>On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> Finally, Ken McK's point is exactly right - the more Haider is
> denounced from on high, the more popular he will get with his base.
> That's a psycho-political fact. Creeps like Duke, Metzger, and
> Farrakhan enjoy the same legitimation process. How do you fight that?
> I think Ken's onto something - with mockery, not moralism.
This is odd; when France elected a socialist-communist government in 1980, the capitalists did not engage in mockery; they started a capital strike that undermined the economy and forced the government to abandon its policies, eventually forcing Mitterand to dump the Communists as partners in government.
Yet when Austria elects a racist xenophobic party riddled with ex-Nazis to government, we are supposed to advocate "mockery" as the solution, rather than mobilization of political tools to isolate the country?
Would mockery have been the proper approach to Haider's Afrikaan cousins in South Africa?
-- Nathan Newman