[Marxism] Mass populace

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Zivko:

"With regards to Milosevic some 50 years later, it was precisely the 
pressures exerted upon the mass populace from the drastic loss of 
state infrastructure during the NATO bombings in 1999 that forced the 
SPS government out of office a year later."

I don't know if this is a problem of translation.  Most probably 
English is not Zivko's mother language, and it certainly is not mine.

But when I read something about the "mass populace" I feel 
uncomfortable. In Spanish this has a distinctly anti-working class, 
anti-poor bias.  "Populace" is a word of derision, of haughty looking 
upon the vulgar mass of the ignorants.

Not everything done or said by the Nazis is -per se- unworthy of 
attention.  One of them declared that whenever he heard the word 
culture, he took his hand to his pistol.  Something similar happens 
to me when I read of the toiling and oppressed masses of a country as 
"populace".

As from my experience with things Yugoslavian, which I confess to be 
quite scant though embattled, I would rather say that it was not the 
"mass populace" who abandoned the SPS, but the middle layers and the 
intelectuals, who got weary with the effort and decided that they 
would have a better future if they allowed their country to become an 
integral semicolony of the West (where they might hope to find some 
better paid job or business) than stupidly cling to old-fashioned 
nationalism against the Great Powers.

This that Zivko writes copies, only that written in past tense, the 
hopes of the United Command of Imperialists against Yugoslavia when 
they launched the massive bombings.  

But, again, maybe this is simply a problem of translation.  I hope 
so.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 



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