me: > Why the reverse cult of personality? Didn't leftists learn a long time > ago from Marx that it's not individual politicians (no matter how > powerful) as much as social forces that matter in politics? the focus > on a single evil individual distracts people from the neoliberal bloc > hiding behind the curtain.
CB: > Do u use the concept of cult of the personality the way its > originator Nikita Khruschev did ? No. K's theory was that the USSR had to stop adulating its leaders and everything would be copacetic (helped, of course, by his own rise to power). I think that the USSR's rot was much more profound. But that's a topic for another day. CB: > The significance of this > article is that it is a small step at reversing the Reagan cult of the > personality which is part of the Tea Party's and right wing's > ideological pillars today. I have seen lots of praise for Reagan , > but this is the first time I've seen a mainstream press anti-Reagan > article. It is necessary to take on the Reagan cult to counter the Tea > Party and , of course, Reaganites. Notice one of the things cited that > Reagan did was good - amnesty for immigrants. That shows that this > writer is not a left winger. If you're going to post articles you should explain their significance. I thought you always posted articles you agree with. In any event, I don't see how the TP will change its mind about its basic politics, even if they give up on Reagan. They've got lots of other heroes. And they get lots of money from the Koch brothers and a whole passel of other right-wing millionaires. There have been a lot of reactionary petty-bourgeois movement in the past that didn't have Reagan as an icon, so the TP can survive without him. (In addition, of course, they don't give a damn about facts.) > Actually, Marx's direct statement was that Big Men could slow or speed > the pace of the rev, but not make it or thwart it completely. That' > exactly what Big Man Reagan did. He slowed movement toward socialism > by initiating counter-reforms and especially a counter-reform > ideology. ... _What_ "movement toward socialism" did the US have in 1979? is there some inexorable trend toward socialism that was hidden from sight at the time, one that involved no actual organization or ideology or popular action? You can't have a "movement toward socialism" without some sort of popular movement. . I'd say that the resistible rise of RR was not only a matter of the strength of the "right" (as they started to unify around a neoliberal program) but also the weakness of the "left." Most of the popular movements of the 1960s (not to mention the popular movement of the 1930s & 40s, i.e., the labor movement) had peaked and were in sever decline by 1979. me: > BTW, it's unfair to blame Reagan for the 11% unemployment in 1982-3. > If you want to blame anyone, it would be Paul Volcker, who the DP > president Jimmy Carter named to be head of the Federal Reserve. RR's > tax cuts for the rich actually counteracted Volcker's tight monetary > policy when it came to the unemployment issue. CB; > Yea, the DP haters have mentioned that about twenty times over > the years here and on related lists. That's hardly a reason to let Carter and the DP off the hook while distorting history in the process. BTW, I'm not a DP hater. I just think that it's a tremendous waste of time to put any faith in the DP or to "bore from within" to try to improve it. If you want to improve the DP _ignore it_ and fight for your own political goals, which will often be in conflict those of DP leaders. If you're successful to some degree -- as, for example, the OWS movement has been -- the DP will shift in your direction. If you give in and start catering to them, they'll absorb you. If you keep on fighting for your goals and sticking to your principles (without the sectarian garbage of various "Marxist-Leninist" grouplets), you're more likely to change the DP than if you work for their candidates, etc. me: > Whether the Gypper was "horrible" or not depends on your perspective. > If you want there to be a neoliberal consensus among the ruling forces > in US and world society, RR was great. He cemented the coalition that > transformed US and world society, so that DP icons such as Bill > Clinton and Barack Obama went along with neoliberalism (and have > deepened it). CB: > Well yeah. If one is a rightwinger, Reagan is great. ... is that why Obama has praised Reagan? CB: > Reaganism a better term than > neo-liberal, because Liberalism is associated with what he helped > bring down. Such code words as "tax and spend Liberals" code for > Negro-loving white politicians are central to the Reaganite ideology. > Anyway, because of the association in mass political discourse of > "Liberal" with FDR and LBJ, it is confusing to call Reagan an > initiator of neo-liberalism because Liberalism in the American sense > is. what he started the attack on. ... CB, you have a point there: neoliberalism is a term that only leftists and academics use. The problem with "Reaganism" is that the term totally ignores the power of big money and the kind of policies they've been pushing since even before Reagan. The "politics of the 1 percent" might be a better term. In any event, leftists should always make the point that the problem is _more than Reagan or Reaganism_. Focusing on one individual -- or catering to those who focus on one individual -- is silly. [I'm still in shock. Rahm Emmanuel went to my high school.] -- Jim Devine / "In an ugly and unhappy world the richest man can purchase nothing but ugliness and unhappiness." -- George Bernard Shaw _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
