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Justin Raimondo, the libertarian majordomo at Antiwar.com, had this to say yesterday about overcoming the ‘false Left Right paradigm’:
we are not going to conquer the world, and it’s time our rulers recognized the economic and military reality: so give it up, guys! America’s fifty-year global rampage is about to come to an end, whether we like it or not.
This is precisely what libertarians such as Ron Paul have been saying for years, and this is the real key to a left-right, progressive-libertarian alliance. As Paul has pointed out on numerous occasions, we could fund all the lefty-liberal pet projects like government-run death panels healthcare and free Twinkies for all if only we would give up the Empire.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/04/28/mr-y-and-the-decline-of-the-american-empire/
Of course, though one usually can’t get anyone on the Left to admit it, Raimondo is right. Opposition to the Empire is a very solid and strong basis of commonality for what one might call the ‘real’ Left and the ‘real’ Right … and in an era where supposedly Left/Progressive stalwarts like Znet, Mondoweiss, Juan Cole, Real News, along with others, have chosen to become imperial warmongers (jumping on Obama’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ Libya War-for-Oil bandwagon), how can this NOT be significant? I keep getting emails from Znet demanding that I support their new ‘grassroots’ effort. Really? Well, if I do that, I might as well support Daily Kos, and Move On, and if I do that, I may as well contribute to Obama’s re-election campaign, and if I do that, I’ve signed on to the next few rounds of austerity cuts, of police state amoebization at home, and of brutal wars of domination abroad, and if I do all that, then I’ve betrayed everything any decent human being should stand for. Yet Noam ‘There Are No Conspiracies” Chomsky and John ’911 Truthers Are Idiots’ Pilger would have me do exactly that. Really? What has happened to the Left? HOW DID WE BECOME A MOVEMENT THAT SUPPORTS IMPERIAL WAR?
So I was grateful to see that Counterpunch, a lefty site I don’t like very much because of its Iran-baiting and it’s virulent hatred for ‘conspiracy theorists’ (Raimondo hates ‘em too, so he and Cockburn at least have that particular narrowmindedness in common, for what it’s worth) asked the very same question yesterday that Raimondo asked: is it really so impossible for Lefties to recognize some significant commonalities with the likes of Ron Paul?:
Ron Paul: More Progressive Than Obama?
By CHARLES DAVIS
Ron Paul is far from perfect, but I’ll say this much for the Texas congressman: He has never authorized a drone strike in Pakistan. He has never authorized the killing of dozens of women and children in Yemen. He hasn’t protected torturers from prosecution and he hasn’t overseen the torturous treatment of a 23-year-old young man for the “crime” of revealing the government’s criminal behavior. Can the same be said for Barack Obama? Yet, ask a good movement liberal or progressive about the two and you’ll quickly be informed that yeah, Ron Paul’s good on the war stuff — yawn — but otherwise he’s a no-good right-wing reactionary of the worst order, a guy who’d kick your Aunt Beth off Medicare and force her to turn tricks for blood-pressure meds. By contrast, Obama, war crimes and all, provokes no such visceral distaste. He’s more cosmopolitan, after all; less Texas-y. He’s a Democrat. And gosh, even if he’s made a few mistakes, he means well. Sure he’s a murderer, in other words, but at least he’s not a Republican!
http://www.counterpunch.org/davis04282011.html
The next step might be for folks on the Right to disavow their covert racism (hatred for ‘illegal immigrants’, hatred for the poor, for ‘welfare queens’, etc.) and their relentless red-baiting and homophobic bigotry, while Lefties work to put aside their elitist assumptions that the populism of the Right is inevitably stupid and beneath consideration. Ok, so we have a lot to work on.
But Lefties who want to accuse Ron Paul of being a racist, perhaps rightly, might want to chew on this a little …
Look at the war on drugs: Obama has continued the same failed prohibitionist policies as his predecessors, maintaining a status quo that has placed 2.3 million – or one in 100 – Americans behind bars, the vast majority African-American and Hispanic. Paul, on the other hand, has called for ending the drug war and said he would pardon non-violent offenders, which would be the single greatest reform a president could make in the domestic sphere, equivalent in magnitude to ending Jim Crow.
http://www.counterpunch.org/davis04282011.html
Should the Left support Ron Paul? I don’t know. I’d rather see a strong Lefty step up to the plate. How about a Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich ticket? Or a Ron Paul/Cynthia McKinney ticket? But, as we have UTTERLY failed to build up our own Left bandwagon, we should not exactly turn up our noses at a bandwagon that agrees with us on some absolutely essential issues that we can’t even get most Lefties and Progressives to agree with us on – you know, basic things like WARS FOR OIL ARE WRONG!!!!!!!!!
And, more importantly than Ron Paul’s electoral escapades, maybe, just maybe, it’s time for the Left and Right to start working on a Unified Populist Political Theory, so that we can have a Populist Movement that is unified and strong enough to actually take power and start building a better world. That is what we want, right?
12 Comments
I finally came to this realization about a year and a half ago. Once I actually started seeing the “Big Picture” rather than the old L v. R mantra, it was a huge eye-opener.
Folks need to start “getting it”!
Thanks for posting, and rec’d.
Yeah, I love Ron Paul, but I know a “holdiay romance ” when i see one. Ron is even against the EPA. I mean, imagine trying to hold polluters responsible in a courtroom. it boggles the mind.
I wanna say that we should respect the Ron Paul people, and give them a hand. They’re natural allies against the big banks.
It’s fun to fantasize. The right has nothing worthwhile to contribute. The best the right has to offer is a way to get rid of the current regime. Only after that it’s time for fight each other.
I can seeing myself voting for Paul – at least that is a substantive choice, even if it’s a shitty not ideal one.
Then again, I don’t want to be a part of a world that all those paultards would be happy to live in.
Sorry, Imka, but no. It’s not about hating Ron Paul for “Left vs. Right” reasons. It’s about Ron Paul saying populist things on the campaign trial and attempting to legislate us back to the stone age in Congress. The facts speak for themselves:
Ron Paul = John Birch
It is hard to like a guy who thinks we never should have ended slavery and who voted against the latest budget because he thinks it doesn’t go far enough in oppressing the rest of us with savage austerity measures.
I refer to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich as the “legitimate” right and left respectively. All the Democrats and Republicans in between are Fascists. The Fascists are well on their way to impoverishing and enslaving us all. The legitimate right and left would restore democracy and the rule of law. An alliance makes sense to me. We could sort out our left/right differences with honest elections after we get rid of the Fascists. I have made this case to Progressives and Libertarians. When I get feed back it’s mostly negative on both sides. When oppression is as open and pervasive as it was in the old Soviet Union maybe people will be able to overcome their differences and cooperate for their mutual liberation. Or maybe not.
Thank you for the thoughtful article “It’s more important to hate Ron Paul”. I agree with much of what you have written and I recommend your sources to our fellow citizens.
I believe that, until a significant number of us vote according to who we have determined is the best candidate for our country rather than who bears a particular party affiliation, we will continue to elect into office individuals who serve interests which are not those of the ordinary United States citizen.
To wit and in response to this comment: “Then again, I don’t want to be a part of a world that all those paultards would be happy to live in.”
…I have this response: “Instead, in Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist.”
Source: “Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen” by Glenn Greenwald http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations
Presidents and Congresspersons of both major political parties advance a Central Government agenda deleterious to the ordinary citizens and in many cases (e.g., Iraq, Libya) the people of the world.
Congressman Paul’s record, much like that of Congressman Kucinich’s, indicates their non-aggressive and “pro-freedom” histories and likely future actions.
Individuals such as these two men should, in my opinion, be supported over “status quo” candidates if we are to have any chance of effecting positive change in our government.
Regards,
Charles
Ron Paul is a self appointed opportunist, racist, misogynist and more.
That he purports to be antiwar is NOT reason enuff for this Larue to support him one iota.
I love Raimondo, he tells it like it is, and his site features most of anyone I want to read on any give day on any foreign policy.
But in this I disagree with Raimondo.
Ron Paul and Rand Paul are NOT the answer to civil or social equality, by any means.
That, in and of itself, is a false meme. Even if it’s about antiwar positioning.
No, I will not support a Ron Paul ticket with a lefty as vp. That would be wesser-ebul voting as far as I am concerned.
my only exception, would be if he only pursues the banking and war issue and stays away from issues where the left and right simply do not agree, like the environment and the economy.
he’s has already said that social issues are not as important to him as taking over the fed, and ending the wars, and that he can be flexible on those issues, and he’s not anti-environment, just anti EPA. But hey, Obama is letting that go anyway, the DOJ is fighting against states trying to enforce stricter standards. I’d rather have a free market capitalist that believes that there is moral hazard involved in handing out 12Trillion in backdoor bank bailouts, and prefers isolation over neoliberal policies.
If there is no real left, peace candidate which it looks like there wont be, I’m voting for him, and working for him. The other good thing we get besides a candidate more left than Obama, is the Democrats go back to pretending they’re on the left again, which also means any Republican wouldn’t imposing their agenda on us with out a fight. Bush didn’t do the crap to us that Obama has allowed, or secretly pushed for behind the stage of his Punch and Judy show.
Thank you for the diary Imka. I agree with everything you’ve written. We have two parties of elites that take turns screwing us. It’s time to shake things up.
good luck. i will vote green. I do not believe there is a consensus candidate between libertarians and progressives and i think the online versions are paul astroturfers pretending to be progressives.