Anyway.

HTML, here’s the thing. As someone who comes from the south, who was the first in his family to go to college, blah blah blah, allow me to suggest that a fairly large portion of them (at least the ones I know; fun with anecdotes!) SHOULD be written off. The vast majority of them are simply not going to change. The memes of “Left = evil” and mindless patriotism and all those other things have been festering here for so long that, while I reject the idea that we should write them off permanently, it seems pretty clear to me that this should not be one of the top priorities of any sort of leftists. To talk pragmatically, this is one place we should cede the ground to the republicans and use resources elsewhere until we have enough political capital to actually fix it.

And, by all means, I would love to have my mind changed about this. I want to see the light about what can be done here. I loathe the idea that we should write off a large chunk of the people that I do care about (family, remember) politically. But I don’t see a way around it, because as long as they are “poor white trash” then it seems that they’re going to vote for the American right. It just seems to be one of those cases where the most effective avenue to political change seems to be waiting for all the old ones to die off.

I don’t give a shit about *my* identity. I give a shit that a political movement which supposedly cares about poor people is so quick to write off a huge bloc of them. But then I also know that this supposedly virtuous movement is almost totally hijacked by the upper middle class, and if there’s one group that bunch loves to hate, it’s poor white trash. If you think pointing this out makes me a full-time Identity Politics blogger, forever on the lookout for photoshops of giant sammiches so I can accuse an ally of some sort of hate crime, then you’re crazy.

You are assuming that the Democratic leaders would act with strategic intelligence. All evidence to this point suggests that, rather than do that, they are going to continue under the spell of the same old ideas and goals they have had for decades, and try to run towards what they think is the ‘center’. That this ‘center’ is a fiction of the stupidest, most corrupted, and least honest people on the whole planet, our deeply shitty US media, probably won’t occur to them.

UNLESS the Dems could highlight the Hucker’s radical position on things. This would first requrie the Dems to locate both a backbone and some teeth.

At any rate, every day I come to see General Glut as just as much a prophet as that other, more famous quit-blogger, Billmon. Teh Gen’l always said that what I’m observing is the real trajectory of the so-called Left, being taken over by what used to be known as California Republicans, a bunch of socially-liberal but economically-conservative urban technocrats with pro-war instincts who have as little clue about the working class as they do other cultures and what’s more, don’t care to learn.

Damn, HTML. This really resonates with me. Yes, it’s a personal fear of mine, too.

And, actually, it speaks to me personally as well. Almost my entire adult working life has been spent at a commodities trading firm. I don’t know that I could easily move from there at this point. If I am honest, I am pretty much some kind of left-liberal or democratic socialist, something like that. But until 2003, I didn’t think about it too hard. I was apolitical until the invasion of Iraq. It was so obviously a shitty idea that it forced me to think it through. My work, however, seems to make something of a mockery of these ideas.

(Actually, maybe it is just Chicago. I can think of two people off the bat, total leftists, who worked in the markets in some capacity. A lot of people work in or near commodities markets, in Chicago.)

It also sometimes seems to me that some urban and sub-urban ‘liberals’ have a too-easy disdain for rural types and this frustrates me as well. I put ‘liberals’ in quotes because these people often seem more like libertarians, or just centrists, in reality.

Interesting point HTML.

Yeah, just got back from Colombia, where one of the few happy things in the late 90s was when the FARC turned on M-19 and started liquidating them because their brand of revolutionary leftism was insufficiently ideologically pure. Of course, a large part of the underlying reason was that the FARC was under pressure from the paramilitaries, and to survive had made a deal with the capitalist narcotraficantes to help move the powder in return for crates of weapons.

Anyway… back to studying for my last final for the semester… Sorry for the long-ass post; they always seem to come when I’d rather be doing anything but studying. Go figure.

Should we doubt his word that he thinks women should not leave the home, or that gays should have been rounded up, or that he wants a constitutional amendment banning abortion? That last is from his own website, btw.

Giuliani will bomb Iran if elected. Expanded war, in turn, empowers the Right — talibangelicals among them. Willard will “double Guantanamo” and probably bomb Iran, too. So Huckabee is *not* the worst among the field,

Why do you say that? Why do you think he is different? Here’s what he has to say, again from his own website. Go look for yourself:
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.Home

“Iraq is a battle in our generational, ideological war on terror. General Petraeus and our troops are giving their all to provide a window of opportunity for the Iraq government to succeed, while the Democrats are running for the exit doors.”

More:
“…setting a timetable for withdrawal tells our enemies they don’t have to win, they just have to wait. We have never in our history declared war until “a week from Wednesday,” we have always declared war until victory.”

So you’ve called it right. He’s a dead-ender on Iraq. Just like every other Repub.

Now, I seem to recall from your Paul apologetics that you consider ending the war to be your single most important issue. You remember, back in that post where you lambasted people for having a single most important issue?

Read his issues page on his webpage and explain how exactly his foriegn policy differs in any way from the current misadministration. You can’t because it doesn’t.

But wait! There’s more!

“I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life. They have sworn to annihilate each of us who believe in a free society, all in the name of a perversion of religion and an impersonal god.

You say he’s against torture. His website doesn’t say so. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but he does say this:

This war is not a conventional war, and these terrorists are not a conventional enemy. I will fight the war on terror with the intensity and single-mindedness that it deserves.

Not conventional war? Not conventional enemy? Fight the war with the intensity it deserves?

Can you really not hear the dog whistles screaming in that?

Speaking of dog whistles…

“If I ever have to undertake a large invasion, I will follow the Powell Doctrine and use overwhelming force. The notion of an “occupation with a light footprint” that was our paradigm for Iraq always struck me as a contradiction in terms. Liberating a country and occupying it are two different missions. Occupation inevitably demands a lot of boots on the ground.”

See, he could have made this a simple criticism of Bush’s leadership. Which it is; he goes on to say how he’d have listened to Shinseki. But the part I’ve emphasized indicates that he doesn’t consider an expanded war out of the question. That’s the whistle I’m hearing, anyway. YMMV.

He does have some sensible things to say about empowering moderates and breaking the oil addiction… But then, Bush has been saying this as well. Talk is cheap.

But here’s my favorite part of his foriegn policy position:

“Our current armed forces aren’t large enough – we have been relying far too heavily on our National Guard and our Reserves, we have worn them out. When our enemies know that we are spread thin, they’re more apt to test us by provoking a crisis. Having a sizeable standing army actually makes it less likely that we’ll have to use it. So I will increase the defense budget. We have to be ready to fight both conventional and unconventional wars against both state and non-state enemies. Right now we spend about 3.9% of our GDP on defense, while we spent about 6% in 1986 under President Reagan. I would return to that 6% level. I believe we can do this without raising taxes. I will limit increases in other discretionary spending and rely on the normal increase in federal tax revenue that is generated annually as Americans’ incomes rise.” (emphasis mine)

“We don’t need universal health care mandated by federal edict.
“We do need to get serious about preventive health care.
“I advocate policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs.

Like private enterprise need government incentives to lower their costs.

“I value the states’ role as laboratories for new market-based approaches.”

Ah, more states’ rightsy goodness.

Still not seeing how he’s any different from any other GOPer. Yep, there’s some common-sense stuff about energy independence. And the usual bipartisan farm gimmes. Says he’ll promote arts and education, but doesn’t say how he’ll do that while cutting discretionary spending as needed to fund his hugely expanded military. So I’m guessing that’s a load of hooey.

Now, I’m aware that you are not supporting him, HTML. You’re pretty clear about that.

I just don’t get why you think he or Paul are shifting the Overton Window at all. A close examination reveals him to be just another Christian Reconstructionist in populist clothing, just as Paul is just another Neo-Confederate in constitutionalist clothing. Populist is NOT left. Hard-core fundamentalism doesn’t shift the Window our way one bit.

But here is where you lose me every time:

he just looks that way to a Left so damn yokelphobic (thanks to Schaller’s thesis which so verrry conveeeeeeeeniently dovetails with typical liberal cultural bias) that it would spit on 1896 model WJB, and kick 1976 model Jimmy Carter in the balls.

Oh, blow it out yer ass, ya hillbilly. For someone who can’t seem to post anything serious without whining about “identity politics” you sure do get sensitive when folks make fun of your own kind.

You’ve chosen your moniker well: when you’re going for the funny, there’s few who hit it as well with such deliciously biting satire. You’re funny. That’s great. Seriously, I love your work. Cracks me up every time.

And, just like your namesake, whenever you try to get serious about politics, you come across as an asshole. Not saying you are one; I think you’re not. But you sure can sound like one whenever you pull that “Identity politics sucks; quit picking on us rural folks!” crap.

Except with a much thinner skin than the original. Old H.L. didn’t have a lot of patience for whiners or hypocrites, as I recall.

well let me qualify that. It is especially hard to believe those “matchup” polls this far out from the election when they involve a candidate who is unknown like Huckabee. With say a H. Clinton vs maybe a Mccain they can be trusted a little more. Consider that Huckabee was considered a long-shot only months ago. Also remember a previous relatively unknown Arkansas governor defeated an established incumbent.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/410/how-reliable-are-the-early-presidential-polls

Huckabee looks slick and personable already. Wait till the Republican money machine gets behind him–he could be highly electable.

what I’m saying is, he could present a tough challenge right now, one of the main reasons he polls low is cause few people know who he is.

I DID IT

Hm. I’ve wondered about the establishment candidate too. I’d assumed that it was McCain, but that things have gone so haywire on the Redoublechin side that it goobered up his coronation.

Well, that would be Lou Dobbs, who gets brought in to sort things out after they fall apart in early February.

I’ve just ended up being a programmer who’s a somewhat broader conversationalist than most.

Or do you mean that *you* only read Kevin Drum now, with no sense of his history, and little concern that the shit he types *now*, when it’s easy to be a bit more decent, is so divergent from the shit he typed *then*, when it actually took some moral courage (and could have done some good)?

What do you mean that taking a bold stance on economic issues does no good, and takes no moral courage? How many media voices are supportive of bold progressive tax reform, stronger unions than we’ve had in decades, and single-payer health care? How many were strongly opposed to hawkishness on Iran, back pre-NIE when the anti-Iran voices were dominant? Why do you brush this aside so glibly?

Also, was Kevin Drum so influential in the media back in 2002 that his position on Iraq could have “made a difference” if he had been on the side of the angels then? Answer that question honestly. He was still a small-time blogger back then, another one of the few hundred million Americans who got duped by Bush and the establishment media and the entire Republican party and the Democratic hawks. It’s you, not me, who is focusing on one narrow aspect of his writing and failing to look at the larger picture. You cannot look at his views and say that he has no moral courage, or that they are characteristic of a “moderate Republican.”