I've often described online discussions and essays as "Brain Jazz." Like a lot of modern jazz one musician (writer) riffing off another can be irritating. But when it works, when it comes together, brain jazz can be transcendent. An example coming off my RSS stream this morning is when Stuart Schneiderman of the wonderfully titled therapist's page "Had Enough Therapy" takes up Victor David Hanson's latest essay Reflections on the Revolution in America and "free associates" on Hanson's theme with Revolution or Coup d'Etat? As readers know I always try to note a new essay by Professor Hanson with a quote or a link in the sidebar. But this morning, Schneiderman takes it, as they say, up a few notches with his own insights. A sample:
As I was reading ["Reflections on the Revolution in America"], a thought popped into mind-- that, after all, is the definition of free association--- and that thought was a book: The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes.
Harvard Professor Pipes wrote a long, difficult, extensively documented tome to demonstrate that the Russian Revolution was not really a revolution. It was not about what Hanson describes as: "the abject poor and starving storming the Bastille." Not at all. According to Pipes the Russian Revolution was a coup d'etat, an overthrow of the government by a small group that arrogated all power to itself in the name of the poor and the starving.
The Russian Revolution was not an uprising of the proletariat against their capitalist masters. It was not a Hegelian rebellion of slaves against their masters. All of that is mythology, well suited for philosophy and literature classes but having little to do with reality.
In the Russian Revolution a small group that thought it knew what was best for everyone took power in the name of the working class and the peasantry.
So, where Hanson calls what is happening in Washington today a revolution, he is more clearly describing a coup d'etat. As long as we understand that a coup d'etat does not have to be violent, but can easily use the mechanisms of government to subvert the system, we have no problem grasping what is going on.That's just the lead in to a longer reflection on what to call the current "Cosa Nostra" moment unfolding in the capitol.
You might want to read Hanson's Reflections on the Revolution in America before reading Revolution or Coup d'Etat? But either way, they'll enhance your day.
Posted by Vanderleun at March 17, 2010 1:15 PM
Finally. Of course it's a coup, as I've been ranting to all within earshot for the last year and a half. How any sentient adult could characterize it as anything less is only further evidence of the deterioration of the commonweal.
I'm encouraged, somewhat, by the tardy awakening of the few to this threat, but the mealy-mouthed whining about 0bama The Bungler by the Right Wing has just about driven me around the bend.
The Evil One has only slumbered; now the battle is joined. We, you and me, won't see the end of it in this lifetime; perhaps our children won't either. But the recognition of the enemy must be repeated and echoed and hammered until there is no Leftist unscorned.
Ignorance is curable, but unforgivable; Idiocy is chronic, and must be destroyed root and branch.
Posted by: Rob De Witt at March 17, 2010 4:25 PMI've been saying "coup" since inauguration.
A lot of the time, I've been saying it here.
Nothing else explains the actions of the executive branch and the Democrat party. Nothing.
Alienate our allies. Coddle enemies. Emasculate our economy. Ignore the Constitution when not actively shredding it.
The Holder Justice Department is a fleet of black SUV's away from being Beria's NKVD.
Oh wait...
We've already got commissars. The press calls them "czars" but make no mistake about it, they are The Won's administrative apparatchiks tasked with carrying out his plan.
It is a coup. Not an administration.
Health Care is their Potemkin revolution.
Posted by: TmjUtah at March 17, 2010 7:21 PMYes, it was a coup in Russia. The Tsar had abdicated. The communists overthrew the Kerensky government by force. Most people were uninvolved and uninformed, as you would expect given the circumstances.
In complete contrast, Obama was elected and so was the Democrat Congress. That in itself is not reassuring. Most dictators are elected and then consolidate power.
My concern for over a year has been the 2010 and 2012 elections. The 2008 election has come and gone, we shouldn't worry about it. It isn't clear that a GOP Congress would improve matters anyway.
The Democrats can attempt to perpetuate themselves in office by rigging elections. They certainly control all the levers of power. The MSM will endorse anything they do.
What the Dems will do is another matter. FWIW I suspect more fraud than usual but nothing dramatic will occur.
Chuck J, is that you?
Posted by: monkeyfan at March 22, 2010 2:26 PM
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