[lbo-talk] weimar shadows

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Sun Feb 7 08:30:42 PST 2010


On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 8:44 AM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>   ...there is a right-wing populist uprising. It's very common, even on the
> left, to just ridicule them, but that's not the right reaction.


>   ...the reaction we should be having to them is not ridicule, but rather
> self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them?


> And it's
> our fault if that goes on. So one thing to be done is don't ridicule these
> people, join them, and talk about their real grievances and give them a
> sensible answer...

As with so much of what Chomsky says, I used to agree with this, but now the condescending and messianic politics here annoy the hell out of me. And are completely wrong. There's no "objective" reason "they" belong to the "left." Right-wing populists chosen to ally with nationalism, and that means they are the enemy.

If the "right-wing populist uprising" does turn into outright fascism--and I don't think it will, because that would require a robust political party, which the teabaggers cannot get together, at least for now--it will have to be defeated, or short-circuited. That means that the people who participate in the uprising, who are an index to the vitality of the movement, have to be defeated as well. Even if they are "working class." Politics doesn't operate along preexisting lines but is the drawing of those lines. If someone is on the wrong side of the line, they have to be defeated. (Not exterminated, just defeated. I'm not a Dalek.)

(All of this is unsubtle and overstated, but Chomsky's b.s. does deserve some sort of a response, methinks.)



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