The thing that I do find about Barack Obama is that -- and I think America is starting to catch on to this -- this guy really is a Marxist.
This rhetoric confuses me. Does anyone – in the 21st century – really think that Marxism, socialism, or communism are serious political theories? Has any influential American in the last 30 years said anything that could be interpreted by an unbiased observer as promoting Marxism, socialism or communism? Is there any way in which the modern liberal platform can be interpreted as an endorsement of Karl Marx?
The answer to those rhetorical questions – in case you missed it -- is no, of course. Marxism’s heyday was about 100 years ago, when it helped to found the 20th century labor movement. Since then a lot has changed. Yes, we had red scares and domino theory wars and cold wars and then … well, we won. Yay team capitalist! And yet the right wing in America isn’t celebrating. Instead they’re wallowing in a kind of cold war nostalgia that helps to justify the most pro-corporate policies in terms of being – even today – opposed to nasty insidious commies.
This isn’t a simple disagreement over policy – the left and right in American politics don't even agree on what the disagreement is about.
I’m not much of a scholar of history, but it seems to me that in the 1930’s the political spectrum was understood to be from fascism on the far right to Marxism on the far left. (“Socialism” is a more troublesome term since it was used by both extremes.) Even when people disagreed about policy, everyone, on the left and the right, at least agreed that those were the correct parameters for the discussion.
Today we have a complete disconnect. The right defines the possible political spectrum as being from “dyed in the wool Patriot” on the right to “European redistributive Marxist” on the left. Given this is the entire range of political thought that the right even allows, it's no great surprise that the conservative movement has been pushing further and further to the right extreme. Everything evil, from Stalin to Hitler, has been redefined to be leftist. They get away with it because while few modern people are willing to openly defend Marxism, equally few are prepared to condemn the right's so-called patriotism as fascism.
Thinkers on the left, I think, are more realistic, seeing the political argument as being over the relative power of citizens, corporations, and government. But right-wing thinkers aren't having that discussion. They're fighting imaginary battles with modern-day Maoists, which somehow always involves giving giant corporations more power at the expense of everyone else. Funny how it works out that way.
- jack*
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