Uh, Rahm? Interesting antecedent
I’m a promiscuous man when it comes to reading, which is how I happened upon the Web site of a monthly literary magazine and found this review of a book about the temporary opening of the Soviet archives. In the review was a mention of a document from Vladimir Lenin, in which he exhorted fellow Bolsheviks to take advantage of widespread famine in their war on the Russian Orthodox Church:
It is precisely now and only now when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most savage and merciless energy.
Sound familiar? Here’s an echo of that philosophy from White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who recently explained the need to take advantage of our current economic woes:
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before. … The good news, I suppose, if you want to see a silver lining, is that the problems are big enough that they lend themselves to ideas from both parties for the solution.
Let me hasten to say that I don’t mean to suggest that Lenin and Emanuel are equivalents in evil. They’re not, obviously. Emanuel works within a democratic, two-party system (albeit a tad reluctantly, it seems; see “I suppose” above). Lenin led a movement whose starting point was that widespread murder was a legitimate state response to dissent. But it’s curious that both had essentially the same response to profound turmoil — which is to say, both saw a problem not just as something to be fixed, but as something to be capitalized upon.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 am
What’s your point?
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:01 am
C’mon, Dan — a cheap parlor trick unworthy of your stature and skills. Big crisis equals big moment in history and actions both good and evil can be committed in reaction to same.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
“Let me hasten to say that I don’t mean to suggest that Lenin and Emanuel are equivalents in evil.”
Um, I don’t mean to suggest that a writer of your caliber couldn’t have found a less ‘evil’ personification of Emmanuel’s statement…or a slightly more equitable analogy.
It’s just that the comparison was politically and journalistically lame.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:12 am
It seems that some WAW readers are tender souls who can’t abide the sight of a politician being treated snarkily. I can only imagine the anguish they felt every time they came across the “Bushitler” reference to the previous president.
My apologies for adding to their pain.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
Gearino, thanks for pointing this out. Same process just less bloodshed. I hope.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Stretching a bit there, aren’t you Dan?
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:35 am
Dan, this tender soul can’t abide the sight of you making such a snarky ass of yourself. Reread Emanuel’s quote. He doesn’t say his party should take partisan advantage of the situation, but that “the problems are big enough that they lend themselves to ideas from both parties for the solution.” He’s actually saying the opposite of what Lenin said.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm
My mom used to always say stuff like that. It was really annoying. I just never recognized it as bolshevism.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Can we all agree that it was pretty ‘lame’ for Mr. Emanuel to make that statement in the first place while so many people were paralized with fear, and open himself up to these slings and arrows?
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
no. can you explain why you think it was ‘lame’ to say it is an opportunity for both parties to work together towards a solution?
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:08 pm
No one agrees with you GD? Always nice to be first. A fresh bold slice of reality indeed!
“Let me hasten to say that I” … “mean to suggest that Lenin and Emanuel are equivalents in evil.” Upseting? Undoubtedly. True? Even more so. Don’t believe me? File it away and read it again too years from now. Prophetic? Positively not. Any honest student of history would recognize as much. We are in for some difficult times people.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Couple of things leap to mind — that ‘both parties work together’ was Rahm trying to take the foot out of his mouth. Unsuccessfully, methinks. Dan — I recognize you’re being a snarky ass. I just expect higher-grade snark. And Bushitler isn’t clever, has no cha-cha and you can’t dance to it.
March 24th, 2009 at 9:33 am
that one explanation which leaped to your mind is unsuccessful. try taking the foot out of your mouth.
March 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
This was a real stretch, with no point, as far as I can see. Enjoyed reading your blog up til now. Since I am also a promiscuous reader, I guess I’ll go in search of someone a little more insightful to read now.