[Peace-discuss] [sftalk] [sf-core] More dead children onObama's watch

Thu Apr 4 22:16:56 UTC 2013

So what is the difference between " neo-liberal " and
" liberal " ?
Your definition !

David Johnson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Gehrig" <david-cu at nukulele.org>
To: "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com>
Cc: <sftalk at yahoogroups.com>; "peace discuss" 
<Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [sftalk] [sf-core] More dead children onObama's 
watch


> I've removed the Occupy list as they are unwilling to act the role of 
> all-purpose soapbox.
>
> On this list, I think most readers are sharp enough to spot it when 
> someone pulls a fast presto-change-o (King Lear's phrase was 
> "handy-dandy") between "liberal" and "neo-liberal," two terms that you 
> seem to use interchangeably but are of course not interchangeable.
>
> I think it's also clear that it would be quite easy to pick some issue and 
> raise it to the status of unchallengeable political touchstone, with the 
> associated declarations of "no TRUE leftist could be against X," in away 
> that would leave your estimable self on the wrong side of the line in the 
> sand. But what would that achieve, other than demonstrating that my 
> pointing finger can point?
>
> @%<
>
> On Apr 3, 2013, at 7:58 AM, "C. G. Estabrook" <carl at newsfromneptune.com> 
> wrote:
>
>> In American politics in our lifetimes, the left has been a mouse that 
>> roared. In this generation of vicious class war, carried on by what we've 
>> come to call the 1% against the rest, the left has in fact been the 
>> issue. In the most sophisticated propaganda regime in history, the effort 
>> has been to silence and negate the left, to pretend that there is no real 
>> opposition to the American tradition of "consensus history." The effort 
>> has a name - neoliberalism. But its quiet and well-funded campaign - 
>> implemented by efforts up to and including direct government suppression 
>> (cf. the fate of Occupy) - has been countered by the successes of Occupy 
>> and the contemporary anti-war movements, with the result that the 
>> language of class is once again part of the national consciousness.
>>
>> The left in America means opposition to the class-oppression of 
>> capitalism, joined to the recognition that US wars are in the interests 
>> only of the capitalist class. Liberalism is an attempt to meliorate 
>> capitalism (from whatever motives, including the defense of the 
>> capitalist order) and eliminate the excesses of the foreign policy of the 
>> US, seen as basically sound. (E.g., the late Anthony Lewis, the liberal 
>> extreme of NYT columnists, held long after the US war in Vietnam that the 
>> greatest international crime since WWII had been "a blundering attempt to 
>> do good.")
>>
>> The argument in this email thread began with John Stauber's important 
>> article, "The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats" 
>> <http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/15/the-progressive-movement-is-a-pr-front-for-rich-democrats/>, 
>> which describes current liberal attempts to co-opt the left. It was just 
>> that sort of co-option of the anti-war movement that made Barack Obama 
>> president. (That he realized such a campaign would be necessary is clear 
>> from The Audacity of Hope: his lying pretense to be the peace candidate 
>> was his most audacious hope.) But liberalism and the left are not 
>> co-ordinate, as some of our friends would have us believe, but contrary.
>>
>> Americans are only slowly becoming aware of the conscious neoliberal 
>> campaign from the 1970s to combat the emergence of an American left in 
>> the 1960s.  Neoliberalism meant to reverse the gains in social support - 
>> such as social Security and Medicare - that American capitalism had had 
>> to concede in the generation after WWII. A series of neoliberal 
>> administrations (Republican and Democrat), culminating in the current 
>> one, may well accomplish that goal, as it has destroyed unions and 
>> suppressed wages. And the neoliberal campaign has been quite conscious, 
>> if covert: see e.g. the Powell memo (1971) and Crozier et al. The Crisis 
>> of Democracy (1975) - the crisis being that the sixties had produced too 
>> much democracy...
>>
>> Neoliberalism vs. the left is the battle by night that's going on in US 
>> politics, under the show of contests between safely neoliberal candidates 
>> like Romney and Obama. In spite of the corporate media, more Americans 
>> are realizing that the outcome of the latter makes little difference (cf. 
>> "hope and change" in 2008), but the outcome of the former is crucial. 
>> It's surely a mistake to pretend that liberals and the left are on the 
>> same side.
>>
>> --CGE
>>
>> On Mar 28, 2013, at 5:40 PM, David Gehrig <david-cu at nukulele.org> wrote:
>>
>>> What Mike's trying to say is that not even Jeremiah was on an endless 
>>> jeremiad.
>>> Or, as Carlyle's non-existent Herr Teufelsdröckh apostrophized Voltaire: 
>>> "Only a torch for burning, no hammer for building? Take our thanks, 
>>> then, and -- thyself away."
>>> I have to admit that at this point you're reminding me of the former 
>>> leader of the unmourned San Francisco IMC, a would-be messiah who 
>>> claimed to represent the "global justice movement." This global justice 
>>> movement he invoked always agreed with him on every single point - and 
>>> thus when he spoke he claimed to speak in the name of the entire planet. 
>>> And anyone who disagreed with him he characterized as "working against 
>>> the global justice movement" and therefore against the entire planet.
>>> It soon became clear that the global justice movement was a mouse that 
>>> lived exclusively in his, and only his, pocket, having appointed him 
>>> alone as spokesman.
>>> I see you have a mouse too, Carl, and it's called "the left."
>>> @%<
>>>
>>> On Mar 28, 2013, at 4:41 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" 
>>> <carl at newsfromneptune.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does the choir believe that the administration's military and economic 
>>>> policies - assassination and austerity for short - should be reversed?
>>>>
>>>> I rather thought the choir lent "critical support" to those policies. 
>>>> E.g., drones should be used "responsibly," and judicious cuts should be 
>>>> made in "entitlements."
>>>>
>>>> Does the choir believe that the chief magistrate should be impeached 
>>>> for high crimes and misdemeanors, including murder and violations of 
>>>> the Constitution?
>>>>
>>>> I rather thought they would not support a call for Obama to be 
>>>> imprisoned along with Bush in The Hague, both awaiting trial for war 
>>>> crimes. (And they should be joined by others.)
>>>>
>>>> I think there are real differences between liberals and the left. 
>>>> Liberals think Obama is doing the best he can for the 99%, and the left 
>>>> sees him as the minion of the 1%.
>>>>
>>>> There's a fairly clear choice between supporting and opposing the 
>>>> administration.
>>>>
>>>> And I do think Obama fears public dissent and resistance, expressed in 
>>>> action and argument, and will do a great deal to nullify it.
>>>>
>>>> He knows that such opposition is the only real check on the exercise of 
>>>> US military and economic power - other than the resistance of our 
>>>> victims.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mar 28, 2013, at 12:17 PM, Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ...
>>>>> Carl,
>>>>> Everyone of us is acutely aware of this sort of stuff. You're 
>>>>> preaching to the choir..
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>>
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