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Title: DESTRUCTIVE GENERATION: Second Thoughts About the '60s by Peter Collier, David Horowitz ISBN: 0-684-82641-0 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 12 August, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Not when you discover that... it isn't really where its at..
Comment: How does it feeeelll... To be on your own... no direction known... like a rollin' stone...
This Dylan lyric depicts the disarray in which the intellectual Left finds itself in the aftermath of voluminous setbacks over the past century. David Horowitz and Peter Collier recount their personal intellectual metamorphoses' as they wend their way through the chapters of "Destructive Generation."
They begin with a particularly heartfelt portrayal of a Leftist attorney, Fay Stender, trying to do good for poor black victims of a racist society. What Stender fails to comprehend, which leads to one of the purported victims shooting her in a bizarre ritual of hatred for all white people, is that these victims are thugs who prey on the very people she presumes she represents. Her actions are borne of a fatal miscalculation of murderers like Jonathan Jackson and his friends. This story, skillfully related by H&C, shows that the law of unintended consequences always seems to prevail, and often fatally, when put to the test by Left-Liberal nostrums. They next visit the rise and fall of the Weather underground, Huey Newton, and the Black Panthers, all grisly stories with a less than savory end.
The Second section of the book deals with how the Left-liberal press poses as a 5th column for America's Marxist intellectuals. It shows how their intellectual allegiance to the social policy concepts of Marxist regimes leads them to conspire to deceive the American public. Their goal is shown to be undeniably subversive to America's national interest. Prominent public figures of the Left mentioned here include man of the cloth William Sloane Coffin, former Democratic congressman from Oakland Calif. Ron Dellums and his aide Carlottia Scott, NYT journalist Anthony Lewis, and former Dem. Cong. woman from Denver, Patricia Schroeder, with a host of lesser light attorneys and enablers achieving minor notoriety.
They next romp through the Left's portrayal of Joe McCarthy. History has absolved McCarthy even though his method for outing U.S. government Communists was reprehensible. This chapter is followed by a marvelous piece on the Left's takeover of the city council in Berkeley California. All the familiar antics of Leftist rule are on display here and the chapter provided me with many belly laughs. In another way it's just plain sad that these people seem to learn nothing from history. They act like an intellectual version of the mindless Kudzu weed that if left untended continues to grow and expand over any and all obstacles until it consumes the landscape. All Communist-Socialist governments end up creating shortages and a vastly reduced standard of living for all people, but these idealists never seem to get the message. H&C hope to help them. Perhaps a 12-step program will be forthcoming.
In chapter eight H&C reveal their assumptions which have led to their transition from Radical innocence to Radical guilt. They do a wonderful job of dissecting the American-hating propagandist from MIT, Noam Chomsky. They also take apart Tom Hayden and his ilk, showing them for what they are and what they stand for; it's not a pretty picture.
The final section of the book deals with their growing up and beyond the Leftist mythology that held them in its thrall in their early years. They also explain the reason that former comrades must treat them with such disdain as they recount the smearing administered at the hands of these old friends, who remain continuing Communist sympathizers to a man/woman. Their views are recapped in a series of letters and other correspondence.
They conclude the book by citing how the Cold War caused comrades, from their legions of the Left, to leave the faith in the face of mountains of lies and policy failures resulting from the Fatal Conceit of Communist-Socialist Utopians.
This is a great book for anyone, especially disillusioned post-graduates who sense that something is awry in their worldview. They should read it two or three times just to make sure they retain some of its wisdom.
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent, but don't give up your grain of salt.
Comment: This book is exceptional and unique, in that it does honestly look back at the furthest fringe of the '60s left wing, even at the writers' own expense. "Destructive Generation" is strongest when it sticks with the facts: The Black Panthers, The Weather Underground, Berkeley. It gets a little shaky when it veers into sweeping statements for an entire movement (yes, I'm sure that there were many agents for Moscow in the hierarchy, but many at the base of the pyramid truly believed in what they were doing ... particularly if it was stopping an illegal war in Indochina). The information on 1980s Central America is chilling and worth the price of admission. No matter what your political beliefs may be, though, it is well worth reading, and will definitely not leave you quickly.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not Quite The Devils, but almost
Comment: In Destructive Generation, Peter Collier and David Horowitz put together an account of 60s radicalism that acts as an excellent antidote to the songs of U2 or Howard Zinn's chic People's History of the United States. The book goes a long way toward discrediting the fantasy of the 60s as a time of idealism and harmless rebellion, and resurrects the nearly forgotten "dark side" of the 60s.
At times, the book reads almost like a latter-day version of Dostoevsky's classic, the Devils. Like the Devils, the radicals portrayed in Destructive Generation -- notably Huey Newton, Bernadine Dohrn, Billy Ayers and Tom Hayden -- seem to behave the way they do not because they believe in revolution, but because they hate the system and they seem to be fascinated by nihilism and violence. The chapters on the Panthers and the Weatherman are the most instructive, while Horowitz's "letter to a political friend" is the most moving part of the book. If you are looking for the antithesis to Noam Chomsky, you will find it here.
The only drawback to the book is the way in which it uses sources. Footnotes are sparse, and paraphrases are often vague. Because of this, the book reads like one long editorial, rather than a work of history. One hopes that Collier and Horowitz will return to this work and create a second edition, with better notation.
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Title: RADICAL SON: A GENERATIONAL ODYSSEY by David Horowitz ISBN: 0684840057 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 21 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The POLITICS OF BAD FAITH: The Radical Assault on America's Future by David Horowitz ISBN: 0684856794 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 03 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes by David Horowitz ISBN: 1890626317 Publisher: Spence Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey by David Horowitz ISBN: 1890626511 Publisher: Spence Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Anti-Chomsky Reader by Peter Collier, David Horowitz ISBN: 189355497X Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: August, 2004 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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