Last Hope by dreamtrove

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Last Hope

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Thursday, January 19, 2006 14:03
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Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:44 PM

I heard Mr. Russ Feingold officially tossed his hat into the '08 presidential race. I think Russ is a great guy, a genuine civil libertarian and pro-peace and prosperity kind of guy, anti-corruption and all around good. In short, I think he's the best thing the Democratic party has going for it. He is the only democrat to have consistantly voted against both Bush AND Clinton on the genocidal and liberty desrtroying policies and general corruption of both Administrations. He is also the only senator to have voted against the Patriot Act.

My fear is that the Hillary machine will thrash him seriously by adding stategic fakes to the race to split the left-libertarian vote. The only solution to this is to organize. I've been thinking about this.

Last election I briefly crossed ranks to back the Dean campaign, and in so doing I not only failed, but I was appalled by Dean, and more appalled by the Democratic Party, which is probably where my fresh cup of venom came from. Anyway, I'm hesitant to do it again.

The John Buchanan candidacy for the GOP nomination was a disaster because the party under pro-Bush leadership were completely uninterested in actually having a primary. This time around there may be a good GOP candidate to work with. Chuck Hagel's name is still in the ring, and he's solidly anti-war and civil libertarian.

Anyway, so here's the olive branch. Apologies first for any rotten tomatoes I've thrown your way in the past, but is there any chance we can work together on this? I feel that if the left and right libertarian set could pool their resources, not their votes, but their actual talents and abilities, that we could create a resistance to "Team Evil" or whatever you want to call this Bush/Clinton monstrocity.

Questions? Comments?

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Sunday, January 15, 2006 4:17 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I just hope he doesn't travel by small plane.

Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.

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Sunday, January 15, 2006 5:22 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yeah, he might take a nose-dive like Wellstone.

---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.

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Sunday, January 15, 2006 6:00 PM

DREAMTROVE

Too true. A new republican just announced he was running on a platform of "saving new york" from wind power. That would be the wind power started by the current republican governor. This guy is the head of paychex.com and is a neocon knee deep in oil. Argh. Anyway, I thought, putting our heads together we could help one another get more reasonable candidates to be nominated by our perspective parties. Not an aisle-crossing operation, just a conspiracy to gang up on the big spending corporatist hawks who are pretty much bent on invading iran, tapping phone calls and leveling the environment for fun and profit.

While I'm at it, I'm mildly curious, does anyone on the left think "hey that russ would make a fine president" or are y'all over there saying "oh i wish this guy would shut up" and "can't wait until hillary is in there."?

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Sunday, January 15, 2006 7:53 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I like Russ, I think he'd make a good President. But if it looks like his campaign is going anywhere he won't survive.

---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.

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Sunday, January 15, 2006 7:59 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

or Aleksandr Lebed in Russia

funny how that remains a constant no matter where you go...

go up against the @#*@#$... and you best watch your back

Don't think they give a shit

I'm with Signy and Rue

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Monday, January 16, 2006 3:42 AM

DREAMTROVE

I'm not *that* cynical, but just in case, here's te start of a plan:

It's possible to win without ever *looking* like your campaign is going anywhere. It's been done several times, like with GWB, and Reagan.

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Monday, January 16, 2006 7:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Yes, but I think Raegan and GWB were both "stealth" candidates of the Team Evil. Both are/were notoriously simple-minded and easily manipulated and were thus the perfect sock puppets for their masters. In other words, the powers behind the scenes pulled some strings, made some threats, bribed a few. Remember Ross Perot and how the CIA ruined his daughter's wedding? Frankly, I think it happened, but his outrage made him look like an unhinged looney-tune. Team Evil is more ruthless than you would imagine.

But, since you've piqued my curiosity- how WOULD you slip Feingold into the winner's circle? The only way I can see it is to make every other alternative look unacceptable. So, your plan is.... ????

---------------------------------
Please don't think they give a shit.

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Monday, January 16, 2006 8:50 PM

DREAMTROVE

Actually, I have a healthy imagination, but an overactive one would cause one to see things as they aren't. One problem with conspiracy theories is they tend to think in black and white. Really things are rarely so cut and dried.

Reagan was team evil pawn, but not nearly as much. The strength of Team Evil has grown with time. They supported Reagan against GHWB in '80 and won, but the GOP wouldn't take it lying down. They were ready to throw out the results, and there was a big fight. See, most of Reagan's advisors had been democrats in the '76 cycle, and almost all of his neocons had been democrats in the '72 cycle. There was ample distrust which was added to by the fact that a fair number of them were former socialists and former communists. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby Reagan would accept GHWB as VP and would agree to appoint a list of people who were all known to be trusted republicans. This meant that the Reagan admin was a neocon-gop hybrid, and thus not capable of much in the way of global social revolution.

They actually pushed their grip on GHWB as president, even though he was their former enemy. Things were never great and they pushed their evil democratic twin (which I stole the name neolib for) for Clinton. Neocon influence in the Clinton admin was stronger than it was in either Reagan or GHWB, to say nothing of Neolib influence.

When Clinton wouldn't obey them at every turn, they went back to the GOP for GWB, a total pawn with no actual power of his own. Bush can't withdraw a nomination of a neocon to save his own political face or career or probably life. Thus he has no power. His own corporate friends hold him upsidedown to shake out billions in lunch money, and he neocon friends beat him up for fun to make sure that *they* can stay in power under Hillary.

My plan for Feingold involves organizing.

You would have to assemble an organization of 10 million well distributed voters. It would help to have a stronger majority towards the end of the primary season, and a strong number of those to be write in ballots. This way, only late in the season do they realize that fighting off Feingold is a serious issue. Since you get all of your people on board in '07, you already know you have them. But the key is not letting Hillary know that you have them.

I watched the Kerry people do this while I was in the Dean campaign, and I was disturbed. I think looked back in history to see if I could see it happening before. It happened in '80 with Reagan, in '92 with Clinton, and in '00 with GWB. Each time, a candidate with no real popular support came out of the blue with a large organization which edged out the other candidates, and then came into office with a radical preset agenda.

GHWB almost lost his own primary, which says to me that neocons were still worries about him, and they may have backed Dole, who I suspect of having at least tenuous team evil connections.

Anyway, this is the new paradigm. Organize, don't advertise. Advertising is an iffy losable battle, but if I have my troops all well lined up, you're not going to get any deserters from my ranks.

Also, when possible, strike at the heart. Dig into hard core territory, people that the enemy (Hillary) would be looking to woo, ie. hard core democrats. Also strike at her weakpoints within that, the Peace vote, libertarians, possibly minorities. Blacks are far more suspicious of their govt. than whites. A fact that can probably be politically exploited, particularly if you can get the support of Mr. Sharpton. Not the mainstream media type support, the Mr. Feingold comes to an all black area and speaks about issues that matter to people of color and is introduced by Al Sharpton sort of support.

Organize online, forums, blogs, and know how many people you have. Know how to get more. keep a lot of issues on the table and keep people talking about them. Know how many are in each state, in each district. Know which districts are caucus districts. Find out if a district is a dinner table caucus, and if it can be broken into. stack up what areas you are winning by a healthy enough margin, and how many and where you are losing by a small margin and work on those. Know where your districts might have voting machines, and make sure you have an actual record of the voters, and stack up if possible a large absentee vote overkill in those areas. If it's a possibly corrupt voting machine and you think Hillary has 100,000 votes in one district, you should have 100,000 votes on the machine, and another 50,000 coming in in absentee ballots to roll in and rack up while you contest the election.

Remember always that a primary is a primary, which means everyone voting is, in this case, a Democrat. I know this seems like a silly thing, but people tend not to pay enough attention to this subtle fact. A lot of people have said to me "Oh, seriously, Hillary can't get the nomination because she's a woman." Seriously, how many democrats will refuse to vote for a woman? The, take from that number, the number of feminist democrats who will vote for her specifically *because* she is a woman. Another thing along these lines of everyone is a democrat is that certain campaign points and tactics which would seem inappropriate for an election might apply. You can't alter what Mr. Feingold is going to say, but you can sure strategize when organizing voting blocks, which if done well would give you some control. If for instance you had 1 million peaceniks who would vote for him if he promised a "peaceful resolution" to the situation with Iran, he would have to take it under serious consideration. This isn't something that would typically happen if you made the same offer to an already nominated democrat running in a general election.

I'm glad, BTW, that someone is actually taking this seriously. In short, I would say ignore the slamming of other candidates. In fact, ignore them almost entirely, outside of their poll numbers and vote totals. Attacking them, even if you're telling the truth, is going to make them attack back. Remember also, if the truth is so damning that it threatens to end the career of your opponent, then you're dealing with a truly depraved individual who would probably sacrafice their children at an altar to Moloch to get elected. Yeah, I do know who Moloch is and no one is really politically connected to him to the best of my knowledge. :) But seriously, Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered. She is liable to stop at nothing. Best not to provoke her. Ideally, she should be unpleasantly surprised as the last primary results roll in that inspite of the massive bribing effort she tried to pull off in the end, the last few states which should have secured her lead instead made her lose in a landslide.

As a final note, best not to ever tip your hand that you are diametrically opposed to her, lest she sense the need to destroy you.

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Monday, January 16, 2006 11:15 PM

FLETCH2

Ok time to put up or shut up DT.

Who are these former "socialist" neocons. Names, creditable sources for past affiliations only please.

You can do that in a heartbeat right? You said you'd researched it?

Go to it my man!

Strausians are starting to seriously worry me, but so far I can't see any suggestion that they ever were left leaning.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 4:28 AM

SERGEANTX

For what it's worth, DT, I'm liking your optimism. I see it so rarely from anyone who also seems to understand what's going on. I'm going to look into both candidates you've recommended and see what I can do to help.

Thanks for the post!

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 11:41 AM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch, it's all in the link.

First and foremost, the late Max Shachtman, member of the American Communist Party, Socialist Workers Party, and the Social Democrats (Socialist wing of the Democratic Party), founder of the Shachtmanites, a Trotsky Socialist camp, sometimes called the 'Third Camp.' His followers coincided with aides for Social Democratic Senator Scoop Jackson and were involved in his 1972 presidential campaign.

Among those were Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol and others.

Irving Kristol then formed a political camp of his own son William Kristol, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz. Rummy, as a close associate of Cheney's is undoubtedly part of this set, but I couldn't find the exact link on wikipedia, maybe it's available elsewhere.

There are some others, but these are the key members of the shachtmanite neo-commie set. They support trotskyism, and oppose leninism. They often use the word communism in plaee of leninism and socialism for trotskyism, but these qare the root of what they support and oppose.

Myself I think it's pretty much one and the same. They've put some efforts to covering their tracks lately, but all this stuff is out there, they haven't denied or disproven it, only omitted it from some of their biographies, but if you search you can still find all of this info on decent reputable sites without going to conspiracy sites.

The current wikipedia entry on neoconservatism is very much trying to discredit the idea, the previous article very much supported it. To counter the new counters, I would say that the reason Rumsfeld and Cheney appear to be traditional republicans is not that they are, ideologically, in contrast they are absolutely shachtmanite in their ideology, but the reason they appear this way is that until the neocons moved to the republican party, Cheney and Rumsfeld were not partisan politicians, so when they signed on board to big govt. their first move coincided timewise with the move to the GOP.

One or two of the people on the PNAC signatories list were still nominally communists until the mid 80s, but that info has been removed by starting the biographies after the move to the reagan admin.

You can bet that the neocons really aren't keen on this getting out. That doesn't mean that it isn't a) very real, and b) that this is when they chose the agenda, and this is where the agenda came from, and that c) the agenda is a shachmanite creation. The idea that "Oh, we tried socialism, but it wasn't for us" is just spin. They are addicted to it.

Read up on this stuff, starting with the Max Shachtman entry, and you will at least come to appreciate that neocons are not traditional republicans, and at the very least are another animal.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 2:02 PM

LIMINALOSITY

You have some very good ideas in here to keep this:
Ben Nelson/Hillary vs. Jeb/Condi
from happening. I had already begun my stealth viral campaign for Feingold, and will be ramping that up. I will most definitely be crossing the aisle if it comes to Ben/Hillary vs. McCain + Hagel.

Jeb. My favorite bottom of the freaking barrel. Grrrr.

SignyM and Rue! (BTW I just read posts from you two in an old thread re: dreams etc.) What are you saying about Wellstone?!? Sh*t, the little voice wondered this. !!!$&#^)(^&$!!! Exposition, links please. There are people in MN who still have Wellstone yard signs up. Last time I was there it was like seeing those little white crosses on the side of the road. Sorry, this is a bit OT DT...all politics of terror and apocalypse.

Aztecs used the term firefly metaphorically, meaning a spark of knowledge in a world of ignorance or darkness.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 3:03 PM

FLETCH2

DT, since wikipedia was nearly sued by the guy who's entry suggested that he helped assasinate Kennedy (it was apparently a "joke" entry someone put in to fool a friend) I would kinda like something, you know, actually factual as a link?

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 3:44 PM

JAYTEE

I think Russ might make a good candidate but I doubt if he could gain the nomination. I think both parties are now the "owned bitches" of the corporate elitists and the old boy network of hawks that run most of the "military industrial complex" If you don't beleive the M.I.C. exists you're hopelessly naive. The clout that lobbyists have held in Washington is finally coming into the light with the Abramoff affair and more heads are likely to roll but it's probably too little too late. Little was reported about the scandal involving Kathleen Harris and the consulting firm she hired to "overhaul" the voter registration database software in Florida and the fact that over 80,000 African Americans who were registered democrats in predominately democratic districs were erroneously flagged as felons when they had never been arrested or only guilty of misdemeanors thus prohibiting them from voting. You could hardly find a news article about this in our "liberal" media. You had to go to outside sources like the Guardian UK to find out these facts but they are true and facts nonetheless. Kathleen Harris lost the ACLU suit against this and it is now under appeal but don't look for it on Fox network or any other media outlet here in the U.S. "They" don't want you to know about it. If you don't know who "They" are I feel sorry for you. My biggest fear is that democracy in this country is already dead and there is no hope of restoring it. I can only think of one solution for the problems facing the populace. Force local states to insist on paper ballots and hire non-governmental impartial service companies to oversee them maybe even bringing in the U.N. although I have as much faith in the U.N. as John Bolton or Bush does. And second, vote against ANY incumbent in order to break the old boy network. A complete fresh start with new Congressmen and new Senators that have never worked in Washington will serve to cripple the "shadow" government that is really running things. In a clear violation of the Constituion and existing statutes the President has violated several laws while claiming to have the authority because it was "implicitly" granted after 9/11 yet very few except the far liberal left are calling for an investigation or impeachment. I find the level of political apapthy in this country appalling and this speaks to the heart of the matter. Many Americans are either too stupid or too lazy to deserve democracy and the far right knows this all too well and is using it to their advantage again and again. Our forefathers formed a government of law after throwing off the yoke of tyranny. We may have to take matters to the point where we throw off the yoke of a corrupt government which no longer bears any resemblance or adheres in any way to the framework that our forefathers set forth in the Constitution.

Jaytee

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 5:32 PM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch,

I don't give even a moments notice to the anti-wikipedia campaign. Wikipedia is the free press, and it's brutally honest and amazingly accurate, and Time Warner/Viacom hates it with a firey passion, as do the neocons, the admin, and probably fox and the rest of TV. The one (1) incident was a prank that was put up by one (1) person than no one caught, and by no means destroys their credibility, whereas the media lies daily, as do many conspiracy sites. I'm from the 'if you see it in wikipedia, it's so' school, and I've lost arguments following that rule because someone else has an entry that proved me wrong. The singular incident was about someone trying to cheat by relying on that factor. I'm certainly not budging from the position. I'm sure if you really wanted to, you could head over to google.com, but I can't give you a more reliable source than wikipedia because I don't think one exists.

If you want something blatantly partisan, dailykos has some of this stuff, but they spin it to make these people out as conservatives because they hate Bush and hate conservatives and don't want any of the blame for this disaster to fall on the political left. And even though these people who are *now* republicans *were* democrats, I don't put any blame for them on the democratic party, but I *do* blame the democrats for Clinton. But overall, this should be a non-partisan issue. I have said several times, I don't think that Trotsky has much in common with the democrats much more than with the republicans, this is clearly an ideology far outside the mainstream, and by that I mean in a way somewhat perpendicular to the left right axis.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 5:55 PM

DREAMTROVE

Jaytee,

Sadly, this is the ploy you may have fallen for. Dispair is a weapon of the bitches you speak of. They want us to think that they own both parties, but the reality is, they're just holding on to power by the edge of their fingernails. If we organize and give them a good kick in the ass, which they richly deserve, they will fall out of power.

Here's a stupid story of stupidness. Move on collected some 20 million people and organized them to do something, concerned citizens who hated Bush. They then spammed them with democratic propoganda for the "general election." Well, since virtually everyone who signed up was already a democrat, and very few of the others were convinced, and mostly they were annoyed, this had little, if any, impact. What they should have done is organize those people into a voting block *within* the democratic party to support a particular candidate. Only 10 million people voted for Kerry, and a good number of them had some connection to his organization. Someone told me there's a neo-confederate southern secessionist group with a million members. Ross perot's group had several million members without even an internet. I think that a sound libertarian group with a sensible fiscal policy could attract a lot of support. I think it could create an organization larger than the total voting rolls of either the democratic or republican primaries, and that then it could support a candidate and win, without ever buying a tv spot.

guardian.co.uk is an excellent paper. I have a friend from manchester who turned me on to that a long time ago, well, before it was .co.uk.

But the short of it is, who cares? This is all the process which relies on you not knowing who your voters are and wooing them by bombarding them with ads. This isn't the way to win.

"Force local states to insist on paper ballots"

Is a decent plan, but don't buy the "paper trail" version, that's a smoke screen. The machines have multiple data tracks, the paper trail can look accurate and not match the final digital tally, if the computer is programmed to count incorrectly, which it can be programmed to do, then there's no hope. Someone proved that this was done in one country in NC, but there was no way to prove that it happened elsewhere because Bush people shreded the tapes. But this isn't the point. We wouldn't be better off with Kerry, we'd already be in a war with Iran and we'd have a draft and a 1/2 million or more people in Iraq. This is about primaries, which means you have to make sure that the other democrats will believe you that your people voted for Russ, and then charge that Hillary cheated, but probably if you spring the surprise on her she'll never know what hit her. But, organizaed, you already know how many votes you have in each precinct. No surprises.

on impeachment, arlen spector, like colin powell, is no liberal, and there are a lot of republicans who love the idea of impeaching bush, but the snag is you have to get cheney first. If you don't, then you have to follow the line of succession, and bush has stacked it with his own people all the way down. The truth is, the GOP has a lot more to gain through impeachment, we could save face, return sanity to power, forward our own agenda, not Bush/Cheney's and then hopefully earn some credit for putting things right again before running for re-election in '08, which we would also get to do. It's win/win from our side, but again, only if you get cheney first. If you don't, it's lose/lose from both sides of the aisle.

Anyway, I think you exaggerate the problem. Most democratic and republican elected officials are decent non-corrupt individuals who happen to have a political ideology of their own, and happen to have been elected on a party ticket, but aren't evil. There are a few bad apples who are in charge, and then you don't need to cast them out of govt., only out of leadership. It's very doable from a real grass roots level, but only by people with a brain, not by the sort of cockamamie naderism that people keep trying.

I say again, look at the neocons, their tactics, and say 'damn you, but that's a mighty fine horse you rode in on.'

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 6:13 PM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

I don't give even a moments notice to the anti-wikipedia campaign. Wikipedia is the free press, and it's brutally honest and amazingly accurate,

No offense, DT, and for the record I'm not even getting into this discussion, but I will disagree with this. Wiki credits itself as nothing more than a tertiary source at best, and the fact that anyone can edit hampers more than helps its credibility. Is it a useful, factual, brutally honest source? Perhaps, and I use it myself. Is it a credible, reliable, primary/secondary source? Nope. You may be correct (and I'm not doubting you, or taking sides), and Wiki may have the goods, but Fletch is right on the money about credibility here. I won't let my students use Wiki or blogs for research, I'll hold you to a similar standard (because I love you

).

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 6:57 PM

DREAMTROVE

7%,

I'm sorry, it's just that wikipedia has come into an awful lot of bashing from the MSM lately with little cause. Sure, it's not perfect, but it is what we have in terms of a general all purpose source, and it's far from intentionally and blatantly deceptive, which is the inferrence. It's not like the MSM is an unshakeable bastion of truth, in fact, it's at times blatantly dishonest and deceptive.

I'll say this in defense of wikipedia as a source. I have looked up things I've read on wikipedia, including all of this stuff on the origins of neocons, on google, and found often dozens of sources for each piece of information, and not once in all the time I've used it have I ever found a piece of information I read on wikipedia to be inaccurate, let alone deliberately deceptive, which is what would ben required for the argument dismissing the neocon origin to be discounted.

I register your complaint, but I still do not cave. I think that it's a valid source, and everything in it can be cross checked and verified with little pain to the user. Moreover, it's a more valid source than the random websites that people keep posting to this forum. Someone posted some real nutball links recently which I went to and thought, oh, this is some random lunatic spouting off, and I'm not talking about Pirate News. So, overall, Saying it's in Wikipedia, to me, says a hell of a lot more than a random link that has the info on it. All of this is also available on a number of sources.

I am not throwing down a gauntlet here, but I think that wikipedia dismissal is uncalled for, and that to challenge wikipedia data, one must have decent reputable proof that the information is false, not just distrust of wikipedia, which is an MSM-fostered concept.

So, my slightly tempered statement is "If you see it in wikipedia, it's so, unless it is proven false."

Personally, as someone who does put in 80 hours a week worth of work, I don't have infinite time to dig up all the names of all the neocons on their own independent reputable non-wikipedia sites, and It's not my goal to convince fletch, and wikipedia is fast, efficient and accurate. Not just accurate enough, but more accurate than random sites.

I mean someone here posted the sort of 'i saw it on matt drudge, it's so' speaking of sources that have in the past made things up. But this isn't a battle, it's an attempt to take facts out of the argument, which is not a valid rhetorical tool. The fact is it is far more likely to be fact than not, and in fact, this fact is fact. The neocons, by and large, whatever that means, were members of a socialist revolution, and they formed the agenda then, wrote about it, and anyone who wants to can go and google it, read about it, and become informed. The key to that is Max Shachtman, and other keys are Michael Harringon and Irving Kristol, and the effect that these people had on the recent political events is a reality. Their idea of a Trotsky Socialist/Corporatist world govt. made up of non govt.'l. entities which are composed for representatives of multi-national supernations like the EU, which are composed of nations, etc., was cooked up some decades ago when they were still members of the socialist left, and the whole model is consistant with the trotskyite movement it grew out of. Arguably the only reason they became conservatives was when they saw the power of a bunch of idiots who vote their immortal soul, rather than their conscience or their leverage.

I hope I didn't say Bush is a neocon, because I never believed it to be true, the idea is absurd. Bush is a chimpanzee, and alcoholic, a thug, a delusional christian adventist and a cult member, not to mention thoroughly corrupt. But he's not a neocon. He's a neoneocon. That is to say, if a neocon is someone who supports the conservative movement without being technically a conservative, which is what it is, then Bush supports the neocon movement without becoming technically a neocon, so he's a neoneocon. But Cheney, Rummy, Wolfy, Perle, and that circuit are blind ideologues, followers of the dream of global social revolution, or new world order, and that these are one and the same thing is also worth noting.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006 10:26 PM

FLETCH2

DT You have a problem which is that you arbitarily redefine the meaning of words to suit your pre existant biases. That is by far the lowest form of propaganda and has left you in this position now. If you are willing to reattribute the English language then how can I accept any other "label" you use without reference to accredited sources?

Now the information I have been able to verify about Perle and the others that hung around with Scoop Jackson does not scream "socialist" to me. Scoop was as you know a Democrat hawk, one with links to the military/industrial complex to the point he was christened "The Representative for Boeing."

He seems to be an anticommunist Democrat, probably not so liberal in the modern sense and probably more right than left in these polarised times.

He also seems to have decided early that America could expand its interests through the welfare of its allies, specifically, he was early in his unconditional support of Israel. I think that more than anything made him attractive to Perle and maybe the others. I have seen Perle asked in an interview about what would happen if American and Israeli interests no longer coincided. He genuinely doesnt seem able to imagine such a situation. I think Jackson's unflinching and early support for Israel and strong emphasis of defence is why Perle wanted to work for him. I suspect that may well be the motivator for others in that cabal.

Leo Strauss the man believed to be the theoretical guru of neoconism seems to be both elitist and authoritarian. He especially dislikes "modernism" by which he means the products of the enlightenment. Since America is a product of modernism, he comes as close to being antiAmerican by definition as it's possible to find. Since liberalism, libertarianism and liberal democracy are all "modern" products too he's an equal opertunity offender, as is witnessed by the fact that both liberal and conservative interlectuals line up to rubbish him.

So far I see nothing that fits with the classic view of the "left" at least seen from a European POV. In fact some of the points made about Strauss's theories and especially his ideas on government secrecy and the use by government of the arbitary power of religion seem to be europe pre 1776.

This is from reading analysis on both left and right, and of course they dont like him, so ymmv.

Oh and DT, it seems that 3 people associated with NPAC contested the Republican primary in 2000, so the gameplan is as you suggested.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006 7:06 AM

DREAMTROVE

Quote:
DT You have a problem which is that you arbitarily redefine the meaning of words to suit your pre existant biases.

I certainly hope not. I may on occassion be wrong, but I'm by no means being deliberately deceptive. My use of the word "socialist" for example is entirely correct by all dictionaries and encyclopedia I have checked, and is perfectly historically accurate. For people who have a problem with it, I would like to suggest that it is perfectly possible that someone else is lying to you, perhaps socialist parties who don't want to be associated with they're fellow socialists, and even their own past. If this is about some other word, please let me know.

My calling Scoop Jackson a socialist might have been overstepping it, for that I apologize. But there are two reasons I was led to this conclusion, maybe I should have said socialist-leaning democrat.

1. If I am not sorely mistaken, Jackson supported wage and price controls and an expansion of the new deal towards a goal of guaranteed employment. This is a fairly socialist bent. Also, he supported an agressive social militarist policy, social change through military action, that I usually consider a part of socialism because of the number of socialist govts. in the past which have used this tactics, and the degree to which other ideologies do not use it, but still perhaps I should state this separately.

2. His campaign was supported by a large number of otherwise socialists, and a decent number of socialists-gone-democrat.

While I'm no scholar and have way too much work to do to waste too much time on this, I certainly believe these things all to be the case, and to be pertinent. I can't help but feel to some extent, that since you already know I put in an 80 hour week, your pressure to the level of higher research that I can't possibly match is an effort to win the argument on what's more or less an intellectualist point. My lack of a bibliography is a reflection of my lack of time and not an indication that my facts are false. I would counter argue that this is in fact a rhetorical ploy.

"Scoop" Jackson was more of an FDR Democrat and much less of a Carter Democrat. Saying 'left' and 'right' within the democratic party is really deceptive because different people have different ideas of left and right.

I, for one, think of hawkishness as a left trait, and automatically rank a hawk as being to the left of a non-hawk. I have a decent background in history which strongly supports me in this conclusion. Hawks tend to have a social agenda an tend to be more socialist in their economic policies, or have tended to in history. I did a tally recently and came up with about 90% of the time in the post monarchical era.

People on the left on the other hand tend to think of hawks as to the right of non-hawks. It's quite probable that they have a rationale for doing so, which I don't understand or possibly agree with, but that's not the point, the fact is they do it, and say that Kerry-hawks are to the right of Boxer-doves. I would probably argue the point, but that's just the point: people are going to disagree on who within a particular political school or party is right or left, so I can only say scoop jackson is more fdr and less carter, and that that is true in his economic as well as his military stance.

Carter was diplomatic and pro-corporate; FDR was militarist and pro-govt controlled economy. Without arguing that understanding, Scoop was far enough in the FDR direction that he was perhaps on the other side of FDR, more in the FDR direction away from carter than FDR himself was, and so if there is a political axis there, whatever it be, within the democratic party, Scoop was pretty close to one far end, and that that end was most akin to socialist in its ideology.

Next, I see the argument of neoconism as a thinly veiled zionism, and there may be an element there, but I don't buy it. It seems to me that this is one issue for the neocons, but that it is more part of a greater picture. Wolfowitz and Perle are not just disciples of Scoop Jackson but disciples of Shachtman, and that while they are jewish, the idea of a shachtmanite globalist agenda being inherited as part of their public policy philosophy is not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact, because we have seen them put it into action. Neocon Zionism is IMHO not a matter of religion, sure it is to some extent, and if they were Chinese Americans maybe their choice would have been Taiwan, but that dirstorts the issue. The fact that they are jewish led to the choice of Israel for an American beach-head in the ME. If they had been Ralph Nader, Jeanne Pirro and Tony Shalhoub, and had still been neocons, they would have picked Lebanon for the same purpose. But the agenda here was always a globalist one. Israel was a keystone in the creation of a MidEast union which is a keystone in the whole globalist agenda. It became clear to them that Israel was only a beach-head and the real keystone was Iraq, which is why we are there now. IMHO, The *real* reason.

I final note about Zionism is you have to put a little bit of skepticism on anything you read that says that this is really all about zionism because of who has a vested interest in all of us believing that. I suspect you surmise this already, but I've found that this sort of thinking has been sneaking it's way into the underground media in opposition to the neocons. I think their zionism is not key, it's incidental, and as I said, if they were of some other ethnic they would use a different tool, but the agenda is an ideological one.

Quote:
Leo Strauss the man believed to be the theoretical guru of neoconism seems to be both elitist and authoritarian. He especially dislikes "modernism" by which he means the products of the enlightenment. Since America is a product of modernism, he comes as close to being antiAmerican by definition as it's possible to find. Since liberalism, libertarianism and liberal democracy are all "modern" products too he's an equal opertunity offender, as is witnessed by the fact that both liberal and conservative interlectuals line up to rubbish him.

I think this was a little thinly threaded in it's X is derived from Y which is derived from Z which is part of Zero so X=0. Also, I think of Irving Kristol and Max Shachman as the keys of neoconism, Kristol being the first to embrace it as a philosophy, and Shachtmanism to be the ideology that it is based on. Similarly Michael Harrington and that lot are the neolibs.

I more or less agree with your conclusion that this is a third political ideology, not specifically left or right. I still hold that it is descended primarily from various socialist ideologies, and at some point got religion, or used it, and has warped into a new thing. Then again, I'm sure you would argue that Naziism and Communism were also not pure socialism, but socialism warped into a new thing. I guess my point here is that because the corporatist strategy uses corporations, in the same way Hitler and Mussolini did, does not mean that these people are in any way free-market capitalists. They may say stuff about that, because it's a right wing American idea and they want right wing American support, but it is most assuredly pure spin. More so than the war on terror. (I think the WoT is spin, but I grant these people are actually as paranoid as they seem.)

Quote:
Oh and DT, it seems that 3 people associated with NPAC contested the Republican primary in 2000, so the gameplan is as you suggested.

I guess there's something to my 'these guys grew out of the left' thing other than 'it's all your fault, political left.' It's not, a large part of it is our fault for letting them get anywhere, and allowing ourselves to be led by divisive partisan issues and not closely examining these people and their policies before they were in charge.

But more importantly, and this is the point, these guys made a split on the more to the GOP. Some of the Shachtmanite/Jackson camp moved to the GOP and created Reagan, and others stayed behind. That half later created Clinton, but the two halves didn't communicate or conspire for a while. Only during the Clinton campaign and presidency did I see that they started getting back together, and even then, there were some itchy times. Now they're clearly past that, and they have gotten back into a more unified camp. This creates a fairly scary reality in which one extremist camp exists in prominant positions in both parties. Also it is pretty clear that the reason Clinton and Bush had many of the same people and many of the same policies is that they are close to being one administration, and that this line will be further blurred by a Hillary administration, and it becomes Reagan/Bush, G.H. Bush, B. Clinton, G.W. Bush, H. Clinton, J.E. Bush, N. Bush, M. Bush ,C. Clinton, B. Bush, J. Bush, etc. Bait and switch monarchy. But they might bring more team players in.

Finally I wanted to back off on my socialism is evil position. Socialism is a system that IMHO allows evil to rapidly abuse power and mutate into something else. It's an ordered solution. I favor something more chaotic. But socialism is also a very broad swath of politics. I trust that people who put themself forth as socialists may have serious problems with some of its derivations, and possibly a good numbers, such as Nazis, Commies, Baathists, Serbian Socialist, and Shachtmanites.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:24 PM

FLETCH2

With respect I find it hard to believe that someone who feels the need to monopolise every thread with 1000 word posts is too pressed for time to document his sources. You find the time to make these assertions I think you can find the time to support them.

I went looking anyway. Not surprisingly the Wikiopedia enteries echo yours in almost all areas. I don't know if you wrote them or if it just so happens that your favoured "just so" source happens to agree with you so exactly, perhaps wiki was your "extensive reading" into the subject.

Further afield we discover the following. Max Shachtman was a Trotskyist who in 1940 broke with Trotsky over their interpretation of the Soviet Union. Trotsky viewed the USSR as a worker's state that had degenerated, he hoped a second revolution would put things right. Strachtman believed that the old Capitalist order had been reinstated just with the state burocrat as the "owner" and as such the USSR was an Imperial power to be resisted. Initially Strachtman saw capitalist America and "state captialist" Soviet Union as being equally corrupt and championed a third way. When the USSR signed an accord with Nazi Germany he decided that America was the lesser of the two evils. Over time he became not only a critic of the USSR but also fervently anticommunist to the point of supporting the Vietnam War, something that cost him a lot of credability.

While only Wikopeadia follows your "join the dots" style of thinking to link Strachtman directly with Neoconism, the "four degrees of seperation" of the two has been noted by writers on the right and the left. On the right the so called Paleo-conservatives use it to cast doubt on the conservative "purity" of neocons, on the left Strachtman is being seen more and more as someone that went too far to the right. In essence both sides see the other as the "corrupting influence."

The problem with associating Neoconism with either Strauss or Strachtman is this, were these men alive, would they nescessarily agree with what was being done? I'm not so sure either would be comfortable in having their heritage linked in this way. However, even if we take your "linkage" as 100% there is still the problem that Strachtman was seen as a devisive maverick by much of the American left during his lifetime. I don't see how someone could make a public break with some organisations and ideas and it be fair to link his later actions with those earlier affiliations.

As to Perle, I'm not suggesting he is a Zionist or that his ethnic background has anything to do with this. You have to look at decisions in the context in which they were made. Perle seems to have a genuine belief that the fate of Israel and the US are linked. I doubt very much that he's recently come to that conclusion. I read an article during the last election about Bush courting the Jewish vote. Apparently at least in Florida the Jewish vote is both important and principly Democratic. Since Florida was again expected to be a swing state Bush targeted those voters. Now here's the information I hadn't known. From 1948 through until the early 1970's very few American Jews cared much at all about Israel, and in fact several prominent American Jewish interlectuals opposed the Zionist state. That changed because of the various Arab attacks until today most American Jews are broadly supportive of Israel.

This means that Jackson was a supporter of Israel at a time when even large numbers of American Jews were undecided. If you were Perle looking for a Washington staff position at that time you would have very little choice as to who to work for if you wanted to work for a pro-Israel representative.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006 5:26 PM

DREAMTROVE

Fletch,

1. I'm a pretty quick typist, I take like 10 min breaks maybe 3 times a day to respond to posts and emails.
2. Wikipedia is my source for much of this, it's a great source, I googled a lot of things I found there, and went from there, everything I found backed that up.

Anti-Communist is not anti-socialist. Yes, Shachtman thought communism was state capitalism, I ran into that somewhere also, but I don't remember where.

Quote:
While only Wikopeadia follows your "join the dots" style of thinking to link Strachtman directly with Neoconism, the "four degrees of seperation" of the two has been noted by writers on the right and the left. On the right the so called Paleo-conservatives use it to cast doubt on the conservative "purity" of neocons, on the left Strachtman is being seen more and more as someone that went too far to the right. In essence both sides see the other as the "corrupting influence."

wikipedia as in wiki.
I think this was how I painted it, born of the socialist left, and mutated into something else. Only some shachmanites became neo-conservatives, there are a fair number of them still in the democratic party. But both sides are more like one another than like socialist or traditional liberalism or conservatism.

Quote:

The problem with associating Neoconism with either Strauss or Strachtman is this, were these men alive, would they nescessarily agree with what was being done? I'm not so sure either would be comfortable in having their heritage linked in this way. However, even if we take your "linkage" as 100% there is still the problem that Strachtman was seen as a devisive maverick by much of the American left during his lifetime. I don't see how someone could make a public break with some organisations and ideas and it be fair to link his later actions with those earlier affiliations.

Simplistic conspiracy analysis annoys me. People are dynamic, they change, memebership of groups change, and people have different degrees of devotion to a cause, and that also changes, as do some of the goals of the cause. The reality is that Shachtmanism became an ideology as soon as he put it forth and other people followed it. Whether or not those people were *true* to Shachtman or whether he was *true* to Marx and Trotsky isn't the issue. People have ideas of their own, they don't just steal, and plans and movement evolve over time. The connection is that this is where the neocon movement originated, and it still carries many of those ideas. Over time they picked up other followers, many communists and socialists, many hawkish democrats and republicans, and even some hawkish far right religious types. But everyone who came on board signed on to the idea, and also, they changed the idea by signing on. This always happens. The result is something new was created, and evolved.

I read an article about Bush and the jewish vote, and it mentioned that he received a smaller % of the jewish vote than any president in American history. It was somewhere in the teen%s. That taken into account, the political democratic value of zionism should probably be more or less discounted. I think from a military vantagepoint it makes more sense. I'm not arguing that Perle is not a zionist, I think he is. I think that it's a mistake to say that that is the guiding point of the philosophy.

Here is how I see it: I read an article just after columbine that said matrix terminator basketball diaries et al were to blame because those all have people in black trenchcoats blowing people away. I thought 'yeah, if they'd never seen those movies, they would have worn something else when they blew people away.' So my thought on zionism is, yeah, they're zionists, that's why they use israel. If they had been lebanese they would have used lebanon. As for hard to find a zionist in the Senate, I think this is a stretch. Pro-zionism has been the official position of the US govt. since Truman.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006 8:12 PM

SERGEANTX

Anyway...

I'm really turning on to this idea of a core group of us working both sides of the phony left-right split. They've pretty much set things up so all we'll ever get is a choice between the two, so why not push our way into where the real decisions are made? I'm still not sure that's possible, but maybe it's worth trying after all. The system is currently stacked so heavily against a third party candidate that it's essentially impossible.

If we keep letting the same left/right assholes run things we're likely to create a nation I no long want to be a part of.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Thursday, January 19, 2006 2:03 PM

DREAMTROVE

Sgt. X.

Well said. I've done the number crunching and it would take about 10 million on either side, if everyone was organized to vote in the primaries. It seems like a staggering number, but there are several things which will work in our favor:

1. Online communities are huge and develop quickly. Bush only got ten million votes in the '00 primary, and it was almost all from the christian right. Many online communities are much larger than that, but they just aren't organized. ICQ acquired 14 million members in it's first 8 months, so it's definitely possible to muster that kind of force.

2. There are many people in each party who already feel the way we do, so the amount of persuasion needed will be relatively small. Basically the only thing that you need to prove is that you can actually do it, or perhaps that it *can* be done.

3. There are a good number of already elected officials on both sides who despise the party leaderships with a firey passion. Many of these people are already politically on the pro-libertarian, anti-war, pro-environment sides, and I get the feeling a fair number of them know exactly what is going on with these party bosses.

There's a final note, as someone who was once in a third party, I have some thoughts on why they don't work, and things we ought to watch out for, so that we don't also do them:

1. There's an excessive amount of infighting which brings everyone down.

2. They are very visible as opposition, and make an easy target.

3. A third party needs far more votes. A primary candidate these days as I said needs 10 million, because after the primary, almost all of the partisan voters will simply fall in line. By contrast, a third party candidate needs at least 40 million to win.

4. They have no extant resources to draw from.

There are a lot of groups who typically back the democrats and republicans but haven't lately because the parties have ignored them, or screwed them in the interests of making a quick buck. Even so, these groups are more likely to go with someone in their party of choice who will actually deliver than to go with a third party.

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