I was once a right winger. Dave Budge was once a communist, he says. David Horowitz was a Maoist. The “Neo-Cons” are reformed leftists.
We bouncers think ourselves very special. After all, we thought our way through a defective philosophy to fine a better one. We think good, or so we think.
So Budge is now a libertarian, Horowitz a … Brownshirt? The “Neo-Cons”, I need say no more. And me? I really did think, as I bounced from right to left that someone had slipped the answer to the left. I went for years forcing the world into that mental stockade. And, since I was a former member of the right … well, I had insight that others lacked. Got that? I bounced, you see …
I’ll never be a righty again, of course, especially in the post-Buckley era. Bill Buckley single-handedly got rid of the lunatic fringe, but they are back now in droves, and are so strong that it is hard to see the thoughtful conservatives that are still around.
But I am also not a lefty, at least not in the American sense. There is no left in the United States. What there was of it withered and died in the post-war era. There was a nice compromise in the 1950’s, where they let us have our unions, our Social Security, but they still insisted on their wars and military spending, and fear governed. The advent of the National Security State in 1947, and the deep propaganda of the Cold War, followed by the Drug War, and now the Terror War … makes us a society where fear governs. And where people are afraid of each other, there can be no left. Propaganda has destroyed our minds, so that only the passing of generations will bring us back to sanity.
The unions are shells, and Social Security is under attack again, this time by Democrats, who are supposedly our “left.” We are so right wing that the right wing Democrats look like lefties to us.
This is not a world that conforms to ideology. They are all defective. As I told Budge, there is really only one philosophical insight that matters, and it consists of two words:
Power corrupts.
That is the meaning of Tolkien’s “ring”- if affected all who touched it. It is power. We cannot manage it, we cannot come near it without changing. Frodo had to go away at the end. Even though he was a good and strong and courageous man, he had touched the ring, and it had changed him.
But nothing lasts. Power waits in the wings there just as here. Power always hovers nearby.
Piece of Mindful 
europe is just as vulnerable to the crises of late capitalism, the only difference is when the “austerity measures” get rolled out, they fill the streets and show their elected leaders that the masses still remember how to shove a giant thorn in the side of the ruling class.
the economic contagion has, as its epicenter, wall street, but it’s spread throughout the global economy. the crisis can virtually be enflamed at will. greece experienced this directly. next, maybe spain. and each time an economic bomb is set off, it scares the hell out of deeply invested vulgar capitalists in other countries.
america, and our middle east bulldog, israel, are sociopaths. and the american public are scared sheep going along because we lack the courage and imagination to address the corrupt rot of our political environment.
the only way i see for resistance to be rekindled here is for progressive and libertarian political strains to find common ground in a third path. but the political environment is way too polarized for that to happen right now.
and when the next big false flag terrorist attack happens on our soil, i’m afraid it will be game over. sure, there will always be pockets of resistance. but the window is closing on any widespread movements from developing.
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When you say …the only difference is when the “austerity measures” get rolled out, they fill the streets and show their elected leaders that the masses still remember how to shove a giant thorn in the side of the ruling class. I think it is called “tautology”, or another way of saying the same thing.
They have better balance of power over there, so that workers can take to the streets and have to be heeded. First they are empowered, and then when their lives are affected, they can flex their muscles. Another tautology.
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yes, and that balance exists because there is a more educated understanding with the workers, who are producing the wealth, of the social contract between the state and its people, while in this country we’ve allowed the state to be subsumed by the cult of unregulated capitalism, and in return we’ve accepted a dumbed-down entertainment-based fantasy version of america that has a very firm grip on the psychological space of its targets.
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Military budgets in Europe are not eating the same percentage of GDP as here. This is likely a result of living in post-WWII rubble and rebuilding everything. Lesson learned. Here, we obsess over “ground zero” but increase military spending as a percentage of GDP hoping to prevent another attack. Meanwhile the society and it’s infrastructure rots from neglect and misallocated resources. Japan also lives well without much military spending stimulus.
May I also suggest that both U.S. parties are authoritarian-right. There is a libertarian right, growing more active since Ron Paul’s appearance in the 2008 Republican primary. There is also a libertarian-left, or Green Party option, which suffers from self-inflicted terminal exhaustion and fear of Democrats’ wrath. But nothing pisses off a Democrat more than a 2000 Nader/Green supporter who refuses to recant — nothing.
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good point ladybug. insane military spending combined with the explosion of the financial sector, which is around a quarter of GDP now, producing little of actual value, are two critical drags on our ability to keep bridges from collapsing.
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Lizard,
The psycology may perceive that we’ve “allowed the state to be subsumed by the cult of unregulated capitalism,” but the actual practice of capitalism is scarcely recognizable in the post-Clinton era with NAFTA, GATT, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bank bailouts, AIG bailouts, off-shore taxbreaks, outsourcing, privatization of everything from education to defense, and thousands of earmarks and subsidies for every corporate multinational with a lobbyist on K
Street. Call it anything, but please don’t call this capitalism. Whatever it is, it’s global-corporate-(you provide the appropriate noun).
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yes, ladybug, there is a contradiction. relying on government subsidies and corporate welfare at the expense of the taxpayer isn’t really capitalism as expressed by the free market worshipers.
what would be a more accurate term?
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That whole, “I was lost but now I found Jayzuss, and you should too, you sinner” thing is pretty common. A guy I knew, long dead, told me, “nothing’s worse than a burnt out drunk”. Reformed smokers are similar.
Any such perspective is highly suspect. One addiction, immoderate behavior or radical pov after another doesn’t indicate wisdom.
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But wisdom does not move the masses the same way momentum does. Momentum plays a huge role — in financial bubbles according to Budge and Minskey. In politics according to Mark. And in mass movements of all types according to Hoffer.
“A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from anxieties, barrenness, and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves — and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole. ”
– Eric Hoffer
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Sounds a whole lot like Ellul. A whole lot.
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Ellul chronicles what I think he believes is external effect, especially when it comes to technology and the bible. Hoffer really seems to be after what is inside individuals that makes them willing to submit to absolute conformity. Ellul may be more forgiving of people’s weaknesses. Both were on the trail of something a little too scary for most to deal with — both nail the machanics.
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