[Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media

Tue Jul 19 11:48:14 CDT 2005

Tendency, not purity, is the issue, Mort.  A reasonable
description of the usage of “liberal” in contemporary American
politics involves a position on the war like that of Clinton's
man, Sidney Blumenthal, on Democracy Now last week -– a view
that Norman Solomon accurately called pro-war (= roughly, US
troops should stay until some stability emerges). 

That is also the position of the Woolsey Concurrent
Resolution, about which MoveOn did an internal poll recently
-– and which represents the most advanced position MoveOn has
advocated (although their website still doesn't say that even
that is the position of the organization).  Their website
lists eight campaigns, only one even peripherally associated
with the war: support for Rep. Conyers' petition “demanding
that Bush address the evidence in the Downing Street Memo"!
(Address the evidence?)

That resolution by House liberals merely asserts that it is
“the sense of Congress that the President should develop and
implement a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of United
States Armed Forces from Iraq.” Develop a plan to begin? 
Hardly a ringing demand for Out Now.  And a hat-in-hand
sense-of-Congress resolution, while nice to have, hardly
inhibits the administration from what we know was their plan
from early on.  Remember that during Vietnam the Supreme Court
held that Congress authorized the war by continuing to fund it.

MoveOn has been a Democratic party front group since its
founding by a couple of guys from Silicon Valley who wanted to
support the Democratic agenda despite Clinton's impeachment
(hence the name).  Their campaigns are basically faction
fights within the business party.  

If I've “misstated their position,” as you charge, I'd like to
see “their emails [that] call for an end to the occupation
now,” to which you refer.  Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org’s executive
director, has in fact said he's never supported immediate
withdrawal.  

And take a look at “MoveOn conducts a push poll on Iraq and
cons its supporters”:
<http://simplyappalling.blogspot.com/2005/06/moveon-conducts-push-poll-on-iraq-and.html>,
and “MoveOn.org: Making Peace With the War in Iraq” 
<http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0310-35.htm>. --CGE

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 10:42:54 -0500
>From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media  
>To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
>Carl, Not everyone in any large group, "liberals", "Democrats,  
>Republicans, Greens, neo- and paleo-conservatives, the
"left", etc.,  
>is Simon pure on any particular issue.
>
>You persist in saying that MoveOn.org supports the
occupation. In  
>fact that is untrue; I  receive their emails, and recent ones
that  
>bear on the war/occupation call for an end to the occupation
now;  
>earlier ones tended to ignore the issue. Their (liberal?)
members, in  
>a poll,  asked them to take s strong position ending the
occupation.
>
>So, why do you persist in mis-stating their position? Is it to  
>fortify your position that liberals as a group are "for the  
>occupation"? Which also is mistaken, if the results of the
Move-On  
>poll is an indication.
>
>Also, you persist in citing Franken. No problem with me on
that. But  
>as others have informed you, Air America also has on-the-air
voices  
>who oppose Franken on this issue. So to imply that Air
America is for  
>continued occupation is disingenuous.
>
>If you are incensed that the voices loudly quoted in the
Democatic  
>Party leadership have been  as belligerent as any, fine, but I  
>believe that there is probably a disconnect between that
leadership  
>and the base of the party on this. Yes, you conflate (to use
the  
>fashionable phrase).
>
>I don't get it.
>
>--Mort
>
>
>On Jul 18, 2005, at 10:28 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>> No "conflation" going on, Mort: Franken is surely a liberal,
>> indeed he's the principal figure of the self-proclaimed
>> liberal network, Air America.  Like MoveOn, they're opposed to
>> withdrawal from Iraq and are therefore like "the Democratic
>> Party [which] has a pro-war position as the war in Iraq
>> continues," as Norman Solomon said on Democracy Now last week.
>> This bit of dialogue is just another illustration.
>>
>> Some paleoconservatives as I've pointed out have always
>> opposed the war, not because it isn't working but because it's
>> wrong. I wish more soi-disant liberals would do that.
>>
>> My basic views haven't changed much since the Vietnam war,
>> when I opposed my Marxist-Leninist friends from the Left,
>> from an anarchist or libertarian-socialist position.  (As
>> Rocker Rocker said, all anarchists are socialists, but not all
>> socialists are anarchists.) --CGE
>>
>>
>> ---- Original message ----
>>
>>> Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:58:41 -0500
>>> From: "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media
>>> To: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
>>> Cc: Peace Discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>>>
>>> Carl, you persistently seem to conflate "liberals" with those,
>>> perhaps like Franken (Clinton, etc.), who evidently are
>>>
>> supporting
>>
>>> the occupation for strange and/or corrupted reasons. But you
>>>
>> omit
>>
>>> those, probably the large majority,  who are strongly against
>>>
>> the
>>
>>> occupation (including Move-On followers, The Nation editors,
>>>
>> many of
>>
>>> UFPJ, etc.). What's going on here? Are you becoming
>>>
>> paleoconservative?
>>
>>>
>>> --mkb
>>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 18, 2005, at 7:51 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> [On the question of liberal opposition to the war, a
>>>> correspondent sends this along.  --CGE]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Just heard on Air America's Al Franken Show:
>>>>
>>>> (paraphrasing) (Franken interviewing New Yorker writer)
>>>>
>>>> New Yorker guy: "For the sake of Democrats and future
>>>> elections, we must hope for the success of George Bush's
>>>> foreign policy."
>>>>
>>>> Franken: "We've been saying all along, we have to make it
>>>> (occupation of Iraq) work."
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Peace-discuss mailing list
>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>>> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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