>>> Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/19/00 05:47PM >>>
> >CB: So many here are holier than them Soviets.
sez me:
>I've never sent a bunch of troops to suppress the beginnings of democracy
>in Czechoslovakia.
in response:
>CB: Democracy "began" when there when the Nazis were removed by the Red Army.
I guess we disagree about the meaning of the word "democracy." Paging
Comrade Slansky...
____________
CB: Maybe. What do you mean by it ? Do you start with popular sovereignty ? If not,
then your critique of Soviets as undemocratic is probably flawed.
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sez me:
>In fact, I've never killed _anyone_. So I guess that I'm holier than the
>Soviets, though not necessarily holier than thou.
>CB: All the Soviets killed someone ? Even the art commisars all killed
>someone ? Where's the evidence ? I bet the vast majority of Soviets
>either did not kill anyone or those who killed someone did so in heroic
>self-defense of the country in the wars.
>I think you have an exaggerated notion of Soviets who killed.
I didn't say that "all the Soviets killed" anyone. In fact, I made it clear
that I didn't mean that (though I elided that passage in the current
missive -- look at my previous message in this thread).
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CB: What you said is that you guess you are holier than the Soviets, after saying you
never killed anyone. See above. Why do you guess you are holier than the Soviets ?
________
I don't like the numbers game ("how many were killed in Cambodia vs. how
many in Indonesia"). But I don't think that the invasion of Czechoslovakia
had anything to do with "heroic self-defense of the country." It had to do
with tired old bureaucrats who wanted to preserve their rule and couldn't
stand any kind of democratic reform.
___________
CB: Probably, but the U.S. has never suffered a holocaustic war as the Soviets did in
WWII. It is not clear to me that the 15 years from mid WWII, when Czechoslovakia was
within the fascist orbit, to 1968 would have been enough time to open up the deep
freeze on the trail that the Nazis had followed to get to the SU. Don't think
Americans can quite understand the significance of 20 million killed and the other
damage of the war on SU.
_________
>The people were not to blame, since they didn't choose that leadership.
>CB: None of them chose that leadership ? Rather overstated.
Okay, a small number of CP bureaucrats chose their own leaders,
__________
CB: Not sure that it is smaller than those who choose the leaders of the biggest
corporations, and the heads of the U.S. governments.
__________
highly
influenced by the power of the in-group leaders. (Gee, it's kinda similar
to here in the US.) Why this kind of quibble?
___________
CB: Because if capitalism is doing it that way, perhaps it is necessary to match it in
order to defend against capitalism. Marx and Engels advocated a centralized state for
socialism. Why ? Because they were Germans with autocratic reflexes. No. Because only
a Utopian approach does not understand that violence is the midwife of the
tranformation from one form of society to another, or whatever Marx said. Socialism
has to be centralized in order to survive capitalism. The fall of the SU to war and
threat of war throughout its whole existence proves this even more than when Engels
and Marx first theorized it.
Those who want to make Marx, the friendly old genius, a pacificist and radical
democrat in every concrete historical circumstance are dreaming of a Utopian Marx like
themselves. Pipedream socialism.
_________
>(As Nathan might argue, we in the US are _more_ responsible for crimes
>like this (e.g., the recent terror-bombing of Serbia) because we have a
>bit more say about who are our leaders are than the Soviets did. Of
>course, Nathan would disagree about the parenthetical example I chose.)
>CB: Speak for yourself. I don't have more of a say about who my leaders
>are than the Soviets did. They limit my "choices" to all I people I don't
>want. That means I have ZERO say.
Each out-of-power individual acting alone has zero power (or close to it),
no matter what the system.
________
CB: And another point, I don't even have one vote for the actual leaders of the U.S.
system, who are heads of giant corporations. The U.S. government works for them, and
takes orders from them mainly.
________
But you do have the option of attending a big demonstration or the like,
which can have some impact on our leadership. The anti-war movement won
some victories, for example, speeding the exit of Lyndon Johnson from the
White House. It's true that Nixon intensified the terror-bombing of North
Vietnam, but at least the movement saved the lives of some US troops on the
ground. That's hardly an unmixed victory, but it's not ZERO impact. The
civil rights movement also had some victories.
____________
CB: The citizens of the Soviet Union didn't have less ability than this to impact
their system. Large demonstrations are not the only way to get this level of
influence.
The Communist Party was removed from power by mass influence, and it was almost
bloodless. I would like to see the U.S. capitalists removed from power with that
little violence.
If you are still trying to argue that I have more influence on my system than the
average Soviet citizen had in theirs, you are being fooled by the worn out old U.S.
democratic forms. The U.S. ruling class has become beyond past masters at subverting
the democratic aspects of the U.S. system, including mass demonstrations. The U.S.
system used the 60's and 70' period to learn the areas of mass influence AND CLEVERLY
SHUT THEM ALL DOWN AND SUBVERT THEM. By the time of Reaganism, big demos like
Solidarity Day I were having almost no influence on policy. PATCO remained busted,
despite 500,000 in D.C.. That is a hell of a subversion of the U.S. formerly
democratic demonstration form. The demonstration form has become an almost nothing.
"Million marches" are getting to be a dime a dozen, with no impact on policy.
Democracy is getting less and less in the U.S. because of the generalized subversion
of the traditional U.S. democratic forms demonstrations and otherwise., through
political science , advertising methods, tighter media control and science, etc.
The slightest claim that the U.S. is more democratic than the former S.U. is a giant
disservice to the People and the democratic movement.
______________
>That you think you have more of a choice means the U.S. bourgeoisie have
>fooled you. You buy that the U.S. election system is somewhat still
>democratic. You've bought the bourgeois propaganda that this is the Free
>World. False.
I didn't say that the US election system is democratic.
________
CB: Your argument seems to be that it is somewhat more democratic than the former SU.
This has to be dropped. Argued against. People must understand that this is not the
Free World or the center or example of democracy. To do this takes an understanding of
the fundamentals, not superficial forms ( two parties, U.S. style elections, socalled
free, i.e. private, press, etc.) of democracy.
What is democracy ? Nobody on this list seems to know, even though they keep making
pronouncements about China's human rights violations, etc.
___________
_________
Saying that "we
have a bit more say about who are our leaders are than the Soviets did" is
NOT the same as saying that the US electoral system is democratic, since I
deliberately stated it in relative terms.
____________
CB: Saying that we have a bit more say about who are our leaders is a false and
misleading statement.
Who are our leaders, the equivalent of the heads of the CPSU ? Not the President and
Congress . It is the Boards of Directors of the biggest banks and corporations. We,
The People, have NO, ZERO, say in selecting them.
It is seriously misleading to say to Americans that they have more say in selecting
their leaders than people in the SU did.
__________________
BTW, I don't think that the bit of democracy we see in the US was _given to
people_ by the capitalists. There are lots of examples of capitalism that
are totally undemocratic (e.g, Nazi Germany). The little bit of democracy
was won by struggle from below, starting with the Bill of Rights,
___________
CB: The Bill of Rights is NOT the beginning of democracy in the U.S. The Constitution
itself, which begins with "We, the People, " or claims that all original power derives
from the People, popular sovereignty , is a more important democratic principle , than
those in the Bill of Rights.
This is the problem. All these pronouncements on who and what is more and less
democratic, and you don't have a good theory of democracy. You thinkl it starts in the
principles in the Bill of Rights. Voting is not in the Bill of Rights. Republican form
is not in the Bill of Rights.
You don't even know the highest form of bourgeois democracy, and you are making
pronouncements about the failures of socialist democracy. There were failures of
socialist democracy, but to criticize them well, you have to have a better
understanding of what democracy is.
___________
which was
a response to the anti-Federalists and "Shay's rebellion." The powers that
be keep on struggling to reduce civil liberties, so efforts from below
continue to be necessary.
___________
CB: "From below" is a slang approach to understanding democratic principles, but it
wears thin to try to use it as a most fundamental statement of democracy. Unless, it
is derived from popular sovereignty, attention to masses in motion and self-governing.
__________
You say that the U.S. election system is not "still democratic." When was
it democratic?
________
CB: It was democratic relative to monarchy when it began. As time has passed, its
historically relative democracy has turned into its opposite.
For example, when the U.S. first started, freedom of the press was an aid to
empowering the masses, because it was not completely owned and dominated by monopoly
corporations. But today, freedom of the press, is an absurdity , because the monopoly
media is more powerful than the government in many ways. Government repression of
press and media is less of a problem than press control of the government , as part of
the system that undermines the U.S. traditional democratic forms.
Or the Civil War. This was a very democratic undertaking on the part of the federal
government, regardless of its motives.
Today, the U.S. is the bastion of reaction in the world. It's flashes of democracy or
greater democracy than in old Europe have turned into their opposites.
___________
Finally, there's no point in throwing insults at me (e.g., that I've
"bought the bourgeois propaganda that this is the Free World"). I find that
all that insults do is to reduce my regard for those who use them.
__________
CB: Well, sorry , but are you or are you not asserting that the U.S. is slightly more
democratic than the SU ? One of the most famous ways that the bourgeoisie have
propgandized that the U.S is freer than the former SU and communism is to call this
the "free world". If you are, I do think your claim that the U.S. is slightly more
democratic than the former SU is a bourgeois propaganda line. Whether you have bought
it or not, you are asserting it on this thread.
CB
