Radical Son: A Generational Oddysey

My politics had already changed by the time I first read Radical Son several years ago. But what this wonderful book did was to fill in the blanks regarding a period of history and happenings that I had witnessed only peripherally in liberal college towns throughout the U.S. Horowitz explained that there really had been a genuine communist conspiracy at work here, in the U.S., and that, previously, those who had tried to warn us had all been disingenuously, and deliberately, shouted down and declared redbaiters, reactionaries, and fools. His account of the beginnings of the New Left, and of its lasting political, cultural, and social impacts, should be made mandatory reading in all high schools. His description of the much of the left's utter hatred of this nation, and of their nasty, cynical, authoritarian political motives and tactics, ranks up there, and even exceeds, the wonderful work done by the writers at Commentary, The New Criterion, and Partisan Review. (Check out his website at [...].) I was so bedazzled by the political revelations in Radical Son, that I failed to notice, at first, how beautifully it was written. Horowitz is one of those rare, intellectually honest, and courageous intellectuals who is unafraid to engage the enemy directly on their own turf...and they are all very afraid. In my opinion, the nation owes him a great debt.

This is one of the most interesting and powerful books I have ever read. David Horowitz lays his soul bare for all to see in this heartrending account of his political transformation.Horowitz's upbringing as a "red diaper baby" is fascinating. His days at camp Wo-Chi-Ca (Workers Childrens Camp) illustrate the early indoctrination communists parents put their kids through. They sang the praises of Red October and were taught of the supposed evils of capitalism. In short, this portion of the book illustrates how thoudands of children were brought up to be strangers in their own country.From there he reveals how the Left's world was shattered when Krushchev announced that Stalin's crimes were indeed true. That's when the New Left was formed, and naturally he was a part of it. From there he toiled with the New Left's cadres to work out ways to practice communism without committing the crimes of Stalin and others. Then came Vietnam.Of course he was against America's involvement in the war. Nothing unusual there. What is unusual is his honesty about those days. Many radicals now claim that they merely opposed America's involvement in Vietnam. Horowitz shows that they did have a horse in that race and it wasn't the south. In fact he and they wanted the communists to win. It was also during this time that his radical politics brought him into the circle of the Black Panthers. The Panthers were the darlings of the New Left, with their Marxist platitudes and violent ways. He brought in an old friend to help with the books at a community center he and the Panthers sponsored. A few months later she was missing and a few weeks after that her beaten body was found in the SF Bay. Contacts inside the Panthers told him that she was murdered by the Panthers.He began to realize that his radical politics had turned moral norms upside down, making heroes out of thugs, bombers and murderers and demonizing ordinary decent Americans. This caused many years of soul-searching. When he re-emerged, his whole worldview had changed. Like I said, powerful. Read it and cry for a lost generation.

(...) Radical Son is much more than an autobiography. It is a first-hand chronicle of the roots of the modern progressive movement, from one of the people who helped create it. His fascinating account of his parents in a communist cell in 1940’s New York will keep the thoughtful reader spellbound, and his insider account of the radical movement in sixties Berkeley is fascinating, enlightening, and highly entertaining. From Paul Robeson to Tom Hayden, from Bertrand Russell to Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, many of the famous, almost fabulous, names that have come to represent the sixties radical culture appear in this book, stripped of their half-mythical trappings and presented as the often deeply flawed people they really were.Read this book. You’ll learn a lot that you didn’t know before, and you’ll enjoy the ride.

People have dismissed this book because it appears that the flaming socialist reformer David Horowitz has simply done a 180 and now vents from right to left. However, on page 430 of the paperback, Horowitz explains rather clearly how his ideology changed. He had the courage to actually get to know some conservatives and:"Over time, their tolerance [that's right folks, Horowitz is saying that conservatives are tolerant] became intelligible to me. What made one a conservative was recognition of the human capacity for evil, or for just plain screwing up. That was why the rules were important. Not because they expected nobody to break them. But because having rules that were respected made it harder for people to do so. This was a more subtle --- but in the long run more trustworthy --- form of compassion than liberals' softness of heart."Here's another passage, from the final paragraph of the book: "What radicals wanted was to be midwives to a world that was different from the one in which they were going to die. To be present at the creation and, in that way, forever young. It was time to grow up. ..."If radicals were just living in a dream world, that wouldn't be so bad. But as Horowitz relates from experience, they take it really hard if you leave the fold. As much as he had vilified the "establishment" in his days at Ramparts magazine, it was not until Horowitz published a story about the violence of leftist radicals that he ever received any threats on his life. Oh yes, left-leaners make a big deal out of Horowitz's three divorces. Why? I guess because in their weird formula it makes things even. That way, a leftist radical can throw a trashcan through a window at McDonald's and say Hey, what about Horowitz's three divorces, huh? But leftist radicals only read books that no one else can understand, so they won't read this one. The prose is too fluid and real.