Comments on The Belmont Club,"The Collaborators"

History is written many times. Once by the victors and then rewritten by the scribes.
Reality is dropped into a hole by Winston Smith and everybody knows that Sarah Palin thought she could see Russia from her house.

There were Quislings and collaborators everywhere. The story in China of Wang Jingwei shows the wasteland that ambition and confusion can lead a man of talent into.

The fact is that most of the time the people who are advocating firm positions and calling for confronting power are cranks. Most people want to be in the middle, to get along, because that is where in a normal world production happens. The trick is to know when the shift to a true crisis has happened where you have to get up and join the unpleasant ideologues in risking all. The temptation is to wait until the choices are clear and then tell yourself that it is to late to make a difference.

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This sounds like another vanity project. Where is the audience for this? Not in America, not in China or the Phillipines. Not even I would think in Japan. Possibly in Europe and the Middle East. The investors should hire lawyers to protect their interests. In any other industry failure to exercise basic care to protect the capital that has been invested would result in personal liability. Hollywood needs corporate governance reform. Ever since the studio system got replaced by a web of agents, consultants and production companies, with distribution and financing controlled by divisions of offsite and often offshore conglomerates, there has been no accountability for where the money goes. Art Buchwald put a dent in the shell game when he sued years ago but a major overhaul is called for.

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There are differences in the social strata and groups that Communists and Fascist/Nazis drew from. To use the language of the Left, the communists are a proletarian based movement lead by a cadre from the intelligentsia, often from the upper bourgeoisie or old aristocracy. The fascist movements are rooted in the petit bourgeoisie and lumpen proletariat strata.

This fits with what is happening in America. The Left using shock troops from Acorn and the SEIU drawn from what can be called the laboring class are allied with wealth and power and the universities. They have their Kropotkins and Engels. They fear and despise the small business men and Joe the Pliumber upwardly mobile workers who they accuse of fascism.

Aug 20, 2009 - 11:30 pm

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Tcobb,
There is nothing so dangerous to an established regime as a prosperous middle class.

Your analysis is correct. The use of Marxist terminology is partly for fun and also because that is how they think. Know Yourself and Know Your Enemy. We need both the West (Delphi) and the East (Sun Tzu) on our side.

Historically aristocrats drew support from the peasant masses and the monarchy drew support from the middle class. When these alliances broke down the result was social upheaval and regime collapse. Examples include the English Civil War, when the monarchy lost the support of the Whig gentry and merchants, and the French Revoloution, when the nobility lost control of the peasantry. In both cases the fatal mistake for the monarchy was their attempting to base their support on the aristocrats rather than the commons. The aristocrats, or wanna be aristos, are always jealous of the legitimate Sovereign and the prosperous middle. This dynamic can even be seen in ancient Rome.

For your "established regime" I read "entrenched reactionary Old Regime."

Aug 21, 2009 - 7:06 am