the antipolitical... George F. Will?!

[Friday]

This guy bugs the crap out of me sometimes, and he still can't keep himself from taking jabs at the Democrats in an article in which he also says "there is not a dime's worth of difference between the parties".  But geez, he almost sounds like he's lost faith in the political process.   

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172560/page/1

[Vitruvian]

he almost sounds like he's lost faith in the political process

He even quotes Emma Goldman, the "American radical" (the coward didn't dare mention the word "anarchist").

[John Edward Mercier]

Funny. I would have called her a Communist.
She hoped for a worker's revolution when Carnegie refused to employ them on their terms.

I think Will brought her and both political parties into the mix because of the auto manufacturers bailout.
Currently both the Democrat and Republican leadership are going supra-constitutional with the bailouts.
And its occuring because of Union and Capitalist corporatism. It doesn't benefit the public... just the involved individuals and their continuation of a transportation monopoly.

[KBCraig]

he almost sounds like he's lost faith in the political process

He even quotes Emma Goldman, the "American radical" (the coward didn't dare mention the word "anarchist").

She certainly was radical compared to Wilson.

Will is a paradox, but he's mostly an old school Republican. He's been critical of both Bushes, if somewhat mildly.

Nothing serves to galvanize a constitutional conservative like the election of a Democrat to national office.

[Lloyd Danforth]

George Will was On the original television 'round table' type discussion program: Agronsky and Company in the 70's.  He was the most libertarian person on the panel. We agreed with most of what he said and kept hoping he would come all the way around.  He didn't.

[Pat K]

I remember Will getting all snotty after
9/11 and saying maybe people will take
politics seriously again and not vote in
people like Jesse Ventura .

[BillKauffman]

Will is a paradox, but he's mostly an old school Republican. He's been critical of both Bushes, if somewhat mildly.

Nothing serves to galvanize a constitutional conservative like the election of a Democrat to national office.

Will can best be described as a "Tory Conservative"

Emma Goldman was an "anarcho-communist"

quote:

"Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals for the purpose of producing real social wealth; an order that will guarantee to every human being free access to the earth and full enjoyment of the necessities of life, according to individual desires, tastes, and inclinations."

[Lloyd Danforth]

Goldman was, pretty much, just a communist.  Anarchist, bomb throwing implied was a label put on many communist and socialist activists of the day.  Many of the influx of European immigrants anxious to, quickly, get a piece of what others had built liked the idea of socialism and would have supported the activist if they had not been labeled Anarchists. Many of the descendants of those European immigrants still carry the 'struggle' (yes, they call it that!) and call themselves 'progressives'.

[BillKauffman]

Goldman was, pretty much, just a communist.  Anarchist, bomb throwing implied was a label put on many communist and socialist activists of the day.  Many of the influx of European immigrants anxious to, quickly, get a piece of what others had built liked the idea of socialism and would have supported the activist if they had not been labeled Anarchists. Many of the descendants of those European immigrants still carry the 'struggle' (yes, they call it that!) and call themselves 'progressives'.

Many communists as socialists were anarchists.

Unfortunately she did believe early in her political life with "propaganda of the deed" which was a decidedly European phenomena but later renounced it as a result of her experience in Russia and the brutality of what occurred.

In the afterword to "My Disillusionment in Russia" she wrote: "There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another.... The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose...."

from Ken MacLeod's "The Star Fraction"

...what we always meant by socialism wasn't something you forced on people, it was people organizing themselves as they pleased into co-ops, collectives, communes, unions... And if socialism really is better, more efficient than capitalism, then it can bloody well compete with capitalism. So we decided, forget all the statist shit and the violence: the best place for socialism is the closest to a free market you can get!

Many so-called "progressives" are under the delusion that the state can somehow be used for the benefit of the working class. What utter folly as corporations "own" the state.

[John Edward Mercier]

Unions are corporations.

Whether its a group of investors, or a group of employees, makes no real difference... and in the modern times are many times one and the same.