A prime example is the loathsome Chicago Teachers Union.

In the post-World War II America, the most paranoid and dangerous menaces bubbled up from the far-right fevered minds of Commie-hunters and blacklist compliers.

But, sometime in the late, crazy ’60s, the fever infected susceptible left-wing minds. How this happened is described in a fantastic, first-person guest column from Matt Rosenberg appearing on John Kass’ blog. After writing of his own and his father’s encounters with right-wing attacks, Matt describes the impulse’s shift:

Propelled by cultural and political changes, it all flips around by the mid-60s, and the authoritarian impulse shifts to the left side of the political spectrum. This new zeitgeist was captured by a radical sociologist named Herbert Marcuse at what would be my alma mater, Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass. He mapped it out in his 1965 treatise “Repressive Tolerance,” and a related essay. 

Marcuse argued that in a modern society with disparities in economic and political might, conservatives deserve no intellectual and political tolerance because their ideas will only perpetuate inequities.

His New York Times obit in 1979 details how Marcuse “believed a new coalition of student radicals (and) small numbers of intellectuals” could bring about an envisioned “new age.” The Times noted that Marcuse believed “violence was justified.” 

Sound familiar?

More than familiar. It is a burst pustule, spreading its toxic pestilence throughout our body politic, consuming the weakest of minds that didn’t live through those awful ’60s or learn from history that they were never taught.

Today, the right has taken on the role of the earlier liberals, standing up at personal cost against this authoritarian impulse of the left. Those with a sense of truth and honor need to stand with them.

Here’s Matt’s bio posted by John:

Matt Rosenberg is the author of What Next, Chicago? Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son.” He also writes at ChicagoSkooled. He lived in Chicago for 30 years, and returns frequently. He has worked in media, public policy, and communications since serving on the undercover team of the 1977 Mirage Tavern investigation. Reach him at [email protected]

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