Yeltsin's Death

The Death of Boris Yeltsin is a reminder to us all of the conditions that lead to revolution. When the Soviet Union fell, Yeltsin stepped in. Under the guise of promoting democracy, a number of oligarchs were able to buy up the privatizing Russian Industries. These oligarchs were on the verge of promoting a revolution in Russia when Putin took power. Putin expelled them or put them in jail, with the idea of stabilizing Russia and its economy, in the hopes of building up, over time, a stable society that could support republican institutions. The oligarchs, from their perch in exile, have been doing all they can to promote "democracy" or even now revolution, as a way of getting back their piece of the pie.

What happened under Yeltsin, oligarchs using the guise of democracy to seize power, is a typical movement in the direction of revolution.

Trotsky Versus Stalin in America

Below is a letter to the editor to the Washington Post and a few links to some articles on neo-conservatism.

Based on these letters and links, our country is entering into a bizarre stage in which we might see ourselves watching ideological conflicts similar to those that went in Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. On the one hand, we have the Troskyite neo-cons, who want to spread democratic revolution throughout the world. On the other hand, within the US itself, we have the anti-war movement being led by Stalinists, who do not want a world revolution right away, but they want to use the war and the protest against it to plunge the United States into a communist republic. Then, there are also signs of fascism emerging among the conservative materialists. In short, we have the three political ideologies that develop from materialisms, leading to an inner fight among themselves. Ironically, stalinism, trotskyism, and fascism, in the end, are all ideologies of the left!

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10734

http://www.takimag.com/site/article/national_socialism_and_national_greatness

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:

Dear Editor:

Your paper's coverage of the so-called "anti-Iraq protest movement"
seriously failed to identify both the groups involved in leading the
demonstration on March 17th, but also failed to identify its leaders
whose names either appeared in the WP or on their press releases and
websites.

Brian Becker, identified as "national coordinator for the Answer
Coalition" is not identified as a longtime member and leader of the
Stalinist "Workers World Party", perhaps the top communist party in the
US today. The same goes for other ANSWER spokespersons (over time)
including Richard Becker, Steve Hackwell, Leslie Feinberg, Monica
Moorehead, Sara Flounders, John Catalinotto, etc. Many of these
individuals were identified as members of the WWP as far back at April
1974 in the report "The Workers World Party and Its Front
Organizations", House Internal Security Committee (HISC) and in an
earlier hearing, "Revolutionary Activities Directed Toward the
Administration of Penal or Correctional Systems, Part 1", March/May,
1973. Thus WP writer Brigid Schulte's writing in "Veterans, Others
Denounce Marchers", March 18th, got the chant "Workers World traitors
must hang!" wrong. It was not "a reference to the Communist newspaper",
i.e. "Workers World." It was a reference to the WWP as the sponsoring
organization of the demonstration, along with a mixed Communist/Maoist
coalition.known as United for Peace & Justice, led by an old Communist
Party USA-connect activist, Leslie Cagan, and Revolutionary Communist
Party leader, the aging Carl Davidson.

Perpetual War and American Foreign Policy

Apparently, President Bush had a luncheon on February 28th. A number of historians and political thinkers attended this luncheon who have held publically that life is perpetual war.

The same day I read this news, I picked up Plato's Laws. Much to my surprise, the Laws begins with a discussion the Island of Crete (the cradle of Greek culture) and the speaker representing Crete, Kleinias, praises Cretan society because it was organized for perpetual war. Life, he tells us, is perpetual stuggle of man against himself, man against man, neighborhood against neighborhood, city against city, and nationa against nation.

Socrates begins to critique this view by suggesting that, while a certain kind of struggle as well as war may be a part of life, we do not live life for the purpose of fighing perpetual wars. Ultimately, if we fight wars we fight them so that we can return to a peaceful life in which people can pursue happiness. He also indicates that the purpose of war should not be to pursue unlimited freedom, or to spread freedom everywhere. This, he suggests, is the formula for a bloodthirsty empire. While complete limitations on freedom are unsatisfactory, the just society harmonizes the concern for peace, the desire for freedom, and the limits necessary so that these desires do not lead the society to become unjust towards others and unjust towards itself.

Some things never change.

A Revoir to the Lords

Yesterday, in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/world/europe/08britain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

England is considering subjecting the House of Lords to elections. From the standpoint of our research over the last month, this is the institution that Adams thought was essential to a balance of powers in the UK, along with the monarch. If England makes the House of Lords based on election, will it mean that the ideals of the French Revolution have overtaken England, in the end? Was the opposition of Adams for nothing?

A Thought on Politics

A student asked the question today, what is the best political system or the best party right now?

Here is my answer: In some ways, the Green Party gets it right, in ways that are similar to those who have been outcast from the Republic Party in the last 15 years. We should have a country that respects ecology. Ecology, though, includes human ecology or harmonizing society such that all humans benefit from all human advances, economic, science, cultural, educational, and technical. Society as a whole should think this through. We should oppose economic and military adventurism, that crushes the poorest and least fortunate, and that leads us to commit all kinds of injustices against our own citizens and others.

At the same time, the most stable kind of constitution over time is one that recognizes the executive, aristocratic, and democratic element in society, gives them a role in law-making and office sharing, and limits each of their roles. This is the value of the constitution of the United States.

However, the great danger is that the wealthy class take over. By insinuating itself into these institutions in an unjust way, the wealthy class tend to turn the society into an oligarchy, setting up the clash between oligarchy and democracy, the corruption of morals, and the destruction of the family. Once the family is destroyed, the children will look to comfortable lives (oligarchy), the military, or pleasure (democracy) as their options. This will lead to the overall degeneration of society, the rise of an Empire, or the rise of an authoritarian or totalitarian state.

In an odd way, the current favortie platforms of the Republicans and the democrats, and an unfortunate aspect of the Green Party, work well in the logic of Empire. The abortion and sexual revolutionary policies of the democrats tend to undermine the family. This makes the children less civilized and ultimately thirsting for military vengeance, a comfortable life, and some sort of order. The economic politics of the Republicans tend to weaken the family by forcing them to move around to keep the free market economy going. It also tends to rely on the military and foreign advernturism, which, over time, weakens the family under the false mask of promoting social order and security. Times of wars tend to introduce more sexual misbehavior and break up families. So, the sexual politics of the democrats and the Greens work "nicely" with the economic and foreign affairs of the neo-cons in the Republican Party for building an empire over time.

If we could adopt the constitutionalism, foreign and moral policies of the conservatives, with the "sense" of the common good of the democrats, and the "ecology" of the Greens, we would have perhaps, the formula for a "Catholic" party in the US.

Progressivism and the French Revolution

I have before me a book titled "The Progressive Revolution." I have not read it yet, but just the back cover tells us that the dichotomy that was set up during the french revolution persists in the US to this day. The book says that it want to examine the revolution known as progressivism. IT opposes itself to this revolution. The counterrevolution is a return to natural rights, limited government, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. The revolution is committed to progressivism, centralization, unlimited government, and direct democracy.

This mirrors the general positions leading up to and during the French Revolution. John Adams saw himself on the side of the Anglomanes, who advocated bicameralism and constitutional checks and balances. Jefferson saw himself more on the side of the Gallomanes, who advocated a national, unified, central legislature as the center of power.

These debates persist.

Bicameralism and Unicameralism Debated for the Coming Revolution

Adams disagreed with the proponents of a unicameral legislature, especially Turgot and Condorcet. Eventually, Kant will defend the ideas of Condorcet. He thought that such a political theory would lead to disaster. Adams responded to Turgot’s ideas in his Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the United States, which he published in 1787. After the French Revolution began, Adams continued his attack on the idea of unicameral legislatures. In 1790 he published Discourses on Davila with a view critiquing what he viewed to be the ominous developments of Revolutionary France. Thomas Paine joined the debate in 1791 with his publication of The Rights of Man. By accident, an essay by Jefferson introduced the American edition of Paine’s Rights of Man listing Adams’s book Davila among the “political heresies” of the American Regime. This essay, along with Paine’s work, led to an intensely partisan competition in the United States between pro-English and pro-French factions during the 1790s (Thompson, 1996, 364-365).

The debate that erupted in the United States following the publication of Discourses on Davila and then Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man was a coming to the surface of tensions that were already present when Adams published A Defence of the Constitutions … of America in 1787. When Jefferson received the book, he invited Adams to reconsider his idea that Congress was a diplomatic and not a legislative assembly. Jefferson said that he feared the book would be poorly translated, and so he found a good translator. After securing the translator, he left on a wine-tasting tour which he had been planning.
(It is just as likely that the French blocked the book, and that TJ told this to JA).

Jefferson, as late as November, indicated that the book was being translated. It seems, however that Philip Mazzei, an associate of Jefferson, Adams, and the book publisher, blocked translation and publication of the book in the final days before printing. In part, this had to do with the politics of France at the time. France was in the midst of a debate between the Anglomanes, those who desired a bicameral legislature with the King and a senate-like aristocratic body checking the popular branch, and the Gallomanes, those who preferred a unicameral popular legislature with predominant power over the other estates in French society. Mazzei and Condorcet were on the side of the Gallomanes. They perceived that Adams was among the potential leaders of the Anglomanes. Mazzei was able to publish a pamphlet by Stevens instead of Adams’s book. Even though this pamphlet also advocated a bicameral legislature, Mazzei was able to insert another 200 pages in which he critiqued Anglomane theory and twisted the arguments of Stevens so as to support the Gallomane position.

Jefferson and Adams met in person January or February of 1788. By that time, there would be no publication of Adams’s book. While we do not have any direct evidence as to the content of that meeting between Jefferson and Adams, we can imagine that the topic of the book translation was brought up. We could hypothesize that both Jefferson and Adams knew of the debate raging in France, and how individuals with more influence than Jefferson could block the publication of Adams’s book. Jefferson admitted to Adams initially that even finding someone to translate it properly would be difficult. Perhaps he realized that what Mazzei and his associates had done to Stevens, they would have done to Adams. Whatever the circumstances in February and January of 1788, it does not seem from the correspondence that at that time Adams was upset about the book not being published.

But, a few years later, in 1791, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet The Rights of Man. In the first edition that Paine published he included an introductory essay by Jefferson critiquing Adams’ Discourses as containing ideas that were “political heresy.” Jefferson did not want these comments to be published, and yet, they were. Nevertheless, they caused indignation in the mind of Adams and they began a firestorm in American politics that raged throughout the 1790s. This storm included many events that divided the democratic republicans against the federalists during the political debates of the 1790s.

This short history about Adams and Jefferson before and in the early days of the French Revolution reveals to us that Adams, on the whole, was becoming more pessimistic about the goodness of human nature. He was also becoming more pessimistic about the possibility of humans, short of institutional checks, of reaching a good end in political life. Humans are too dominated by envy and a love for money. For this reason, Adams was skeptical of those theorists who believed that a unicameral legislature could adequately check the passions of men. He expressed his fears in books and writings. He hoped his friend Jefferson would help him translate his ideas into French.

Jefferson, who was also friends with the same people that Adams critiqued, remained slightly more optimistic about human nature and what kind of political institutions human nature could support. In addition, perhaps he saw that the real disagreement between he and Adams was not one of principle. Instead, it was one of what emphasis was necessary given the historical circumstances of the time. Stevens, the supposed opponent whose tract was published instead of Adams’s book, advocated bicameral legislatures.

Jefferson also was not an opponent of bicameralism. But Jefferson feared that the United States, and perhaps France as well in the opening days of the Revolution, risked falling into the English system, which was proving itself to be an obstacle rather than a proponent of true political development. Jefferson thought that, given the historical circumstances, what needed strengthening and support in the 1790s was the popular branch. It would not make sense in the early days of the Republic to put too great an emphasis on institutions such as the Senate or Presidency, so as to make them like the House of Lords or the King in England.

In addition, Jefferson thought that too much attachment to England might actually limit the healthy development of the American system, as England would further involve the United States in European conflicts. England was also pressuring the French in such a way so as to antagonize the tensions already present in French society.

Jefferson was not overly enthusiastic about the excesses of the French Revolution. He admitted, in a way, that Robsepierre ended the popular part of the Revolution. Nevertheless, he did not see US involvement in European wars, entering on the side of England, as healthy for the US. Adams perhaps failed to fully understand the checks and balances that were part of the Constitution. In addition, he failed to appreciate the possibility that the Constitution and the Institutions that it established did educate the citizens of the United States to acquire political habits that would support the constitution over time. Or, perhaps he understood this, but, given this affection for England and position in England, his statements could easily be bent by the Gallomanes in France to attack the Anglomanes and to advance the Gallomane position.

Rivers of Blood

Reflecting on the French Revolution, and the disagreements between Adams and Jefferson during the 1790s, Jefferson indicates that at the heart of a disagreement was whether, in that time, the popular branch needed strengthening or whether the aristocratic and executive branch needed strengthening. Adams sided with the aristocrats, Jefferson with the popular branch. This is a conflict that has occurred throughout history.

Jefferson indicates that both are committed to free government, and that, in the end rivers of blood will flow before free government will be brought about.

Adams, in the end, says that he contemplates the rivers of blood with melancholy, impliciitly admitting he sees no other way.

This is worth thinking about. Is it really necessary that rivers of blood must flow to bring about just and free societies? Why were Adams and Jefferson unable to see another possibility? In the end, their political philosophies were both too materialistic to admit the possibility of union, republicanism, and freedom coming about any other way than by rivers of blood. They lacked a robust and prinicpled moral system. Adams at least knew that such a system was necessary, but he himself failed to articulate it.

This is all the more significant now, as the US is ready to make rivers of blood flow in the Middle East, and the most that the opponents of such activity can do is look on in melancholy.

The Constitution was the Creed, We Never Got the Catechism

According to John Adams, the American Constitution needed a catechism to explain how we should live it out:

The idea that a moral social and political culture was necessary to maintain the Constitution is an idea that Adams held before the French Revolution began. Adams thought that the Congress needed write a political and moral catechism that would be taught in American schools. Adams asked Abbé Mably to write this catechism. Mably declined the offer, arguing that it would be better for Adams and the people in the US Congress to write and publish such a catechism (The information on the Catechism is in “John Adams on the Abbé de Mably.” More Books: The Bulletin of the Boston Public Library. Volume VIII April 1933. 125-145). This catechism was to explain the principal parts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, with a view to explaining the kind of personal and social life that was necessary for each person to live and maintain in order to live the political truths contained in our founding creeds.

Despite this early rejection by Mably, and despite such a catechism never being written, Adams never lost his concern for the political culture that he thought was necessary to support the American creed. And so, in his letters to Jefferson, Adams expressed concerns about the negative effects that Rousseau’s philosophy might have on the interpretation of the American Constitution. If we were to extrapolate from his comments to Mably, political philosophy is the catechism of the Constitution. If Rousseau’s philosophy were to become the catechism of the Constitution, it would distort and ruin the Constitution over time because it would not adequately explain the Constitution and the institutions that it established.

Adams saw Rousseau’s political philosophy as informing the movements of the French Revolution. He feared the growing influence that the writings of Rousseau were having on young American intellectuals. He thought that if the intellectuals interpreted the Constitution through the lens of a Rousseauean philosophy, it would be the end of the Constitution and the institutions that it established. There are certain cultural ideas that need to be maintained in order to uphold the constitution and the institutions it established. Rousseau’s philosophy tended toward the breakdown of these ideals.

Money, Pleasure, Power

I really appreciate the comments that were posted yesterday. I would like to use today's entry to speak about the "theoretical lens" throught which I am operating. It is not Aristotle, but Plato. Aristotle is interested in classifying the mechanics of revolution. Plato is a nice introduction to Aristotle as Plato provides us with the psychology of revolution.

Plato recognized that the most formative part of a regime consisted of the leaders of the regime. The leaders are those who by their position and their character impress their way of life on the rest of society. The leaders do not necessarily do this by force of arms. They do it by example. They do it by breathing a spirit into the institutions and into the laws that in turn forms the souls of the men and women of a society. The leaders are not merely the political leaders. They are the men and women who make up the literary elite, the generals in the army, business leaders, the leaders of Hollywood, and journalists. Seen another way, the leaders are those who shape the univeristy, the news services, culture, music, business, the military, and politics. If we want to know the future of a society, all we have to do is study the souls of the leaders.

In Book VIII of the Republic Socrates outlines the character of each regime and how regimes progress, one to the next. Each regime can be understood according to the desire that dominates in that regime. To better help us understand each regime, he gives us the example of a family. In a honor-based family, the father tries to live in such a way that he never compromisos his honor. So, he resists committing injustices and doing anything that might compromise his dignity as a father and a leader of the family. Because he has this position, he does not always make the money that he could make. Also, he will sometime or many times in his life suffer injustice rather than commit one, apparently losing the respect of, or at least risking a lack of understanding from his wife and children

The wife of the honor based man, not out of malice and perhaps not always consciously, complains to her children that their family lacks things. At this moment, the seed of oligarchy is planted in the soul of the son of the honor-based man. The son becomes committed to making money so that he can buy the things his father never had and so that he can buy the respect and dignity his father did not get when his father suffered injustice. The son, rather than letting the desire for honor dominate in his soul, now turns his soul over to pursuing money. Thus, his soul becomes oligarchic.

The oligarch gives in to the passion of money-making in an unrestrained way. He also ends up living a fairly comfortable life. Now, the children of the oligarch, not at first out of malice and perhaps not fully conscious of what they are doing, look at their father and they say, “you have followed the passion for money-making in an unrestrained way. Why can we follow our other passions in an unrestrained way?” And so, the seed of democracy is planted in the souls of the children of the oligarch. These children start to explore and experience the pleasures of alcohol, the desire for procreation, to the point of becoming lotus eaters. They see that the best society would be a society that provides for equality, or that gives equal access to all the passions. The best society is one that is multi-colored. In this kind of society, or in a democracy, all the passions are given free reign. No one passion is regarded as different or better than any other passion.

Some of the children of the oligarch, though democrats when they are young, themselves become oligarchs when they are older. They want to buy honor and respect. Thus begins the war or competition between democracy and oligarchy. But this war over time favors the democrats. They have a much larger natural constituency, whereas the oligarchs greatest appeal is to the money makers. So, over time, the democratic passion takes hold of a society.

Now, among the passions, there is also the lust for cruelty and violence. And in a democratic society, that passion has equal access to the society along with all the other passions. Thus enters the demagogue. The demagogue or sophist knows how to appeal to the passions of men so as to gain power for himself. And so, in becoming elected, he can promise all sorts of things to the democrats which will appeal to their passions. In fact, one of the ways he gets elected is by promising the democrats that he will put an end to the oligarchs.

The ultimate demagogue is also a father killer. He will convince the democratic and oligarchic children that they have to kill their honor-loving father in order to be free from the rules or limits that he lives and that if they applied to their lives would make them suffer because it would require them to restrain their passions, whichever passion it is to which they currently let rule in their soul.

Once the demagogue comes to power, he starts killing off the group or groups that brought him to power. Do not forget, it is the desire for power that dominates in his soul. Eventually, he kills off the democrats, and the tyrant rules in a society. The poets, philosophers, musicians and other flatterers start to flatter the tyrant, because they depend on him now for their existence. One might say that democracy can also be tyrannical in this sense, poets and academics often end up flattering those who provide for their existence and subsistence.

This is the picture, or order of regimes, within which we can understand the progression of the French Revolution, as well as the contest that takes place between the democrats, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, and the oligarchs, such as Burke and Adams. It is also a nice way of beginning to understand what is the paradigm of modern politics, the struggle between the conservatives (oligarchs) and democrats. Neither side is fullly attached to reason and logos, and so they are immersed in a struggle between falsehoods.

John Adams, Lover of Aristocracy

I have re-read my notes on John Adams and the French Revolution. He thinks that there will always be an aristocracy in society, the question is, on what will this Aristocracy be based?

In the Old regime, it was based on land and birth. He thinks that in the United States, it will be based on talent, genius, and merit. He fears that anyone who is blind to the fact of aristocracy will fail to see and check the aristocracy of wealth, or oligarchy. Over time, the wealthy are able to insinuate themselves into and control the political system.

This is why Putin has governed the way he has over the past eight years and why the US is trying to demonize him. Putin has expelled from Russian society or put in jail the oligarchs who were in the process of taking over Russia throughout the 1990s. For this, he is being demonized by the West. He is being demonized by the West, especially because the US is effectively run by the aristocrats of wealth, who control both parties, the media, the music industry, and sports. Any country that opposes this oligarchy is percieved as an enemy.

Finally, Adams was perhaps unwilling to disuss what seems to accompany oligarchs and revolutionaries, the unleashing of the lust for pleasure which results in the lust for power. The children of oligarchs tend to be democrats, which means equal access to all the passions. Democrats become blind to the demagogue, who appeals to the passions as a way of installing himself as a brutal tyrant.

The passions always present themselves as liberators, but when they rule in the soul, they rule with despotic tyranny.