Does Jenny McCarthy count as left wing fringe? She has definitely contributed to a lot of deaths. The Jenny McCarthy Body Count lists 1296 preventable deaths that she and her anti-vaccine cohorts could be considered responsible for.
I'm not sure where people who succumb to terrible science should fall in the spectrum.
I dunno about Jenny McCarthy but a lot of the anti-vaccine crowd is on the left wing.
My experience, lolanecdote, has been the opposite. Every anti-vaxxer I've met has been a "get the government out of my life" kind of person. Which, to me, seems to be a trait of the right more so than the left.
At the same time, like RedTide pointed out, a lot of the anti-vaxxers seem to be conspiracy theorists who tend to not really lay claim to much political ideology (especially in the US system of parties) outside of "AHHHHH, GOVERNMENT IS GONNA GET ME!" :P
anti vax definitely has a left wing component. A lot of crunchy granola overachieving parents from the upper middle class are shying away from vaccines - the contingent that is also juice cleansing and worrying about 'toxins' and so forth
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
In the end, policy is the thing that matters, and OWS had no effect on it.
That was sort of their thing, pretty clearly, I don't know where the vague thing comes from.
Like, they had documents and statements and things but I'm guessing that wasn't as interesting to report on as "lol hippies"
They were vague on policy goals and specific changes they wanted to see implemented. So when it came to what they actually wanted, they were incredibly vague.
OWS really could have benefited from clear leadership and goals.
"Hang out in the park until the public narrative changes" is not particularly effective. And without a figurehead, the media was mostly interviewing random people who held wildly different points of view, and a mixed narrative was the result.
That was sort of their thing, pretty clearly, I don't know where the vague thing comes from.
Like, they had documents and statements and things but I'm guessing that wasn't as interesting to report on as "lol hippies"
They were vague on policy goals and specific changes they wanted to see implemented. So when it came to what they actually wanted, they were incredibly vague.
Yeah, all of the successful lefty movements (civil rights, womens', labor, LGBT, environmental, whatever) are real clear on specific things they want and what they'll do for politicians if their policies are supported. They'll raise money, organize, get out the vote, all that stuff. And if you make them angry, they'll cut off your support and start aiding primary challengers. Reward and punishment.
But if you're a politician, what are the policies that Occupy supports enough that they'll organize for you? Nobody knows. What are the policies that will piss them off enough that they'll organize an effort to replace you? Evidence says, "nothing". Do they have any powerful allies that will swing votes on their behalf? Not really. So politicians (rationally) ignored them until they went away. Protesters that can't be appeased won't be.
It's the (depressingly) standard lefty thing. Direct action is sexy and helps you pick up girls, complaining about the fecklessness of the DNC is easy and fun, and dropping out of the system allows you to feel superior. Whereas actually accomplishing anything requires sitting through intensely boring party committee meetings (which is how you take over the DNC) and hard, frustrating slogging for years or decades. But Occupy idealized the IWW with its consensus decision making and (almost exclusive) focus on direct action instead of, say, the CIO's (or NAACP, NOW, HRC, Sierra Club, etc.) ability to actually get things done.
That's how it's always worked. When the Republican Lily-White Movement kicked out all the black people to (mostly fail to) appeal to white supremacists a century ago, black Americans didn't say, "Our choices are between the party of slavery and the party that's expelled us to appeal to their racist voters, fuck it, there's no difference." They got organized and within one generation they were an important power bloc in the Democratic Party and a generation later they were powerful enough that the Democrats sacrificed control over the white South to get the big civil rights laws passed. They put the work in, and that's how you get political change.
Well but they didn't even do the things the IWW did--the IWW was pretty successful at unionization and at organizing around their cause because they focused on organizing people within the workplace. Furthermore the IWW focused on providing concrete help first rather than staying with abstractions the whole time.
And that's important. Changing the discourse is just as important as changing policy. Because look at say, Obamacare. It was a massive change in policy that had no equivalent change in politics, and it's been a pain to have it stick ever since it was passed.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Well but they didn't even do the things the IWW did--the IWW was pretty uccessful at unionization and at organizing around their cause because they focused on organizing people within the workplace. Furthermore the IWW focused on providing concrete help first rather than staying with abstractions the whole time.
And that's important. Changing the discourse is just as important as changing policy. Because look at say, Obamacare. It was a massive change in policy that had no equivalent change in politics, and it's been a pain to have it stick ever since it was passed.
Nope, discourse is bullshit. If you don't do anything about policy, you're wanking aroind uselessly.
Well but they didn't even do the things the IWW did--the IWW was pretty uccessful at unionization and at organizing around their cause because they focused on organizing people within the workplace. Furthermore the IWW focused on providing concrete help first rather than staying with abstractions the whole time.
And that's important. Changing the discourse is just as important as changing policy. Because look at say, Obamacare. It was a massive change in policy that had no equivalent change in politics, and it's been a pain to have it stick ever since it was passed.
Nope, discourse is bullshit. If you don't do anything about policy, you're wanking aroind uselessly.
I said 'just as important'. I'd change to 'perhaps slightly more important' but as I said in the first paragraph you shouldn't avoid policy (or concrete help in absence of governmental policy), but then I don't think that Occupy was trying to become a special interest group. There's a huge difference between a popular movement and a lobbying organization and trying to turn one into another is an easy way to get either failure (for instance environmental policy groups) or corruption and a money-dominated discourse (like the tea party).
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Yes, but if you aren't politically engaged, then your popular movement will go exactly nowhere.
Yes, but if you aren't politically engaged, then your popular movement will go exactly nowhere.
This is pretty much the hands down reason that the right's fringe is an actual threat; PETA makes noise and irritates people while the NRA actively makes the US a more dangerous place by leaning on politicians and making impassioned pleas to the sanctity of the 2nd ammendment (completely ignoring that a rapid fire weapon in 1791 was a musket that could be fired 3 shots per minute) and why people should be able to own M134 Minigun loaded with depleted uranium rounds for home defense.
Yes, but if you aren't politically engaged, then your popular movement will go exactly nowhere.
Politically engaged doesn't only mean connected to policy. Unions do tons of things that have little to do with government policy, as do many Churches. And this is way more obvious in the European context, or even in the American context before the McCarthy era wiped out a lot of the more politicized unions. Being able to gain support outside of a group's ability to influence government action is what makes a union or a church or even the NRA so powerful--because these groups tap into some sort of extra-political (in the most narrow sense of the word) organizing space they are able to consistently argue for the same kinds of goals and say 'hey, you want to negotiate with us to the degree that we're not even getting anything we want? Screw you we can go somewhere else'. THat's the power of everyday politics--the politics you experience at work or in church or through your guns or whatever other item you want to buy (like hey, video games). Explicitly 'political' organizations are not able to do that because they don't tap into the power of everyday politics.
And OWS succeeded in being neither because it wasn't oriented around some key organizing place (the workplace, the pulpit, the gun show, the household etc), it only started organizing people around every day struggles they could actually gain anything with way later (like during Sandy later), and it didn't want to be 'political' in the narrow sense of the word. And in my opinion OWS should be criticized MORE because they didn't organize in any real sense of the word than the fact that what organization they did do wasn't oriented towards discreet policy goals.
Because while we definitely need to be oriented towards concrete results, we can't let our focus on those results get in the way of a broader strategy towards a better society. Doing the first on its own has been the largest failure of the Obama administration--they have attempted to change policy without a subsequent change in politics. As a masters student in public policy, this isn't the right way to go about doing either. Focusing just on the big goal (more healthcare) without attempting to change the discourse around that goal can lead to one making substantial concessions which leaves a policy that doesn't affect the core structural problems it's trying to deal with (like do any of us believe that there isn't going to have to be yet another fight for single payer healthcare down the road?).
On the other hand, you have groups which are only 'political', and those groups can still get a lot done (I'd consider academic feminism to be an example of this because with some notable exceptions they are not trying to change government policy, they are rather trying to change society). But in some instances yeah, you end up falling flat.
But if you do both you can put yourself on the path to completely eradicating the issue for future generations. We knew for decades that smoking cigarettes was dangerous to you but it took until the late 90s to get federal legislation through even just against smoking for minors. But in the time that that happened, Clinton's Surgeon General had also both shown tobacco company CEOs lying to the public and had shown that tobacco companies were purposefully putting addictive substances in their cigarettes. This totally changed the discourse around the topic, which led to completely independent state actions to tax cigarettes and ban them in some public spaces. And that's the thing--in the extreme short term, policy trumps politics. But in the longer term, a changed politics is what gives policies longevity.
To armchair sociologize for a sec, I tend to think of right wing/conservative/traditional groups as being more coherent and focused and generally more effective in achieving singular goals and group cohesiveness because one aspect that tends to define those groups is a tendency toward hierarchy (think authoritarianism, patriarchy, monarchism, nepotism, etc), and as such a tendency toward a more cohesive unit.
That is of course hardly always true and I'm sure there are many examples in opposing camps of successful organizations, but I think it's an aspect that tends to keep those in that realm of the political sentiment field largely together.
Right wing/Conservative/Traditional groups can also be more coherent because they are part of the establishment. Preserving the status quo is always easier then change. You have ready made constituencies willing to fight to preserve their privileges, organized by virtue of establishment approval. Left wing or change groups have to start by forming a group that wants specific change. A massive hurdle for many causes.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Where is that second image from, with the 'We support our troops when they shoot their officers' banner? I can't find a source for it; plenty of Google hits leading to Red State or Free Republic where left wing peace protesters are blamed, but I don't see any context or attribution. Was that in response to the Ft Hood mass murder? Who actually flew the banner?
Sorry I just got around to doing more research on that particular picture.
It comes from an ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) protest in Portland, OR in either 2006 or 2007, details are sketchy.
The organization's support largely comes from the left wing, both left-oriented orgs and individuals, though if you zoom out, support is mixed in mainstream left politics, which is to say they do not enjoy a voice or any sort of policy power in left-wing politics. Most politicians at the Federal level do not support the group.
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JohnnyCacheStarting DefensePlace at the tableRegistered Userregular
Yes, but if you aren't politically engaged, then your popular movement will go exactly nowhere.
This is pretty much the hands down reason that the right's fringe is an actual threat; PETA makes noise and irritates people while the NRA actively makes the US a more dangerous place by leaning on politicians and making impassioned pleas to the sanctity of the 2nd ammendment (completely ignoring that a rapid fire weapon in 1791 was a musket that could be fired 3 shots per minute) and why people should be able to own M134 Minigun loaded with depleted uranium rounds for home defense.
Actually, your attempts at platform insertion here demonstrate the problem:
What makes the NRA dangerous in terms of political engagement is that they command a voting bloc and a donating bloc and can moblize them over an articulated issue.
It's not political will that makes them dangerous, it's actual political acumen.
They wield both negative enforcement in the ability to remove primary risk and positive in the form of delivered votes and further donations after the fact. They make our legislators into puppets because they are good puppeteers.
They also have rhetorical acumen - and this is what I mean by the platform crack. The gun rights issue is a broader tribal symbol to them. They've mastered code-switching to such a degree that they can USE the fact that you're trying to oppose them with stats and statistics as proof you're against something you're not. At a deep level in the right, the gun is a symbol of faith in the social contract, not crime or violence. When you fail to understand that, you've lost the debate before you have it.
Fuzzy movements like occupy will never carpet-call a senator over classism. It's too diffuse. We can barely do it with racism. Political will comes from money and the determination to enforce your issues at the poll. The notion of a moderate platform is dangerous in one sense because it cedes a certain amount of political will by default.
I also think of the m134 as more of a hunting gun, but to each his own.
Well I mean it is possible to hit a senator with not giving a crap about the interests of the low class, we just have an absolutely awful consciousness of the class system in our country.
But yeah as JohnnyCache said the NRA succeeds more through the fact that they don't have to rely on specific policy successes and thus can not negotiate over some issues. Instead the NRA has created its own politics and its own voting block. This is pretty common outside of the US so I think it's kinda silly to say that the only way that a movement can succeed is through direct relation to the policy process (especially when the most successful groups are not directly related to the policy process but rather to their constituents)
Woo, lots to talk about. I'm just back from holiday with the family so I'll have to get into things in more depth tomorrow. We should probably begin with the guy who shot a security guard in the Focus on the Family building - he wanted to make a point about gay marriage and even brought some Chick-Fil-A along with him in case it wasn't clear enough. Then we can hit on Not in our Name (a front group for International ANSWER), look at the number of sexual assaults committed at OWS rallies and at the folks connected to one OWS group who were busted planning a bombing, then at the Times Square army recruiter bombing. I guess after that is WTO destructiveness, the London riot, and we see where it goes from there?
Where is that second image from, with the 'We support our troops when they shoot their officers' banner? I can't find a source for it; plenty of Google hits leading to Red State or Free Republic where left wing peace protesters are blamed, but I don't see any context or attribution. Was that in response to the Ft Hood mass murder? Who actually flew the banner?
This was at, if I remember right, an antiwar march in San Francisco in maybe 2006 or 2007. I might have the city and the year wrong, but I've seen more than one of those in the past.
Edit: josh has the deets, it was Portland. The reason lots of people don't like to be associated with ANSWER is that they're real-life no kidding Stalin-apologist communists.
That's how it's always worked. When the Republican Lily-White Movement kicked out all the black people to (mostly fail to) appeal to white supremacists a century ago, black Americans didn't say, "Our choices are between the party of slavery and the party that's expelled us to appeal to their racist voters, fuck it, there's no difference." They got organized and within one generation they were an important power bloc in the Democratic Party and a generation later they were powerful enough that the Democrats sacrificed control over the white South to get the big civil rights laws passed. They put the work in, and that's how you get political change.
I'm not sure what century you are from!
In 1914 nobody in the Republican party was kicking black people out - that was still within living memory of the Civil War. Also, the civil rights movement wasn't an episode in which black Democrats were so much a power in the Democratic party that they were able to influence Johnson to abandon the South (and it didn't happen within one generation of a century ago either. You are a time traveler!). That is not at all the way history played out. Much as I'm sure modern Democrats would like to whitewash the awful history of racism in their party, an honest view cannot ignore it. They didn't get their shit together until Nixon, and liberal bastions in the northeast continued to struggle with racist problems for decades. Hell, they do today!
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
The dividing characteristic is being a decent person who believes in equality, and that is not restricted to one party in this nation - nor has it ever been.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
I can give the articles a read tomorrow im on my phone at the moment.
Some democrats hate gays, and a fair amount of them just don't give a shit about gay rights. Doesn't change the fact that the Republican Party as a whole has worked against gay rights in every way they can. "Look the other guy kind of did it at some point too" is a tiresome rebuttable to very real and very current civil rights issues
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
I can give the articles a read tomorrow im on my phone at the moment.
Some democrats hate gays, and a fair amount of them just don't give a shit about gay rights. Doesn't change the fact that the Republican Party as a whole has worked against gay rights in every way they can. "Look the other guy kind of did it at some point too" is a tiresome rebuttable to very real and very current civil rights issues
I'd go with the bigger sin being intentionally using it to stir up hatred against a group of people. Remember, the gay marriage bans were a thing before the real push to legalize gay marriage went anywhere. That started by a Republican (Rove) finding that it got people stirred up in a way they liked. Ultimately the plan kinda backfired as I think the increased discussion directly led to the gains now experienced, but it is still a shitty thing to do.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
The dividing characteristic is being a decent person who believes in equality, and that is not restricted to one party in this nation - nor has it ever been.
Ahh, yes, the wonderful ethnic rainbows that are Rhode island and new Hampshire. Why, there's irish, cornish, english, and scottish all living there together in harmony with Scandinavians AND germans, all enjoying the post racial world together in such a way as to serve as an excellent debate prop for a post racial world.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
The dividing characteristic is being a decent person who believes in equality, and that is not restricted to one party in this nation - nor has it ever been.
Ahh, yes, the wonderful ethnic rainbows that are Rhode island and new Hampshire. Why, there's irish, cornish, english, and scottish all living there together in harmony with Scandinavians AND germans, all enjoying the post racial world together in such a way as to serve as an excellent debate prop for a post racial world.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
That's some nice white wash, and does a magnificent job of ignoring that republicans have been engaging in clearly regressive policies in order to appease the fringe.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
No one is talking about the parties of dickety six.
They are talking about the parties of today.
And one is blatantly run by a bunch of fringe crazies.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
No one is talking about the parties of dickety six.
They are talking about the parties of today.
And one is blatantly run by a bunch of fringe crazies.
And let's not forget that the Southern Strategy was a real thing as well.
The fact is, decent people from both parties have advanced the cause of equal rights from before the Civil War right through to today. That is the dividing line, not political party affiliation.
No one is talking about the parties of dickety six.
They are talking about the parties of today.
And one is blatantly run by a bunch of fringe crazies.
So somebody was in fact talking about history, and you can see it in the quotes inside the post just above this one you commented on.
I don't understand how this happens in threads sometimes!
Anyhow, here is our starting point for talking about the leftwing fringe and how it actually is violent, destructive, and bad for the nation (as opposed to flailing, ineffectual, and pointless). Working for memory I got some details wrong but here you go!
Floyd Corkins gets 25 years for shooting a security guard while committing an act of terrorism. He went to the offices of the Family Research Council with a gun and a box of ammunition but was stopped by an unarmed security guard who disarmed Corkins, despite Corkins firing three times and hitting him in the arm. The WaPo article discusses his possible mental illness in more detail. He was angry about opposition to gay marriage and planned to smash the 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he brought along into the dead faces of the people he shot, just to drive the gay-marriage point home.
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Clown ShoesGive me hay or give me death.Registered Userregular
So your example of the left wing fringe not being ineffectual is an armed terrorist being stopped by an unarmed security guard who had been shot?
Also, your conclusion that the left fringe is violent and destructive is based on the lone actions of one person?
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
The radical left wing has been catastrophically harmful in one area at least, nuclear energy. Instead of fulfilling a watchdog role to ensure proper regulation and safety, they've spent decades fearmongering. Meanwhile, coal continues to kill people and fuck up the environment. It's a shame and it's one of the few things that I truly despise about the left.
Anyhow, here is our starting point for talking about the leftwing fringe and how it actually is violent, destructive, and bad for the nation (as opposed to flailing, ineffectual, and pointless). Working for memory I got some details wrong but here you go!
Floyd Corkins gets 25 years for shooting a security guard while committing an act of terrorism. He went to the offices of the Family Research Council with a gun and a box of ammunition but was stopped by an unarmed security guard who disarmed Corkins, despite Corkins firing three times and hitting him in the arm. The WaPo article discusses his possible mental illness in more detail. He was angry about opposition to gay marriage and planned to smash the 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he brought along into the dead faces of the people he shot, just to drive the gay-marriage point home.
Anyhow, here is our starting point for talking about the leftwing fringe and how it actually is violent, destructive, and bad for the nation (as opposed to flailing, ineffectual, and pointless). Working for memory I got some details wrong but here you go!
Floyd Corkins gets 25 years for shooting a security guard while committing an act of terrorism. He went to the offices of the Family Research Council with a gun and a box of ammunition but was stopped by an unarmed security guard who disarmed Corkins, despite Corkins firing three times and hitting him in the arm. The WaPo article discusses his possible mental illness in more detail. He was angry about opposition to gay marriage and planned to smash the 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he brought along into the dead faces of the people he shot, just to drive the gay-marriage point home.
You will have to try again though, because the Giffords shooting is off the mark if you're looking for political violence that points at the right wing and Loughner was literally all over the map in his politics.
Edit: I think maybe you expect me to try and claim that the rightwing fringe isn't dangerous or that I'm in a dick measuring contest here where I try to prove that leftwing fringe elements are more deadly or worse or something. That isn't my intention dropping into the thread and if that's what we're doing here I'll be on my way. There is a common attitude that the leftwing fringe is so utterly useless and so completely non-impactful that it might as well never be mentioned. I'll argue that this is not the case.
There is a common attitude that the leftwing fringe is so utterly useless and so completely non-impactful that it might as well never be mentioned. I'll argue that this is not the case.
Generally such a thing is claimed in regard to concrete political and societal effects. A crazed gunman isn't proof on either side for anything other than there being legit crazies. They don't really affect anything much other than the lives of those they attack. (Well they do bring up the notion of gun-rights/mental health each time but that is generally not an issue connected to their reason for attacking.)
Do you know of any fringe left wing organization that has the kind of effect the right wing fringe has?
There is a common attitude that the leftwing fringe is so utterly useless and so completely non-impactful that it might as well never be mentioned. I'll argue that this is not the case.
Generally such a thing is claimed in regard to concrete political and societal effects. A crazed gunman isn't proof on either side for anything other than there being legit crazies. They don't really affect anything much other than the lives of those they attack. (Well they do bring up the notion of gun-rights/mental health each time but that is generally not an issue connected to their reason for attacking.)
Do you know of any fringe left wing organization that has the kind of effect the right wing fringe has?
Sometimes it's the reactions to said crazies that are more telling.
Like the NRA's pleading for more guns in schools after Newtown told just how fucking insane the gun fringe is.
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My experience, lolanecdote, has been the opposite. Every anti-vaxxer I've met has been a "get the government out of my life" kind of person. Which, to me, seems to be a trait of the right more so than the left.
At the same time, like RedTide pointed out, a lot of the anti-vaxxers seem to be conspiracy theorists who tend to not really lay claim to much political ideology (especially in the US system of parties) outside of "AHHHHH, GOVERNMENT IS GONNA GET ME!" :P
They were vague on policy goals and specific changes they wanted to see implemented. So when it came to what they actually wanted, they were incredibly vague.
"Hang out in the park until the public narrative changes" is not particularly effective. And without a figurehead, the media was mostly interviewing random people who held wildly different points of view, and a mixed narrative was the result.
But if you're a politician, what are the policies that Occupy supports enough that they'll organize for you? Nobody knows. What are the policies that will piss them off enough that they'll organize an effort to replace you? Evidence says, "nothing". Do they have any powerful allies that will swing votes on their behalf? Not really. So politicians (rationally) ignored them until they went away. Protesters that can't be appeased won't be.
It's the (depressingly) standard lefty thing. Direct action is sexy and helps you pick up girls, complaining about the fecklessness of the DNC is easy and fun, and dropping out of the system allows you to feel superior. Whereas actually accomplishing anything requires sitting through intensely boring party committee meetings (which is how you take over the DNC) and hard, frustrating slogging for years or decades. But Occupy idealized the IWW with its consensus decision making and (almost exclusive) focus on direct action instead of, say, the CIO's (or NAACP, NOW, HRC, Sierra Club, etc.) ability to actually get things done.
That's how it's always worked. When the Republican Lily-White Movement kicked out all the black people to (mostly fail to) appeal to white supremacists a century ago, black Americans didn't say, "Our choices are between the party of slavery and the party that's expelled us to appeal to their racist voters, fuck it, there's no difference." They got organized and within one generation they were an important power bloc in the Democratic Party and a generation later they were powerful enough that the Democrats sacrificed control over the white South to get the big civil rights laws passed. They put the work in, and that's how you get political change.
And that's important. Changing the discourse is just as important as changing policy. Because look at say, Obamacare. It was a massive change in policy that had no equivalent change in politics, and it's been a pain to have it stick ever since it was passed.
Nope, discourse is bullshit. If you don't do anything about policy, you're wanking aroind uselessly.
I said 'just as important'. I'd change to 'perhaps slightly more important' but as I said in the first paragraph you shouldn't avoid policy (or concrete help in absence of governmental policy), but then I don't think that Occupy was trying to become a special interest group. There's a huge difference between a popular movement and a lobbying organization and trying to turn one into another is an easy way to get either failure (for instance environmental policy groups) or corruption and a money-dominated discourse (like the tea party).
This is pretty much the hands down reason that the right's fringe is an actual threat; PETA makes noise and irritates people while the NRA actively makes the US a more dangerous place by leaning on politicians and making impassioned pleas to the sanctity of the 2nd ammendment (completely ignoring that a rapid fire weapon in 1791 was a musket that could be fired 3 shots per minute) and why people should be able to own M134 Minigun loaded with depleted uranium rounds for home defense.
Politically engaged doesn't only mean connected to policy. Unions do tons of things that have little to do with government policy, as do many Churches. And this is way more obvious in the European context, or even in the American context before the McCarthy era wiped out a lot of the more politicized unions. Being able to gain support outside of a group's ability to influence government action is what makes a union or a church or even the NRA so powerful--because these groups tap into some sort of extra-political (in the most narrow sense of the word) organizing space they are able to consistently argue for the same kinds of goals and say 'hey, you want to negotiate with us to the degree that we're not even getting anything we want? Screw you we can go somewhere else'. THat's the power of everyday politics--the politics you experience at work or in church or through your guns or whatever other item you want to buy (like hey, video games). Explicitly 'political' organizations are not able to do that because they don't tap into the power of everyday politics.
And OWS succeeded in being neither because it wasn't oriented around some key organizing place (the workplace, the pulpit, the gun show, the household etc), it only started organizing people around every day struggles they could actually gain anything with way later (like during Sandy later), and it didn't want to be 'political' in the narrow sense of the word. And in my opinion OWS should be criticized MORE because they didn't organize in any real sense of the word than the fact that what organization they did do wasn't oriented towards discreet policy goals.
Because while we definitely need to be oriented towards concrete results, we can't let our focus on those results get in the way of a broader strategy towards a better society. Doing the first on its own has been the largest failure of the Obama administration--they have attempted to change policy without a subsequent change in politics. As a masters student in public policy, this isn't the right way to go about doing either. Focusing just on the big goal (more healthcare) without attempting to change the discourse around that goal can lead to one making substantial concessions which leaves a policy that doesn't affect the core structural problems it's trying to deal with (like do any of us believe that there isn't going to have to be yet another fight for single payer healthcare down the road?).
On the other hand, you have groups which are only 'political', and those groups can still get a lot done (I'd consider academic feminism to be an example of this because with some notable exceptions they are not trying to change government policy, they are rather trying to change society). But in some instances yeah, you end up falling flat.
But if you do both you can put yourself on the path to completely eradicating the issue for future generations. We knew for decades that smoking cigarettes was dangerous to you but it took until the late 90s to get federal legislation through even just against smoking for minors. But in the time that that happened, Clinton's Surgeon General had also both shown tobacco company CEOs lying to the public and had shown that tobacco companies were purposefully putting addictive substances in their cigarettes. This totally changed the discourse around the topic, which led to completely independent state actions to tax cigarettes and ban them in some public spaces. And that's the thing--in the extreme short term, policy trumps politics. But in the longer term, a changed politics is what gives policies longevity.
That is of course hardly always true and I'm sure there are many examples in opposing camps of successful organizations, but I think it's an aspect that tends to keep those in that realm of the political sentiment field largely together.
Right wing/Conservative/Traditional groups can also be more coherent because they are part of the establishment. Preserving the status quo is always easier then change. You have ready made constituencies willing to fight to preserve their privileges, organized by virtue of establishment approval. Left wing or change groups have to start by forming a group that wants specific change. A massive hurdle for many causes.
@The Ender
Sorry I just got around to doing more research on that particular picture.
It comes from an ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) protest in Portland, OR in either 2006 or 2007, details are sketchy.
The organization's support largely comes from the left wing, both left-oriented orgs and individuals, though if you zoom out, support is mixed in mainstream left politics, which is to say they do not enjoy a voice or any sort of policy power in left-wing politics. Most politicians at the Federal level do not support the group.
Actually, your attempts at platform insertion here demonstrate the problem:
What makes the NRA dangerous in terms of political engagement is that they command a voting bloc and a donating bloc and can moblize them over an articulated issue.
It's not political will that makes them dangerous, it's actual political acumen.
They wield both negative enforcement in the ability to remove primary risk and positive in the form of delivered votes and further donations after the fact. They make our legislators into puppets because they are good puppeteers.
They also have rhetorical acumen - and this is what I mean by the platform crack. The gun rights issue is a broader tribal symbol to them. They've mastered code-switching to such a degree that they can USE the fact that you're trying to oppose them with stats and statistics as proof you're against something you're not. At a deep level in the right, the gun is a symbol of faith in the social contract, not crime or violence. When you fail to understand that, you've lost the debate before you have it.
Fuzzy movements like occupy will never carpet-call a senator over classism. It's too diffuse. We can barely do it with racism. Political will comes from money and the determination to enforce your issues at the poll. The notion of a moderate platform is dangerous in one sense because it cedes a certain amount of political will by default.
I also think of the m134 as more of a hunting gun, but to each his own.
I host a podcast about movies.
But yeah as JohnnyCache said the NRA succeeds more through the fact that they don't have to rely on specific policy successes and thus can not negotiate over some issues. Instead the NRA has created its own politics and its own voting block. This is pretty common outside of the US so I think it's kinda silly to say that the only way that a movement can succeed is through direct relation to the policy process (especially when the most successful groups are not directly related to the policy process but rather to their constituents)
This was at, if I remember right, an antiwar march in San Francisco in maybe 2006 or 2007. I might have the city and the year wrong, but I've seen more than one of those in the past.
Edit: josh has the deets, it was Portland. The reason lots of people don't like to be associated with ANSWER is that they're real-life no kidding Stalin-apologist communists.
I'm not sure what century you are from!
In 1914 nobody in the Republican party was kicking black people out - that was still within living memory of the Civil War. Also, the civil rights movement wasn't an episode in which black Democrats were so much a power in the Democratic party that they were able to influence Johnson to abandon the South (and it didn't happen within one generation of a century ago either. You are a time traveler!). That is not at all the way history played out. Much as I'm sure modern Democrats would like to whitewash the awful history of racism in their party, an honest view cannot ignore it. They didn't get their shit together until Nixon, and liberal bastions in the northeast continued to struggle with racist problems for decades. Hell, they do today!
They used to
Doesn't change the fact that the current party strategy involves mass disenfranchisement of minority voters
Come on spool I even made this joke in chat. I can't wait for the republicans to pretend they didn't use the gays as a way to rally their base because hey they were the party of Lincoln right
The party's history is meaningless if they actively pretend it never happened except when it's expedient to bring it up
They continue to, despite the thing around here where a voter ID law = mass disenfranchisement. Hell, it's not even all Republicans or all white people supporting ID laws. New Hampshire and Rhode Island have both passed requirements.
The dividing characteristic is being a decent person who believes in equality, and that is not restricted to one party in this nation - nor has it ever been.
I can give the articles a read tomorrow im on my phone at the moment.
Some democrats hate gays, and a fair amount of them just don't give a shit about gay rights. Doesn't change the fact that the Republican Party as a whole has worked against gay rights in every way they can. "Look the other guy kind of did it at some point too" is a tiresome rebuttable to very real and very current civil rights issues
I'd go with the bigger sin being intentionally using it to stir up hatred against a group of people. Remember, the gay marriage bans were a thing before the real push to legalize gay marriage went anywhere. That started by a Republican (Rove) finding that it got people stirred up in a way they liked. Ultimately the plan kinda backfired as I think the increased discussion directly led to the gains now experienced, but it is still a shitty thing to do.
Ahh, yes, the wonderful ethnic rainbows that are Rhode island and new Hampshire. Why, there's irish, cornish, english, and scottish all living there together in harmony with Scandinavians AND germans, all enjoying the post racial world together in such a way as to serve as an excellent debate prop for a post racial world.
I host a podcast about movies.
Go look up his Daily Show interview.
Post racial 1890.
No one is talking about the parties of dickety six.
They are talking about the parties of today.
And one is blatantly run by a bunch of fringe crazies.
And let's not forget that the Southern Strategy was a real thing as well.
So somebody was in fact talking about history, and you can see it in the quotes inside the post just above this one you commented on.
I don't understand how this happens in threads sometimes!
Floyd Corkins gets 25 years for shooting a security guard while committing an act of terrorism. He went to the offices of the Family Research Council with a gun and a box of ammunition but was stopped by an unarmed security guard who disarmed Corkins, despite Corkins firing three times and hitting him in the arm. The WaPo article discusses his possible mental illness in more detail. He was angry about opposition to gay marriage and planned to smash the 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he brought along into the dead faces of the people he shot, just to drive the gay-marriage point home.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_shooting#Political
I can do this all day.
You will have to try again though, because the Giffords shooting is off the mark if you're looking for political violence that points at the right wing and Loughner was literally all over the map in his politics.
Edit: I think maybe you expect me to try and claim that the rightwing fringe isn't dangerous or that I'm in a dick measuring contest here where I try to prove that leftwing fringe elements are more deadly or worse or something. That isn't my intention dropping into the thread and if that's what we're doing here I'll be on my way. There is a common attitude that the leftwing fringe is so utterly useless and so completely non-impactful that it might as well never be mentioned. I'll argue that this is not the case.
Yes that is my conclusion. Why should I need more than one example?!
Generally such a thing is claimed in regard to concrete political and societal effects. A crazed gunman isn't proof on either side for anything other than there being legit crazies. They don't really affect anything much other than the lives of those they attack. (Well they do bring up the notion of gun-rights/mental health each time but that is generally not an issue connected to their reason for attacking.)
Do you know of any fringe left wing organization that has the kind of effect the right wing fringe has?
Sometimes it's the reactions to said crazies that are more telling.
Like the NRA's pleading for more guns in schools after Newtown told just how fucking insane the gun fringe is.