Radio Free Europe represented for many (myself included) the only connection with the free world, for years and years. That (as opposed to Bush's war on terror) was indeed a war for democracy. That war had a good side, democratic and promoting freedom, and a bad side, dictatorial and murderous. That was less a game of geopolitical influence than working to correct a situation imposed by the end of the WW2 and literally save hundreds of millions of people.
Not only pragmatism, not only common sense, but decency itself holds me from minimizing or relativizing initiatives such as Radio Free Europe, after those years' experience. Even in an abstract or philosophical discussion. Even less accepting as legitimate (let alone valid!) a comparison to GRU or KGB infiltrating and supporting certain civil movements. That had as sole purpose to use freedom and democracy in order to undermine free and democratic societies. The same could never be attempted in dictatorial countries, because of their very nature. There was a general spy war and it took place essentially on western side, because of its guaranteed freedom and human rights, precisely to have as result the termination of those freedoms and rights.
As one of my favourite classics said, in order to explain the unexplainable, we will end up justifying the unjustifiable. Friends will certainly recognize the author ;) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The difference is fundamental and one must be a sworn theorist, a certified philosophical relativist and a fanatic of quantum physics to the point of forgetting to what direction water flows, not to see it. I'm sorry. Radio Free Europe represented for many (myself included) the only connection with the free world, for years and years.
Radio Free Europe represented for many (myself included) the only connection with the free world, for years and years.
That's all well and fine, and I'm not actually disputing the legitimacy of the activities of Radio Free Europe. The point I was making was that the fact that RFE was sponsored by a gang of murderous thugs does not in any way detract from its value or legitimacy, any more than the fact that modest sums of money were channelled from GRU to various NGOs in Western Europe detracts from the merit of their work. (Usually, BTW, fringe groups. Romanticism for the Soviet Union was never the mainstream position on the organised left - and certainly not to the extent that later historians have made it out to be.)
That (as opposed to Bush's war on terror) was indeed a war for democracy. That war had a good side, democratic and promoting freedom, and a bad side, dictatorial and murderous.
It had a bad side and a less bad side, that much is true. But a "good" side? Only for a very - ah - flexible (one might almost say "relativist") definition of "good."
That was less a game of geopolitical influence than working to correct a situation imposed by the end of the WW2
Six of one, half a dozen of the other... If you believe that the policy of The West(TM) during the Cold War was driven by anything remotely resembling altruism, you really have very little business accusing other people of knee-jerk ideological reactions.
Even less accepting as legitimate (let alone valid!) a comparison to GRU or KGB infiltrating and supporting certain civil movements. That had as sole purpose to use freedom and democracy in order to undermine free and democratic societies.
How is opposing murderous colonial wars a way of "undermining freedom and democracy?" Should people in The West have sat idly by while the great powers sent their gangsters around the world to enforce a colonial order, merely because an expansion of the American colonial empire put pressure on Soviet geopolitical interests? Didn't you just speak out against sacrificing people for a higher end? Or does the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union justify all the "collateral damage" associated with creating and maintaining the American empire? (And principles aside, very few of the colonial wars that the peaceniks opposed actually had any material impact on the security and stability of the Soviet Union - the Soviet attempts at obstructing them was just old-fashioned Grand Chessboard gamesmanship...)
There was a general spy war and it took place essentially on western side,
And how the fuck does this justify spying on your own citizens? Being opposed to the war in Viet Nam did not make one a Soviet spy or agent provocateur, any more than opposing the war in Vietraq makes one a terrorist-loving fan of Osama Been Forgotten.
If you want to catch actual, honest-to-God spies (you know, the people who sell out their countries' strategic interests for money) - Russian, Soviet, Chinese, American, you name it - you look at the staff of defence contractors, you look in the counter-intelligence agencies, you look in the foreign ministries, you look in the industrial R&D departments. You don't look at a bunch of long-haired hippies brewing organic green tea in front of the Parliament building. That's just ridiculous.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
"To promote democratic values and institutions by disseminating factual information and ideas"
That is not "less bad"; Freedom IS good - unless you're a faithful relativist for which everything indeed is relative. (see, I'm not saying you're downright a communist.
Most if not all of those who claim they were sponsored by CIA are self declared communists or socialist (I can only quote William Blum, you may have other sources) - hardly a model of objectivity on the matter.
RFE acted for freedom; pacifist groups often acted against military opposition of the free west to communist dictatorships. They were as such a tool used by the latter in their type of cold war, in absolutely no way equivalent to openly sponsoring a radio station promoting human rights and liberties.
I am getting more and more baffled of the things I am brought to argue about. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The basis would be this:
Conclusion: my ideology always comes first.
I thought rule number one of Valentins ideology was that it is not called an ideology. Otherwise I agree, you do seem to consistently put your ideology first. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
Second, "my ideology comes first" is a conclusion of the leftwing positions quoted above. From those, one can conclude that the beacon is no highminded ideal, be it human rights, freedoms, inequalities, but winning the war, period. You can also see this in the way any of my attempts at nuancing things was received as a sign of hidden rightwing agenda. I was reading somewhere else that the Daily Kos etc were meant to support the Democrat party rather than leftwing ideology. My feeling is on the contrary that far from this being open, you get shut down immediately when you don't seem to "feel together" with the others, when you don't react exclusively emotionally (and strongly so) to oppression and inequalities. No matter how rational and argumenting you are. Hardly a sign of opening or welcoming people of other sensibilities. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
My diary is about the more and more cases of unideological people and approaches to issues that I see these days.
And my comment was about the more and more cases of obvious ideology I see in your writing. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
You can of course comment on all you want, but analyzing myself, like I said, is not the point at all. Kindly judge my arguments and deny, confirm or otherwise comment them if you care. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I suspect this is an exercise in futility. You seem perfectly happy in pointing out ideology in others, but your own can not be discussed as it does not exist, and arguing otherwise is ideological, right? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I gave Jake earlier the example of the psychiatric hospital. A sick man went out and killed someone. That provoked a lot of noise, of course, so measures were taken to enforce safety in these hospitals. In order to reassure people that would risk to misunderstand these measures as some authoritarian/securitarian policy of a rightwing government, a statement has been made, broadly saying that such places are not prisons, yet people shouldn't be free of their movements either.
Now one can see this as trivial, and a slogan used to mask authoritarian policy. Someone less biased would likely understand that by putting in balance both situations, the idea was to show that both viewpoints are considered, none is forgotten, and the measures don't intend to turn psy clinics into prisons. A mark of pragmatic approach.
I gave this kind of examples all the time, and they were systematically taken as positions against train drivers, prisoners, immigrants, unions, NGOs, and so on. The fact that I presented the two sides and I said both are to be taken into account, apparently looked like a way to manipulate the real intention, the ideology that you think you point as hiding behind. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
That usually creates a legal hodge-podge with little structure, little consistency and plenty of unanticipated side effects. In other words, all the things you criticise bureaucracy for doing...
That we have a tabloid press (of which the Murdoch Times is part, to go by what our British comrades are saying) that facilitates this by treating news as if it were cheap, tasteless pornography is hardly a credit to our society, or our body politic.
There simply is no escaping, never. Your conclusion "was argumented" but you chose your arguments and you had reasons for choosing the arguments that you chose.
It is not clear IMO in what exact terms your ideology should be defined but it CAN be defined. Your ideology consists of your views, your convictions, your values. The glasses that you wear when you describe the world, how you - and only you - perceive the world, are your ideology.
You don't need to say explicitly, "I believe in ...", " I don't believe in ...". The words that you choose to describe what you think allow everyone to see who you are and what your ideology consists of. No one has the full picture. The ideology that is yours has not been put in words and published in a book for everyone to read, but you transcend it, transpire it through your words.
There is no escapin' from ourselves...
I believe that your refusal to admit to be ideological like everyone else here, too - is causing more upheaval than the controversy of the political debate itself.
It's much easier to say, "I believe in this and that because of this and that", be clear about ones ideology than to claim to not have one but talk through the inspiration of rational Reason that is unattainable but absolute.
It would be interesting if you could frame your ideology and if JakeS and you would then debate and work out differences and common ground. Maybe both could learn something new from the other.
[That sounds a shade on the fanboyish side, but it's actually true...]
new levels of lucid... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
That is your own point of view and what you looked for here in the first place.
This diary has nothing to do with my own ideology. I signaled it to you, when you were going about wildly about ideologically charged topics.
Again: I wrote about how polarisation of political life seems to lead to a new political class, rational pragmatists, defending human(ist) values, rights and freedoms, and also the capitalist economy to do well its own job.
I'm not saying they are perfect at it, or that the current state of affairs is a proof of this, but that things tend to go into that direction.
I - never - mentioned - my - own - ideology in my diary, nor related to it in any way. People should get that into their heads before drawing overarching conclusions.
On the contrary, after seeing TimeOnlines, Economist and NY Times blogs too, I see some people here as extremely polarised. They admit it unrepentfully, and it's perfectly ok.
NO wonder therefore that the slightest gut reaction I have to some case of unfairness other than the Rich and the Famous, you take it as a sign of rightwing ideology coming out.
I said a very restrained, limited, precise thing on unions, and you transformed it into a huge sub-thread where you ranted about stealing and aggression and fight and so on and so forth. It was a rant Jake, an ideological one (yourself accepted that later on, even as maintaining its justifiability), and nothing to do either with me, with my comment, or with the topic of this blog.
So to Lily, I reply that I made a few impersonal reflections on the political world today, and I have been confronted with a few extremely activist left-leaning people. I've been dragged onto their ideological field, and had to reply in ways which of course contrasted theirs. Like I said before: being centre against a violent leftwinger, positively looks like being rightwing.
The same can be said about my anti-neocon/neolib posts on other blogs. Being centre and rational to violent neocons/neolibs appears as being leftwing; I've been called a socialist Frenchie, supporting the Big Government, spineless appeasing European etc etc. The same reactions. My own gut reactions to ideological extremisms appear as sign of the opposite ideology.
Well I can tell Jake that the usual social-democrat does not believe unions are under violent attack from fatcats. The ones I knew or saw sounded much more moderate, even as being leftwing.
As to my personal ideas, I admitted to rightwing values as effort, as well as to supporting unions and NGOs as indispensable to the civic life, for instance as reflected on the website of the British vulnerabilities commission (or so - link provided by In Wales that I lost). My personal values come from the three sides, they look much like classical liberalism and enlightenment humanism. I'm for the individual, but also for the society, for punishment, but also education and prevention, for rights, and for duty (Sarkozy Alert). I could speak with people of both sides provided they're rational and not extremist. Call me a maverick if you need to label me. Again, this has nothing to do with the subject of this diary, which analyzed the political life today. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
IMO pragmatism is a new ideology, not no ideology.
Your earlier blog was called "Is ideology dead?" - The debate was controversial. I didn't read all of it but I don't remember that there was agreement on ideology's death.
This blog is called "So, Ideology is dead. So now what?" -
Who said ideology was dead? You declared it dead by choosing this title.
Then, you present your argumented views. They are NOT OBJECTIVE. I don't say they are wrong or right anyhow, or pink, green, yellow, ..., left or right. They are simply not objective. And this is what most here have been saying, I think.
You can say that in your view ideology is this and that but you begin by presenting the issue of the former debate as solved, as irrefutable fact, and on top of it you claim that this is the truth. Well, you don't talk about the truth; you simply say that this is so because of your objective and rational assessment of facts.
This in itself is subjective and highly ideological because you say that your way of looking at an issue is objective; the way you choose and analyze facts is the best there is. By implication you dismiss the arguments others have brought forward on the issue.
You didn't want this debate to be about "your" presumed ideology by trying to keep it abstract and by declaring not only ideology dead but also yourself immune to ideology.
To me this feels like a vacuum that is imploding.
Isn't this the way stars are born?
;)
This blog needs a shift to the right.
The title was merely provocative. Anyone bothering to go beyond the first line found this:
"Ideologies - or more accurately said, ideologisation of social and political life, seem to show signs of weakness. In what concerns me, I even argued about their approaching death - disappearance, if not from society, at least from public debate of any importance. Is this really the end of it, no more wars of ideas, no more ideals to dream of, no more polarisation?
I confess the idea that we would tend towards a sort of a bureaucratic-technocratic society, sounded quite appealing at first - not because of its advantages: jury's still out on that; but as a surprisingly (and terrifingly) accurate assessment of the state of affairs these days
Moreover, even arguing in favour of "the death of ideologies" is not ideological in itself. It's like arguing that the society is becoming atheist would be a religious position. In a contorted logic, maybe.
Pragmatism, as I said a few times now, is a methodology based on the systematic attempt to get free from subjective bias. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
this is starting to sound like dialogue out of star trek.
we'd all make better decisions if we had no emotions, i guess!
there's something dehumanising in the relentless verbiage, no sense of give and take, just wearying repetitions of what seems an increasingly robotic take on life, expressed with hairsplitting relish-less relish.
you are doubtless intelligent in an AI fashion, but it seems cognitively alien in some way i can't quite put my finger on, something emotionally autistic in the subtext, bleeding through the comments, also a slightly superior, hectoring tone that leaves a funny taste on the monitor.
excuse me for drifting into ad hom territory, but i use it to counter what i perceive to be a trollish passive-aggressivity, especially towards Jake, that provoked so many interesting comments i thought it just a new foil for a while for some here, who usually aren't so forthcoming as a rule.
but it's gone on so long, and while your command of language and argument is impressive, especially in a non-mother tongue, it's fucking hard work tracking you, and after doing the work, there's a vacuously cheated feeling left at the end, as i said in another comment on another semi-tedious thread, there's no 'there' there!
so i must regretfully conclude that you V are a new kind of troll i never encountered before, one that bores victims into reluctant submission, because who has the stamina, at the end of the day, to argue one's points with such a fixed-non-position as yours? in trying to be absolutely impartial, you actually create a semantic black hole for the idealistic to supposedly wormhole through to some post-ideological nirvana, where actually we all end up rendered, flattened into some different, dispassionate shape, disembodied algorithms jammed into some utilitarian anti-philosophy.
it's a recycling of the 'god is dead' mantra of the 50-60's, but this time it's ideology.
so fucking what?
you've created a little tautological loop, and having successfully convinced yourself of its invincibility to discussion, continue to batter the blog with spurious, sophistic, shaggy-dog circular non-reasoning that so far has convinced no-one of the veracity of any of the pseudo-truistic non-points you indefatigably belabour, with admirably impressive tenacity.
there's a kind of zen futility to the whole operation, kinda makes me wonder if you enjoy creating a sort of vortex into which heartfelt arguments meet a watery grave, a maelstrom of meaninglessness into which they tumble, energy and time misspent chimera-chasing.
davy jones in person!
i sure hope you got your jollies here, where's the next lucky blog you plan to enlighten in your, er, unique way?
sheez, i'm sorry if i offended some netiquette, but some of these threads have had me wanting to scream at what i have finally deduced, wading through so many murky mystifications, can only be wilful, wanton and contrarian obtuseness.
i really tried, but this one's off any map i can relate to.
happy looping! i sure wish i hadn't bothered spending precious time down a rabbit hole, but hey, chalk it up to getting accustomed to ET being a place where mental energy invested was always over-amply rewarded.
there went another cherished illusion!
wheeee (with h)... have a peaceful day.
nice job, i admit you had me going for a while... hats off to the saintly levels of patience others have revealed, in trying to welcome you and make you feel respected and 'chez toi'.
fool's gold, it just shimmers, ultimately weightless... being endlessly 'right' is a vaccination against productive discussion. we lefties are easy to bait into 'deep' dialogue, but eventually you have to come clean and take a position that consists of more than shooting holes in others'.
but you're way too clever a fox for that, huh? you are a giant wind-up, that gets kicks from daring provoking people into spitting out what you masochistically really want to hear, namely that your counter-arguments hold no water of life, they're just maya, mindstuff, monkeymind chatter, much ado about Sweet Fanny Adams...
but you were dying to have your bluff called, right?
we're on to you! at least your posts elicited some excellent responses.
lucifer's advocate? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Apparently you have never tussled with a global warming skeptic. :-)
The rest was bonus hours spent replying to fierce ideological shots. I merely said, ideological stances have a tendency to exaggeration, to flaming, to work for some ideal, and was noting people might be getting fed up with it.
There is no "there", just a question whether utilitarians are to take the place of the "illuminated" politicians. No intention to promote anything, but the reactions were blazing. I explained why: a non ideologue is mistaken for a hidden kind of one, and attacked by everybody else. What's the goal of pragmatism? Simply utilitarian, I suppose. No more grand vision of the future. What's my goal? None, I framed an issue that I found interesting, and for the rest, mainly replied to ranting. Jake made valid points, which we discussed, and pure sloganeering (which he admitted). But in general, he dragged me on ideological ground. What do I care that he sees the society as a war between fatcats and (cornered, battered) civic organizations? For me, that's the dychotomic view typical to ideologically polarised people.
My "impartiality", utilitarianism, certainly looked excessive and boring, due to too much repetition. My mistake was to not set things straight from the very beginning, know when to draw the line, instead of leaving those "interesting" sub-threads develop to no end, and then complain of it. For instance, it was a big mistake to speak of "sheer communism". It was ideological, and my subsequent clarification was useless. I shouldn't have replied to Ted Welch on "communist dictatorships", as it had nothing to do with my diary.
I'm not trying to revive anything, you can see that but a few people joined in. And for a reason: my diary was a bit too "academic", phrases too long and convoluted, the subject quite trivial, if you take a critical look at it. The subject was actually so dull, that stopping the ideological rants make it look void: the only "brilliant" idea is that we would be diving into prosaic utilitarianism.
So yes, you can say 300 + 300=600 posts were published on anything and everything but the topic, because the topic itself hardly interested.
"saintly levels of patience others have revealed, in trying to welcome you and make you feel respected"
Oh? Except the newcomers' welcome, each of my subsequent posts were met with mistrust and accused of rightwing propaganda. On the women discrimination, or these two blogs on ideology, all I said was in the end quite trivial stuff. But the slightest scent of me not being totally and fully for the weak and the poor, no matter how trivial and argumented, provoked the ire of a handful of people and derived into hundreds of posts.
Yes, lucifer's advocate in a way. I confess to this, I promise I don't do it on purpose, to troll, flame or hurt anybody, I just seem to thrive on hot debates and me taking several sides for the fun of argumenting. I actually tend to do that, indeed. I realize this won't bring me any more fans than I already have :)
I would apologize for this, even if it really was not meant like that. I really only wanted to speak of utilitarian politicians. But then, you do admit to having found some interest in those other reactions after all. If only for that, my "void" can be forgiven and forgotten :)
cheers Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Pragmatism, as I said a few times now, is a methodology based on the systematic attempt to get free from subjective bias.
Not under any of the definitions of that word that appear in my dictionary. The term you're looking for is "the scientific method." But of course, being familiar with the rather dubious claims of Marxism to be based on a scientific understanding of the world, you might understandably be hesitant to claim that your ideology is "scientific." It sounds much better to call it "pragmatic" and then do a rhetorical bait-and-switch to substitute in the meaning of "scientific."
You are of course free to attempt to construct your own political philosophy based on concepts that you invent out of thin air, or based on re-defining words that have a reasonably precise meaning in the context of other political philosophy. And by appropriating words with positive connotations, you might get people to profess agreement. But that's not quite the same thing as convincing them that your position is correct.
In the meanwhile, if you want to get your point across to people who actually do have a little schooling in the standard terminology of political theory, you'd be wise to at least give a nod in the direction of the usual terminology instead of dismissing it as ideologically influenced (it is, of course, just as your terminology is, but that does not render it invalid...).
Hardline ideologists - communists/marxists, fascists, hard right, neocons, neolibs (soc' and eco') occupy the political scene for some time. The point would be no more than applying reason even when the Book says things are this or that way. I'm not saying that computers should decide life much like rugby would only have video equipped robot as referee. I don't say people shouldn't have convictions, but they should be thought of, not just faith.
You think "the war against fatcats", "bigots", "McPain", "Sarko's baiting for racists", "USSR was not really communist" are not rants, do not come from faith and visceral reactions? Do they strike you as reasonable, or productive? Polarisation, framing, invective, truth twisting, sloganeering, this is has always been in fundamentalists' toolbox.
As I said to melo, people need frameworks. People needed religions, and were often exploited by them or by their opportunists. Ideologies today are much like religions yesterday: they pretend to give people a framework, an ideal, make some good points, but behind their rather abstract theoretical base, it often hides opportunism and faith.
"My" pragmatism would be opposed this ideological faith. Not against honest conviction, but against pre-determined, unquestioned conviction, the kind saying "we know workers are exploited, we need no argument or nuancing, anyone bringing that is a miscreant, anyone in dissent is evil". (who said that? one might ask; but it was there permeating everything) Those ideologies I listed above, in the end, amount to exactly that, despite some good, humanist, or logical points they have.
The idea would be about taking faith and intellectual dishonety out of politics and political ideas - call it idealistic, and as such, ideological :) We need people who think critically, rather than just activists, we need people who believe in what they do for a good reason, who combat discrimination not from feminist faith, or biased statistics, but are aware that not all inequality comes from discrimination or unfairness. That they need to look for the causes, not just act out of activism. I didn't plead for a mathematical objectivity, it's impossible and inhumane, and I feel quite more sympathetic to classical liberalism and enlightenment humanism than would be needed to deny that. I'm just getting the impression people are beginning to appreciate more down to earth politics, and less ranting and wild dreams. One might point me to Obama's hopeful yes we can own slogans. Yes, but we can change things that don't work, so that they work, in real life, and not in order to implement this or that ideological agenda. Just wait and watch him at it :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
What one might see as my excessive detachedness, abstract objectivity, mathematical formulas, or "scientific method" not unlike Marx's, is more like allowing more critical thinking, more facts, more down-to-earth practical life stances into politics.
Yeah... "critical thinking" - we sure need more Cobb County style "critical thinking..."
Now, that's a real "down to earth" "practical life" approach that caters to the issues that the community actually cares about.
Coming from the guy who said that sloganeering pollutes the debate...
You think "the war against fatcats", "bigots", "McPain", "Sarko's baiting for racists", "USSR was not really communist" are not rants, do not come from faith and visceral reactions?
It's class war, and has a fairly precise meaning that involves taking away billionaires' billions (whether one permits them to keep their millions is where the imprecision comes in), respectively billionaires trying to become trillionaires at the expense of everyone who isn't a billionaire. The latter part being the more common in recent decades...
As for Sarko's race baiting... wasn't it you who said something along the lines of if the shoe fits?
"Bigot" can be a slur, or it can be an accurate assessment of a person. Someone who thinks that homosexuals should be denied the right to marry (or registered partnership or whatever you want to call it to not offend the fundagelical fruitcakes) is a bigot - I hardly think you'll deny that? Context is important.
Similar considerations apply for McPain.
I agree with you on the USSR being communist.
So what was that? One and two halves out of five? But hey, who's counting, right? I'm just being a spoilsport here and disrupting a perfectly good ideological rant.
"My" pragmatism would be opposed this ideological faith. Not against honest conviction, but against pre-determined, unquestioned conviction,
I never saw you make a serious attempt at challenging anybody's convictions. A serious attempt at doing so would involve data and policy, two things you have so far scrupulously avoided to pass comment on.
the kind saying "we know workers are exploited, we need no argument or nuancing, anyone bringing that is a miscreant, anyone in dissent is evil". (who said that? one might ask; but it was there permeating everything)
You never actually presented any data - at least none I've seen. Anecdotes are all well and fine as fairy tales go, but they really don't compare to a good, solid graph.
It would be one thing if all you wanted was for us to accept that workers are not getting a raw deal - and need to be getting an even rawer one - on blind faith, a little hand-waving and some sloganeering that could have been (and often has been) clipped right out of the part of the press that writes in big, easy letters and rarely use words with more than two syllables.
It is quite a different order of chutzpah to claim that this is injecting critical thinking into the debate.
The idea would be about taking faith and intellectual dishonety out of politics and political ideas - call it idealistic, and as such, ideological :)
I'm all for that - I just think you're barking up the wrong tree. The majority of the left got that memo decades ago.
We need people who think critically, rather than just activists, we need people who believe in what they do for a good reason, who combat discrimination not from feminist faith, or biased statistics, but are aware that not all inequality comes from discrimination or unfairness.
Yawn Been there, done that, got a Reagan Revolution for our troubles. We have all those things. What we need is activism that makes sure we can actually put to use any of the insights we gain from all this critical thinking and introspection.
You really are barking up the wrong tree here. The left is so far behind on the propaganda game that it's downright pitiful. It's like hearing a committed pacifist give sermons on the principles of non-violence to a Palestinian kid because he throws rocks at the Israeli tank that's just plowed his house down...
I'm just getting the impression people are beginning to appreciate more down to earth politics, and less ranting and wild dreams. One might point me to Obama's hopeful yes we can own slogans. Yes, but we can change things that don't work, so that they work, in real life, and not in order to implement this or that ideological agenda. Just wait and watch him at it :)
I don't know what you're smoking, but it's unfair of you not to share! (I think I know what you've been reading, but that's neither here nor there...)
I would be most happy if Obama could change the things that don't work so they start working - working for all the people all over the world, ideally. But heck, if he can get it working for all the people all over the US, I'd be impressed.
Given the shitpile that thirty consecutive years of Reaganomics (is it ideological to point out that the current financial and ecological disasters have been the sole and proprietary responsibility of the Right?) have dumped on him, I'd be very surprised.
Given the decrepit state of US democracy (is it ideological to point out that reduced voter turnout has been a deliberate strategy from the Right in the US?), I'd be very, very surprised.
Given that so far he seems to be more about centrism and sticking to Conventional Wisdom (is it ideological to point out that Conventional Wisdom is flat out wrong on how to run an economy?) than about radical change to make things work for Main Street as opposed to Wall Street (and is it ideological to point out that there has been a massive transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street in the last three decades?), I'd be extremely surprised.
I wrote about how polarisation of political life seems to lead to a new political class, rational pragmatists, defending human(ist) values, rights and freedoms, and also the capitalist economy to do well its own job. I'm not saying they are perfect at it, or that the current state of affairs is a proof of this, but that things tend to go into that direction.
And the rest of us pointed out that this conclusion was bullshit when examined at the level of actual policy - you know the level of detail that actually matters - rather than at the level of propaganda and sloganeering.
Your response to this has been - consistently - that you can only evaluate politicians by what they say. We called bullshit on that as well: Clearly, there are other ways to evaluate politicians - such as by the policy they implement, or by the policy that their supporters push for.
Then you replied - over and over again - that you couldn't be bothered with details, because you were trying to make a general point. But when the details run counter to your general point, you don't get to dismiss the details.
Now, if all you had argued was that appearing pragmatic is a viable propaganda strategy, nobody would have objected with any great force - that this is the case has been known essentially since Goebbels invented modern marketing. But that's not the case you were trying to make (although it's a position that you've tried to backpedal to more than once). You were trying to make the case that a) (winning) politicians try to sound pragmatic, b) therefore the public seems to desire pragmatic politicians, c) therefore the public elects pragmatic politicians, d) therefore the elected politicians are pragmatic.
But item c) does not follow from items a) and b), except in a naïve fantasy land where democracy works perfectly, the citizenry is completely informed and propaganda has no effect because politicians are judged not by the colour of their advertising, but by the content of their policy.
I said a very restrained, limited, precise thing on unions, and you transformed it into a huge sub-thread where you ranted about stealing and aggression and fight and so on and so forth.
Where? You made a sweeping, general claim that many unions are excessively ideological and will push their ideology to the detriment of society in general.
When challenged to provide examples of this - you know, actual data from which your position could be evaluated, you not only backpedaled to the position that only a few unions were doing this, you also cited a couple of highly spurious cases.
I (and a couple of others) called bullshit on those cases. But unlike you, most ETers don't just make sweeping general claims as to the bullshitty nature of other people's proposals. There's an expectation around these parts that when you object to someone else's examples, arguments, hypothesis or conclusions, you make a case. Which I did.
You then dismissed the case on the highly spurious grounds that 1) it wasn't relevant because it was too detailed, 2) it wasn't relevant because your impression of public perception didn't agree with the conclusions and 3) you didn't agree and you considered the disagreement a result of differing ideological baggage. Full stop, no further argument presented.
This is the standard fallacy of centrism - to cast as inherently virtuous the fact that one is somewhere in between two disparate groups. Well, when one group is simply consistently wrong on the facts, this is not laudable. If a creationist says that the Earth is 6000 years old, and a scientist says that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, you don't get to split the difference, call it 2.25 billion years and claim credit for being a "sensible centrist." The creationist is flat out wrong on the facts, and the scientist is reasonably correct.
But of course, if you insist on doing politics instead of policy - that is, if you insist on only examining propaganda and slogans rather than actual content - you'll never get around to examining the data that would allow you to determine this fact.
Only looking at the slogans and not at all at the data, and to on that basis claim that all ideologies are born equal is the ultimate in epistemological relativism. But that doesn't seem to prevent you from calling anyone and everyone a relativist who argues that your position has no inherent validity (a priori and absent comparisons with data)...
I made no general claim. I said French unions are broadly considered more to the left than others, and that their discourse still goes in tones more characteristic to the 19th century. I pointed at the case of CGT and SUD unions as quite ideological and politicized, even as I mentioned that the CGT now seems to have broken ties with the French extreme left.
That was quite precise. Any of the other points I made about balanced approaches were not proven mistaken for their purpose; you (and others, about nurses for instance) immediately flamed up, imagined some denial of discrimination, inequality, or sufference, and poured slogans creating ideologically charged sub-threads to no end. You didn't contradict my point about prisons, but started the same fiery arguing about human rights. linca earlier didn't note that my reference to nurses was only to show that you can't judge discrimination only by numbers, not to claim that they have some easy life. And that thread likewise was completely hijacked by ranting against nurse sufference and degrading status. I'm discussing details of policies, but only in the context of balance. My phrase about train drivers' condition was not even attacking the unions. All I said is that that has nothing to do with 100 years ago. Again, a whole sub-thread of ranting about how drivers must be very careful and wake up early, about how their pay is insufficient, and so on. Many common sense statements obviously drew certain people into an ideological gut reaction.
The content you bring up does not add anything at all either for or against my "claim" that ideology would be dying. Unless you try to show yourself very polarised, and so prove that the flame still lives on. I don't deny your data, I can ignore your slogans (that you admitted to be so), ok, passons. We agreed on certain policies, as you saw (when you managed to slow down a bit). But that wasn't the point. I don't care about discussing whose policies are true and better - left or right.
The point was, is utilitarianism and opportunism (as you call it, I think many of those politicians are actually sincere), are they pushing ideologies to the fringe of the democratic life? Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Downgrading the level of your discourse hardly helps your argumenting.
You want some cheese with that whine?
I have said before, and I will happily say again, that I would have no objection to going through the entire thread and look at who called whom names. I'm not sure that's a particularly productive way to spend our time, though.
Try and do that in real life, then watch the effects.
Because smug arrogance is such an endearing trait... Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, permit me to introduce Pot.
I made no general claim. I said French unions are broadly considered more to the left than others, and that their discourse still goes in tones more characteristic to the 19th century.
And that's not a sweeping, general claim? Well, I can see why you might think that it's not. There's only what? fifty million people in France? And after all, they're only organised in some two score unions, plus the small change...
I pointed at the case of CGT and SUD unions as quite ideological and politicized, even as I mentioned that the CGT now seems to have broken ties with the French extreme left.
All the while studiously refusing to provide any actual evidence to back up your position. Not so much as an objectionable quote from one of their spokespeople.
Or maybe I missed a couple of links with damning proof that the French unions are run by dangerous revolutionary Marxists who are slavering at the thought of installing a dictatorship of the proletariat? If so, could you go to the slight bother of reposting them, or do you want me to go through the entire thread to find them?
Any of the other points I made about balanced approaches were not proven mistaken for their purpose; you (and others, about nurses for instance) immediately flamed up, imagined some denial of discrimination, inequality, or sufference, and poured slogans creating ideologically charged sub-threads to no end.
Bull. Shit. What was explained to you - at some length and in far greater detail than appears justified in retrospect - was how those slogans (not "approaches" - an approach contains an actual policy, which you never once presented, nevermind justified) are in fact ideologically charged. That you wilfully refuse to even consider the context and history in which public debate takes place, and refuse to acknowledge (not "accept," acknowledge) the substantiative reasons that people consider those slogans statements of ideology, hardly amounts to a resounding refutation of those reasons.
When racist skinheads and Catholic fundamentalists think that Sarkozy is the best French president since Pétain, and you think that he's a down-to-earth pragmatist who embraces common-sense policies that nobody in their right mind can doubt, then at least one of you must be wrong. Sure, you can claim that he's just using fundagelical and racist rhetoric to get the morons - sorry, values voters - into the fold. But you ain't no mind reader, Comrade Valentin, so how do you know that you're not the one being fooled. After all, at least one of you is...
You didn't contradict my point about prisons, but started the same fiery arguing about human rights.
Really? "Fiery arguing?" You wanna see "fiery arguing," you go to somewhere like DailyKos. I see no fiery arguing in this thread.
Rhetoric aside, you claimed that your slogan about prisons represented a balanced, pragmatic, middle-of-the-road approach - or words to that effect. When you elevate statements that challenge the right to privacy to the level of elementary truths that should not be questioned (for fear of appearing "ideological"), you should expect people to call bullshit on that.
If you think that support for a fundamental, inalienable human right to privacy is an ideological position... well, you'd be completely correct. It is.
But for all your bloviating on the death of ideology, I can't really picture you coming right out and stating that you oppose universal, inalienable human rights - to privacy or otherwise - in quite so many words.
I'm discussing details of policies, but only in the context of balance.
No, you don't discuss details of policy. In this thread alone there are some three hundred posts. Around a third of them are from you. Less than ten percent of them even mention policy, other than to claim that further details are irrelevant to the subject at hand. Let's be really, really generous and call it ten posts in this entire thread where you discuss actual policy. If you can find eleven, I'm paying you a dinner next time you get to Copenhagen.
My phrase about train drivers' condition was not even attacking the unions. All I said is that that has nothing to do with 100 years ago. Again, a whole sub-thread of ranting about how drivers must be very careful and wake up early, about how their pay is insufficient, and so on. Many common sense statements obviously drew certain people into an ideological gut reaction.
You keep ignoring relevant context. I've pointed out the relevance of context to you already.
Most poignantly, I asked you upthread whether you would evaluate the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" solely on its isolated truth value and the degree to which it corresponded to your understanding of "common sense," or you would be persuaded to consider its history as well.
Then the crickets started chirping.
The content you bring up does not add anything at all either for or against my "claim" that ideology would be dying.
Except point out that you never actually made a case at the policy level. Which is the level that matters - the level that everybody here, including yourself agrees is the level that matters.
I don't care about discussing whose policies are true and better
Truer words are not found in the rest of the post.
I think many of those politicians are actually sincere
Well, I guess you can fool some of the people all of the time...
You do sound utterly ignorant both about France's religious situation, France's unions, or its government. I did provide proof when I said that well in the 90s one of CGT's leaders was a member of the communist party's leadership. You won't hear it because you act like a sophistic debater, as usual.
I'll make yet another sweeping generalisation and say that the French leftwing parties are in general clearly more to the left than those in other countries. Feel free to demand links.
Again, there is absolutely no sloganeering in asking that certain French unions give up the proletarian tone and also that the importance and contribution of unions be enforced; or in asking that we stop using simplist statistics to justify anti-discrimination laws or quota laws, and instead accept here and there that discrepancies are not due to any discrimination.
And so on. I provided lots of examples of balanced approaches, that you won't make disappear by posting dramas on imagined slogans or on the war against the oppressing fatcats. You think anyone is capable to reply to any bit of contorted reasoning in which you hairsplit an issue to exhaustion? You act like the living proof of what I meant: stretching reality to fit ideology. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Your original claim was in fact that CGT got radicalised in recent years, something on which I showed you as completely ignorant of CGT's opposed movement. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On my own diary, I said:
"The French trade unions (and particularly so the likes of CGT, FO or Sud), are considered amongst the most leftwing unions in Europe. Until not so long ago still in the "class warfare" mode, it was only in the '90s that the CGT started to take their distance from the communism (amongst other things, quitting the communist inspired World Federation of Trade Unions in 1995; leader Louis Vianet resigning from the political bureau of the French Communist Party; accepting certain negotiations rather than downright going on strike and so on). Even so, the tone for most French trade unions remains proletarian-inspired even today (some might say this is just PR, and still!)
You never showed me anything at all, want me to make a collection of all instances where I showed you to be wrong? You didn't even know what a propagandist means :)) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The CGT has been radicaliezd for a long longt time and has moderated a bit just last year.
Nineties, last year; Nagy vs. 1956...
You never showed me anything at all, want me to make a collection of all instances where I showed you to be wrong? You didn't even know what a propagandist means. QED. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
You seem to be an expert in getting things exactly the opposite of how they really are. Makes me wonder whether your whole political framework is based on the same kind of mind gymnastics :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Now, as invective goes, that's pretty mild, and not even directed at your person...
Meanwhile, several places in the thread, you have insinuated that I relativise the crimes of the Soviet Union out of some ideological sympathy with Stalin. Do you remember that, or shall I go find some quotes? How's that for not proffering insult?
You do sound utterly ignorant both about France's religious situation, France's unions, or its government.
I'm still learning. But I'm in what was traditionally the German (and subsequently Anglo-American) sphere of influence, so my handle on German, British and American issues is somewhat better than French ones. Now, can you provide some actual references that a non-Francophone can read, or am I just going to have to take your word for the situation in France?
I did provide proof when I said that well in the 90s one of CGT's leaders was a member of the communist party's leadership [citation needed].
That was supposed to prove that France's labour unions are considerably to the left of the rest of Europe's. Even if that were true (several Danish unions maintain close ties with parties that most would call communist), that still wouldn't be saying much. The British unions have been all but destroyed. The Italian unions never got off the ground (in no small part thanks to American support for the fascist remnant, thanks to which it holds seats in the Italian parliament to this day). Poland's never had widespread unionisation, apart from Solidarnost which has drifted so far right over the years that it's barely recognisable as a union any more.
So which unions are you comparing to anyway? The German? The Spanish? The Scandinavian?
I'll make yet another sweeping generalisation and say that the French leftwing parties are in general clearly more to the left than those in other countries.
Given that left-wing political parties essentially don't exist in many countries in the Union (UK, Denmark, much of Eastern Europe, (AFAIK) Portugal, Italy), that doesn't really say all that much.
Again, there is absolutely no sloganeering in asking that certain French unions give up the proletarian tone
Such as? Examples here, sil vous plait. Your previous examples of "slogans" vs. "slogan-free" headlines doesn't precisely inspire me with a lot of confidence that I can trust your judgement on that.
and also that the importance and contribution of unions be enforced;
This is some kind of turn of phrase translated from French, right? As already mentioned, I'm not Francophone, so I'm afraid you'll have to give me the long version. What precisely does "the importance and contribution of unions" mean and how is it "enforced?"
Does it mean that something similar to the Danish Hovedaftale is hashed out and an arbitration system set up to enforce it? Then I see little problem. Does it mean that unions must contribute to keeping production running in an orderly fashion by sitting down and shutting up without getting major and significant (and irrevocable) concessions in return? Then I'd be very much against.
As it stands, though, it could read as both.
And just to make my nasty, suspicious mind even more suspicious, there's no mention of the other side of the table at all. What happened to the fact that there are always two sides to any strike: The striking workers and the employer who wan't give in to their demands. What "importance and contribution" will be "enforced" against employers?
or in asking that we stop using simplist [citation needed] statistics to justify anti-discrimination laws
Here you mean affirmative action programmes rather than anti-discrimination laws, correct?
And so on. I provided lots of examples of balanced approaches
Approaches contain policy.
Yes, a French turn of phrase. The union role being enforced means IMO that France has things a bit more similar to, say, Germany. OTOH employers shouldn't be treated like the enemy class, just like money shouldn't be regarded as dirty, I'd dare add :) We could debate this and likely reach a pragmatic compromise (no I'm not contradicting myself, please don't go off on yet another ranting) like in the case of media anti-trust laws.
I mean those other discriminatory programmes, yes.
Approaches do contain policy. And proof must be provided. The only problem is you ask for "proof" on details where it's completely superflue, and that your approach to policy looks more like hyper-biased ranting. Proletarian stuff was so pervasive in demonstrations, strikes, press conferences and interviews of those unions, that I can't even be bothered proving that to someone only because he's in Denmark and suspicious.
As for my statements not inspiring confidence, they certainly remain way way behind your own.
You said several times that you entered details of policies because you had to show my examples where not sloganeering, but substantive, and to bring forth the context, which was important too in showing that.
You made a good point about deregulation, neoliberalism etc. But this was one my targets too when I mentioned ideologies being on their way out. They too abused ideology, and this crisis will push them out of society and into history books.
But you mostly chose to do that 'substantification' like this:
the wholesale assault on labour unions, fiscal policy, unemployment and disability benefits Sarko surrounds himself with LePen apparatchiks and assumes his slogans and rhetoric for his own, the assumption must be that he will act in the interests of LePen's apparatchiks. The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well. privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies...... it was the top 10 % of the wealth distribution that was waging class war on everybody else. Or perhaps you think unions are at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead like the so-called social democratic parties I want to ban billionaires, by confiscatory taxation of wealth above half a billion €.
Sarko surrounds himself with LePen apparatchiks and assumes his slogans and rhetoric for his own, the assumption must be that he will act in the interests of LePen's apparatchiks.
The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well.
privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies......
it was the top 10 % of the wealth distribution that was waging class war on everybody else.
Or perhaps you think unions are at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead like the so-called social democratic parties
I want to ban billionaires, by confiscatory taxation of wealth above half a billion €.
And so on and so forth. This is what I call fiery talk, fist to the sky, eyes towards a better world up there somewhere. This is no "discussion of policies", this is polarised talk, ideological ranting, that many can nod to, but no one will enter in a debate with you about.
Which is why I answered to one of Lily's posts:
This is the problem I had with Jake the whole time. I could hardly reply to his posts, because to me it looked like fiery ideologic activism. I'm not passing judgement, just telling how it looked from here. Lines like these: are unions at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead or stealing train drivers' pensions or dismantling of civilised society by people who want to throw us back to the 19th century to me are ideology, sloganeering (no offense, Jake, I just say how it looks for me), and I can't bring myself to even comment on it, which, to Jake or DoDo, looks like I would be eluding the subject. And Jake's discourse (which I don't judge) is filled with this kind of stuff.
Lines like these: are unions at fault for actually fighting the war that the fatcats started instead of rolling over and playing dead or stealing train drivers' pensions or dismantling of civilised society by people who want to throw us back to the 19th century
to me are ideology, sloganeering (no offense, Jake, I just say how it looks for me), and I can't bring myself to even comment on it, which, to Jake or DoDo, looks like I would be eluding the subject.
And Jake's discourse (which I don't judge) is filled with this kind of stuff.
In short, even as you discuss policies, even when you 'try' to be reasonable (at least to me you look as you do try), you sound very much like our most leftwing extremists in France (which means, in the world). Just look for Besancenot, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon, I bet you will experience a reflex sympathy for them. But I cannot debate pragmatism with such ideologically -charged characters. It's like you'd try to prove to a muslim fundamentalist the benefits of secularism.
See you around, Jake. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The main difference between France and many other countries is that while other communist parties and organizations were shattered after the fall of the communism (which proved it a failure and an utopia as a system, breeding genocidal dictatorships) Soviet Union, the French ones still kept on the proletarian / class warfare rhetoric.
You have a really shaky grasp on the history of Western Europe.
The British left was shattered by Thatcher. The American left has never really existed, and what little there was of it was purged by Ronnie Raygun. Scandinavia has never had influential communist movements, but it's true that the Overton Window was dragged right over the past thirty years. That started in the late seventies and early 80s, so the only way that could have anything to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union would be if effect could precede cause. In Germany you might have a case. Anywhere else... not so much.
Yes, a French turn of phrase. The union role being enforced means IMO that France has things a bit more similar to, say, Germany.
I didn't ask your opinion on what it ought to mean. You say it's a slogan used by the French right wing. I asked what the French right wing thought it meant. Seeing as they're the ones who get to actually implement their interpretation of their slogan, not you.
OTOH employers shouldn't be treated like the enemy class, just like money shouldn't be regarded as dirty, I'd dare add :)
So basically unions get to make concessions and get diddly-squat in return. I think we're starting to get a pretty good picture of your sense of pragmatism here...
Proletarian stuff was so pervasive in demonstrations, strikes, press conferences and interviews of those unions, that I can't even be bothered proving that to someone only because he's in Denmark and suspicious.
You sound like you think a red flag is a symbol of militant, revolutionary proletarianism. Being from Eastern Europe, that's more or less understandable, of course. But weren't you the one who argued that immigrants should learn a bit about the culture of their new country? Or does that only apply to brown people?
That's not what I said. I said that your slogans were right-wing slogans (as opposed to unideological statements of fact). That you apparently fail to distinguish between wingnut sloganeering and objective statements of fact should give a little pause for thought.
the wholesale assault on labour unions, fiscal policy, unemployment and disability benefits
An executive summary of points made in the other thread. The one you actually chose to challenge:
In 1980, tertiary education was free France, the UK, all of Scandinavia and all of Germany. In 2000, the UK and more than half of all German länder charge "tuition fees." To take just one very concrete example. The list goes on with privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies, tighter applicability requirements for unemployment subsidies, cutbacks in prescription drug subsidies, cutbacks in essential public services (railroads, schools, water, sewage, electricity).
The list goes on with privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies, tighter applicability requirements for unemployment subsidies, cutbacks in prescription drug subsidies, cutbacks in essential public services (railroads, schools, water, sewage, electricity).
Are you disputing any of the facts here? Or are you just playing games?
Slogan + Substance => Policy Slogan - Substance => Bullshit
Well, LePen certainly seems to think so.
Sarko broke a tradition of not meeting with LePen.
He also calls to debate an issue of science as if was a matter of policy - a little trick he inherited from George "The jury is still out on how God created the Earth" Bush.
Then you can go here in the comment thread (#25 in particular). An American neocon (and his friends/sock puppets) show up and run out essentially the same line you have here. They/he get their asses handed to them.
You should, I think, complete that quote:
The history of unions in the US shows that systematic union-busting works exceedingly well. The US unions were systematically persecuted at the federal, state and local level. Through legislation, through a concerted propaganda effort, through workplace-level union-busting, by deliberately race- and religion-baiting at every political level. That was a case of deliberate, ideological activism by right-wing extremists.
The US unions were systematically persecuted at the federal, state and local level. Through legislation, through a concerted propaganda effort, through workplace-level union-busting, by deliberately race- and religion-baiting at every political level. That was a case of deliberate, ideological activism by right-wing extremists.
Do you actually dispute any of this? Do you really want me to go to the trouble of digging out the legal and political history of US union busting over the past quarter century? In that case, you can start here.
privatisation of health care, price hikes for railroad tickets, cutbacks in unemployment subsidies, outright theft of workers' pensions, below-inflation indexing of public pension schemes, below-inflation indexing of unemployment subsidies...
You gonna actually dispute that this happens systematically? I was not aware that any of this was disputed in your part of reality.
Health Care.
Public transit.
Sub-inflation transfer increases.
You gonna actually dispute that? You gonna claim that this isn't class war by the rich?
That's actually an example of a policy that can be implemented as it stands, right off the shelf. The legal technicalities were hashed out by the West German government during the de-nazification period, when they needed to confiscate all the fortunes that had been made in ways that were not - quite - meriting a full war crimes trial.
Are you telling me that you can't tell the difference between a slogan and a policy? The shock. The horror. The surprise.
You can argue the merits of this policy (and get your ass handed to you - removing billionaires from the political equation would remove much of the concern about media power and corruption, and it wouldn't do any harm to anybody, because it's not like anybody actually needs a billion €... all in all, a very pragmatic approach to a very concrete corruption problem).
Indeed. I should note that someone from both Eastern Europe and France should be aware of similar views about liberalism as failed utopia two centuries ago, after the terror of the French Revolution and the rise and fall of Napoleon. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Last week I think I heard at least half dozen people on different televised interviews or debates claiming themselves un-ideological. Mere consistent use of careful argumenting seems to drive faith out once again (and ideologists out of themselves).
Or maybe it is just a fashion afterall. It just looks like it's gonna be a dam'd hard one to fight against :) Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
To claim one self un-ideological is like pretending to be objective. Objectivity claims to be truthful. This introduction is very persuasive. The masses don't want to hear the bias of clearly defined ideologies but they want objectivity. So, they get to hear what they want to hear. Politics is all neutral, objective, ...
These are good times for those who don't want to take sides or take on responsibility for a decision. Let's all trust the un-ideologists which feels like trust into a neutral, objective and truth-bearing entity and we'll see where this will lead us.
"Consistent use of careful argumenting" - ...aiming for what? with what baseline? defending whose interests? ...
Asking these questions will lead you to an agenda that, too, is based on some sort of ideology.
Communism manipulates through open repression. This, however, is the kind of manipulation that must be dealt with in democracies, i.e. the free world. To ignore this amounts to opportunism; it is naïve at best.
they're materialists and support Darwin, but refuse biological determination
Which is different from Darwin's position in what way?
they support human rights in all cases - except those when those are promoted by Rightwing/capitalist governments or groups (human rights come behind class warfare)
You'll need to give examples here, because I don't know any case where the left has opposed human rights on grounds that class warfare was more important.
they are ready to destroy anyone even nuancing anti-racist policies,
Can you cite even a single example of such right-wing "nuancing" resulting in an expansion of anti-racist protections? If you can't, I'd call that pure newspeak. If you think anti-racist protections are too widespread and need to be rolled back, come right out and say so and be prepared to defend your case - don't hide behind weasel words like "nuancing."
but they support multiculturalism
Oh, R'lyeh?
You really should go back in the archives and read some of the flame wars from around the time of the Cartoon Jihad...
"They support multiculturalism..." I laugh so I don't cry.
they are ready to terminate anyone even implying a doubt about far-right policies, but they understand far-left philosophy; crucify nazism and justify communism
Dude, now you're conflating different variants of communism again. Nobody here makes apologetics for Stalin and his merry band of butchers - and if somebody does, he gets crucified, as you so aptly put it.
But in tarring all of communism with Stalin et al, you're attempting to relegate half of the mainstream European left for most of the 20th century to an extremist fringe. That's simply not honest brokerage in the debate. We're talking here about people who were opposed to the Soviet Union, who were opposed to violent repression (who were, in many countries actually the targets of violent repression), who were opposed to toppling democratically elected governments and imposing dictatorial regimes. How the fuck is any of this "far-left" or remotely comparable to nazism?
OK, the term "communist" carries negative connotations for you, because you were oppressed by a communist regime. That's OK, I get that. But it doesn't make all communists evil or comparable to nazis. Just like the fact that some people get bad vibes from the term "catholic" because they were raped as kids by a Catholic priest doesn't make all catholics child-raping perverts. And just as the fact that "capitalism" carries unfortunate connotations for many Chileans doesn't make all advocates of capitalism the equivalent of Milton Friedman and Augusto Pinochet.
I was more speaking about how left comes off by and large, impressions and tendencies, when we look from above.
Me, personally, hathes no issue with the left the moment private property and enterprise stops being evil. On the other hand, "my hero" :) Nicolas Sarkozy, said a very important thing once: the Left should not be allowed as the only defence of the poor, the vulnerable, the different. Granted, this is because in France things are much more polarised and the left much more to the left than elsewhere, and it had become impossible to allow the left occupy the place of the angel waging war on the vicious capitalists. But it's a sign of entering traditional left domain, just like your dear Bliar entered left one, and with as much success. That's the way that leads to pragmatism. Is that going to lead to an unideological democracy? Are lack of ideology and pragmatism a sign of a-politicalness? Does this mean democracy is in danger? Those are the questions, rather than about more or less humane variants of communism. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
But you don't look from above. You look through the lens of the media you consume, and the principles and opinions that you already hold. That's an important point that you keep refusing to acknowledge.
RFE was sponsored by the US Congress and had as statement of mission: "To promote democratic values and institutions by disseminating factual information and ideas"
And we all know the US Congress' bottomless respect for factual information and ideas...
That is not "less bad"; Freedom IS good
Well, yes... for the definition of "freedom" most people use. But "freedom" a la "Operation Iraqi Freedom" - not so much. Problem is, it's usually hard to tell which sense the US Congress is using at any given time.
I am not quite sure where wikipedia gets the CIA link from, but given the general tenor of the article, I'm inclined to think that the sources for that claim have been challenged and found to be kosher.
RFE acted for freedom; pacifist groups often acted against military opposition of the free west to communist dictatorships.
Y'mean like opposing - oh, I don't know, the ousting of a democratically elected government in Viet Nam? Or the democratically elected government in Chile? Or the democratically elected government in Iran? Or the democratically elected government in Nicaragua? Or the democratically elected government in Bolivia? Or the democratically elected government in Argentina?
You dislike it when apologists make light of Soviet atrocities that they know little about. I can respect that position, and I have actually defended it downthread. Will you do me a favour and not make light of Western(TM) atrocities that you apparently know equally little about?
They were as such a tool used by the latter in their type of cold war,
Bah! Soviet funding of the peace movement was minuscule. Soviet influence was even less.
The dirty hippies that you accuse of being on the USSR's payroll were demonstrating outside the Soviet embassy when the tanks rolled into Hungary. They were passing out fliers condemning Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. They were vehemently opposed to Soviet nuclear weapons testing.
Even the MI6 - who are not precisely famous for their competence - could set up better puppet organisations than that.
CIA working for the destabilization of communist regimes actually happens to be a bit different from KGB working for the same about democratic countries.
Calling the Viet Minh or Ho Chi Minh democratically elected government is a wild stretch. In the end it was all about Chinese communist expansion. The cases you quote were part of the cold war, and you cannot put on the same moral place soviets and west, tm or not.
Minuscule or not, that remains to be evaluated. I don't have numbers here and now, but you giving your personal opinion, particularly in this context, is not quite enough. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
That's why I said you can't compare those years with what happened since 9/11, because of a fear-mongering power-obsesssed president.
And the Domino Strategy wasn't fear-mongering? And Nixon wasn't a power-obsessed president?
First, the regimes in question weren't communist. Second, the regimes in question were democratically elected. Third, the "destabilisation" of them involved mass murder.
Didn't you just criticise communists for their doctrine of exitus acta probat?
Calling the Viet Minh or Ho Chi Minh democratically elected government is a wild stretch.
Why? They stood to win a constitutionally mandated election. How is it anything like a stretch to call that "democratically elected?" The fact that the election was preempted by an American invasion can hardly be laid at the feet of the Viet Minh.
In the end it was all about Chinese communist expansion.
More Domino Theory bullshit. This was revealed as a lie already with the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Where did you get this from? The Washington Pravda?
The cases you quote were part of the cold war, and you cannot put on the same moral place soviets and west, tm or not.
So supporting murderous dictators is OK when they're our murderous dictators? Exitus acta probat, eh? By that logic, you could argue for supporting Hitler, on account of him being the only leader to ever come within arm's reach of deposing Stalin.
That's not - unfortunately - wild-eyed accusations. Several Estonian skinhead groups actually espouse that line of reasoning.
Minuscule or not, that remains to be evaluated. I don't have numbers here and now, but you giving your personal opinion, particularly in this context, is not quite enough.
Bah! You want to argue that the peaceniks were patsies of the Soviet Union, then you have to provide evidence. No evidence of substantial support (much less evidence of favours going the other way, nevermind support for wild-eyed conspiracy theories about "undermining Western democracy") was ever uncovered by Western(TM) intelligence or counter-intelligence agencies. Despite their considerable effort to do so (even to the point of fabricating it wholesale in some countries...).
Here you are simply, factually in the wrong and seem to be talking out of your ass. Please stop doing that - you've shown elsewhere that you can provide better signal to noise ratio than that.
As usual, you relativize, you consider it was a game of influence, and like Ted Welch, you see it as not genuine communism. I repeat to both of you that the theory, even coming from a peaceful man, who accepted velvet revolution, the theory divided the world into rich and poor, exploited and exploiters, oppressed and oppressors, promoted class warfare, revolution and this led directly where it led: blood baths and dictatorship.
You hairsplit, abstractize and relativize it, and I'm telling you again that for one, the situation as I have it is generally accepted (including the designation as communist of those regimes) - except marxist theorisers and philosophic circles marred in endless highly abstract discussions on this or that aspect not present or not precisely as postulated by Marx; for two, all this is pointless, since I'm well aware we can play sophisms ten more years from now; playing intellectual games may bring you some aura in extreme leftwing circles, but it has no relevance whatsoever here, or for myself. It's exactly what you did with those other issues. Here the original point was my mentioning the press freedom in communist dictatorships. There it was about politicized extremist French unions. And so on. I am doing no more fighting against extreme left sloganeering, Jake. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
The regime in South Viet Nam invited in an American colonial regime because they were scared shitless that Ho Chi Min was going to win the elections fair and square. He might not have - that's in the nature of elections - but both the US and the regime in Saigon very clearly thought that he would. Blaming Ho Chi Min for the lack of elections caused by an American invasion is like breaking into my house, shooting me and then accusing me of theft because I am now in possession of your bullet!
And now you claim that Ho Chi Min was a client of the USSR. Last time, you claimed he was a client of the PRC. So who did he take marching orders from? Both Moscow and Beijing? What about the issues they disagreed about (and they did not have the same policy on Indochina, except in the very superficial sense that they agreed that the USA had bugger all to do there).
Or do you simply fail to distinguish between China and Russia "cuz they iz all commiez"?
I'm not going to go into a philosophical fight about the nature and ideals of communism, partly because I'm not a communist and partly because political factions like the Perónists provide all the empirical evidence needed to dismiss the claim that communism and class consciousness deterministically lead to repression and totalitarianism. And besides, weren't you opposed to historical determinism yesterday?
If you want to see Marxism with a human face, look to Latin America. If you prefer to stick with your bigotry and nurse your resentment over whatever wrongs were inflicted upon you by the Soviet empire, there's bugger all I can do to drag your head out of your ass for you.
Your view of history is extremely naïve, and your view of the history of half the 20th century is straight out of the Springer-presse's la-la land. But why do I even bother? I'm not here to give you remedial history classes.
And by the way, I'm sick and tired of hearing you imply that I deny or minimise the wrongs committed by the Soviet Union - that's pure, base libel when I have acknowledged them in so many words, on several different occasions, both here and elsewhere.
Well, you are debating someone who sought to prove Christian tolerance in the Roman Empire with policies of the sole non-Christian 4th-century Emperor -- who 'earned' the epithet "the Apostate" for his attempts... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Worse, DoDo also seems to be memory challenged, and desperately so. My point about emperor Julian, far from being about some "christian tolerance", was in the context of a discussion about the separation between church and state.
I imagine this isn't the only time that you happen to remember things not quite as they actually were. The least you could do for the community is to check the facts before posting. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
