The Global Far Right

[blandy]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

I what I was trying to say in my post above was basically that if I have to choose between (a) a philosophy that may be somewhat naiive and idealistic, and (b) one which is blatantly cynical and pragmatic, I will always choose the former. 

I wouldn't. I'd choose the one that would result in the best/least bad actual outcome. A really badly executed "nice" policy that ends up backfiring and making things worse, can be (IMO) less desireable than a well executed, but not so "good" plan that broadly achieves its aims. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, type thing.

The far right, of course are both generally incompetent and have really bad intentions.

[mjmooney]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

I wouldn't. I'd choose the one that would result in the best/least bad actual outcome. A really badly executed "nice" policy that ends up backfiring and making things worse, can be (IMO) less desireable than a well executed, but not so "good" plan that broadly achieves its aims. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, type thing.

The far right, of course are both generally incompetent and have really bad intentions.

You are right. I was massively oversimplifying - "if the choice is simply between (a) and (b)", etc. Of course, it isn't. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by mjmooney

[chrisp65]

I’m currently reading the Max Hastings book on the Cuban missile crisis. The opening chapters are multiple moments or opportunities where the U.S. could have had a workable relationship with Castro and Che. They didn’t really start out with a fixed idea of what they wanted to achieve beyond a revolution for something better. Every botched encounter with the U.S. made them more paranoid and pushed them closer to Russia. The spooked nature of politics in the U.S. in the late 50’s early 60’s was that every time Cuba took another step towards socialism the only way they could combat that, was to support the more and more rabid end of right wing groups and plotters.

Ended up with a right wing dictator replaced with a left wing dictator and 40% of the people still didn’t have shoes.

[Villaphan04]

On 28/01/2023 at 03:08, andyjsg said:

There was an interesting point made on the Rest Is History podcast that Nazi’s are considered the height of evil (and understandably so) but the numbers killed in their belief is considerably less than those in the name of socialism (Stalin, Pol Pot).

 

On 28/01/2023 at 04:32, blandy said:

That’s not really right is it? Either in terms of the numbers, or in terms of compiling Russia and Cambodian deaths and contrasting those with Nazi Germany’s.

Stalin had something like half a million people killed, PolPot maybe 2 or 3 times that, but even together it’s way less than the holocaust. It’s all incredibly grim, whatever. Add in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Burma, Malaysia, large parts of Africa…regimes killing huge numbers of people to cling to power.

A lot really depends on how/what you view the "killing" as. If you take all deaths "equally", Mao had double / triple (depending on what numbers you use, it's roughly estimated to be between 50-80million) the amount of people killed than Hitler & Stalin almost double (roughly 40million but estimates are up to 60 million). The line I've heard other historians use is "In the league tables of horror, Mao comes top, then Stalin and Hitler." 

If we are specifically talking about killing people specifically on "racial superiority " then the closest comparison I would make is the Ottoman Genocide in Armenia around World War 1. 

My history thesis (for American University) was an argument on why Stalin's policies with collectivization were tantamount to genocide because the policies were failures and left to fail leading to all of the deaths --which Mao made similar policies. (IDK why, but this topic is one of my most favorites to study in history)

I listen to Real Dictators podcast, which I really enjoy -- they talk about the rise/fall of dictators around the world.

[Hobsons Choice]

19 minutes ago, blandy said:

I wouldn't. I'd choose the one that would result in the best/least bad actual outcome. A really badly executed "nice" policy that ends up backfiring and making things worse, can be (IMO) less desireable than a well executed, but not so "good" plan that broadly achieves its aims. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, type thing.

The far right, of course are both generally incompetent and have really bad intentions.

Least bad outcome for who. The reason the extreme right wing persists is that some people do well out of it. It's driven by greed for individual outcomes in the same way that the left is driven by mindless following of doctrine. 

I'm sort of with you. I find the greed and selfishness of the extreme right wing more abhorrent than the doctrine of the extreme left, not least because any level of critical thought can put the brakes on the extreme left (which is easier than succumbing to individual desires of the right), and because there is perhaps something ideologically 'nicer' about wanting to be part of something bigger than yourself. 

But yeah either way is bad. The far left is a cult in a shack in the mid West. The far right is a dog f***ing in an alley outside the cult building.

Stay in the middle like me!

[Rolta]

2 hours ago, HKP90 said:

Left wing and Right wing traditionally just speak to levels of state involvement in everyday affairs, though, right?

You can be a psychopath demagogue on either wing as I see it. On the left wing the state controlled by a psychopath does the killing? On the right wing the individual does the killing on behalf of the state?

Soneone with more knowledge by all means set me right (or left).

Most of history would say that the killing was done very much ordered by the state when it comes to the far right. The idea that the right are all about freedom and that the left are not is convenient and silly. 

It's a bullshit oversimplified angle peddled by people in power who don't want any correction to their unbridled power. Therefore continuing their power = freedom and challenging it = state control. 

If you look at Franco, or the Nazis, or Mussolini it's proven to be bs. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Rolta

[Hobsons Choice]

1 minute ago, Rolta said:

Most of history would say that the killing was done very much ordered by the state when it comes to the far right. The idea that the right are all about freedom and that the left are not is convenient and silly. 

It's a bullshit oversimplified angle peddled by people in power who don't want any correction to their unbridled power. Therefore continuing their power = freedom and challenging it = state control. 

If you look at Franco, or the Nazis, or Mussolini it's proven to be bs. 

Don't they just convince the masses it was their idea?

[Rolta]

3 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Don't they just convince the masses it was their idea?

Not really. They actively go and kill people and tell people the people being killed are the enemies of whatever justifies the killing. But in a thousand examples it's state organised and state players...police, army, SS. 

The far right loves state control.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Rolta

[Hobsons Choice]

1 minute ago, Rolta said:

Not really. They actively go and kill people and tell people the people being killed are the enemies of whatever justifies the killing. But in a thousand examples it's state organised and state players...police, army, SS. 

The far right loves state control.

That's the opposite of what traditionally is meant by right wing, though surely. 

[Rolta]

5 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

That's the opposite of what traditionally is meant by right wing, though surely. 

Look at history and that statement falls flat. 

Maybe you're slightly conflating 'the right' and 'far right'. The right, often, and definitely in the UK, representing the establishment and established financial interests gain plenty from a narrative that they're against state intervention because the state is literally the only way any egalitarian ideas can happen. So they're protecting their interests. But when it comes to the far right they always have state acting enforcers, just like the far left. You can't take an extreme position and continue in power without forcing a certain number of people into complying. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Rolta

[Hobsons Choice]

In my head the extreme conclusion of the right wing is anarchism. Is that not right? This is very much not my field. 

[Hobsons Choice]

Just now, Rolta said:

Look at history and that statement falls flat. 

Maybe you're slightly conflating 'the right' and 'far right'. The right, often, and definitely in the UK, representing the establishment and established financial interests gain plenty from a narrative that they're against state intervention because the state is literally the only way any egalitarian ideas can happen. So they're protecting their interests. But when it comes to the far right they always have state acting enforcers, just like the far left. You can't take an extreme position without forcing a certain number of people into complying. 

Thanks, that makes sense. 

[Rolta]

6 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

In my head the extreme conclusion of the right wing is anarchism. Is that not right? This is very much not my field. 

I was about to say that libertarianism, and anarchism too, then, is completely different. Done properly it should be a rejection of the right-left dichotomy. 

In the UK and most of the world being 'libertarian' mostly is just an excuse to be really right wing. It's an excuse to maintain the power and the money where it is. It's a convenient story to tell useful people that egalitarian progressive ideas = communism and maintaining the balance in favour of the mega wealthy = freedom. But it's all bullshit. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Rolta

[Hobsons Choice]

1 minute ago, Rolta said:

I was about to say that libertarianism, and anarchism too, then, is completely different. It should be a rejection of the right-left dichotomy. 

In the UK and most of the world being 'libertarian' mostly is just an excuse to be really right wing. It's an excuse to maintain the power and the money where it is. 

So you have an actual extreme l/r wing position, and an extreme position based on the rejection of perceived extreme r/l wing positions? 

It's all quite confusing for the casual politik. 

 

[bickster]

And we're right back to this morning and the linear political scale being useless

[Rolta]

1 minute ago, HKP90 said:

So you have an actual extreme l/r wing position, and an extreme position based on the rejection of perceived extreme r/l wing positions? 

It's all quite confusing for the casual politik. 

 

To my understanding, with biases and mental gymnastics all over.

[blandy]

Then there’s social conservatism v liberalism, then ditto for economical …

[El Zen]

11 hours ago, bickster said:

Communism and Fascism are very similar politically. 

The fact that this can even plausibly be a fair comment just goes to show what a tragedy it was that the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP won control of the party before the revolution. Leninism, and far worse still Stalinism, is a complete butchering of Marxism, yet it’s allowed to stand as the predominant real world example of communism. Marx would have found the whole thing completely abhorrent. Lenin was a brutal cynic and a control freak, and Stalin was just a psycho self-serving criminal and murderer with no real ideological core and conviction to speak of. 

I agree with @mjmooney, that (Marxist) communism is ultimately good in intent, and I would add fundamentally democratic in intent as well. 

The dictatorship of the proletariat (in the non-misunderstood meaning of the concept) is diametrically opposite of fascism. 

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, El Zen said:

The fact that this can even plausibly be a fair comment just goes to show what a tragedy it was that the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP won control of the party before the revolution. Leninism, and far worse still Stalinism, is a complete butchering of Marxism, yet it’s allowed to stand as the predominant real world example of communism. Marx would have found the whole thing completely abhorrent. Lenin was a brutal cynic and a control freak, and Stalin was just a psycho self-serving criminal and murderer with no real ideological core and conviction to speak of. 

I agree with @mjmooney, that (Marxist) communism is ultimately good in intent, and I would add fundamentally democratic in intent as well. 

The dictatorship of the proletariat (in the non-misunderstood meaning of the concept) is diametrically opposite of fascism. 

Pretty much every party claiming to be Marxist I've ever come across is devoted to the political ideas of Lenin, Stalin (not so much these days) or Trotsky with only one exception the now former RCP who time has shown to be devotees of that well known Marxist Ayn Rand

There has never been a communist state of any note just based on the works of Marx and Engels without reference to the triumvirate of Russian scum (I'll acccept Mao on the other side of the world but he's no better)

 

[El Zen]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Pretty much every party claiming to be Marxist I've ever come across is devoted to the political ideas of Lenin, Stalin (not so much these days) or Trotsky with only one exception the now former RCP who time has shown to be devotees of that well known Marxist Ayn Rand

There has never been a communist state of any note just based on the works of Marx and Engels without reference to the triumvirate of Russian scum (I'll acccept Mao on the other side of the world but he's no better)

 

Yep. I don’t disagree with that.