[NYTr] A Guide to Becoming an Ex-Leftist

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Silver


Juventud Rebelde, Cuba - Jan 24, 2007
http://www.juventudrebelde.co.cu/

A Guide to Becoming an Ex-Leftist

by Emir Sader

This is a guide for those who have accepted the well known "offer you
can't refuse" and took jobs as heads of corporate media outlets or
private companies, that always demand silence or statements adjusted to
the interests of their "masters" (forgetting that there are not so much
offers you can't refuse as there are excessively weak backbones).

These are not isolated cases, since the private media is full of
reformed or simply converted one-time leftist who spend their lives
saying that they are not what they used to be, purging themselves in
the eyes of the upper-class owners for their youthful transgressions.
It is essential for them to refer to the saying "20 and not a radical -
no guts; 40 and still a radical - no brains." Or, they can allude to
the expression "going from being an arsonist at 20 to a fire-fighter at
40," explaining that they had a restless youth before reaching the age
of reason.

A good start would be to say that "socialism has failed," that one is
"disappointed with the left," or "they're all the same." Some claim
those on the left are actually "a new right" - but worse - so the best
thing to do is to keep a healthy distance.

Another way would be to criticize Stalin, passionately, after saying
that he was just like Hitler, equating the two "totalitarianisms;" or
saying that the Soviet leader barely applied Lenin's ideas, only to end
up by saying that the roots of "totalitarianism" were already evident
in Marx's work.

Or to say that Weber was more revelatory than Marx; that Raymond Aron
was right and Sartre was wrong; that Marxism is reductionist and his
its only concern was economics, that such an approach was the basis of
Soviet "totalitarianism.. They assert that there is no place for
"subjectivity," that Marxism reduced everything to the capital-labor
contradiction, without taking into consideration the "new
subjectivities" brought out by issues of gender, ethnicity,
environmental contradictions, etc.

They do not talk about Fidel Castro without having used previously the
word "dictator." Hugo Chavez is discredited as a "populist" and a
"nationalist" in the same breath, while him being a "fundamentalist"
and "fanatic" is implied. Focus all your attention in Latin America on
Bolivia and Venezuela being "problematic" and "unstable" countries,
without even mentioning Colombia.

The spread of democracy always comes up, but remember to add "except for
Cuba." Never speak of the US blockade against Cuba, but of "transition"
- with of course this transition to result in it becoming like one of
the other "democracies" that exist on the American continent.

They say that Latin America "does not exist;" it is just a collection of
countries without internal unity. That our [Brazil's] foreign policy
should have loftier goals, should be related to the world powers and
that we should try to be one of them, instead of continuing to identify
with the countries of the region and those of the Third World.

They always say the main problem of Brazil and of the world is that of
education. That there is work and opportunities, but that a qualified
labor force is lacking, that the essential things are opportunities,
not rights. They go on about US society is the most "open."

They discredit the public sector as inefficient, bureaucratic, corrupt
and corrupting, in opposition to the "private economy" and the
"market," with their dynamics and capacity for technological
innovation. They praise the privatization of telephone companies,
saying "nobody had a telephone before, but now you can see any poor
devil walking down the street talking on his cellphone."

We can see that there are a lot of reasons for those who have decided to
cease being leftist. "Charity begins with oneself," so they try to make
a living while turning their backs on the world. The "market" generously
rewards those who reject the principles they once believed in.

But it's a lot easier to be a leftist.

Excuses are not needed; there are sufficient grounds for the current
world situation and why a better world is possible.