Disinformation and Idiocy: Part 6 of 10

Accusation 6. The left don't know when to give up.
They LOST. The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago! The USSR no longer exists! Communism has failed (except in China, where they all want to live). But they keep insisting it could come back. Guess what? It ain't gonna! WE WON! Accept that and join the rest of us!

We first need to make the distinction that communism and left-wing politics are two entirely different things. The three most prominent leftists in politics and journalism - Chomsky (in Thoughts on Power, published in 1995), Benn (in the British House of Commons) and Frisk (continually) - all viciously denounced communism in its days of glory. When the USSR collapsed in 1991 - mostly because of Boris Yeltsin - it simply heralded the collapse of that regime - not of the idea.

Indeed, I'm reminded of one of the final scenes in V for Vendetta, where V has been mortally wounded by a government executive. His last words before killing the exec are "Behind this mask is more than a man. Behind this mask is an idea; and ideas are bulletproof!" This quote applies very much to the political left after the dissolution of the USSR.

Ideas, of course, never remain the same from one incident to another. Regarding Fascism, Lewis Sinclair once said "When fascism comes to America, it will not wear a Swastika. It will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." The theories of fascism evolved past nazism to be dominionism, ultranationalism, organized hysteria (similar to the type often witnessed at Focus on the Family events - if we are to take the word of the ever-trustworthy Christopher Hedges) In the same way, the theories of the political left have evolved. Very similar to the contrast between America and Canada, communism is a comparitively immature form of left-wing politics - put your trust in the government and let it do what it wants, simply to hope that it will act in your best interests. It takes a mature, well-educated, politically active and thoughtful society to progress beyond that to the methods of modern left-wing politics: Democratic Socialism, Libertarian Socialism (to which I subscribe), Anarchism, Anarcho-Syndicalism etc.

The distinction between communism and socialism has been attempted to be made clear to us since before 1917. Indeed, in the preface to Animal Farm, George Orwell writes "nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country....I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement." In the early days (and indeed even as late as Reagan), it was easy for those on the political and economic right to say of anyone who disagreed with them "he's a filthy commie. He's a soviet lover", and that was the end of the debate - show's over, socialism lost. Today, it is not that simple, and that scares the right.

Why does the right attempt to stuff down our throats that left wing politics is dead? It is because they are scared, terrified even, of the new left. Unlike in the Rage song, the new sound is not like the old sound, and that terrifies the right. They cannot resort to the ancient anti-communist rhetoric of yesterday, for today's left-wing politics do not look anything like yesterdays. today's left-wing is illustrated by the anarchist ELZN, the Democratic Socialist states of Scandinavia and South America, the union movements of central America, the "Stop the War! Coalition" and European Social Democracy. It is shaped by a belief that, if a government is to control the economy, then the people must control the government. The rhetoric of yesterday is wasted. The right cannot adapt, for it is an ideology that has truly stagnated.

The political right does not know their enemy. Every author of tactical codes and creeds - from Sun Tzu to Belisarius to Alexios I to Ferdinand Foch to Zhukov and Guderian to Mao - has stressed the need to know your enemy. The right has not done this, and it will be the death of them.

The cries of "the commies lost" do not illustrate the power of the political right. Rather, they clearly illustrate its desperation and weakness. A tyrant in danger of losing power will grip it tighter than ever - and thus hasten his demise. The political right is the same way. They grasp ever more tightly at power, hoping to squeeze one more little bit of profit from a dying planet, from an oppressed people, even as power slips away from them. Because of the nature of the political right, they will grip ever tighter, not realizing until it is too late that it is their own throat they are clutching at. As Trotsky once said: "If we chose to hang capitalists, they would attempt to sell us the rope as they walk to the gallows"