I think Orwell and just about anyone else at the time -- hell, even Lenin before him -- regarded the libertarian socialists, anarchocommunists, etc., as 'more' left (in those crude terms) than Communists. (I can't seem this moment to find the page the letter was on, it's a big thread.)

The major point in Homage to Catalonia's post-revolution sections was how the actual libertarian and socialist revolutionaries in Spain were undercut by the rigid and authoritarian Communists, who (in this view, and in my own view) were serving Stalin's political interests, since one of the things Stalin *never* wanted was any more successful leftist revolution which was anti-authoritarian, otherwise his argument that the USSR's way was the only way to go was absolute bunk, especially not a democratic socialist state in the middle of Europe.

The major point here being that though there are certainly huge restrictions placed by reality upon where we are and where we may proceed in the near future, there should certainly be no ridiculous locks placed upon our minds to convince us that the ultimate and highest development of humankind is to forever have economies in the hands of a comparatively few wealthy individuals and corporations.

If that is the end and highest result of human social evolution, then may some extraterrestrials make better use of our planet than we have.

I just take it as a normal fact of life that in every country, there's going to be 1/5, or 1/4, or 1/3 of the adult population that holds views which could measurably be called ultra-reactionary, even fascist.

For example, every time there really is a fascist or ultra-reactionary counter-revolution, they really do have lots of supporters, not just collaborators, but believers in the cause, at least when the whole thing starts off and it seems like a nice glorious struggle to make the country back like it used to be in their warped minds' eyes.

Pinochet's admirers are still there, as are those who think the Guatemalan army did the right thing in genocidally attempting to exterminate (with Reagan's explicit help via the CIA) the Mayan populations in the mountains and hills. And not just among the super-elites who benefited directly from their thefts and massacres, but ordinary folk, too.

(Fortunately, though, when the ultra-reactionaries and fascists start to lose, and life gets worse in the counter-revolutionized nations, magically their base of support starts to bleed away into people who claim they never really supported their more 'extreme' actions and just liked the 'tough' love the uber-hawks vowed to bring to government.)

I have long viewed our Constitutional achievements, and the growth of liberties since its signing and initial Supreme Court rulings, as exceedingly vulnerable, and not just because of the machinations of anti-Constitutional, democracy-hating gangs of thugs such Reagan I and now Reagan II (Bush Jr.) Republicans.

The formal inclusion of the freedom of speech and of the press in the Constitution in no way stopped people from being arrested for what they spoke or published -- that too was a right that was granted first and mainly to powerful elites, and regular people had to fight tooth and nail to make such a protection real. It wasn't so long ago that the US government and the Supreme Court decided it had all necessary authority to silence Socialists from publishing that soldiers should refuse to fight in World War 1.

I'm quite sure that if you were to take the Bill of Rights and put it to a vote, there would be a sizable minority, and *maybe* even a majority, of Americans who would vote against them -- especially if they weren't told that these were already existing Constitutional Rights.

That isn't to say that those ordinary and extraordinary folks who struggled and fought for the independence of this nation didn't support those values, just that there's always a fraction who either oppose individual rights and restraints on government authority or don't care much one way or another, thinking the 'real' problems are elsewhere.

Interestingly, I believe that the cure for this problem is not less democracy, but more, and more in which people are involved in not just decision-making but are involved in the matters being decided, so that to as direct a level as possible, people are involved in the very decisions which will affect them.