Antiwar “Lefts” embrace ultra-right Republican candidate Ron Paul

[inthebrain]

AWESOME READ!!!! HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD REGARDING WHAT'S WRONG WITH POLITICS TODAY.

I'm not sold into everything that's said on the WSW. I do think they are fucking awesome at identifying an issue and really disecting it. Good stuff that really gets into your head and makes you stop and think.


Antiwar “Lefts” embrace ultra-right Republican candidate Ron Paul

By Jerry White and Jeff Lincoln
22 January 2008

Over the last several months, a section of the antiwar protest movement in the US has turned with increasing enthusiasm towards the candidacy of Ron Paul, the long-time Republican Congressman from Texas, who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination.

With a stable of leading Democratic and Republican candidates committed to the continued occupation of Iraq and extension of US military power around the world, Paul’s promotion of a “non-interventionist” US foreign policy and his criticisms of the Patriot Act and other attacks on civil liberties have won him support from a section of politically inexperienced students looking for a means to oppose the war.

The Texas congressman’s maverick image has been further enhanced by the vitriol with which his fellow Republican candidates responded to comments Paul made during a debate in Iowa, when he said terrorism was chiefly a response to US meddling in the Middle East. This was followed by the decision of Fox News to exclude him from the debate on the eve of the New Hampshire primary.

That Paul can be construed as an “antiwar candidate,” is a measure of how far to the right the American political and media establishment has moved. It is one thing, however, for the politically naïve to be fooled by his demagogy; it is quite another for ostensibly “left” commentators to deliberately conceal his reactionary politics and perpetuate the fraud that the former Libertarian Party candidate for president can be a catalyst for building a powerful antiwar movement.

Take for example, Alexander Cockburn, who wrote in his regular column in the Nation magazine that Paul is “rock-solid against war and empire and the neo-liberal corporate state,” adding that the Texas Republican is “a principled fellow who’s won passionate support (and millions in modest cash contributions) from ordinary Americans.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jan2008/paul-j22.shtml

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. Shouldn't you post this in the DUers for Paul group?

:eyes: MKJ

[inthebrain]

3. This article doesn't praise Ron Paul

You didn't even bother to read it.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

6. You mean it's not about "Antiwar “Lefts” embrace ultra-right Republican candidate Ron Paul". That's

how you described it. Hardly sounds critical. And, I have plenty of other outlets from which to cull information about current events.

MKJ

[inthebrain]

11. You didn't even get three paragraphs into it

"That Paul can be construed as an “antiwar candidate,” is a measure of how far to the right the American political and media establishment has moved."

You deserve to get pounded for your laziness here.

That's what your judgement call is.

Absolutely fucking lazy.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

13. Right, boy they're really piling on there. That's vicious.

Welcome to DU. :hi: MKJ

[onehandle]

2. Stupid one-issue lemmings. nt

[inthebrain]

4. Another one who didn't read the article.

[wtmusic]

21. I read the article and agree -- stupid one-issue lemmings.

Let's see, where to begin with what's wrong with Ron...

* Eliminate SS?
* Eliminate the UN?
* Eliminate income tax?

Anyone who can read and understand multisyllables won't be voting for Ron.

[inthebrain]

22. This article is and is not about Ron

I may have been wrong about you not reading the article. I do apologize for that.

I read the response in a different light.

The article is attacking Ron while also attacking a system that allows fucktards like him to get away with his fraudulent positions. Ron is able to get away with it because all the candidates avoid attacking the capitalist system that needs war to survive.

Primarily the Millitary Industrial (Here's looking at you MSNBC/GE), Oil Lobbies and various other sects pining to corner raw materials. Unless the leftist sect of our political system is able to gain some sort of hold these "Bo Gritz" candidates will always get away with these campaigns.

Ron Paul is also doing a great job of cornering the naive vote that is very angry about this war. These folks don't understand the intricacies that led us down this path. The Democratic candidates (who are supposed to be represent the leftist voice) just outright avoid it.

[niyad]

5. "the neo-LIBERAL corporatist state"?????

I wasn't aware it was liberals who created the corporatist state.

[readmoreoften]

7. Around the world it is known as neo-liberalism.

Liberal economics and liberalism means laissez-faire capitalism. What is called neoconservativism in the US is called neoliberalism abroad. This is why liberal is too loaded of a term for me, personally, and I call myself a progressive. That's much clearer in my mind.

[inthebrain]

9. I would rank Progressive much worse

I think of Woodrow Wilson's "espionage act" as well as the "Ludlow Massacre".

Neo Liberalism is not liberalism.

[readmoreoften]

14. Globally, liberalism means laissez-faire capitalism.

When I'm overseas, people know what progressive means. Left-libertarian also resonates. As does democratic socialist. Liberal is confusing outside the states.

[inthebrain]

8. Try looking at the definition

neo liberal

: a liberal who de-emphasizes traditional liberal doctrines in order to seek progress by more pragmatic methods

[readmoreoften]

10. We have failed to reach the left wing of our party. In Texas it is perfectly clear.

Austin is absolutely flooded with support for Paul. Many progressives are going to rally to vote for him based on their belief that he will end the war, repeal the patriot act, investigate 9-11 and the Bush crimes.

White progressives in Texas associate the Democratic party with big business and weak, insincere reformism. They seem to like Edwards but they distrust him precisely because he is affiliated with the Democratic party. I have seen Democrats in Texas with shirts that say re-defeat communism in 2008 with a slash through Clinton's face (I'm fucking serious). I've seen a few Obama stickers (and I mean a handful) as well.

We've alienated the base to the point of absurdity to the complete detriment of the party. I'm not even going to go into all the young progressive kids I know who don't vote at all.

[inthebrain]

12. HOLY SHIT!!!! YOU READ IT!!!!

Congratulations.

[readmoreoften]

19. No one I know under 35 voted before I encouraged them to do so.

Many still don't. They either have no faith in the system (heck I'm with them on that, to be perfectly honest) or they believe politicians will do nothing to help them so there is no point. I know about three dozen working-class LGBT people in their mid-20s who don't vote or don't vote Dem because they see them as pro-corporate, pro-war, and anti-gay. The other issue is that Democrats don't try to reach them (Obama targets college kids, not 20-somethings). But they've all seen the Paul billboards and he's coming across as anti-corp and anti-war. They know he's anti-gay but they haven't heard a strong enough pro-gay message from the Dems to believe they're not full of shit and secretly "just as bad" (I heartily disagree, I'm just saying what I see.)

That's how it is in Texas, but frankly, in NYC it didn't seem all that much different. Everyone is demoralized.

[inthebrain]

20. In MA things are very different

The Green Party resonates well with the Gay and Lesbian communities up here.

Barney Frank is probably the only candidate that gets any wide sweeping respect here in that commuunity. Although he is held in high suspiscion by a lot of folks because of his sometimes staunch defense of the Dem establishment.

The Democratic party hasn't done a lot to back the Gay and Lesbian community. For the most part they are seen as a sect that the Dems would feel more comfortable ignoring.

[Greyskye]

15. I find it pretty scary

how many Ron Paul signs are going up in my (heavily Republican) area. I'm seeing more of them than anything else. :yoiks:

[soleft]

16. Thanks, I needed an article like this to send to a friend

She was all, hey, Kucinich supports Ron Paul, he's anti-war, must be a cool guy.

[inthebrain]

18. LOL Kooch doesn't really support Ron Paul per se

Just his stance on the war. Everything else Ron Paul is an absolute fucking nightmare. But this article sums up Paul's position as "tacitical";

The struggle against war cannot be successful by appealing to the powers-that-be. This war and the explosion of American militarism in general is not just the product of the circle of neo-conservatives in the White House but is deeply rooted in objective economic and historical conditions, above all the decline in the global position of American capitalism. There is a general consensus in both political parties that military power be used to reassert US hegemony over America’s economic rivals by seizing control of the strategic energy resources of the Middle East and Central Asia.

The only means of putting an end to war, therefore, is by putting an end to the capitalist system that produces it. Far from opposing the economic and political domination of America’s ruling elite, Ron Paul is one of its most vociferous defenders of the capitalist system, saying, that the “rights of all private property owners” are the key to “maintain a free society.”

Paul’s criticisms of the Iraq War and the Bush administration are entirely tactical and stem from his ultra-nationalist and isolationist outlook, not any principled opposition to American imperialism.

This is demonstrated by reviewing his record. During the debate on the floor of the House of Representatives in October 2002 Paul, a former Air Force officer and senior member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, rose to speak against the resolution authorizing Bush to launch war against Iraq.

His chief criticism was that ceding Congress’ power to declare war to the president ran the danger of giving ultimate authority over US foreign interventions to the United Nations, whose resolutions Bush had cited to prepare war against Iraq.

[soleft]

26. Thank you again

Do you agree with a post I read somewhere on DU today that Edwards is a populist poser and is aligned with Clinton. Of the three, Clinton, Obama Edwards, which one do you think is most opposed to the general consensus you decribe.

[inthebrain]

27. Yeah

His votes in the senate are very much aligned with Clinton, Obama, and Biden.

Edwards exists just to funnel votes away from Kucinich. He's an absolute fraud.

[LeftishBrit]

17. Very frightening

If people on the left start to make common cause with a monster of pure right-wing evil (about everything *but* the war) such as Ron Paul, then we could be truly doomed. Progressives need to fight against the right in all its forms.

"rock-solid against... the neo-liberal corporate state"

And since when has advocating the repeal of all state restrictions on businesses been *against* corporatism?

[inthebrain]

23. It's not all the people on the left

Much of it is the fake left or the naive.

A lot of folks on the left feel the same about progressives which really are neo liberal stalwats. They are the "pragmatists" that sell us down the river to the right wing on a lot of issues they should staunchly defend.

Some feel it is a cheap alley to electoral success. Others feel those folks use the left as sock puppets.

This articel was written by a leftist who is a little more knowledgeable than the suckers wooed by Ron Paul.

[LeftishBrit]

24. True - fortunately!

As a leftist (Europaean-style socialist), I am horrified by the pro-Paul stuff that I see occasionally; and even more by so-called or naive leftists using and quoting far-RW sites and 'info' sources, because they are against the establishment so must be OK!

[cloudythescribbler]

25. I follow the national listserve of sds/mds, where Paul has been roundly debunked ...

Cockburn, on the other hand, is, in my arrogant opinion, a schmuck -- something that should have people falling off the floor.

[inthebrain]

28. I don't know much about Cockburn but he sounds like a jackass.

I'm not just saying that because he's aiding an asshole either.

The Republicans and their right wing cohorts have been working for decades on duping the left into voting for them. It's done them well with a lot of stupid voters and naive leftists who buy the shit they see on what's right and left through the corporate filter.

[inthebrain]

29. yumpo