[Peace-discuss] More on Ron Paul, now from Juan Cole

[Morton K. Brussel]

Yeah, I agree with you here, except that the idea of "government [a  
concept requiring definition]" (bureaucracy?) coming only with  
agriculture and  farm societies is quite well accepted. As for  
Clinton's popularity, Cole is arguably right; after all, Clinton was  
elected twice, the unemployed poor were derived of welfare benefits,  
and the stock market boomed. Who he was popular with is something  
else, and whether domestic popularity by some sizable fraction of the  
populace is is a sign of good government is also disputable.  --mkb

On Nov 10, 2007, at 10:12 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> [This is a rather hasty and sloppy comment from Juan Cole's often  
> informative blog, Informed Comment.  Unfortunately, it's informed  
> here by such things as Karl Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism (New  
> Haven 1957), where Cole gets "government was invented by irrigation- 
> based societies like Egypt and Iraq." (Wittfogel's work is termed  
> by a good historian, Perry Anderson, a "vulgar charivari, devoid of  
> any historical sense" Lineages of the Absolutist State [London  
> 1974] p. 487n4.)  It's also remarkably obtuse to say that "abuse of  
> government by W. and his administration ... has ... done wonders  
> for leftwing anarchism ...: witness the reemergence of Noam Chomsky  
> as a major voice after he had been marginalized for decades."   
> Chomsky's little book of interviews, 9-11, published in October of  
> 2001, was a best-seller even before "W. and his administration" had  
> much time for "abuse of government"; from book sales to rock bands,  
> Chomsky had hardly been "marginalized for decades" before 2001.   
> Cole's also wrong about Social Security's needing a "fix," and,  
> more importantly, wrong to suggest that the abuses of government  
> began with Bush. He must have slept through the '90s to say that  
> Clinton made government "relatively effective and popular."  And  
> what can he possibly mean by saying that "The opposite of fascism  
> is not democracy but anarchy"? That you must choose one?  And a  
> professor of history must understand the marxist notion of the  
> state better than he seems to. (For openers, Marx insisted on state  
> power over against his critics from the Left, like Bakunin.) But,  
> in spite of all this, Cole is right about what "almost single- 
> handedly" explains Paul's appeal -- and it's not what we call (only  
> in this country) Libertarianism. --CGE]
>
> 	Saturday, November 10, 2007
> 	Did W. Create Ron Paul?
>
> Gordon Robison argues that his stance on the Iraq War almost single- 
> handedly explains Rep. Ron Paul's amazing fundraising ability  
> (which recently outstripped that of Sen. John McCain, the last  
> unreconstructed hawk on the Iraq War.)
>
> I'm not sure it is just Iraq that drives Ron Paul's popularity,  
> though of course that is part of it. I suspect that it is in some  
> important part the abuse of government by W. and his administration  
> that has made rightwing anarchism so popular. (It has done wonders  
> for leftwing anarchism too: witness the reemergence of Noam Chomsky  
> as a major voice after he had been marginalized for decades).
>
> Government is a set of bargains, a 'moral economy.' We let the  
> government take a certain proportion of our money, and we expect it  
> to organize services for us that would otherwise be difficult to  
> arrange. Anyone who has studied any history and economics knows  
> that the market is going to leave some people destitute, and you  
> need government to correct for that imbalance. It is no accident  
> that government was invented by irrigation-based societies like  
> Egypt and Iraq, where if someone did not organize the peasants to  
> do the irrigation work and keep it up, everybody would starve.
>
> Bush has broken the US government. The US military was there to  
> protect us. Bush has used it to fight a fascist-style aggressive  
> war of choice. FEMA is there for emergency aid. Bush did not deploy  
> it effectively for New Orleans. Social security lifted the elderly  
> out of the poverty that had often been their fate before the 1930s.  
> Bush declined to use Clinton's surplus to fix the system, and has  
> essentially borrowed against the pensions of us all to pay for his  
> wars. Government is there to ensure our security. Bush has used it  
> to spy on us, to prosecute patently innocent persons, to manipulate  
> the media and instill us with lies and propaganda.
>
> If government is to be conducted on Bushist principles, then who  
> would not like to see the damn thing abolished?
>
> I don't think Ron Paul would have run well in 2000, after Bill  
> Clinton had demonstrated the ways in which government could  
> contribute to our prosperity and well-being. Indeed, it was so  
> important for the Right to destroy Clinton precisely because he did  
> make government relatively effective and popular.
>
> Ron Paul's popularity does not derive only from his opposition to  
> the Iraq War. It derives from the sanity of the American people,  
> who love liberty and reject Bushism. The opposite of fascism is not  
> democracy but anarchy.
>
> Given how horribly corporations like Walmart treat their employees,  
> denying them the right to unionize and cleverly avoiding paying  
> anything toward their health insurance, I have never understood why  
> Libertarians think corporations would be nicer to us if we could  
> not organize government protections from them. It is the government  
> of the state of Maryland that protected workers from Walmart's  
> exploitation of them. Libertarian faith in the utopia that comes  
> from the withering of the state strikes me as just as impractical  
> as the similar Marxist theory.
>
> But after 7 years of Bush, I don't find it at all astonishing that  
> large numbers of internet contributors would give Ron Paul money to  
> campaign on getting rid of the Frankenstein's Monster of a  
> government that George W. Bush has been constructing in his macabre  
> basement of a mind.
>
> posted by Juan Cole @ 11/10/2007 06:40:00 AM 24 comments
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