Purificationist Apocalyptica: Part I

I was struck by a bolt of lightning last week while reading an article! The summary it gave constructed a series of bridges in my mind between what I had thought were hopelessly isolated pockets of radicalism in our body politic. Before this bit of prose broadened my understanding, I had thought that all of the one-issue hyper-partisans out there like the greens, the labor unions, the feminists, the anarchists, the liberation theologists, etc. were only able to maintain individual footholds onto our public consciousness because the sheer number of groups out there and the issues they champion were too numerous for the non-radicals to keep up with. I believed that since there was no apparent coherency in their message, they would be individually marginalized in perpetuity. Apparently there are several among us who find that there is indeed a thread of coherency tying together the disparate groups of the fringe Left. Though they are satisfied to this point of merely identifying the thread, I would like to (finding myself in agreement with their assessment of the thread) follow it back to the spool and gaze upon what I think the resulting garment may look like: a bit of projectionist fiction if you will. Shall we play a game?

Andrew Thomas at “The American Thinker” published an article entitled, “The Leftist Purification Movement” on June 25th, 2010. This article and his conclusions essentially summarize a much longer article entitled, ”Purifying the World” by Ernest Sternberg for the Winter 2010 issue of “Orbis Magazine”; a publication of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Further distilling this article into one sentence, it asserts that the common thread that unites the radical Left is its indefatigable opposition to “Empire”; its institutions, its transactions, its traditions, and its people. It is a political philosophy that superficially appears only to fervently advocate a particular position within the bounds of the established legal framework but substantially flaunts that legal framework in all actions related to the promotion of its cause. They see as impediments not only those opposed to their viewpoint but also the very system within which this opposition is allowed to manifest. Empire to the far Left, and at this time I shall interject the far Right of Radical Islam, represents all of the political, military, financial, social, and religious aspects of the world that stand in opposition to the means by which they desire to implement their policies. The means; not necessarily the ends. To justify their viewpoint and bestow upon themselves a level of moral superiority, these groups have created a worldview that borders on mythological in some cases wherein the institutions of Empire are responsible for every injustice in the world. These groups have almost universally proclaimed that the United States and Israel are most fit to wear the mantel of Empire and have used these two nations as a focus for their ire. As such these they have become the front and first line to be subjected to the Left's/Islam's efforts to rid the world of this injustice; to purify it. Hence Mr. Sternberg’s moniker, purificationists.

So what would the world look like if the Purificationists were to prevail?