I must say, I’ve had running disagreements with you on and off in the past, most of which haven’t been worth bothering with… but this is so far out there I have to say I’m disappointed.
“In any case, I don’t think it’s right to call the New Party ‘socialist.’ I remember this party. One of the founders was UW lawprof Joel Rogers. They presented themselves not as socialists, but as left-leaning and progressive. I realize that for right wingers that counts as ‘socialist,’ but let’s not be inflammatory.”
You’ve gotta be kidding, or perhaps you’ve just not had your coffee yet. The title of your post should be “Incoherency”. Even absent the statements of the “New Party” themselves, trust me Ann, the rest of us out here know socialists when we see them, even if you apparently cannot… and the left end of the Democrat party is a reasonable place to start to look for them. Barack Obama, being the farthest left candidate the Democrats have ever fielded, is a socialist.
The New Party was not intended to be mainstream, it was set up by socialists who want to pass themselves off as mainstream. Major difference. That philosophy, by the way, is likely the best explanation of Obama’s tactics and public statements you’re likely to see on the web.
Ann, may I suggest you get out of Madison? The liberals up there are dulling your senses as to what is and is not mainstream American, and what is and is not socialist. On your way out, you MAY want to do some investigation into the history of the party:
The New Party was founded in the early 1990s by Daniel Cantor, a former staffer for Jesse Jackson‘s 1988 presidential campaign, and by sociology and law professor Joel Rogers as an effort to break with the largely unsuccessful history of left-leaning third parties in the United States.
The party could best be described as social democratic in orientation, although party statements almost invariably used the terms “small-d democratic” or “progressive” instead. Its founders chose the name “New Party” in an effort to strike a fresh tone, free of associations with dogmas and ideological debates.
…
Left-wing critics of the New Party, such as supporters of the Green Party, argued that the New Party was merely a pressure group on the fringes of the Democratic Party, rather than a genuinely new political party. New Party leaders argued that classic third-party strategies were doomed to failure, but that the Democratic Party was too entrenched and undemocratic to be a useful institution for “small-d democrats” either, even if they could succeed in taking it over, and so a new kind of organization was needed.
In other words, Ann, these are socialists trying to dress up as something “new”. Their big problem was that the Democrats didn’t lean far enough left. Such is Obama, himself.
BBCT: Billy. who isn’t nearly as kind, and yet may be closer to the truth of the matter.
Billy, this is the educational process I was talking about. We see it’s slow progression in Ann, I think, today.
Tags: Ann Althouse, Barack Obama, daniel cantor, democrat party, disagreements, Jesse Jackson, joel rogers, mainstream, party statements, public statements, socialist, socialists, sociology
October 11th, 2008 at 17:26
Two comments.
One as to BO, even if BO is not a communist per se, he sure seems to hang out a lot with them and have a lot of them for friends. I thend to belivee that while can’t choose our family, we can choose are friends and look at the friends BO chooses.
Two, as for Ms Althouse, xhd ix z very good writer and photographers. Hoowver I have been never been able to peg her down. While Ann is a law professor, and can write quite well as one, on InstaGlen, she does not have a law blog, and I certainly do not read her for legal opinions.