Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (67644)	12/21/1999 11:50:00 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

It appears left and right have deteriorated into mere catchwords, more useful as epithets than proper designations. There has been a lot of loose language thrown around in the past few decades. You and I can agree that Italian fascism was a leftist movement and we can disagree on which end of the spectrum National Socialism belongs, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is the perception of the mass public. The public has been told repeatedly that fascism and National Socialism are rightist movements. As a result rightist and right-wing are used as simple pejoratives now. It's a little late to cry foul, but it's interesting to observe the technique. In the Chilean elections last week, the conservative did much better than expected and has forced a runoff. BBC radio kept referring to him as the "right-wing candidate." A couple of times they called him "the right-winger." His opponent of course, was "center-left." I don't know why the beeb found it so difficult to say "conservative." I promise to read Weber's essay if you promise to thumb through Erik von Kuehnelt-Lehddihn's magnum opus Leftism Revisited: From DeSade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot. It's only a little bit biased. <gg> I doubt you'll agree with much, but it's a wonderful and oddly enlightening read, the sum of the good professor's experience and travel. He concludes the book with this little snippet: "Leftism characterizes all the three Great Revolutions: the French (1789), the Russian (1917), and the German (1933). But recall that political parties or systems are rarely 100 percent right or left, but an admixture of both."