steve and john wrote:
>Doug reveals his unreconstructed oldleftism by daring to compare the
>gulag and Stalinist terror of the USSR from the 30s onwards with the
>current position of democratic Russia.
Huh? This is just old-fashioned redbaiting of a very unsophisticated sort.
"Democratic" Russia? What a preposterous notion: since when is a country
run by an authoritarian drunk who can dissolve or ignore his parliament at
will - and owned by one of the most egregious gang of kleptocrats in
history - "democratic"? Russia today is an utter wreck. To say that is not
to excuse the gulag, though I'm sure in the eyes of "steve and john" it is.
>The comparison ofcourse is with, for example, the politics of the United
>States, and perhaps also Britain, societies which move from slavery to
>multiculturalism in the space of a century and are relatively
>untarnished by socialist paternalism.
Britain hardly qualifies as a country "untarnished" by socialism. This is
historical nonsense.
I'm happy to hear that the U.S. has transcended the heritage of slavery in
just 132 years. Racial gaps in income, health, and education no longer
exist, and thank god white cops no longer beat up black people just for
being black.
>Foucault's remarks are rightly interpreted as liberal - since when did
>that term become a term of abuse outside of the Moral Majority? They
>arise from a concern with the status of the subject and an awareness of
>the bureaucratic rationalism of biopolitics. Weber and Freud would
>have said the same thing - Freud actually did, wondering would would
>replace the cathartic function of the class struggle in the USSR after
>the revolution (Civ and Its Discontents).
Would would indeed. Could you translate this passage into English?
>Foucault wasn't a socialist but a genuinely subversive left-liberal.
>Why do Americans have such difficulty in recognising someone ironically
>so close to their own Radical anti-authoritarian tradition?
So Foucault was a mid-20th century reincarnation of Jefferson? That's an
interesting point of view; I think I'll spend my weekend visit to DC
thinking about it.
Just what's "subversive" about being a left-liberal? I thought most
liberals (in the American sense) had made their peace with capitalism and
merely wanted a few adjustments around the edges. If that's subversive, I'm
RuPaul.
Doug
>Doug reveals his unreconstructed oldleftism by daring to compare the
>gulag and Stalinist terror of the USSR from the 30s onwards with the
>current position of democratic Russia.
Huh? This is just old-fashioned redbaiting of a very unsophisticated sort.
"Democratic" Russia? What a preposterous notion: since when is a country
run by an authoritarian drunk who can dissolve or ignore his parliament at
will - and owned by one of the most egregious gang of kleptocrats in
history - "democratic"? Russia today is an utter wreck. To say that is not
to excuse the gulag, though I'm sure in the eyes of "steve and john" it is.
>The comparison ofcourse is with, for example, the politics of the United
>States, and perhaps also Britain, societies which move from slavery to
>multiculturalism in the space of a century and are relatively
>untarnished by socialist paternalism.
Britain hardly qualifies as a country "untarnished" by socialism. This is
historical nonsense.
I'm happy to hear that the U.S. has transcended the heritage of slavery in
just 132 years. Racial gaps in income, health, and education no longer
exist, and thank god white cops no longer beat up black people just for
being black.
>Foucault's remarks are rightly interpreted as liberal - since when did
>that term become a term of abuse outside of the Moral Majority? They
>arise from a concern with the status of the subject and an awareness of
>the bureaucratic rationalism of biopolitics. Weber and Freud would
>have said the same thing - Freud actually did, wondering would would
>replace the cathartic function of the class struggle in the USSR after
>the revolution (Civ and Its Discontents).
Would would indeed. Could you translate this passage into English?
>Foucault wasn't a socialist but a genuinely subversive left-liberal.
>Why do Americans have such difficulty in recognising someone ironically
>so close to their own Radical anti-authoritarian tradition?
So Foucault was a mid-20th century reincarnation of Jefferson? That's an
interesting point of view; I think I'll spend my weekend visit to DC
thinking about it.
Just what's "subversive" about being a left-liberal? I thought most
liberals (in the American sense) had made their peace with capitalism and
merely wanted a few adjustments around the edges. If that's subversive, I'm
RuPaul.
Doug