Mike Meeropol wrote: > All this talk about Obama is pretty much beside the point.
But Mike, you then go on to talk about him, to suggest that we "make common cause" with him and his ilk. So the talk can't be "beside the point." > Ever since the beginning of the Bush Presidency there has been a growing > undercurrent that looks dangerously like a precursor of fascism --- > Obviously it would have an American twist to it, be much more based on > religion than the Mussolini-Hitler versions, but its key element will make > McCarthyism look like an ACLU convention... The undercurrent was there during the Clinton years. Remember Timothy McVeigh and all those militias? Sure, that's different from the teabaggers, but it's mostly because the latter is more mainstream (which also means more moderate). (There are a bunch of other historical precursors such as the Dixiecrats and the Goldwaterites. Were these "fascist"?) Why is it the dystopian future that leftist see on the horizon is always "fascist"? As far as I can tell from history, fascism is a response to a strong working class, complete with socialist and/or communist parties having some power and influence. We don't see that nowadays. As I've said, there's an alternative possibility: Scroogean capitalism, which is the kind of capitalism that Marx analyzed; in that story, everyone's proletarianized with insecure jobs, forced to kow-tow to the malevolent Invisible Hand. In that story, the capitalists get everything they want and it's a disaster, including for them. Mike, your analysis doesn't really reflect the global nature of capitalism, including the way in which Scroogean capitalism has been pushed all over the world -- often using force or financial blackmail -- by the unholy trinity based in the US, i.e., the US Treasury, the IMF, and the World Bank (the "Washington Consensus"). This Consensus wasn't simply a GOP thing. It's also a product of the DP, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, etc. In fact, it was the latter that brought the Consensus back to run US finance, creating the Bubble and the Bust. > The Tea Party (with their racist, anti-immigrant, emphasis) can provide the > shock troops. The Wall Streeters and big industry folks who have decided > that they can have capitalism without the American welfare state (a major > change from 1945-1980) will provide the money and a Republican > administration with a Republican Congress will officially repeal the New > Deal. It looks to me as if a Democratic Party administration is jump-starting that process. But talking about Obama's role as an enabler of Scroogean capitalism would be beside the point? In addition, isn't the Tea Party movement in many ways a reaction to that Scroogean capitalism that not only Bush #2 but Clinton pushed? (There are a lot of other elements, e.g., male resentment of women's economic advances in some fields, bitterness of the #2/Obama bail-out of the big financial powers, etc.) In any event, isn't it possible that such a repeal would ignite a more coherent popular disgust toward the two-party oligopoly than we see right now? Is it always an irreversibly slippery slope? > If I am right, whatever we think of Obama, the miniscule American Left has > got to make common cause, even with the DLC types in the Democratic Party. How would we have any influence at all over what they do? wouldn't we just be acting like cheer-leaders? (I'm a bit too over-weight for that old cheer-leading dress!) > Remember -- the Left was in its heyday (both in the 1930s and in the 1960s) > when LIBERALISM was in the drivers seat. > > If that period ever returns we can start making strong attacks on the > liberals. > > Remember the 1930s when the German Communist Party decided their chief > enemies were the "social fascists" of the Social Democratic Party. We all > know how that turned out. I don't think anyone on pen-l sees the US Democratic Part as the chief enemy (the modern "social fascists"). More importantly, I don't see any reason to see any reason to equate principled criticisms of the reactionary policies of both the DP and GOP with the idiotic "third period" of the Comintern. In any event, if fascism is on the horizon, isn't the left so "miniscule" that it doesn't matter what we do? -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
