Mary, Horse, Platt and Y'all:
Mary, I read last weeks post with great interest. Even jotted down some
notes as I thought about it. Sorry I never actually sent a response to
that one. It kind of fell between the cracks. Maybe you'll put it up
again sometime when we're looking for a topic? Your Feb 13 post on the
Clinton drama was good "inside" stuff. The image of him smokin' dope at
the Whitewater made me feel good about being American. :-) There's no
doubt that celebrity is a big factor in Clinton's popularity. I pretty
much agreed with your conclusion that the whole thing is a battle
between the Victorians and the Hippies. The 90's have been a
conservative, even reactionary phase, just as the 60's were a liberal
phase. Where the 60's had hippies, peace protesters, civil rights
marches and race riots, we in the 90's have angry white males, the
militia movement, The Bell Curve and the Oaklahoma city bombing.
"RACIST REPUBLICANS?!? BUT GEORGE WALLACE WAS A DEMOCRAT!"
As I understand it, the shift began with FDR. From the time of the civil
war the Democrats had always been the party of the south and was steeped
in racism for obvious reasons. I believe it was a bit of a scandal when
FDR ran as a Democrat and enacted so many social programs. Some of his
family and friends thought he was a traitor to his class. The
transformation of the two parties was basically completed by George
Wallace when he and the Dixiecrats walked out of the Democratic National
convention. That was in 1964 or 1968. Nixon understood what had happened
and courted the Dixiecrats. That's the short story, of course.
Horse: I was so glad for your help on the libertarian socialist debate.
We have something in common; we're both Chomsky fans. I take back every
critical word I ever uttered about you. Shall we lobby for libertarian
socialism to be the official ideology of the MOQ? : -) I really do
think it fits the MOQ better than anything else.
It effectively gives respect to the demands of each of the two top
levels. It seems to recognize the distinction, and the tension, between
the social and intellectual levels. It also works well with the U.S.
constitution.
Platt: The connection between Fascism and Socialism truly is a source of
great confusion. Some of it due to propaganda and bad political
rhetoric, but a huge part of it is in the name of Hitler's party, the
National Socialists Party. But he truth is, Hitler murdered all the
Socialist leaders of his party in one night. The call it the night of
the long knives. He quite literally purged Socialism from the NAZI
machine. The same sort of things happened in Spain and Italy. Fascism is
alot of things, but it is always rabidly anti-communist, and it usually
fails to see any difference between Communism and socialism. Just for
the record, Fascism is always anti-intellectual, anti-democratic,
authoritarian, patriotic, nationalistic and militaristic. All three
Fascist countries in WWII were also very anti-gay. Which is odd,
considering how sexy those uniforms were.
Also Platt, I recognize your point of view. I was once an Ayn Rand fan
too. If you check out some Chomsky, I bet you'll leave her behind like I
did. (FYI : "Atlas Shrugged" is a huge favorite in the U.S., second only
to the bible in sales. But she has also been designated "the worst
novelist of all time" and she's generally not taken seriously as a
philosopher or political thinker either.) Chomsky has the advantage of
being respected even by his enemies, which are many. Even if you're
sickened by his political views, you might find his work in linguistics
to be fascinating. Weren't you in advertising? Seems you'd appreciate
his work in this area. He revolutionized the field. He's da Man.
David
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:52 BST