The Liberals lead the lynch mob...

[ProudDad]

Brilliant Comment to Tom Hayden Piece:

http://tomhayden.com/home/the-lynch-mob-moment.html

"I don't think there's any mystery about why the Liberals, you cite, want to have Assange murdered. The basic Liberal philosophy is to nudge laws, policies, and culture to a point that our society is not threatened by conflict that is disruptive. Liberals don't want unpredictable change that can't be controlled, a thesis not unlike the theme in most Kubrick films. When a real threat emerges, Liberals sense loss of control. Face it, most of the originators of the Vietnam War in the executive branch were Liberals. You could argue some strange types in the CIA had a hand in it. But most of the Liberals were afraid of the political fall out of removing the advisors from Vietnam in 1963 and 1964. They would have been attacked by the reactionaries in Congress. When the demonstrations began in earnest in 1965, the Liberals went nuts and said those people in the streets were Communists (Read Terrorist as the term now used for Assange). When did the Liberals feel most threatened? At their convention in 1968 with Mayor Daley, they set loose a police riot similar to those that year in France.

"Assange has upset the apple cart. Those with critical thinking see from the WikiLeaks documents that Obama is extending the aims of the Bush regime to underwrite the activities of the multinationals. There may no longer be torture, but the state military intelligence and security apparatus is fully armed and killing civilians in Afghanistan. The war has expanded into Pakistan and now WikiLeaks shows that the Pakistanis and its ISI organ is the prime mover of the Taliban (Ahmed Rashid revealed this 10 years ago in his books). The Liberals are in the same place as Johnson, McNamara, and the Bundy brothers. The Liberals have been had. It is one thing when they could conceal the war and the press would fall asleep. But now everything is coming into the open. They can't withdraw from Afghanistan, because they'll be called chickens, cowards, appeasers and quitters just as Goldwater, Dirksen, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Nixon would have done to LBJ in Vietnam. The Liberals don't want to look weak. Petraeus gives a perception of strength. If the war continues to expand, the military funding will bring on a vast collapse into a sinkhole and where I live in Florida, those suckers are real. The Liberals know this too.

"In short, Julian Assange makes the Liberals look weak. The Liberals are cowards too afraid to tell the American people the truth which WikilLeaks, in its diffuse fashion, already is doing."

http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/ochs-phil/love-me-im-a-liberal-11453.html

[tcaudilllg]

1. I'm a liberal, but I'm not in that patsy little party. n/t

[txlibdem]

13. Me too. I don't know what Hayden's smoking lately.

He used to be a champion of far, far left policies. Compared to the old Tom Hayden, the President is far, far, far right enough to give Adolph Hitler nightmares. I guess he's either mellowing in his old age or is just getting tired and cranky.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. I know what he is smoking

and while his choice of words is all wrong... I know exactly who he means... "the Best and the Brightest" He is right in his analysis, and unless in modern parlance he means NEO LIBS... the use of the term liberal is wrong.

Yes I had to get the decoder ring out.

[txlibdem]

23. It's in vogue to bash the liberals and progressives

Folks need a group to hate; if we stopped fighting amongst ourselves we might take a moment and realize that the rich are our enemies and always have been.

Hate the correct group. Channel your hate to the one group that has actually deserved it for over 200 years now. The Librulls and Pregressuvs aint it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. If you are saying I hate progressives and liberals

you are talking about the wrong person. The THIRD WAY, the DLCers, the NEO LIBS, yes, yes they do. Free hint, they are not liberals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_(centrism)

They are PART of the elite establishment and yes, what is happening right now is making them quake in boots.

[txlibdem]

43. Not you. Clintons, Obama, Hayden, Bush (oops!) I meant Biden and Reid

I just wish politicians had to hang their true label around their neck.

I'd sure have voted differently in 2008 if I'd known that Obama's would have said either Pro-Corporate Democrat or Center-Right Republican, depending on the day of the week!

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. I knew that and had no illusions

just did not expect this to be this bad.

There is a logic of Empire at work here as well. I doubt, sincerely, that Kucinich would have been able to change the dynamic either.

No, not because he is Kuch... there are powerful historical trends at work here. Any President, regardless of party, will do all they can right now to preserve the Empire, which is now in decline, serious decline.

There was a story today on NPR which was symbolic of the new world order. Guess what is the biggest trend in CHINA? Wine tasting. That is called an emerging middle class where wine tasting is seen as sophisticated and shit. That is the fastest growing wine market right now.

[Catherina]

36. HAYDEN DIDN"T WRITE THAT. The OP posted a reader comment to Hayden's article. n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

40. Hey, Heyden is a 60s leftist...............

which, although not exactly like a 30s leftist, was MUCH closer to that than to what passes as a "liberal" nowdays. Even in the 60s, I didn't like being called a "liberal" and I don't much like being called a "liberal" now. I was a radical socialist back then and I remain so. He's spot on in his analysis of most liberals. They don't want to be considered "radical", so they compromise what they SAY they believe in in order to appease, or at least counter, the RW talking points.

With the REAL RW, you CANNOT appease and you CANNOT counter them without sounding (to them) like a radical. So don't worry about it. True leftists don't give a damn about what the RW will say about them, they will hold to core positions of fairness and economic justice and they will do so loudly and proudly.

[aquart]

2. The Liberals? Oh, ain't we BAD.

So the liberals are the enemy, Tom. WTF are you, btw?

[JVS]

3. "Liberals don't want unpredictable change that can't be controlled"

Conservatives do?

[ProudDad]

6. Neither do...

they are two sides of the same coin...

[txlibdem]

22. The rich want NO changes -- they get all the benefits and pay NONE of the costs

America is the perfect place for the wealthy. They get away with murder (indirectly but murder nonetheless). Their incompetence and greed destroyed our economy but they're not expected to pay any of the costs to get everything back on track --the poor, middle class and old are going to pay the price.

Why do we continue to allow these wealthy idiots to run everything when they've proved time and again that they are the biggest idiots on the planet. I'd rather take a small farmer from Iowa and put him or her in the leadership. At least they've done a day's worth of hard work in their life. Our leaders right now seem to have led a pampered and coddled existence all their lives. That's why it's totally outside their realm of the possible to ask that they pay the cost of their mistakes and greed. Their answer: make the poor, middle class and the elderly to pay for it all.

I count our pampered politicians in that category: over 50% of them are multi-millionaires vs 1% of the population.

[lefthandedlefty]

24. That is simple

The ones that spend the most money get in office.

[txlibdem]

30. Is there no solution?

If you had the reins of power for a year, what would you do to correct that problem?

[cali]

35. and up is down and cold is hot.

[socialist_n_TN]

41. OOOOOOHHHH! GOOD one............

To liberals and conservatives alike, radical change is WORSE than NO change. Not so to us radical socialists. Sometimes all that's left to save ALL of us is change. The trick is to manage that change.

[ProudDad]

4. Your tax dollars at work...

http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/tmcterrorismmemo.pdf

[Newest Reality]

5. He should have put some emphasis in the

article that he means, "certain liberals". Otherwise, the article conflates true liberal thinking with neocon and pseudo-conservative ideology.

[ProudDad]

8. He could have said "Liberals in power"

but I thought he made that clear...

Or center-left/center-right "Liberals"...

Or most Democrat "Liberals"...

[ananda]

9. Typical neo-Orwellian and revisionist crap.

You couldn't find the truth in this rightwing screed
if you went looking for it with a magnifying glass.

[ProudDad]

11. Those who don't learn from history

are condemned to repeat it...

What's neo-orwellian is that you could imagine that the author was a "right-winger"... :eyes:

[The Magistrate]

7. Interesting, Sir: There Is Something To The Point Made

[Curmudgeoness]

10. Who are these Liberals he is talking about?

Who are the LIberals who want Assange murdered? Who are the Liberals who do not want change? I consider myself a Liberal, but it is apparent to me that I am mistaken.

[ProudDad]

12. Read the article... (n/t)

[TheKentuckian]

14. The fake kind that we allow to make a mockery of us by association

[sabrina 1]

15. Is Joe Lieberman a liberal?

He hasn't called for him to be murdered but he has called for him to be charged as a spy, a ludicrous claim, as was pointed out to him, unless you charge the NYT and every other news org that is publishing these documents. Lieberman responded that we should be thinking about 'investigating the NYT'.

They are losing all sense of reason. They obviously have something very nasty they want to keep secret. I hope he does not fall into U.S. hands.

[JackRiddler]

16. Some history books may end up calling him that, yes.

Like Scoop Jackson. A "liberal" with a strongly "pragmatic" foreign policy. That kind of thing.

[Selatius]

25. The old definition of Liberal was invariably of the right wing.

Prior to FDR, the term "liberal" generally meant those who favored maximal economic freedom, laissez-faire economic policy. On the other hand, those who favored a role for government of ensuring against unfair competition and monopolies and a role to ensure the welfare of the poorest and weakest were called "progressives."

The two terms became conflated for the most part when FDR himself co-opted the term.

For example, today, the Liberal Party in Australia is the right wing party of that country. It's the Labor Party that is the left wing party there.

[Cerridwen]

17. Quote in OP is an anonymous poster in reply to Hayden article.

Just thought I'd point that out as some appear to think these are Hayden's words.

The anonymous poster goes by the name "Bill Barnes" and a response to his reply is further down in the comments.

I must take strong exception to the commenter who, for some bizarre reason known only to him I'm sure, is describing liberals in terms that no psychologist, sociologist, political scientist, or historian would agree with. In fact they so accurately describe the well known tendency for conservatives to favor order, security, and regularity, their fondness for all things have to do with strength and authority, that one must presume he is gripped with the ego self-defense mechanism we know as "projection"...the subconscious act of denying one's own faults by attributing them to someone else -- usually those seen as their persecutor or "enemy".

[txlibdem]

31. +1 Well said!.... ...... ....n/t

[Catherina]

37. Thank you! Just saw your comment but it can't be said enough. n/t

[laughingliberal]

18. This guy doesn't know the same liberals I do, obviously. nm

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Bad use of the term in MODERN parlance

even if the Best and the Brightest that served in the Kennedy Administration were liberals by the standards of the day.

These days he should use the term NEO LIBERAL... or DLC TYPE, or THIRD WAY.

But that is not in the cards.

After that major quibble, he is right. The Establishment third way is quaking in boots right now.

[Selatius]

27. If we're talking pre-FDR, though, the terminology is technically correct.

It wasn't until FDR co-opted the term that it came to mean something left wing inside the United States.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Oh I will take it even further than that

the attack on liberals in the 1980s.

You and I know the DLC is not liberal.

But you are also talking of John Stuar MIll's Liberalism, and that is way too advanced for the class.

:-)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Liberals

Tom Hayden was one of the founders of SDS and one of the Chicago Eight

"The Fascists will shoot you.
The conservatives will applaud the Fascists.
The moderates will watch the executions on TV.
The Liberals will cry over your grave and feel guilty for turning you in to the Fascists."

SDS saying.

[socialist_n_TN]

42. I had forgotton this little saying............

True then and true now.

[Creative]

26. He seems to be saying that liberals aren't liberal.

I agree.

[marmar]

28. His lynch mob analogy doesn't work.....It doesn't even fit in with the rest of this piece.

nt

[NightWatcher]

29. I've realized more and more that I may belong in the Anarchist camp than Progressive camp

liberals (small L) and Progressives (both of them in the government) do what they do in the hopes of changing the system in the name of social progress from within the confines of the sick machine. I've come to grips in the past few years that I no longer have blind faith that the machine is able to be fixed. Our ship of state now closely resembles a '77 Plymouth Volare held together by Bondo with a broken axle. It's time to scrap it and get another ship of state, maybe a nice hybrid that is more suitable for this time.

I'm with Assange. I think it's time to point out the horrible flaws within the ship of state regardless of who's at the wheel.

I think the Liberals from the OP have become comfortable with their position in the machine. I know that there are true liberals and progressives here and I hope the become open to the idea that maybe change cannot come from within any longer, that we are too far gone to be repaired, and need to start all over. Or I'll post a lolcat and be done with it.

[cali]

34. largely nonsense and shit pulled right out of his ass

"The basic Liberal philosophy is to nudge laws, policies, and culture to a point that our society is not threatened by conflict that is disruptive. Liberals don't want unpredictable change that can't be controlled, a thesis not unlike the theme in most Kubrick films. When a real threat emerges, Liberals sense loss of control. Face it, most of the originators of the Vietnam War in the executive branch were Liberal"

Really? He gets to make up what the liberal philosophy is? Uh, no.

And wow, does he ever simplify what Rashid says in his books.

There's certainly some truth is this little screed, but there's enough bullshit to choke any reasonably informed reader.

[Catherina]

39. Out of whose ass? Bill Barne's or Tom Hayden's? n/t

[AndrewP]

38. I'll pass on any "lynch mobing"

That's a right wing tactic

[flamingdem]

44. Why is this right wing garbage by an anonymous poster being posted here at DU

and worse being called "brilliant" ---

[DeSwiss]

46. Neo-Liberal. Neo-Conservative. The difference being?????

Oh they may look different to the untrained eye. And they sound different too. But they receive their pay from the same coffers and their marching orders from the same owners. You'll see that they're all the same once you just start connecting the dots and follow them to the end. In truth, there's only ONE PARTY -- THE RICH PEOPLE'S PARTY. And as George Carlin has already informed us before, we ain't in it!

"The reality is that institutional establishments, institutions of codified thought, and institutions of societal influence and power, meaning philosophies, dogmas on one hand and corporations and governments on the other, each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation. The result is a continuous culture lag where social progress by way of incorporating new socially-helpful scientific advancements is constantly inhibited. It is like walking through a brick wall as the established power orthodoxies continue to perpetuate themselves for their own interests and comforts.

The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth for a few groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment. So to put this into a sentence: Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit.

Progressive advancement in science and technology which can solve problems of inefficiency and scarcity once and for all, are in effect making the prior establishment's servicing of those issues obsolete. Therefore in a monetary system corporations aren't just in competition with each other, they're in competition with progress itself. That is why social-change is so difficult within a monetary system. In other words, the established monetary system refuses to allow free-flowing change." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPmHaTirnCc">~Peter Joseph

- So as I said, Neo-Liberal -- Neo-Conservative, the difference??? They're just opposite sides of the same coin......