The entire political
spectrum is shifting before our very eyes. The old "extreme
left" is gone, chopped off and replaced by some imaginary false
entity. Barack Obama's cautious center-right reformist position has now become
the new “extreme left" - at least in the fevered imagination of the new Republican Party. In the past the Communist Party, the old CP, was the extreme left and the boogie man. When the Soviet Union imploded in 1989, the Red Menace and home grown"Commies" as scary subversives ceased to exist. The world historical task of supplanting capitalism with "something better" was put on a back burner. Furthermore, as time passed Communist China morphed into instead of a "workers paradise"something akin to a "capitalist's paradise."
On the other pole is the
"extreme right." The ultra right abhors the idea that capitalism is anything but a godsend. Their ideal is a pure unfettered market economy conveniently ignoring all historical experience to the contrary - depressions/recessions, worker exploitation, environmental destruction, extreme concentration of wealth, monopolies/oligopolies, etc. The "extreme right" in the past was associated with fascism. Under fascism a nationalistic and dictatorial leadership allows privately owned corporations and the government to become absolutely fused. And then through propaganda and brutality a grudging acquiescence from the population is created. We know where that led - Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Now it has a more benign name: "corporatocracy" and a different allure - a tax free state with little or no pesky government interference with corporate operations - "the market" (and law suits) determine everything. This is called libertarianism. Fascism's support in the past was gained by exploiting patriotic sentiments and economic discontent mixed
with all sorts of malicious human inclinations including ethnicism,
rabid nationalism, antisemitism, racism - and greed; the libertarian's allure is simply greed.
After the world experienced the horrors of a second world war and and horrendous incidents of genocide (committed by both the "extreme right" and the "extreme left"), the countries not run by the "extreme left" decided to accept capitalism but to work out some accommodations - known (pejoratively) as the "Welfare State." The "extreme left" calling themselves "Communists" continued to run the Soviet Union, which had been a temporary ally with the capitalist West during the war against the "extreme right", fascism. In the decade after the war the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev tried to mend its totalitarian ways after their brutal leader, Joesph Stalin, died. But it was too late. The center right and McCarthyist extreme right in the US made sure that any alternative to capitalism was blocked at ever step of the way - hence we had a muted or Cold War for 40 years. Internally in the Europe and the US the center-right as “conservatives” and center-left as “liberals” (terms used in the US) each created there own political parties and coalesced around an acceptance of capitalism. This accord for the most part has worked at least in the industrialized West. The rest of the world is another story.
In this arrangement there is an agreed upon understanding of "loyal opposition" on both sides. One side advocates an extensive governmental social support apparatus and the restraint of capitalism worst tendencies through regulation. The other side works to resist and tone down that position believing the less government interference with the 'magic of the market' the better. All successful industrialized democracies are characterized by this accommodation, and are essentially run by centrist parties. Each side take turns running things. Communists parties on the left and quasi-fascist parties on the right are tolerated (at least in Europe) but never seem to really acquire real power for very long.
After the world experienced the horrors of a second world war and and horrendous incidents of genocide (committed by both the "extreme right" and the "extreme left"), the countries not run by the "extreme left" decided to accept capitalism but to work out some accommodations - known (pejoratively) as the "Welfare State." The "extreme left" calling themselves "Communists" continued to run the Soviet Union, which had been a temporary ally with the capitalist West during the war against the "extreme right", fascism. In the decade after the war the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev tried to mend its totalitarian ways after their brutal leader, Joesph Stalin, died. But it was too late. The center right and McCarthyist extreme right in the US made sure that any alternative to capitalism was blocked at ever step of the way - hence we had a muted or Cold War for 40 years. Internally in the Europe and the US the center-right as “conservatives” and center-left as “liberals” (terms used in the US) each created there own political parties and coalesced around an acceptance of capitalism. This accord for the most part has worked at least in the industrialized West. The rest of the world is another story.
In this arrangement there is an agreed upon understanding of "loyal opposition" on both sides. One side advocates an extensive governmental social support apparatus and the restraint of capitalism worst tendencies through regulation. The other side works to resist and tone down that position believing the less government interference with the 'magic of the market' the better. All successful industrialized democracies are characterized by this accommodation, and are essentially run by centrist parties. Each side take turns running things. Communists parties on the left and quasi-fascist parties on the right are tolerated (at least in Europe) but never seem to really acquire real power for very long.
However here in the US
of A this is accord is unraveling. We seem to be entering a disturbing new era in which this
consensus on “loyal opposition” has
broken down. The abiding toleration for a
government that provides for the citizenry and a dulls the
sharper edges of capitalism through regulation is now being called into question. That position is now dishonestly defined as the "extreme left." The tried and proven programs (Social
Security, Medicare/Medicaid, FDA, EPA, etc.) have become anathema to the formerly center-right party.. No longer does the political
right wing of the establishment, the Republican Party, want to play
by rules of ordinary majority rule. Every gimmick, every loophole,
every irrational idiosyncratic rule is exploited to the max –
negative dishonest ads, voter suppression, gerrymandering, filibustering; and
now the routine use of political extortion. The new extreme right is building on
(and going far beyond) former President Reagan's ground breaking success at undermining public support for governmental social programs and regulatory authority. And to make matters worse a pack of ideologues going even beyond the already extreme right wing Republican Party leadership threatens to take us over the brink and possibly crash the
entire economy by refusing to allow the government to pay it's bills
and fulfill it's obligations. Even former GOP henchmen like Karl Rove
are alarmed by their ruthlessness. This is not democracy this is
an attempted at a coup d'état by non-military means.
