to predict someone\u2019s political outlook. The Pew Research Forum\u2019s Religious Landscape\u00a0found\u00a0that 47% of those who deem religion \u201cvery important\u201d call themselves conservative, while 47% of those who find religion \u201cnot at all important\u201d identify as liberal\/ progressive.Social trends have followed \u2014 or, if Rader is right, led \u2014 this shift:According to the 1972 General Social Survey, 46% of Americans said premarital sex was always or almost always wrong. In 2018, 69% of Americans found sex between unmarried people \u201cmorally acceptable\u201d;Gallup noted, \u201cIn 1974, five years after Woodstock, a majority of U.S. women (60%) said in a poll conducted by the Roper Organization that given a choice, they would rather \u2018stay at home and take care of the house and family\u2019 than \u2018have a job outside the home.\u2019\u201d That fell to 44% by 2016;In 1969, 40% of Americans believed abortion should be legal in the first trimester; by 2018, it had climbed to 60%, albeit with significant caveats and exceptions;In just five years (2013-2018), the number of Americans who said it was morally acceptable for teenagers to have sex rose by 10 points (from 32 to 42%);In 1972, 39% said that someone who is \u201cagainst all churches and religion\u201d should not be allowed to teach in a university, 45% believed a professing Communist should not be able to speak publicly, and 61% believed that colleges and universities should fire any openly Communist professor. Today, an increasing number of Americans oppose \u201cchurches and religion,\u201d Communists lead protests against conservative speakers, and self-identified Marxist social scientists outnumber conservatives by more than three to one\u00a0in faculty lounges.The political results are easy to see: In 2020, 49% of members of Gen Z had a positive view of socialism, according to the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation \u2014 making them roughly twice as likely to support collectivism as members of the Silent Generation.Ironically, America\u2019s Founding Fathers made the philosophical mirror-image of Rader\u2019s argument nearly 200 years earlier:George Washington said in his Farewell Address, \u201cOf all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indisputable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness\u201d;John Adams wrote, \u201cOur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other\u201d;James Madison (or Alexander Hamilton) wrote in Federalist No. 55 that, without \u201csufficient virtue among men for self-government \u2026 nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another\u201d; andCharles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, wrote, \u201cwithout morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure \u2026 are undermining the solid foundation of morals the best security for the duration of a free government.\u201dThe Founding Fathers understood the link between broadly accepted moral values and their system of a limited government, which relies on its citizens\u2019 capacity for self-governance. So did Dotson Rader. Those who would rebuild the historic American tradition of limited government, respect for inalienable rights, and personal responsibility will never succeed without renewing the culture \u2014 including the moral precepts upon which the American republic rests.You can watch the full episode of \u201cFiring Line\u201d below. The exchange runs from approximately 25:35 until about 36 minutes:[embedded content]The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1893895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-989288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1893895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}