It’s All Connected, Man
Stanley Kurtz is reasonably young, so he’s going to be an extremely strong competitor for some kind of lifetime achievement award in wingnuttery one of these days. I really enjoyed this debate analysis:
Bill Ayers? As McCain noted, Ayers and Obama together gave hundreds of thousands of foundation dollars to ACORN. That needs to be unpacked, but McCain’s point begins to get at the real issue. This is not about what happened when Obama was eight years old. Ayers and Obama both believe in a redistributionist economic policies. Together Ayers and Obama backed radical community organizers like ACORN, a key player in the mortgage crisis. ACORN’s assault on credit-standards was driven by its redistributionist philosophy. So Obama’s radical associations reveal the truth of his economic policies. It’s all of a piece. But this critical point has not been made.
People still speak as though the “associations” issue and the economic issue are two different things. They’re not. ACORN wants to spread Joe’s wealth around. So does Bill Ayers. That’s why Obama worked with both ACORN and Ayers. Someone needs to explain all this to Joe.
Inadvertently, Kurtz is revealing here how hollow all these accusations of radicalism are against Barack Obama. He wants to tax Joe the Plumber in order to finance broadly beneficial programs. He wants to spread the wealth around. So does Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd and Jim Webb and Debbie Stabenow and all kinds of other unremarkable Democratic Party figures. Some people don’t like this whole progressive taxation thing, but it’s a pretty banal opinion. The idea that Obama is a “radical” has to be, if it means anything, something other than “Obama’s a normal progressive and I don’t approve of normal progressives.” If I were to say “Norm Coleman is a member of the far right with ties to fringe extremists” and it turns out I mean that he’s a conventional Republican with ties to the Chamber of Commerce, then nobody would take that very seriously.
45 Responses to “It’s All Connected, Man”
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October 16th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
And, if I may imply a statistic, strong majorities of Americans support progressive taxation, universal health care, and an end to the war in Iraq. What’s radical about that?
October 16th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
” . . . ACORN, a key player in the mortgage crisis. ”
What does ACORN have to do with the mortgage crisis????
October 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I don’t think these wingnuts know what “radical” means.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
There was nothing funnier last night when John McCain suggested ACORN was “on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.”
Now, I love ACORN. They’re doing God’s work. But seriously, this gang couldn’t bring down democracy if they tried. And if you’d ever spent half an hour an in ACORN office, you’d know why.
Suggesting ACORN is going to pull off the greatest fraud in voter history is like suggesting the Muppets are really gonna take Manhattan.
And don’t get me started with this nonsense about how they took down Wall Street.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Norm is unremarkable as a Republican senator but outstanding as a sleazy douchebag.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Stanley Kurtz is young? Then how did he get stuck with a name like “Stanley Kurtz”? People stopped being named “Stanley” in like the 1940s.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
our tax code is progressive, so when mccain complains that obama wants to spread the wealth he is being disengenous at best. the only honest way to complain about htis is if you are for a flat tax. mccain isn’t. he wants everyone to pay for the tax cuts to the “rich” — let’s face facts — if we keep giving tax cuts to the “rich”, which is the biggest chunk of the currently exploding republican deficit, and our kids and their kids have to pay off that deficit…then that is the real tragic wealth distribution that we need to be talking about. the verdict is in – supply side economics do not work. it’s time to concentrate on demand side economics. cut taxes to the middle and lower classes…the people who will spend that money and create demand for jobs.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The chattering Cliff Ghasts of the far right do think that the progressive tax system is socialism.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
1) Obama fucked up big time last night in FAILING to confront McCain’s bullshit re Joe the Plumber.
2) Obama should have pointed out that McCain’s REPUBLICAN PARTY has dumped 5 Trillion of Debt ONTO Joe The Plumber as of Sept 2008.
Then another $1.5 Trillion of Debt was dumped onto Joe The Plumber by President Bush and McCain because Bush/McCain had refused to regulate their big campaign donors on Wall Street.
3) Obama should have pointed out that it is the height of two-faced deceit for McCain to now pretend that Joe’s taxes are not going to pay for that debt. That $6.5 Trillion of Republican “Borrow and Spend” are why Joe is being taxed. On top of another $3 Trillion in “Borrow and Spend” approved under the personal signatures of Ronald Reagan and George H Bush.
4) THIS is what is so infuriating about Obama and the Democratic Leadership. They want us to work months going door to door and phonebanking to get them elected — yet ,at critical moments, they cut and run in order to whore for a few Billionaires.
October 16th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
What would be the equivalent of National Review on the left? Is it The Nation? I’m pretty sure it’s not The New Republic. Washington Monthly, American Prospect and you guys seem to be more into policy than politics.
I guess my question is, is there an equivalent major publication on the left that spouts conspiracy-theory nonsense like this as if it is an intellectual discussion? I don’t read The Nation all that much, but I’m pretty sure they’re still pretty sane over there.
The National Review is supposed to be a pretty mainstream conservative publication, right? It’s not supposed to be crazy lunatics like American Spectator?
October 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Re SMK’s comment “Then how did he get stuck with a name like “Stanley Kurtz”? People stopped being named “Stanley” in like the 1940s.”
———–
Yeah, but they’re still being named “Mervin”:
http://us.imdb.com/character/ch0070516/quotes
October 16th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
First of all, may I say that I have always respected you, Mr Bundy, for your excellent _professional_ bombing work in the ’60s. While amateurs like Bill Ayers futzed around on pot and barely killed anyone, you stuck to good old Kentucky Bourbon and killed gooks in their tens-of-thousands (just like David in the Almost-as-Holy-as-The-Free-Market Bible). And your fine son Al is the acme of American masculinity.
But, my friend, I think you and these other gentlemen are sadly deceived. It is a fact beyond contradiction* that the young Barack Hussein Hitler Djugashwilli Osama Fofama Obama was groomed by Saul Alinski and all the other Jews for bringing us to a state of utter Socialism. To do this, he and a group of Crowleyan Satanists summoned a bunch of ancient Druid oak-tree spirits. These demons founded the organisation named (in a sneer at all of us not in the know) “ACORN”, whose tentacles now extend into every corner of the U.S..
Do you doubt this? Did you know:
Every time you see a little “U” or “K” or “P” symbol on a food product?—a food tax has been paid to ACORN
Every time a person uses a non-gender-specific pronoun in conversation?—it is a prayer to the devils of ACORN, recharging their power-levels and upstatting their comm-links.
Every time a squirrel eats an acorn?—-ACORN.
What is their plan? It’s so simple that a raving moron can understand it. Obama and Ayers gave money to ACORN, which then used it to indoctrinate five-year-olds in their horrible doctrine, preparing foot-soldiers for the New World Order. They invented Fannie Mac and Freddy Mercury in the ’30s, then in the ’60s spun them off, so that only forty years later those companies were the SOLE CAUSE of our economic collapse. They then forced respectable white bankers at illegal R.P.G.-point to loan to DARK PEOPLE. This is the SOLE CAUSE of the economy’s collapse fifteen years later.
This collapse both will allow America to be deceived into Socialist ideas (like people without money’s not starving, people not being compeltely subject to their Galt-like bosses’ whims, and unworthy people’s being treated as if they had actual rights) and will create millions of homeless that ACORN will be able to illegally register (it’s illegal for homeless people to vote because they’re LOSERS, and ACORN, being demonic, can only do illegal acts) so that their registrations’ being thrown out and nothing whatsoever happening afterward.
Like I said, simple.
*by me, and anyone on whom I’m holding my Constitutionally-protected R.P.G. launcher.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Anonymiss (#4), you’re the queen of the commenters, at least for today!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
speaking as a taxpayer, i see my taxes being redistributed from me (pretty good white collar income) to monopolistic defense contractors who work on cost-plus arrangements and use my tax dollars to hire retired generals and admirals to keep the gravy train coming.
john mccain supports this.
i’m sure that stanley kurtz is appalled – appalled i tell you! – at this redistributionist conspiracy.
meanwhile, i’m curious: does ross douhat regard kurtz as being on the populist side or on the intellectual side?
October 16th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
the things you end up looking up! on the assumption that when matthew says “young” he means, at a minimum, under 40, stanley was the 136th most popular boy’s name in 1968 and the 617th in 2007:
http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/babyname.cgi
October 16th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Let me see if I have this straight, Bill Ayers heads a cell of the terrorist group ACORN, and they have Joe the Plumber tied-up in the basement? Brilliant!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
You guys laugh at McCain’s lies — but they’ve being spread here in the Philly region by a massive phonecalling operation.
I’ve received several calls from the McCain over the past few days –even though I’m a registered Democrat. (My wife prefers to register as an independent for privacy).
One call was “We can’t AFFORD to have Obama raise our taxes…”
Another one began “This is John McCain and the RNC. We’re calling to tell you about Barack Obama working with John? Ayers — the DOMESTIC TERRORIST who bombed the US Capitol Building …”
You guys don’t get the Republican schtick. They have John McCain promote a VAGUE lie on national TV. When Obama lets it pass, that gives McCain the opportunity to EXPAND ON the lie –to CLARIFY IT — in followup , unregulated calls to the voters.
Some voters will give credence to those phone calls -because Obama didn’t STRONGLY counterattack when McCain brought up the subject in the televised national debate.
IF you keep on letting bullies shove you around, the world judges you to be a coward. Kick McCAin in the fucking nuts, dammit!
October 16th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
MattY says: “He wants to tax Joe the Plumber in order to finance broadly beneficial programs.”
BHO said: “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody”.
Having a discussion about the huge difference between those statements is left as an exercise for those who, unlike MattY, are intellectually honest.
MattY might be familiar with the ultra far-right archconservative publication that said that BHO has an “openly radical” background.
MattY might also consider apologizing away BHO sending part of his website down the memory hole.
So many apologist opportunities, so little time.
October 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Rave on brother Don. Have you considered Prozac?
October 16th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
If the RNC is spending money phoning people here in Philly — which has polled strong support for Obama — what is the RNC doing in blue collar western PA?
And if they’re spending money in Pennsylvania — in a state moved into the Obama column — then what are they doing in Virginia, Ohio, and other swing states?
October 16th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
H.t.D.B.H. cites the Rolling Stone approvingly in the case of these hear-say or tenuous conclusions about my candidate, B. Hussein Obama. Presumably, she also believes the much more definite details about J. Sydney McCain published in the same fine rag.
This is surprising to say the least, given some with whom that magazine “palled-around” back in the day, including some Weather Underground. Presumably, by citing them approvingly, H.t.D.B.H. is palling-around with those people by proxy, and so sees America differently from how me and you do (my guess: she sees America from the vantage-point of one kneeling before Capital and Authority, where the only way not to be oppressed is to be an oppressor, or at least identify with one).
October 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
There are too many others out there like Kurtz for them all be nuts. My bet is that there’s a competition going among the most cynical of the Republicans to see who can produce the looniest copy. There have to be rules, of course. The copy has to include only a narrow range of talking points. No Elvis jokes or the like.
It has to be purely cynical or these people would all be facing conservancy hearings.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
dubois, there’s 300M people in america: it’s not hard for me to imagine that there are dozens of right-wing nuts with access to a megaphone (so to speak).
i mean, look, i’m the 23rd comment, some of us are repeating, and yet we have, in htdbh an example of a right-wing nut.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
ACORN may seem to be a harmless bumbling bunch of evil do-gooders, but from tiny ACORNS mighty oaks do grow. THAT is the clue to their true plot! Oak trees! They seek to overthrow the establishment and institute a Druidic theocracy. One day they’re registering Micky Mouse to vote, the next we’re all forced to venerate him as a god! The ultra-right wingers are so adamant about it because they know, when the revolution comes, they’re going to be the first ones in the Wicker Man.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Gerald Fnord, I had a part in a great mistake, professional as it may have been.
October 16th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
BULLSHIT. The McCain campaign’s entire outpouring over this is that Ayers was a terrorist, not a redistributionist. Kurtz is simply lying.
October 16th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Has everyone else stopped reading Don Williams’ posts, or is it just me?
October 16th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Sure, his ideas seem crazy, but he uses so much profanity he must be right.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Hah! Redistribution of wealth IS terrorism! It will be the new flavor of Kool-Aid.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I don’t think Adrock has his talking points in order; check w/ HQ.
And, it might be useful to point out something interesting: the Weathermen killed three people when BHO only about 228 months old. He was just a toddler!
Not only that, but both BHO and the Weathermen were involved in the anti-apartheid movement; it’s beyond ludicrous to think he hadn’t heard of them and probably Ayers.
October 16th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
OMG, Lonewacko! THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!!1!
Let’s follow the trail.
- Bill Ayers leads the Weathermen on the most inept bombing campaign in human history, which kills only other Weathermen.
- Ayers goes underground to evade the feds.
- COINTELPRO proves to be a far more effective terrorist organization than the Weathermen, thus tainting prosecutions and causing charges against Ayers to be dropped.
- Ayers resurfaces and eventually becomes a respected member of the Hyde Park community who hosts political fundraisers for Democrats and sits on bipartisan charitable boards.
- Several ex-Weathermen are involved the Brinks Heist in 1981. Ayers is not connected to the conspiracy.
- Ayers, Obama, and approximately 500,000 other Americans are involved in a communist plot against Apartheid. There is no evidence the two met at this time. But we can safely assume this is when the conspiracy began.
- Obama sits on a bipartisan charitable board with Ayers and several future McCain donors. Ayers hosts a fundraiser for Obama, as he has done for other local Democrats.
- At this crucial juncture, Ayers indoctrinates Obama in Maoist Revolutionary Doctrine and Kung Fu. Together they concoct a madcap scheme to rule the world and force white people into internment camps.
- Obama has only a small handful of known contacts with Ayers after this point, but this is presumably because they communicate through a secret method that involves placing specialized code words into classified ads in the Chicago Tribune.
- Obama subsequently runs for Senate, becomes famous, and runs for President, thus pushing white Americans to the brink of enslavement.
Am I missing anything?
October 16th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Am I missing anything?
Just this: during the Nixon administration, the Deputy Director of the FBI, Mark Felt, a.k.a. “Deep Throat,” was a leftist spy who was instrumental in bringing down America’s greatest president prior to Reagan and Bush.
He also sabotaged the case against Ayers, by ordering “illegal” breakins into the homes of Ayers’ relatives. To preserve his cover, he actually went so far as to get tried and convicted for this, bamboozeling a trusting Reagan into pardoning him.
But it’s all a conspiracy, decades in the making
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