LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksCalm down. This is politics.ie and not the UN General Assembly. Also, this isn't an uber serious thread. lol, at least not if I have anything to do with itOriginally Posted by nineteensixtyseven
Calm down. This is politics.ie and not the UN General Assembly. Also, this isn't an uber serious thread. lol, at least not if I have anything to do with it
"Unless you are an absolute pacifist, then you acknowledge that there are times when taking up arms is appropriate."
- cactusflower
On another note; the New Statesman 1968 anniversary edition is out and it is very good. Hobsbawm, Chomsky and Tony Benn contribute to parts.
Soviet tanks crushed the 1968 movement in Paris and Frankfurt and Berkeley? News to me.
The revolt in Prague was against Marxist totalitarianism. The western student movement was led by trots and Maoists and other devotees of the same totalitarianism.
Soviet tanks crushed the 1968 movement in Paris and Frankfurt and Berkeley? News to me.
Cohn-Bendit is an ******************************************. He's done more damage to France than any other German, even including Hitler. Up until May 1968 France was a successful country under President DeGaulle. In those days the French were relatively religious and were renowned for hard work, enterprise, social conservatism, adherence to traditional catholic family values, and so on. In May 1968, all these were overthrown. In came the belief that religion was bad, that capitalism was bad, that a country didn't need its people to do any work to beome prosperous, that life could be one long holiday, that the traditional family was past its sell-by date, and so on. Since May 1968 France has been going down, down, down, and still further down, both economically and socially. Sarkozy has promised to cut out the cancer that started in May 1968, in fact that is why he was elected, but I fear its too late. Thank God, Ireland never had a Cohn-Bendit.
I never said anything about Soviet tanks in anywhere other than Prague but there was certainly opposition to the 68ers from the Stalinist-linked Communist Parties in the West.
Soviet tanks crushed the 1968 movement in Paris and Frankfurt and Berkeley? News to me.
The revolt in Prague was against Marxist totalitarianism. The western student movement was led by trots and Maoists and other devotees of the same totalitarianism.
Your second point represents a simplistic and narrow analysis of les événements; they were not as strictly ideological as you suggest; they railed against the illusion of western democracy and the tyranny of Soviet totalitarianism rather than for a similar hierarchical social order; the intellectual influences were not as much Maoist in most cases as Situationist, Anarchist etc (Guy Debord, Regis Debray). Even the slogans of the soixante-huitards will give you an insight into the often conflicting but usually libertarian aims. To be Left is not necessarily to be totalitarian and to argue otherwise is a fundamental misunderstanding or a deliberate disingenuousness.
That maybe exaggerates his role in events. French colleges were in an absolute state at that point, students felt stifled and society was maybe less...indulgent...to youth than it is today. There was a lot of agitation against the ancien regime, such as it was. Imagine being a young adult, nearly in the 1970s and seeing De Gaulle still in charge. Like a French DeValera, they'd have been forgiven for wondering if any other generation - theirs included - would be able to rise the top.
"Unless you are an absolute pacifist, then you acknowledge that there are times when taking up arms is appropriate."
- cactusflower
That represents a simplistic and narrow analysis of les événements; they were not as strictly ideological as you suggest; they railed against the illusion of western democracy and the tyranny of Soviet totalitarianism rather than for a similar hierarchical social order; the intellectual influences were not as much Maoist in most cases as Situationist, Anarchist etc (Guy Debord, Regis Debray). Even the slogans of the soixante-huitards will give you an insight into the often conflicting but usually libertarian aims. To be Left is not necessarily to be totalitarian and to argue otherwise is a fundamental misunderstanding or a deliberate disingenuousness.
Soviet tanks crushed the 1968 movement in Paris and Frankfurt and Berkeley? News to me.
The revolt in Prague was against Marxist totalitarianism. The western student movement was led by trots and Maoists and other devotees of the same totalitarianism.
Well the Czechs would have been quite happy with that illusion. If it had been an illusion the likes of Cohn would have been arrested, tortured, executed or sent to labour camps.
Interestingly, there was a similar 'libertarian' ethos in Moscow and Petrograd in the early years of the Russian revolution and we all know where that ended.
Daniel often pisses off many greens, he's rarely representative of the standard green view and has swung remarkably to the right since 68; now he's considered the leader of the liberal right of the European Greens. Although he is co spokesperson of the Green Group, he is often controversial and the irish Green party have often had problems with some of his public pronouncements :/
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith
Economic Left/Right:-8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian:-6.97
Most Irish Greens have, however, followed him in abjectly surrendering to the European super state. For reasons still unexplained.
Reply With Quote