You know, the evil versus stupid dilemma is increasingly irrelavent. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
And, in Germany they of course also have a reasonable alternative, Die Linke, unfortunately the Germans have a particular theological aversion to the left, suspect that is why Marx was writing about their ideological foibles over 150 years ago... Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I don't know, I may be wrong but they appear to be able to count on the support of the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland... tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker
The Swedish Left party had the same problem until recently, with lots of old semi-fossilized DDR-, Cuba-, Soviet-, and North Korea-lovers in leading positions. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
However, in the eastern countries, and this really holds for Die Linke, you have to remember that there is a core constituency, in the eastern lander, who genuinely have some level of positive connection to the more recent past. Communism was not Stalinism, not in the 1970's, not in the 1980's, and it is a mistake to say that the system, albeit with some need for more reforms, was the same as it was in the 1950's or the 1930's any moreso than it is a mistake to say that the liberal democracies are the same as they were in the 1950's and 1930's, back in the days of routinely censored press, overt collusion between the monied classes and the government and security apparatuses (violent strike-breaking, massacres of peaceful protestors and example of which we commemorated here in Paris the day before yesterday). The fact is, that communist past is not looked upon with the same amount of shame by core eastern constituents of Die Linke as might be desired by segments of the Western population who nonetheless have no real alternative to Die Linke if they wish to have their interests defended in the public sphere. But I think having Oskar Lafontaine take such a positive initial role went a long ways to bridging that gap, and recall Gregor Gysi being warmly welcomed, while campaigning, in the western parts of the country.
All of this hand-wringing about sympathies for Castro seem to me to be a red herring, and of course we know which press are publicly accentuating that aspect of the party, which is as unfortunate as it is predictable.
As usual, it will take generational change, perhaps many. The ideals of the first French republic were drowned out by counter-revolutionary forces and reaction to its initial excesses for the better part of a half-century, and did not really take hold for another one. The same will be true of the Soviet experiment. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
