[Peace-discussion] Must read.

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:05:26 +0000

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It's a bull's eye that spatters the bull shit in support of a Republican yet.  

I've always maintained that if the Republican Party is the party of fascism, racism and death-- then the Democrats are their shadow.

Tony

-------------- Original message from David Strand <mncivil@yahoo.com>: -------------- 

> 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 wrote: 
> 
> > http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12053 
> > 
> > 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 – 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 – 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 … 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" – 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 – 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 …. 
> > 
> > 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 – while 
> > the currency is 
> > debauched and the poor and the middle class suffer. 
> > His 
> === message truncated === 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________________ 
> ____ 
> Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. 
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs 
> _______________________________________________ 
> Peace-discussion mailing list 
> Peace-discussion@lists.gp-us.org 
> http://lists.gp-us.org/mailman/listinfo/peace-discussion 
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<DIV></DIV>
It's a bull's eye that spatters the bull shit in support of a Republican yet.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;
I've always maintained that if the Republican Party is the party of fascism, racism and death-- then the Democrats are their shadow.
&nbsp;
Tony 
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">-------------- Original message from David Strand &lt;mncivil@yahoo.com&gt;: -------------- &gt; Ron Paul does not deserve the support of any Green in &gt; my opinion. &gt; &gt; To begin with, he opposes every consumer and &gt; environmental protection that Nader has ever worked &gt; for as he feels all those government regulations are &gt; unduly burdensome on business. &gt; &gt; He opposes carbon cap and trade and most all &gt; government regulations of pollution. &gt; &gt; He opposes all forms of public education. In fact his &gt; chief campaign organizer in Iowa is a guy who is paid &gt; for by a conservative think tank that believes public &gt; education undermines parents religious rights by it's &gt; mere existence and at least since he is tied up with &gt; the Ron Paul campaign he not touring the country &gt;
 trying to defeat public schools systems funding &gt; referenda. &gt; &gt; He opposes civil rights laws and regulations as an &gt; undue monitoring of what he sees as personal morality &gt; by the government. &gt; &gt; He is part of the southern Milesian tradition of &gt; libertarianism which often draws white supremacists &gt; and those sentimental for the days of the confederacy &gt; and which tend to be far more socially conservative &gt; than their Cato Institute related brethren. For &gt; example, Ron Paul, for all his libertarian &gt; credentials, believes the government SHOULD use it's &gt; force to restrict abortion and other post &gt; fertilization forms of birth control so he is &gt; decisively anti-abortion and even opposed to numerous &gt; forms of birth control. &gt; &gt; He doesn't support government protection of the right &gt; to unionize either. &gt; &gt; He doesn't support curr
ent social safety net programs &gt; such as welfare, medicare, medicaid let alone fully &gt; opposing Green objectives such as universal single &gt; payer healthcare. &gt; &gt; And his immigration policies are as backward from &gt; Green positions as those of the infamously rascist and &gt; anti-immigrant candidate Tom Tancredo. &gt; &gt; Is it allright to work with him together on the &gt; singular issues we do agree with him on such as &gt; opposing the war though from very different reasonings &gt; and frames? &gt; &gt; &gt; You betch ya! &gt; &gt; However, this should not translate into a campaign in &gt; favor of so so many things which we heartily oppose &gt; and opposed to so so many things we support. &gt; &gt; If that's a "sling or arrow", I hope it's hit it's &gt; mark. &gt; &gt; David Strand &gt; --- John Walsh <JVWALSHMD@GMAIL.COM>wrote: &gt; &gt; &gt; http://www.
antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12053 &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; December 14, 2007 &gt; &gt; Ron Paul: Slings and Arrows, Left and Right &gt; &gt; The Trots and the neo-Trots gang up on Ron &gt; &gt; BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Ron Paul's simultaneous reenactment of the Goldwater &gt; &gt; and McCarthy &gt; &gt; (Eugene, not Joe) campaigns has excited a wave of &gt; &gt; enthusiasm on both &gt; &gt; sides of the political spectrum – and also a much &gt; &gt; less enthusiastic &gt; &gt; reaction from committed ideologues, left and right. &gt; &gt; While they come at &gt; &gt; the Paul campaign from different angles, both wind &gt; &gt; up with &gt; &gt; surprisingly similar negative analyses of the &gt; &gt; Paulian phenomenon, more &gt; &gt; so than you might imagine. &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Let's take the lefties first, starting with one &gt; &gt; Sherry Wolf, whom, we &gt; &gt; are told, is 
an editor of the International &gt; &gt; Socialist Review. Writing &gt; &gt; in Counterpunch, she starts out her polemic by &gt; &gt; acknowledging the utter &gt; &gt; lack of any alternative to the object of her intense &gt; &gt; irritation: &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; "'Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum,' goes the &gt; &gt; revamped aphorism. &gt; &gt; Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's &gt; &gt; surprising stature among &gt; &gt; a small but vocal layer of antiwar activists and &gt; &gt; leftist bloggers &gt; &gt; appears to bear this out." &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; By way of understanding the full implications of &gt; &gt; this statement, &gt; &gt; perhaps you ought to know that the International &gt; &gt; Socialist Review, &gt; &gt; where Ms. Wolf serves on the editorial board, is the &gt; &gt; quarterly &gt; &gt; theoretical journal of the International Socialist &gt; &gt; Organization (I
SO), &gt; &gt; the largest Trotskyist organization in the US, &gt; &gt; associated with the &gt; &gt; "Third Camp" views of the late Tony Cliff. Last time &gt; &gt; around the ISO &gt; &gt; supported Ralph Nader for President, attracting much &gt; &gt; criticism from &gt; &gt; its more orthodox Trotskyist competitors: I remember &gt; &gt; going to a Nader &gt; &gt; rally at Mission High School in San Francisco at &gt; &gt; which Nader attacked &gt; &gt; the idea of state socialism, much to the &gt; &gt; embarrassment of the ISO, &gt; &gt; which provided the organizational muscle for the &gt; &gt; Nader campaign in &gt; &gt; Northern California – and their embarrassment must &gt; &gt; be even greater &gt; &gt; this time around, when there is no "progressive" &gt; &gt; candidate on the &gt; &gt; ballot or likely to appear on any ballot, and Nader &gt; &gt; is saying good &gt; &gt; things about … Ron P
aul! (at around 4:40 minutes &gt; &gt; into this Youtubed &gt; &gt; "Hardball"clip). &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Panic! What to do?! Well, Ms. Wolf complains, at &gt; &gt; length, that Ron &gt; &gt; isn't a socialist, which seems to me a rather &gt; &gt; useless pursuit. After &gt; &gt; all, neither is Nader. If they want a socialist, &gt; &gt; then why not run &gt; &gt; their own candidate, like the Socialist Workers &gt; &gt; Party used to do? Oh, &gt; &gt; no, they can't be bothered. Instead, they recycle &gt; &gt; the smears initially &gt; &gt; hurled at Paul by the neocons: he's a "racist," &gt; &gt; albeit Wolf's &gt; &gt; rationale is even loopier than that dreamt up by &gt; &gt; Ron's opponents on &gt; &gt; the Right. Paul is a racist, you see, because he &gt; &gt; "imagines a &gt; &gt; colorblind world" – as did Martin Luther King, and &gt; &gt; the entire &gt; &gt; integrationist tradition of 
the civil rights &gt; &gt; movement, oh, but never &gt; &gt; mind. Aside from citing quotes that were not written &gt; &gt; by Rep. Paul, and &gt; &gt; were instead authored by a fired aide, Wolf can't do &gt; &gt; any better than &gt; &gt; that. This is a lot like the Clintonians implying &gt; &gt; that Barack Obama &gt; &gt; may have been a drug dealer. One can't help &gt; &gt; wondering, if, perhaps, &gt; &gt; the ISO is secretly supporting Hillary – or else, &gt; &gt; why the effort to &gt; &gt; wall off the left from Paul with this ridiculous &gt; &gt; smear of "racism"? &gt; &gt; Who benefits from that? Clearly, the Democrats …. &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Wolf decries Paul's opposition to a policy of open &gt; &gt; borders, and yet &gt; &gt; Nader took almost the same position as Paul: he &gt; &gt; opposes illegal &gt; &gt; immigration, and pledged to reduce it last time &gt; &gt; around. In an &
gt; &gt; interview with Pat Buchanan published in The &gt; &gt; American Conservative, &gt; &gt; when asked about the growth of the US population to &gt; &gt; 400 million in the &gt; &gt; near future, Nader said &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; "We don't have the absorptive capacity for that many &gt; &gt; people. Over 32 &gt; &gt; million came in, in the '90s, which is the highest &gt; &gt; in American &gt; &gt; history. We have to control our immigration. We have &gt; &gt; to limit the &gt; &gt; number of people who come into this country &gt; &gt; illegally. First of all, &gt; &gt; we have to say what is the impact on &gt; &gt; African-Americans and Hispanic &gt; &gt; Americans in this country in terms of wages of our &gt; &gt; present stance on &gt; &gt; immigration? It is a wage-depressing policy." &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; The hypocrisy of the ISO attack on Paul is &gt; &gt; breathtaking. &gt; &gt; &gt; 
&gt; Like the neocons, Wolf attacks Paul for supposedly &gt; &gt; being one of those &gt; &gt; dreaded "isolationists." Does she realize that this &gt; &gt; is a code-word for &gt; &gt; anti-war and anti-imperialist? Of course she does, &gt; &gt; yet she cynically &gt; &gt; avers: "In the isolationist fashion of the nation's &gt; &gt; Pat Buchanans, he &gt; &gt; decries intervention in foreign nation's affairs and &gt; &gt; believes &gt; &gt; membership in the United Nations undermines U.S. &gt; &gt; sovereignty." Such a &gt; &gt; sentence, dripping with contempt for Paul's "no &gt; &gt; entangling alliances" &gt; &gt; keep-us-out-of-war stance, might easily have &gt; &gt; appeared in the Weekly &gt; &gt; Standard, or National Review. Out of the United &gt; &gt; Nations?! Oh, &gt; &gt; heavens-to-Betsy, then how would the Security &gt; &gt; Council enforce all &gt; &gt; those delightful sanctions agains
t Iran, and &gt; &gt; threaten to unleash the &gt; &gt; armed might of the West if Tehran doesn't bow to the &gt; &gt; Council's &gt; &gt; demands? Of course, this is par for the course for &gt; &gt; the ISO, whose &gt; &gt; British predecessors, the Cliff-ite Socialist Review &gt; &gt; faction, refused &gt; &gt; to condemn the US invasion of Korea, which was &gt; &gt; sanctioned, you'll &gt; &gt; recall, by the UN and fought under "international" &gt; &gt; auspices. &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; The ISO is so f*cking clueless, that I have a hard &gt; &gt; time taking Wolf's &gt; &gt; polemic seriously: it is so obviously the result of &gt; &gt; pure political &gt; &gt; calculation, and sheer panic, that one has to wonder &gt; &gt; if they take it &gt; &gt; seriously. I have to say, however, that they just &gt; &gt; don't get it. They &gt; &gt; don't understand Ron's appeal to the left, aside and &gt; &gt
; apart from his &gt; &gt; unrelenting opposition to US intervention abroad. &gt; &gt; They think they can &gt; &gt; gull the left if they bring up his economic views: &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; "Complaints against 'big government' and &gt; &gt; 'over-regulation,' though &gt; &gt; often justified, also issue from the privileged who &gt; &gt; are frustrated at &gt; &gt; finding that their quest for still greater &gt; &gt; privileges at the expense &gt; &gt; of their community are curtailed by a government &gt; &gt; which, ideally, &gt; &gt; represents that community. Pure food and drug laws &gt; &gt; curtail profits and &gt; &gt; mandate tests as they protect the general public." &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; Yet Paul's critique of state capitalism takes on the &gt; &gt; commanding &gt; &gt; heights of the system: the Federal Reserve. &gt; &gt; Inflation, he says, is the &gt; &gt; means by which the plutocratic elite
 gets the &gt; &gt; freshly-created assets &gt; &gt; first and gets to spend them at full value – while &gt; &gt; the currency is &gt; &gt; debauched and the poor and the middle class suffer. &gt; &gt; His &gt; === message truncated === &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; &gt; ________________________________________________________________________________ &gt; ____ &gt; Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. &gt; http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs &gt; _______________________________________________ &gt; Peace-discussion mailing list &gt; Peace-discussion@lists.gp-us.org &gt; http://lists.gp-us.org/mailman/listinfo/peace-discussion </BLOCKQUOTE>

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