[Peace-discussion] Must read.

[John Walsh]

At this point in history certain kinds of red baiting turn out to be
right on the money - as Gorbachev and Emma Goldman both recognized,
One problem with the GP is that it has become the last safe haven of
the failed Bolshevik ideology (and I speak as a former Bolshevik
myself) and the pathetic identity politics of the remnants of the
"C"PUSA and other tattered old line Left groups.
We are not socialists and we are not Dems - but we do share a lot with
real Libertarians.
john walsh (MA delegate)
p.s. To those who believe "man ist was man isst," I would counter that
"man ist was man tut."  And for those who tut nichts, they are nichts.
pps.  Nick continues the standard fare.  I am sure he is smart and
well meaning - but tell us something we have not heard 1000 times
before from folks who have been wrong about almost everything.  OK,
not almost.

On 12/14/07, Nick Schmader <nschmader@cox.net> wrote:
>
>  By saying that David's objections to Ron Paul's politics are standard or
> predictable, does not vitiate the accuracy or relevance of those objectio=
ns.
> If fascism cloaked in libertarian verbiage appeals to folks, then you all
> can get on the Ron Paul bandwagon. But a confused, meandering critique of
> the ISO smacks of red baiting, and for what?  To legitamize Ron Paul's
> reactionary agenda?
>
>  Nick
>  RI
>
>
>
>  John Walsh wrote:
> Actually Nader has spoken approvingly of Paul - and vice versa.  Neither =
is
> a socialist in the old 19th century sense of the word - but neither am I =
and
> neither is the GP.
>
>
> I do not want to be rude BUT all the points you raise are almost the
> standard ones that trip off the tongue of Leftists - all very predictable=
.
>  I am not proposing that we support Paul - but I would damned sure vote f=
or
> him before any one of the Dems in the field including Kucinich.
>
>
> I find that there is a failure on the "Left" to rethink things in a serio=
us
> way and form alliances that are not across the board but may exert a pinc=
er
> movement on the parties of war, death and empire.
> john walsh (MA delegate)
>
>
> On Dec 14, 2007 3:54 PM, David Strand <mncivil@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Ron Paul does not deserve the support of any Green in
> > my opinion.
> >
> > To begin with, he opposes every consumer and
> > environmental protection that Nader has ever worked
> > for as he feels all those government regulations are
> > unduly burdensome on business.
> >
> > He opposes carbon cap and trade and most all
> > government regulations of pollution.
> >
> > He opposes all forms of public education.  In fact his
> > chief campaign organizer in Iowa is a guy who is paid
> > for by a conservative think tank that believes public
> > education undermines parents religious rights by it's
> > mere existence and at least since he is tied up with
> > the Ron Paul campaign he not touring the country
> > trying to defeat public schools systems funding
> > referenda.
> >
> > He opposes civil rights laws and regulations as an
> > undue monitoring of what he sees as personal morality
> > by the government.
> >
> > He is part of the southern Milesian tradition of
> > libertarianism which often draws white supremacists
> > and those sentimental for the days of the confederacy
> > and which tend to be far more socially conservative
> > than their Cato Institute related brethren.  For
> > example, Ron Paul, for all his libertarian
> > credentials, believes the government SHOULD use it's
> > force to restrict abortion and other post
> > fertilization forms of birth control so he is
> > decisively anti-abortion and even opposed to numerous
> > forms of birth control.
> >
> > He doesn't support government protection of the right
> > to unionize either.
> >
> > He doesn't support current social safety net programs
> > such as welfare, medicare, medicaid let alone fully
> > opposing Green objectives such as universal single
> > payer healthcare.
> >
> > And his immigration policies are as backward from
> > Green positions as those of the infamously rascist and
> > anti-immigrant candidate Tom Tancredo.
> >
> > Is it allright to work with him together on the
> > singular issues we do agree with him on such as
> > opposing the war though from very different reasonings
> > and frames?
> >
> >
> > You betch ya!
> >
> > However, this should not translate into a campaign in
> > favor of so so many things which we heartily oppose
> > and opposed to so so many things we support.
> >
> > If that's a "sling or arrow", I hope it's hit it's
> > mark.
> >
> > David Strand
> >
> >
> > --- John Walsh <jvwalshmd@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3D12053
> > >
> > > December 14, 2007
> > > Ron Paul: Slings and Arrows, Left and Right
> > > The Trots and the neo-Trots gang up on Ron
> > > BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO
> > >
> > > Ron Paul's simultaneous reenactment of the Goldwater
> > > and McCarthy
> > > (Eugene, not Joe) campaigns has excited a wave of
> > > enthusiasm on both
> > > sides of the political spectrum =96 and also a much
> > > less enthusiastic
> > > reaction from committed ideologues, left and right.
> > > While they come at
> > > the Paul campaign from different angles, both wind
> > > up with
> > > surprisingly similar negative analyses of the
> > > Paulian phenomenon, more
> > > so than you might imagine.
> > >
> > > Let's take the lefties first, starting with one
> > > Sherry Wolf, whom, we
> > > are told, is an editor of the International
> > > Socialist Review. Writing
> > > in Counterpunch, she starts out her polemic by
> > > acknowledging the utter
> > > lack of any alternative to the object of her intense
> > > irritation:
> > >
> > > "'Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum,' goes the
> > > revamped aphorism.
> > > Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's
> > > surprising stature among
> > > a small but vocal layer of antiwar activists and
> > > leftist bloggers
> > > appears to bear this out."
> > >
> > > By way of understanding the full implications of
> > > this statement,
> > > perhaps you ought to know that the International
> > > Socialist Review,
> > > where Ms. Wolf serves on the editorial board, is the
> > > quarterly
> > > theoretical journal of the International Socialist
> > > Organization (ISO),
> > > the largest Trotskyist organization in the US,
> > > associated with the
> > > "Third Camp" views of the late Tony Cliff. Last time
> > > around the ISO
> > > supported Ralph Nader for President, attracting much
> > > criticism from
> > > its more orthodox Trotskyist competitors: I remember
> > > going to a Nader
> > > rally at Mission High School in San Francisco at
> > > which Nader attacked
> > > the idea of state socialism, much to the
> > > embarrassment of the ISO,
> > > which provided the organizational muscle for the
> > > Nader campaign in
> > > Northern California =96 and their embarrassment must
> > > be even greater
> > > this time around, when there is no "progressive"
> > > candidate on the
> > > ballot or likely to appear on any ballot, and Nader
> > > is saying good
> > > things about =85 Ron Paul! (at around 4:40 minutes
> > > into this Youtubed
> > > "Hardball"clip).
> > >
> > > Panic! What to do?! Well, Ms. Wolf complains, at
> > > length, that Ron
> > > isn't a socialist, which seems to me a rather
> > > useless pursuit. After
> > > all, neither is Nader. If they want a socialist,
> > > then why not run
> > > their own candidate, like the Socialist Workers
> > > Party used to do? Oh,
> > > no, they can't be bothered. Instead, they recycle
> > > the smears initially
> > > hurled at Paul by the neocons: he's a "racist,"
> > > albeit Wolf's
> > > rationale is even loopier than that dreamt up by
> > > Ron's opponents on
> > > the Right. Paul is a racist, you see, because he
> > > "imagines a
> > > colorblind world" =96 as did Martin Luther King, and
> > > the entire
> > > integrationist tradition of the civil rights
> > > movement, oh, but never
> > > mind. Aside from citing quotes that were not written
> > > by Rep. Paul, and
> > > were instead authored by a fired aide, Wolf can't do
> > > any better than
> > > that. This is a lot like the Clintonians implying
> > > that Barack Obama
> > > may have been a drug dealer. One can't help
> > > wondering, if, perhaps,
> > > the ISO is secretly supporting Hillary =96 or else,
> > > why the effort to
> > > wall off the left from Paul with this ridiculous
> > > smear of "racism"?
> > > Who benefits from that? Clearly, the Democrats =85.
> > >
> > > Wolf decries Paul's opposition to a policy of open
> > > borders, and yet
> > > Nader took almost the same position as Paul: he
> > > opposes illegal
> > > immigration, and pledged to reduce it last time
> > > around. In an
> > > interview with Pat Buchanan published in The
> > > American Conservative,
> > > when asked about the growth of the US population to
> > > 400 million in the
> > > near future, Nader said
> > >
> > > "We don't have the absorptive capacity for that many
> > > people. Over 32
> > > million came in, in the '90s, which is the highest
> > > in American
> > > history. We have to control our immigration. We have
> > > to limit the
> > > number of people who come into this country
> > > illegally. First of all,
> > > we have to say what is the impact on
> > > African-Americans and Hispanic
> > > Americans in this country in terms of wages of our
> > > present stance on
> > > immigration? It is a wage-depressing policy."
> > >
> > > The hypocrisy of the ISO attack on Paul is
> > > breathtaking.
> > >
> > > Like the neocons, Wolf attacks Paul for supposedly
> > > being one of those
> > > dreaded "isolationists." Does she realize that this
> > > is a code-word for
> > > anti-war and anti-imperialist? Of course she does,
> > > yet she cynically
> > > avers: "In the isolationist fashion of the nation's
> > > Pat Buchanans, he
> > > decries intervention in foreign nation's affairs and
> > > believes
> > > membership in the United Nations undermines U.S.
> > > sovereignty." Such a
> > > sentence, dripping with contempt for Paul's "no
> > > entangling alliances"
> > > keep-us-out-of-war stance, might easily have
> > > appeared in the Weekly
> > > Standard, or National Review. Out of the United
> > > Nations?! Oh,
> > > heavens-to-Betsy, then how would the Security
> > > Council enforce all
> > > those delightful sanctions against Iran, and
> > > threaten to unleash the
> > > armed might of the West if Tehran doesn't bow to the
> > > Council's
> > > demands? Of course, this is par for the course for
> > > the ISO, whose
> > > British predecessors, the Cliff-ite Socialist Review
> > > faction, refused
> > > to condemn the US invasion of Korea, which was
> > > sanctioned, you'll
> > > recall, by the UN and fought under "international"
> > > auspices.
> > >
> > > The ISO is so f*cking clueless, that I have a hard
> > > time taking Wolf's
> > > polemic seriously: it is so obviously the result of
> > > pure political
> > > calculation, and sheer panic, that one has to wonder
> > > if they take it
> > > seriously. I have to say, however, that they just
> > > don't get it. They
> > > don't understand Ron's appeal to the left, aside and
> > > apart from his
> > > unrelenting opposition to US intervention abroad.
> > > They think they can
> > > gull the left if they bring up his economic views:
> > >
> > > "Complaints against 'big government' and
> > > 'over-regulation,' though
> > > often justified, also issue from the privileged who
> > > are frustrated at
> > > finding that their quest for still greater
> > > privileges at the expense
> > > of their community are curtailed by a government
> > > which, ideally,
> > > represents that community. Pure food and drug laws
> > > curtail profits and
> > > mandate tests as they protect the general public."
> > >
> > > Yet Paul's critique of state capitalism takes on the
> > > commanding
> > > heights of the system: the Federal Reserve.
> > > Inflation, he says, is the
> > > means by which the plutocratic elite gets the
> > > freshly-created assets
> > > first and gets to spend them at full value =96 while
> > > the currency is
> > > debauched and the poor and the middle class suffer.
> > > His
> > =3D=3D=3D message truncated =3D=3D=3D
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>  ________________________________________________________________________=
____________
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> >
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