Some of these fools give the RWers all the ammo they need

I just LOVE it when DUers apologize for terrorists and communists: because after all, anyone who opposes the evil U.S. capitalist-pig war juggernaut is automatically double-plus-good. Al Qaeda? They're just fighting against all the myriad injustices the U.S. pig-bastards have wreaked upon their peace-loving nations, and who can blame them? It's heroic, really. And the Hanoi Hilton really wasn't any more than those American fighter pilots deserved, after all. The North Vietnamese were just freedom fighters, after all.
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This diatribe in no way is meant to exculpate the U.S. from any guilt over its poor foreign policy choices; to the contrary, to fight al-Qaeda effectively, we must know how to win the hearts and minds of Arab people, to understand why they hate us, and to work proactively to make allies of these people.

HOWEVER. These stinky hippies in their Che shirts and sandals confuse criticism of U.S. policy with support for those whose stated intentions are to kill as many Americans as possible, and that is borderline treasonous. These Chomskyesque Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh and Saddam and Osama apologists just give Rush and company fucking GRIST FOR THE MILL. They ENABLE the RW to paint us all with the broad "un-American" brushstroke. And I'm sick and tired of pretending that I hold any ideological similarity to them. The enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend. I do not support these people, and I will not defend them out of some misguided sense of alliance. Just because they are "leftist" does NOT mean that their black-and-white dogmatism is any less odious than the right's.

Do I think the U.S. (under Republican presidents, for the most part) has made horrible and amoral foreign policy decisions? Of course. Look at Reagan and GW. Do I think, as does Chomsky, that the U.S. is continuing the work of Hitler, and that all who oppose us violently, even including butchers such as Pol Pot and Osama, are somehow justified, or that American soldiers deserve to die in their enactment of said foreign policy? HELL NO. So, a big resounding FUCK YOU to all the lefty freepers out there. You no more represent my views than George W. Bush.

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EDIT: No offense intended to real, actual hippies.

I wish we could take all this protest energy and use it constructively to build up the Democratic party instead, so maybe we could win a few more elections next time.

People like these are what give the Right an excuse to call the Dems "Commie sympathizers". Yeah THAT will win us a lot of votes! :sarcasm:

Some douche was defending Jane Fonda's decision to straddle a AA gun in North Vietnam, saying that any opposition to U.S. imperialist warmongering was good - and that even if the gun HAD shot down an American aircraft, well, it was okay, because that would've saved maybe dozens of Vietnamese. I mean, the pilot was after all just a tool for imperialist bloodlust. :nuke: :mad:

I would hope the peace people would put equal value on the lives of both sides. Sounds like a slide into radicalism to me. That's a fairly uneducated comment, mind you. But I have been around such folk.

If he truly respects life and wants peace, he cheers NO death during war on either side. I found his seeming approval of the killing of American soldiers disgusting in the utmost.

Your rant COMPLETELY and TOTALLY sums up my utter disdain for these left-wing fundamentalist radicals. I hate their seemingly knee-jerk hostility to the US military, in any context. They supposedly oppose "American bloodlust and imperialism" but they give a complete pass to ACTUAL murderous regimes (i.e. North Vietnam). I should know, I am Vietnamese. My parents suffered under the brutal Communists there.

Yes, the US made a mistake in waging the Vietnam War. But does that make the murderous Ho Chi Minh and his Communist cronies saints and "freedom fighters"? My answer? FUCK NO.

With so-called "liberals" like these, the Republicans have all they need for their propaganda.

I hope your family is all right now - that sucks. I HATE communist apologism. These same "pure liberals" who revere JFK and RFK don't seem to realize how much they rightfully hated communist regimes - because they were brutal, murderous dictatorships. Of course the U.S. has made mistakes, but we do NOT sanction the mass deportation and slaughter of millions of people.

(Well, not since our shameful and evil treatment of Native Americans, probably the worst blight on the history of America.)

By and large I support the military. I have always found military service to be a gallant and honorable way to perform a duty to something greater than yourself, and I have respect for those with the courage to serve. Abu Ghraib represents a tiny minority in the military, and the true blame for that, to me, goes to Rumsfeld and Gonzales, who authorized and ordered such treatment.

Thank you!

I agree totally with what you said.

You can still support our troops without supporting the war, the two do not go hand in hand. I don't agree with the Iraq war, but it doesn't mean I am cheering at the death of any of our soldiers, it is quite the opposite. There are too many people out there who think all liberals are anti military and take every chance to sympathize with the enemy, and they couldn't be more wrong.

I think they are playing right into Rove's hand. These statements are public and are for all to see. If the MSM extracts several of the more provocative and includes them as examples of "Democratic" thought - after all what does DU stand for - it tarnishes people who are legitimately criticizing the real transgressions of the Bush administration.

I was a college student (IU) in the late 60s, early 70s, the antiwar movement I saw was idealistic. There were teach-ins, rallies, and informal late night discussions on the morality of the war. The pictures used to depict that time now show the anti war movement, not with pictures of the girl who wanted to put flowers at the end of the NG rifles or the pastels, flowers and pretty colors of people demanding peace, but with angry, scary looking long haired mobs that look threatening. The music of that time reflected the idealism and the view that we were going to make things better, but in so many depictions of the anti-war movement they play the more sinister later psychedelic music.

In the late 80s and early 90s, when I spent hours watching Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Rainbow Brite with my 3 little daughters, I was amused how 1960s values they were. Some of the music was even by 60s artists. I remember thinking that this might really be the way that good liberal values were being covertly passed to the young in the Reagan/Bush time period. Little seeds of liberalism were being planted. (My kids even saw Raffi when he was performing his pro-environmental songs.) I thought we were regaining some control of our image. (either that or my brain was struggling to remain amused at a grown up level - and no, I don't think a "Care Bear Stare" will work on Bin Laden or even Bush.)

I really question why Jane Fonda has chosen this time to apologize again. She has to know that there is nothing she could say that will make many people forgive her. My concern is that in today's environment, the media will use it again to revive (as if that were needed) the smears on the very legitimate protests of that time. Jane Fonda should not be the image of the 60s protester.

Likewise, in a time when things are seriously wrong, the Democrats have to avoid being painted as supporters of evil people. We need to be portrayed by our leaders, who want to fight a smarter war against terrorists.

What is protest, what are it's aims and is it an effective means of changing governmental policies and actions. The answer of the founders of the United States, as codified in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution is that protest is relevant, important and serves a societal purpose and therefore must be protected as free speech. The United States of America got it's start because a bunch of pissed off people decided that they weren't going to take it anymore and that they were going to make their voices and positions on the issues known. We are a nation that was born of dissent; we would not exist without this sacred right.

I suffer the extremists because sometimes they are right. It is not fun to learn that the US government has done things in an immoral and amoral way in the past. But it is relevant. Because some of those actions have invited reactions, such as 9/11, that could have been prevented. (Blow-back is a bitch.)

Again, I understand that these folks provoke strong reactions. Free speech is funny that way. But real live humans with brains and free will and points of view different from my own think and feel this way. By raising these points, a different set of arguments seep into the national consciousness. The more radical and silly parts of their arguments get discarded. But some of the meat of the argument remains and get taken seriously and just might change enough minds to affect actual change in policy. That is the theory anyway.

Hey, sometimes you run up against nut-balls who claim that immoral wars that are poorly thought out and that seem to waste young lives for no reason at all should not be fought or should be ended. And sometimes you run up against crazies who claim that the US Government is in the drug trade and is shipping out arms illegally for the express purpose of overthrowing democratically elected governments in other parts of the world. And sometimes you even find oddballs who claim that well-known international banking institutions are actually fronts for money laundering and are laundering money for terrorist organizations. (Geez, they even claim that this same international banking institution was home to one, Usama Bin Laden and allowed him to send money all over the world.) Be careful, some of those nut-balls and their oddball, out-of-the-mainstream opinions just might be worth listening to.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Jane Fonda said and did some mighty stupid things back in the day. But se wasn't alone. There were a lot of us young people angry and scared and trying to change things. And very very few of us were smart and rational and strategic (in fact, maybe only John Kerry was that way).

My particular argument is with people who are bullies and who are unwilling to listen and discuss. I'm a great believer in compromise - in the sense of people finding common ground, some kernel of an idea that they can mutually agree on, and on which you can build a larger consensus. The problem of the 60's - and of today - is polarization. When everyone is forced into their left or right hand corners there's no way meaningful discussion AND LISTENING is going to take place. The freepers - left AND right - love the polarization because a climate of anger and alienation allows them to rage at will.

I want the grownups back in charge. People who think, who read, who reason, who discuss, and who have an idea of what a greater good might consist of.

The purpose of free speech is not just to benefit the speaker. We allow Nazis to march in America. Are we nuts? Europe doesn't allow public displays of hate speech like this. Why does the 'home of the free and the brave' do so?

Because you will be exposed to it in all it's ugliness and hate. Then you can think about what is said and how it goes against all the secular and moral values that America preaches. (Or maybe used to preach.) You will be forced to think about horrible things that you might not want to think about and maybe even plot strategies for defeating these horrible things. Free speech exists because it provokes reaction. It is a protected right because it serves a greater societal good. So do these lefty freeper arguments. They make you mad, they upset you and they make you think. The Founders would be proud.

There is no Constitutional right to shut other people up. The Founders believed that the market place of ideas would weed out the good ideas from the bad. I believe this is so. I believe it is also a painful process, but a worthwhile one.

That's the lesson I learned from the 60's (and early 70's). To be technical - for the young'uns - the 60's as we think of them didn't really start till '66 or '67. And didn't end till the mid-70's (I believe the disco era marks the definitive end of the 60's - all that polyester - but I digress...

The lesson I learned was that democracy is messy. It's also ugly and hated-filled, as you said. And it's not for the faint of heart. I've always been very uncomfortable with the hate directed at Jane Fonda because I wasn't always smart either. And because I could see her passion was sincere, even though maybe somewhat misguided. Sometimes caring deeply can be more important than being right.

I'm not complaining about protest in general, and I specifically added a qualifier that I do agree that the U.S. has made horrendous foreign policy mistakes. HOWEVER - I don't think that standing up for those who wish to harm Americans is EVER beneficial. How is applauding the death of U.S. soldiers ever "worth listening to"? How is ignoring the parts of history that poke holes in your argument - like pretending that communists were pretty swell guys overall - how is that in any way less creepy, knee-jerk, blind dogmatism than that which the freepers practice?

I think you misread the entire gist of my post. I'm not dismissing ALL protest, nor would I. But tell me how sympathizing with America's foreign enemies (like the lefty freepers I was ranting about) is any different from sympathizing with America's domestic enemies (like the righty freepers in their Boosh worship)? It's just a different form of poison.

Edit: I never advocated revoking anyone's freedom of speech, either, or suggested that they "didn't have a right" to their loathsome opinions. I would never do that. But I do find these people as evil and narrow minded as freepers, and I won't apologize for excoriating them.

While I agree with the tenets of your post, I don't see too much of that sentiment out there. What there is comes from far-out kooks and people who may be RW plants. People who do these things are indeed making fools of themselves, but I don't think there are that many.

Some asshole was talking about how it would have been good if American fighter planes were shot down because they were bombing innocent Vietnamese. Lots of people - DUers with stars and 1000s of posts, not random suspicious people with 12 posts, either - chimed in to agree. I got pissed, and the above rant resulted.

It got you riled up. It got you thinking. It focused you and crystallized your arguments into a better and more coherent set of expressions. You knew what you thought and believed in better at the end of the rant than at the beginning. Sometimes being exposed to speech you find distasteful can serve a purpose. It can better your (not their) arguments. Hey, that's the theory.

I have never seen anyone in this group speak out for shutting down speech they disagree with. I don't see that as very likely, given that we are Dems and on the liberal side. I was imploring you to see the value of speech that is on the radical side. Why allow it? Why even listen to it. (Well, to maybe the first post in the set, but maybe not the 32nd rant of the same thing in the same thread.) Does this serve a purpose? For you, not them.

They hand Rush and company all the propaganda they need to call liberals un-American traitor commies, regardless of the fact that those who say that are a small lunatic fringe. This is obviously far more of a problem to do with the state-controlled media than with the lunatic fringe (who will always exist), but I do not appreciate their efforts to undermine a reasonable liberal position. When Joe American hears crap that like, he gets pissed, and he associates it with ALL liberals. My own father has been known to rant about the commie-sympathizing, irrational hippies - this from a man who is Union and has HATED Reagan and Bush with a passion. He's aware enough to vote Democrat, but most people in his situation aren't. Like it or not, they hear these radicals, and they start agreeing with the RW meme that liberals are irrational, bleeding heart, America-hating hippies who loathe the military and want America's enemies to win. This played right into the RW's hands when they were able, with little effort, to turn a decorated war hero, athlete, and man of principle into a coward and a traitor and a "girly man" in 2004.

People like this aren't only found on DU - they're published in liberal magazines, and they're given a disproportionate amount of attention by "liberals" in general. Look what happened when the Republicans ceded control of their party over to the right-wing extremists. Do you want that to happen to the Dems? A party of left-wing nutjobs versus a party of right-wing nutjobs is no kind of choice, and would end up representing the views of maybe 10% of Americans. No, my problem with these lunatics is that every time they open their big loud mouths, they undermine everything that more reasonable liberals are trying to accomplish. We are the persecuted minority in this country right now - we control no branch of government, nor the media. So we need to coalesce into a meaningful opposition that represents the true will of America, because I forcefully do not believe that America really agrees with Bush's imperialist policies. But to do that, we have to marginalize the wackos, instead of insisting that they be given equal say. No - they are only hurting us. We need to stop paying attention to them, stop feeding their need for outrage, and work towards sensible solutions for America. Railing about "capitalist imperialist war pigs" and making intellectual arguments for supporting America's enemies will only (rightfully so) earn us scorn.

The left-right spectrum has always been composed of extremists on the ends of both sides. These extremists provide pressure on the rest of the curve moving the debate. Things mediate toward the center and the worst of both left & right extremism gets filtered out.

Don't you see this happening now? Tom Delay, Bill Frist and the religious right have pushed the argument on 'Right to Life' to an extremist position. The national polls have shown that this is overwhelmingly unpopular with the American people. The Terry Schiavo case is an instance of the right wing over-reaching. Their arguments that the judiciary is out of control and careering toward replacing the intent of the voters and the will of Congress is not catching on. They will, nevertheless, use this as a major reason why the filibuster in the Senate has to be eliminated when it comes to Judaical appointments. This may just backfire. The Dems have been handed a powerful weapon with which to beat back this assault on the traditions of the Senate. This should prove most interesting.

The Lefty extremists have also always over-reached. (It's what extremists do.) There arguments are so anti-US that they appear to be nearly seditious in nature. But they generate no 'buzz' in American political circles. (They are excellent at generating annoyance, but that doesn't count.) Your post actually proof of this. Your own Dad has them down as a caricature. The right wing media machine is almost irrelevant to this. They are masters of distortion. They take things that are accurate and informed and twist them so that they are no longer either. I do not fear giving them ammunition. They will do what they do regardless of what I think. They are beyond logic and appeals to reason.

We have always had lefty extremists. (Emma Goldman anybody?) We have always had doves who object to American use of the military in nearly all cases whatsoever. (There were pacifists in World War I and World War II.) The Republic survives. If their ideas have any merit then they will bubble up. If not, they will end up talking to the equivalent of a wall of mirrors.

And that's what bothers me. The last thing I want to see is the extremists gaining power in this party. I hate to say it, but with the election of Howard Dean as DNC chair, all the former Naderite and Green Deaniacs who border on extreme now think they own the party, when they're as far outside the mainstream as the DeLays and the Bushes. It scares me that people like this seem to be getting louder and more influential, as destructive as their ideas are. We don't need to move to the left; we need to forcefully articulate and defend our current positions and not let the RW frame the debate.

There was a thread in this group this week about Bill Bradley's piece in the NYTimes about fixing systemic problems in the Democratic Party. We lack a consistent base that exists between elections and can take and absorb ideas and process them in a systemic way. We feel the lack of this kind of permanent infrastructure after a tough loss. It becomes a free-for-all to reinvent the Party, which is not what we really need.

There is very little chance that the extremists will take over. There is a larger chance that liberals will assume more power. And I count Kerry as a liberal. He is about on the 60-70% mark in being left of center and in the left wing of the party. (That is to say that I think he is more liberal than 60-70% percent of the party. Maybe more, maybe less.) But the liberal wing will never completely take over either. There are moderating regional differences that won't allow that to happen.

The Rethug Party was always more vulnerable to being taken over by their extremists. They had very smart people who fudged the differences between religious extremism and traditional pro-business, anti-tax Republicanism. This alliance may not hold. That's the problem with extremists actually getting into power, they fail to attract the vital center and fall to the way side. Keep your eye on Roy Moore. He may lead a number of the religious extremists to his Constitutional Party and deeply wound the Rethugs.

Is like my dream come true.

by the thread about the polish communist. Christ dont people know that the eastern bloc communists were tyrants.

And it really does prove my point, doesn't it? Yeah, good for the Polish atheist communist who hates the Pope. These morans see "atheist communist" and their martyr complex kicks in - any time is a good time for faux persecution.

These people live to be victims. They wouldn't know what to do if they couldn't claim to be "oppressed." And ignoring the suffering that eastern Soviet bloc countries inflicted on their citizens - not to mention the authoritarian lack of freedom - shows how "liberal" these fools are.

I know damn well that the eastern bloc countries were terrible to their people. Ive seen someone mention that the pope was instrumental in winning the cold war and someone says something like "You act lke thats good", I admit it, I have some socialistic leanings, some things should be owned by the public but the USSR was terrible to its dissents.

Which is what these dimwits can't seem to grasp. The Soviet Union represented oppression, suppression of dissent, and absolute obediance to the state - funny that a self-proclaimed "liberal" would side AGAINST these things. It's just another example of their knee-jerk lack of actual logical reasoning. They're as ignorant and useless as freepers.

That poster who I saw you talking with about Cambodia was right, I do remember reading that Chomsky embraced that and has defended the Khmer Rouge before which is scary as hell since I know pelnty of Cambodians myself who no doubt had family members killed.

What a true fucking liberal hero, that Pol Pot. Atrocities are OK if you hate the U.S., I suppose. :mad:

had 7.3 Million by the time the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. This means that nearly one cambodian in ten was killed.