[lbo-talk] Draft 01

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> 
> CB: Chinese Revolution and Cultural Revolution seem more trusting of the
> "bottom" than anything in U.S. history or do we fear the sting for middle
> and intellectual strata from the revolutionary dictatorship of the
> peasant-prejudices of the bottom up ? Given these revs, Mao's practice in
> trusting the real bottom, the poor and masses, seems better than any other
> leader of equal stature that I can think of.
> 

I had a chance of living in China during the Cultural Revolution.  Believe
me, Charles, you would be among the first railroaded by the Mao thugs, and
so would be most of us on this list, including Carrol.  The Mao thugs were
not recruited from the working class - they were the so-called "Red Guards"
which were mostly high school and college students and party activists -  a
moral equivalent of College Republicans.

Mao's populist rhetoric closely resembles that of Bush - it was a clear case
of fear mongering and jingoism - scaring people by boogey men consisting of
assorted foreigners and aliens.  This is the oldest trick on the book, but
"da people" seem to always fall for it.

Wojtek