Newt-Marx-Lenin: Really?

[6155GUASTELL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

John, Since you asked directly... I found your analogy between Gingrich,
Lenin and Marx hard to follow.

By anything *I* can see, the only analogy there is between Gingrich and
Lenin are their proclivities toward authoritarianism. Their substances
are very different. Lenin had a quasi-Marxist-socialist agenda. Gingrich
is a corporatist.

The liberalism theme, as I remember it, was very hard to follow. Gingrich's
views bear no relationship to the use of the word in any contemporary
North American political or economic lexicon. Perhaps the European use
of "liberal" is more appropriate, meaning that he prefers that business
interests have free reign to run amuk, and that the power of the people
to control them should be strenuously halted.

But even trying to make these comparisons give Mr G too much credit.
He's no Lenin, no Marx, no Keynes. In other words, an intellectual nobody.
His "revolution" is a cream puff war orchestrated by a coalition of
religious types bent on a theocratic government and another bunch who
were ticked out about having their assault rifles taken away. The
1994 power transition represented a power shift of only 5%, albeit a
critical 5%, of governmental seats; this is an amount no greater than
the power transition of any off-cycle election.

--Stephen Guastello