I’ve read this post by HTML Mencken three times very carefully, and I still can’t figure out what his deal is. Leaving aside that he undermines his commitment to fighting racism by using the words “hobbyhorse” and “pet cause”—minimizing language, by any measure, only used to insinuate that the cause at hand is not, in fact, important—he does testily admit that racism is serious shit, but just suggests that the war in Iraq is a more important cause right now. Fighting the war and fighting racism are somehow in conflict? asks the usually intelligent but confused human being. Isn’t racism a primary cause of war-mongering? Isn’t the vast majority of energy left for this imperialist cause coming from screeching Muslim haters, now that every other remotely rational person has exited stage left?
Mostly true, but now that Ron Paul has joined the race, we should apparently soft-pedal his association with white supremacists because Ron Paul is against the war, and we need more people on the right opening up to the possibility of voting Republican and being against the war. Also, there’s the potential of Paul splitting the ticket somehow, or taking on a 3rd party run that splits the vote. Fair enough; HTML Mencken is not suggesting that Paul is anything but a slimy piece of shit who just happens to be against the war. The idea, I think, is to shove a sock in it about Paul’s associations with hate groups, neglect to point out that his political platform is straight of a skinhead/militia playbook of conspiracy theories about Jews running the world, and let moderate, anti-war Republicans think Paul’s the guy for them. It’s a tempting argument, but I’m not buying it.
My main problem with the argument is that it’s narrow and short-sighted. From a political angle, we shouldn’t be focusing our energies on giving the moderate Republicans an out from the war, but in fact looking to recruit them to the Democratic party. Period. This entire Bush debacle and the fact that Republicans are so firmly behind him is souring moderate conservatives left and right on the Republican party, and they’re ready to hear about why the party switch is right for them. And it is. Most moderate conservatives are actually “liberals” in our lexicon that’s been shoved so far to the right, and they belong with the Democrats anyway. Letting Ron Paul play the moderate, anti-war conservative continues the myth that such a beast really exists anymore, but pointing out that he’s a crank who runs with people whose main opposition to the war is their sense that Jews are getting away with something hastens the demise of the myth of the moderate conservative. Pointing out that Paul is a kook reinforces the message: If you vote Republican, your choices are crazy people or imperialists out to maximize corporate profits, even if the price is paid in the blood hundreds of thousands (and over a million if we move on Iran) of people.
From what I can tell, Paul’s supporters are a weird mix of white supremacists, kooks who use the misleading label “libertarian”, and naive people who like the idea of legalizing weed and stopping the war. This is what we need to happen with these three groups: The first needs to be completely marginalized, without any influence at all over major party candidates. The second isn’t going anywhere, but they’re really just Republicans with particularly acute masculine anxiety issues and will probably vote for Giuliani anyway. The third need to sack up, grow a brain and vote for the Democrats. We can’t get Paul to drop out, but we can help get these three results by making it utterly clear that Paul is crazy and runs with some really ugly racists.
If your main “hobbyhorse” or “pet cause” is the halt of war-mongering—and I’m with you on this one—it’s important to think long term, as well. It’s not just about stopping this war, but also about preventing future ones, and dismantling the power of racism is absolutely essential and non-negotiable in this cause. Few things help fuel the march to war like racism. I’d say that it was one of the top three things that helped fuel the march to war on Iraq—call it the “all Muslims are the same, anyway” belief that made it possible for Bush to equate secular Saddam Hussein with fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden. The amount of power that white supremacists have in our society has a strong effect on overall racist sentiment in two major ways. First, they crank out myths and stereotypes that feed racism once they get watered down and mainstreamed. (Look at their huge role in whipping up anti-immigration sentiment.) Second of all, as long as we have prominent white supremacists, everyday moderate racists can get away with feeling that they’re not so bad, because they aren’t shaving their heads and waving Nazi flags around. Disempowering white supremacists may not seem in the microcosm to be a part of the anti-war movement, but from a big picture angle, it’s critical. And unless we’re willing to be big picture, we’re not going to address the underlying social reasons that war-mongering is so effective in our society, and imperialist wars will still be a strong possibility in the future.
With that in mind, I think that this post by Dave should be made into a pamphlet for people to carry around. Paul’s supporters are big on hitting the streets and accosting people—again, one reason I think it’s being fueled by a lot of political naivete, especially since a lot of the ones I see have a strong stoner vibe to them, and they may have even never voted before—so they’d be perfect for handing off a two-page pamphlet about how they’ve been lured into throwing in with neo-Nazis. Information that’s important to highlight:
Virtually every far-right entity — neo-Nazis, white supremacists, militias, constitutionalists, Minutemen, nativists, you name it — that I’ve been monitoring for the past decade or more is lining up behind Paul. I’ve checked with other human-rights observers, and they’re seeing the same thing. Ron Paul, rather quietly and under the radar, has managed to unite nearly the entire radical right behind him…..
The skins’ reasons for opposing the war are, in fact, wholly different from those of the much larger antiwar left, who are opposed largely on humanitarian grounds; the far right, however, opposes the war because it’s perceived to be fought on behalf of Israel and the Jews — which is why, when you hear them talk about “neocons”, you know that they are in fact using it as a code word for “Jew.”.
And how Paul himself hasn’t stumbled into this association by accident:
These are the first two pages of a 35-page mini-book that Ron Paul published in 1988 titled “World Money, World Banking, and World Government: A Special Report from the Ron Paul Investment Letter”. It looks at the “threat” of the Trilateral Commission and the “European Currency Unit”, which happened to be the far right’s big bogeyman of the time. (Ever notice how their dire warnings of imminent doom never quite pan out? Of course, Ron Paul also has a long history of associating with one of the preeminent promoters of the most spectacular case of right-conspiracy failure, namely, the Y2K hysteria: Gary North.)
And it’s not as though he’s changed a lot. Just three years ago, he gave a long, rambling interview to Conspiracy Planet discussing the “New World Order,” which included (among many gems) the following exchange at the open:
First question: do you believe there are secret forces at work that are attempting to dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?Ron Paul: I don’t know what the best word is, but secret is pretty good. They’re certainly not known to a lot of people; it’s actually what their doing. But then again, it’s not absolute secrecy. If you look around you can usually get the information. There was a time when nobody even knew who was a member of the CFR or the Trilateral Commission. I think it’s a bad sign that they’re not as secret as they used to be. They’re bolder now. But there is an agenda.
The anti-war left needs to distance ourselves from these kooks if we’re serious about bringing the peace. This unsubtle anti-Semitic conspiracy theories only feed the pointless discourse about whether or not Israel has a right to exist, and that point of contention is the source of much of the grief that feeds Middle East hostilities. Until it’s well-understood around the globe that Israel isn’t going anywhere and policy has to proceed with that fact in mind, peace will be stymied, and there will be paranoia in Israel that will help feed the right’s power. In general, this is a rule of thumb—just because right wing crazies are nominally anti-war at any point in time doesn’t mean they’re actually anti-war in the global sense. They keep feeding hostility, racism, and paranoia into the machine, and it comes out as violence on the other side.
121 Responses to “Do it to stop war, then”
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No Republican candidate has no higher than a 20% rating from the NAACP. So, that alone should make our votes a whole lot easier.
Oops, that should read “No Republican candidate has any higher than a 20% rating from the NAACP on the issues.” Sorry for the typo.
Sorry, I disagree that we want “moderate” conservatives in the Democratic coalition.
We have enough Blue Dogs and Bush Dogs and Hoyers and Feinsteins and others that we couldn’t get (just as one example) a trans inclusive ENDA. Having a more ideologically divided caucus would just make it worse.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have honest to god moderates in the caucus, of course. But moderate conservatives either belong with the Republicans (and get dragged down by the Republican brand and should be continually asked to apologize for the wackos) or should change their minds on the conservative part.
Ron Paul seems to have united the ill-informed-conspiracy-theorist contingents from both right and left. It’s rare that one sees the “Trilateral Commission is sending messages in our money!” and the “Loose Change” crowd united on anything, but they seem to be behind Representative Paul.
You know who else voted against the war? Dennis Kucinich. Why doesn’t HTML Mencken promote Kucinich, rather than suggesting that people censor themselves about Paul’s crazy theocratic tendencies, racism, and general ickiness?
I disagree with you on quite a few things, but you’re spot on with this post.
I accept it’s going no-where, but I don’t think it should exist.
Bugger, I thought that was the subject field. The first line should have been
“Oh, apart from the bit about the right of Israel to exist. ”
Obviously the state and nation of Israel are different things. When I say exist, I mean exist in that particular spot. Recall that there were plenty of other candidate locations.
“First question: do you believe there are secret forces at work that are attempting to dismantle the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Ron Paul: I don’t know what the best word is, but secret is pretty good. They’re certainly not known to a lot of people; it’s actually what their doing. But then again, it’s not absolute secrecy. If you look around you can usually get the information. There was a time when nobody even knew who was a member of the CFR or the Trilateral Commission. I think it’s a bad sign that they’re not as secret as they used to be. They’re bolder now. But there is an agenda.”
Fascinating that they’re all worried about the dark, evil, and “secret” forces of the”CFR” and the “Trilateral Commission” (I’m surprised he didn’t mention ZOG) destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Cheney and Bush are destroying them right in front of all of us and no one seems to care, least of all the jack-booted skinhead neo-nazi jerkoffs who think Ron Paul is The Man…
HTML is not promoting Ron Paul. He’s agreeing with Glenn Greenwald (who is also not promoting Ron Paul…though comes a good deal closer to doing so than HTML) in his disagreement with David Neiwart (the best jumping off point for this discussion is here). There’s a lot going on here (as in many serious political discussions) but it boils down to how each of them answers the question: Is Ron Paul less bad than the other GOP candidates? Greenwald (and HTML) say “yes, much less bad.” Neiwart says “Paul’s actually much worse.” Dennis Kucinich isn’t particularly relevant to this discussion, though Greenwald has posted a video of Paul saying nice things about him, for whatever that’s worth.
Probably the most interesting thing I’ve seen written about this whole discussion is a comment by mcc on Orcinus (Neiwart’s blog) that Greenwald linked to:
Amanda’s absolutely right about this. Dave Neiwert’s work is really invaluable, and I wish I had enough fortitude to keep up with it.
I’m not sure exactly what role the Trilateral Commission plays in modern conspiracy theories (it’s some kind of governing body, I think), but it’s worth noting that such an organization did exist as a talking shop in the early 1970s. It included several people who went on to become part of the Carter administration (Brown, Vance, Brezinski), and a bunch of other mucky-mucks.
It commissioned a bunch of reports, of which “Crisis of Democracy”, published by NYU Press in 1975, is probably the most interesting one. The topic is the social and political upheavals of the 1960s in the trilateral areas (U.S., Europe, Japan), the crisis is that there was too much democracy. The U.S. part is written by Samuel Huntington (who would become the “Clash of Civilizations” guy) and is really explicit about what these people think was happening and what needed to be done about it: too much power in the hands of the electorate (”key categorical groups” of various “economic, regional, ethnic, racial and religious” backgrounds, p. 96), which needs to be returned to the hands of the governors (”key individuals and groups in the Executive Office, the federal bureaucracy, Congress, and the more important businesses, banks, law firms, foundations, and media”, p. 97).
End of rant.
I wonder if Chris Dodd is eliciting one-onethousandth of the interest from Republican-leaning blogs. Because I think they both have a similar level of support in their respective polls, fundraising aside.
Of course, with as many absolute non-entities actually leading or near the top of the pack, I can understand the interest with our own local kook. He might have even been my Congressman in the early 80s.
If he goes third party, then I’ll wake up and will gladly encourage gold standard, anti-war Republicans to defect.
The war is only a symptom of what is wrong with the right. At a very basic level, their epistemology is screwed up. At a slightly less basic level, they don’t understand the Constitution, and they hold false beliefs about race and gender.
Somebody like Ron Paul, or for that matter, Pat Buchanan may seem superficially attractive these days becasue they oppose the war. That doesn’t matter, though, because their thinking is so screwed up at a fundamental level that if we were to entrust them with the presidency, we’d have far worse problems than the war.
I tried quoting at length a comment by mcc on Orcinus, and linked to by Glenn Greenwald, that I think is the best thing I’ve read about this whole controversy, but my comment seems to have disappeared (or it’s caught up in moderation). So here’s a smaller excerpt:
Choose between stopping racism and stopping the war (which is itself racist in many ways)?
Both/and, folks. Both/and.
And why the hell won’t the major media outlets pay any attention to Kucinich? Okay, the man looks like an elf, but to paraphrase him, do we want a man who has consistently voted against the war, or do we want a president who is tall?
Somebody like Ron Paul, or for that matter, Pat Buchanan may seem superficially attractive these days becasue they oppose the war. That doesn’t matter, though, because their thinking is so screwed up at a fundamental level that if we were to entrust them with the presidency, we’d have far worse problems than the war.
This is absolutely true.
However, let’s not underestimate what big problems the war and the national security state are, nor how much the Democrats’ thinking on these issues is also fundamentally screwed up.
Which is kind of the point of mcc’s comment that I quoted above. I agree that the the entire Paul package ultimately makes him not just unattractive, but positively dangerous. But the fact that Paul can make himself out to be attractive to so many on the antiwar left is a deep indictment of the current crop of Democrats, especially given Paul’s other stands.
Congressman Paul is using a clever adaptation of the play that has us “debating” gay marriage and evolution as qualifications for our next president. Exactly right that he’s baiting his hook with a position that is interesting and important. Exactly right, too, that swallowing that bait lands us in either frying pan or fire.
I’d say someone’s been spiking HTML Mencken’s punch, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen this “hobbyhorse” or “pet cause” argument from him.
Oh, look, is that the bus coming?
The thought of Ron Paul stacking enough “Originalist” judges in the court to declare virtually any liberal federal program or regulation to be unconstitutional is enough to make me think he’s the second most dangerous person on the US presidential race, after Rudy Guliani.
That said, I think more important that the US presidency is electing more and better Democratic party members to Congress: kick out the Bush Dog Dems and bring in anout to create veto-proof majorities in the house and senate. Short of declaring themselves God Emperor of Jesustan, it would make even Guliani largely a lame duck.
I’m leaning heavily towards Chris Dodd myself these days, although I will vote any D candidate (yes, even Clinton) in the primary.
But Paul isn’t the only anti-war candidate! Kucinich also voted against the war.
I hate hate hate the “Only Paul is anti-war” mantra. Any liberal who wants to support an anti-war candidate should support Kucinich. Sure, he’s not going to win, but neither is Paul.
Quite apart from my hatred for “single-issue” voting, the idea that anti-war people should support Paul, but not Kucinich, because of this, is GAH SO INFURIATING!
Anyone willing to start a pool on how long it’ll take before Paulbots start coming in defending the little hatemonger?
Kucinich is also anti-war and pro-legalization (or at least decriminalization) of marijuana. Why isn’t his marketing as good? He should appeal as much or more to the “young stoner who’s never voted in an election before” demographic, but for some reason he’s not. I mostly fit into that little box, and he’s far and away my favorite candidate (and would be even if he hadn’t said that thing about UFOs, which only solidified my support).
Given that race was one of HLMenken’s hobbyhorses, I’d say that it’s wierd for HTMLMencken to dismiss the topic.
The man definitly had a wierd attitude about black people, but he apparently despised racist dismissal of talent, and encouraged aspiring black writers.
Thank you! And thank you to everyone else in the comments who has echoed this. Kucinich is against the Iraq war, against the destruction of our liberties, against the War on Drugs, and has a very progressive agenda to boot.
If the only reason you support Ron Paul is because he’s against the Iraq War and against the Patriot Act, etc. and you’re not a paleo-con or right-libertarian… then you should pretty much be supporting Kucinich or one or two other Dems (none of the mainstream candidates, unfortunately).
Having had the exhausting and unrewarding experience of participating in the comments to the post, I have to say that I can’t figure out what his deal is either.
He claims to not be a Ron Paul supporter, nor that he’s not trying to get the rest of us to support Ron Paul in any way, and yet he becomes incandescent with rage the moment one hints that ignoring the anti-war Dems in order to fall behind a white supremacist kook is not the best way to achieve moral and political strength for the anti-war movement as a whole, nor is it going to attract the support of people of color.
I suspect, truly, that he’s on his way to becoming a Republican. He shares far more in common with them in terms of social cues, the ideas he holds about PoC participation when he doesn’t get to dictate the terms, etc. As Zuzu notes, he throws around the same marginalizing terms whenever he meets an idea outside his fairly narrow range of comfort. It’s a hilariously ironic twist that, in an inversion of what’s usually assumed about the so-called “PC Brigade”, the Sadly, Nosians are especially prickly and prone to take offense when it’s suggested that maybe their brand of humour isn’t all that funny or that their ideas are just the slightest bit off.
A person can go from an ally to enemy in seconds, as Chris Clarke did when he published his excellent Resignation: An Open Letter to the Progressive Blogosphere.
Ultimately, the tendency to groupthink gets tiresome. It’s a dysfunctional “community” dynamic, where the people on the inside reap the psychological rewards, and they make very clear the boundaries of acceptable discourse through ostracization of the dissidents. The way that commenters who probably had never read anything on Chris Clarke’s exceptional blog piled on him over his open letter was quite shocking to me.
I can’t tell if my comment just got caught in a spamcatcher or if I input the spam-defeating numbers incorrectly. If this shows up as a double-post, my apologies.
Having had the exhausting and unrewarding experience of participating in the comments to the post, I have to say that I can’t figure out what his deal is either.
He claims to not be a Ron Paul supporter, nor that he’s not trying to get the rest of us to support Ron Paul in any way, and yet he becomes incandescent with rage the moment one hints that ignoring the anti-war Dems in order to fall behind a white supremacist kook is not the best way to achieve moral and political strength for the anti-war movement as a whole, nor is it going to attract the support of people of color.
I suspect, truly, that he’s on his way to becoming a Republican. He shares far more in common with them in terms of social cues, the ideas he holds about PoC participation when he doesn’t get to dictate the terms, etc. As Zuzu notes, he throws around the same marginalizing terms whenever he meets an idea outside his fairly narrow range of comfort. It’s a hilariously ironic twist that, in an inversion of what’s usually assumed about the so-called “PC Brigade”, the Sadly, Nosians are especially prickly and prone to take offense when it’s suggested that maybe their brand of humour isn’t all that funny or that their ideas are just the slightest bit off.
A person can go from an ally to enemy in seconds, as Chris Clarke did when he published his Resignation: An Open Letter to the Progressive Blogosphere.
Ultimately, the tendency to groupthink gets tiresome. It’s a dysfunctional “community” dynamic, where the people on the inside reap the psychological rewards, and they make very clear the boundaries of acceptable discourse through ostracization of the dissidents. The way that commenters who probably had never read anything on Chris Clarke’s exceptional blog piled on him over his open letter was quite shocking to me.
HTML isn’t supporting Ron Paul, by any stretch. He’s just reacting to those on the left who are pointing out Paul’s association with white supremacists, because if Paul is outed as a kook, it could reduce the anti-war momentum on the right. That’s the argument, at least, but I’m not buying it.
Okay, now I think I’ve got the hang of this system.
Perhaps its my bias of thinking about politics in terms of practical action, but I read his original post as saying that we should encourage wingnut acquaintances to vote for Paul—that we were to attempt to generate that same anti-war momentum on the right.
Eventually, he phrased at as simply wishing that they’d vote for Paul, which I (admittedly cheekily) called the first convergence of the power of positive thought and politics since anti-war protestors tried to levitate the Pentagon. I think they’ll be about as successful in both cases.
I agree, and argued there, that any anti-war conservatives who still think it’s worth their effort to vote should be directed the Democratic party, because we certainly need help in wresting the nomination from the presumptive favourites, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, neither of whom are viable anti-war candidates at this point. I don’t think that pointing out how Ron Paul is a racist is going to do anything to anti-war sentiment on the right, because, frankly, if they were that concerned about racism they wouldn’t be right-wingers.
I also think that the historical analogy is incredibly misplaced. We’re talking about stopping a war, whereas FDR waged war, and Wendell Wilkie’s nomination represented as far right as the mainstream party bosses were prepared to get in balancing the demands of business and the isolationist far right. Far from being a Wilkie, Ron Paul is a latter-day German-American Bund.
Pet issue?
Reasons for progressives to support Ron Paul:
- Against the war
Reasons for progressives to oppose Ron Paul:
- Racist (more so than other Republican candidates)
- Homophobic/against gay rights
- Anti-choice (have other Republican candidates introduced bills redefining life as starting at conception?)
- Wants to slash all the social programs progressives hold near and dear (to a far, far greater extent than other Republican candidates).
Who is the one with the pet issue here, exactly?
How entertaining can this get?
Paul, who has exactly ZERO chance of ever being President, is campaigning on a platform of peace, a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy, freedom, small government, and self responsibility, and both the left and the right are so friggin terrified that PDS has already set in.
So perdictable.
So pathetic.
Liartarian: He’s campaigning on being anti-choice, anti-government, and anti-everyone-who-isn’t-white.
Then again, i don’t expect better from a plutocratic troll like you.
I think part of the problem is that the connection with racists is, if not hidden, then at least not blindingly obvious to most people.
Ron Paul’s policies are absolutely in line with the Racist right. The idea that federal efforts to forward civil rights is Unconstitutional. He won’t directly say that they’re necessarily BAD, but rather that unless there’s an explicit constitutional amendment, it’s illegal for government to do it, even if they have the best of intentions.
It’s enough of a fig-leaf that people can say “He’s arguing on principal” rather than from an explicitly racist standpoint. It’s only when you unpack the logical conclusions of the ideals he espouses that your realize what he’s aiming for: elimination of worker protections, consumer protections, environmental protections, civil rights efforts, and any and all socialist institutions (aside from the army) from the federal sphere, and sending it all back to the states.
Liberterians believe it’ll result in the free market fixing society’s ills. Patriot groups and racist groups understand that it means the restoration of white male Christian dominance. The fact that the former may not believe in the latter doesn’t change the issues of cause an effect, but it does allow them to honestly say “I’m not a racist”, and causes a great deal of blindness in the gray area between Liberterianism and Militia movements that Ron Paul inhabits.
While I’m all for Anti-war candidates, I think it’s better to support an anti-war candidate who isn’t going to try and roll government back to the late 18th century, and try and argue the importance of liberal values as opposed to conservative libertarianism.
It’s not just about stopping this war, but also about preventing future ones, and dismantling the power of racism is absolutely essential and non-negotiable in this cause.
Every Democratic candidate supports the continuation AND EXPANSION of the blatently racist “War on Drugs”.
Non-negotiable my rosy red ass.
No I’m not voting for Ron fucking Paul, but I ain’t lying to myself either.
HTML isn’t supporting Ron Paul, by any stretch. He’s just reacting to those on the left who are pointing out Paul’s association with white supremacists, because if Paul is outed as a kook, it could reduce the anti-war momentum on the right. That’s the argument, at least, but I’m not buying it.
Thank you, Amanda! It’s fine to vigorously disagree with HTML on this, but calling him a Ron Paul supporter (let alone well on his way to becoming a Republican) is completely unfair.
Reasons for progressives to support Ron Paul:
- Against the war
Moreover, his opposition to war is part of a much more thoroughgoing critique of empire and the military-industrial complex.
In addition, Paul is also opposed to the authoritarian tendencies of the current administration. His reading of the Constitution may be pinched and reactionary, but he utterly rejects the “unitary executive” concept, the notion of giving Telecoms retroactive immunity for their lawbreaking, and so forth. This is a pretty significant second reason for progressives to support Paul.
I utterly agree with all the reasons listed for progressives to oppose Paul, which in my view collectively clearly outway the reasons to support him.
But we should be honest about the reason that some progressives find him candidacy attractive (especially since he’s cleverly emphasizing precisely those aspects of his platform that would appeal to progressives).
As for Kucinich, he has been ineffective both at getting his message through the media filter (unlike Paul) and at getting his party to back his efforts at resisting the present administration. I think the lack of excitement over Kucinich this year among progressives is also a reflection of the utter failure of Kucinich to catch fire in 2004 (it’s sort of the opposite of Jesse Jackson in 1988, who had generated surprising levels of support in 1984 and was able to build on his victories four years later).
Despite the flaws noted by Nullifidian, I read Sadly No almost every day because it makes me laugh. I don’t know what to think about the HTML Mencken post — it could be just a momentary lapse of reason, we’ve all had them. On the other hand, it also sounds to me a bit like what Susan Faludi describes in her latest book about the journalist who gleefully announced to her that 9/11 “really wipes feminism off the map!!!!!”
?!?! The connection between A BIG DEAL SOMETHING and feminism/gay rights/ anti-racism, otherwise invisible to the naked eye, is insisted upon by men on the right (in that example) or the left (in this one)
I mean, how many times does this happen? Something “more important” (and, cripes, sure, no argument here, the war in Iraq qualifies as SUPER SUPER SUPER IMPORTANT) is used — with the most strident language possible (how many poop references are necessary, really, per exchange before you can be SURE you’ve illuminated your point?) — to tell the blacks, women, and gays … “not now”.
Is there a natural connection between opposing the war and getting all the post-60s movements to shut the eff up? It doesn’t seem self-evident to me that there is, and I think it’s at the least strange that the case is nevertheless so vociferously made and defended.
Libertarian:
Watch out, only trolls disagree with these folks…
Oh, c’mon y’all. Wouldn’t it be super cool when President Paul takes away all taxes and stuff? You’d rather have that money in your wallet, right? And who needs a freakin’ department of education? Only certain types need education, namely those with money. And with no taxes we all have more money for schoolin’. Oh and stopping the war would be pretty neat too.
GOOGLE RON PAUL!
(ignore white supremacist stuff)
GOOGLE RON PAUL!
(ignore world wide conspiracy rants)
USA! USA!
Call me that single-issue voter. I’m voting Democratic in the general election regardless, but I’d be willing to work my ass off (and write checks) to get him the Republican nomination if I thought my support would make a difference.
Of the Democratic candidates for the nomination, my favorite is Kucinich, but I find all the major candidates to be acceptable anyway.
Kathleen, same here. Yep, some of their stuff is kind of ignorant when it comes to race and gender. The “don’t smear Ron Paul” argument is also wack. But they’re incredibly funny and I do read them every day too.
No, they’re not.
No, there isn’t. It might not be exactly as it is today but Cleveland ain’t interchangable with Tel Aviv.
The main point….
I don’t think the Republicans need help from us in staging their own demise. I think they’re doing a smashing job.
If someone is socially liberal but fiscally and internationally [in the historical sense] conservative, welcome. Otherwise, stay home.
Kathleen,
I think there’s a lot of good that can come by using the 1960s and afterwards as a rubric for planning and executing an effective anti-war movement.
There’s a great documentary called Sir! No Sir!, which I highly recommend to everyone interested in this period. The focus is on the GI resistance to the war, and one of the Black vets they interviewed said something along these lines (paraphrasing from memories)
That’s what started his anti-war awakening. Granted, nobody needed to tell him that, but it certainly would be more efficient to have anti-racist organizers, especially PoC organizers who are less likely than white liberals to get some backs up, be able to bring out that kind of criticism. In the Vietnam War, the new revolutionary Black consciousness spread like wildfire in Vietnam through underground GI newspapers and provided not just another impetus for resistance, but a thorough critique of U.S. power which made resistance a moral necessity.
The same thing goes for feminism. There is a rape epidemic in the U.S. military, and a military hierarchy which systematically looks the other way. Aside from making the obvious point that no woman should risk her life for a war when she cannot feel safe back in the barracks, reaching out to women who have been raped in the military and a systematic campaign both inside and outside the military to make it take rape seriously is an urgent need.
And when it comes to gay rights…hah. The military’s record on that speaks for itself. However, if you ever want to get well and truly pissed off, though, Randy Shilts’ mammoth book Conduct Unbecoming pretty much reduced me to a stammering, apoplectic wretch.
And as for class-analysis, the fact that the U.S. military overwhelmingly recruits among the working poor and bribes people looking for options with extravagant promises they rarely ever keep can be easily established.
I don’t see any of these “hobbyhorses” as detracting from the anti-war work in any way. A non race-based, non-class based, non-gender based, non-sexuality based anti-war movement is simply going to default to replicating the abstract concerns of white, middle-class males, who will then sit around and berate the rest of us for failing to take their anti-war movement seriously.
Sometimes I think that half the anti-war movement fears cultivating a revolutionary critique just because they’re too afraid to get tear gassed again.
Amanda writes “The anti-war left needs to distance ourselves from these kooks if we’re serious about bringing the peace.”
I totally agree with Amanda on this point, anti-war people shouldn’t play footsies with these kooks and racists. Anti-muslim bigotry and ignorance was major pillar in mobilizing the US population behind the Iraq war.
Respectably leftist counterpunch just ran a column endorsing Paul. I would say if anybody should be called called out it’s them. How about it, Amanda?
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney11092007.html
That said, people that think that the democratic party are the vehicle for ending the Iraq war are delusional IMO.
Hey Atlasien — I figure this is a friendlier venue than S, N right now, I saw your comment over there too & yeah — the funny thing is, we (and I don’t know who you are, but I am a white ladyperson) let all kinds of stuff roll off our backs all the time, like, S,N is not always great on race/gender but they’re funny and their hearts are in the right place so whatever. And then something like the great Ron Paul debate comes along, and we totally get yelled at for being obtuse ideological purists. Sheesh.
Nullifidian, I totally agree — I mean, it seems to me that it is all one big fight not many small divisible fights. It’s pretty telling, I think, that the complementary counter-candidate to Ron Paul doesn’t exist,
ie, someone who thinks torture is good policy, thinks the war in Iraq is super awesome, wants to tap everybody’s phone, and is vociferously hooray for feminism, gay rights, anti-racism, and poverty alleviation.
the democrats are just plain tepid on all the above points, but anyone who is passionately for the latter 4 is inevitably passionately against the first 3; they fall together.
I honestly do think HTML is a bit of a searching soul on this one, not a David Horowitz in the making (that is, former Black Panther turned right-winger). I mean, not that I really have any grounds for shrinking HTMLs’ head — generally I just think American politics is getting more genuinely searching about this stuff, which seems to me hopeful-making.
Sometimes I think HTML’s “pet issue” is complaining other people have them. He’s certainly beaten this “omg, you feminists/anti-racists/gay folks only care about YOUR PET ISSUE” drum before.
Basically the impression I got from his post was that, “You people are letting your pet issues get in the way. ALL the republicans are evil, it’s just this one dude is OK on MY pet issue! Yours can wait a little longer, right? Of course they can. Wait, how DARE you say I’m out of touch and priviledged and trying to dictate what should be important to you non-white het males? Why are you so prejudiced against white het males?”
Thing is, I find discussing this sort of thing interesting, especially if it makes me consider MY various priviledges, but goddamn, HTML gets preachy and defensive quick.
The way I read the whole HTMLMencken post thing, the point is that Paul is moving the Republican primary’s dialogue in a particular direction. If RP was not there speaking against the war and the unitary executive, the Republican lineup would not have ANYONE talking about those issues from that point of view.
Whether that service is sufficiently valuable that we should ixnay on the acismray is another matter. I think we can go ahead & call RP a crazy racist conspiracy theorist - whoever is listening to the Republicans isn’t likely to be deterred by that, ya know? And then the stoners won’t be suddenly disillusioned later, either, which is good for them.
Kathleen, I’m definitely a pet-issuer, I’m an Asian-American woman and 90% of the political stuff I blog about is race-related and in the “damn these white people sure are messed-up!” vein. A lot of people in my blog circle absolutely cannot stand this “you have a pet issue” thing, whether it comes from S,N or Kos, because the pet issue in question is usually OUR LIVES, but I can look the other way as long as they don’t beat it into the ground. It just doesn’t set me off the way other insults tend to do. It’s like a good comedian who kills 9 times out of 10 and then makes a “take my wife” joke.
…. please.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Sorry. I just think, like being in the position of the “pet issue” actually helps you understand what Stockholm Syndrome *IS*, you know? I mean, we totally get that it’s messed-up that sometimes we laugh even when the joke is on us, like, what’s it’s like to kind of have crossed wiring in your head when you grow up “raced” or “sexed” in a racist, sexist society.
but for the “my issues are not pet issues” types (the “unsexed, unraced” ones) — ironically, they can get so pissed off about everyone else’s supposed “purism”. But you *can’t* be a purist if you’re black or a girl or whatever, you actually never get that choice.
sorry, this is getting a bit off topic. All of it is to say, yeah, I am with you on the “oh, that’s a pet issue” brush-off being messed up at multiple levels.
To say that Paul’s appeal to the left revolves around a single issue understates the case.
In addition to being against the Iraq War:
- he’s against further aggressive foreign policy (e.g. a confrontational policy with Iran)
- he categorically opposes torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretapping, and so on (did Hillary Clinton vote against the Patriot Act? No, but Paul did…)
- he opposes the War on Drugs, and has said he will pardon all nonviolent drug offenders
- he’s a big supporter of alternative medicine (OK, so this isn’t universally a left value, I’m sure some people think the AMA is great)
Further, while I agree he is somewhat tainted by association with racists and some previous racist writings, he has personally repudiated racism. He’s also written things on patriotism and dissent, and fear and the state, that I think most liberals would agree with.
Lastly, I think part of his appeal comes from the realization that his radicalism is sincere. There are many people on the left who nominally oppose the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, but who have such a record of compromise that no one believes they would really make much difference if elected. It’s fairly clear if you look at Paul’s record that he really *would* pardon nonviolent drug offenders if elected, and that Guantanamo would be closed very quickly. Some people have no moral compass, some people rarely use theirs; but Paul really is guided by his beliefs, even if you don’t like them. That has an appeal of its own.
I’m still not getting it. Neither Paul nor Kucinich have a snowball’s chance of getting their party’s nomination. So why on Earth should liberal independents or Democrats support Paul either tacitly or openly? What is to be gained by any of that?
It’s not like the Republican party is going to say, “Hey, this Glenn Greenwald guy supports Ron Paul–maybe we need to reconsider our position on the Iraq war.” The Republican party doesn’t even listen to REPUBLICANS, let alone Democrats.
bbartlog at 45:
You say Ron Paul’s “radicalism is sincere” and that we can determine this by “a look at his record”.
When I look at his voting record, I see votes like this:
A vote in favor of a Federal ban on a rare late-term abortion procedure, even though as an OB/GYN, he should be well aware that this procedure is done very rarely, and almost exclusively in cases of life-threatening complications;
A vote in favor of banning ANY family planning component in any US foreign aid programs;
A vote in favor of banning same-sex couples from adopting in the District of Columbia;
A vote in favor of vouchers for private and religious schools.
So, yeah, I think his “radicalism is sincere.” However, I think it’s a Christian theocratic Nativist radicalism, and that’s not anything I want to vote for, or to gloss over.
Ron Paul scares me because he seems like he’s batshit. But what scares me more are his supporters–not just the Nazis, but the fervent Paulistas who will descend en masse upon anyone who dares to criticize their Beloved Leader in any way. The true believers, like true believers in any religion, have a binary world view–in this case, it’s “Either you support Paul, or you’re a Clinton shill.” There doesn’t seem to be any room for those of us in the “None of the Above” camp.
I really don’t understand the whole “people like him because he’s sincere” argument, as if I’m supposed to give him a chance on the basis of his sincerity instead of his track record or views. It would be like saying, “Yeah, he’s a sexist asshole, but I like him because he’s a *sincere* sexist asshole.” The fact that Glenn Greenwald, who I’m usually all over, seems to say the same thing really surprises me. Shouldn’t we like Paul *less* for his sincerity?
Respectably leftist counterpunch just ran a column endorsing Paul.
Doesn’t surprise me. Counterpunch is generally Anarcho-socialist, accent on the Anarchist. That they would have people backing an “Anarcho-capitalist” over a Democratic party member sounds about right.
Me, I sit somewhere between Liberalism and Democratic Socialism. And while Ron Paul’s “originalist” adherence to a literal and limited Constitution is not “wacko”, it’s also not a common interpretation of the legal history of the United States, nor one that I agree with.
I’m still not getting it. Neither Paul nor Kucinich have a snowball’s chance of getting their party’s nomination. So why on Earth should liberal independents or Democrats support Paul either tacitly or openly? What is to be gained by any of that?
While voting for Paul would mean sacrificing several of their core principles, just like in 2000, progressives are sick of having the Democratic Machine take them for granted. A vote for Kucinich or Gravel signals the Dem Powers That Be that the grassroots are not giving up their principles for some mystical candidate “electability.” Progressives stuck to their principles and voted for Nader in 2000. Progressives sacrificed their principles and voted for the “electable” Kerry in 2004.
Will the Machine sacrifice Progressive principles again in 2008? A vote for Kucinich or Gravel will send them a signal.
This is one of your best posts ever, both analytically and rhetorically. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but in the last few weeks, some of my favorite progressive bloggers–you, Driftglass, Ian Welsh at Agonist, Jon Swift (well, actually he is a reasonable conservative), and Dave Neiwert–have just been hitting the ball out of the fucking park.
JupiterPluvius says:
Bingo! I see the exact same thing. Restrictions on abortion services is the #1 reason as to why we have a severe nursing shortage in the US.
HTML Mencken’s point about racism is that Rudy Giuliani is every bit as racist as Ron Paul and far more dangerous in nearly every other respect. Which of the Republican contenders aren’t blowing racist dogwhistles?
Dave Neiwert’s dead on about Paul’s proto-fascist inclinations, no question, and Giuliani doesn’t have quite the same exquisitely nutty flavor. But we Democrats would do better with Ron Paul as the Republican candidate. He’d be weaker AND he would take imperialism off the table.
I’m a big fan of Sadly, No and HTML Mencken. But they have this enormous blind spot, which comes from the feeling that The Left has been hijacked by identity/minority politics and thus fails to see the huge, global calculation that necessarily involves the doings of the powerful-who-happen-to-be-white, or something like that, and this resentment becomes a big chip on their shoulders.
That thread seems to be dead but I wrote this at the end of it.
By the way, your captcha thing is next to impossible to use.
Every time I look at Ron Paul, I see the second coming of Lyndon LaRouche.
Dave Neiwert’s dead on about Paul’s proto-fascist inclinations, no question, and Giuliani doesn’t have quite the same exquisitely nutty flavor. But we Democrats would do better with Ron Paul as the Republican candidate. He’d be weaker AND he would take imperialism off the table.
Only if the Democrats nominated Kucinich.
Unfortunately, neither of the major parties are going to give us the opportunity to take imperialism off the table next fall, though we will get to choose between different flavors of it.
Of course Paul won’t be the nominee. It’s a vain hope, and I suspect a choice among flavors of imperialism won’t figure prominently on the menu (is there any way to frame diiscussions on Pandagon that don’t involve eating?). But, y’know, it might be better if the argument wasn’t about who can kick (and here it fragments) X ass, where X can be Arab or Mexican, black or girl.
The liberal project, however, is not to kick anybody.
“Respectably leftist counterpunch” is also firmly in the global warming denier camp.
Hmm, wasn’t HTML Mencken one of those fellows who encouraged the hounding of Ilyka Damen until she gave up blogging? I’d say he has something worse than a blind spot.
(I was surprised to see Glenn Greenwald defending Ron Paul after Paul supporters have been such a persistent nuisance in Glenn’s comments section. But maybe he’s just that kinda guy…)
I’m glad someone has already noted how utterly ridiculous it is to call HTML Mencken, who would easily qualify as a leftist in the European political spectrum, a Republican in the making. Yeah, social democracy is a slippery slope to becoming Tom DeLay.I do think that Mr. Mencken wants anti-war, anti-unitary executive arguments to stay out there without being lumped in with “kookiness.” I suspect that his desire is not to get Dr. Paul elected President, but to legitimize the arguments that distinguish him from his peers. Racism, destruction of an independent judiciary, gutting of the federal government, and theocracy do not separate him from the field; his views on preemptive war and executive overreach do.
Also, I could see that training the big guns on genuinely likely nominees, while providing encouragement for an upstart, could be seen as a way to weaken the eventual nominee, and perhaps encourage further Dem awareness of these issues by someone other than Dodd and Kucinich. (Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.) A successful Giuliani/Huckabee ticket would be hostile to women’s reproductive freedom, hostile to the Constitution, hostile to minorities, and would also escalate us into even more wars. And Huckabee is surging in the polls right now, yet his vicious theocratic agenda hasn’t drawn a fraction of the (deserved) vitriol against Paul, because he’s so goddamned folksy.
Now, I don’t think that promoting Paul’s anti-imperialism would actually be much use, unless it somehow encouraged him to run as a third-party candidate who would primarily split the Right. In particular,
is a bit overly optimistic, since it would more likely mean that an anti-imperialist candidate would face a candidate who helped provide legal cover for an attack on Iran, and who can’t commit to getting us out of Iraq in less than five years. But therein lies some of Mr. Mencken’s frustration, and presumably Mr. Greenwald’s as well. Conflating anti-imperialism and restrained executive powers with genuinely batshit beliefs could reasonably be viewed as counterproductive, in an era when Dem Presidential candidates refuse to take invading Iran “off the table,” when Rahm Emanuel is demanding that the party pander to racists, and when Congressional Dems repeatedly capitulate to the Bush/Giuliani totalitarian wet dream.To Hector B. @54:
Yes! That’s why I’m saying that anti-war Democrats or independents should support Kucinich or Gravel rather than supporting Paul.
This seems so self-evident to me that I’m honestly mystified why someone as smart as Greenwald doesn’t see it.
I’m glad someone has already noted how utterly ridiculous it is to call HTML Mencken, who would easily qualify as a leftist in the European political spectrum, a Republican in the making. Yeah, social democracy is a slippery slope to becoming Tom DeLay.
As the person who said that, I think I have to point out how utterly ridiculous this is.
First off, he’s never said anything which indicates that he’s a leftist in the European political spectrum. He hasn’t even indicated support of the now taken-for-granted social systems on the Continent and in other industrialized nations, like a national health service. And supporting one of those is hardly even evidence of leftism, since they’ve survived or are surviving Merkel, Harper, Thatcher, and other right-wing politicians.
I don’t see any strong commitment to actual socialism, communism, or anarchism from him, which are the political positions which would be firmly on the left in the European context. So, without any commitment to any system of left politics, and without indicating support (or indeed knowledge of) for expanding the basic institutions which are de rigeur in the European social safety net, I cannot say he’d be a leftist in the European context. I do think he’d support the existing institutions if he knew about them, but that would make him a centrist or center-left at best, which is what I called him over on the other blog.
Secondly, David Horowitz did start out as a leftist in anybody’s political spectrum: he was a Maoist. Guess where he ended up? Far from being “utterly ridiculous”, it is the very nature of political conversions that they occur across political positions.
I used to be (or at least considered myself) a moderate conservative. I thought the American system was generally fair, I thought that civil rights for people of color and women were more or less a settled issue (and therefore fell safely under my “conservative” rubric, and I ignored the genuine radicalism of the people who pushed them into the zeitgeist), and I ignored the GLBT community entirely, for whom I couldn’t find an appropriate conservative frame.
In short, and with a nod to Gilbert and Sullivan, I Was the Very Model of a Naïve Right-Wing Intellectual. That commitment started to fade around 1994. I was a regular reader of right-wing periodicals like the National Review, though I never went in for its more radical right-wing cousins like American Spectator, and I was already troubled by Get Clinton movement expending so much energy so early when their dire pre-election predictions of a total fiscal meltdown didn’t occur. Clinton’s economic system was disasterous in many other ways, but not in ways the conservatives could readily convert to outrage, because they were doing the same thing to the poor and PoC. What troubled me most, therefore, was the bewildering experience of watching them attack someone who was giving them everything they could have wanted.
Then the 1994 Gingrich Revolution happened, and that’s when I personally mark the current slide of American politics to the nadir it currently occupies. What was revolutionary about the Gingrich Revolution was not a mid-term electoral sweep to the opposing party, but the fact that it was engineered by people who were simply out there for the power. It was the logical outgrowth of Nixon’s and Reagan’s Southern Strategy but at least there was some mad sense of what a proper political system should be. In Gingrich, I saw no such motivating principles; I saw power for its own sake, and if Gingrich had to bring the right-wing militia movement, theocrats, and other assorted nuts with him, well…that was just the price to pay for his ascension up the party’s ranks.
My political conversion was based around rooting out all the naïve beliefs I held. I was a liberal for all of six minutes, before I realized they had the same unacknowledged issues, then I was a socialist for a long time, then my final naïve belief fell away—that a social democratic government actually protects the poor, rather than reflects the patterns of economic dominance established between the heads of business and the people at large. At last, by around 1998-1999, I became an anarchist. Ripping away all the beliefs which no longer ring true is one way to effect a political conversion.
The other way is to start feeling, on balance, more bad about a position than one feels good. This leaves core issues unaddressed, and often the same patterns of behavior and thought are simply replicated in another context. David Horowitz was a Maoist, who supported the Black Panthers. Then somebody got killed, and that made Horowitz feel really bad, and in a fit of guilt he abandoned his political position and became a neoconservative. However, he carries over the same tendency to be doctrinaire, authoritarian, and purge all dissenters, which is what he’s trying to do in academia.
Andrew Anthony, the person I likened HTML to, was a self-congratulatory sort of fuzzy good-hearted liberal who came up from hard beginnings. So far, this is an apt description, I believe, of both of them. Anthony adopted a set of fashionable left causes because the support of his fellow leftists made him feel good. Their thoroughgoing critiques of the patterns of white supremacy, male supremacy, heteronormativity, etc. made him feel bad. Like many Good People in Anthony’s situation, he wanted to say “Nuh uh, not me!” from the very first and be taken at face value, whereas that should have been a conclusion to make, not a premise to work from. The critiques never let up, and no he longer felt himself a good person, never quite having gotten that what was criticizable in him was a leftover from having been raised where these ideas are unacknowledged and systematic because he couldn’t get over the denialism in the first place. So, he found an out in the events of 11/09. Now he could become a cruise missle leftist, and justify it with rhetoric about how the ‘Islamofascists’ were attempting to strike at every sacred liberal principle he no longer held dear, and he could ally himself with the powerful, the monied, the people whom he residually looked up to from his time of being so absolutely poor.
HTML, similarly, has no political commitments beyond being a warm fuzzy Good Person, and he wants to be recognized for that first and foremost without really doing all that much. That’s why he’s posting publicly his endorsement of Ron Paul. It’s cheap, easy, and doesn’t cost him anything in time or effort, but leads him to conclude that he’s done a Good Thing by standing against the war. Nothing scares him more than the very real possibility that an anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc. critique is necessary to an honest anti-war movement, because that would mean dealing with his unacknowledged issues on race and gender. When he gets tired of styling himself a Good Person (and the mental effort to keep up that self-image is considerable) then he’ll drop it but keep those same unexamined issues, which are going to be as unexamined in fifteen years as they are now.
Now, where’s the best place in America for someone who no longer cares if they’re a Good Person, and bears a whole set of unexamined prejudices on the subject of race, gender, and so on but in the Republican party? As I said there, as a Republican, he’ll slip comfortably into their politics as if he were slipping into an easy chair. He’ll find comfort in the fact that he no longer has to confront the subject of race or gender because the whole Republican party is devoted to the silent and all-encompassing assumption of white male supremacy, whereas liberal Democrats (who for the most part still don’t listen) at least have to pay lip service to the concerns of PoC, women, the poor, the GLBT, and other marginalized communities, which brings them in uncomfortably close contact and sometimes conflict with those communities.
This is why I feel that liberals are, at best, only allies of convenience. Because they’ve lapped up the same white male supremacist beliefs, they often feel entitled to wrench the dialogue away from anything which would address the concerns of the politically marginalized, and become an arm of the institutions effecting this political marginalization. That’s why the anti-war movement in the U.S. is overwhelmingly white, and why it will remain so.
Hmm, wasn’t HTML Mencken one of those fellows who encouraged the hounding of Ilyka Damen until she gave up blogging? I’d say he has something worse than a blind spot.
Yes, that’s what she indicated in her farewell blog post (although she did think the virtual march for the Jena Six was important enough to come out for one last post).
This latest dust-up shows that it’s not about humour for him, where a certain level of cruelty is sometimes necessary for the form. He wasn’t endorsing Ron Paul as a good candidate for Republicans for laughs. He is out there for the power of being the absolute gatekeeper of which issues are worthy enough of one’s consideration. That’s why he said all that nonsense about “moral triage” as if it’s not possible to juggle issues at the same time or even—shock! horror!—admit the other issues as integral to one’s anti-war work.
I deal with people like this all the time: liberals who expect affiliation to mean submission to their vision of a shining city. Instead I do what I always do. I work around them, and I always find that the anti-war movements I’m in that do that are far stronger for their absence.
I’m amazed at the naivite of the libertarians who support Paul. When talks about how we should dismantle government institutions and hand them over to private interests, do they honestly believe that he doesn’t have a list drawn up of croneys who will get first crack at these sweet plums?
The anti-choice issue is another thing that needs to be hammered into the ground.
Ron Paul is all about freedom and liberty unless you have a vagina. Then the state is perfectly entitled to dictate your life.
The idea, I think, is to shove a sock in it about Paul’s associations with hate groups, neglect to point out that his political platform is straight of a skinhead/militia playbook of conspiracy theories about Jews running the world,
Paul an anti-semite? His two biggest heroes are Jews, Mises and Hayek. He has portraits of them hanging in his office, for Christ’s sake.
“Paul an anti-semite? His two biggest heroes are Jews, Mises and Hayek. He has portraits of them hanging in his office, for Christ’s sake.”
Are they still in the nooses?…
Are they still in the nooses?…
You don’t even know who they are, do you?
“You don’t even know who they are, do you?”
You mean Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek?
Whether Paul personally would enjoy their deaths (if they weren’t dead already) or not, plenty of Paul’s supporters probably would…
“You don’t even know who they are, do you?”
Dammit! I know this one…
Okay, they’re both members of a German Soccer team, right?…
Okay, they’re both members of a German Soccer team, right?…
Well, you got the German part right. Sort of. They were both very famous economists and Austrian Jews. they also oppression from them. They are also two of Paul’s biggest heroes. Funny for an anti-semite to hold two Jews in such high regard, huh?
Not that the Stormfront morons that donate to his campaign know any of this. If they think Paul is one of them, they’re wasting their money.
AtomicFruitbat, I already posted a real answer, but it’s in moderation because I included links to Wiki for both men.
In the age of the Internet, don’t assume all of us are stupid until we adequately prove it on our own…
#In the age of the Internet, don’t assume all of us are stupid until we adequately prove it on our own…
Ok, didn’t know links=moderation, still new here.
There are problems with Paul. I understand this is a liberal site, and you’re going to have many policy differences with him. I just don’t appreciate the guilt-by-association swift-boating.
Saying that Paul supporters are paranoid anti-semitic militiamen is sort of like saying feminists are just angry lesbians who hate men.
LMAO! Mike Ess, I don’t think somebody got the joke.
By the way, AtomicFruitbat, Hayek wasn’t Jewish. If you read Hayek on Hayek, you’ll see him say that none of his ancestors were Jewish.
(Oh the delicious irony that an anarchist knows more about Hayek than Paul’s so-called ‘Libertarian’ supporters. By the way, speaking as as an anarchist, can we have our noun back?)
Furthermore, a white supremacist shouldn’t be founding a church which looks up to someone who is arguably the most prominent religious Jew in the history of the world, but that’s exactly what KKK organizer Wesley Swift did when he founded the White Identity Church of Jesus Christ–Christian. White supremacists are perfectly capable of juggling all sorts of mutually contradictory beliefs.
Nullifidian, please tell me any policies that Paul has proposed which are racist. You probably think ending affirmative action is, but then about every other Republican (and a few Democrats) would do the same thing.
Is Paul secretly planning to re-establish Jim Crow? Repeal the Thirteenth Amendment? Put Jews in camps? Did I miss something?
By the way, speaking as as an anarchist, can we have our noun back?
As soon as we can have the noun “liberal” again, sure.
And I find the suggestion that libertarians would vote for Giuliani to be hilarious in its ignorance. Most libertarians hate Giuliani. Hes a gun-grabbing, executive power mongering, imperialist war-mongering nanny stater piece of garbage. I’d even vote for Hillary before Mr. noun-verb-9/11.
His two biggest heroes are Jews, Mises and Hayek.
Really? ‘Cause (non-Jew) Hayek thought the gold standard was stupid, and von Mises was a vigorous proponent of open immigration, as a counterweight to the power of unions, and as an embodiment of the fundamental libertarian right to freely contract out one’s labor. Must be in the hidden secret reverse footnotes, along with support for federal abortion bans and the destruction of an independent judiciary as a check on legislative power.
mds, if they have furrin’ names, and they’re white people, then they MUST be Jews…
HTML, similarly, has no political commitments beyond being a warm fuzzy Good Person, and he wants to be recognized for that first and foremost without really doing all that much.
Um, yeah, that’s him, all right. The guy who rails against the oligopoly, the guy whose blogroll introduced me to Lenin’s Tomb, the guy who was accused of attempting to claim H.L. Mencken as a socialist via his handle, the guy who is a go-to on Chomsky, is just a vapid “warm fuzzy Good Person.” Sheesh. Look, you think he’s off base with his Ron Paul commentary. Fine. That’s different from claiming he’s something entirely different from what any genuine long-time perusal of Sadly, No! has demonstrated. “Warm fuzzy Good Person” is really far down his list, in good ways and bad.
mds, if they have furrin’ names, and they’re white people, then they MUST be Jews
And if they’re not liberal democrats, they MUST be white supremacist hetero-sexist slavery lovin’ homophobic religious fundamentalists!
There are two ways I will vote Democratic. If you nominate Chris Dodd, or if the Republicans nominate Giuliani. My big issues right now are the subverting of the Constitution and a very dangerous if not outright insane foreign policy.
And no, I don’t trust Hillary to correct either. Shes a almost a big a power grabber as Giuliani.
Except that he isn’t going to be the Republican candidate, and no amount of wishing will ever make him the Republican candidate, so that’s not really a consideration.
What is a consideration: the possibility that Democrats might be duped into voting for Paul as a 3rd-party candidate because he’s against the war. (I wrote the other day about how stupid this would be; no direct link, to avoid moderation, but scroll down to Wednesday to find it.) That (apparently very real) possibility makes it all the more important to point out what a reactionary scumbag the guy is (which, of course, is also important in itself, because people who help to mainstream hate should always be exposed for the scumbags they are), and this is why HTML Mencken’s argument makes no sense at all even from a cynical strategic standpoint.
“And if they’re not liberal democrats, they MUST be white supremacist hetero-sexist slavery lovin’ homophobic religious fundamentalists!”
Great minds think alike! (although, they don’t have to be Democrats - just not Republicans…)
Wow, so much vitriol expended against a candidate who is already marginalized by the media, and whose supporters have been banned from mainstream conservative sites. I know a number of Paul supports and none of them strike me as racist or evil, though many of them do have a bit of the big government conspiracy bent that has been popular among libertarian republicans since Regan. Perhaps they’re simply naive, as has been suggested, or perhaps their fed up with the authoritarian direction their party has taken in the past years. Personally, I don’t like Paul, or support his views; however, publicly he is raising issues which used to be near and dear to the republican party — things like smaller government and constitutionality (Remember: Paul was the only republican candidate to state he would seek congressional approval before bombing Iran and anyone else). I see this as a plus for our political culture.
Yes, Kucinich has been against the war from the beginning (as Obama has), but Kucinich has been marginalized even more then Paul. The hope should be that the issues that Paul raises force the other republican candidates to modify their positions on the war and trade. Overall, there is little point in attacking Paul , he’s not going to receive the nomination, and the only question is how will his positions be responded to by other candidates.
Personally, I thing the overall antipathy expressed here would be better directed at the free pass Giuliani has gotten in the media, He’s a particularly racist bastard which authoritarian delusions of grander, but few seem to call him out on it.
Just my $.02
Great minds think alike! (although, they don’t have to be Democrats - just not Republicans…)
Well, good thing I’m not a Republican and probably never will be unless they repudiate their fundamentalist Christian and pro-war wing.
I’m kind of the opposite of Joe Lieberman. More often than not–at least in rhetoric–I support the Dems positions on foreign and social policy.
More often than not–at least in rhetoric–I support Republican positions on the economy and the budget.
Make of that what you will.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I started knocking Ron Paul as soon as I saw a poll showing that a significant number of Democratic voters could end up voting for him as a 3rd party candidate (making those voters officially too stupid to live).
Really not an either-or thing. I know a fair number of bloggers who have called Giuliani on his racist crap as well as making it clear what a complete reactionary tool Paul is. There’s a real danger of Democrats underestimating just how malignant Giuliani is, and there’s a real danger of some Democrats getting suckered into voting for Paul, and I think both of those dangers need to be addressed–not just one or the other.
Really? I know of no democrats who would have anything to do with Paul — simply because his philosophy is so radically anti-government. I do not moderate democrats who have expressed interest in Giuliani — as they see him as moderate on social issues and ‘pro-security’.
As I said, I think Paul raises some issues publicly which may force the republican party to re-examine some of its positions. I view more debate in these areas as a good thing.
Um, yeah, that’s him, all right. The guy who rails against the oligopoly, the guy whose blogroll introduced me to Lenin’s Tomb, the guy who was accused of attempting to claim H.L. Mencken as a socialist via his handle, the guy who is a go-to on Chomsky, is just a vapid “warm fuzzy Good Person.” Sheesh. Look, you think he’s off base with his Ron Paul commentary. Fine. That’s different from claiming he’s something entirely different from what any genuine long-time perusal of Sadly, No! has demonstrated. “Warm fuzzy Good Person” is really far down his list, in good ways and bad.
Man, yet another person who really doesn’t get it. I don’t just think he’s “off base” with his Ron Paul commentary.
Here’s a few definitions from Nezua which basically summarize the discussion at Sadly, No!:
You should read the whole thing, because it’s a synopsis of that argument that was prescient enough to be written last February. And not because HTML and Nez ever crossed swords, but because this is what happens Every. Single. Time. That is what’s frustrating. It’s the automatic assumption of an inviolable stance that the WHITEPROGRESSIVE (see the link) knows better than anyone and has the entitlement not only to tell people what their priorities are but also how they should react to being told what their priorities are.
I was naïve enough to believe that a blog ostensibly committed to progressive principles would be open to a discussion of race, but instead found a WHITEPROGRESSIVE blog which is entirely closed on the subject or race.
And yes, I do hold that HTML is simply a warm fuzzy Good Person, or perhaps I should say WHITEPROGRESSIVE. Reading Lenin’s Tomb and Chomsky is hardly an indication of anything other than a commitment to the general safe issues of the WHITEPROGRESSIVE community. Lenin’s Tomb isn’t a U.S. blog, so its discussions of race frequently occur in a context where Mencken can deal with it as an abstract set of arguments over somebody else’s quaint local customs, assuming he reads them at all, and notwithstanding the tendency of Lenin’s Tomb writers to abstract the question of race into a theoretical Marxist-Leninist class critique generally. Mainly, when it’s not critiquing local British politics, it’s all about foreign policy. Nice safe stuff for a WHITEPROGRESSIVE to be mixing in.
And adding Chomsky into the mix with Lenin’s Tomb really does nothing but strengthen my case that Mencken really doesn’t have foundational political beliefs, otherwise he’d see a sharp contrast between Chomsky’s anarcho-syndicalism and Lenin’s Tomb’s Marxist-Leninism. Chomsky, too, is safe stuff for a WHITEPROGRESSIVE, because he replicates the WHITEPROGRESSIVE line that race and gender are simply diversions from the subject of class. In the narratives of class warriors like Chomsky, there is a singular group, known as the Common People, and they are on the side of the good, whereas the Ruling Class is on the side of the bad. The only time race filters into this consciousness is when the oppressors can be aligned with the imperialistic Ruling Class, e.g. the Conquest of the Americas. Point out that members of this singular class of Common People can replicate patterns of dominance in their dealings with fellow members of the Common People, and Chomsky will get sniffy over your attempt to muddle up the Platonic purity of his political philosophy. Fortunately, he (and Mencken) doesn’t have to deal with that subject a whole lot, because Chomsky primarily sticks to foreign policy, where the bad Ruling Class is clear-cut (and he doesn’t feel compelled to go into the fundamentally racist positions which often drive and justify the colonialism/neocolonialism of other peoples, c.f. the OVERSENSITIVE Edward Said’s Orientalism).
I’ve been reading Sadly, No! for the past three years, and I’ve never seen Mencken present a coherent political philosophy. The only thing he seems to put forth fairly consistently is how much he hates the OVERSENSITIVES, and on that score he’s more than willing to turn on anybody, even longstanding figures like Chris Clarke, so long as he can stick it to the OVERSENSITIVES.
Nullifidian, please tell me any policies that Paul has proposed which are racist.
Would it matter to you if I did?
By the way, speaking as as an anarchist, can we have our noun back?
As soon as we can have the noun “liberal” again, sure.
As far as I’m concerned you can take it; I have no use for it.
Well, Nullifidian has convinced me: European communists aren’t leftists; they’re WHITEPROGESSIVES. Now with extra anti-plaque.
Actually, all I pointed out was that if Hayek and von Mises are Ron Paul’s heroes, he has a strange way of showing it, by shitting all over what they believed about monetary policy and immigration. You know, Ron “Let’s build a big wall on the border to keep out the illegals” Paul, espousing something that von Mises would consider anathema. You know, Ron “Let’s repeal a portion of the Fourteenth Amendment because of the threat of duskier non-Protestants” Paul. (Whew, that’s a bit of an awkward nickname, sorry.) Let’s try a shorter one again: Ron “Regular contributor to the Dixie Daily News” Paul. Yeah, that rolls of the keyboard a bit better.Hmm, come to think of it, Dr. Paul is pretty much a conspiracy-mongering racist misogynist nut. So even though I thought I saw his (and Greenwald’s) point, I guess I’ll have to introduce HTML Mencken to “Mr. Throatpunch” via e-mail attachment.
Would it matter to you if I did?
Yes.
Well, Nullifidian has convinced me: European communists aren’t leftists; they’re WHITEPROGESSIVES. Now with extra anti-plaque.
mds, you’re descending to the level where I can safely call you a “trolling moron”. I guess this is the WHITEPROGRESSIVE privilege in action, since you don’t have to read what I write either.
Me, previously:
Could that possibly say what it seems to mean? I don’t know. Let’s go ask a white person so we can be really sure!
Now, if I actually said that communists are leftists—which I’m not arguing I did because the WHITEPROGRESSIVES are the arbiters of reality, not me—what might one conclude about my mentioning WHITEPROGRESSIVES in my discussion of the blog Lenin’s Tomb? Could it have been that I argued that Lenin’s Tomb, as a British blog primarily focused on foreign policy, is a safe space for American WHITEPROGRESSIVES who don’t want to discuss issues of race, gender, homo- and trans-phobia and ableism in America? I only raise the question, and I’ll let the WHITEPROGRESSIVES answer it for themselves.
Okay, then AtomicFruitbat, there’s his proposal to roll back busing and school integration (HR 4982), and then to dismantle federal support for public schools. In a context in which classes are as segregated as they were prior to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, his anti-busing stance combined with a determination to change the locus of control to the states means a return to not just de facto segregated schools (which exists now), but also de jure segregation.
Then there’s HR 5842, a bill to make all Iranian students ineligable for federal student aid. I’d say discriminating against a whole class of people just because they’re Persians meets the criteria of racism. It also meets the criteria of abject stupidity, because any Iranian who is going to study in the Great Satan is clearly immune to the rhetoric of the Ayatollahs, and secular Iranian intellectuals would be useful to the U.S. should the Ayatollahs’ grip on power slip.
Then there’s HR 559, which prohibits the IRS from determining if any private school has forfeited its tax-exempt status by engaging in racially discriminatory policies. Here’s a man who wants to eliminate the public school system in its entirety anyway, and here he is ensuring that not even the private schools would be safe for people of color. (I can see the stupid response coming: they could create their own schools. In which case, you’d have racial segregation.)
Then, there’s his assault on the poor and the working class, including his many attempts to eliminate OSHA (HR 2310 and 13264). Since a very significant slice of the poor and working poor are people of color as a percentage of people of color overall, and the working poor have some of the most dangerous jobs in the country, this constitutes another direct assault on them.
There’s also HR 2962 in which he wants to repeal the minimum wage. See above for why this is an assault on people of color.
Likewise, he wants to make it easier to decertify unions (HR 694).
He repeatedly attempted to eliminate federal funding for dilation and evacuation abortions, despite the fact that Medicaid is already so restricted that Medicaid practically only funds abortions if the mother’s life is in danger, and despite that D&E abortions are very often done as a late-term procedure in order to save the mother’s life. I need hardly add that a large percentage of PoC are on Medicaid, and so, given the general profile of abortions performed via D&E and with Medicaid assistance, these bills he sponsored constituted an assault on the lives of PoC women when they are at their most vulnerable.
Plus, there’s always the fact that he published a white supremacist rag for years that is, to this day, listed as a “racialist resource” on the white supremacist Heritage Front website, a website that bills itself as “Canada’s Largest White Civil Rights Resource Center”. (I don’t have the stomach to link to it here, but you can Google it easily.) And he deliberately cultivated the support of white supremacists by, among other things, speaking at the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the White Citizens’ Council. While these do not represent policies, they are why I regard Ron Paul as worse than the rest of the Republicans on race. While all the Republican candidates are committed to using the system to make war on people of color, as Ron Paul has been trying to do, it is quite a different thing when an explicit white supremacist starts running for office and gaining the widespread support of white supremacist organizations and individuals.
Ron Paul isn’t just associated with white supremacists, he is a white supremacist. If you don’t believe me, go to his congressional website; look at his statements and positions on civil rights issues; and see for yourself.
Nullifidian pwned this issue. Got it down pat. Everyone go up and read his long post at 66.
Frankly, it’s easy to tell that backing Ron Paul is immoral. Here’s the easy immorality test of a political position:
• Does it hurt you if you’re not white? Yes.
• If you weren’t white, would you support it? No.
• Then the position is evil.
There it is. There aren’t non-white (non-delusional) Paul supporters.
These issues are so fucking tiresome.
Okay, folks, here’s a hypothetical candidate. Tricia Chen will put social security in a lockbox, end the Iraq war, place strong Constitutional limits on presidential power, thoroughly empower law enforcement so the rich and powerful get the same scrutiny as the poor, purge government corruption, check corporate power, and put in Constitutional safegaurds to prevent government actors from perverting laws to help the rich and powerful, and wind all that up with complete campaign finance reform and the destruction of the electoral college.
Incidentally, she hates white people and will encourage law enforcement to profile them.
So, great candidate, right?
By the way, all of this is an appaling insult to Kucinich. I take serious issue with the man’s lack of political savvy, but this guy has been on the moral high ground for so fucking long that doctors have been sending him tanks of oxygen. Paul isn’t fit to clean Kucinich’s latrines.
AtomicFruitbat wrote:
Nullifidian, please tell me any policies that Paul has proposed which are racist. You probably think ending affirmative action is, but then about every other Republican (and a few Democrats) would do the same thing.
So what? Some Democrats are racists. Where the hell have you been?
More often than not–at least in rhetoric–I support Republican positions on the economy and the budget.
Then you are in complete contradiction. It is impossible to have a Democratic social policy with Republican budgetary policies. The entire point of Republican budgetary policies is to create a de-facto social policy that favors the elites in the Republican party. I am not concerned, for example, with the racism of Republican social policies — most of said policies aren’t very popular, even their anti-gay stances. I am concerned with the racism inherent in their economic policies because those can be sold as being “neutral.”
Then there’s HR 5842, a bill to make all Iranian students ineligable for federal student aid.
Uh, Paul doesn’t believe in federal student aid for anybody.
Okay, then AtomicFruitbat, there’s his proposal to roll back busing and school integration (HR 4982), and then to dismantle federal support for public schools.
If you are referring to the fact that he would dismantle the Department of Education, let me ask you this: since the department was established in the 1970s and has spent billions upon billions of dollars on tax money on what used to be a state concern, has primary and secondary education improved for Americans–whether white or black? Yeah yeah, I know it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside if the federal government is spending tax money on “education”, but has it really improved our schools? Are test scores up since the 70s? Drop-out rates down? The results haven’t been very impressive for the amount of money spent. Meanwhile, teacher are subject to intrusive federal regulations (see: No Child Left Behind) which forces them to teach to tests designed by federal bureaucrats in D.C.
There’s also HR 2962 in which he wants to repeal the minimum wage. See above for why this is an assault on people of color.
The minimum wage ends up doing one of two things: absolutely nothing when low since employers end up paying more anyway, or actually pricing poor and minorities out of the labor market when high enough.
So, uh, AtomicFruitBat, von Mises opposed restrictions on immigration. Yet Dr. Paul wants to build a big wall on the southern border, and revoke a portion of the Fourteenth Amendment. Oh, and he’s a contributor to Dixie Daily News, the news wing of the Southern Caucus. You’re right; he just loves other ethnicities.
Yet the bill in question doesn’t ban federal student aid for everybody, just for filthy Persians. What an amazing coincidence.One more thing–ending the War on (politically incorrect) Drugs would do more for the poor and minorities in this country than any federal program ever could. No group of people as suffered more from it.
. . .since the department was established in the 1970s and has spent billions upon billions of dollars on tax money on what used to be a state concern, has primary and secondary education improved for Americans–whether white or black?
Yes. Of course, since this money’s use is basically at the discretion of an individual state, mileage varies. Wouldn’t you know it, but the Republican heavy Southern states have some of the worst education, regardless of how much money they get in. It’s almost as if substantive political policies, racism, and moral judgements of politicians have a bigger effect on society than political ideologies concerned more with the state-federal divide than facts on the ground. Who knew.
Are test scores up since the 70s?
What are test scores supposed to represent here? Have you actually been in U.S. public schools? There is no evidence suggesting that the cacophony of testing regimes nationwide is reflective of academic achievement or that individual regimes can even be compared to one another. The testing regime is no rubric by which we judge the school system, it is part of the cancer within the school system.
Meanwhile, teacher are subject to intrusive federal regulations (see: No Child Left Behind) which forces them to teach to tests designed by federal bureaucrats in D.C.
No Child Left Behind, brought to you by the same political faction that believes increasing testing, without criteria with witch to evaluate or design testing, will lead to better edjumakation. Well done.
NCLB was, in essence, first done in TX, alongside an obscene testing regime. Since the political backers of the project were corrupt — I mean, the entire point of the testing regime was to make Houghton Mifflin more money than god — this resulted in a dropout rate of 50%. . . which Bush’s people tried to cover up.
We ALREADY have, in federal office, people that hate the Dept. of Education. We don’t need to consider rhetoric against it. We have the results. They’re awful.
I don’t know of any either, but of course that means nothing at all; anecdotal information is nearly always worse than useless.
What does mean something is a poll (Rasmussen, earlier this week) in which Ron Paul as a 3rd party candidate drew more Democrats than Republicans. That tells me that there are Democrats out there who are just completely clueless about who he really is and what he stands for–and that makes it imperative that we make those things clear to people.
Yes.
Please provide some data to show that, in fact, education in America has dramatically imrpvoed since the 70s thanks to Washington, DC.
No Child Left Behind, brought to you by the same political faction that believes increasing testing, without criteria with witch to evaluate or design testing, will lead to better edjumakation. Well done.
No Federal Department of Education, no NCLB.
And wasn’t Teddy Kennedy a co-sponsor?
We ALREADY have, in federal office, people that hate the Dept. of Education. We don’t need to consider rhetoric against it. We have the results. They’re awful.
Really? They hate it? Then why has it expanded at a record rate?
I’d vote for her.
Nullifidian,
“I’ve been reading Sadly, No! for the past three years, and I’ve never seen Mencken present a coherent political philosophy.”
I think that’s much to his credit, frankly. People put far too much stock in coherent philosophies. Any coherent philosophy is useless in practice, and any practical philosophy is incoherent. Life’s messy. We don’t have the luxury of living our lives within rigid and formalised ideological frameworks. Ideology’s a mug’s game. That’s where the Horowitzes of the world come from.
I think that’s much to his credit, frankly. People put far too much stock in coherent philosophies. Any coherent philosophy is useless in practice, and any practical philosophy is incoherent. Life’s messy. We don’t have the luxury of living our lives within rigid and formalised ideological frameworks. Ideology’s a mug’s game. That’s where the Horowitzes of the world come from.
I think you’ve chosen a bad example, frankly. I don’t believe Horowitz had any serious foundational beliefs either, as I noted above. He was a doctrinaire Maoist, but he was that way because of his attitudes and cultural biases, not because of any intellectual assent to the principles of Maoism. It let him be as authoritarian as he wanted to be and feel good about himself at the same time.
Horowitz became the neocon we all love to hate (especially me, on the cusp of a Ph.D. and possibly a job in academia!) when Betty Van Patter was murdered. A former colleague at Ramparts suggested that he bore some degree of responsibility for getting her a job as the Oakland Black Panther Party accountant, which sent Horowitz into a tailspin of depression and guilt from which he has still not emerged. His break with the BPP and Maoism was for emotional reasons, not analytical ones, and one can see that when he calls left politics “evil” and paranoically claims that there are thousands of sixties leftists who know the truth about her murder and are conspiring to keep silent.
I don’t think Mencken’s going to have such a spectacular mental breakdown, but I do think he’s more focused on the emotional than the analytic. His analytic powers are exceptional, but I don’t think they’re employed towards understanding—certainly not in this case!—but for feeling good about himself and his place in the world. This, combined with his reflexive white male privilege and his refusal to analyze same, makes him both a fair-weather friend and the kind of person who needs the rest of our political agendas and strategies to conform to his and gets very upset when they don’t. Without a change of attitude, I distrust both his staying power and that he’d be bearable even if he was to stay.
I don’t get it. The blog post seems like satire but the comments make it seem real. Although some of the comments agreeing with the post appear to be satire as well. Is it possible those people are just messing with the others? The only alternative is that this was not a joke and the writer did not bother to do any research other than read another blog post. Why does Dr Paul have Jewish supporters if this was true? Why was he one of the only members of Congress that defended Israel’s right to attack Iraq’s Nuclear reactor in the 80’s? Why did he offer to fund Rosa Park’s medal of honor with his own money? Why should anyone care if some stupid racist sends money to a candidate who doesn’t support their racist views? It’s their loss. Would you rather them spend the money to promote hate?
I don’t get it. The blog post seems like satire but the comments make it seem real. Although some of the comments agreeing with the post appear to be satire as well. Is it possible those people are just messing with the others? The only alternative is that this was not a joke and the writer did not bother to do any research other than read another blog post. Why does Dr Paul have Jewish supporters if this was true? Why was he one of the only members of Congress that defended Israel’s right to attack Iraq’s Nuclear reactor in the 80’s? Why did he offer to fund Rosa Park’s medal of honor with his own money? Why should anyone care if some stupid racist sends money to a candidate who doesn’t support their racist views? It’s their loss. Would you rather them spend the money to promote hate?
Please provide some data to show that, in fact, education in America has dramatically imrpvoed since the 70s thanks to Washington, DC.
Please provide some data to show that, in fact, the efficacy of education in America has dramatically been reduced since the 70s thanks to Washington, DC. Be sure and control for state action.
No Federal Department of Education, no NCLB.
No military, no Iraq war.
No IRS, no unfair audits.
Do you have any other dumbfuck notions to share with us?
And wasn’t Teddy Kennedy a co-sponsor?
Yep. He was a fool, and admitted this after he found out it was a boondoggle for textbook companies and hurt educators.
Your man Bush wanted it from jump street, though.
You are, in effect, on Bush’s side. You don’t want the Fed. involved in educating the youth. Neither does Bush. The Dept. of Education is a means to increasing the wealth of Republican donors, not educating U.S. kids. Which is why your next statement —
Really? They hate it? Then why has it expanded at a record rate?
. . . is also a dumbfuck notion. (Yay!) It’s like asking why the mafia fails to hate a dirty cop. He’s a cop, right?
Your man Bush wanted it from jump street, though.
Oh yeah, Bush is my man alright. Thats why I voted for him twice! Oh wait, I didn’t. Try again, partisan idiot.
No military, no Iraq war.
I wouldn’t want to see the military abolished. I would, however, want all our overseas bases closed down, the Defense Departments budget cut by around 50%, and the Pentagon turned into Virginia’s biggest indoor shopping mall.
No IRS, no unfair audits.
I want the IRS gone, thanks.
You are, in effect, on Bush’s side.
Yes, because if you’re not for Team Blue, you must be for Team Red. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. Spare me the simplistic partisan horseshit, ok?
Bush has expanded federal (non-defense) discretionary spending at a faster rate than any of his predecessors. Of course if it was Team Blue instead of Team Red doing it, you would probably have no problem with it.
Oh yeah, Bush is my man alright. Thats why I voted for him twice! Oh wait, I didn’t. Try again, partisan idiot.
I don’t care who you voted for. Partisanship is a waste of time. You’re supporting his de facto position with pseudolibertarian bullshit. You’re calling me idiot for saying things like —
I want the IRS gone, thanks.
Simply moronic. Great stuff, though. And I complained about spending, and have complained about government spending, since I was twelve. The problem isn’t that the government spends money, the problem is what it spend it on.
But, Jesus, we should be thankful that you can manage to go outside without the help of a caring adult if you think the world’s problems aren’t due to people making bad decisions for selfish reasons but for bureaucracy. “ooOoooOh, the government has a lot of individuals in it, clearly it’s bad.” Damn.
I do love how you didn’t go back and respond to my point. Reactionary rhetoric aside, you have an ideology which is very much in harmony with the substantive policies of the Republican party.
I do love how you didn’t go back and respond to my point. Reactionary rhetoric aside, you have an ideology which is very much in harmony with the substantive policies of the Republican party.
No, no I don’t.
Its very simple.
Non-lieral Democrat != Bush Republican.
But, Jesus, we should be thankful that you can manage to go outside without the help of a caring adult if you think the world’s problems aren’t due to people making bad decisions for selfish reasons but for bureaucracy.
You’re naive in the extreme if you think once The Right People(tm) get in charge everything will work fine.
“It let him be as authoritarian as he wanted to be and feel good about himself at the same time.”
Aren’t all strongly-held ideologies serving that same essential emotional-intellectual security blanket function? Claiming that decisions about real-world action can be boiled down to some deduction from a set of foundational principles certainly isn’t an intellectually rigourous position.
Aren’t all strongly-held ideologies serving that same essential emotional-intellectual security blanket function?
No. I can only speak for myself on a person’s psychology, but even that grants me the ability to contradict that sweeping statement. I’m not an anarchist because I am psychologically predisposed to need to be one, but because I view it as the only solution that remains valid when addressing systemic inequalities created by governments and other forms of hierarchies. Psychologically, the journey from being a moderate conservative was a series of grueling series of disappointments in finding that everything I’d been taught in respect of the American system of government was dead wrong in practice, and if I had been looking for a psychological security blanket I would have stopped at “American liberal” because it combines faith in the existing systems of American government with a belief in the need for reform. Sadly, I didn’t view American liberalism as being grounded in a realistic view of the role of American government or its capacity for change, so I had to move on.
Claiming that decisions about real-world action can be boiled down to some deduction from a set of foundational principles certainly isn’t an intellectually rigourous position.
*sigh* Can we please cut it out with the strawmen already?
Or are you seriously telling me that you see no distinction in behaving in a way consistent with one’s political or ethical principles and letting those principles inform one’s choices and claiming that Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Intro to Logic 101?
Uh, Paul doesn’t believe in federal student aid for anybody.
But he didn’t try to cut off student aid for everybody; he just did it for Persians. Surely you see the distinction.
If you are referring to the fact that he would dismantle the Department of Education,
If…? For crying out loud, I made the nature of my objection clear even to a Randroid. Paul’s proposal to eliminate busing programs and other things designed to ameliorate segregation in a context where schools are as segregated as they’ve been in the last fifty years, and to then turn the operation of the public schools entirely over to the states means that segregation as both a de jure and de facto reality is going to increase. This is racism in action.
Yeah yeah, I know it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside if the federal government is spending tax money on “education”, but has it really improved our schools?
Erm…do you need a refresher in the term “anarchist” or are you deliberately ignoring what I’ve already mentioned to you?
Are test scores up since the 70s?
Yes. The average score of the mathematical section of the SAT has been climbing steadily ever since 1980, after a small decline during the 1970s. In 1972 it was 509, and in 2005 the average was 520. The verbal portion of the test has remained more or less the same on average, although it is more inclined to secular fluctuations. In 1976 it was 508, it’s 509 in 2005, with it going up or down alternately over the years. The verbal portion of the SAT, however, has always been the most arbitrary.
Drop-out rates down?
Yes again. Dropout rates in the non-institutionalized portion of the juvenile population declined from 15% in 1972 to around 10% in 2003-2004.
The results haven’t been very impressive for the amount of money spent.
Considering that you’re evidently ignorant of what the results are, by the choices of examples you’ve used, I’ll give the subjective standard of how “impressed” you are all the due consideration it deserves.
Meanwhile, teacher are subject to intrusive federal regulations (see: No Child Left Behind) which forces them to teach to tests designed by federal bureaucrats in D.C.
You’re complaining that they’re forced to teach to the tests, and you use standardized testing as a metric for gauging student success? I have to say I’m not “impressed”. In fact, I find that strongly hypocritical. Naturally, I know that your true objection is rooted in “it’s the gubmint!” and think that you’d appear like less of a hypocrite if you just said that rather than rooting around for fake objections to bolster your case which conceptually contradict other statements made previously.
The minimum wage ends up doing one of two things: absolutely nothing when low since employers end up paying more anyway, or actually pricing poor and minorities out of the labor market when high enough.
Wow, no kidding! And here I was foolish enough to believe that the concept of “poverty” was linked to wage! Instead, I find that if the minimum wage is high enough, it prices the poor out of the labor market, employers apparently preferring to pay out at rates which make their employees middle class or wealthy in these conditions, rather than the hiring the poor. Who knew?
Highlighted on Ezra…
VERY nice piece here. The usual Amanda.
We should look under a rock here and there and find out
what the remnant John Birchers are ‘thinking’.
They’ve always hated the CFR and, of course, ANY other.
Mebbe ’specially those JEW people.
Good fit for this Paulist movement.
[But watch how some are comparing Paul to the other MD,
of recent memory, Howard Dean..smearing the label]
“Or are you seriously telling me that you see no distinction in behaving in a way consistent with one’s political or ethical principles and letting those principles inform one’s choices and claiming that Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Intro to Logic 101?”
Well, if “behaving in a way consistent with one’s political or ethical principles and letting those principles inform one’s choices” is your definition of ideology (I’d call it “behaving ethically” myself; I think of an ideology as being somewhat more formalised than that, since for example all the Libertarians I’ve ever met have in fact been of the Everything I Needed To Know I Learned in Intro to Logic 101 school), then Mencken is displaying a consistent ideology or philosophy and sticking to it. He prioritises saving human lives above all other considerations (which is not that unreasonable), and that’s why getting the US out of Iraq trumps all other issues for him. I don’t agree with him that Ron Paul is at all useful, as it happens, but he’s not an incoherent opportunist or a Horowitz-in-training lacking any kind of foundational principles. I don’t think it does anyone any good to ratchet up honest disagreements between good-faith members of a very pluralistic movement to that heated a level.
Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate that is anti-war and anti-illegal immigration. He is right on both of these immensely important issues, and thus deserves to be president more than any other candidate. No other issues are more important than those two.
Well, if “behaving in a way consistent with one’s political or ethical principles and letting those principles inform one’s choices” is your definition of ideology
It isn’t, but I also wasn’t the person who introduced the concept of “ideology” into the discussion.
And everything you’ve said is therefore tangential to what I have argued and what I still hold to be true. I’m more than willing to hear a counterargument, but for Christ’s sake I’m certainly not hearing one that is in any way a response to what I have previously argued. What I am arguing is that from what I can tell, HTML Mencken doesn’t have grounding political principles which inform what he believes, including being anti-war. In short, I believe he’s antiwar because it flatters his self-image. To claim that he regards the war as TOTALLY THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR is not evidence of any firmly-rooted rooted political or ethical position, because it could just as well have been generated by someone using a dart to decide which issue they were going to care about to the exclusion of all others or by someone deciding that this was a politically-convenient club with which to bash the right-wing over the head. It is when I see him evincing some humanitarian concern for people in general, rather than getting up on his high horse to unleash a torrent of “Wite-Majic Attax” on anybody who dares disagree, that I will say I can trust him as an ally.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who is not willing to commit to some foundational principles which cut across issues (being anti-war to the exclusion of all else, therefore, is not a principle because it cannot inform other issues) is at best a fair-weather friend, and when they use their white privilege to start attacking people who dare to suggest that their approach is not constructive, then they are no allies of mine at all.
I don’t think it does anyone any good to ratchet up honest disagreements between good-faith members of a very pluralistic movement to that heated a level.
Well, it’s your privilege to think that. I personally cannot just write off endorsing a white supremacist as an “honest disagreement between good-faith members of a very pluralistic movement”. If I did, then I’d be flying into the arms of the Bo Gritzes of the world.
What is really showing is the uncomfortable truth that white liberals have more in common with white conservatives than they do with people of color, regardless of the PoC’s political position. There are cultural norms which cut across politics, and one of them is the tacit assumption that white people get to have the helmsmanship of whatever movement they participate in, regardless of its political goals. HTML Mencken unleashed those “Wite-Majic Attax” on me not because of a disagreement over tactics, but to establish that it was his absolute right and prerogative to dictate to me what was and was not a permissible opinion in the anti-war movement. What I was trying to do was explain to him both that this was a common feature of the liberal anti-war movement and why I and other people (and not necessarily just PoC either) felt excluded from the movement.
Naturally, I think you’d prefer to see this from the perspective that we’re still part of the anti-war movement, and in a technical sense that is correct, but by employing a linguistically correct concept while refusing to call the anti-war movement on its racism, classism, etc. one simply tosses the deeply-rooted concerns of I and thousands of other people in the garbage. That is why I could not let this pass without raising my objection, and why I do not regard HTML Mencken and I as sharing a common movement.
“As far as I am concerned, anyone who is not willing to commit to some foundational principles which cut across issues (being anti-war to the exclusion of all else, therefore, is not a principle because it cannot inform other issues) is at best a fair-weather friend, and when they use their white privilege to start attacking people who dare to suggest that their approach is not constructive, then they are no allies of mine at all.”
He has displayed a foundational principle, and I’ve already pointed that out to you. The principle is that human life is valuable and that we have an overriding imperative not to take it nor allow ourselves to be complicit in taking it. Whether he exercises this principle consistently or fully I certainly can’t judge, but it’s blatantly there. And he specifically said he didn’t endorse Paul and would never vote for him. He’s not some kind of monster. He’s not your enemy. He’s just this guy, you know? Let’s keep some perspective.
That’s all I’m interested in saying.
He has displayed a foundational principle, and I’ve already pointed that out to you. The principle is that human life is valuable and that we have an overriding imperative not to take it nor allow ourselves to be complicit in taking it. Whether he exercises this principle consistently or fully I certainly can’t judge, but it’s blatantly there.
Well, I think you can judge. Just read his post. Does it mention Afghanistan anywhere? Does he take a stand against the Afghanistan War anywhere? Or the Iraq Sanctions? These are the obvious ones. I dare not even hope that he’d be informed enough about U.S. policy to condemn, for example, the FBI’s assassination of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos on the 137th anniversary of El Grito de Lares (the date was clearly meant to send a chilling message to the remaining Puerto Rican nationalist movement) or the firebombing of the Phildelphia MOVE on Osage Ave.
The Iraq War is an easy thing to be against, but when it comes to talking about human life, he falls short when it’s something that’s difficult to constrain within the standard liberal anti-war frame. So, I would argue no, even general humanitarian feeling is not an issue with him.
Lastly, I never argued he was my enemy; he is just not my ally.