{"id":9729,"date":"2011-06-09T09:09:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-09T13:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=9729"},"modified":"2017-09-25T22:00:09","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T02:00:09","slug":"those-ungrateful-peasants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/06\/09\/those-ungrateful-peasants\/","title":{"rendered":"Those ungrateful peasants"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had wondered about the origins of that bit of verse<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I asked if people were perhaps not tricked, but legitimately voting against the left because they objected to socialist policies such a massive spending and multiculturalism.<\/p>\n

He responded that these issues were indeed difficult for \u2018common people\u2019 to comprehend, and therefore for the right to take advantage of. He reiterated however that the problem was not with the policies, it was that people did not \u2018understand\u2019.<\/p>\n

This was a revealing statement, for it is a typical line of thinking across the left-wing political spectrum, from the most hardened communist to the most moderate social-democrat. While all leftists claim to be for the \u2018people\u2019, at the same time they have utter contempt for the people.<\/p>\n

They believe they know what is best for the people, and if the people — uppity ungrateful peasants — object, then the people be damned.<\/p>\n

Bertolt Brecht — ironically himself a dedicated Marxist — poked fun at this leftist mentality in a now famous poem, Die L\u00f6sung<\/em> (The Solution), following a workers uprising against the Communist East German government in 1956.<\/p>\n

    After the uprising of the 17th of June
\n    The Secretary of the Writers Union
\n    Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee<\/em>
\n    Stating that the people
\n    Had forfeited the confidence of the government
\n    And could win it back only
\n    By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
\n    In that case for the government
\n    To dissolve the people
\n    And elect another?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had wondered about the origins of that bit of verse: I asked if people were perhaps not tricked, but legitimately voting against the left because they objected to socialist policies such a massive spending and multiculturalism. He responded that these issues were indeed difficult for \u2018common people\u2019 to comprehend, and therefore for the right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1118,84,57],"tags":[337,651,592,76],"class_list":["post-9729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-germany","category-government","category-humour","tag-eu","tag-multiculturalism","tag-poetry","tag-socialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-2wV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9730,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9729\/revisions\/9730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}