[Peace-discuss] DN: NAACP Report Ties Tea Party to Militia andRacist Groups

Thu Oct 21 15:57:41 CDT 2010

Uh, Laurie? What does one have to be/believe/do to be an actual socialist?  Let 
me know, and I'll see if I measure up.

Meanwhile, what I think anyone would recognize as a socialist position was set 
out in lapidary fashion by Noam Chomsky in his famous lecture "Government in the 
Future," 40 years ago. There he outlined what was called libertarian socialism 
in 20th century Europe and contrasted it with Soviet Communism and American 
corporatism.  Libertarian socialism - anarchism - is a critique of Leninism from 
the Left: Lenin wrote against people who held that view in /"Left-Wing" 
Communism: An Infantile Disorder /(1920).

It has an honorable history through Rosa Luxembourg, the Council Communists, the 
Spanish Anarchists (see Orwell's /Homage to Catalonia/), on into the American 
New Left. It hasn't gone away; I heard Chomsky's lecture, was happy to sign up 
then, and have seen no reason to abandon my youthful faith in the intervening 
years. --CGE

On 10/21/10 3:41 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote:
> Actually, I will give him the benefit of the doubt about having empirical 
> supporting data to back up his assertion that "There are more anti-war 
> teapartiers than anti-war Democrats" ask for the exact number of tea-partiers 
> there actually are as compared to the exact number of Democrat there actually 
> are and the exact number and percentage of those total number of tea-partiers 
> that are anti-war as compared with the same for total Democrats and anti-war 
> Democrats.  If he has the empirical data (as opposed to opinion or 
> speculation) to support his statement that "There are more anti-war 
> teapartiers than anti-war Democrats", he surely will have no trouble supplying 
> me with the numbers and percentages as well as citing the sources of that data.
> As for his statement, "As an (actual) socialist, I deplore that fact", I 
> cannot question the part where he says he deplores that fact ; but with 
> respect to the first part of the statement, I would suggest that he is no more 
> an  "actual socialist" philosophically, ideologically, or practically than he 
> is a race horse, a palm tree, or a rocket ship except in his own mind and his 
> self-attaching the label to himself and his beliefs.  To be sure, his believes 
> may contain some elements drawn from the socialist tradition and some of his 
> actions may have a socialist element to them; but that does not make him an 
> "actual socialist" whatever the hell that means any more than standing in a 
> garage makes one an automobile.
>
> *From:* Brussel <mailto:brussel at illinois.edu>
> *Sent:* Thursday, October 21, 2010 2:38 PM
> *To:* C. G. Estabrook <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>
> *Cc:* Peace-discuss List <mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] DN: NAACP Report Ties Tea Party to Militia 
> andRacist Groups
>
> Karen,
>
> Ask Carl where he gets his data (re. his first line below). Ask where most of 
> the funding, who are the biggest contributors, and where most of the PR for 
> the Tea party comes from. And so what conclusion may one draw?
>
> Don't be surprised if he switches the subject, refuses to answer, or cannot 
> answer, because he doesn't have reliable sources.
>
> --mkb
>
> On Oct 21, 2010, at 10:18 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>> Come on, Karen. There are more anti-war teapartiers than anti-war Democrats.
>>
>> Obama's co-option of the anti-war movement meant that there is no parallel 
>> among the Democrats to Ron Paul's movement of principled opposition to the 
>> war, nor to that of libertarians and paleoconservatives around the website 
>> Antiwar.com <http://Antiwar.com> or the journal /The American Conservative/.
>>
>> As an (actual) socialist, I deplore that fact.
>>
>> On 10/21/10 9:30 AM, Karen Medina wrote:
>>> I did notice that there were very few "constitutionalists" around
>>> before the scare tactic of "they are going to give health care to
>>> undocumented immigrants" became popular.
>>>
>>> Very few of the tea-partiers are in the anti-war movement.
>>>
>>> All I am saying is that it is easy to count the ones that are consistent.
>>>
>>> With the ones that are inconsistent, it is harder to count them, but
>>> it is easy to tell if they have read the constitution.
>>>
>>> -karen medina
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