Turning "Our Revolution" into Piqueteros

The Lost Patrol of Piqueteros/"burn it down" activists

The Far left wing in much of the world is into violent revolution, "burn it down", "destroy the establishment," and replace the current system. That is similar to the goal of the Far Right. But in the hands of corrupt leadership, compromised leaders or leaders who won't work well with each other, the people who engage in such "revolution" become one or all the following:

• Useful Idiots, people who cancel the efforts of each other and give dictators and corrupt organizations by canceling their own efforts.
• Controlled opposition,, who will go after a dictators enemies as proxies for them. Sometimes instigated by trolls, agent provocateurs, corrupting agents, or traitors. Sometimes good people behave badly due to blackmail or bribes.
• Unsound followers of authoritarian ideology,; who follow sociopathic or narcissistic leaders and have a deluded ideology that cannot ever work out as dreamed of by those followers. The Far Right has morphed into such a totalitarian movement led by a nascent dictator. A similar tendancy exists in the far left. Whenever people follow leaders blindly, they fall into the authoritarian trap.

Wise people hold principles that include working for the common good, trading lesser goals for greater objectives and recognizing the importance of thresholds and mutual equity. Sometimes to achieve a threshold capability one has to be willing to trade off ideals. People who can't adjust to reality are idealists (by definition). Such people usually let "the perfect be the enemy of the good" and are easily manipulated by trolls, agent provocateurs or demagogues.

Intentionally Dividing the Democrats

Today I discovered that Bernie followers in the "Our Revolution" movement are trolling (in real life) Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton still. I received a plug for an event whose sole purpose is to embarrass and undermine one of our activists, & in the process seek revenge for 2016. Bernie is no better than Trump. He's seeking revenge on his enemies instead of promoting our common causes. Instead of working with us moderate Democrats, they are seeking to intimidate, embarrass, defeat, supplant or destroy Us. Now given Bernie's and many of his followers relationship to RT and to the Russian I can't make up my mind whether they are Useful idiots, Kompromat or deluded. But the effect is the same, divisive:

Need Reform and Evolution not violent Revolution

I consider myself a moderate Democrat. I hold to Democratic, Common-wealth, Republican & Federal principles. All founded on basic principles of human rights, equity, social justice and individual freedom. When I think of "Revolution", I think of Jefferson's idea of electoral Revolution. He organized a coalition to defeat the Federalists who he saw as instituting tyranny. And he founded his coalition on freedom of the press, democratic clubs, education and giving the franchise to as many people as possible. His revolution was at the ballot box. Thus it comes as a surprise to me when I run into people who want to "burn it down" and destroy the establishment. We need reform and evolution, not violent revolution.

But both the far left and the far right seem motivated by the desire to "burn it down" and seem to be in league with our countries enemies to carry out that design. They think they can rebuild an idealized universe from the ashes. It won't work. If they succeed in burning our system down, what will replace it will be a kleptocratic, kakacratic oligarchic tyranny, not any idealized world. Maybe not as bad as Armageddon or a Zombie Apocalypse, but the stupidity of such a regime could lead to something nearly as ugly. In the meanwhile such leaders can destroy the opposition for a real dictator, like Trump.

Piqueteros

I wrote about Argentina's Piqueteros a long time ago, and again last year on this blog:

The Lost Piqueteros of the Radical Left

I found these people - "Piqueteros" or picketers - who lived in the streets in Argentina, were professional demonstrators. In theory they were seeking a revolution. But in practice they'd march for whoever or whatever institution (usually leftist like Macron or the left Peronistas), paid them. They would be paid by one group to damage the businesses of the other group. So as much as they wanted revolution, the word on the street is that they were thoroughly corrupt. After all,

"even a revolutionary has to eat. So vandalism and a little looting in the name of some noble sounding cause must be okay, eh?"

They reminded me of the "Occupy Wallstreet movement" that I initially cheered on, but degenerated into crowds of activists and idealists occupying parks and city squares and blocking traffic. They had promise. They identified a real issue; the 3 million Americans who own most of the property in the country and live on rents from corporate, printing money as loans, & property economic rents. But instead of working to get their policies into legislation they acted nearly exactly as those Piqueteros I met long ago. Under Bernie Sanders the "Our Revolution" is degenerating into a similar "lost Patrol." A group that marches in the desert. If they set their sights on attaining a stated objective, they either "ready aim and fire" at their allies, or turn and march back into the desert.

The delusional leaders of the "Our Revolution" seem to be turning Bernie's idealistic followers into Piqueteros!

Don't make the Perfect the Enemy of the Good

These are people who make "the perfect the enemy of the Good" and keep announcing that they are enemies of democracy and in that sense allies of the far right. We need to deal with them as if they were a cult and not slightly mislead allies. As they are as authoritarian as the Righties are.

We can do better. We can stop Trump, if we don't fall for idealization of our leaders into saints. We don't need, or want a Saint Bernard to magically save us. It's deluded. Our normal adversaries are imperfect but mostly decent human beings. Our leaders are imperfect, "flawed" human beings standing up for the virtues we share. We have to hold them accountable and vet them for office. But we should never expect them to live like monks or be saintly. Just decent.

And right now our country is facing a mortal threat in Trumpism. It has to be stopped. We have to unite to do so. We don't need a lost patrol, shooting at our backs or marching away at a critical moment.

To Read more

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-lost-piqueteros-of-radical-left.html