Julien, despite your obvious irritation at my style of
argument, I notice we seem to share some sort of interest in
history. So I appreciate the way you have extended this
thread into the domain of history (where I had pointed it).
So I will once more take up a few of your more relevant
points.
First, I note the phrase "who genuinely wish to curb some of
the worst practices
of large corporations" which could describe most politicans
from the right as
well as the left.
If, as in your words, "most politicians" from across the
spectrum were interested in curbing these practices, how
come they've failed so dismally, to the point where we are
contemplating planetary ruin and a disastrous crash?
Personally I think that politicians as a professional class
are usually appalling people, but then, as you have more
than once intimated, I am somewhat biased in my views.
I think that we should then look a bit deeper in those two
examples. They are
popularly associated with the concept of "government of the
people" because
of the coups against them and not the other way around IMO.
This "IMO", as stylistic devices go, is a particularly
assinine one, especially in the light of its redundancy -
it's entirely obvious that almost everything you're writing
here is your opinion. Can't you lose this expression? It's
kind of like a nervous tic.
Your implication seems to be that rightwing coups are a kind
of rare exception, as if I am claiming that they only occur
when an especially popular or left wing party or alliance
comes to power. This is not the case - they happen very
frequently, especially in the third world, or whenever
ruling classes come under threat. A large number of Asian,
Latin American and African countries have succumbed to
rightwing coups in recent times (often with great frequency)
because the previous regime was unable to provide stability
through (perhaps) more participatory means. 'Stability'
means, inter alia, the rule of law, especially pertaining to
private property, minimal risk for investors, discipline in
the workforce and a quietist political culture. The examples
from the Spanish speaking world that I cited just happened
to be recently on my mind.
If you think
otherwise, may I ask you what was more prorgessive about
those
governments than other leftwing ones like the French one of
1936.
Probably nothing - this was not my point. The French one
also perished under the jackboot of fascism, although not in
quite the same way. As I said there are so many examples of
this phenomenon, all with their distinct variations
naturally. None of them were aimed at socialist regimes in
my own specific definition, but many were against somewhat
left-leaning and popular ones. Here are a few more: Patrice
Lumumba in Congo, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Amilcar Cabral in
Guine-Bissau, Thomas Sankara in Upper Volta, the events in
Grenada, East Timor. Then there are the unsuccessful cases:
witness the many attempts to liquidate Castro (including Bay
of Pigs etc.) and Qaddafi. In many other cases one has the
pushing aside of a democratically elected government that
was not at all left leaning, but unable to provide the
necessary 'stability', for example the accession of the
current regime in Pakistan or the last one in Nigeria. And
so on. My point? That the orderly succession of governments
through the ballot box is not nearly so much the norm as you
might think. The essential thing here is that where it is
the norm is precisely in those countries that have
sufficient prosperity - and there are relatively few of them
- where rule by consent is the norm. But even this norm is
not a guarantee, as the examples of fascism in Western
Europe show.
These
examples were obviously chosen by Mr.Wood to make us think
that any
slightly progressive government will be attacked and to make
us associate
ballot victory with failure.
Don't quite understand this "equate ballot victory with
failure" bit, so I don't think it could have come from me.
There's something similar about these two cases, and I'm not
thinking about
the spanish character or the catholic mentality or whatever.
In those two cases,
the coups weren't purely internal affairs motivated solely
by the ruling class
and economic interests but foreign powers who were probably
motivated as
much by strategical factors as by political ones were
involved.
There is no way that the coup of Franco was "motivated" by
"foreign powers". That is just wrong. Period. It was a
crisis of the Spanish ruling class and, at a deeper
structural level, the fact of incomplete transition of Spain
to capitalism at the time (note the appeal of anarchism
amongst the large peasantry, which very closely parallels
the situation in Russia some twenty years earlier).
In the case of Chile, as in the other third world examples
I've cited, the foreign element was of course important.
This takes us
away from Mr.Wood's caricatural world.
And into the world of sweet dreams, happy endings, tinsel
and candy floss.
As to counter-examples, in most countries there has been
some progress in
the way that the government regulates the economy at some
periods, isn't it?
Compare 1925 with 1975 for example. How do you explain that?
Explain what?
Maybe you'll
tell me that it was one more trick of the ruling class to
quiet the people.
What was?
I would
answer that if the ruling class does that,
What?
we must ask ourselves whether this
class is actually ruling and how we can make it trick us
more and better.
The point that you seem to be groping towards here is that
capitalism is highly adaptable, it survives many crises and
challenges, and in the course of doing this it changes its
character. One of the reasons it does this (apart from the
effects of competition, new technology, etc.) is the fact of
popular pressure from below. There, did I summarise for you
what you were trying to say?
leenglock breaks out news about the conspiracy:
>the majority are all the time manipulated using all the
means
>available to the ruling classes. chomsky has written books
>like "manufacturing consent" which show clearly how easy
>it is to rule over sheep.
What's that book of Chomsky you've read? I read a few
chapters of another
with exactly the same title but another content. odd. BTW,
calling people
sheeps solves nothing.
Yeah, Chomsky wouldn't have said that. But the ways that
consent are achieved are numerous, subtle and creative. Many
of the cleverest minds of society are constantly at work on
it: journalists, spin doctors, copywriters and
smoke-and-mirrors artists of numerous varieties.
Tahir
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