Down with all reactionaries

By Michael J. Smith on Thursday December 29, 2011 05:56 PM

Robert Naiman has set a foxlet among the henwoodery on my lefty mailing lists. He writes:

[I'm] cheerleading for the 8,400 Democrats and independents who, according to Public Policy Polling, are planning to vote for Paul in Iowa to protest against the war.
Response from another lister:
8,400? Is that all? More people live in my zip code.

And really, aside from the war, the guy is a racist reactionary.

Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?

The 8,400 number, of course, is the projected number of Iowa caucus participants who are expected to vote for Paul because of his anti-war stand. Since the total number of participants in the caucus is somewhere on the order of 100K, this is hardly an insignificant quantity.

What's more interesting, of course, is the shallow schematism of 'racist reactionary'. Guy's a racist reactionary. Stop thinking immediately. Next case.

There are a number of angles form which one could approach this. Example: Of course he's a racist reactionary. They're all racist reactionaries. But he's the only racist reactionary who's an anti-war racist reactionary. Doesn't that make him a significantly lesser evil?

Another contributor to the list observed that most racist single institution in American life is the "drug war," and the Paul is against that too. Now the drug war does a lot more actual harm to black folks in the US than any number of David Dukes or Willis Cartos; but of course Obie is solidly behind the drug war, as all the respectable candidates are. So really, who's the racist here?

Damn good point, I'd say.

Comments (12)

Happy Jack:

Is anyone keeping a tally over there as to who has killed more black and brown people, Ron "KKK" Paul or President Shamwow?

MJS:

Exactly.

Chomskyzinn:

Amen MJS.

Sean:

Get back to me about "racism" when Paul is ordering drone strikes against Pakistan. He also wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, which colluded with the banking scams that wiped out huge numbers of minority families and left them destitute and homeless...not to mention everyone else that got screwed.

It's amazing how easy the "racist" trope can be invoked to suspend all reason, isn't it? You'd think he'd sacrificed a virgin to Huitzilopochtli on his front lawn.

Nothing "racist" about killing and wounding millions of Muslims and destroying their countries. Nothing racist about Obama's "guns and Bibles" speech about rural white working class Americans. The man scarcely mentions the working class but one of the few times he does, he invokes the "redneck/white trash" stereotype.

How about the racist presumption that everyone who despises that servile and sociopathic piece of shit only does so because he's black?

op:

the picture seems oddly chosen father S

MJS:

The picture is intended to show hardened Leninist cadre sternly repressing reactionaries.

op:

so its leninites and their ilk
that are knee jerking over the redoubtable doctor paul ??

or is this reflex "other sourced" but parallel to the leninite paradigm ???

same in form but not in essence ??

MJS:

It seems like not-quite-the-thing to quote people by name, from mailing lists, on a blog. But Owen, you're familiar with the political complexion of some of the lists I'm on. Lotta these folks consider themselves cadres of adamantine hardness.

Seen. But you'll excuse me if I don't vote for Ron Paul because he's a racist reactionary. Nor will I vote for the Eurocentric reactionary Obama, who, typical of the average black bureaucrat or cop, is intent upon proving he can be tougher upon non white people than the white racist, and is unimaginative enough in his description of white working class existence that he falls back on stereotypes. But then, it is Ron Paul who when talking about the possibilities of white working class organizing for their rights, has demonstrated that he is incapable of thinking of white working class people as anything but white or money fetishists.

Suppose I just not vote for any piggies at all. would that be okay? No one has to demonstrate to me that Obama is a house negro, I've known the school of same since I was a boy. I have recently resigned from an urban teaching program which expects me to make my peace with a "learning program" that is obviously designed and overseen by a bunch of house negros who are so caught up in their pattern of back biting and double dealing that they can't prevent their practices from leaking out into the student population they allegedly counsel.

Suppose I just not vote.

mjosef:

With you all the way, MHP - but that is devastating news that your resigned from your teaching position.
Not that a teacher can "make a difference" or any of that hero/martyr teacher vs. the system nonsense, but as I'm holding on fast to an odious, fully dispiriting "teaching" job, I wonder how you are going to fight the next round for yourself.

MJS:

Suppose you just not vote? You won't get any flak from anybody 'round here, obviously. Abstention is a thoroughly honorable and sensible choice; we regard it as a principled vote for 'none of the above'. The last thing we want to do is encourage parliamentary cretinism. But for those who do continue to take an interest, however distanced, in the charade, it's kinda fun to think about Paul's monkeywrenching possibilities. And it's also fun to see how so many self-defined Lefties (really, in most cases, mere liberals wearing a Marxian stage beard) react with such horror to the idea.

op:

i found mhp 's comment required lots of mentation
for one usually so jacose and jaded as myself

i've never had to consider supporting
some ass hole candidate
-- for tactical reasons--
that might despise me for my genetic back ground and /or present ethnic identity

so who am i to weigh this point for someone
who faces that choice
so this isn't that

however .....

paul"...is incapable of thinking of white working class people as anything but white or money fetishists "

yes he's a white petite bourgeois
philistine reactionary and
implicit cultural racist

which is pretty much a tautology


"Suppose I just not vote for any piggies at all. would that be okay? "

hey its the site mission
to stop voting that confirms our oppression

so of course don't vote


and i'm sure you are only underlining that here
b4 we get so into tactical voting
we lose sight of the total rejectionist option
that is the very foundation of this site

but at least consider this
for future choice forks


a vote is often more like a bid in bridge
then a pledge of allegiance

i'm reminded of the self righteous cosmo line on ceasar chavez

"he was anti immigrant "

ya ..he had a union to build
and a free inflow of scabs
from across the border
made that next to impossible

we have to weight everything against
its alternatives right ??

and nothing has infinite weight


the soviets under lenin
in the early 20's
once revolution was off the agenda
fell all over themselves
to form a tacit alliance
with the reactionary militaristic
german nationalists

the list of hard swallows is endless

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