J.R. Dunn has a new article out today at American Thinker entitled Seeds of Intellectual Destruction. He traces the path of leftist intellectual rot back to two individuals, C. Wright Mills and William Appleman Williams, whose work in fifties influenced radical leftists throughout the '60's. Their work was based in good part upon theories developed by Antonio Gramsci which grew from his studies of Hegelian historicism as embodied in the works of Marx. Wikipedia has a good biographical sketch of Gramsci that is written from a very sympathetic point of view. Careful reading of the sketch  reveals that he was the son of a thief, he acquired his taste for the unlawful appropriation of other peoples property with his mother's milk.

If one desires to examine the seeds of leftist intellectual rot, an understanding of the concept of historical inevitability as outlined by Hegel and further developed by Marx is a good place to start. This Wikipedia article gives a decent overview of the concept with the pertinent links to Marx's incorporation of a variant of Hegelian thought to arrive at the concept of "historical inevitability". Marx also borrowed Hegel's quaint habit of never actually discussing the practical manner in which his theory might actually be put into practice. Gramsci chose one way, Lenin and Stalin slightly different 'other paths'.

Mills and Williams gained their positions of fame (notoriety is probably more accurate) through implementation of the Gramscian method by those responsible for their gaining positions as faculty. That same method had been employed throughout the '30's and '40's in the same manner throughout mass media. What we see today is actually the third (and hopefully last) generation of leftist influence peddlers.

I agree with J. R. Dunn's conclusion that it will be a long, long war but I would note that what we are seeing regarding hegemonism and the left is more akin to zombieism than anything else. Fifty years ago Nasser's Pan-Arabism was deeply involved in seeking aid from the left (as personified in the USSR), today the pathetic remnants of an intellectually bankrupt and moribund left are seeking an alliance with the last gasp of a dying death/slavery cult in the same area. In another fifty years those of you remaining may be breathing air unbefouled by the stench of either.

The Long War has very little to do with the battle against Islam. It's true that muslims and leftists are currently allied in the struggle but the alliance cannot last much longer than did the Malenkov/Ribbentropf pact. Islam, much like Nazism,  is too disparate from communism/socialism to share a bed comfortably. Islam's penchant for liquidating communists attests to that fact.

The Long War is the war against the left. In particular it is the war against the Gramscian concept of destruction of the West through infiltration via affinity groups of the institutions which (theoretically, at least) should be the transmitters of Western culture to both the general population and especially to the young - the only vessels that can carry Western civilization into the future.

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist who recognized that Communism appealed, for the most part, to people unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. His very efficacious theory went beyond the confines of the Fabian socialists who had proposed a similar but less far reaching theory concerning how people of small intellectual competence might band together through affinity groups to impose a world view detached from any noticeable accomplishment upon a populace reduced to a state of ignorance sufficient to accept promises with ne'er a delivery.

The Long War concerns the identification and destruction of the Gramscian termites that continue to nibble away at the foundation of Western civilization. Much of the process of destruction involves identification of areas in which those in opposition might make very small but very meaningful personal contributions. Rooting out a hundred years of rot is not a task that will be accomplished overnight.