For those of you who are silly enough to think there are any actual "far leftists" on DU--

[eridani]

If you don't live in a solid blue coastal urban center, you haven't a fucking clue. Here on the Left Coast, Kucinich is a reactionary who is plotting to subvert revolutionary activity by diverting it into the Democratic Party. As you can see from the quote below (scanned from a handout that was passed out at an antiwar rally in 2007), even fecking ANSWER isn't "far left" enough for some people, just because this time they paid attention to march attendees who preferred a focused antiwar event to a "Help Stamp Out Everything That Needs Stamping Out" event.

In a prime example of how not to build an inclusive, effective movement, this radical perspective was squelched. In the organizing for today's march and rally in Seattle, even though socialists played a main role in the coalition. the Church Council of Greater Seattle and the Fellowship of Reconciliation made their participation contingent on excluding speakers who might advocate the right of Iraqis or Palestinians to resist their occupations. The ANSWER-led majority voted to exclude anti-capitalist, multi-issue coalition members as speakers, even from the so-called "open mic." This is a blatant restriction of free speech that holds back the movement.

Now that's actually far left. People like these folks are online, but I guarantee you that Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann, Big Eddie, Michael Moore and the whole crew of Candian health care loving "pofessional leftists," single payer activists, local eating promoters, etc. have not the vaguest clue that people like this even exist.

[BzaDem]

1. I'm not sure what your point is. You can always find someone farther to the left than anyone else.

You can create an essentially endless ordering of people's views, in order of how left they are. So what?

A more appropriate question is how large these groups are. Labels like "left" and "far left" should probably attach to at least a non-negligable portion of the American public. Otherwise, there is no limit to how far you can take this labeling exercise.

Considering that only around 20% of Americans self-identify as liberal, and that "far left" (i.e. Canadian health care loving "professional leftists", single payer activists, local eating promoters) is necessarily a subset of liberal, it probably makes sense to refer to those people as "far left." The self-identified socialists you are talking about are a further subset of "far left." But when you are talking about a subset of a subset of 20% of the American people, it probably isn't going to be worth assigning them that label.

[eridani]

3. The 60% of doctors who want Canadian health care are "far left"?

The 80% of the public that wanted a public option is "far left"?

Centrists are mostly nothing but whores for the corporate minority, in opposition to most of the public. They exist to make plain common sense seem extreme and silly.

[BzaDem]

6. I never said people who wanted a public option are far left.

I did say that single payer advocates were far left. There are plenty of liberals who don't support single payer (but would support a public option). When liberals are 20% and the subset of those that support single payer is even smaller, it makes sense to categorize them in that way.

You of course have the right to your own opinion; these labels are not dictionary definitions. I'm just trying to explain why few use these labels in the way you describe.

[eridani]

12. I don't give a flying fuck what people call themselves. I care about what policies they support

Anyone who thinks single payer is far left is either stupid or a sociopath. Are 60% of health care providers "far left"?

Surveys that ask if people want a "government run" health care system get lower levels of support than surveys that ask if people would like a program like Medicare extended to the general population. Phrased that way, single payer gets overwhelming support. It isn't like the majority of people who don't pay attention even know or care about the distinction between single payer, a robust public option, a weak public option, etc. If you asked the question "Does every American deserve health care?" what answer do you think you would get?

[Jax]

38. kick. great post eridani.

"Anyone who thinks single payer is far left is either stupid or a sociopath."

Thank you for that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. You are aware that a public health care system

in the US polls consistently above 60%. That would be a CANADIAN STYLE health care system.

And that was IGNORED by DC.

People are noticing...

[Xipe Totec]

2. We don't have a left wing. We have a floppy dorsal fin that leans to the left sometimes nt

[NNN0LHI]

4. Haven't forgot that +90 percent Bush approval rating have you?

Me neither. Its all bullshit.

Don

[eridani]

5. Great. Now go find a survey indicating that people would like to get rid of Social Security

Actually there is another issue about as popular--the idea that vote counting should be overseen by the public.

[Xipe Totec]

30. Definitely have not forgotten

That was a bitter pill to swallow.

[annabanana]

7. (excellent visual, thanks). . . n/t

[zipplewrath]

8. Yes , I know these people

My wife has some friends that are truly "far left". Most of them are pretty young. But I chuckle when the borderline tea party folks I work with call me a "radical liberal". They have no idea. And then there are the true communists, and anarchists, not to mention the LaRouche folks. At some point you aren't "left" anymore as much as you're just "out there".

[MadHound]

9. Really? Why do you make such assumptions

I recognize that people like this exist, having met several of them myself (and OMG, I live in the rural Midwest).

What, are you trying to tell us that it was these people Gibbs was referring to, and that the rest of us on the left shouldn't be offended? Nice try, but no ceegar.

[eridani]

10. No, just pointing out that all too many left-leaning folks have never met any real

"far left" people. Gibbs was not referring to them--he was referring to the majority of physicians who want Canadian health care and those of us who support them, among many others.

[Bluebear]

11. Gibbs didn't say "far left", he said "professional left"

[eridani]

16. Meaning nationally known pundits who are only able to make a living

--because large numbers of people agree with them. Gibbs was attacking their audience.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Which is in some ways the same thing

his reference to Canadian HC was trying to paint the PL as the radical left... out of touch and all of that.

By the way...

PROUD MEMBER OF THE PL <--------------------- :hi:

And if Gibbs wants to call me a radical, so be it... even if he just implied it.

That said, I have met some real lefties... trust me Gibbs would shit a brick... Alas not in this country. Our accepted range of what is acceptable is very narrow and tills to the right.

[robcon]

14. I think DU is dominated by the far left.

For example, Dennis Kucinich got the most votes by far in the DU polls in 2008: he got 3 or 4% at best in Democratic Party primaries.

The average DUer is at the far left of the Democratic Party.

[eridani]

17. Some people vote for what they want. Others vote for what they think other people will want n/t

[EFerrari]

19. Dennis may be far to the left of you but that doesn't make him a socialist.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

32. For a polar bear, Vancouver is Senegal. -nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

22. The point is that the Dem party does not contain the whole left

The left of the Democratic Party is not that far off the European center.

Most of the left would never self-identify as Democrats.

There are socialists, communists, greens, anarchists, etc..

[LostinVA]

25. "The left of the Democratic Party is not that far off the European center."

Exactly!

[myrna minx]

26. Exactly. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Center l; left, slightly best case

center right truly.

Kids round these parts don't know what a real lefty, aka communist, is. (And that is an example of many)

[LWolf]

23. lol

That just supports the OPs point. You apparently haven't met the far left. Or you don't realize that it extends well beyond the left wing of the Democratic Party. Or both.

The primary polls you reference reflects well on much of DU. It IS supposed to be a "left-wing" message board.

[LostinVA]

24. DK is NOT Far Left

:rofl:


As I said last night, there are almost zero real Far Left (whatever the fuck that actually is) on DU.

[robcon]

27. If you are to the left of the Democratic Party, you are (by definition, IMO) in the far left.

Any other definition... for example, to call the far left only socialists and communists, is making the far left too small.

I think Kucinich is in the far left of the democratic party.

[LWolf]

34. You may be correct about DK.

Since the Democratic Party is not really "left," though; being "the far left of the Democratic Party" isn't very far left.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

31. You didn't actually read the OP, did you? -nt

[EFerrari]

15. LOL

So true.

[BootinUp]

20. I might find some of their ideas interesting

but they are not the loud anti-Obama, anti-name your elected Dem voice, that many think causes disunity in the Dem party.

[eridani]

28. I remain totally bewildered by people who think that policy junkies

--are obsessed with politicians' personalities.

[BootinUp]

29. You don't understand what I posted I guess

not important really.

[LostinVA]

21. I said this on here last night, just not as well as you did

[suffragette]

35. Nicely stated eridani

[MisterP]

36. that's almost a liberating thought there, eridani: we've been told for 9 years that DU is the

utter leftmost edge of American--even Earthly--politics, that the entire rest of America pays less attention/is more centrist/is less liberal/is more rightist than DU, that DU doesn't represent all Americans or all Dems. but, what if DU is within the veal pen? and not in a conspiratorial they're-keeping-us-here-with-news-stories-so-we-don't-pour-into-the-streets sense, but in that the rules say "if someone's a Dem they're all right deep down" and "thou shalt not have any Parties other than me"--meaning that Israel-First Dems and Ronald Reagan Dems and Dems for Nixon and George Wallace Dems and Liberal Hawks and Liberal Islamophobes and McKinney-bashers can dominate the conversation because They're Dems Too and thus on the side of Good against the nasty Bush and Cheney and Blair and Boehner. we thus can't gauge the support percentages and contexts of the bêtes noires of the more--ah, bourgeois--Dems, which are constantly denounced as spoiled brats or terrorists or agents provocateurs or mentally-ill firebugs: ANSWER, the PLO, ALF, ELF, PETA, Nelson Mandela, Wobblies, genuinely-angry and -anticapitalist fellows in black bandanas, revolutionary Reds. while DU may devolve into hundreds of centrists and go-no-further-left-liberals crawling under their beds weeping in terror at What Has Become of This World, we don't know how many Americans are saying, "the method may be gauche, but something's being done that needs doing."

[Odin2005]

37. I'm an Anarcho-Socialist. Am I not "Far Left"?

The true far left is ignored by design. Why do you think Chomsky and other true leftists are ignored by the MSM? All voices that criticize the Capitalist System itself are treated like we don't exist.