Well, well, well. It turns out that Oliver Stone's latest Goebbelsian piece of fascist apologia has been rejected by working class Venezuelans. Even with state-subsidized (well, of course) movie tickets, nobody gives a crap.
Hugo Chavez is just anouther leftist dictator. He is shutting down opposition media outlets, cementing his ability to rule the country for life, and ruling the country with an iron first in general.
As Adam Young put it, By the standards of the Left, Adolf Hitler would have been deemed a "great statesman," had he died before he started the war (or if he had won it). That's because the left tends to measure greatness by the amount of land and number of people under one man's thumb. This, more than anything else, explains the Left's hard-on for tinpot caudillos like Chavez.
Your use of the word "left" excludes a fair number of us who are in fact leftists.
ReplyDeletethis is anarchist analysis? Hitler and Mussolini killed leftists in large numbers, they destroyed much of the pre-World War II anarchist and the Marxist-Leninist left, but Adam Young believes that leftists would have considered Hitler "a great statesman" if he had prevailed?
ReplyDeleteI guess you can say anything once you dispenses with the need to display any facility with historical fact and perspective
this is the reverse of something I encountered the other day: Marxist-Leninists justifying the indefinite detention of 3 hikers seized by Iran because Iran is supposedly "anti-imperialist", and opposed to the US
this is equally vapid
here's an idea: let's see what happens if anarchists, autonomists, Marxist-Leninists, Maoists, social democrats, socialists of all kinds, in other words, dispense with references to Hitler and Nazism when engaging in social and political analysis
my guess is that the quality of discourse will improve significantly
this is anarchist analysis?
ReplyDeleteDuh. Last time I checked, anarchists weren't big on dictators.
Hitler and Mussolini killed leftists in large numbers, they destroyed much of the pre-World War II anarchist and the Marxist-Leninist left, but Adam Young believes that leftists would have considered Hitler "a great statesman" if he had prevailed?
The authoritarian left in America found much to admire in those regimes--that is, before coddling them became unhip. Anarchists of course have always been a minority on the left and Venezuelan anarchists have been very critical of Chavez.
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ReplyDeleteyes, anarchists have been critical of Chavez, and rightly so in many instances, but to compare Chavez to Hitler is ludicrous
ReplyDeletenor he is he a dictator along fascist lines, and an engaged anarchist analysis would recognize that, and start from that, instead of making absurd historical comparisons
Chavez is instead a President along the lines of DeGaulle and Putin, and less than a Bush, an executive that has accumulated a lot of power in a dysfunctional liberal democracy
now, that's something that anarchists should point out, oppose and present alternatives, but it should be done by reference to the actual facts on the ground, and not through the adoption of American neo-conservative talking points that are frequently published in the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald
as for Hitler and Mussolini, perhaps, there is an "authoritarian left" in the US with which I am unaware (Father Couglin, perhaps? if so, there's nothing really "left" about that, just the sort of American right wing populism that reveals itself currently in anti-immigrant sentiment), but the European left opposed Hitler across the board, even if the Stalinists in the German Communist Party, the KPD, made the egregrious error of considering the German Social Democrats, the SDP, and the Nazis are relatively equivalent in their threat to the working class as a justification for their refusal to enter into a popular front
of course, Stalin entered into the non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939, but to attribute his Machiavellian statecraft with the rank and file of global Marxist-Leninism strikes me as a stretch, with Trotskyites and others always remaining hostile to the Nazis, it had nothing to admiring and coddling fascism
both the the US right and some anarchists seem to consider Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism as synonymous, but they aren't
in any event, it was 2 year thing, at most, coming to an end for those who gullible enough to accept by June 1941
now, that's something that anarchists should point out, oppose and present alternatives, but it should be done by reference to the actual facts on the ground, and not through the adoption of American neo-conservative talking points that are frequently published in the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald
ReplyDeleteThe "actual facts" are exactly what I listed above: Chavez delights in shutting down media outlets that oppose his rule and is quite happy to rule for life (just like comrade Fidel). Does that mean he's the moral equivalent of Hitler? Not yet and I don't recall saying that...but hell, give him time ;)
As for the Wall Street Journal, surely you're familiar with a certain saying about broken clocks being right twice a day?
So Hitler hated the commies--yes, we're all aware of that. What's your point? That leftists can't be authoritarians because Hitler hated (some of) them?
both the the US right and some anarchists seem to consider Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism as synonymous, but they aren't
Well, when you have the state own and plan everything (and what such a scheme has to do with actual worker's control is beyond me) it seems that total tyranny always *just happens* to result. Coincidence? I kind of doubt it.
Cork,
ReplyDeleteThe authoritarian impulse informs ideology. You have the relationship skewed. Mussolini started from anarchism and arrived at fascism.
The two, in his mind, were inseparable.
The ideology followed personality.
And you have taken symbols of a movement and used them to cover all people who share even a single identifier with those symbols, so that Rose Luxemburg and Josef Stalin fall under the same umbrella.
That's not a critique.
That's just acting like a right wing Hayekite who refuses to examine his precepts or principles, on account of them falling apart under even the slightest examination.
You have the relationship skewed. Mussolini started from anarchism and arrived at fascism.
ReplyDeleteThe two, in his mind, were inseparable.
Then he was an idiot, just like all the Christians who claim they're "former atheists" (despite never having been atheists or knowing anything about atheism). Why should I care? It was an anarchist who almost assassinated that dirt-bag.
And you have taken symbols of a movement and used them to cover all people who share even a single identifier with those symbols, so that Rose Luxemburg and Josef Stalin fall under the same umbrella.
It's all the same shit, but wrapped in a pretty bow. State socialism is tyranny by definition. It is state control, not worker's control. You can only have one or the other, and you've clearly sided with the former.
A quick history lesson: anarchists have *never* supported state-socialism. Sorry fellas, but groveling at the feat of tyrants for the purpose of being anti-"Hayekian" isn't convincing anyone.
ReplyDeleteDON'T be so taken in by the latest
ReplyDeleteHitler 'controversy' ---it's a set-up!
FACT IS son of Wall Street Oliver Stone
is reading from exactly the same denial
strategy playbook as our soldout media,
business and political establishment.
TRUTH IS it isn't even REALLY about the
LONG gone Hitler at all so much as about
chloroforming what's left of our moral
sense as another -MORE AWESOME- icon of
genocide is being quietly 'domesticated'
for global acceptance and legitimacy.
You know, from ACROSS the Pacific. The same
crowd who NOW OWNS our entire economy.
And BTW, WHY are we the ONLY ones noticing
GENUINE veteran, 'daring rebel' Stone is,
ONCE AGAIN, 'mysteriously overlooking' the
staggeringly significant, urgently, eeril
relevent 60th Anniversary of the KOREAN WAR
---this year?!
SO set-up! ----------LOL