Rules of the road


On the Shelf

« Open Thread | Main | The State of the Movement Is Everything »

July 06, 2006



This was in fact sneaky communist propaganda. His daughter was sort of hot and now I'm willing volunteer for farmwork.


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah, HOLY SHIT! Hahhahahahahaahaha!!!


yup. I could not be more terrified of anything than the breakdown of paternal authority. Damn meddling commies! Next they'll have my wife galavanting around town while she should be cooking my dinner!


LOL @ Mark's Comments


Does anybody have any more information on that "Loyalty Rally" (that supposedly drew over 100,000 people?

I doubt you could get 100,000 right-wingers to NYC today to hold a march against immigration or "terrorism". Rumsfeld's little "Freedom Walk" needed ultra-tight security and was pretty much closed off even to the press.

On the other hand, some anti-war rallies have so much flag waiving, so much concern for dead Americans, and so little concern for dead Iraqis that they almost seem like "Loyalty Rallies".

It seems that the post-Vietnam strategy of combatting the left is not to openly oppose it but to coopt it, put it in a container, and send its energy down into the Democratic Party.

That link you put up from "Balzac" at the Daily Kos (who was ironically banned for his extensive use of sock puppets) is revealing. There's a lot of anti-communist propaganda on that site and a lot of bullying of anybody sceptical of the Democrats.


re: "Next they'll have my wife galavanting around town while she should be cooking my dinner!"



Interesting example of anti-communism from a (very left) liberal.

the burningman

One key aspect of the "War on Terror" is the attempt to create a mobilizing theme for empire in much the way that anti-communism did for a prior generation. It's a boogyman "no one" can support," and any skepticism must be prefaced by agreement with its basic premis in order to be "moderate."

The problem is that it doesn't create enough of an "enemy within." That's where the Ann Coulter/Fox-style anti-liberal insanity comes in. Paul Krugman has a piece in the Times today about the "treason" accusations coming from Peter King, et. al. Worth a read. His description of the demonization:

"Much of this project involves the assertion of unprecedented execuitve authority — th right to imprison people indefinitely without charges (and torture them is the administration feels like it), the right to wiretap American citizens without court authorization, the right to declare, when signing laws passed by Congress, that the laws don't really mean what they say...."

The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld line may be the kitch of the future, but it's a frightening reality today.


This sounds like it's from a documentary. Does anyone know where it's from?


davidspade, I believe it is from Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," but it might be from another Chomsky film. That voice at the beginning is Chomsky though.


Ericco is right, it's from Manufacturing Consent, the Chomsky bio documentary.


What's almost funny is how many activists these days basically agree with McCarthyite propaganda about what socialism was like in the Soviet Union. They actually think this is how shit went down.

Ask them to read a book? That's an "authoritarian narrative."

Liberals rule the roost. It's why the movement doesn't move.


I've actually seen the entire propaganda film that this extract comes from. You'll note the Dragnet guy who was the celebrity narrator. The whole thing is pretty remarkable in its message, which was clearly directed at male heads of households. Both the daughter and the wife are attracted to the new communist order; this clip is one of the best. I guarantee that even to most liberals these days, the communists end up looking like the good guys in this film, despite the film's attempt to make them look bad.

It may be that the film was directed especially at working-class white male union members (the lead character is a union member, and his union is taken over by the communists), who were probably thought of as dangerously susceptible to communist appeals even at this advanced stage of early Cold War retrenchment.


John, good analysis.

Your post brings up a point to me. Overall, how effictive was the anti-communist movement of the Cold War era?

From my practical experience (and I have no doubt everyone has run into this) on the ground level with general masses, they have no real idea what communism was in the Soviet Union or especially what it was in China. I've got into disscusions with various people and their understandings vary, but for the most part they do have at least an overwhelmingly negative view. Just from my experience, to me, it seems like the anti-communists did a pretty good job on their propaganda.

the burningman

When you can't justify your own system, make the other guy "another Hitler." Seems to work pretty well.

If you ask people what the greatest crimes of the 20th Century, it's interesting who says Hitler, then which aspect of Hitler, who sees the gulag -- and the strange, startling quiet of colonialism.

The truth matters. Choosing to opt out of the discussion doesn't work. The issue is whether oppressed people can exercise power, and if private property is the basis of "right."

...The same way they make Chavez out to be some tyrant, despite his refusal to expropriate the expropriators.

I have,not laughed so much in ages,if this is the best they can do they should live in a zoo.

the ultra leftists

It should be noted that many ultra-left types are merciless in their critique of the soviet union,and they don't need US propaganda films. Hardly anti-communists.

the burningman

It should also be noted that many "ultra-leftists" of this sort turn towards objective support of the US.

Check Bill Weinberg's WW4 Report and his vacillations about the obligations of occupation against the unworthy Islamists and "Baathists." See also Camus' "The Rebel" and support for "democracy" against Algerian independence.

Trots to neo-cons, and the whole sordid history of the Partisan Review crowd.

Nothing new in "ultra-leftists" demanding the ridiculous and then shitting on real people in real struggle for not meeting their utopian aspirations. That's kind of a variation on Christopher Hitchens...


I don't think you can lump the whole trotskyist current in with the neo-cons like that. Many (most?) trots never failed to chose the right side in confrontations between capitalist imperialism and worker states like the PRC. Judging all trots on the behaviour of some ultra-leftists is, for example, like judging all the maoists on the German maoists who campaigned in favor of the placing of US missiles and the expansion of NATO.

the burningman

Obviously not all Trots, Alex.

But there is a consistent logic of ideologism, and a practice of being the opposition to the opposition that does have intrinsic tendencies.

Maoism is different for a number of reason, not least for putting matters of "line" into class context and the Mass Line -- something I have yet to meet is a Trotskyist that even understands it...

Christopher Hitchens. Orwell. The neo-cons. And so on. No doubt the numbers are far less than among former Marxist-Leninists who've turned coat -- but that is more to do with the basic math of these movements.

The Schactmanites were the first to clarify it, but the "third camp" crapola of the International Socialist Tendency is but another...

Even still, the ISO is hardly neo-con, and mostly does not aim anything but hot air at communists.


Isn't Horowitz an ex Maoist?



Horowitz was never a maoist.

He cam from a CPUSA family, but personally (in the 60s) gravitated toward "New Left" politics.

He was an editor/writer of Ramparts magazine (a progressive and influential mag that exposed U.S. imperialism in ways that were startling at the time) -- about the time that Bob Avakian and Eldridge Cleaver were also associated with the magazine.

In his memoirs he describes associating with the Panthers in Oakland -- but only AFTER they essentially abandoned revolutionary politics in the early 70s.

So he was "on the left" at the height of the 1960s, but not a revolutionary (even then), and certainly never a Maoist.

the ultra leftists

I really wonder what ultra-leftists burningman is talking about. You may find idiots like anti-german commies who say such things about objectively supporting US occupation against islamic fascism, however they are few and far between. The ultra-leftists take a consistant position of opposing all forms of capital, from market to self-management kind. In terms of Iraq, they will go after both the US as well as the Islamofascists, nothing wrong with that. Foucoult should have thought of this when he supported the Ayotolla.They are at least consistant on something like imperialism seeing it at home as well as abroad. The vanguardist pots are being racist to the kettle when they go after those who support imperialism. I should not have to list what they have done.

As for Camus, he's no worse then many Marxists who supported the developement of "productive forces" in "backward" contries. Indeed that mentality is what led Lenin to crush the peasant struggles. Too much local communalism, not enough progress. Collonialism and white supremecy were to be found in many places bub. As for the Trots, I consider them to be Vanguards like the rest. The fact that they have the most libertarian strains does not take this away(which is ironic because Trotsky was the man who engineered the Cheka as well as crushing alot of anarchists)

Demanding the ridiculous was demanding that Russia go from wood to iron, even if this went against the libertarian agency of the peasants or destroying indigenous cultures. Those is elephant turds right there. Nah, keeping it real is keeping it informal and intellectually organic by not being infected by capitalist social relations(such as organization as Cammatte so well pointed out).


It seems to me that most folks going from being on the left to being on the right go across the middle. I've never encountered "third position" as anything other than a fascist organizing strategy. I think a perfect example of what I mean is the photo of "Patch" Adams on the web site of Project Prevention AKA C.R.A.C.K. AKA the folks who give people who are struggling with drug addiction $500 to get sterilized. An unfortunate number of people who one would assume were progressive support eugenics. See for your self:

If you are unfamiliar with C.R.A.C.K. I will post an article I wrote about them a while back to my blog here:

Sure they're not blaring out of half a dozen megaphones in midtown but, however small the scale, it is genocide.


it was not my intention to "kill' this thread and if I've committed some faux pas it was not my intention.
Plainly put I think most of the folks discussed above, Weinberg is the easiest example are liberals. The whole "opposition to the opposition" thing to my mind is window dressing. Granted it's been a while since I've read Lenin on ultraleftism but the term gets covers a lot of ground; MIM, multiple types of anarchists, social democrats with too much time on their hands, Christopher Hitchens, the Sparts. To me it's liberalism, it's the privileging of text over practice. For example someone can say "I am against Castro and call for spontaneous autonomous workers councils in Cuba." That's not what the state department wants, and it's light years from reality but with good old liberalism, everybodys entitled to their opinion. It's like the church of the subgenius, in their heart of hearts those folks are just plain old liberals in their tony suburbs. Similarly with most of the folks that seem to be getting called ultraleft. While it can be asserted rhetorically that they are objectively neoconservative, deep down they are liberals. Sheep in wolves clothing, easy pickings for the likes of Barbara Harris and C.R.A.C.K. for example.
Don't tell me you're a revolutionary, show me.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Hot Shots