<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)"> <o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/> <o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"/>  <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=Section1> Jim Straub:<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <div> <div> But leaving that aside--- the f-word?  I find myself wondering if the eagerness of some leftists to call it "fascism" when ordinary americans start to recoil from the savagery of their leaders relates to how incredibly little the left has been able to harness or participate in the current cratering of support for this war.  Has anyone noticed how marginal the left has been to these 80% dissaproval ratings for the war?  Does our estrangement from the cultural mainstream have anything to do with this?  What else is "potentially fascist"?  The NFL playoffs?  Chick lit?  Toby Keith?  Pentecostalism?  Mixed martial arts/UFC?  Eating fast food?    <o:p></o:p> </div> <div> <o:p> </o:p> [WS:] Good point – I have been trying to make the same argument for a while, but it is simply ignored or dismissed.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The essence of the left wing, socialist world view – the primacy of collective and social over the individual, the collective ownership of the means of production or land, the planned and rational approach to social problems, the internationalism and universal governance, the distribution of wealth based on social need - is mightily unpopular in this country, if not antithetical to the every essence of Americanism.  There is no way, such a world view will gain *any* popularity beyond the highly marginal intellectual circles in this country, let alone becoming shared by a majority.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I think that any serious thinkers on the left know that down in their heart.  They know that the surest way to kill any idea or proposal in this country is to associate it with socialism.  This why, IMHO, many leftists embrace what I call ersatz-socialism (i.e. substitute-socialism) – that is, adopt ideals that are rather marginal for socialism but which can potentially become popular with the sizeable segments of the American public as quintessential to the socialist cause, for example: knee-jerk anti-imperialism and pacifism, corporation government, law enforcement or white people bashing, populism, anti-intellectualism, counter-culturalism, infatuation with pop culture etc.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The fact that the American public becomes receptive to such ideas from time to time has nothing to do with the left – it is a result of a much larger dynamics, such as economic situation, lost war, corporate scandal, media blitz etc. in which the left played no part.  The left can only delude itself that the surge of popularity of these ideas is a “victory” – but this is only a delusion, like a flea jumping on a dog and thinking that from now on it can steer the dog in the direction it wants to go.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> The reality is, however, that for historical reasons the left has zero traction in this society and this is not going to change any time soon.  Anyone who thinks otherwise, including those intellectuals whom you accuse of bemoaning how detached from the “people” is simply deluding him- or herself.  In my version of leftism, I have no illusion about the fundamentally reactionary nature of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> populace (and probably any populace) and that they are fundamentally oppose to the socialist ideas as mentioned above.  I do not link the hope for socialism to populism.  A more realistic option is to convince the economic, political and intellectual elites that they will be better off under socialism.  <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Wojtek<o:p></o:p> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html>