Some of the discussion on the thread on Noel Pearson’s speech prompted me to make this comment, which perhaps deserves some discussion outside its immediate context:
Anyone who saw the coverage of Rudd fawning all over Pearson (and the obligation was mutual) at his conference recently can join the dots. If anyoneâ??s under any continuing illusions that Rudd really isnâ??t as conservative and authoritarian as he seems, I imagine they will be dispelled pretty quickly if he becomes PM.
People seem to have fallen into the habit (which originated in the US hyperpartisan blogosphere) of including the ALP right in with â??the leftâ??. It is not – not in any real sense.
Pearson keeps his bridges from being burnt with the ALP right by ritualistic denunciations of the Tories as well. The â??Third Wayâ?? Paul Kelly-ism is actually attractive to a lot of ALP rightists. And when they listen to Pearson sledge the left, they certainly donâ??t recognise themselves in that category.
Theyâ??re not interpellated as such, if you want to be all Althusserian!
The ALP left, let alone the broader left, has not had the running on Indigenous policy, as any sober minded examination of the policy battles within the Hawke-Keating governments reveals.
Left and right weren’t terms used much in American political discourse until recently – “liberal” and “conservative” were more common, and there were substantial conservative elements in the Democratic Party and liberal elements in the Republican Party (the latter finally being effectively swept away in the last midterms but the former suriving…). The increased partisanship of the 1990s which was taken to its Rovean extremes this decade led to a mischaracterisation of anyone remotely associated with the Democrats as “left” in the blogosphere, which was taken up with relish by neo-con ideologues and Fox News and its MSM acolytes. It’s an inaccurate representation of the state of political forces in the States, but it does useful political work for the right by assimilating the most conservative Democrat to the wildest netroots lefty. It’s a fairly pernicious as well as inaccurate dichotomy. A moment’s reflection on the moral conservatives, pro-development boosters and authoritarian “pragmatists” who represent the current incarnation of the labourist tradition within the ALP should also give pause for thought.
Well it shouldn’t be treated as a dichotomy, but rather a useful categorisation with limitations. It’s convenient hazy grouping rather than anything axiomatic. For it’s simplicity, it’s proved pretty durable.
You mean like this?
http://anonymouslefty.blogspot.com/2007/06/who-writes-this-drivel.html
Don’t get me wrong – I think the left/right distinction is very useful and I’ve argued that in the past at some length. What I’m objecting to is twofold:
(1) The dominant forces at the moment in the Labor Party are labelled as part of the “left” which wrongly characterises them and disguises their actual conservatism and contributes to reflexive support for Rudd and illusions about what a Labor government will do;
(2) The way in which the distinction is employed rhetorically distorts political discourse by setting up a category which conflates too many positions – see the comments on another thread where it was being argued that if you dislike Germaine Greer’s writing, it’s representative of a tendency in something called “the Australian left” and symptomatic of some broad essentialist commonality found in many parts of “the Australian left”.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/08/30/striking-an-oblique-blow-against-the-patriarchy/#comment-398505
Mapping a partisan ALP v. Liberal conflict onto the left/right distinction does damage to truth in political discourse, and distorts positions and loyalties. That’s why I used the word “dichotomy” in diagnosing this, whereas what I advocate is a distinction. I’m choosing my words carefully here.
Yeah fair enough. But I think most leftists are pretty aware Labor is not all that left, and they don’t have uncritical support for Rudd. In terms of the hard leftists I have known, a fave argument is Labor is bad bad bad. They barely seem to make any distinction between the two major parties. I think that is more dangerous.
I’m not at all sure that Howard’s indigenous policy should be characterised as of the right. It may be mistaken, it may be deeply flawed in its details. But in the broad sense an authoritarian national Aboriginal policy is just the thing the left would have done in days gone by. You might recall, Mark, that the left is not averse to dirigiste solutions to social problems, with Canberra over-riding the States where necessary.
There is much that Howard has done that is not ‘right-wing’ per se (vast middle-class welfare for one) so why be surprised or unhappy that Rudd will do some things that are not left-wing?
Are you upset that there is no ‘pure’ left party around, apart from the Greens, with their mighty 10% of first preferences at the last election?
Could this mean (shock, horror) that 90% of the electorate really don’t want a pure left (or pure right) party — and will instead vote for a pragmatic moderate who can take ideas from both sides of politics? Just like the successful ALP State Premiers do.
The Howard thing sounds right wing to me. It is racist and it compromises civil liberties. This is associated primarily with the right. Past quasi-leftists may have done similar things, but according to the present meanings of the terms left and right, this was a lapse in their leftism.
The Left that Pearson so rightly castigates is, of course, the Luvvie-Left.
Ive never quite understood the visceral revulsion displayed by those on the left (flogging a dead horse with that word, sorry) with the Fox news mob. Most of whats on it is crap, but I dont mind Hannity and Colmes BECAUSE Colmes (the rather clever man of the left) tends to be able to show up absurdities in many of the over the top guests rants.
I dont see a similar “quality” of panel interviewing anywhere in Australia.
A little O/T but I have a police force mate of mine, ex army as well, owns 2 houses, nearly doubled his income playing the stock market last year, sends his kids to private schools, and greatly dislikes what he calls ‘parasites on welfare”.
)
He still describes himself as a socialist and will vote ALP this year, same as he has done every election hes been able to vote in.
I upset him a little by laughing when he said that, and just cant get my head around the split between what he does and what he says he is. I dont think its all that uncommon a phenomena, wealthy people as actively engaged in a materialistic and capitalistic lifestyle mouthing the mantras of the “left”. (Ok Ive flogged that dead horse to bits, wheres the next one
So racism is associated with the right? What garbage. You might reflect on Abraham Lincoln and on Eisenhower sending US Army troops to the South to protect black children attending desegregated schools. In the Australian context, remind yourself which party was in office when the 1967 referendum was passed altering the Constitution to remove racist clauses and allowing the Federal government to legislate for the benefit of Aborigines.
As for civil liberties: well, I’m glad the left finally values them. In the past, the left viewed them as nuisances standing in the way of more important economic and social priorities.
Why is Noel Pearson cozying up to conservatives who will soon be consigned to the great dustbin of history? None of the current generation of conservative “thinkers” or columnists will be around when the next conservative government gets elected in Australia – maybe their children will.
Noel reminds me of the Restaurant at the End of the Universe – the prophet Zarquon who does his second coming a few seconds before the end of time.
“The ALP left, let alone the broader left, has not had the running on Indigenous policy, as any sober minded examination of the policy battles within the Hawke-Keating governments reveals.”
Any leftist want to have a shot at explaining what a leftist indigenous policy would look like ?
Just curious.
During the time of Abraham Lincoln, who was “Right” and who was “Left”? That categorisation makes no sense at all in the context of those times.
On the question of Lincoln’s racism, he was a thoroughgoing racist. His objection was to the institution of slavery, not to the notion that Blacks [and Mexicans] were innately inferior to Whites. He believed that Blacks had no legitimate place in a post-slavery America. His his final (1865) State of the Union speech at the very end of the Civil War Lincoln opined:
A State of the Union Address is a pretty potent place to air such opinions.
Agreed Katz. Terms stretch and do all kinds of bizarre things over time. It is quite clear, now, that those groups who are called ‘the left’ have a greater commitment to anti-racism and civil liberties than the right does.
Katz
Good point.
It has been speculated that if Lincon hadnt been assassinated a massive shipment back to Africa was on the cards. It would have been “humane” by the standards of the time.
The left/ right is much harder to speculate on the further back in time you go. Who knows how absurd our divisions will look in 150 years time?
Also who decided the USSR represented the purest expression of the “left” anyway? Thats allways going to be a sticking point for critics.
Using labels like left/right, extremist, leftard, PC etc. are just a filter for the user to classify others. Putting people and ideas in a box relieves you of the burden of having to listen and maybe think about what someone else is saying which may be contrary or slightly different to your own pre conceptions.
It is like masturbation. Everyone does it!
There are few enunciated policy positions that today’s Labor can point to as representative of traditional leftist ideologies.
Their historic affiliation to the broader labour movement is tenuous at best, especially since the recent announcement of their watered down industrial relations policy.
Any green credentials they once had are in tatters considering among other things their position on the Tasmanian pulp mill question, along with their mirroring of the government’s forestry policy in that state.
Mr Rudd has been at pains to point out that he is a true fiscal conservative and that there is but a cigarette papers thickness between the parties’ respective economic policies, further stating that a Rudd labor government would also run large surpluses.
It could be also argued that the Liberals, not Labor, have led the way on welfare, in fact outspending preceding Labor governments in this area, as well as in health and education.
What we have is not a choice between a leftist Labor and a conservative Liberal party but a choice between two parties led by men of of very similar (professed) beliefs who are willing to make pragmatic policy decisions on an issue-by-issue basis, without more than a passing acknowledgement of traditional party policy positions or historical traditions.
Katz etc.,
The terms Left and Right were around at the time of Lincoln. They come from the French revolution when the Jacobins sat on the left of the chamber and the Girondists (I think -Im too lazy too get up from the computer to check one of my books on the French Revolution) on the Right.
There is a difference between the Libs/Nats and ALP, but I’m unsure if it can be described in the traditional Left/Right terms.
What we’re seeing is not new in Australian politics. Its been there since Hawke, maybe Hayden on the Left, and was there in the background of the Fraser Liberal Govt., though Fraser was too wise to trust Howard who was grovelling in adoration at the altar of Margaret Thatcher. 1975 proved to Labor they had to grovel at the feet of business or they’d never get/stay in power.
What was going on could certainly be described as being of the Right, and its still going on. The Left got lost somewhere and it wasn’t because of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
There are still some people around who see Socialism as the way to a humane future. They see Chavez in Venezuela as a saviour, the same way the Right here have seen Thatcher and later Howard as saviours. Is that what its all about? Finding some-one with a light, any light on the hill?
I must say, I always thought the left was ripe for a good critique from indigenous leaders. But Ive never really fancied Pearson’s attempts at it. Much preferred Marcia Langton (eg Overland 2002).
My problem with Pearson is there’s a bit too much of an rhetorical effort goes in to attracting the ‘culture war RSL’ right, who are about to be thoroughly pensioned off by Australian punters. And they’re the same windbags who dont actually believe in “individual enterprise/ responsibility” etc when it comes to Australian blacks.
At base, they’re insecure little racists who want a big paternalist state to slap Aboriginal people in some species of institutional knackery, so they, the RSL, get to feel special; state-recognised sole proprietors of those values, all over again.
And so history repeats – thats exactly what they got in the NT intervention. Where there was success, enterprise, meaning and work (CDEP communities) – now there is welfare, and welfare withheld. Lousy little sixpence. Where there was a land council, now there is a tenant on Government land. Where there was an existing dry community, now there is an army occupation.
WE’ve seen it all before; read Reynolds. In SA in the early 1900s, hundreds of aboriginal small farmers – presumably model citizens by the agrarian “man on the land” values of the era – were forced off their lands (acquired like any other smalll farmers) and put on state reservations.
As my supervisor used to say
“There are reputable, and disreputable critiques of Althusser.
I agree with both”.
You’re correct about Europe, and notably France.
I’ve read extensively in US history. I’ve never come across contemporary uses of the terms “Left” and “Right” until the 1880s, twenty years after Lincoln’s assassination.
Moreover, the traditional European politico-cultural spectrum that sustained notions of “Left” and “Right” — attitudes to state religion, attitudes to social caste and class, attitudes to private property, attitudes to political rights — never seriously divided the opinions of Americans after the American Revolution.
There is only one real reason why people continue to use the Left Right classification.To feel or think one is right seems to be a preferred option to thinking one has been left behind.Thus every smart-arse with his or her half moon rising continues the game.To be Left to them, means holding onto something that no longer can be,whereas their sense of being right is uncontestable because they will only contest amongst those of their type,simply because,it isnt logical to argue a position that can no longer be,with those who cannot see that their position has been left behind.So over and over again,any reason that is powerful obvious real or by necessity a description that endures by its capacity to lend weight to repeatable and obvious developmental outcomes is rubbished immediately,for the sake of the all important I am RIGHT. So you see it here,a person lucky enough to indulge in the stock exchange without too many worries,on the back of a job that has great financial security power and prestige built into it via government giving it permanent franchise,considers himself so knowledgeable about what is work,that the final outcome of that is what!?Working the formulae returns on investment as the real defining moments of work.No Blood sweat and tears,but applying a little common sense against what!? A series of personality problems of those who work in such institutions gamble on what the institutions are doing and their immediate competitors,with the ultimate sanctions,limitations freedoms and obligations set out in various Acts of law that govern both the investor and institutions receiving monies.In the Australian context of such, there is ample evidence that the various regulators are under staffed,and when staffed seem to attract the same sort of background as the post about the investor who knows what bludgers are.I think it is both fraudelent and shonky to believe this money placing as a legitimate basis of knowing who are the bludgers, really is a self belief catered for by the proponents of investing.The number of burnt pensioners now,means through out our recent history there was no real concern in just being able to trust what you invest in. It is probably reasonable to assume,Police as investors, are, maybe smarter,but,And the Australian Newspaper knows as a fact, that even the Federal Police got their fingers burnt,because some amongst the Police thought they knew what it is to work,ready to cry bludgers whilst the con-man moved in.All in the Australian Newspaper. So if it happens again and again,I say it is the nature of the smart-arse unwilling to accept that there is other ways of viewing the world and what happens in it,besides their own..on the back of a employment facility that is never disenfranchised.You cannot really invest in anything in any way whatsoever if it has some way of continually insulting and offending in its reach.Modern investment in Australia is gauranteeing ,now, there will be losers,and those losers are those, who havent even realised they are players in a game.I have only contempt for Murdoch, in the national interest any monies he makes out of Australians should be totally recovered, or the fibre cable that reduced the power of local councils should be rolled around the old bastards neck until his serpentine blood disappears.
Phil…. dude! Paragraphs.
From my blog
“Australian socialism, racism and a tinge of Stalinism”
http://paradigmoz.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/censorship-from-the-socialist-alliance-what-next/#more-247
â??However if us migrant folk create a movement that tries to incorporate Aboriginal agendas into the canon of â??Leftâ?? agendas then illusions will be generated about Aboriginality in order to make it fit into the other sacred cows.”
(This comment can be equally aplied to “Right” agendas.)
Katz,
Yeah, I think you’re right. I’ve only read reasonably extensively in the American Revolution and in the years immediately after it after it, the historiographical contribution seems to be yellow journalism. (In this context I suspect I’m being anachronistic – was that the US-Hispanic War – Hearst and all that?)
I really don’t know what the significance of left/right are in Oz for mainstream politics now. They might be okay for the extra-parliamentary far left but not so for the right. At one time there, despite the popular mythology that Howard & co., were out to destroy P. Hanson, many of One Nation’s policies were indistinguishable from Howard’s.
Yellow journalism was the Spanish-American war.
It won’t make any more sense if divided into paragraphs, Lefty. I blame the teachers unions.
Anybody who does not understand that the Left died in Australia on February 3, 1983, understands neither Leftism, Leftists, nor Australia.
Dont blame the teachers union,I learnt how to type one finger in 1960s late.A business studies course at a tech.school. When confronted by someone from a working-class background with a social conscience,you fuck me off..go back to your bloody wine women and song.Paragraphs at this speed of typing and analysis based on the immediate subject matter means the arseholes prefer reading between the letters and having the colour of the mental hospital walls dictating their need for latent superiority.
Lefty E:
Thanks for that; can’t recall it from my readings on Land Reform but will certainly look it up [but not from Reynolds' writings, thanks all the same!
]
[Slightly off-topic] By the way, how did you like Defence Minister Nelson’s snide insinuation that those who do not support Bush and Cheney’s stuff-ups in Iraq must be sticking knives into the backs of the Aussie Diggers on duty in Iraq or something like that?
If that wasn’t a recruiting call for Diggers, when they return to Australia, to become docile footsloggers for extremists on “The Right” [who just happened to be too busy to volunteer for service in Iraq themselves] then I’ll do the proverbials in Martin Place with a brass band playing at one end and a pipe band at the other!
Yes, Graeme, a real sign of relevance deficit syndrome from Tinhead in defence. Why dont we ask the troops then?
No? – oh, ok, we’ll just take your word for it Brendan.
I’m sure they’ll find an upside in seeing their families back home.
I note even the RSL tut-tutted him for politicising the military.
And why not, they’re public servants too you know!
Well, to the extent that the ALP is dominated by the Right it is bad. Its also more vindication of Lenin’s theory of social democratic parties as being “capitalist-workers parties”, parties with a broadly working class base but controlled at the top by trade union leaders and middle-class strata who wish to govern “in the national interest”, i.e. run Australian capitalism.
I’m just wondering though, where is the battle plan of the ALP Left? Where is their plan to capture control of the party? I raise this as I am often told by Lefties in the ALP that “when” they get the numbers, they’ll steer the party in a more Left-wing direction, and when in office introduce a whole series of reforms to push society in a fairer direction. However, I don’t see much evidence for any planning to achieve this…which makes me think such an opportunity will not come until there is an upsurge in class struggle…
Chav
You people might have some relevance if your mindset were to progress from the 19th century.
Who cares about the historical origins of the terms? They clearly have a pragmatic meaning in today’s discourse that is well understood by most community members.
Crikey! Thanks for the hot tip JG, still I feel sorrier for liberalism, given its roots in the 18th century…
There’s more chance of Lenin rising from his tomb to lead a second Russian revolution than that happening. Still if that were to happen then at least he’d have the advantage that his brain has been removed and dismembered so he’d be less prone to the errors of judgement he made first time around.
But you’re right on one thing though; psychopath though he was, Lenin correctly had the Australian Labor Party nailed as a bourgeois party.
Left dirigisme bad
Left libertarianism good
Lenin may have been a sociopath, but he was certainly not a psychopath.
GregM, the massive rallies against WorkChoices last year are an example of a heightening of class struggle. In fact even something as simple as taking 15 minutes longer than allowed on your smoko is example of how that struggle goes on in “…an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight.” (Marx).
You will also notice that much of this election revolves around issues of class, to whit the detested IR laws.
I’m not sure what errors of Lenin’s you are referring to and I have no idea what katz is on about, but i can assure her that Lenin, rather than being a sociopath was on the contrary quite the moderate and humanitarian.
Not forgetting, Chav, that despite his slaughter of the kulaks, he was also (according to Manning Clark) “Christ-like in his compassion”.
Quite a guy.
Do you have some sort of google alert set up to let you know instantly about any mention of Lenin, Rob?
I don’t think this telegram constitutes “moderate and humanitarian” by the way:
And it wasn’t an aberration, if you read the history.
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/08/22/no-more-mr-nice-guy-2/
Er, yeah, these would be the same ‘gentleman’ who profited off the slaughter of millions of Russians in the First World War, backed the Kornilov coup and then plunged Russia into a horrendous Civil War…
So, like, big deal…
If anything Lenin was too soft, he let the Cadets and their counter-revolutionary pals go with a pledge not to instigate counter-revolution, which they promptly did.
Perhaps you guys should actually read the post I linked to, rather than trying to swat my arguments with a post from a Right-wing site?
I don’t think the argument in the link is at all convincing, Chav.
And the telegram is a matter of historical record, so whether or not you think Nick Gruen is “right wing” (and he’s not – he’s a social democrat) is really neither here nor there. There are a lot more where that one came from, if you look at Robert Service’s (fair minded) bio and the work of other historians who’ve had access to newly opened Russian archives.
And I’m not sure you’re doing your own humanitarian credentials any good by dismissing political murder with the comment:
…To put it mildly.
I’ve been reading your link, Chav.
Heh. It’s like Euston with a somersault and pike.
Mark, perhaps you missed this part…
Ah yes, Lenin the evil genius with his ability to brainwash and control the masses who had just risen up in revolt and ended centuries of oppressive Tsarist rule…perhaps this quote, from an enemy of the Bolsheviks might appear a little more realistic…
Chav, Merleau-Ponty analysed the problem of violence and politics over half a century ago in Humanism and Terror, with an acerbic eye on the violence that maintains liberalism. But it’s worth also looking at the conclusions he later reached. I just don’t think that post attains anything near the same (and necessary) level of philosophical and ethical seriousness for discussing a question such as this.
Any leftist want to have a shot at explaining what a leftist indigenous policy would look like ?
Yes, I’d try actually implementing all or most of the recommendations of the Little Children are Sacred report, rather than implementing none of them.
Oh, missed that one. Try self-determination. Really.
Katz, I got into an argument with someone once as to the difference between sociopath and psychopath. We settled it by looking in a dictionary. It defined sociopath as psychopath and vice versa
That dictionary may have been compiled by a psychopath.
Some light reading.
Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
The Authoritarian Specter
Katz, do you mean this psychopath?
“Oh, missed that one. Try self-determination. Really.”
Thanks for the reply – could you flesh it out a bit ? This isn’t a question trying to entrap commenters – I’m going to read the report Helen mentions .
In the current situation would self determination go as far as economic ie tax and levy raising independence ?
Would independent control of access to certain areas of Australia by feasible ?
I’d be tempted to say the Canadian model, but it would obviously need tweaking in Oz. Sorry if this sounds unresponsive, boredinhk, but it’s really a huge issue to tackle and I’m reluctant to do sketchy policy proposals in blog comments.
Fair enough- the report is 320 pages long so I’m going to need broadband access to get it .
Dial up connections at work just won’t cut it.
Any good definition of self-determination? I don’t think Indigenous people should *necessarily* have complete control over all government money spent on Indigenous issues. Eg. I think some spent on Indigenous health should be tied to achieving demonstratable outcomes in that area. Expert advice may sometimes be more important than ‘personal experience’. (I think the idea that people are always the best judges of themselves and their own group hinges on outmoded noble savage assumptions, Romanticist essentialism, even phonocentrism and a metaphysics of presence…)
I think all Australians have a right to have a say in what these outcomes are. Despite this, I do think there should be a proportion of justice money that Indigenous people do have complete control over. However, there should be some money on top of that designed to achieve specific policy objectives determined by the government.
Fascinating quote from Lenin, Mark, at 2.47pm.
I saw a similarly blood-curdling remark from the Blessed Che Guevara, in a book published by his admirers.
It made him sound like both a sociopath AND a psychopath. Katz, when a psychopath gains strong political power (say for instance the type of power a dictator has), may he then carry out his ultimate fantasies as a SOCIOpath? Widening his range of victims in oh-so-revolutionary ways, quite the social reformer, quite the optimistic bringer of light to his people…?
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
–60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Yeah, Lenin was the bad guy…
The correct conclusion to draw, Chav, surely is that being callous about taking human life in the service of a political cause is not an attribute particular to either the left or right. That’s much more troubling than either the theme we often get from people like Rob (“the millions killed by Mao, Pol Pot, etc, etc, are on the conscience of every lefty and all leftists are guilty…”) or the even more risible argument from people like various bloggers who shall not be named who want to do a morbid calculus of death (“Pinochet only killed 3000 people so he’s ok”). It’s not a serious response, but neither is the “rightwingers kill too”. It’s a much more important question to work out what inspires political violence from any colour of the spectrum than trying to white wash Lenin because American pols have engaged in mass slaughter too.
Very erudite, Su.
What inspired ‘political violence’ in this instance was being the target of a viciously reactionary army and the armed forces of 11 capitalist nations, including even Australian troops ! (see, ‘The Diggers who signed on for more : Australia’s part in the Russian wars of intervention’, 1918-1919 / Bruce Muirden.).
Still too easy, Chav. Lenin wouldn’t have decided that violence was the only way to eliminate Kulaks, etc, anyway? I suggest you read more of what he wrote!
Su, you beat me to it. Katz, did you realise how right you were
Recommended reading
Left right, left right, left right, HALT !!
Choice quote from visiting professor A.C. Grayling (today’s Melbourne “Age”):
“There is always something quaint in coming across political dinosaurs: rigid, doctrinaire, childish and ignorant in the manner of our student days when we enjoyed the luxury of certainty.”
he refers to Humphrey McQueen.
cheerio
Humphrey McQ is a wanker, but this Grayling guy seems to be a right wanker as well. “Takes one to know one”?
I wouldn’t discount the possibility of that happening…
The name makes him sound like someone who wrote some mouldy Cliff notes about six decades ago.
Damn… my code didn’t appear.
Go here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Y-czxmb9EU
Nothing personal, Cliff! I mean that sort of “how to understand Thomas Hardy” crib stuff published some time in the 1950s!
Yeah I know about Cliff notes… I had a monthly column in a local paper called Cliff Notes when I was in High School.
That was me, I think — minus the last three words. I think my argument was that 3000, though still too many, pales into insignificance when you stack it up against Stalin, Mao and Pol Pol, whose tallies ran into the millions and tens of millions.
Pot.
I’m disappointed in you, Rob. That sort of argument is normally made by the likes of Bird. How anyone can imagine “only 3000 killed” makes someone kinda ok betrays an actual indifference to the value of each unique human life. You’re just the mirror image of Chav on this one, I fear.
I can’t remember precisely the basis of this argument, so forgive me if I am way OT. But wouldn’t there be social scientific interest into why far left regimes tend to kill more than most far right regimes (if this is in fact the case, and I think it might be)?
Also, I think even morally, you have to make some distinction based on the number of murders. It’s why we give harsher sentences to people with numerous counts of the same offence, and it’s part of the reason why we revile Hitler and Stalin but honour other historical figures who did an enormous amount of good but perhaps illegitimately killed someone somewhere.
I’m with Mark that the basis of a humane moral and legal code must be the protection of each life. Further, that no political creed, however sincerely held, justifies the taking of your life. Nor the taking of mine.
The crimes of the worst political murderers should be publicised endlessly; they seem to me to be the ‘reductio ad absurdum’ of fanatic political certitude, every bit as warped as that of any fanatic ‘religious’ hatred.
Why some people seem to abhor and sermonise against ‘religious’ violence while making excuses for political violence, is beyond me. Murder is a nasty business, make no mistake. If you’re against capital punishment, wouldn’t you also be more or less upset by political murder?
What I find most puzzling and worrying is the ability of large groups of human organisms, to be taken in by murderous demagogues. I instance Adolf, before he had seized state power (and thenceforth could use it to terrorise any opponents). Was he not in fact a sociopath? A psychopath in fancy dress?
Are we poor little bipeds really so credulous, to be taken in by such a woeful con man??
Discuss.
No, Mark, I said “minus the last three words”, i.e. I don’t agree with the statement “so he’s ok”.
David — I agree with you. The far left has killed far more than the far right.
I passionately agree with all of that, Ambiguous.
It’s be awfully hard to do a proper comparison. Do you control for time in power? Both types of regimes tended to kill more people at some times than others. There’d be a lot of things you’d need to take account of, and I suspect that you may find that similar causes are operating, and that political stripe isn’t a powerful variable. Remember that authoritarian/liberal operates across left and right boundaries and probably has more explanatory power in this instance.
I’m in passionate agreement with Ambigulous too…
May be true. Depends on what one means by “kill”.
The Spanish were responsible for the deaths of millions in the Americas.
Anglo-Americans were responsible for slightly fewer in North America.
Slavers killed millions in the Middle Passage.
These folks didn’t lock their victims up in camps and gas them. But by whatever means they were dead.
None of them could be called leftist.
Turks weren’t leftists. They killed millions.
Nazis weren’t leftists. They killed millions.
Stalin and Mao killed millions. Stalin did it in camps. Mao was less institutionalised than that.
One distinction between left and right would appear to be that leftists took control of places that were more highly developed than most genocidal competitors. Therefore, there were more people available to kill.
So perhaps there should be some rough and ready kill ratio quotient that redresses kill rates, like with like.
Pol Pot killed millions in a small country. But that small country had been recently bombed into the stone age by the United States.
What is the appropriate response to having been bombed into the stone age?
Then we shouldn’t worry about Al Qaeda, who only killed 3000 people on September 11. Funnily enough, Pinochet had his dog’s day on another September 11, iirc.
We’re gonna need that geek from “Numbers” to work this one out.
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Not true Katz. Only parts of the eastern provinces bordering South Vietnam were heavily bombed. However the bombing did precipitate a civil war as North Vietnamese soldiers moved further into Cambodia to avoid the bombing and gave support to the up until then marginal Khmer Rouge when the US-backed Lon Nol army resisted them. Still the bombing and just as much the strafing of viilages in Vietnamese/Khmer Rouge areas turned the populations of those areas against Lon Nol and the US and into the arms of the Khmer Rouge.
Certainly not turning on your own people who had no responsibility for the bombing and slaughtering them.
The appropriate response is to do what the Japanese did after LeMay’s incendiary bombs had reduced their cities to ashes and the Germans did after the British and the US Eighth Airforce had reduced their cities to rubble. When the bombing stops you start clearing the rubble and rebuilding your cities and your lives.
More generally though the answer is to respect the sanctity of individual human lives and, as you have demonstrated with your examples, and I am sure you could have given many more, over history the Right has no better claim to have done that than the Far Left has.
Chav
Here’s another hot tip. Liberalism’s roots lie among the geôrgoi – farmers of the Attica hillsides just outside Athens – during the Archaic era. You are only 2,500 years off.
This happened in Germany and Japan after the victor powers occupied the country, bankrolled reconstruction and established a constitutional framework conducive to democracy.
Instead, in Cambodia, a marginal coterie of fanatics achieved momentary popularity. Without that popularity, the Khmer Rouge would never have been capable of genocide.
What did Nixon and Kissinger imagine would be the effects of dropping 500,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia in four years?
There is plenty of blame to go around for the rise of Pol Pot, and for what happened next.
I’m not sure that popularity is the right word for what gave the Khmer Rouge the capacity and authority to commit genocide. Cambodia doesn’t really work that way. Those who have power get acquiesance and really that’s all they need to do pretty much what they want. They can always get willing killers if they can give them a bowl of rice and since the whole history of Cambodia is one of rulers and the ruled the rulers can do pretty much what they want without any consideration as to whether they are popular or not.
It has changed a bit, but not much, since the peace accord of 1991.
You are right though that there is plenty enough blame to go round. It is a desperately tragic history.
While it is true that no election was conducted to install the Khmer Rouge as Exterminators-in-Chief, a moment’s reflection would indicate that the above interpretation of the dynamics of power in Cambodia is somewhat simplistic and ahistorical.
For example:
It does not explain why Lon Nol lost the tacit support of these potential killers. The Khmer Rouge did not have access to all this rice that you suppose purchased the support of hundreds of thousands of willing exectuioners for the Khmer Rouge. That access was achieved only by people gambling that the Khmer Rouge would be able to achieve that measure of control in the future.
The Khmer Rouge genocide was an incredibly low-tech operation. Clearly, it was fuelled at least in part by widespread hatred, bitterness and mistrust on the part of Cambodian peasants for the urban elites of Cambodia. Millions of Cambodian peasants gave tacit consent to the emptying of the cities. And hundreds of thousands of them became Pol Pot’s willing executioners.
And finally, anyone connected in the public mind with the United States was an object of hatred. That hatred is the logical result of half a million tons of bombs raining from American B52s. The equipoise of Americans was upset on 9/11 by the collapse of a couple of buildings. It doesn’t take much empathy to multiply that by millions.
Katz, if I thought that you kneww the slightest thing about the history of Cambodia and the dynamics of its societiy I’d respond. You don’t so I won’t waste my time.
GregM bails.