Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis Proyect On 8/8/17 12:35 PM wrote, Jeff wrote: Let's see: an authoritarian figure gaining increased or dictatorial powers after rallying his nation to war. Do possibilities of that sort not concern readers of this list? No, there will be no dictatorship in the USA--not as long as bourgeois democracy can ensure Nissan workers voting against their own class interests. Why would the American ruling class sanction a risky and unnecessary fascist state when the electoral machine keeps everybody under its thumb so well? With the largest socialist group in the USA determined to support Democratic candidates, why rock the boat? _ I agree and disagree, Lou. We may not have the what we formally call a dictatorship in the classic sense, but don't we already have lock down means of social control, in place increasingly with the coming of the Clintonites - who still in case anyone hasn't noticed control the Democratic Party? Consider the fact that beginning more or less with Bill Clinton we have been becoming as a society an authoritarian state, with the unleashing of the banks domestically and globally to prey without having to pay, increasingly indebted to the bondholders, while employment becomes more and more uncertain and inadequate to our needs for sustenance - health, education and welfare. With the screws on so tightly that the great preponderance of us, including the rather crucial, now-encumbered students, are no longer at liberty to effectively protest, fearing that with the debtor/carceral/surveillance/military'imperialist regime developing more and more we can lose our jobs and therefore our cars, homes, furnishings, education, tchotchkes and life chances. As capital continues to base expansion on printing money not constrained by its relationship to gold and silver, piling one humongous number on the last through 'quantitative easing,' bailouts, the Pentagon and what have you - debt which is a claim on our future value and which we and our progeny must pay, our futures, as David Harvey says, are being foreclosed, by the debtor economy that has been largely, steadily moving in alongside neoliberalism during the past thirty years. And then by way of recourse, more than a few of us had been counting on the 76-year old Bernie, almost as millions counted on the contrived, empty promises of a much-younger Obama in 2008. Here's my take on the prospects with Bernie, and how he probably sees it as well: since his election to the House in 1990, ostensibly as an independent, he has been carrying water for the Mississippi of the North, the state of Vermont, through Congressional horse-trading, caucusing with the Democrats, influential committee assignments and access to power, retention of which is all vital to the well-being of his largely-deprived constituency. So to spell that out, he is in thrall to a networking system, he reports to Schumer and the Wall Street leadership (he's now 'Senator Outreach' of the party, in an era where no New Deal with any source of fresh jobs with any legs is in prospect), and if he failed to deliver in his home base his long-time electoral constituency could evaporate, and all the knives would come at him come the next election. So what could anyone expect from this lifelong establishment politician? How could he abandon all that and try to lead a motley gaggle out to another party without any established, well-seated organization or disciplined, time-tested, experienced backers, his vulnerability to all the twists of establishment formal electoral procedures when the party dumps him completely, or steady access to media and national attention - however much he might still be able to raise funds independent of Wall Street? Isn't it just about axiomatic that an establishment politician many years in the saddle in that corrupt institution is not the sort we can pin our hopes on? Who then? As with the guy who came in for a shave, the barber lathered him, took off the sheet and said that'll be five dollars and the guy said how about my shave, to which the barber responded and I retort, Oh, we just lather here. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/8/17 1:33 PM, Jeff wrote: And further, there can be a rather tenuous connection with reality whenever we talk about the "ruling class thinks" this or that. First, you can't assume that the ruling class knows exactly what's in its best interests. Of course you can. Just read the NY Times and the Washington Post (owned by the richest man in the world). Fascism is fundamentally about counter-revolution. When was the last time we had anything resembling a revolution? You don't need fascist gangs to evict people from Zuccotti Park after all when the NYC cops acting under a court order does the trick. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 2017-08-08 18:49, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: No, there will be no dictatorship in the USA--not as long as bourgeois democracy can ensure Nissan workers voting against their own class interests. Why would the American ruling class sanction a risky and unnecessary fascist state when the electoral machine keeps everybody under its thumb so well? With the largest socialist group in the USA determined to support Democratic candidates, why rock the boat? All you have just proved is that you would be a valuable and clear-thinking analyst for the ruling class; fortunately you are on the right side though! I agree, indeed most of the ruling class in the US and similar countries agrees, that bourgeois democracy is a better way for them to maintain their power and profits. If you then conclude that therefore we will probably not see a fascist take-over, then I also agree. But that rests on the use of the word "probably." Just like I said: you *probably* won't get killed crossing the street blindfolded. That doesn't mean there isn't a great danger, just that that danger is less than jumping off a cliff. And further, there can be a rather tenuous connection with reality whenever we talk about the "ruling class thinks" this or that. First, you can't assume that the ruling class knows exactly what's in its best interests. If they did, then they would all be of the same opinion, which is obviously not the case. They argue like hell among themselves, just as do we. But beyond that, there is no absolute law that guarantees the views of the majority of the ruling class will prevail. The only way they could do that is by having elections in which only they are allowed to vote. Instead, they erect a great charade in which their interests will be conveyed through their ideological influences (and buying TV ad time, etc. etc.) in an approximate scheme that gets their predominant views chosen by the voters. It more or less works, but delivers results in which their original intention is only achieved in a very approximate fashion. For instance, I'm not sure that the majority of the German or Italian ruling classes were clamoring for fascism before those dictators came to power. Or closer to the present, I'm pretty sure the bulk of the US ruling class -- in October -- would have preferred Clinton over Trump. But after he was elected nonetheless, then almost all of the Republicans in congress were willing to work with him, just as most of the German ruling class was fine with Hitler once he took power. Just talking about what the ruling class wants is what the ruling class gets (until the revolution) is a fatalistic interpretation of history that would disarm our side. It isn't the way any of us think in practice. There is a great deal of uncertainty in many outcomes, and if there is a threat of a fascist take-over, even a small threat, of course we take that seriously and we take action. Forget about elections for parties and candidates for a moment. If there were a referendum held on whether the US should become fascist, then everyone calling themselves a leftist (with a few sad exceptions) would be campaigning for a "No" vote, not abstention. I saw Trump's election campaign as tantamount to such a referendum. - Jeff _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 8/8/17 12:35 PM, Jeff wrote: Let's see: an authoritarian figure gaining increased or dictatorial powers after rallying his nation to war. Do possibilities of that sort not concern readers of this list? No, there will be no dictatorship in the USA--not as long as bourgeois democracy can ensure Nissan workers voting against their own class interests. Why would the American ruling class sanction a risky and unnecessary fascist state when the electoral machine keeps everybody under its thumb so well? With the largest socialist group in the USA determined to support Democratic candidates, why rock the boat? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 2017-08-08 15:52, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: this article is a useful reminder of how unlikely it ever was for Trump to be a new Hitler or Mussolini. Oh now isn't that about the only reason you ever send us an article about Trump? One after another, only to make the same point but always in the simplistic and binary form such as "Trump to be a new Hitler or Mussolini" without any nuance regarding the possible forms and trajectories of what we might term "fascism" or far-right populism. And wouldn't it be better to argue against ideas that have actually been expressed (such as by many of us who see qualitative and crucial differences between Trump and what had been tolerated even among the right wing of the US Republican and other mainstream bourgeois parties) rather than creating strawmen claiming "new Hitler or Mussolini" (words that I'm quite sure I never used)? I see Lou's repeated attempts to win a non-existent argument in this fashion whenever he spots certain things in print which I suspect he often doesn't read through himself (in at least one case he would have found the article's conclusions quite at variance to the one-liner he attached to it). Each time I have to suppress my urge to respond, because in fact there isn't anything in the article itself I need to address, just the way Louis is employing it. Likewise this article (which I read through as a matter of courtesy) only goes over matters that are already more or less familiar (though you might still find it worth reading), and indeed does show, not that Trump himself isn't or couldn't be a fascist, but that the US state has not become a fascist dictatorship and isn't heading in that direction. But then it even goes on to present a caveat (did Louis read this far into it?): "...here is one frightening exception. Trump could regain public standing through the rally-round-the-flag effect that usually occurs following a domestic attack or at the outset of a war." Let's see: an authoritarian figure gaining increased or dictatorial powers after rallying his nation to war. Do possibilities of that sort not concern readers of this list? Or a campaign against refugees leading to widespread human rights abuse if not further to actual genocide. Is there no historical precedent for such concerns? I wasn't sure before the US election, but now I will say that Trump surely isn't a fascist: he's shown himself to be too stupid politically to justify an ideological label. But he surrounds himself with fascists (not exclusively) and certainly isn't anti-fascist. The bigger question is whether the state will become fascist, and not even looking into the future asking whether the voters who won the election for him were voting for fascism (thus indicating their future compliance or complicity with a state possessing such characteristics). I'd geusstimate that half of the 2016 Trump voters were in fact "deplorables" of that sort; the other half were just ignorant of the dangers they may have opened the doors to. It's inaccurate to argue that yes Trump got elected and no we don't have fascism in the US now. That's like if I tell you it's dangerous to cross the highway blindfolded, you do it anyway, and then point out that nothing bad happened so I was wrong. No, I wasn't wrong: I was right and you were lucky! And most times you would be that lucky in that situation, but the stakes are too high to ignore the danger you put yourself in. The dangers entailed by Trump, in addition to the above mentioned scenario of militarism -> war -> fascism, have especially to do with the far-right or fascist component of his base. That includes the ones he invited into government posts (or his personal staff) which is already associated with negative executive policies and legislation, predictably. But moreover I'm thinking of those millions of deplorables, bigots and small business types, who have stated in polls that they would defend Trump in street battles. Does that not sound a bit more like "fascism", more like "a new Hitler or Mussolini," than what currently manifests as disarray and confusion within the government? My main point is that there was never any exaggeration of the dangers of Trump being elected after promoting typical fascist motifs and mobilizing support among groups that are reminiscent of those that propelled Hitler and Mussolini to power. More than many countries, the US state is carefully stabilized through a separation of powers between the three branches (plus civilian control of the military). This is an essential protection against volatility,
[Marxism] Fwd: Trump’s Fledgling Presidency Has Already Collapsed
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Jonathan Chait is a Hillary Clinton propagandist but this article is a useful reminder of how unlikely it ever was for Trump to be a new Hitler or Mussolini. This is not a question of the "Deep State" defying him. It is instead a recognition that the American ruling class has ways of setting policy initiatives that are not so easily countermanded by an authoritarian figure like Trump. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/trumps-fledgling-presidency-has-already-collapsed.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
