The Milovan Djilas of our generation
Back in 1957, Yugoslav Communist Milovan Djilas wrote a scorching indictment of the Communist system, The New Class
, which asserted that the "revolution of the proletariat" had only served to replace monarchies and autocracies with bureaucracies, and to the detriment of the workers and peasants, at that. For this insight, Djilas (who was already languishing in prison for previous criticisms of Communism) had his sentence extended for another seven years.
Angelo Codevilla does not live in the Yugoslavia of Tito's time, and until Steven Breyer and his cronies get around to further mangling the First Amendment, he's unlikely to be spending any time in jail for his analysis of America's current political situation. Codevilla's article argues that the divide in America today is not so much between Republicans and Democrats, but between the Ruling Party and the Country Party. This may seem similar to Milton Rakove
's cynical observation that there are really only two parties in America, the Ins and the Outs, but Codevilla's analysis reminds me much more of Djilas' book, perhaps because after seven decades of memetic warfare, the Federal government has become a gigantic bureaucracy, currently being manipulated by the President and his cronies in exactly the same manner Daley the Younger manipulated Cook County and the City of Chicago - and in exactly the same way the leaders of the CPSU manipulated the state apparat for the benefit of the New Class in the USSR. Except, of course, for the lack of a KGB in America, but what need for the secret police, the GULAG, and the psikuska when one has eminent domain, corrupt militarized police forces and no-knock warrantless drug raids? November 2012 can't come soon enough for me.
In the meantime, I recommend the book version of Professor Codevilla's essay, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It
, now only $9 and change at Amazon; if you have the Kindle, The Ruling Class
can be had for a mere $5.59 with immediate delivery. Don't have a Kindle? Get one now
.
, which asserted that the "revolution of the proletariat" had only served to replace monarchies and autocracies with bureaucracies, and to the detriment of the workers and peasants, at that. For this insight, Djilas (who was already languishing in prison for previous criticisms of Communism) had his sentence extended for another seven years.
Angelo Codevilla does not live in the Yugoslavia of Tito's time, and until Steven Breyer and his cronies get around to further mangling the First Amendment, he's unlikely to be spending any time in jail for his analysis of America's current political situation. Codevilla's article argues that the divide in America today is not so much between Republicans and Democrats, but between the Ruling Party and the Country Party. This may seem similar to Milton Rakove
's cynical observation that there are really only two parties in America, the Ins and the Outs, but Codevilla's analysis reminds me much more of Djilas' book, perhaps because after seven decades of memetic warfare, the Federal government has become a gigantic bureaucracy, currently being manipulated by the President and his cronies in exactly the same manner Daley the Younger manipulated Cook County and the City of Chicago - and in exactly the same way the leaders of the CPSU manipulated the state apparat for the benefit of the New Class in the USSR. Except, of course, for the lack of a KGB in America, but what need for the secret police, the GULAG, and the psikuska when one has eminent domain, corrupt militarized police forces and no-knock warrantless drug raids? November 2012 can't come soon enough for me.
In the meantime, I recommend the book version of Professor Codevilla's essay, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It
, now only $9 and change at Amazon; if you have the Kindle, The Ruling Class
can be had for a mere $5.59 with immediate delivery. Don't have a Kindle? Get one now
.