US Election 2016

[swoop42]

[David]

[David]

Huge news this morning: Jim Gilmore is out of the race.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/2016-election/384828/

[watt price tully]

[HAL]

What is so hard about it?

[Mugwump]

[watt price tully]

[Mugwump]

Langer described himself until well into the 1990s an an "unreconstructed Maoist". If you knew what that meant, you might not be so flippant. Lots of people wanted the things you detail above within the ALP at the time. They were perfectly decent people, not followers of a genocidal tyrant with millions of deaths to his name. Since I am sure you do not support such ideas, I encourage you to read up on Mao's bitter legacy and Langer's ongoing support for Maoism well after its crimes against humanity were common knowledge.

Here is Langer in 1993 in The Age : "To most liberals the popularity of Mao among Western rebels in the '60s seemed just bizarre. Mao's contribution was not in telling us that "it is right to rebel" - we knew that already. What Mao's "Cultural Revolution" helped us understand was the need to rebel against advocates of oppression and exploitation in our own ranks."

Then read any reputable history (or Wild Swans by Jung Chang) to understand what the cultural revolution was like, and what it meant. "Bloody Communists" in this case is very correct.

[David]

While I think a lot of decent and well-meaning people were communists through the 1920s and '30s and beyond � put it down to genuine lack of knowledge and selective intake of information, something we're all guilty of from time to time � I share George Orwell's contempt for naive support of and apologism for authoritarian dictatorships. Of course, there's the na�vet� of the 1930s Soviet sympathiser, and then there's the outright cowardice and collaboration of the fellow traveller (the 'tankie') who stood with the USSR after the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The same goes for those who supported Mao after the Cultural Revolution, or the alarmingly large number of far-leftists who support Putin nowadays (on the grounds of 'anyone but America', even though he opposes pretty much everything they stand for). There's just no excuse for that kind of wilful ignorance in the face of atrocities.

If Sanders is or was one of those guys, my respect and support for him would diminish greatly. But he'd still be better than those who trumpet the presidency of Ronald Reagan and call for a return to Bush-era atrocities. Even Clinton was boasting about her relationship with Henry Kissinger the other day, FFS. So, it cuts both ways.

[Mugwump]

^. David, unless I misunderstood you above, you say it was better to support those who committed political murder on a vast scale, who occupied and oppressed much of europe under a stultifying regime of secret police, who incarcerated whole countries behind walls via shoot to kill polcy .... Than to have supported Ronald Reagan ? The twice democratically-elected President of a free country ? Did i read that correctly ?

[David]

I guess the difference for me is this: the very worst thing you could say about Sanders is that he turned a blind eye to those atrocities (if he indeed did). Republican candidates, on the other hand, are aggressively advocating a return to the actual foreign policies of Reagan and Bush, and promising to follow his example domestically too. I don't think even Trump supporters or the Murdoch press believe that Sanders is likely to imprison journalists in Gulags, ramp up the secret service or declare himself leader for life. So all that 'commie' stuff is at best clueless and at worst deliberately deceitful.

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[Mugwump]

The Ctual foreign policies of Reagan ... That'll be the Reagan who achieved multiple strategic arms limitation treaties, and who oversaw the period in which there was the greatest de-escalation of nuclear threat since 1945? I do not disagree with your concern at the blundering belligerence of today's Republicans, but if you think that it was better to have defended the Stasi than Reagan, i think your understanding must be at fault.

None of that says that I think Sanders is a Communist. I do not know enough about him, but from what i have heard, he sounds to me a bit like a European Social Democrat. I'm not the greatest fan of that tendency either, but there is room in America to turn the dial leftward a little on some matters, without capsizing it as they are doing in Europe, so he is an interesting candidate. Still, IF he supported the Soviets or communist causes well into adulthood, that casts a question on his judgement.

On Hillary and Kissinger, see my earlier post. The vilification of Kissinger by the Left reflects their sense that political evil can be countered with moral purity. For some, I suspect this is because they know it cannot be done, and they do not want us to win ; and for others (most), I suspect it is because they want to enjoy the fruits of liberalism while affecting a personal moral and intellectual superiority over it.

I give thanks that we have people like Kissinger who know that democracy has to live in a fallen and dangerous world, and will fight for it anyway. I do not agree with all that he did, but i know that he cared for, and acted in the cause of, international liberalism over the very aggressiveforces of statism and tyranny in his time.

[Wokko]

George W bewildered by current race, believes Jeb can win.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bewildered-by-2016-race-george-w-bush-returns-to-the-trail-to-boost-jeb/2016/02/12/49cf7242-d1a6-11e5-abc9-ea152f0b9561_story.html?tid=hybrid_collaborative_1_na

[Mugwump]