Dobbs also has some… racial… undertones to his anti-outsourcing diatribes. Dobbs’ coverage of the immigration debate was awful, including a map from the CCC purportedly showing that the Hispanics wanted to “reclaim” the American Southwest for Mexico.

Jus’ sayin’…

Yes. Eight or ten years ago I loathed Pat Buchannan. Now, I read his pieces on Antiwar.com and, discounting the ones on immigration dripping with racial hatred, they sound utterly sensible. I have frequently said over the last couple of years that the clearest indication of how bad it’s gotten is that the thugs in Washington can make Pat Buchannan sound rational. Appalling…

mikey

But of course Dobbs is all about the racial undertones. And Buchanan too. That’s the whole point of this post!

We don’t WANT people like Dobbs and Buchanan being the staunchest advocates of a position that liberals ought to own. But in the current political climate, they’re often the best we’ve got, and that’s just nuts.

“Dobbs also has some… racial… undertones to his anti-outsourcing diatribes. Dobbs’ coverage of the immigration debate was awful, including a map from the CCC purportedly showing that the Hispanics wanted to “reclaimâ€? the American Southwest for Mexico.”

I remember that Aztlan map he showed on his program a few months back in that report with Casey Wian. He lowered himself to Michelle Malkin-status on the integrity meter with that move.

Why don’t you just say “Triangulators” instead of “Sensible Liberals”? It’s a nice word you can really spit out, as is any word you can add “ulators” to. You Retardulator you.

I don’t know much about Dobbs, but Buchanan is a strange creature. He is pretty racist, and I can’t read his opinions on social issues. But he is one of the few pundits worth reading on foreign policy.

I’m probably not as liberal as most of the people here, so I don’t really care about what a Sensible Liberal is. But I do have strong opinions about foreign policy, and I am very interested in the neocon ideology being completely obliterated, being so dead that “neocon” generates the same snickers as “John Birch society” would. Buchanan’s foreign policy, while a bit more isolationist than mine, is at least something that should be debated. The problem is all the other baggage he has, so he isn’t a great spokesman. But otherwise (and here is where I do understand how obnoxious Sensible Liberals are) all we are left with is the Mustache of Understanding.

I don’t care a damn about the few flashes of sanity that Pat Buchanan has regarding this country not bombing the crap out of non-Americans. That asshole can suck on an exhaust pipe for all I care after his 1992 Rethug convention “Culture War” speech. Vile, homophobic prick, who’s obsessed with ass fucking and not in the snarky Wonkette way either.

Yeah, but Henry, that’s the whole point. Pat Buchannan has not changed in the intervening fourteen years, we’ve just been forced to redefine what we mean when we say batshit crazy. And it’s gone well past him…

mikey

Jesus H.

No one is saying that Buchanan and Dobbs are good. What Wolcott and Cockburn are doing is being fair to the position by being fair to the position’s holders who happen to otherwise be batshit insane. They aren’t enabling Buchanan and Dobbs; rather they are saying in so many words ‘ironically, these thugs are doing a better job of speaking to a certain issue than the libs who *should* be speaking to that issue.’

With respect to the outsourcing issue: outsourcing is a conservative position. It has been enabled by neoliberals. As a defense against anti-outsourcing people on the (real) Left, neoliberals and most wingnuts cheerfully coopt truly leftist language: ‘it’s racist to be against outsourcing.’ (Which is so much like their ‘it’s anti-semitic to criticise Israel’ schtick.) And this cooption sticks because the among the few people speaking out against outsourcing are oddball wingnuts like Buchanan and Dobbs. And many real liberals fall for it to the extent that the discussion centers on racism and homophobia or religious nuttery instead of the issue at hand, which is forgotten just like its victims who then fall prey to …racist and sectarian scapegoating because no one was there to speak for them except the oddball wingnuts. What a mess.

Where are our lions? That’s basically what is missing on the political landscape: Liberal Lions. Fearless Don’t Fuck with Me Liberals. We need a couple of them. That’s why I liked Hackett. He had a liberal sensibility with a rough, Oh yeah asshole try saying that to my face attitude. I want mean tough principled liberals. I think they are coming, they are growing right now, people who have seen the past 8 years and aren’t going to apoligise for trying to destroy the conservatism that made it happen. They will come. We have built the field of dreams we’re just waiting for the legends to come out of the cornfield. I really like what has happened to Olbermann, more like that please.

Why don’t you just say “Triangulators� instead of “Sensible Liberals�? It’s a nice word you can really spit out, as is any word you can add “ulators� to. You Retardulator you.

I know. You’re probably right. But “Sensible Liberal” captures their condescencion in a way that “Triangulator” doesn’t. Then again, the t-word captures their cynicism and bad faith.

Anyway, I’m working on a lexicon post.

I’m having a hard time buying an argument against sensibility. Really though, the sensibility aspect isn’t the root of the problem. The root of the problem is, and this is where most of you will disagree with me, is that the original acquiescence to Bush’s request to wage war in Iraq reflected the majority of American’s attitude at the time.

I was stunned at that time to see how many otherwise sensible people believed that Bush could “win” a war against Iraq. Now given that fact, a large portion of potential Democratic voters have since changed their minds on the subject. That doesn’t translate to voters who want to vote out the Congressmen that supported the war to begin with. Nor do I think it is now seen as equivocating or conceding by Democrats to the Republicans on the issue that enabled Bush to wage his inept war.

So if you’re waiting on a backlash of anger to sweep out incumbent democrats like Lieberman to sweep the blue states, it isn’t likely to happen. Not in significant numbers. As a hypothetical, how many in Massachusetts would vote out John Kerry in a Democratic primary against a strong anti-war candidate?

Those of us who never understood why so many Democrats supported Bush in the first place aren’t going to understand why now that those Democrats have been proved so wrong are getting reelected. And that’s going to leave the strident anti-war rhetoric to someone else.

I had a boss once who loved populism. He had only 2 portraits on his office wall – – Huey Long and Martin Luther King, Jr.

How’s that for odd bedfellows.

My boss was also fond of some other left-wing populists like Fred Harris and Jim Hightower.

Most right-wing populism is fake and worse than bad tequila, but some of it (e.g. Dobbs and Buchanan) is marginally enjoyable in small sips with a lot of salt.

Paul Hackett is probably too much of a good populist to get along and go along on Capitol Hill, but he’s a natural born radio star, if anybody every gives him a chance. He subbed for Jerry Springer a couple of times and he was way better than Springer. Yah, sorry, faint praise there, but Paul Hackett could be the mythical and long sought anti-Limbaugh.

Elvis, I don’t think Retardo is saying they really are sensible, just that they claim to be and write off any to their left as foolish and unserious: i.e. soi disant “sensible” liberals != sensible liberals.

The root of the problem is, and this is where most of you will disagree with me, is that the original acquiescence to Bush’s request to wage war in Iraq reflected the majority of American’s attitude at the time.

Of course that’s what the polls said, but one of the reasons so many Americans felt that way was because the opposition party wasn’t really articulating much of an opposing agenda. Personally, I had my doubts about whether invading Iraq really made sense, but I figured, Bush made the right call on Afghanistan, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt on this one (but it better turn out to be the right call!) If the Democrats had chosen to be more vocal and articulate in opposition, maybe people like me would have swung in the other direction.

One reason they didn’t do so is because so many Dems were afraid of this being yet another Gulf War, where the war gets narrowly approved over their objections, it turns out to be a gigantic cakewalk, and now no one takes them seriously any more. I guess if you take that finger-in-the-wind approach, you deserve whatever you get. Was Al Gore just lucky to get it right on both wars? I sort of doubt it.

Anyway, if the Dems had decided to go down fighting in 2002 by opposing the war – perhaps making the point that the weapons inspectors should be given more time, or that they weren’t confident in the intelligence they were seeing – maybe that election would have gone worse for them, but imagine how things would look now. If you never take a stand, you’ll never get credit for being right.

Tom Tomorrow coined the “sensible liberal” term. Everything is explained in the cartoon that Retardo has linked to.

Since when do either Cavuto or Matthews try that populist schtick like Dobbs’? Cavuto is just a lightweight. Matthews is all about ‘no crying in politics’ and doesn’t worry his basket-head about issues on the merits, merely on their play in the Beltway.

Dobbs also has some… racial… undertones to his anti-outsourcing diatribes. Dobbs’ coverage of the immigration debate was awful, including a map from the CCC purportedly showing that the Hispanics wanted to “reclaim� the American Southwest for Mexico.

You’re totally right, themann1086. And, Wolcott is right too. Dobbs is scary racist, and, at the same time, is one of the few people on a TV or cable screen who seems to give a shit about the working or middle class. That’s what Retardo is pointing out.

Dobbs and Buchanan and Ross Perot don’t own the mantle of economic populism by default from neolib Dems. They own the issue because hardly anyone (on an electoral scale) is interested in such a message unless it is thickly leavened with racism. A non-racist message of economic populism would not succeed if you gave it a thousand years.

Why do you think a nonracist message of economic populism would be impossible? A thousand years? Only 70 years ago we had a president who did extremely well with a nonracist message of economic populism.

True. But for the New Deal to succeed, Roosevelt had to promise not to upset the arrangements in the apartheid South. Thus most of the New Deal programs were administered by the states, which meant that in the South, blacks could forget about receiving relief or getting hired in the jobs programs.

And of course sheer economic despair, not seen before or since in this country, was the backdrop of Roosevelt’s success. Would another Depression bring the working class to their senses? I rather suspect just the opposite, that the current anti-Mexican hysteria would only get worse.

Of course I forgot to mention that the status quo favored the racists in the Depression era. That’s the main reason there was less racial demogoguery in those days. You really didn’t have Dixiecrats, as distinct from the rest of the party, until Truman integrated the armed forces.

There’s bullshit even-handedness

I’m still not clear on exactly what you mean by this.

Its true that,at the present time, the radical right has much more power and is therefore much more dangerous than the radical left. So, yes, being “even handed” without regard to this power imbalance is out-of-touch at best – “bullshit evenhandedness” at worst.

On the other hand, sometimes it seems as if you are claiming that behavior that is unacceptable from the right is perfectly okay from the left, because the essentially powerless. While I can see the point, it begs the question: Will they continue with the behavior even after they have power and their opponents do not? Frankly, I see nothing now to make me that that they will.

I’m voting Democrat for the next two elections because I will take a slim chance over none at all, but I’m hardly optimistic that, when the winds change, the other team is going to be all that different.

“Dobbs and Buchanan and Ross Perot don’t own the mantle of economic populism by default from neolib Dems. They own the issue because hardly anyone (on an electoral scale) is interested in such a message unless it is thickly leavened with racism. A non-racist message of economic populism would not succeed if you gave it a thousand years.”

I disagree, if only because as the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, the white population left behind will eventually figure out who’s been screwing who. I’m not saying it will happen in November, in fact it probably won’t happen for another decade or two. But there will come a breaking point where the bs fed to poorer whites will be filtered, and they will realize class warfare has been dominated by the side of the aisle they’ve been supporting for years.

Yeah, but Henry, that’s the whole point. Pat Buchannan has not changed in the intervening fourteen years, we’ve just been forced to redefine what we mean when we say batshit crazy. And it’s gone well past him…

Yeah, Mikey, I got that, I just wanted to rant about his 1992 speech. Oh, and mention assfucking, of course. 🙂

Kinda thought so. Go forth, young man, and don’t multiply….

mikey

…the original acquiescence to Bush’s request to wage war in Iraq reflected the majority of American’s attitude at the time.

Yes, a majority of the American people supported going to war against Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power, however a majority did not support the Bush invasion of Iraq, under the circumstances in which it took place.

According to the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll of 3/16/03, 4 days prior to the invasion, if UN backing was not obtained support for invasion dropped to 54%, and if the Bush administration did not seek a final Security Council vote, support dropped to 47%.

As we all know but our corporate media has mysteriously forgotten, UN backing was not obtained, and the Bush administration did not seek a final Security Council vote. So in fact, a majority of Americans did not support the actual invasion of Iraq that Bush perpetrated, which, considering the blitz of non-stop propaganda they were subjected to, is kind of remarkable. (Of course, as with all wars, once the war started a majority supported the cause, but that’s a different kind of support entirely.)

Go forth, young man, and don’t multiply….

Calm down, grumpy old man. I’m gay so I won’t be multiplying any time soon. I’ll get off your fucking lawn in a second, mmmkay?

Retardo swings & misses again!

In episode 7234 of Retardo’s long running & increasingly tedious “Why CentristSensibleNeoliberalDLCNewTechnovichycrats are traitorz! & totally suxor!” series, Retardo takes some time away from a direct assault on his numerous enemies to pen a fawning love letter to a few specimens of that increasingly rare breed of conservative republican, who didn’t spare international trade among his long list of things (Religion, Homosexuality, Foreign relations, racism, sexism) to be treated with know nothingness & reaction. Oh where have you gone Paleoithicus Republicanus? Only you can save us from the tyranny of *gag* centrists!

The first part has Retardo quoting Wolcott on how super awesome Lou “The Mexicans are Coming!” Dobbs is;

” He has become what Bill O’Reilly, Neil Cavuto, and Chris Matthews only pretend to be, a broadcaster outraged on behalf of the screwed American worker, fleeced investor, and betrayed pension-holder. A champion of capitalism whom no one could accuse of being a liberal weenie, Dobbs has been pounding the beat on the outsourcing of American jobs and the hollowing-out of the industrial base with an unswervable fervor that sets him apart from everyone else on financial news.”

The second has Retardo quoting Alexander “The Jews are coming!” Cockburn on the coolness of Pat Buchanan;

“Pat Buchanan: Rough Beast in liberal lexicon, rattles windows with bigotry catered for the religious right, but also speaks to fears and furies of those left high and dry by free-trade capitalism — farmers, victims of plant flight, the beleagured little folk.”

At the end Retardo summarizes that Dobbs & Buchanan “take up the cause of people who are supposed to be represented by liberals but were left high and dry after neoliberals (a subspecies of the ‘Sensible Liberal’) took over the Democratic Party and championed fuck-the-poor economic schemes.”

So let’s get this in order. Lou Dobbs, the man who’s daily program is devoted to hour long diatribes & dialogs with white supremacist figures about invasions of brown people infecting the country with deadly diseases, importing crime & international terrorism, ruining public schools, steal jobs from white people & don’t even speak english! The man who champions republican bills that would make assisting any undocumented immigrant a felony, the man who regularly gives members of white supremacist & separtist organizations a national platform to racially demonize Mexican immigrants. A man prone to describing diplomatic visits from Vincente Fox as a “Mexican military incursion.” and who really truly honestly believes, all of this, ALL OF THIS, is part of a real true plot by brown skinned people to recapture the American Southwest a refound the ancient Aztec nation of Aztlan, which he illustrates on his program with appropriate maps animating the “browning” of the Southwest that he recieves from his good buddies at the CCC.

Ok, that’s one thing, but what about Pat “The Mexicans AND the Jews are coming!” Buchanan. Pat also has a number of progressive credentials to his name; He is most famous for a histeronic fit at the Republican National Convention warning that if the Democrats win, they’ll force such sacrileges upon us as unrestricted abortion, actual rights for homosexuals and even women in military uniform. The man who advocates, among other things, withdrawing from the United Nations and “kicking them out of New York”, abolishing the IRS, dismanting the Department of Education and the Department of Housing & Urban Development, removing all taxes on capital gains & inheritance & making affirmative action a federal crime. Called birth a “human pesticide”, described homosexual acts as “not only immoral, but filthy.” & the man who wrote that women “are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism.”

Ok, so maybe they have their bugs, (they are wingnuts afterall), but at least they take a stand for the poor & downtrodden, right? Wrong. For Dobbs & Buchanan, their critiques of various business policies are purely nationalistic & nativist in character. The same reactionary nativist germ that fuels their diatribes about “uncontrolled immigration” pouring over the border & taking American jobs, is the same one that fuels their opposition to those “American Jobs” being shipped overseas to be worked by “foreigners”. Or in Dobbs case, the reverse, with outrage at foreigners working formerly American jobs overseas giving way to his broken borders schtick about a mexican invasion crossing the border and stealing work from Americans, as was profiled in Daphne Eviatar’s recent piece in The Nation magazine about Dobbs’ odious Right wing populist schtick “Nightly Nativism”. Dobbs is just another example in a long & storied list of prominent nativist demagogues who pop up whenever immigration becomes a big issue (and in Dobbs case, the one making it a big issue) who couch their reactionary views in liberal or left friendly terms.And as Patrick Martin writes, this pretend sympathy is then “combined with rhetorical attacks on American corporations for hiring large numbers of immigrant workers or shifting production to low-wage regions outside of the US. In this way, populist and patriotic demagogy is used to cover up the ugly racism and chauvinism of their political appeal.”

Dobbs may sound all righteous when he states “our middle-class working men and women and their families are our largest and least represented group of citizens in Washington.â€? but when he follows it up with “illegal aliens are more important to this Congress!” His appeal isn’t as peachy as he pretends it is. Many times he’ll try to dredge up outrage at some grievance and channel it toward another, as when remarking on the Senate Immigration bill “This is an outright assault in the elitist war on the middle class. And working men and women who’ve already borne the pain of losing good-paying manufacturing jobs and having middle-class jobs outsourced to cheap foreign labor markets are faced with the onslaught of more illegal immigration and cheap labor into the American economy.”

But even Dobbs knows when to drop the Huey Long act, and upon seeing the outpuring of liberal sympathy for the immigration marches, went straight to his “core constituents” by remarking “It is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist and even anarchic organizations…. No matter which flag demonstrators and protesters carry today, their leadership is showing its true colors to all who will see.”

As for Pat Buchanan, in many ways, his views are even worse; forsaking even the pretense of any type of leftist sympathy, his views are purely nationalistic & part of a larger isolationist agenda. His opposition to Free Trade and support for tariffs on imports to ptotect native industry from foreign competition is part of a larger prescription which includes withdrawing from the United Nations, withdrawing from the Kyoto agreement, the Rome treaty & IMF, pulling all troops & bases out of Europe and discontinuing all foreign aid. His opposition to “Free Trade” isn’t about any concern over the “winners & losers” or the exploitation of foreign labor, but rather the American state’s ability to control it’s own affairs rather than individual citizens.

But all that really doesen’t matter when it comes to domestic politics. It is true that Pat Buchanan says the “Redistribution of Wealth is immoral & ungodly”, but for the most part, Pat is a true blue populist, fighting on behalf of the downtrodden. Some of the radical populist policies as detailed in his 2000 Presidential run include,

Elimination of all inheritance and capital gains taxes.

Abolition the IMF and end American aid to foreign competitors of U.S. farmers.

Revision of the Endangered Species Act to require a vote of Congress on every species listed as endangered.

Regulatory changes: exempting family farms from OSHA, imposing a moratorium on all new regulation, requiring a sunset provision of five years on all regulation, and instituting a defined annual cutback in regulatory paperwork.

A balanced budget amendment with a tax limitation provision.

Elimination of the federal income tax for small businesses and a 17-percent flat tax on large corporations.

Elimination of all quotas, contract set asides and affirmative action from federal programs and federal law.

So, two cheers for Lou Dobbs & Pat Buchanan. They may be racist, sexist, chauvinistic reactionaries completely antithetical to the cause of Liberalism & Progressivism; but hey at least they don’t support icky Free Trade. And that’s all that really matters isn’t it?

Dobbs, Buchanan, Retardo;

P.S. I’m still waiting for those figures demonstrating the “obvious fact” that the Democratic Party has lost the working class.

Buchanan has springs coming out of his head. swastika-shaped springs, that is.

Dobbs I expect to be sticking his head out the window and shrieking “WE’RE MAD AS HELL, AND…” any minute now.

“not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

and of course those two are “nativist;” fascist, even, in the case of Buchanan; but this is what happens when there isn’t a genuine populist movement to fill the vacuum.

which is why the D’s really need to pull their heads out of their asses. more.

and i’m not just talking policy either, although better there would be good too, yah.

they’re not hearing that undernote they need to appeal to, and that is not good. it ain’t all sweet sweet reason here.

The fact that the only guy on TV who wants to speak on behalf of the working classes is also a raging racist is just one of the things I add to the list when I start playing “How is America like a Burgeoning Fascist State?” Drinking Game.

With a game like that, Jillian, how in the hell are you even sober enough to focus on your monitor? I’d be holding on to the grass to keep from falling off the earth if I tried that.

On the other hand, sometimes it seems as if you are claiming that behavior that is unacceptable from the right is perfectly okay from the left, because the essentially powerless. While I can see the point, it begs the question: Will they continue with the behavior even after they have power and their opponents do not? Frankly, I see nothing now to make me that that they will.

I’d like to take a stab at answering this one.

This story should help bring the “bullshit even-handedness” types out to foam at the mouth for easy identification. (Check it out, Retardo, they turn to Alan Doucheowitz for a differing view! Surprise!)

I know, that to have any chance of respectability, I’d be expected to condemn Chavez as a lunatic and Chomsky as a whatever-the-current-preferred-smear is right now. Even Jon Stewart doesn’t want to be seen being sympathetic to anything Chavez says.

But at this point, I just don’t give a screaming fuck anymore. I don’t give a fuck if Chomsky didn’t condemn some agreed-upon-atrocity vehemently enough. I don’t give a fuck what Chavez might do, or even what Ahmadinejad might do. In a sane world, of course, those would be perfectly legitimate concerns, but right now, I’m personally at the point where what is takes major precedence over what might, and what is true is that the president of the U.S. is directly responsible for tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, just to name one crime, and the current boogeymen are not. Not even close. In fact, they’d have a long way to go to catch up to Bush. I laughed my fucking ass off at Chavez calling Bush the devil and saying he stank of sulphur, because goddamn, that’s funny, and besides, I’ve said a lot worse about him. I applaud Hugo’s restraint, in fact. But hey, someone’s gotta say it, and if you’re waiting for a fucking angel to descend from on high to criticize Bush because they’re the only ones with the moral authority to do so, well…

Being a cynical bastard, I’d expect that the current boogeymen certainly would abuse any significant power they might get, being human, all-too-human like the rest of us, but right now, that’s just a hypothetical. I’m sick of being expected to treat hypotheticals as reality and ignore reality in favor of some antiseptic, idealized past that never existed anyway. That’s what I call bullshit even-handedness.

And since nothing tops off a dyspeptic rant quite like some grammar nazism – no, it doesn’t beg the question, it raises it.

Mr. Mordant, I only play it on weekends. It cheers me up in a perverse way. You should try it sometime.

And if people don’t stop blurring the distinction between the “working class” and the “middle class”,….well, I suppose there’s nothing really left for me to do, is there? Except add it to the list of “Why is America like a Burgeoning Fascist State” and drink.

Lou Dobbs is a prime example of this. “War on the Middle Class”, my ass. It’s just the people who are actually being warred upon are too ignorant to realize that it would take a serious cash infusion to even get them into the “Middle Class”.

Nobody in America wants to believe they haven’t made it to the vaunted ranks of the middle class. But they haven’t. Hell, I haven’t – my wisdom teeth rotted out in my gums for a few years before I could afford to have them removed. And I’ve held white collar jobs my whole life.

Were I middle class, that sort of thing would’ve been taken care of before I’d ever left my parents health insurance.

Were I poor, I would’ve had to wait until the teeth caused a systemic sepsis requiring emergency room treatment to rectify.

People can’t seem to figure this distinction out. But that’s a good thing – for a burgeoning fascist state.

I find all of this to be almost amusing. But here’s my -2 cents on the subject. As people go to their extremes (as many of us here have done) they get closer and closer to their polar opposite. When we have stretched ourselves so far to the end of our ideology it’s funny to notice how similar our views can be with the opposite side of the spectrum. The people that are in office aren’t even Republicans or an least Republican in the Regan sense or even in the Newt Gingrich sense of 94. Do you fight these terrorists with weapons and attack them to defeat them? No. How do you fight an idea when this nation has been taught to have faith and trust in faith? Well, these asshole leaders have used that underlying fault of human nature to take this government down a path it has never been. We have become the beeast that we had always stood against. I ask again, how do you fight an idea…and faith…well? Cause this isn’t about politics, this shit is about our leaders using their religions to do horrible things in the world today.

cats, sharks, whichever.

what we need is less metaphor and more ass kicking

I can’t, Jillian. Doctor’s orders. Methotrexate plus alcohol = liver failure and death, says he. So I’m forced to endure this lunacy stone-cold sober.

I can, however, snort the Bible/flag/stem cell powder you all were talking about recently, so if you’ve got any to spare…I normally keep a stash inside a hollowed-out section of the Grundrisse (I was a commie before I became a terrist-lover), but looks like I’m running low.

Speaking of Mr. Dershowitz, this is priceless, from that Times piece:

“I don’t know anybody who’s ever read a Chomsky book,â€? said Mr. Dershowitz…

Maybe that’s your problem, Mr. Dershowitz. Try broadening your social circle to include some well read intellectuals, you might become less of an asshole.

Wolcott’s book predates the slide to ‘hatin’ Mexicans, all the time’ from Dobbs. If you could compare broadcasts from a couple of years ago, you’d find none of the race-baiting. Now, assisted by correspondents eager to hold to the narrative, he’s bordering on Father Coughlin territory.

Contributors have spoken of skewed editing and a refusal to run even-handed stories; Dobbs himself professes to be focused on illegal immigration, but runs stories that blur the distinction between illegal, legal and citizens as long as those in all three categories are brown and speak Spanish. He loves the nativist bullshit of people like Tommy Tancredo, and as a result, the Immigration Show is based on a flawed premise.

The immigration system is always a paradox in government: the people who get to vote on policy are those least affected and least knowledgeable of what it does and needs to do. Everyone files taxes and has a sense of how the tax code works; the only Americans who see the immigration system at the sharp end are those employing or related to non-citizens. The result? Simplistic solutions: build a big fence, and then maybe consider other reforms. Except that when the time comes to consider those reforms, it’s election season and no-one ever got elected by saying the USCIS needs better, smarter funding. Instead, it’s assumed that the last bunch of fences didn’t work. That’s why Dobbs is dangerous these days.

But this isn’t a new occurrence. Populism with nativist undertones has a long history in American politics, from Huey Long to Father Coughlin and beyond.

Yah, sorry, faint praise there, but Paul Hackett could be the mythical and long sought anti-Limbaugh.

This sort of dovetails with Kos’s contention that there’s votes to be picked up from libertarianish states and regions. Hackett is what you might call a Blue Dog populist, socially liberal, shoots and hunts, doesn’t give a crap what you do in the bedroom. Further west, there’s Schweitzer and Tester in Montana.

Now, here’s the problem: Montana is pretty fuckin’ white and rural: its largest minority is Native American, and its largest city has a population of around 100,000. What works there ain’t going to work in large, ethnically-diverse cities. So it’s a balancing act.

Kick ass…hehe…he said ass…

Liberal Lions…bwhaa!

Now there’s an oxymoron.

Do you think the Azltan thing might not play as well if there weren’t groups like La Raza around?

They make it pretty clear what they want , and that’s the American Southwest back.

Which I support, right after Europe gives their land back to the Picts, and Iraq gives its land back to the Assyrians and the current American Indians give their land to the people they stole it from after they came over the Bering Sea land bridge.

and the current American Indians give their land to the people they stole it from after they came over the Bering Sea land bridge.

You mean nobody?

Or perhaps you’re a devotee of PETPA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Prehistoric Animals) in which case your slogan might be “Mastodons and sabre-toothed cats are people too!”

They make it pretty clear what they want , and that’s the American Southwest back.

The second stupidest thing I’ve heard recently. The stupidest thing is that some whackjobs in a cave in afghanistan are going to depose the american government and impose shari’a law. The second stupidest is that we have to fear some latino activists will conquer and hold one sixth of the united states of america. Umm, look, humor me here guys. Just exactly HOW do you anticipate their accomplishing this? With their awsome armored divisions and state of the art air force? They gonna use their nuclear navy to blokade our ports? Look, this shit might sell a little better if we had a weak military, but jeez, come on, this is beyond silly…

mikey

Brian the TT said:

“Cause this isn’t about politics, this shit is about our leaders using their religions to do horrible things in the world today.”

Amen, brother. Religion is the only explanation for a solid third of this country still approving of our imbecile president. Once they decide to believe, their minds are closed.

P.S. I’m still waiting for those figures demonstrating the “obvious fact� that the Democratic Party has lost the working class.

It’s true if the working class is defined to exclude all non-whites and women.

They make it pretty clear what they want , and that’s the American Southwest back.

This reminds me of a story from when I was mucking about in my youth. I had a friend that was a norteno and there was this strange story that a lot of these people believed…that story was that the surenos had a plan to come up to northern cali in a killing rampage and kill off everyone to take their homes. People will believe some outlandish shit especially when they don’t have any education. Now the people that come out and take shit like this seriously are the same assholes that are scared that the end of the world is coming and the devil is coming to take their souls. Sorry folks, there is no devil, la raza is just like any other nationalistic group that panders to their patrons on issues that they want to believe in, but have no foundation in reality.

Sorry people, but the Rev was right on, join the reality based community. This happens to be the same community that the religious folks are terrified of. Cause when it comes down to it, once you peal away the layers of bullshit all you’ve got is a quaint (thanks Alberto) little story written by men to control mankind. And I will quote the Rev “Serenity through viciousness, PUNK!!!!” Maybe that’s what the Dems need a bit more of…

no, it doesn’t beg the question, it raises it.

Yup, you got me there.

I’m personally at the point where what is takes major precedence over what might [be]

I completely understand that you are more worried about the danger Bush is bring us over the danger the Democrats might bring to us. I feel the same way. However, the relative merits of the two parties is not the point – the point is the hostility directed at “bullshit centrists” like Nyhan.

A person can disagree with a guy like Nyhan on the merits without feeling the gut-level hostility that is on display here (and elsewhere). There is NO logical connection between feeling a strong dislike for the current administration and getting pissed at someone for pointing out cases where critics of the Bushies act like the people they criticise. In fact, a hallmark of the bullshit Right is to organise populist letter-writing campaigns over the most minor deviations from the party line – the same tactic used against Nyhan for his relatively innocuous sentiments.

The worst part is that the reaction exactly parrallels the debate over “Anti-Americanism”. We critise rightwingers for seeing “love of country” through the eyes of a child – the object of their love is perfect and they see criticism as an attack – hence their inability to see criticism of America as anything other than ‘anti-americanism’. The people offering the criticism, however, see it differently: “As American citizens, we have both a greater practical ability and a greater moral responsibility, to effect change in our own country first.” or words to that effect. This is a position with which I largely agree. However, unlike some people, I believe that this principle applies to domestic politics as well, and that it is also right and proper for a liberal (or conservative) to openly and honestly criticise his own party regardless of what the ‘other side’ is doing – especially when writing in a publication aimed at liberals who aren’t going to vote Republican anyway.

I criticise my family.
I criticise my country.
I criticise my religion.
I will damn well criticise my party – especially when they start acting like the very people we are trying to oppose.

They make it pretty clear what they want , and that’s the American Southwest back.

Sorry folks, there is no devil, la raza is just like any other nationalistic group that panders to their patrons on issues that they want to believe in, but have no foundation in reality.

The claim was about what La Raza wants not what they have the power to get.
I agree with you. I do not consider a group of maybe 1000 middle-class leftwing undergrads and academics to be a “movement”. They are a pathetic bunch of wanna-be revolutionaries who are ridiculously out of touch with real immigrants and whose only chance of becoming a real Movement is if White Americans push the immigrants into their arms.

Off topic, but has anyone else read the Ad Nags NYT story about Ken Mehlman? Holy shit.

a group of maybe 1000 middle-class leftwing undergrads and academics to be a “movement�

La Raza isn’t just a small group of 1000 idealistic people. That may be true for the hard core ones, but I grew up in a hispanic area and their influence was pretty far reaching in northern cali. I’m not saying that I want them to be done away with, but groups like this do have power and they sometimes use this power for the wrong reasons and bad things happen. Grass roots movements can be very strong if you tell the people who are listening what they want to hear especially when they don’t have a good future to look forward to. A lot of those people don’t understand their rights and they allow cops and people who are afraid of any skin color that isn’t white to dominate their lives here. La Raza was just another group that was fed up with the bullshit that their people were being put through and they fought back with an extreme point of view. Does extremism beget extremism?

http://www.counterpunch.org/chretien09232006.html

Excellent article from Counter Punch. “the Axis of lesser Evilism”

As for me and my house, we’ll put our faith in the party… one last time. I’m going to go out in November and vote a straight Dem ticket, as usual. My standard position is that no matter how bad the Dem is, he or she is consistently better than the alternative. But they’d better not fuck up. If they do, and I’m going to be constantly supporting a losing proposition, I’m just going to follow my conscience and vote Socialist or Green. When there isn’t a candidate, I’ll write one in. I don’t care anymore. I’m not going to work and vote for people who self-destruct every time a decent shot comes along.

The second stupidest thing I’ve heard recently. The stupidest thing is that some whackjobs in a cave in afghanistan are going to depose the american government and impose shari’a law.

And the third stupidest is illustrated here. Of course, that’s different, isn’t it? Well, no.

r4d20 –

I have a feeling that in specific instances, we’d probably see things the same way. I do think, though, that blanket statements like “it is also right and proper for a liberal (or conservative) to openly and honestly criticise his own party regardless of what the ‘other side’ is doing” may be true in theory, but a potential disaster in practice.

I wasn’t really thinking of the Democrats in particular earlier, since at this point I doubt they’ll do anything upon achieving power (and that’s a big “if” right there) other than backpedaling and apologizing for everything the fascists take offense to. I know they’re the only real hope right now, but goddamnit they’re fucking pathetic.

When I wrote what I did above, I hadn’t even seen the Thursday night Daily Show yet, where Jon did his “meet me in camera three” thing with Hugo Chavez. I was beyond disappointed, because I expect better of Stewart than jumping on the “crazy shrill leftist” bandwagon for easy comedy. At the very least, maybe he could have done the little bit extra that he usually does and reminded his viewers, unlike any of the official media, that maybe Chavez has a right to hate Bush. If Hugo had plotted with members of our military to overthrow and maybe even bump off the President, I dare say calling him a devil would not be the extent of our outrage. But hey, anything like that when we do it is just an innocent mistake, no harm, no foul, and if we’re guilty of anything, it’s that we care too much about freedom and democracy and giving people everywhere the chance to buy cheap plastic crap. Somehow, endless repetitions of this shit slides off our benevolent self-image like water off a duck’s back.

And so, Stewart laments how Chavez spread his evil lunatic cooties to Cindy Sheehan or Danny Glover or Harry Belafonte when they didn’t run from him shrieking in horror, thus logically negating anything they’ve ever said or will say. Yes, because the Right has certainly suffered from all their rhetorical and political excesses over the last decade, haven’t they?* Nice job reaffirming one of the Right’s signature smears, Jon. Ignore the message and see what you can dig up against the messenger. Are they actually correct as far as their words go? Does it make logical sense to engage their opinions on their own merits, separate from any black marks on their respectability record? Who the fuck cares? Scott Ritter was as right as he could be before the war, but I heard something about him being investigated for some online thing with a teenage girl, so obviously he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about! Richard Clarke? Disgruntled employee and maybe even…gay. And on and on. The Right will always play this game better since they have less scruples about it, so why the fuck is the Left always trying to kneecap its own?

So that’s what’s driving me insane, and that’s why I share Retardo’s “gut-level hostility” at the kind of people who perpetuate this shit. They’ve fallen into a lazy habit of undercutting anyone who speaks up in a way that actually gets attention because the speaker failed some fucking purity test, and the only people who pass that test are boring, obscure fucks that no one listens to anyway.

*I don’t think current polls reflect any real, heartfelt opposition to what we’ve done in Iraq or anywhere else. I think the public has turned on Bush because he’s seen as having failed in some way, and real Muricans hate losers more than anything. Give us another bullshitting dick-waving warmonger who wants to beat the fuck out of some other brown people because they looked at us funny and they hate our reality tv and potato chips and their Gawd ain’t named Jesus, and everyone will get right the fuck back onboard the Jingoist Express.

Yes, a majority of the American people supported going to war against Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power, however a majority did not support the Bush invasion of Iraq, under the circumstances in which it took place.

They believed they were sensible liberals and the majority of their constituents believed they were sensible liberals for supporting the authority to oust Saddam Hussein. Just because some of us opposed the declaration of war for reasons we too believed to be sensible, and we turned out to be right, doesn’t support the conclusion that the soi disant sensible liberals were less than sensible.

That Tom Tomorrow cartoon does that reduction ad absurdum that is popular among the lazier neocons, like Michael Ramirez. The last panel makes up an absurd (sadly, not absurd enough) scenario so that the ‘sensible liberal� attitude can be completely made up to show how ridiculous it is. Again, there is just no logic in that type of argument.

The Right will always play this game better since they have less scruples about it, so why the fuck is the Left always trying to kneecap its own?

The question of “Do we become our enemy to fight him or do we take the moral highground?” obviously transcends politics.

In fact, a small change of words and we have the debate over torture: The Terrorists will always play this game better since they have less scruples about it, so why the fuck is America always trying to kneecap its own?

I think we should take the high round in both cases because it will be better for everyone long-term – even if it means we have to take a few hits in the process.

Some Rightwingers think terrorists are bad simply because they are bad. Some leftwingers think rightwingers are bad simply because they are bad. These people will rail against their enemy while copying his every move, because they think that the evil in their enemy is inherent and is not a product of the behavior being copied.

In most cases (with a few exceptions) I tend to see the evil as a product of the actions. For the most part, I dont think it is possible for ANYONE to adopt a “with-us-or-against-us” mentality without repeating the same mistakes and…well, crimes, that we have seen in the past and are seeing now with Bush.

Once you accept that mentality you give the upper hand to the most extreme people in your movement – or, even worse, to the liars who act like one of us for the purely cynical reason of gaining power. Frankly, at least the rightwing often admits to wanting authoritarian leaders. Our side does not, but has a terrible track record of being fooled into supporting them anyway. Frankly, I think the mentality is the number one cause for the repeated mistakes.

Clinton’s interview on Fox has helped to further tarnish Clinton’s image. Clinton has no ability to intelligently handle criticism, instead he becomes an absolute crybaby, such as in that interview, and in his attempt to smear “Path to 9/11”

Clinton knows that his record is nonexistant. The only things Clinton did involved tarnishing politics, doing nothing to stop 9/11, and causing a recession at the end of his term.

Bush and Cheney never reacted so insanely to questions from reporters. But the unhinged Clinton just can’t handle the truth. He’s a complete unhinged loon, like his buddy Howard Dean.

Blah, blah, blah, Gary.

Really, Gary. How soon they forget.

Bush during his presidential campaign called Adam Clymer of The New York Times a “major league asshole”.

Of course, Bush doesn’t usually react that way, but Bush’s usual manner of blank stares and fumbled words doesn’t make me feel better about him.

Clinton’s interview on Fox has helped to further tarnish Clinton’s image. Clinton has no ability to intelligently handle criticism, instead he becomes an absolute crybaby, such as in that interview, and in his attempt to smear “Path to 9/11″

WTF? Clinton handled that interview excellently! Much better than I have ever seen Bush handle anything. Watching it, I once more felt the respect for Clinton’s intelligence and control that I felt watching him defend himself during his impeachment. I really feel that he sliced the interviewer into little pieces and showed that he was just starting.

What interview did you watch?

A wee bit OT, but Gary’s been hijacking the thread per usual, so “eehh.” I see the Sadly, No! Labs boiz have been hard at work. But, guys… attack kittens… we wanted attack kittens!1!

Gary Ruppert:
“Clinton… Clinton… Clinton… Clinton… Clinton… Clinton…”

Clinically, this syndrome is known as Blow Job Envy.

anyone who has spent time in the midwest is that Buchanan and Dobbs represent coffee shop politics at its best, or worst. They choose common sense issues to hang thier hat. Building walls. Outsourcing. Culture wars. Government waste. To those of us that follow the more mundane details of politics, they may seem like naive, even boring topics. But to the guys (mostly white men, lets admit it) that it appeals to, they simply preach to the choir. When you look at the demo’s of the news broadcasts it only makes sense to have them on, for the masses to say AMEN brother. Like others here, I shockingly find myself agreeing with Buchanen more often than not. I dont think that politics is a straght line, with those LEFT and RIGHT at opposites ends of a line. Politics is a circle. When you get someone with far right and far left points of view (for instance, Dobbs interest in protecting american jobs), his right wing interests actually start to have much in common with the lefts interest. I think that its personally a positive thing for politics that even those that we see as polarizing figures from the past can be seen on those on the left as a positive thing. Lets hope the Fox news crowd feels the same way about Clinton someday. Unlikely. But we can dream, right?

Poor ickle Gary-berry, you know Clinton broke his foot off in Wallace’s ass, just admit you’re jealous it wasn’t you getting schooled by the Big Dog. You’re drooling right now at the very thought of it, aren’t you?

Gary Ruppert said,
September 25, 2006 at 3:18
Clinton’s interview on Fox

I don’t know Gary, I’m really worried. There is a group of anti communist Hungarian seniors that I’m friends with at the local YMCA. They have been handing me photocopies of weekly standard articles and quoting Rush at me for the last 4 years. But today when we talked about Clinton they were embarassed. Two of them said they weren’t going to vote in November, one of them came up to me on his way to the parking lot after our workouts and told me he respects Clinton and that he was going to pull the lever for the Democrats for the first time since 1976.
What are we going to do Gary?

This is pretty good. But better, I suppose, to let the Rethugs keep such people (and appeal to their worst attributes) on their side, and better to let them keep winning elections.

Oh, we could try to appeal to their economic interests. We could try to keep their factory job. But why do that when the great machine of globalization, Wal-Mart, will readily hire them? And besides, Free Trade is too appealing to give up for the mere sake of winning elections or being fucking decent to poor Americans. And besides that, there’s a world out there to convert. What’s good for America was good for Russia and Argentina and is good for China. Tomorrow, the world!

‘Tardo, I see where you’re going, I think.

It would be funny and ironic in the saddest way, after watching the Soviete Union burn itself out trying to keep up with the US in the cold War, to see America suffer the same fate- just by scaring ourselves into seeing world-straddling boogeymen where there are none.

And the rich, like usual, will suffer very little of the tribulations created by their actions.

So do we work for a compromised populism that includes people that you might not agree with, or wait for circumstances to convince even the reddest of necks that they have been fooled?

I just went through this thread and I couldn’t help to notice the extreme pain you racist clowns are going through, all of your racist and obscene, hate-filled, single sided lame rants you try to throw as excuses to your racism, this isn’t your country if anyone else in it can’t claim it as their own you dumb crybabies dumb ignorant stupid bastards (watered down your well deserved obscenities on this post). Tell me how if we’re so ILLEGAL can we claim government benefits? we “drain and strain” schools and social services? sure whatever racist bastards, if we’re so “illegal” how the hell are we gonna qualify for shit? how about all the whorebags getting pregnant with 20 kids to live off welfare and other government benefits such as food stamps from other “races” and “legal” statuses? such as white and blacks? mostly lazy crackhead fat lard torts, or just crackead or simply lazy and ignorant plus uneducated, So we “illegals” don’t pay taxes? yet another ignorant, close minded oxymoron rant, where does all the money deducted from their paychecks go? idiots, do they even get anything back? don’t we pay taxes on everything? all our purchases? investments? vehicular taxes and EVERYTHING you can point your fecally dirty finger to, you just can’t find enough crap to pull your “theories” with, moronic idiots I can’t help but to laugh, and you idiots all rant the same blatant bullcrap generalizing, cherry-picking, shit to mold into your so-called theories, but at the end all you do is show the rest of the world your own ignorance and evident pain you’re going though about how bad it hurts that you can’t do anything about non-white people living freely and enjoying the American dream, I’m an american, a VERY proud one, Serving in the Army, to help your lying president get him and his buddies richer, so lazy bums like most of you can stay at home on your lazy ass and play with yourselves to porn, so call me an illegal too morons, go for it, I can imagine the ramblings you’re trying to type as you read this, you grab handles as of “breaking the law” against illegals, so are you all exemplary Americans? fully law abiding? clean in conscience? never done anything wrong? talking shit on innocent people who for the most part come to the U.S. to raise their families? criminalizing even innocent children and elderly people? tell me just how low and racist and not to mention bestial are you all? does all of that make you “great” Americans? all the dirt you try to throw at them so high falls right back into your own faces, just check our prisons, the child molesters, murderers, REAL criminals with lots of dirt and blood in their hands, yes MOST White, with your beloved “legal papers” but then you try to compare that to someone who simply came across a border and/or overstayed their visas, just how PATHETIC and LAME are you? Most people want to legalize themselves, but these ridiculous laws get harder and harder, trying to play by the “rules” lot have been waiting in line for years to get a response, some don’t even try because of fear. So your so called “legal paper” holding asses have never broken real laws besides crossing a line? stolen? robbed? raped? killed? bent a every law on the book? can you tell me that you haven’t? think about it you arrogant hypocrite clowns! you think your race is so pure and superior? don’t even get me started there, white ghettos all over the US and abroad, just check a wide variety of interesting places like your nearest trailer park and other types of slums for poor, stinky, dirty, wife-beating, inbred, incest loving, toothless, goat raping government living, drunk and drug abusing loud mouthed uneducated wonders roaming the streets asking money to support their ILLEGAL habits, if you’re so squeaky clean of conscience and consider yourselves so much of “Great Law abiding Americans” then get off your racist, “legal” asses and get a job and quit killing each other over a stupid playstation, quit wasting your time on crap, and crying like sissies, get off welfare and other government aides, and to those white trash ignorant mongrels out there, stay in school, get better jobs than mcdonalds and quit crying about all the “jobs that illegals took from you” which mostly are low end jobs u stupid idiots got chosen over, then you can say anything you dumb fucks. So yea and F*** LOU DOBBS, lying ass RACIST bastard, Come on, say something you racist ignorant cocksuckers, I’m waiting, a MEXICAN AMERICAN has spoken in MY country,you racist morons