Leftism

Is Socialism Overtaking Capitalism In The Way Schumpeter Foresaw?

March 20, 2009March 20, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

Investor’s Business Daily | John Tamny | March 19, 2009

In his 1942 book, “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy,” Joseph Schumpeter asked the essential question: “Can capitalism survive?” His unsettling answer was, “No. I do not think it can.”

Schumpeter’s words were in no way meant to denigrate capitalism. Instead, he felt “its very success undermines the social institutions which protect it.” History in many ways proved his views prophetic.

The success of capitalism means that many are allowed to do things that have nothing to do with productivity. And from government and academic elites that frequently seek to undermine the very system that enabled their cushy jobs, to foundations created by capitalist profits that often dismiss same, the commercial success wrought by the pursuit of profit has created an unproductive elite that lives off the very business profits that it regularly casts a skeptical eye on. [Read more…]

Pushing the Gay Agenda in the Greek Archdiocese

March 19, 2009October 26, 2023 by Orthodox Editors

Michael Huffington Gay Agenda Greek Orthodox by Glen Chancy — March 2, 2009

Globally, Orthodox Christianity is known to be highly conservative concerning what is frequently referred to as “traditional Christian morality.” In Europe, for example, more progressive and liberal elements of society spare no effort in attacking the Church as a bastion of traditionalist repression, especially concerning homosexuality.

Ironically, however, in the United States an image seems to be growing of the Orthodox Church as more liberal towards sexual sins than, for example, the Evangelical denominations. Quite a few people, judging by chatter on the Internet, are getting the impression that Orthodoxy is similar to the Episcopal Church in respect to moral issues.

Part of this confusion stems from the book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe by John Boswell. This book, published in 1994, asserted that certain Greek Orthodox medieval rituals were really ecclesiastical blessings of homosexual unions. Boswell especially singled out the Greek Orthodox Rite known as adelphopoiesis or “brother-making,” as one such example.

Since the book’s publication, Orthodox sources have roundly debunked Boswell. (One such effort can be found here.) Even so, a casual stroll through Google will find Boswell’s claims widely repeated on Websites associated with homosexual issues. (LGBT sites in the common parlance of today.) The fiction created by Boswell is useful for sexually active homosexuals, both within the Orthodox Church and without. [Read more…]

What is Marxism?

March 19, 2009March 19, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

AmericanThinker | Steven Plaut | March 16, 2009

Marxists claim that Marxism is a science. It is not. It is a sort of pagan religious cult. It is a theology. It is a form of superstition.

Marxists claim that Karl Marx understood capitalism and economics. He did not. They also claim that the entire validity of Marx’s set of theories on all subjects rests ultimately on how valid Marxist economic thought is. Marxist economic thought was completely wrong. [Read more…]

An Academic Tragedy

March 17, 2009March 17, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

FrontPage Magazine | David Horowitz | Mar. 13, 2009

To appreciate the radical changes that have taken place in America’s universities over the last few decades one could do worse than start with the University of California, Santa Cruz. Academic courses at Santa Cruz and other California campuses are ostensibly governed by the “Standing Orders” of the university Regents. These state that each school must “remain aloof from politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan interests,” and that professors must never allow the classroom “to be used for political indoctrination.” In the words of the Regents, such indoctrination “constitutes misuse of the University as an institution.”

Unfortunately, this rule and rules like it at academic institutions across the country are increasingly ignored by university professors, and almost never enforced by university administrations. The UC Santa Cruz catalog is itself littered with course descriptions that promise an indoctrination, almost invariably in radical politics and causes. [Read more…]

My Socialist Past

March 17, 2009March 17, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

AmericanThinker | Jeffrey Folks | March 15, 2009

“Socialism, a luxury of the wealthy. To the poor, a suicidal creed …” –David Hare

Anyone who has lived inside the demoralized, unproductive, gray prison of a communist state, as I did in the mid-1980s, knows to what depths of impoverishment the egalitarian fantasies of socialism inevitably lead. They lead to decades of frustrated poverty and lifetimes of untreated illness culminating in early death. I remember the columns of death notices for men and women in their forties and fifties that appeared in the local newspaper. Gradually I learned to associate those death notices with the lack of fresh foodstuffs, the travesty of state health care, and the pervasive demoralization of an enslaved population drowning itself in cheap alcohol and cigarettes. [Read more…]

Something Wicked This Way Comes

March 16, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

AmericanThinker | J.C. Smith | March 15, 2009

The darkest times in human history have all begun when someone decided “not to let a serious crisis go to waste”. In fact, it is in times of economic crisis that folks are most susceptible to the ideas of tyrants. We look for an answer, any port in a storm that will shield us from the unknown. And in our desire to be safe, we open ourselves up to things that we would never have dreamed of allowing in normal times. [Read more…]

Of course he’s a socialist

March 12, 2009March 13, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

AmericanThinker | James Lewis | March 12, 2009

Of course he’s a socialist. The real question is, how does he feel about America? His favorite Sunday preacher for the last twenty years is simply obsessed with a frothing hatred for this country. His good buddies Bill and Bernardine have been expressing their rage loud and proud since the Sixties. As president, O is trying to put Chas Freeman in charge of the National Intelligence Estimates, a man who is neither competent, nor temperamentally suited, nor emotionally able to restrain his animosity against American Jews who love Israel just as they love America (… because, for one thing, they love democracy, and can recognize fascists even in drag.) [Read more…]

On The Road To Socialism? We’ve Arrived!

March 7, 2009March 7, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

Investor’s Business Daily | Patrick J. Buchanan | March 3, 2009

In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives. Yet his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the right.

The real Obama has stood up and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the Senate. [Read more…]

Four big problems with cap-and-trade

March 6, 2009March 7, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

Massive tax increases, energy regulation, high prices for electricity, and reduced econmic growth as far as the eye can see. And it’s only week six (6) of Obama’s catastrophic presidency.
DC Examiner | Irwin M. Stelzer | Mar. 6, 2009

Obama hopes to adopt a cap-and-trade system similar to Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme. The government will decide how many tons of CO2 can safely be emitted, and then auction off permits to emitters of these greenhouse gases. Expected proceeds [tax increases on all consumers] over ten years: $645 billion.

Polluters [C02 is not a polutant] who can cut their emissions at low cost will be able to do just that, and sell their permits to companies that find it cheaper to buy permits than to clean up their production processes. Not a bad idea — in theory. But here’s the rub — or more precisely, rubs. [Read more…]

United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror

March 5, 2009 by Orthodox Editors

WorldNetDaily | Mar. 1, 2009

It’s a book that will make so-called “progressives” see red.

In “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Tyranny and Terror,” author Jamie Glazov says there’s an unholy alliance between jihadists and people like Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Ted Turner and Noam Chomsky, and, at the heart of the mutual admiration is a willingness to accept massive numbers of deaths to achieve their objectives.

What’s bound to be most infuriating to those Americans and many other westerners mentioned in the book is the way Glazov uses their own words to make the point. [Read more…]