On Aug 24, 2006, at 4:16 PM, Marvin Gandall wrote:
> I liked Yoshie's answer to Doug's challenging point about Bush's
> working
> class support.
>
> It's not surprising that lots of lower-income voters support Bush. All
> conservative parties like the Republicans necessarily have a mass
> base or
> they wouldn't be major parties. Popular support is necessary for
> them to
> gain and hold power.
>
> But it's essential, IMO, to distinguish between the typical nature
> of mass
> support of the right and of the left to make sense of political
> developments.
My point wasn't that there's not a difference between the left and right kinds of populism, but that the approving comments of working- class people at a rally - including a 10-year-old - tells you much about the nature of the Persian Chavez' regime. Ahmadinejad can make all the populist noises he wants, but he lacks the resources to make good on them, and is subordinated to a reactionary clerical permanent government that circumscribes his actions.
> In developing countries, there are pressures for even the more
> traditional
> layers of the population to move leftwards because their
> nationalism is
> expressed as anti-imperialism rather than its opposite, as in the
> US, and
> because their economic conditions draw them towards populist
> parties and
> politicians. Islamist parties and leaders like Ahmadinejad are
> especially
> contradictory because they reflect the combined religious and social
> conservatism, economic populism, and nationalist anti-imperialism
> of their
> oppressed constituencies.
The original Islamic revolution was avowedly anti-imperialist, but turned into a fairly ugly state. All kinds of despots and demagogues can be anti-imperialist - it's often a nice cover for your domestic reaction and corruption.
Doug