Progressives often tend to hold these historical figures up as heroes, but how would the modern-day progressive feel about the actual beliefs these intellectuals held? As usual, anything that does not fit the party line is conveniently ignored, hopefully to be left in obscurity. Mohandas Gandhi: Mohandas Gandhi is considered the "father of modern India", and is respected as a wise spiritual teacher. A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir. (Reference: The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of India (CWMG), Vol I, p. 150) Regarding forcible registration with the state of blacks: One can understand the necessity for registration of Kaffirs who will not work. (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, p. 105) Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian Location should be chosen for dumping down all the Kaffirs of the town passes my comprehension the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. (Reference: CWMG, Vol I, pp. 244-245) His description of black inmates: Only a degree removed from the animal. Also, Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized the convicts even more so. They are troublesome, very dirty and live almost like animals. Mar. 7, 1908 (Reference: CWMG, Vol VIII, pp. 135-136) "Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir [the Blacks] whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness." The South African Franchise Amendment Bill of 1896 prohibited any Indians from registering in the future, while allowing those already on the rolls to remain. Because of this, the first South African Indian political organization by Indian merchants. In their petitions against the Natal franchise bill, the Indians, with Gandhi as their spokesman, complained that "the Bill would rank the Indian lower than the rawest Native". Che Geuvara: The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations. The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. Karl Marx: "The classes and the races too weak to master the new conditions of life must give way They must perish in the revolutionary fire storm" - Karl Marx ( Marx Peoples Paper, April 16, 1856, Journal of the History of Idea, 1981 ) Marx referred to the Scottish highlanders, the Basques, Bretons, and Serbs as "Völkerabfälle", which means refuse of nations, stating that when the revolution broke out they would have to be left behind because they were primitive societies two stages behind the rest of Europe. (article by Marx in Rheinische Zeitung) "What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. . Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man and turns them into commodities . The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange . The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general." "All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character [A general war will] wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward." "The Jews of Poland are the smeariest of all races." Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 29, 1849 "Ramsgate is full of Jews and fleas." MEKOR IV, 490, August 25, 1879 "What is the object of the Jew's worship in this world? Usury. What is his worldly god? Money." "Very well then; emancipation from usury and money, that is, from practical, real Judaism, would constitute the emancipation of our time." "What was the essential foundation of the Jewish religion? Practical needs, egotism." "A World Without Jews," p. 37, 40 Marx even called Ferdinand Lassalle a "Judel Itzig". Der Judische Nig*er, MEKOR III, 82, July 30, 1862 Itzig was actually the name of a prominent Jewish family, but in this context, along with the words "Jid" or "Jüd", it was used to refer to jews in the same way that the word Nig*er was later used to refer to negroes. Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky's actual name) coined the French word "racisme" and used it for the first time in 1922. It was from this french word that the English word "racism" quickly evolved into its present definition. Before this time, only the word racialism was in common use, and meant the "belief in the superiority of a particular race", without necessarily any negetive connotations. This a a quote from his 1930 writing, "The History of the Russian Revolution", and is the first time in recorded literature that the word "racist" appeared: Славянофильство, мессианизм отсталости, строило свою философию на том, что русский народ и его церковь насквозь демократичны, а официальная Россия -- это немецкая бюрократия, насажденная Петром. Маркс заметил по этому поводу: "Ведь точно так же и тевтонские ослы сваливают деспотизм Фридриха II и т. д. на французов, как будто отсталые рабы не нуждаются всегда в цивилизованных рабах, чтобы пройти нужную выучку". Это краткое замечание исчерпывает до дна не только старую философию славянофилов, но и новейшие откровения расистов (racistov). Here is a translation: "Slavophilism, the messianism of backwardness, has based its philosophy upon the assumption that the Russian people and their church are democratic through and through, whereas official Russia is a German bureaucracy imposed upon them by Peter the Great. Mark remarked upon this theme: "In the same way the Teutonic jackasses blamed the despotism of Frederick the Second upon the French, as though backward slaves were not always in need of civilised slaves to train them." This brief comment completely finishes off not only the old philosophy of the Slavophiles, but also the latest revelations of the racists." The "Slavophiles" which Trotsky refers to were nationalistic Slavs who took pride in their nation, and wanted to preserve Slavic language culture and their traditional way of life. Trotsky saw them merely as an impedement to his internationalist communist plans. Ironically, it would later be people that wanted to preserve their national identities that was one of the main causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union completely disregarded the desires of its diverse populace to preserve their unique respective identities, and the communists later paid the price for it. Let us see what else Trotsky had to say: "We have to run a hot iron down the spine of the Ukrainian kulaks - that will create a good working environment." As for "prejudice", it is indisputable that Trotsky wanted to get rid of the bourgeoisie by any means necessary: "The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish... the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie." "As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the sacredness of human life. " "In not more than a months time terror will assume very violent forms, after the example of the great French Revolution; the guillotine... will be ready for our enemies... that remarkable invention of the French Revolution which makes man shorter by a head."
OP: if you compare the leftist heroes to the rightist ones, it's clear to see that the left was light years ahead, in terms of social progress guess what, the Soviets didn't allow Same Sex marriage - guess that makes them bigots right
and Charlemange was a progressive in his time but that didn't prevent him from lopping off heads...historical figures need to be judged in the moral and intellectual context of the time in which they lived...yesterdays progressives are todays conservatives, todays progressives will in the future be considered conservative...
Interesting, are conservatives now scraping the bottom of the barrel to side with famous "leftists" to justify their affinity for racism? I couldn't make this (*)(*)(*)(*) up if I tried.
