Posted on 04/27/2014 12:24:21 PM PDT by annalex
It's tiresome to hear that European nationalists aren't "conservative" from the standpoint of the American political spectrum, because a completely different set of issues define left and right in Europe and in the United States.
The political spectrum in Europe is defined primarily by ethnic and cultural issues, not economic ones. The European Left is internationalist, supports the EU, multiculturalism, and open immigration. The European Right opposes these things. The political spectrum there is defined in terms of Internationalism/Multiculturalism vs. Nationalism, not in terms of statist vs. laissez-faire economics or "big vs. limited government". European countries will always be statist, the only question is what kind of statism they'll have.
Furthermore, American attacks on the European Right are also ridiculous because they only serve to strengthen the alternative, which is internationalism and multiculturalism.
Depends what you mean by "Marxism." If by "Marxism" you mean any kind of populist labor movement, then there is indeed an American tradition of this kind, which has absolutely nothing to do with Marx or the movements he inspired. Even when labor movements were at their strongest and discontent with "capitalism" at its peak (i.e. the Great Depression), CPUSA only had tens of thousands of members.
Politicians selling socialist policies learned very early on in America not to invoke Marx, Communism, or to even use the word "socialism." Huey Long was once asked why he opposed Socialist movements and parties while advocating socialist policies, and his answer was something about Marx being un-American and a political dead end.
I always wondered what event or what individual's manipulation lead the State Department (and the US government as a whole) to stop their classification of the KLA as a terrorist organization and instead embrace them as allies. Overnight, mainstream news broadcasts went from reporting atrocities committed by both sides (i.e. there was as much blood on the hands of the KLA as their Serb opponents) to solely reporting on Serb-perpetrated atrocities.
I was referring to ante-and post-bellum radicals who were already identifying with Marx in the nineteenth century. These multiplied after the Civil War with various anarchist groups, the Haymarket riot, and the Socialist Labor Party. Even some old-blood New England reformers played footsie with Marx for a while.
Marxism predates both the CPUSA and the Bolshevik Revolution.
Politicians selling socialist policies learned very early on in America not to invoke Marx, Communism, or to even use the word "socialism." Huey Long was once asked why he opposed Socialist movements and parties while advocating socialist policies, and his answer was something about Marx being un-American and a political dead end.
Right wing populists have a tradition of supporting socialist policies while opposing socialist organizations (Teddy Roosevelt, anyone?). Also Huey P. Long is a hero to many "palaeoconservatives" and neo-Confederates and even to some advocates of Spanish-style Falangism. Similarly, many anti-Communist "dictators" abroad practiced social welfare policies that are considered "leftist" in America (for which the Left gave them no credit).
Similarly, many of the racist Southern politicians (the real thing, not the pejorative) were quasi-socialist and championed poor whites. This is one reason any person or group who appeals to poor whites is automatically branded "right wing" or "regressive" populism in the United States.
This is mostly due to the fact that in the 1960's, the New Left, unlike it's classical predecessors, went from championing the causes of workers and farmers to the causes of racial "minorities," feminists, and homosexuals. The main reason for this, of course, is that Marxists couldn't make many inroads into the American labor movement. Regardless of what their economic views were, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Teamster who was a fan of the Viet Cong. So the New Left decided to go to greener pastures of people receptive to their message (radicalized racial groups) and abandon the white working classes.
True, though they still maddeningly insist on claiming to be for "the working class" or "ordinary people"--even if they are Ivy League professors who think ordinary people are stupid.
Actually, not every left wing group abandoned the white working class (though the ones that didn't have no influence). Bob Avakian was horrified by the contempt the wealthy college-educated whites of the New Left had for the white working class and told them their class roots were showing. They replied this his racial roots were showing (Avakian is, of course, Armenian). Today the Progressive Labor Party (originally Maoist and then "Hoxhaist") opposes all nationalisms, including those of the "oppressed," and laments that the driving force of revolution in the world today is nationalism (which it is). Another leftist organization called Ray-O-Light actually advocates national self-determination for poor whites just as they do for Blacks and Hispanics. But as I said, these groups have no influence.
Unfortunately, long before the New Left many advocates of poor whites were excoriating Blacks as "the enemy." Perhaps if they had not done this things would be different today. We'll never know.
Unfortunately, the continual advocacy of Blacks by wealthy whites has led to poor whites hating Blacks more than ever. Just as their ancestors associated slaves with wealthy aristocrats now they regard Blacks as the favored pets of the wealthy whites and resent them all the more for it. It is simply not possible for poor white people to get a hearing in a country obsessed with genes and chromosomes and where the poorest and most unfortunate white person is categorized as an "oppressor" who must kowtow to wealthy Black university professors. Ironically, it was none other than Karl Marx himself who pointed out that wealthy British matrons seemed to care more for far away population groups than they did for poor English factory workers. I guess that makes him a "regressive, right wing populist" by today's standards.
I thought Avakian was a famous water-carrier for the Black Panther Party, so I'm a bit surprised that he gave a damn about working class whites.
Well, it was one of those guys. I'll have to check my copy of A Conservative History of the American Left.
I actually don't think the Left even cares about an appeal to poor whites any more. Considering how Howard Dean was treated a few years ago, any attempt to appeal to them would probably be condemned as "encouraging racism" or some such. Yet certain nationalist groups in Europe (the Celts and Basques, eg) still get their left wing nationalism.
if you think the KLA sought to restrain violence
No, I don't think. The KLA is a terrorist organization. But its existence is not a carte-blanch for putinism either.
Yes, I am sorry as well. This “nazi” thing just should not be used by anyone.
Of course Putin’s irredentism is directly comparable to its Mexican form.
Interesting. I am no Mussolini sympathizer (I love Franco through). I don’t know much about Salazar. I am simply saying that all these labels lost any meaning. While Nazism is a repulsive ideology, it is so not for its fascism, but for militant racialism. Fascism is something far more diverse and far more benign.
Corporatism would clash with the American founding principle of a union of sovereign states. However, that principle has not have much meaning since Roosevelt and arguably since the Civil War. In the meanwhile, the industry lobbies are America’s shadow government, and with it we have a stealth corporatism. It may one day become a political fact on the ground.
That is the impression I get as well. Good point. In fact, I'd like to see more open, unapologetic American nationalism. It is from the prism of national interest that the issues of national debt and foreign wars are to be understood.
It seems to me that Hitler had his supporters in America in the German Bund. The communist party had their international supporters in the Comintern. Putin has his supporters, the Putinistas, in the Putintern. They’re a strange lot of cranks and kooks willing to dismiss any actions that Putin, Autocrat of All Russia and Russian Speakers Everywhere, does no matter how plainly wrong his actions are. We have plenty of dupes for Putin that bring embarrassment and shame to the conservative movement. They’re openly supporting a president for life who puts Russian chauvinism above law.
Support for Hitler was pretty wide, and not only among the ethnic Germans. He was viewed almost universally as a viable alternative to bolshevism. It changed gradually as he grew more aggressive, especially to Britain; antisemitic laws did not help either.
American conservatives were starved for normal rational government that looks to fix its own country, understands that moral decay drives economic decay, respects religion and seek alliance with religious leaders. From afar, Putin looked like all these things. One had to know the cultural makeup of the USSR to understand that it was the root of Putin’s cultural conservatism; it is the USSR he wants to conserve. It appears that he is succeeding.
Only if you fancy “legitimacy” flows from NATO and the EU. Mirror-image the roles of NATO and Russia anywhere and suddenly the same acts which perpetrated by NATO were “legitimate” become violations of international law when perpetrated by Russia.
His success is based on the same flaws that were the foundation of the USSR. They are the “big lie” and the use of force against political opposition. The “big lie” in this case is similar to the Marxist/Leninist one. Their lie was give us, a small clique of leftist intellectuals (the vanguard of the proletariat), all of your freedom forever without any accountability, and we’ll create a worker’s paradise. Putin’s “big lie” is give me your freedom forever without any accountability and I’ll recreate the Russian Empire and restore THE Russian Orthodox faith (not all Christian faiths or freedom to worship as you see fit). It is, then, with these same pie in the sky type promises and the real loss of personal freedom that the Putin agenda proceeds and is similar to the Leninist theft of freedom. I’m shocked that Putin merely has to utter some conservatives phrases and some “conservatives” go for him without any skepticism. They’re no different than the dupes who bought into every communist that came along and promised paradise and delivered dystopias in the 20th Century. Putin’s personal wealth and his entire President for Life routine should cause everyone with any sense to say that he’s against liberty. And the former KGB thug, now super rich gangster statesman, that is the real Putin is not a conservative interested in anything more significant than himself.
Ukrainians are simply playing out what their fathers and those before them have...’Communism’ and ‘Nazisium’ (East and West) have both survived well in Ukraine..and the violence between the two groups continues to carry out with or without the US, Russia or Europe....it simply gets inflamed greater when any of these three get involved.
They are not “the same acts”. NATO intervened in Former Yugoslavia after considerable amount of ethnic cleansing had occurred and no government existed on the ground. Russia intervened in Crimea while there was no violence at all and the same parliament that was before the February 22 revolt was assembled in Kiev and supported the Revolution.
I agree. The conservatives should have known better.
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