PrintDecember 23, 2006
Apparatchiks Anonymous
That's the name suggested by Gagdad Bob, of One Cosmos, the always provocative and amusing website. Bob uses James Lewis's essay "Why isn't the Whole Left Neoconservative?" as a point of departure for his own essay on the pathologies of the left. At the end, he gets down to the meat of what is needed: a 12-step program. And here are the 12 steps for appartchiks who want to start anew. Quote:
1. We admitted we were powerless over the intoxicating dreams of socialism, and that our lives and governments had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power far greater than our own omnipotent little egoic dreams of control could restore us to true liberalism.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the Creator and Guarantor of our Liberty.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of the well-intentioned failures and frank evils of socialism.
5. Admitted to the Creator of our Liberty, to ourselves, and in a live phone call to C-SPAN the exact nature of socialism’s wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have the Creator of Our Liberty remove all these defects of ideology.
7. Humbly asked Him to cancel our subscription to the Times.
8. Made a list of all races, genders, and classes we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all by realizing that these constructs are irrelevant.
9. Made direct amends to such people by switching parties.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were again tempted to abuse ideology for the purposes of blotting out reality, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Source of our Liberty, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Leftists, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
1. We admitted we were powerless over the intoxicating dreams of socialism, and that our lives and governments had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power far greater than our own omnipotent little egoic dreams of control could restore us to true liberalism.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the Creator and Guarantor of our Liberty.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of the well-intentioned failures and frank evils of socialism.
5. Admitted to the Creator of our Liberty, to ourselves, and in a live phone call to C-SPAN the exact nature of socialism’s wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have the Creator of Our Liberty remove all these defects of ideology.
7. Humbly asked Him to cancel our subscription to the Times.
8. Made a list of all races, genders, and classes we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all by realizing that these constructs are irrelevant.
9. Made direct amends to such people by switching parties.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were again tempted to abuse ideology for the purposes of blotting out reality, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Source of our Liberty, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other Leftists, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
