michael098762001's Comments (24)

“GlobalPost columnist Michael Moran recalls his brush with the climate change thought http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/091208/climate-change-police?page=0,0age=0,0 To Joe the blogger — Joe the Protector of Truth — the fact that anyone would dare to republish claims that run counter to his own view of the truth was the point. The fact that I totally disagreed with Inhofe, too, was irrelevant to him.
Objectivity didn’t seem to ring a bell, either. Nor the idea that, in the upper chamber of the American Congress, where the Bill of Rights was fashioned, linking to the transcript of a speech by a U.S. senator was not a crime. Another irrelevant fact: That this document was one of more than 40 such documents, and the only one that represented the views of “climate change deniers.”
So the day unfolded with one nasty email after another directed at my boss, at me, and at some of the world’s leading scholars of climate change — all of whom support the idea of taking serious steps to address it. I was shocked, naïf that I am, to learn later that day that “Joe” was Joe Romm, a former undersecretary of energy in the Clinton administration, and a guy with a Ph.D. from MIT (but apparently, no pedigree in either journalism or spelling).”

“KPD communists in that era before Hitler came in and smashed the entire Left, would also assault Socialists at the meetings and rallies of the SPD.”

“As a student radical back in the 80's at UCSC , I have to chuckle a bit at Brendan's disingenuous denial of the radical ideology and tactics of the kids that disrupted that AFP event. Same as the International Socialist Organization that stormed the stage at columbia university a few yrs. ago to disrupt a speech by gilcrest of the minutemen . Right of the playbook of Marcusean radicals of the 60's who in the self rightiousness routinely shouted down liberals and conservatives.”

“I saw a we are change activist at a denver event for mccain last yr. ask a cery good question about the patriot act, who didn't engage in the stupdly juvenile tactic of these ecoradicals of trying to shout down mccain...now if only we are change, had a message the content of which wasn't 9-11 trutherism”

“Storming the stage and shouting down speakers was a common tactic of the most radical factions of the sds in the late 60's and is still used by ultra-leftists who do not direct their bile just at rightists but, also at social democrats and left-liberals who are not as r-r-r-revolutionary as they are.”

“Thank you for writing this informative post.I knew a number of Iranian-American students radcals in '79 in L.A. at C.S.U.N. I've always assumed after they graduated they were swept in the repression of the Left in Iran in the late 80's.”

“To have had a , "Buy american, " clause in the Cash for Clunkers bill would have violated WTO agreements. Wonder why you disregard as a Marxist-Leninist, the benefit to foreign proletarians of having a good job, building cars in Brazil, for example? Sure it pays better than than whatever off the books, informal economy job some slum dweller might otherwise have selling popsicles on the street.”

“But, that would be an incursion into what a neo-marxist economist like Max might call, "the logic of capital(ism)." Outsourcing and other aspects of the capitalist division of labor are as old as capitalism itself.”

“More of his (more explicitly Marxist) writing can be found at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/econ/RM_test.htm , the website of the post-modernist, Marxist academic journal, Rethinking Marxism.”

“For the fans of Norman Finkelstein here, a polemic vs. him by a European Trotskyist who calls him out on his "Holocaust Industry, " bilge, I take the cite from a blog of a Pennsylvania academic who has democratic socialist viewpoints, http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2006/04/finkelsteins-follies-dangers-of-vulgar.html Finkelstein’s Follies: The Dangers of Vulgar Anti-Zionism (Tobias Abse)”

“http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/g-gordon-liddy-voice-of-unreason-534135.html

G. Gordon Liddy is vibrating with rage. "Environmentalism is a form of pagan fundamentalism. These green wackos are fanatics like al-Quaida. Just like them," he quivers. "Osama believes there are 72 virgins waiting for him. The environmentalist believes human beings cause global warming. They both want to wreak havoc because of their mad beliefs. What's the difference?" I am lying on a hotel bed in New York City listening to Liddy's radio show and trying to figure out how I can possibly interview this man in half an hour. "Why should we listen to these fulminating feminists, proselytizing poofters, the environmentally ill, these multilateralist UN one-world government worshippers and other politically correct castrati?" he is demanding. "Why?"”

“(Continued) http://www.reason.com/blog/show/129413.html
The article is filled with innuendo and unsupported assertions. On learning that some of Palin's 1996 campaign literature described her as "the Christian candidate," for example, Blumenthal and Neiwert assert confidently that this was a "subtle suggestion" that her Lutheran opponent was really Jewish. The authors also make a lot of the AIP's sympathy for southern separatists, implying that the group has a racist core. They don't mention that the pan-secessionist party is also friendly to Lakota separatists, Hawaiian separatists, Puerto Rican separatists, and crunchy-granola Vermont separatists -- all of which impies that it's not whiteness but devolution that drives the organization.

But enough about the AIP. What does the Salon story tell us about Palin? Basically, that she and a few right-wing populists (a) worked together on some gun-rights issues, (b) worked together on some property-rights issues, and (c) uh...well, they were together, man.

This is what "Ayers! Ayers! Ayers!" sounds like in Salonese.”

“From a blog of a leftist law professor, with tons of critical material on Ayersand Obama. Obama/Ayers Update: NY Times Responds Again to Global Labor
I received a second email tonight from the New York Times reporter Scott Shane regarding his story on the Obama- Ayers connection. My response comes first and then his email. http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/obamaayers-update-ny-times-responds.html”

“The Ayers "We Were Just Trying To Do Property Damage" Lie [Andy McCarthy]
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDJhM2ViZWVkODIxMGUzOTcxMGJhYmVlODVjZTY1ZGY=
Just to add to the observations of Jonah's reader, I've addressed Ayers' preposterous claim about only wanting to damage property, not kill people, in a prior post — and Jonah has talked about this, too. Anyway, here are the major points from my prior post:

[I]n 1970[,] three of [Ayers'] confederates, including his then girlfriend Diana Oughton, were accidentally killed when the explosive they were building to Ayers specifications (Ayers was a bomb designer) went off during construction. As noted in Ayers' Discover the Networks profile, the explosive had been a nail bomb. Back when Ayers was being more honest about his intentions, he admitted that the purpose of that bomb had been to murder United States soldiers:

That bomb had been intended for detonation at a dance that was to be attended by army soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plan been successfully executed. Ayers attested that the bomb would have done serious damage, "tearing through windows and walls and, yes, people too."

10/04 12:35 PM”

“Can we expect to see denunciations of George McGovern and Howard Zinn, both fighter pilots in WWII who dropped many bombs on innocent Germans?”

“Um, the LGF'ers are mocking y'awl mercilessly,
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/31337_Naomi_Wolf_Bravely_Speaks_Truth_to_the_Palin_Police_State/comments/#ctop
In the book on Nixon by David Greenberg, in the chapter on New Left perceptions of Nixon he relates all the underground press (and a few mainstream outlets) in '72 alleging Nixon was going to declare martial law and cancel the Nov. 72 elections. On Slate, IIRC, you can find a piece by Ron Rosenbaum relating the investigation he did on this as a young journalist back then.
The Militia Movement of the Far Right was also full of nuts who said Clinton was going to do the same in '96.”

“Ah, the ironies, citing Joy Division, with their fascist aesthetic (the cover of their first ep was taken directly from a still of Leni Riefenstahl's, "Triumph of the Will.") for a anti-McCain demo.

>...As the old guard of Grand Rapids -- and that description cannot be well disputed -- filed into the field house, yet another sign was hoisted above the protest line, quoting roughly from Joy Division:

"Leaders of men -- born out of frustration -- won't grant us our salvation."”

“Ah if you rad the book by left-liberal Rick Perlstein on the Goldwater campaign you will recall that the MSM of 1964 did portray Goldwater as a Fascist loon.”

“http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=43ed5462-7b41-4bd1-98c0-c53cdcc3979e
This is absolutely topic A in Washington economic circles, whereas someone at the University of Chicago Business School--even someone as sharp and enlightened as Goolsbee--would probably be a little more insulated from it.*

P.S. Also, don't miss Paul Krugman's point: Furman was hired to be the director (i.e., broker, coordinator, explainer, synthesizer, etc.) of economic policy, not the chief policy-maker...

*Don't get me wrong--academic economists talk about this stuff quite a bit. And they tend to talk about it a lot more precisely than we do in Washington. But the volume and reach of the discussion at a place like Chicago--or even more policy-oriented places like Harvard--probably doesn't match what goes on in Washigton, if only because the typical economics department explores a much broader range of questions (even if the questions themselves are pretty narrow).

Update: If you're thinking through how these positions would translate into jobs in an Obama administration, I'd guess Furman would be the guy you'd install as head of the National Economic Council (the policy coordination body--i.e., what Gene Sperling did in Clinton's second term) and Goolsbee would be the guy you'd want to head the Council of Economic Advisers (the administration's in-house think-tank--i.e., what people like Joe Stiglitz did for Clinton).

--Noam Scheiber”

“http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/06/13/why-the-jason-furman-hire-confuses-people.aspx

Why the Jason Furman Hire Confuses People

Apropos of John Judis's post on Jason Furman, and a lot of other commentary in that vein, it's not at all clear that Furman is to the right of the economists Obama has been relying on for advice. As Ezra Klein points out, he's certainly not to the right of Austan Goolsbee, who'd previously been (and basically still is) Obama's leading economic adviser. I think people get confused here because, as a member of the Clinton administration's neoliberal contingent, and thanks to his more recent work at the Robert Rubin-affiliated Hamilton Project, Furman is closely associated with the more centrist side of various Washington policy debates. On the other hand, because Goolsbee hasn't spent years toiling away as a Washington wonk, his worldview doesn't map as neatly onto the neoliberal/paleoliberal divide that burns so brightly here.

From the point of view of a concerned labor-liberal, though, someone with Furman's pedigree should actually be preferable to someone with Goolsbee's. As Jonathan Cohn noted yesterday, there aren't many Washington neoliberals who haven't had to re-think their worldview over the last seven years, in light of mounting evidence that prosperity isn't being distributed very evenly and that the economic risks facing middle-class people are escalating.”

“"How could this have happened? Everyone I know voted for McGovern!" Clueless, upper class New Yorker movie critic Paulene Kael.
As a Obama supporter with Pennsylvania working class relatives who voted for Nixon in '72, the class divide in the DP is still there, lemme tell 'ya.”

“Earlier on this thread>...The WU never targeted innocent civilians with their actions.

Artfully phrased. Roofing nails were in the bomb that was being contructed by Ted Gold and the two other WU cadre in that Townhouse in the Village in NYC that shredded them to death in 1970. (See the Sam Green documentary) The bomb was meant to be used at a USO dance at Fort Dix. New Jersey attended by soldiers and the CIVILIAN girlfriends. If they hadn't crossed the wires and blown up themselves and that Townhouse and bombed the dance, dozens even a hundred+ could have killed. Nixon would have rounded up tens of thousands of violent and non-violent radicals and left-liberals.”

“W/O having read the Carl Bernstein book (or any of the other books on Hillary, from the liberal agitprop of Susan Estrich to the loony, Far Right-Wingnut one of Texe Mars, "Big Sister Is Gonna Get Ya!, " alleging Hillary is Marxist Lesbian From Hell!), Bernstein (see his book on his Communist Party cadre Dad who was a victim of McCarthyism) knows that Old Left/CPUSA mileau. Hillary got that gig with Truehaft via Thomas I. Emerson, one of Law School Profs. at Yale who had been active in the CPUSA dominated Progresive Party of Henry Wallace in '48. Emerson, afterwards was active w/the ECLC, a civil liberties org. of the 50's which defended clients the anti-Communist liberals of the ACLU were loath to touch.
Jessica Mitford, wife of Truehaft, who I saw speak at the banquets of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade back in the 80's, was quite a lady who in her autobiography was quite funny about the peculiarities of her CPUSA comrades, was also unfortunately a stone cold Stalinist. Defended the Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956 mowing down "Fascist" workers and students. See her letters recently published. The critical review in The Nation, drew howls of typical outrage about, "Red-Baiting, " which is term of choice by Old Leftists deployed against anti-Stalinist Leftists who ask critical questions.”

“Course it would help if the crazy anarchists at Recreate '68 didn't publish documents like this Weather Underground'esque Days of Rage tactical manual, http://www.recreate68.org/shieldbook.pdf”