Re: <nettime> Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer..

[Flick Harrison <flick@flickharrison.com>]

MP, 

Instead of just attacking me and democracy, why not say what you think about China, the topic at hand?  Are you defending their ruling system, or just attacking straw men (i.e. people defending capitalism here)?  Do you see democracy and capitalism as inseparable evils?

I said the problem in our society is not too much democracy, but too little.  How do you interpret that as a defense of capitalsm?

How do YOU propose people govern themselves, if not by participation?  Do you agree with Li that Democracy is not the answer?

"fascism is a mask that liberals put on whenever the scam of democracy is about to unravel."

That's pure nonsense. Name one important self-described liberal who became a fascist.  Even the wild conservative fantasy is closer to the truth, that Fascism and Communism are the same thing.  See, it's right there in the name, "National Socialism!!!"

You seem to be confusing my critique of China with some kind of cheering for the Republocratocracy.

I don't think you seem to understand how closely they are allied.  You argue that the world's ruling classes have a totally unified agenda but you think China somehow doesn't fit into that?

If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, what then is the Chinese Communist Party?

Yesterday (!) our NeoCon government opened a $2.5M Norman Bethune memorial.  The illiterate right are in full-throated rage, but they are missing the forest for the trees. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/07/12/ezra-levant-norman-bethune-tony-clement_n_1667996.html

Because Li makes criticisms that light up your rebellious eyes, you then ignore the fact that he's cheerleading for a regime that is in strict lockstep with the corporate ruling class you oppose.  China's regime, however, has the sure footing to openly repress with guns and bayonets on home turf, something that is strictly impossible in North America precisely because of our fragile legal and democratic structure.  Sure, Reagan could murder nuns in Nicaragua, and Obama can drone-strike in the desert of Afghanistan.  But where are the battalions of tanks at OWS?  Where are the bayonets?  Safely stored away for a rainy day, of course.  But that's better than nothing.

Democracy - actual democracy - is the solution to our problems, not the cause.

What are you struggling for, if not democracy?

(As for the Nazis, Germany is less racially pure and smaller than it was before the war; economics was hardly important to their *stated* objectives, other than Lebensraum which also utterly failed.  Mein Kampf and Swastikas are officially banned.  I'd call that a big Nazi failure.  Talk to any German conservative and see how long it takes them to complain about Turks - the very people who came to repair Germany after most of the local men had been killed in their stupid quest for world domination.  Their agenda may be on the rise again all over Europe - perversely due to the policies of the NeoCons who have blamed the problems of the poor on Socialism, but Nazism was definitely thrown back on its ass in the most humiliating, painful way possible.)

-Flick


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