Yglesias’ Ties to Radicalism
With the ACORN conspiracy about to seize control of the government and force plumbers to make loans to uncreditworthy black people before spreading the wealth around to terrorists, I thought I might see what I could learn from National Review. Well, Stanley Kurtz observes that in the mid-nineties, Barack Obama’s State Senate campaign was endorsed by the New Party. The idea of the New Party was to serve as a pragmatic alternative to Naderism — it would cross-endorse progressive Democrats in select races and maybe now and again try to beat a conservative Democrat. Kurtz explains. Very little ever came of it because ballot access laws in the United States are generally hostile to this strategy, but New York State features a fusion-friendly election law and three fusion-oriented parties. There’s the Conservative Party on the right, the Liberal Party in the center, and the Working Families Party on the left with the WFP being the main institutional legacy of the New Party. Anyway, Kurtz says:
To get a sense of where the New Party stood politically, consider some of its early supporters: Barbara Dudley of Greenpeace; Steve Cobble, political director of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coaltion; prominent academics like Frances Fox Piven, coauthor of the “Cloward-Piven strategy” and a leader of the drive for the “motor-voter” legislation Obama later defended in court on behalf of ACORN; economist Juliet Schor; black historian Manning Marable; historian Howard Zinn; linguist Noam Chomsky; Todd Gitlin; and writers like Gloria Steinem and Barbara Ehrenreich. Socialist? Readers can draw their own conclusions. At one point, Sifry does describe the party’s goals as “social democratic.” In any case, the New Party clearly stands substantially to the left of the mainstream Democratic party.
This reminds me of my own extensive ties to radicalism. For one thing, when I was registered to vote in New York, I voted Hillary Clinton for Senate in 2000 on the Working Families Party line. Also I once went to hear a Howard Zinn talk, after which I asked a moderately hostile question and he gave a non-responsive answer. But I have read the People’s History of the United States. For that matter, I was assigned Nickle and Dimed in college and though I never took a class with Juliet Schor, I’m pretty sure I met her at one point through the Progressive Student Labor Movement. And I have extensive ties to Todd Gitlin. Beyond TPM Cafe we both traveled to the Netherlands about a year ago as guests of the Wiardi Beckman Stiftung which is affiliated with the Dutch Labor Party which is a member of the Socialist International (making things even more confusing, shortly after this we both found ourselves at a Liberty Fund even in Arizona).
Long story short — there are radicals everywhere!
39 Responses to “Yglesias’ Ties to Radicalism”
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October 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
What’s even scarier is that those New Party radicals were right about pretty much everything, and the most damage that has been done to this nation in generations was done by far-right, screechingly pseudo-patriotic Republicans.
It ain’t Noam Chomsky nationalizing the banks now because of his 30 year war against the U.S. financial system.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Nickles are birds, not coins, although the working class in this country has been getting pecked to death, so maybe the phrase still works.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I’m a registered Green Party member. My family migrated here from French Canadia a couple of generations ago. I’m not sure if they were legal because they settled in Wisconsin, where I hear the border security is a bit lax.
Should I be packing my things?
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
“Also I once went to hear a Howard Zinn talk, after which I asked a moderately hostile question and he gave a non-responsive answer.”
At the time, I thought it was kinda classless for you to ask him why he hated America.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Stanley Kurtz is employed by a publication, National Review, that defended segregation and assailed the civil rights movement.
This is seriously fun! I’d like two weeks’ worth of game tokens, please.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Oh dear me, Obama helped defend a motor voter law! What horrors!
Seriously, that was a fantastic law. If you’re getting your drivers license, why not require states (as part of accepting federal highway funds) to at least ask the person if they’d like to be registered to vote?
The republicans really are hideous people.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
My mom grew up with an SDS Weatherman — the one who blew herself to smithereens making bombs for her boyfriend Bill Ayres — therefore she’s a radical and I was raised by my mom the radical, therefore I’m a radical and you just read my posting so tag-you’re-it.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
when I was registered to vote in New York, I voted Hillary Clinton for Senate in 2000 on the Working Families Party line.
I’m going to mention this to some of my WFP pals, if you don’t mind. You might see it getting quoted. Maybe you could even find time to do a WFP post for your New York readers between now and election day?
Vote Row E!
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
When I was in college in the early 80s I went to a couple of meetings on campus of the Committee in Solidarity With the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Except for a couple of my close friends who accompanied me to those meetings, I remember nobody else who was there. I wonder now who was there and how that association would affect me now if I were to run for public office.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
My mom grew up with an SDS Weatherman — the one who blew herself to smithereens making bombs for her boyfriend Bill Ayres
Well, *my* mom stayed the previous weekend in the townhouse they blew up, visiting the blown-up woman’s sister. Small world, huh?
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Matt is being deliberately obtuse. Did he forget about his grandfather?
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Also Matt wrote a book advocating that the United States unilaterally surrender to the United Nations and the jihadists. Of course he is a radical!
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I was in the audience when Rage Against the Machine burned an upside-down, desecrated (by the anarchy logo) American flag at Woodstock 1999.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Also through Gitlin, to Ayers, I believe. It’s been a while since I read TG’s SDS book, but there had to be some connection there.
Which raises a question for the entire TP team, indeed for everyone at CAP, from The Mighty Podesta to the lowliest intern: would you serve at a nonprofit with someone with such close and apparent Anti-American associations?
That the answer appears to be yes is all the more damning, Cracked Stanley would say.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Let’s close that loop:
http://www.jswecan.nl/
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I lived in an apartment that got machine-gunned by the MOVE group (first compound, not second) – does that make me a right-wing radical or a left-wing radical?
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I once attended a lecture by Michael Harrington and shook his hand afterwards. He even signed a copy of his then-latest book for me. This was 28 years ago but I recall he was pleasant yet distracted.
I have other ties to socialist radicals that I prefer to leave undisclosed at this time, so that when I run for office (hah!) my opponent can make him or herself look ridiculous by digging them up.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“I lived in an apartment that got machine-gunned by the MOVE group (first compound, not second) – does that make me a right-wing radical or a left-wing radical?”
It makes you toxic by virtue of having lived in Philadelphia. Get yourself decontaminated as soon as possible.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Yeah, please do a post on how Working Families is leading the opposition to the term limit extension (expected to narrowly pass later today, though I thought the bail-out would pass in the first go around too) and is threatening to run challengers against a couple of the city council people who are supporting it.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I sang along to the Internationale with Billy Bragg. Take me away, officer.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
The Liberal Party of NY still exists? I decamped from NY about 2 years ago, and when I left the Liberal Party was on serious life support after backing Betsey Ross for guv (and getting less than the required 50,000 votes statewide to retain an automatic place on the ballot), and the Russ Harding scandal.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
The Liberal Party of NY still exists?
Nope, defunct since 2002. WFP killed it.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Odd. MattY forgot to mention that a) the NP and the WFP are not necessarily the same thing, b) BHO was a member of the NP, and c) the NP described themselves as “democratic socialist” (per USAToday).
When is Harvard going to sue MattY for besmirching their name?
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Here’s a collection of information on BHO and the NP.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
LOL. Kelly4Ahead forgot to blogwhore. Gotta pay for those Cheetos somehow.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Democratic Socialist or not, I don’t think the New Party ever advised nationalizing our biggest banks and investment houses, which is what the right wing Republican President and his party have done.
October 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Weak! Those aren’t ties to radicalism. Check this:
Born in San Francisco, raised in the Netherlands.
My grandfather (now deceased) was the head of the history dept. at Boston University, working in close proximity with Howard Zinn. My wife and I have had dinner with Howard Zinn. We have also had dinner with radical feminist Mary Daly. My wife worked at a lesbian/feminist bookstore during college, I worked at a gay resort. (Disappointingly, we’re just supportive of gay rights, not confused). I’ve attended numerous protests, including against the IMF/World Bank and school of the Americas.
I am now a corporate lawyer! Shazam!
October 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
You seem to be under the illusion that you can have some sort of “mixed-economy” politics; that is not the case. The “one drop rule” applies: the least bit of socialism in your platform, and you’re a Socialist.
This applies only to aspirants to office; hundreds of millions of Americans may want many of the things that can readily be called “socialist” without their being socialists, just as a male conservative leader or preacher or long-haul trucker may screw hundreds of men and teens without being “gay”.
It’s simple.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Considering the fact that the so-called “Socialist International” has people like Blair, Brown and Schroeder as prominent members I really think it’s time they should be forced change their name – maybe some real socialists could claim copyright or sue them for false advertising.
October 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Well, here’s another radical commenter. Not only that, but a semi-regular commenter! I mean, I’ve definitely posted here a double-digit number of times! And I’m a card-carrying Trotskyist. Or, I have a signed membership card in a Trotskyist group, even if I don’t keep it in my wallet.
Clearly, your blog attracts a subversive sort, and you tolerate it quite happily. Don’t ever run for office.
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