Enemies, A Love Story

I imagine that some “conservative” supporters of the recall (and other vaunted examples of California’s penchant for direct democracy) would be quite surprised to find that their pet cause is actually a major tenet of Karl Marx’s concept of perfect socialist democracy.

In 1871 he wrote favorably about The Paris Commune in his book called The Civil War In France, particularly noting its provisions relating to recalling politicians.

He called for the establishment of radically democratic (directly participatory) form of government within which the delegates would be held acountable to their voters by the right to recall at will. He also called for frequent elections because ‘instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people … (p.289)’.

As with so many things, the modern “Republican” radicals are using their lifelong enemies’ rhetoric and tactics in service of the rich. You’ve just got to hand it to old Grover…

Update:

Vaara found a copy of Vladimir Ilyich Norquist’s key talking points for 2004.