[Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul

Tue Nov 13 20:00:17 CST 2007

> Is there a German Chancellor whom you "like"?  How about a Premier of
> the Soviet Union? Or a Chairman of the PRC?  Are those questions as
> reasonable as which president you like?  

Of course they are; and one legitimately could answer "No, there is not" to
each of them just as you have with respect to presidents.  However, I am not
sure what good these questions or their answers do anyone.

> There is a sort of pre-political -- and even proto-fascist -- view
> (which I think Karen doesn't share) that if we could just elect a
> "good" president (= one we like) then everything would be OK.

Would you care to elaborate on why you call this "pre-political -- and even
proto-fascist"?  I think that the notion that "if we could only get a "good"
leader (or whatever) everything will be OK" is a very common optimism that
seems to permeate Western culture since the rise of Christian beliefs in
"salvation" just look at the central theme of Candide in which it is the
best of all possible worlds so therefore everything is for the good and will
turn out OK.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss-
> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
> Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 7:00 PM
> To: John W.
> Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] on Kucinich and Paul
> 
> Is there a German Chancellor whom you "like"?  How about a Premier of
> the Soviet Union? Or a Chairman of the PRC?  Are those questions as
> reasonable as which president you like?  If not, why not?
> 
> There is a sort of pre-political -- and even proto-fascist -- view
> (which I think Karen doesn't share) that if we could just elect a
> "good"
> president (= one we like) then everything would be OK.  (For people my
> age, the example is often that "good" John Kennedy...)
> 
> I think this is dangerous and unhistorical nonsense.  For
> understandable
> historical reasons, the United States had to be said to be founded on
> laudable, even democratic principles: even then it was impossible to
> get
> the 1787 constitution ratified without adding more of those principles
> (the Bill of Rights).  But from its beginnings, as anyone who looks at
> the matter can see, the US too has been the sort of political society
> described by the protagonist of Thomas More's Utopia (1516):
> 
> "When I consider any social system that prevails in the modern world, I
> can't, so help me God, see it as anything but a conspiracy of the rich
> to advance their own interests under the pretext of organizing
> society."
> 
> When we recognize that that's who our leaders work for, we have several
> choices.  First, you can hope for the coming of good leader -- a
> president you like -- who will do the right things.  This was a common
> view three generations ago, when the leaders of Germany, Russia, and
> the
> Untied States were each acclaimed as such a leader.  (The German term
> for the notion was "Fuehrerprinzip," and we make a mistake if we think
> it only an historical curio.)
> 
> Or you can recall what has been frequently pointed out, notably by
> David
>   Hume at the beginning of his First Principles of Government (1748):
> 
> "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs
> with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are
> governed by the few; and to observe the implicit submission with which
> men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
> When we enquire by what means this wonder is brought about, we shall
> find, that as force is always on the side of the governed, the
> governors
> have nothing to support them but opinion. 'Tis therefore, on opinion
> only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most
> despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and
> most popular."
> 
> That means that within all the high-sounding principles of (any)
> government, effort must be exerted to bring that opinion in line with
> the facts. And that of course means that you have to find out what the
> facts are. In the absence of an accurate analysis, the best will in the
> world can only err, or be correct by accident.  --CGE
> 
> 
> John W. wrote:
> >
> > So what Carl is trying so very hard to say (or perhaps NOT to say) is
> > that there is NO President in the entirety of American history that
> he
> > likes.  :-)
> >
> >
> >
> > At 03:03 PM 11/13/2007, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> >
> >> Having been reared in Virginia, I've always been partial to Cyrus
> >> Griffin.  Of course, his office was undermined by the treasonous
> >> assembly in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.  They'd all sworn
> >> allegiance to the Articles of Confederation and were supposed to
> >> suggest only improvements, but instead made an executive power-grab
> >> because they were afraid that only a militarily strong executive
> could
> >> put down the movements toward social transformation underway at the
> >> time (e.g., Shays' Rebellion).
> >>
> >> The Philadelphia putschists were consciously trying to roll back the
> >> clock on democracy, in order to protect wealth: as their chronicler
> >> (James Madison) said, the coup they engineered that year was
> designed
> >> "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority."  So
> >> poor Cyrus (named for the Persian king who allowed the Jews to
> return
> >> to Jerusalem) had to go.  (He then went off to negotiate personally
> >> for reconciliation with the Creek nation, as he had done in regard
> to
> >> Great Britain fifteen years before.)
> >>
> >> For more recent times, we have the lapidary judgment of Noam
> Chomsky,
> >> "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American
> >> president would have been hanged."
> >>
> >> Before the war H. L. Mencken is supposed to have said, "One party
> >> always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other
> >> party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are
> right..."
> >>
> >> I'd suggest, if you haven't read it, a recent edition of Howard
> Zinn's
> >> People's History of the Untied States, which tells the story with
> the
> >> politics left in. We usually get only the jingoist version.  --CGE
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Karen Medina wrote:
> >>
> >>> Carl,
> >>>
> >>> I pick on you because you are a historian, is there a president
> that
> >>> you did like? I'd be especially interested in comparing that
> person's
> >>> campaign rhetoric and their deeds.
> >>>
> >>> -karen medina
> >
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