[Peace-discuss] Ron Paul etc.

[C. G. Estabrook]

Mort--

Apparently I've signally failed to make myself clear.

I agree entirely in being "glad for [Kucinich's] considerable courage in 
maintaining principled anti-war and anti-administration positions in a 
Washington [sc. a Democratic party] antagonistic and deaf to those 
positions."  You're harsher than I am in condemning his 
"timidity/cave-in at the last Democratic convention."  And of course it 
would not be "better if his voice were absent."

It's true that the repressive tolerance the Democrats show to him is not 
his fault -- on the contrary, it's because his views are so threatening 
to Democratic party orthodoxy that he has to be sent to Coventry.

And I am certainly not contemptuous of him -- just the opposite.  What I 
meant was that Ron Paul was attracting new-minted anti-war voters who a 
short while ago would have been contemptuous of Kucinich as a "leftist."

It was Bob, not I, who raised the religiosity-abortion distraction, 
apparently to say why the anti-war movement has to be kept safely within 
the Democratic party.  I want to insist that, given what the Democratic 
party has done with the "anti-war and anti-occupation ... thrust" -- 
betraying it and isolating views like Kucinich's -- we shouldn't be 
contemptuous of other electoral forms of the anti-war movement, notably 
the Ron Paul campaign.

We should in fact resist the attempts of the two wings of the property 
party to fold the anti-war movement back into their support for an 
essentially common war policy. That of course is particularly the job of 
the Democrats. --CGE


Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Despite my doubts about Kucinich arising mainly from his past 
> timidity/cave-in at the last Democratic convention, I am glad for his 
> considerable courage in maintaining principled anti-war and anti 
> administration positions in a Washington antagonistic and deaf to those 
> positions, and that he does not carry the baggage associated with Ron 
> Paul's domestic agenda. I believe it is a distortion to imply that 
> Kucinich simply acts as a foil for Dems to show that "extreme views" are 
> present in the party. Would it be better if his voice were absent? The 
> "repressive tolerance" that Carl cites is no fault of Kucinich. 
> 
> I'm not sure what the significance is of the statement that Ron Paul's 
> supporters are contemptuous of Kucinich, except that the writer of these 
> words is contemptuous of him.
> 
> Finally, Kucinich is not running on the "religiosity and guns" 
> bandwagon, as Carl seems to imply. His major thrust, one which we should 
> encourage, is anti-war and anti-occupation. Chomsky, cited by Carl to 
> buttress a false argument, I doubt would agree in associating Kucinich 
> with distracting issues (religiosity-abortion). 
> 
> These are gratuitous attacks on one of the few in Congress and in the 
> public sphere who are expressing what members of AWARE believe in. 
> 
> It is of course another issue whether Kucinich can win enough support to 
> make a dent in present U.S. policies, and thus should be the one to lead 
> the antiwar movement. That he is trying is worth at least our respect. 
> 
> My 2¢.  --mkb
> 
> 
> On Aug 22, 2007, at 3:15 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
>> I see Dennis Kucinich's campaigns, in years past and this, as examples 
>> of what's been called repressive tolerance.  He's grudgingly given a 
>> place at the end of the debate line-up, and the media talk about how 
>> short he is, but the Democrats can always point to him to show that 
>> "extreme" views really are presented in the party.  His campaigns are 
>> like the fenced "free-speech zones" set up outside the 2004 political 
>> conventions.  They're safely contained, exist as an answer to an 
>> objection, but can't become effective.
>>
>>
>> Perhaps just the same can be said of Ron Paul's campaign, but I have 
>> the impression that it is supported by people who fairly recently 
>> would have rejected "protesters" (like Kucinich) with contempt.  
>> Someone is voting for him in straw-polls and telling pollsters that he 
>> has their support, and I think it's not so much people suddenly 
>> converted to Libertarian economics as those who saw their anti-war 
>> vote traduced by the Democrats thru the last nine months (also a 
>> principal reason that Congress' approval rating is lower than Bush's).
>>
>>
>> But it's certainly a prudential judgment, which campaign will be more 
>> effective in bringing anti-war pressure on the eventual candidates. 
>> Chomsky points out that one of the signs of the low state of American 
>> democratic forms is that in presidential elections the real issues are 
>> set aside by the candidates' insistence that the campaign is about 
>> "religiosity and guns" (domestic ones, that is).  It would be a shame 
>> to aid in that distraction by supporting Kucinich because of his 
>> position on abortion if it really is the case that a Paul candidacy 
>> would do more to make effective the anti-war sentiment of the majority.
>>
>>
>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>
>>> you would think, on a list like this, that the debate would be whether
>>>
>>> we should be supporting Kucinich, the peace candidate, or making a
>>>
>>> more pragmatic choice like Edwards, as the best progressive shot at
>>>
>>> defeating Hillary, and that the Kucinich forces would have the upper
>>>
>>> hand.
>>>
>>> But Dennis is now 100% pro-choice, and I suppose some people hold that
>>>
>>> against him.
>>>