The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Friday, January 31, 2014

No enemies on the Left

Obama the socialist?

Read it.

She finds no differences worth mentioning between the flat out communism of Paul Robeson and the modest social democracy of Bernie Sanders, apparently.

Now, actual democratic socialists, back in the day, were perfectly clear of the critically important differences between them and all versions of Marxism in descent from Leninism.

Generally, even today, you will have no trouble getting an honest taxonomy of the left from them, one that does not hide but makes vividly clear these same differences.

It has always been the reds whose United Front propaganda hid and even denied them.

Of course, nothing has ever prevented communists, American or not, from joining with others in working for political goals well short of their "maximum agenda," such as happened during the era of the American civil rights struggle and as has happened very often, before then and since.

Pete Seeger's career was at least partly, though not entirely, made up of devoted participation in just such efforts, for which everyone equally devoted to those goals had to be grateful.

But that is no excuse for hiding crucial differences when they are relevant.

And going to the lengths of defending reds when they pursue today or yesterday pursued goals perfectly congruent with their outlook but blatantly opposed to those of the entire democratic left is and was a profound betrayal.

Such betrayals as saying Ho Chi Minh's war was fought for anything remotely like the principles of the American Revolution.

Or that Nelson Mandela, in his years as a communist terrorist, was a freedom fighter struggling for racial justice and equality.

Or that Pete Seeger was not, in his communist decades, a deadly enemy of the most profound and critical political values of the democratic left, from democratic socialists to the merest safety-net liberals.

Oh, by the way.

If those who mean to defend the democratic left can't see any important differences between Bernie Sanders and Pol Pot, why should those who attack it?

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