Extreme Right to Extreme-Left (or the other way round)

Political belief is not a continuum, but a circle which folds back in upon itself. Go too far to the left, and you will end up back at the right, and vice versa. The polar opposite of Totalitarianism is not Anarchy, it is Moderate Liberalism.

I don't think this is true really - Stalin was right of Lenin who was right of Marx. Problem here is the hazy def. of "extreme" - people use it as if it has a single meaning, but it in fact refers to both ideology and/or methods. We don't tend to think of hippies trying to foster creative happenings in their backyard as 'extremists', but in truth their manifestation of socialism is more extremely left than a communist leader.

Kate's binary could be over-simplified as being one of rigidity versus complacency - and it should come as no surprise to anyone that rigidity is a defining characteristic of extremists of all types, political and non-political. There are certainly many rigid "extremists" of moderate liberalism - which is in almost as much danger as becoming as set-in-stone and inflexible as the far left or far right. As should be quite apparent from most of the editorial opinion in this "post-September 11 world".

where did left vs right start? with the seating plan for the french revolutionary govt of the 1790s? and what differences did it specifically chart? seems to me there are more than two binaries being charted here (the thing i disliked abt that chart there was a thread on, which had an economic axis and an authoritarian<->libertarian axis, was that there were only two...)

one of the major (unmapped) distinctions is this: are societal disputes resolved by appealing to the social need for truth or appealing to the social need for calm?

the ricky tomlinson story stevo links to is full of gaps, incidentally: tomlinson was one of the shrewsbury two — i can remember having to go on detour to school, bcz the protest had closed the road past the county court, but (from small mark s memory), one of the things shrewsbury ppl were irritated abt was that the actual event which the charge arose from HADN'T happened in shrewsbury (they felt the town was incorrectly implicated), and the second thing (again from memory, but that report doesn't even touch on the specifics) was that someone had died — fallen off some scaffolding — during the picket action, and tomlinson and the other one were being charged w. (i guess indirect) responsibility for his death, for pushing the action towards violence

i think the argt that RT was being scapegoated is perfectly fair, bcz i think the responsibility for any given strike action lies at least equally and often much more w. (incompetent and/or politically malicious) management, so why aren't some of the bosses in dock also? but when he starts huffing and puffing abt how he "thought england was a free country but now he's not so sure" — eh? he was sent to prison by the UK justice system for something he always angrily argued was totally political = the definition of not a free country surely (ie by his own political judgment way back when): after which another arm of the same system kept watch on him, as someone who had been judged and convicted by that system to be violent and politically hostile? i don;t understand why he's suddenly so "gobsmacked"? what did he expect? that security services wd have on their files "RT: jailed in the aftermath of a strike in which someone died but it wz totally a political stitch-up by our boys so we can ignore him, he 's an innocent bystander"

if he's such a close friend of scargill, what did they ever talk abt? scargill has insisted for years that MI6 has been playing unpleasant surveillance and interference games w.industrial relations, and famously — and highly implausibly — tried to stitch scargill up over some embezzlement of NUM funds scam in the early 90s

i think RT is being a bit disingenuous here: i like him as an actor and a public character, and i agree his story DOES shed good light on what the 70s were like — including the degree of MI6 background meddling — but i think he'd get more out of being a bit less egregiously populist abt all this stuff

the WRP was actually one of the more sinister of the leftist splinter gps, not for its links to moscow or whatever, but bcz of the cult of personality constructed rd its founder, gerry healy, which eventually blew the party to pieces, over a massive sex scandal (a bit like bhagwan shree rajneesh, he was a middle-aged man using his power as Great Leader to bed young nubile starry-eyed recruits)

Jerry Rubin died a stockbroker. Grover Norquist, a major far-right D.C. lobbyist, openly admires Lenin (to the point of having a bust of Vladimir Ilyich in his office). No small number of neo-conservatives have a Trotskyist past. Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan are best buddies. And then there's the clump of pubic rectal hair that is known as David Horowitz.

"Les extrèmes se touchent," as the French would say.

I think one problem here is the dovetailing of social and economic and political extremes into a one-size-fits all left/right continuum - ie the assumption that because someone is anti-capitalist they must be anti-racist, anti-homophobic etc. After Pim Fortuyn hit the headlines outside of Holland by, erm, getting shot, I remember a fair few people who should be better saying things like "well, I don't really get why he was considered right-wing".

Pim Fortuyn was a bizarre political chimera, a charismatic political confidence merchant who, with adept use of the media, managed to unite a number of very different strands in Dutch society, who felt alienated by established politics. After his death the 'party' he assembled proved to be a hilarious shambles in parliament, has now split in three and is about to be wiped out in next January's elections. However 2002 has severely shaken my adopted country and we’ve barely begun trying to making sense of the rise Fortuyn. By far and away the most cogent English language analysis I’ve read of him was written by Neal Ascherson here.
Re: the WRP I have a much-cherished memory of Corin Redgrave fronting their 1979 Party Political Broadcast in which he boldly declared under a WRP administration Britain would withdraw from NATO and join the Warsaw Pact. Good overview of the British radical left at the red encyclopedia.

British Columbia

And the idea that fundamentalism and all its pitfalls is somehow removed from liberalism. "Im bi sexual, pro choiice, atheist, feminist, new age and therefore... *open minded*".

Ah no your not at all, the tolerance and thought processes of ultra hard core liberals can be just as fucked up as any of the Taliban. What surprises me most is when someone states this using a specific example the board goes "WOW!!!! he is OTM". WTF, is this really so surprising?

(not "extreme", but donut bitch is otherwise OTM - BC is making an artform of wild bi-polar moodswings)

Horowitz never "got it" in the new left and he still doesn't "get it" today -- the attendant thrill of political rhetorical bomb-throwing was more important than any particular issue.

I think that partly these swings come when there's an atmosphere for complete disengagement from "traditional" politics but no particularly promising alternative being offered by anyone: then everything is up for grabs. Weimar Germany thus being a fairly perfect example. Though it is to be noted that the so-called "Schlageter line" of politeness towards nationalism/incipient fascism only lasted a tiny bit in the KPD before it got squelched.

Sinker: RT's "shocked, shocked" line sounds just like every other lifelong liberal activist I know who maintains their outrage by pretending ever time is the first. Also, the Healy group didn't really split over sex. That was just the sensationalist part in the tabloids. They split over personal relations, succession, and money.

& what made the WRP sinister wasn't the healy cult so much as where he took it (revealed in the split = documents about recieving money from v. ugly govts. in the middle east to act as essentially press agents. ie -- this "viewpoint" for hire.).

actually watching the peter taylor doc just now, you have to wonder how much the splinter group taste of self-destructive cloak-and-dagger stupidity actually comes DIRECTLY from the members on the organising committee who actually are govt spies (not by state policy but by personal temperament, "professional deformation" if you like) => so far, the former secret policemen being interviewed really REALLY don't get it either...

t.cliff had a stimulating line on all this — assuming he wasn't MI6 himself heh — which wz (something like) infiltration doesn't matter because i. a truly politically revolutionary org doesn't have a secret agenda, and ii. in a genuinely revolutionary situation the secret policemen will mostly switch sides anyway!! peter hain ( = "lifelong liberal activist" formerly of anti-nazi league now in blair govt pretty much repeated the cliff line! told the guy working with him collecting money for the anti-nazi league was MI6, he just chuckled and said "more power to him", the money got collected, didn't it?)

actually actually actually actually actually actually actually actually actually actually actually actually

damn just caught the end of it. sounded really interesting...heh i wonder who scargill wanted instead to run the govt.

should read my history books!