BTW, I enjoy your columns though I canceled my sub to the Nation, after nearly 30 years. I just can't stand the editor and thing the mag has shifted too far right for my taste. Keep up the good work.
michael yates
Katha Pollitt wrote:
>
> >
> > Mike Yates wrote:
> > >On the other question raised in connection with the exchange among Doug,
> > >Cockburn, et. al. concerning militias, populism, etc. let me say a few
> > >words from experience. My youngest brother is what some might call a
> > >raving lunatic: sees conspiracies everywhere, lives in the woods, owns
> > >guns, thinks Y2K may lead to chaos in the streets, etc. But he is most
> > >definitely not a racist or an anti-semite (two of our nieces are black,
> > >for which fact his own health and life have been threatened more than
> > >once). He is well-read though not too systematic in his thinking. He
> > >was once unemployed for several years and had to get by with odd jobs.
> > >He was fired for refusing to take a lie detector test, and this whole
> > >awful affair hurt his confidence and self-esteem a lot. My parents
> > >helped out a lot, but this did not do much for his ego either. He feels
> > >a lot of rage and directs this as best he can against the powers that
> > >be: hatred of local police, diatribes against Clinton, etc. I am sure
> > >there are tens of thousands of persons just like him. Are they
> > >unorganizable? white trash? future militia bombers? future religious
> > >zealots? Maybe. But then maybe if we had a decent left movement,
> > >inclusive and democratic, maybe not. I do know that I'd trust my
> > >brother to hide me if the Nazis came to town. And I'd be glad he had a
> > >gun and knew how to use it.
> \
>
> Well, many people might hide their brothers from the nazis, but not
> anyone else. The examples of places where nazis actually did come to
> town (Germany, France, holland etc) are not too inspiring! And I don't
> think your brother's guns would hold off the nazis for long. If he
> actually shot at a nazi, they would slaughter him and you both, and
> arrest all his and your relatives and friends just to underline the
> message. The nazis were the govt, remember, not freelancing bandits, and
> the romantic idea that someone living in a shack in the woods --or
> Yoshie with a gun -- could actually defeat a nazi-like police force, or
> an Army, is totally counter to the facts of history and common sense.
> (Remember Randy Weaver, Waco -- if I remember correctly, each of those
> cases began with the killing of a govt agent and ended with total defeat
> for the armed private citizen. the Panther experience of fighting cops
> with armed violence wasn't a big success either). It's like when larry
> pratt argues that "if only" the Jews in the warsaw ghetto had been
> armed, they wouldn't have ended up in Auschwitz. but, of course, they
> WERE armed. They had a rebellion. They lost. They were murdered.
> I don't mean to be cruel, Michael, but from the way you describe him,
> your brother sounds like he has a lot of problems, internal and
> external. I'm not saying he isn't a candidate for the left in some
> future set of conditions we can't imagine now, but a movement centered
> on people like him isn't going to get too far or be able to make a major
> social intervention. He's too marginal.
> What I don't understand about the whole fascination with the leftwing
> potential of militia people, white guys in the woods,conspiracy
> theorists etc is why privilege in your thinking people who have so
> little apparent interest in your politics? Here are people who say they
> hate govt, love private property, oppose reproductive freedom (not
> universally but often enough), long for a vanished world of
> "jeffersonian" small farmers etc -- are you imagining a socialist US
> without a govt? Where private property is sacred? where there's no
> national health or public school system or public benefits for mothers
> and kids, abortion is illegal, the "family" is a sacrosanct unit, and
> so on? Where people print their own money and the law stops at the
> county line?
> There are millions of Americans who already have the idea, without
> which I don't see how socialism can exist, that the wellbeing of all is
> a collective social responsibility and that society is everyone ,
> including the people who live in cities, are black, are gay, don't speak
> English etc. Not that I am advocating this, but It would make more
> sense to see caregivers -- daycare workers, practical nurses, teachers,
> etc--underpaid people, mostly women, doing incredibly necessary work --
> as the potential radicals of today's world.
>
> Katha