Waiting for things to get worse so they can get better is dangerous nonsense

[eridani]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/102010.html

Which brings us to the e-mailer who is considering voting for Tea Party candidates to “sharpen the contradictions.” Though the frustration on the Left is understandable, the idea of wanting the United States to move even further right – as a way to create more desperation and thus a political shift to the left – is dangerous, and always has been.

Not only was that the fatal mistake of the German Communists in the 1930s who embraced the slogan, “after Hitler, us,” but there is no particular reason to believe that making life more miserable for Americans would automatically convince them to opt for leftist solutions now.

If history has taught us anything, it is that rightist propaganda can be extremely effective in finding scapegoats for social ills, whether it was the Jews in Nazi Germany or Muslims and Mexicans in today’s America. Economic fear has often been the fuel for right-wing reaction.

Still, some on the Left still seem influenced by the flawed thinking of Karl Marx who prophesized the inevitable collapse of capitalism and its replacement by egalitarian communism. The fatal mistake in this thinking (even assuming that his larger point is correct) is that Marx did not take into account that the human species doesn’t have unlimited time for such a transformation to play out.

Any long-range vision of revolutionary change runs headlong into the approaching deadline for reversing global warming which is making the earth uninhabitable for future generations. Even in the near term, climate change – floods, droughts, severe weather – is sure to produce dangerous political and economic dislocations.

[Turbineguy]

1. There is something to be said

for giving the teabaggers their comeuppance, but the problem is the rest of us get it too. But electing crazed wingnut candidates to congress will hurt the individual districts more than the country as a whole.

[rucky]

2. If we create a vaccuum, who do you think is in the best position to fill it?

The wealthy and the corporations. When GDP is up and wealth disparity widens, the downward spiral the rest of us are seeing is our wealth being sucked up by the 2-percenters. When it all crumbles for us, they'll be the only ones left standing - and stronger than ever. They're almost there.

[Scuba]

3. +1

[BzaDem]

4. This is so obvious that it shouldn't even need to be stated.

Yet day after day, there are a few "progressives" that post saying or hinting that they won't vote for Obama.

[Stuart G]

5. Taking a chance on things getting much worse, and later ..

somehow we can turn it around..is insaine. Why?
In that "much worse" situation, the country would be far more out of control.

Taking a chance on winning at that point is extremely dangerous. It is dangerous because history shows that out of control situations often have consequence that are beyond, totally beyond comprehension..An example:
Stalin waited for things to get much worse with Hitler. In fact, I am sure that he thought they wouldn't get sny worse.
I am sure that he thought that he could "control the outcome" The outcome was the death of at least 20 million.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Really Fits The Phrase "Be Careful What You Wish For"

Doesn't it? Because things could spiral to a point where it's irretreivable in anybody's lifetime.
GAC

[Hannah Bell]

6. this is subtle red-baiting & it's crap. sorry eridani, you're a good egg, not personal, but what's

going on has nothing to do with marx & everything to do with specific segments of the democratic coalition who feel betrayed.

[RainDog]

10. you're a good egg, too, but Robert Parry is telling the truth

the unpleasant truth is that the U.S. has two political parties that run this nation.

one or the other will win.

while I don't like that, I can't make that reality go away by pretending my frustration makes it any different.

[Nihil]

13. No, the *really* unpleasant truth ...

> the unpleasant truth is that the U.S. has two political parties that
> run this nation.

... is that there is only one.

Everything else is smoke & mirrors to keep the crabs snipping at each other
rather than escaping from the bucket.


> while I don't like that, I can't make that reality go away by pretending
> my frustration makes it any different.

And that statement still applies.

[Hannah Bell]

14. that's a different matter than the claim that marxism is driving disaffection from the dems.

[eridani]

20. Marxism is irrelevant to most on hte left these days

At least when it goes beyond diagnosis to prescriptions.

[Hannah Bell]

22. Then why did the author feel it necessary to blame the disaffection of some democrats on marx?

"Still, some on the Left still seem influenced by the flawed thinking of Karl Marx who prophesized the inevitable collapse of capitalism and its replacement by egalitarian communism. The fatal mistake in this thinking (even assuming that his larger point is correct) is that Marx did not take into account that the human species doesn’t have unlimited time for such a transformation to play out."

[eridani]

24. He's wrong in thinking that Marxism is still influential

However, I have been hearing from various people on the left for FORTY EFFING YEARS, that it didn't matter that conservatives were taking over electoral politics on the grounds that they would make the situation of ordinary people so bad that they would rise in revolt.

I, along with far too many other lefties, blew off electoral politics entirely until 2004. People like Kucinich and Sanders from my generation who started running for local office and winning, were very rare statistically.

[Hannah Bell]

25. i've *never* heard an actual person say that. so we have different experiences.

otoh, i've heard lots of actual people say, "what the hell difference does it make if i vote, they're all (1. the same) (2. crooks) (3. liars)."

[eridani]

18. I don't count pointing out tactical errors by left formations in electoral politics--

--to be "red-baiting." This is a matter of history. I grew up with stories about how my grandparents in Skokie blew off the German-Amarican Bund with its goose-steppers as just a bunch of irrelevant clowns.

[Hannah Bell]

21. i count blaming it on marxism red-baiting. marx has nothing to do with it.

[sufrommich]

8. For the life of me, I can't figure out why some people are so

confident any "political shift" would be to the left. It's a ridiculous and naive assumption to make.

[Hannah Bell]

9. the shift to the left has already occurred; the policy isn't reflecting it -- thus the frustration

& reaction.

"if this = 'left' I'll try the other option, thanks, cause i'm not liking 'left' so far."

what a majority voted for was end gwb's policies, wind down the war, fix the economy, prosecute the fraudsters. imo.

[TheKentuckian]

11. There is no safety in the current path either. The system is not sustainable, corporate pawns with a

(D) next to their name is not even a holding action, much less a fix.

We'll same our way out of swirling around the bowl is no more rational than worse before better.

Neither approach is particularly rational or safe. Both test luck to the breaking point both could certainly lead to a similar level of hosed under fascist control and widespread poverty.

Time for a real third way and I think it means a reboot and a coming together into a real coalition of the Democratic base and our deeply interconnected issues. I'm talking racial minorities, environmentalists, labor, GLBT, liberals, and women and forget the moneychangers and wean off the interests of comfortable suburbanites.

This party is to give power to the people, a voice to those without a platform not to facilitate more seats at the table for "stakeholders". If the Democratic party does not turn from the corporate trough and serve the people the price will be hellish either way because it will lead to entropy.
We must find a sustainable path that does not trample the working people and those denied an equal place in America or destruction is the natural result.

Survival and prosperity demand well beyond party loyalty or hoping the greedheads fuck up so bad they they are wiped away in enough time to survive the damage.

Are we going to find a path or go down into darkness? We all decide but the current two sets of "solutions" are both sub 10% answers.

[The Uncola]

12. As far as I can tell..

.. is that either way we go, be it vote or not, we WILL be ignored. Being VERY active in the last go around, yielded nothing to improve my family's lot in life. In fact, things are far worse for us today than they were 2 years ago, today. To be blunt, short of an armed revolution, I see little chance of regaining of control of our nation by the people.

[kenny blankenship]

15. From time to time I see people try to blame the "hard left" for Hitler

First of all the communist party in Germany was quite small in the parliament. The main left party were the Social Democrats. They are still a big party in Germany today. Secondly, the people besides the Nazis themselves that are to blame for the rise of the Nazis and Hitler within the representative government were ...wait for it... the Centrists. Literally they called their party the Center Party (Zentrum). The Center Party, champion of traditional values and business, led by landowners like Franz Von Papen, entered into coalition with the Nazis in the early 30s, abandoning their previous coalition partners in the Social Democrats.

When push came to shove, the CENTRISTS voted to give Hitler emergency dictatorial powers (Enabling Act) while the left parties voted EN BLOC against it. I say left "parties" but really I should say "party", since the communists in the parliament (KPD) were already dead (assassinated by Nazi goonsquads) or locked up in Nazi S.A. dungeons. The Socialist left voted to stop Hitler while the good traditional backers of family & religious values (Zentrum was strongly affiliated with the Catholic Church in Germany) and the supporters of the military voted to empower Hitler. Von Papen was a partner of Hitler (his Vice Chancellor) and later joined the Nazis. He would be tried at Nuremburg by the Allies after the war for aiding Hitler's ascent. For voting against Hitler's ascent to dictatorship, and for just being the identified enemies of Naziism, the Social Democratic Party parliamentarians who did not flee Germany immediately after the passage of the Enabling Act would be rounded up into the first concentration camp within 30-60 days of the Act's passage.

You want to blame someone for the ascent of Hitler besides him and the worst of his goosestepping thugs? Blame the wishy washy centrists who refuse to take a clear stand against militarism and anti-labor thuggery. Blame the mindless middle. They do it every fucking time!

[Hannah Bell]

16. exactly. it was the moderate left's failure to make common cause with the "hard" left

(& in fact the desire of moderates to destroy the hard left) that = hitler.

[kenny blankenship]

17. Unfortunately SPD + KPD didn't equal a majority

SPD + Zentrum was a working coalition. It didn't work very well in the general rout of the Great Depression - but what would? President von Hindenburg (old monarchist, Nationalist Party dinosaur) favored the Center because of their non-Socialist pro-military pro-church traditional principles. Center was no Left party but made coalition with the Social Democrats out of necessity. Hindenburg invited a series of Center party leaders to form governments (since there was no absolute majority) even though they were junior partner to the SPD Zentrum coalition by percent of the vote. When the Nazis surged after 1930, the Center Party started to do all their deals with Hitler. Von Papen believed he would "reach out", I suppose, to the Nazis and steal their base. He tried to maneuver Hitler to the sidelines by getting him to run for the Presidency in 32, knowing he'd lose. Even though Hitler didn't win, he wasn't weakened and didn't lose his base to the Center. (Just like Republicans don't meet people in the middle when invited, they just keep going right faster than before, so you can't peel them away by being Repuke-Lite) Hindenburg remained President, and driven by the popular surge for Nazis and his own rightist authoritarian tendencies, soon awarded the Chancellorship to Hitler. The capture of the Center by the hard right was completed by the with-us-or-against-us test of the Reichstag fire and Enabling Act. Center went with Hitler. Left went to the camps.

And of course there was no love lost between KPD and SPD. The communists held a strong grudge against the Social-Democrats for putting down their armed revolutions in the immediate aftermath of WWI. They did not play well together. And this is the nub of the chestnut "the fractious Leftards allowed Hitler's rise to power!" However, to say this is to simply ignore the comparative strength and roles of the various parties. KPD was not third largest party, nor even close to the numerical strength of either the SPD or Center Party. SPD was second largest, after the Nazis, and Center was third. At different times those rankings were reversed but at no time was KPD big enough to be a majority coalition maker. SPD plus KPD could not have stopped Hitler from receiving and wielding the Chancellorship. But SPD plus Center could have. There are probably quite a few errors of detail in my account, but I believe if you look at the history in overview, this is the truth: Left plus Center could have blocked Hitler, (or at least forced him to openly attempt violent overthrow, which possibly would bring the Army in against him.) but Center decided its traditional principles were closer to Naziism than to the post-Marxist tradeunionism of the Social Democrats. Saying the "left is to blame!" is a gross offense to the truth: for the left stood up and paid an awful price for it.

[eridani]

19. True, but this does not justity blindness on the part of left parties about what they were facing n

[Hannah Bell]

23. They weren't blind. The center-of-the-road parties were -- or else collaborationist.

[Radical Activist]

26. It's sadistic and foolish.

It's also a cop-out for people peddling ideologies that don't have support among the people. They have to wait for some catastrophic event to do their work for them because they can't do the hard work of organizing and bringing people to their side. It's an idea pushed by middle-class intellectuals who will never have to personally experience the pain they wish on society at large.

[Touchdown]

27. One flaw. The German Socialists actually were after Hitler.

... with the help of us, I might add. The Communists were also after Hitler in a smaller part of Germany... with the help of The Soviets.

Not that I'm advocating a US collapse, and to vote for teabaggers to speed it up, far from it. I'm just saying everything dies eventually.