Posted on 06/15/2007 3:17:46 PM PDT by chessplayer
"Here’s the real problem with American liberalism: there is no such thing, not really. What we call American liberalism is really a kind of genetic mutant, a Frankenstein’s monster of incongruous parts – a fat, affluent, overeducated New York/Washington head crudely screwed onto the withering corpse of the vanishing middle-American manufacturing class."
(Excerpt) Read more at adbusters.org ...
FR *bookmark*
That's because the left has veered so far towards socialism that they need to be hit over the head to return to some semblance of sanity.
Until today, I didn't know that Rolling Stone founder and eminent liberati, Jann Wenner, was a switch hitter and recently, by some satanic miracle, had a baby with his "partner" Matt Nye.
Glad I never funded the perv's magazine.
Great article right up to the last paragraph, at which he calls himself a ‘progressive.’ And what, pray tell, is the difference?
Did you read the comments page under the article? There is some loon that goes on and on about how "exciting" it is for leftists because of the "glories" of China and Cuba, and how he has high hopes for Venezuela and Chavez. He is tickled pink about speech codes and censorship of speech that he doesn't like.
The author understands that the liberal elite are just that, elite. He just doesn't have a clue why the working class doesn't support them. Psssst....hey liberals, it's BECAUSE of the social issues. The average union member isn't exactly pro gay marriage.
Oddly the amnesty debate has highlighted this description also fit's the current GOP
“Matt Taibbi makes some correct observations, but he is still a Liberal... err Progressive.”
Try communist!
LLS
Calling a liberal/socialist/communist a “progressive” is the proverbial “lipstick on pig.” “Regressive” would be far more apropos.
Let me tell you something: This is a *really* powerful and well-written essay. He is absolutely 100 percent right in his thesis. It’s our good fortune that the people that this is aimed at will ignore it completely or at worst spend their time trying to refute it with a boatload of silliness. If they took it seriously, we could be in some trouble.
Matt Taibbi is a hemhorroid on the butt of a communist liberal. His brand of black-flag liberal we don’t need.
"Historically, the Left had a vision: replace capitalism with socialism. Almost everywhere in the world, serious socialist and communist parties emerged and contended for power, and were successful over a third of the earth. In America, socialism didn't resonate with the working class, and so the American Left emerged as liberals, slow-motion socialists. The Left is still anticapitalist – at varying levels of consciousness – but has no positive vision of what it wants to replace capitalism with. For a while, the exciting new socialist societies of China, Cuba and Vietnam inspired the American Left, and still do attract the admiration of sections of it. But they somehow didn't really retain their holding power and nothing really big and attractive has come along to take their place. Perhaps Venezuela will work out ... if Mr Chavez carries on in the revolutionary tradition of closing down right-wing propaganda outlets, and moves on towards seizing the wealth of Venezuela's rich class and putting the economy into the hands of the workers state. Perhaps some good work can be done in America by the prefiguration of revolutionary rule. There are few places where the Left has much power, but where such power is held by the Left, let it be used. At the moment, this is mainly on college campuses, and some Leftists are doing good work there by breaking up conservative meetings and attempting to make racist and sexist and homophobic speech and thought into crimes. Showing what a future socialist society would be like by suppressing right-wing reactionaries and wiping out thoughtcrime could go a long way towards reversing the image of the Left as drippy, sandal-wearing wimps."
Doug
Methinks Doug is a true blue Commie. Karl Marx would be so proud!! What a shame that Doug refuses to accept the fact that the only pseudo successful Communists are the ones that accept capitalism, and even then, they manage to screw it up.
Doug has been in college waaaay too long. I bet he subscribes to rags like "Radical Teacher" (check it out at http://www.radicalteacher.org/about.asp - I saw it at a pro socialist convention at UMASS Amherst.
As usual, the charges that the GWOT is “illegal” abound even though THEY VOTED FOR IT and the intell used was from the Clinton Administration as well as the Bush Administration and several other countries. Being as I just returned from Iraq from deployment, these seditious charges from the left upset me to no end.
Another aspect is the authors insistence that the left is “better educated” since an un-cited number have postgraduate degrees. This is pure elitism and snobbery from the left. College education does not equate to intelligence nor does it make one all that knowledgeable. What does a college teach? Does it teach logic, self guided research, free thought? Absolutely not! College courses, and I have experienced many, teach adherence to a dogma of “experts”. You cannot have a thought until an “expert” tells you what it is. Industries (those “evil” capitalists who make things like, oh, EVERYTHING we use) must then take these graduates and train them endlessly for their job. Going to college does not make one smart. It provides resources and ‘book learning’. Experience in the real world provides ‘worldliness” and a real education. Completing my masters would be nice, but I am learning far more in the real world than a stuffy, leftist professor who demands my quite acceptance of his socialist idiocy will ever teach me.
In addition, the left filibustered civil rights in the 60s. They seek to disarm the American population which is probably the greatest infringement of civil rights since slavery. The left also openly sides with the terrorists/islamofascists in their rabid hatred of the Jewish People and America. The values or the islamofascists fly directly in the face of so-called leftist 'values'. Yet the left is allied with them. Where is NOW on honor killings? Where are they on burkas? Where is the left on the issue of Islamic people conducting slavery in the 21st century? Conservatives are fighting harder for civil rights than the left has ever fantasied about. Why is the left now abandoning "civil rights" in their alliances against the USA and Israel?
Some quotes:
“In the pseudo-Orwellian political landscape that is modern America, to self-identify as a liberal is almost tantamount to thoughtcrime,”
Whenever a leftist misrepresents Orwell I laugh at the “useful idiot”. Orwell was the height of anti-fascism and anti-communism. “Animal Farm” highlighted how the left gains power and “1984” highlighted how they keep it. As if these books were a anthropological study of insects, the left also never veers far from their premises. The left always forgets the REAL police state actions Clinton executed weekly. They also forget that their “hate crimes” are “thought crimes”. They imposed these on America, not conservatives.
“Next thing you know, you’ve got guys on stilts wearing mime makeup and Cat-in-the-Hat striped top-hats leading a half-million people at an anti-war rally. Why is that guy there? Because no one told him that war is a matter of life and death and that he should leave his fucking stilts at home.”
Well then, what would zombietime.com do for fun without the idiots on parade? That is why the adults are in charge of fighting this war and the kids are left with makeup and pink boas on. Socialism is ALL ABOUT leading these masses of “useful idiots”!! Lenin CALLED the leftist this for a REASON! This IS the left: all hate and no reason or workable ideas. As usual, the author sees the train going off the tracks, but has no idea why.
““I think just reporting the facts can be enormously empowering, but there’s not enough of that.”
No kidding kid. Conservatives ask that of the media all the time and then we go research it on our own. Be warned, if you know and accept the facts, you are on your way towards becoming conservative. You also may find you support the GWOT a WHOLE LOT MORE!
“Rich liberals protesting the establishment is absurd because they are the establishment; they’re just too embarrassed to admit it.”
Really!? Next he will tell me the Sun is hot! This is a point stated repeatedly by conservatives. We scoff when rich leftists lecture us on “the rich getting richer” and “tax cuts for the rich” since WEALTH is not taxed under the socialist, progressive INCOME tax. INCOME is taxed. If the left were serious about the plight of the ‘poor’ in taxation then their would support a flat tax or a consumption tax (national sales tax). A consumption tax would tax spending after a certain level, not income, but I digress.
“I therefore prefer the word “progressive,” which describes in a neutral way a set of political values without having these class or aesthetic connotations.”
And the writer wonders why I keep my tagline.
This passage affords a valuable insight on the author.
He's never been broke. And, if he ever was, he'd friggin' starve to death.
You can't understand what you can't even imagine...
if Mr Chavez carries on in the revolutionary tradition of closing down right-wing propaganda outlets, and moves on towards seizing the wealth of Venezuela’s rich class and putting the economy into the hands of the workers state.
At the moment, this is mainly on college campuses, and some Leftists are doing good work (Oh REALLY???) there by breaking up conservative meetings and attempting to make racist and sexist and homophobic speech and thought into crimes. Showing what a future socialist society would be like by suppressing right-wing reactionaries and wiping out thoughtcrime could go a long way towards reversing the image of the Left as drippy, sandal-wearing wimps.”
Yep "Doug", you told me all I needed to hear to re-enforce my position that leftists and your unholy alliance with islamofascism are the true dangers to freedom and liberty. Thanks again. And thanks to all of your fellow leftists on the Rolling Stone article for displaying EXACTLY what a bunch of murderous wannabe tyrants you are.
This is the true face of leftism. Their projection of a “Bush Police State” shown in full. THEY are the ones who will do this to ANYONE who opposes them. This is why they want Americans disarmed. Never forget that 200 Million CIVILIANS have died from the leftist philosophies of National Socialsim/Communism. The left has not changed, now have their tactics.
Look at the replies in the “comments” section of the link and how hateful they are. Look at them calling for censoring and outlawing all opinions counter to their poison. But then, most here already know this.
Sorry, had to point out the obvious.
Leftists are socialists at heart. And socialism naturally tends to breed a perverse authoritarianism.
Otherwise, how do you get the proletariat to do what you want?
Thus, every liberal is also, in his heart, a latent totalitarian.
This is the natural order of things...
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