[Peace-discuss] P.S.

[John W.]

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 9:48 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:



> [1] As you know, the terms Left and Right as political shorthand began in
> the French Legislative Assembly of 1791, when the king was still the head of
> state, and the "the party of movement" sat on the (stage) left side of the
> room, "the party of order" on the right.  Thus metaphorically the further
> left you go, the more democratic you become; the further right, the more
> authoritarian. (That would mean of course that Lenin was a right-wing
> Marxist, in contrast to left-wing Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg.)
>

Correct.  I wasn't suggesting that Chomsky isn't "left", as opposed to
"right".  I was suggesting that there is no such thing as a homegeneous
"authentic left" whose members are absolutely right and in complete
agreement about everything.




> Chomsky is on the left because he doesn't share your contempt for the
> majority, as his piece indicates.


Leaving aside my dislike for your term "contempt", perhaps Chomsky dwells to
that extent in a world of illusion?  I learn from history as well as from
personal experience that the masses are fickle, subject to every changing
wind of political doctrine and capable of fleeting loyalty to any petty
demagogue who comes down the pike.

The "thinking" of the masses is perfectly summed up by this statement by a
black woman of my acquaintance in Chicago during the Obama campaign:  "I
want change, but I don't want to PAY for it!"  She was dead serious, and so
are all of her fellow travelers whether they admit it aloud or not.  The
reason that the elite are where they are is because they have the money to
pay for change, and they ARE willing to pay for it as long as it benefits
them.




> Limbaugh, an apologist for power, specifically the power of money, is
> surely on the right.  And of course he has people who agree with him, some
> of whom are quite conscious of what he's doing.
>
> If you count the number of people enlightened by Chomsky's writings - or
> even the crowds that show up for his talks - I think you could say that he's
> organized quite a large number, as has Limbaugh.  What Chomsky argues in
> this piece is that we shouldn't leave the people you despise to be organized
> by Limbaugh.
>
> [2] There's a war on, and the government for which we are responsible in
> this formal democracy is killing people halfway around the world, in spite
> of Obama's covering sin with smooth names.  One way to end the war is to cut
> off funds for it, and we should be urging our Congressional representatives
> to do that. We should take notice when we're successful; we certainly
> shouldn't vote for a party that continues the war just because we like what
> they say on other issues.  This is the important issue, literally a matter
> of life and death.
>
> But as you say, foreign and domestic issues are inseparable. Most of what
> you said was agreement with most of what Chomsky said; no further comment
> from me seemed necessary.
>
> [3] Glad you're reading Zinn.  We should be talking about what lessons we
> can draw from the 1930s-40s. Chomsky thinks that the collapse of the Bretton
> Woods system (the international economic order set up at the end of WWII)
> was more important for world politics than the fall of the Soviet Union.
>  --CGE

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