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Go on over to Mother Jones...
Kevin Drum | Political MoJo | Articles
Newt's New-Age Love Gurus
Gingrich's intellectual mentors are former Marxist organizers who envisioned a future full of serial marriages and open relationships.
We all need to read this and spread it EVERYWHERE
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Newt's New-Age Love Gurus
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/newt-gingrich-new-age-love-gurus-alvin-toffler
(snip)
Gingrich infused his 1984 book, Window of Opportunity, with themes from Future Shock and The Third Wave—and for his efforts, received their glowing endorsement. "One may violently differ with many of congressman Gingrich's views, while still admiring his intellect, originality, and future consciousness," Alvin Toffler wrote in a blurb.
In Future Shock, the Tofflers anticipated the rise and significance of genetically engineered crops; in Window, Gingrich gushes about the possibility of "new strains of wheat that will function as legumes." In Future Shock, the Tofflers float the idea that adolescence is on its way out the door—writing of "children who at twelve are no longer childlike; adults who at fifty are children of twelve"; in Window, Gingrich writes, "it is conceivable that, by our grandchildren's time, adolescence will have become a thing of the past."
When Gingrich rose to power, he brought the Tofflers with him, introducing them to the Republican mainstream, even if they were never fully accepted by it. (As Reagan Education Secretary Bill Bennett put it, "If futurists are really futurists, why do they bother writing books? Why don't they play the market?"
Future Shock, Gingrich told a Washington audience in 1995 during his first week as speaker, was one of "four books [that] describe everything we're going through, for all practical purposes, except the details." He told the House Ways and Means Committee: "[A]bout every policy we should ask the question, 'Does it accelerate our transition into a third wave information age, or does it slow it down?'" He told the American Hospital Association that it should consider forming weekly study groups to study the Tofflers.
"Republicanism is merely Gingrich's politics," Michael Kelly wrote in The New Yorker in January 1995. "Tofflerianism is his religion."
In Future Shock, the Tofflers anticipated the rise and significance of genetically engineered crops; in Window, Gingrich gushes about the possibility of "new strains of wheat that will function as legumes." In Future Shock, the Tofflers float the idea that adolescence is on its way out the door—writing of "children who at twelve are no longer childlike; adults who at fifty are children of twelve"; in Window, Gingrich writes, "it is conceivable that, by our grandchildren's time, adolescence will have become a thing of the past."
When Gingrich rose to power, he brought the Tofflers with him, introducing them to the Republican mainstream, even if they were never fully accepted by it. (As Reagan Education Secretary Bill Bennett put it, "If futurists are really futurists, why do they bother writing books? Why don't they play the market?"
Future Shock, Gingrich told a Washington audience in 1995 during his first week as speaker, was one of "four books [that] describe everything we're going through, for all practical purposes, except the details." He told the House Ways and Means Committee: "[A]bout every policy we should ask the question, 'Does it accelerate our transition into a third wave information age, or does it slow it down?'" He told the American Hospital Association that it should consider forming weekly study groups to study the Tofflers.
"Republicanism is merely Gingrich's politics," Michael Kelly wrote in The New Yorker in January 1995. "Tofflerianism is his religion."
