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Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Q: How do you distinguish racists and anti-Semites (none / 1)
from those who honestly disagree with the main domestic and foreign policies of the Obama administration?

rootless 2 A: You can't, so everyone who disagrees with the main domestic and foreign policies of the Obama administration is an anti-Semite and a racist.

Dumb, trollish.

fairleft

by fairleft (fairleftatyahoodotcom) on Wed Dec 16th, 2009 at 03:02:02 PM EST
It's pretty damn easy (none / 0)
What a load of nonsense. Al Giordano is an uncompromising critic who doesn't have to resort to speculating about Rahm Emmanuel's role in manipulating the poor puppet. Barbara Lee strongly attacked the Administrations Afghanistan policies without making right wing talking points in "left" disguise. The "Anger Left" is addicted to its vitriolic language in which every right wing cliche about the liberals/left is animated again. We have everything from shadowy Jewish puppetmasters and bankers to the traditional sexist-homophobic sexual jeering ("bending over") and an absolute unwillingness to articulate a criticism that does not exhibit these signs.
by rootless2 on Wed Dec 16th, 2009 at 03:34:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 2)
and authentically vitriolic racism & anti-semitism charges? Do you have examples where "Taibbi, Rosenberg, [and] Firedoglake"

  1. 'speculate about Rahm Emmanuel's role in manipulating the poor puppet [Obama].' [Don't forget that the examples require the characterization of Obama as a puppet.]

  2. 'make right wing talking points in "left" disguise.' [To show this you first have to demonstrate that various talking points are right-wing ones and then you have to show that all of the above charged employ one or more of them after disguising them.]

  3. are 'addicted to its vitriolic language in which every right wing cliche about the liberals/left is animated again.' [Here you need to define what 'vitriolic' means for you, you have to show something is a right-wing cliche, and then you have to show all of those three are employing one or more of them.]

  4. employ 'everything from shadowy Jewish puppetmasters and bankers to the traditional sexist-homophobic sexual jeering ("bending over") and [have] an absolute unwillingness to articulate a criticism that does not exhibit these signs.' [To show proof here you need to quote where all of the charged employ imagery of "shadowy Jewish puppet masters and bankers," (and don't forget the shadowy and puppetmaster parts). You also need to show that the above three sources never publish articles that don't employ either 'bending over' language or '"shadowy Jewish puppet masters and bankers' imagery.


fairleft
by fairleft (fairleftatyahoodotcom) on Thu Dec 17th, 2009 at 04:21:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 0)
Sigh. I obviously was not clear. I do not say that Taibbi et al are making anti-semitic statements, I say that the wild talk of "betrayal" and lazy politics essentially adopts the framework of the far right and is compatible with their ideology.

A radical argument would focus on the structural power of finance capital. A reactionary argument describes a betrayal, a shadowy cabal, etc.

by rootless2 on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 04:00:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 1)
Betrayal isn't a framework identified with the far right, though it may be a framework frequently employed by them. Just because their frame may be compatible with one employed by the far right doesn't mean the frame is compatible with a far rightist ideology but not with other ideologies. For example, Taibbi et al's Obama betrayal frame is perfectly compatible with a moderately left ideology; they say leftists should feel betrayed and should act with that background knowledge, act more wisely, in their future political efforts. Perhaps, just maybe, such moderate leftists will act on less naivete about the influence of massive amounts of campaign cash delivered to Obama by the corporate elite? That's a ideologically lefty kind of enlightenment, I think, and is compatible, I suppose, with the betrayal frame.


fairleft
by fairleft (fairleftatyahoodotcom) on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 06:03:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 1)
I disagree. The narrative of betrayal and conspiracy is inherently right wing and is tied deeply to the resentment and fear that is the motor of fascism.
by rootless2 on Fri Dec 18th, 2009 at 08:00:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (3.50 / 2)
is inherently totalitarian in the context of organizational analyses. Arendt exhausted a lot of time and ink on forensics. Contemporary discourse I think pinned to either "left-" or "right-" wing alliance of an actor misses the point. That is the fallacy of obedience to a common enterprise, frequently reduced by mass communication to "shared responsibility," of belonging to this political party or the other. Less often and more insidious, obedience to common law or collection of mores expressed as a community.

Arendt might argue that betrayal isn't a valid accusation to be leveled on "leaders" by persons of a political standing amounting to powerlessness. Conspiracy, on the other hand, especially given unresolved suspicions of criminality that envelops regulation of social conduct by government, generally, is entirely germane to an examination of any common enterprise and reasons to consent to participation in realizing it.


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 11:55:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 2)
The narrative of betrayal and conspiracy is inherently right wing and is tied deeply to the resentment and fear that is the motor of fascism.
Yes, just look at well known rightwing extremist Naomi Klein...

And really, fascism as being rightwing? Totalitarian movements are neither inherently right or left. See: national socialist Germany and real socialist Russia.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 06:25:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 1)
Good God! Are you really arguing that Fascism is not right wing? Did I fall into the NRO Corner by mistake?
by rootless2 on Sat Dec 19th, 2009 at 09:12:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 2)
The issue is debatable...


En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 04:16:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 2)
Not seriously. After all, when the mask fell, Friedman was a supporter of Pinochet and Hayek even went there to tout "economic freedom" which is apparently compatible with police torture states. The "left" project is always centered on humanism and egalitarianism while the right's project is centered on some authoritarian system. Stalin's police state was naturally drawn to the same patriarchal authority laden emotional themes as the Czar and Hitler.
by rootless2 on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 05:19:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 3)
I find the 'authoritarian' label much more useful than the label 'right-wing' and there is no shortage of authoritarian 'left-wing' examples.

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 05:26:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 0)
To me, one of the problems of Marxism is that it eventually confused the mechanism (state control of production) with the goal of human liberation and put the first above the second. The attempt to distinguish left/right based on economic system is, I find, not helpful. Is China left or right? Does the US DOD, one of the largest economic planning organizations in the history of the world fit into capitalism or socialism? But one point I was attempting to make here is that the forms of authoritarian/right propaganda are not good vehicles for supposedly left-wing critique as they carry a message that cannot be separated from the form.
by rootless2 on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 06:30:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (none / 0)
But isn't the real qualifier how the belief is arrived at?

Following your authoritarian model, it still needs some structural underpinning. People believe things through psychological mechanisms, and I tend to sort them into external authorities outside the psyche/genome/culture, or inside.

As time goes by, external authoritization through leaders' use of supernatural morality as bulwark for their pronouncements might be reduced. Or not.

I'm very wary of the current trends in propaganda, because all propaganda is based on authority. It hardly seems that propaganda that tells you to trust your own derivation of truth through observation and falsifiability is propaganda at all, but that's what it's being called now. viz, the climate change denial movement. discredit the scientists.

Trust Nothing is not the formula for social happiness.

Align culture with our nature. Ot else!

by ormondotvos (ormond.otvosnospamgmialcon) on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 09:26:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 4)
You still have a difference between solidary vs. selfish on the one hand and authoritarian vs. libertarian on the other. Authoritarian enforcement of solidarity is not unheard of (just look at the "forced collectivizations" in the Republican rearguard during Spain's civil war, as well as the gradual Stalinist takeover of the Republican side). It is probably the case that there is a correlation between the two axes but there is enough variation in the other direction to make two axes necessary, both with selfish libertarians (Randian/Hayekian neoliberals, anarchocapitalists...) and "authoritarian solidarity" (assorted left movements from violent "liberation" movements to the Pol Pots, Stalins and Maos of this world).

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Dec 21st, 2009 at 06:01:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Any quotes that demonstrate your absurd (4.00 / 4)
and Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills ("The Betrayal," NY Review of Books, 2 Dec 2009, excerpted below).

Others I respect have given up on him before now. I can see why. His backtracking on the treatment of torture (and photographs of torture), his hesitations to give up on rendition, on detentions, on military commissions, and on signing statements, are disheartening continuations of George W. Bush's heritage. But I kept hoping that he was using these concessions to buy leeway for his most important position, for the ground on which his presidential bid was predicated.

There was only one thing that brought him to the attention of the nation as a future president. It was opposition to the Iraq war. None of his serious rivals for the Democratic nomination had that credential--not Hillary Clinton, not Joseph Biden, not John Edwards. It set him apart. He put in clarion terms the truth about that war--that it was a dumb war, that it went after an enemy where he was not hiding, that it had no indigenous base of support, that it had no sensible goal and no foreseeable cutoff point.

He said that he would not oppose war in general, but dumb wars. On that basis, we went for him. And now he betrays us. Although he talked of a larger commitment to Afghanistan during his campaign, he has now officially adopted his very own war, one with all the disqualifications that he attacked in the Iraq engagement. This war too is a dumb one. It has even less indigenous props than Iraq did.

Read more...

I surmise, Mr Wills's sense, his vote for Obama was betrayed, arises as much from an apprehension that Mr Obama is not a prinicipled person as from the senseless human sacrifice for which he now stands. Mr Wills possesses an extremely refined appreciation for tell-tale traits of transcendentalism in political speech. I would not argue, Mr Wills is opposed to "just war" or any war, merely that he finds Mr Obama's methods and rationale unpersuasive.

Lincoln at Gettysburg is a very interesting book. It accomplishes two tasks through a literary critque of Lincoln's dedication of the battlefield  cemetary: (i) to query the moral premises of martial law evoked by Lincoln; and (ii) to execavate patriotic myths (Aeschylus, Pericles, Plato, etc) of the polis operating in Lincoln's epitaphoi and, one could argue, American presidential rhetoric ever since.

Sponsored by either republican or democratic party. Now that America's battlefield is boundless.

[4.] Athenians differ from all others in their death because they live in a different way, with a chracteristic regimen (politeia)....

[6.] So the fallen heroes in the Kerameikos advance their nobility (eugenia) by going to school to the polis and its values (politeia). Thus, by their death, they teach others to live, making their city [cf. Raygun] a training (paideia) for the whole civilized world. [1992:56-58]

etc etc

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Sun Dec 20th, 2009 at 11:05:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Ideology of the Anger Left in the USA | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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