In a message dated 07/17/2000 1:55:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<
 Can you explain the difference?  Isn't a vanguard (say, the Leninist
 vanguard) simply a secularized version of the chosen people idea?
  >>

no. no no no no no no no no no. no.   a vanguard is not, ipso facto, elitist.
 it may be enlightened, such as the frail attempts at democracy you discuss.
it could be a vanguard of another color, such as the Reagan Vanguard, which
trumpeted freedom while doing everything in its power to diminish same.  btw,
the Leninist Vanguard probably contained a number of participants who were
surprised by what happened --especially to them.  and it does not pass
unnoticed that your choice of vanguards to hold up as an exception mirrors
the same twisty logic (in the non-chinese cultural sense) by which you always
manage to turn everything Pound says into whatever evil you choose.  you
could have, for example, chosen the democracy vanguard that was steamrollered
in Tianiman Square.

jb....