Karl Marx in his Eighteenth Brumaire wrote that those trying to master a new language always begin by translating it back into the tongue they already know. And I was limiting myself (and ill-serving my readers) in using the pre-existing imagery of Stalinism and Eastern deference. I have recently donned the bifocals provided by B.R. Myers in his electrifying new book The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, and I understand now that I got the picture either upside down or inside out. The whole idea of communism is dead in North Korea, and its most recent "Constitution," "ratified" last April, has dropped all mention of the word. The analogies to Confucianism are glib, and such parallels with it as can be drawn are intended by the regime only for the consumption of outsiders. Myers makes a persuasive case that we should instead regard the Kim Jong-il system as a phenomenon of the very extreme and pathological right. It is based on totalitarian "military first" mobilization, is maintained by slave labor, and instills an ideology of the most unapologetic racism and xenophobia.
Get it? They are racist and nationalistic, therefore not socialist, which means of course that they are actually right-wing--you know, like the Tea Party people...
I frankly get a little surprised when apparently smart guys like Hitchens seem to get lost in clearly irrelevant and misleading terms like right-wing, left-wing. Let me provide some examples:
Democrats have engineered a permanent black underclass to create a self-perpetuating captive constituency. Martin Luther King, whose national holiday we just celebrated, wanted his children judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Democrats shook their heads and gave us affirmative action, thus enshrining the symbolism of racial equality while insuring a perpetuation of a stratified, racist society. Does this make Democrats right-wing? Well, yes, according to the strict definitions Brian Myers and eyelash-batting Christopher Hitchen are using.
Currently, the hottest politician in the nation is Sarah Palin, whose popularity stems from the identification ordinary Americans have for this anti-elitist mother of five, who attended an run-of-the-mill university rather than an ivy-league institution, and speaks a distinct provincial dialect. She is the ideal of a classless society, all men and women created equal. Taxonomically left-wing, as strange as that may seem.
The terms right and left wing actually come down to us from the French revolution, where supporters of the ancien regime were seated on the right while Republicans were seated on the left. Anyone familiar with the history of the French revolution will be aware of the increasing radicalization of the Republicans culminating in the the reign of terror by the left-wing Jacobins. I suppose some academic will have to set us straight on that--revising history so the Jacobins can be kissing cousins of 'extreme right-wing' Tea Party people.
No one should be too surprised. Red was always the color of the left, until U.S. networks decided to flip the political color scheme and make Republican states red states. In the early twentieth century, Democrats referred to themselves as Progressives until the term became so loaded with infamy that the simply traded it in for "liberal". Then they stunk up the liberal label so badly, they went back to 'progressive' figuring that not too many people are still around who remember Woodrow Wilson. I suspect they'll be needing a new label before long.
The language may be confusing--purposefully so, but no one is really confused. Democrats are elitist, anti-democratic, racists who use military aircraft to shuttle their grandchildren back and forth between San Francisco and Washington. Republicans drive trucks and wear barn coats, eat sloppy Joes and think NASCAR is cool, Jesus can save their souls and less government makes for a better country.
I know which side I think better reflects Liberte, Fraternite et Eqalite.
