Word of clarification I generally make assumptions based on what I have already said, especially at RadicalCentrism.org, many times in the past. This also applies to friends with whom I correspond. I mean, I think that my political preferences are reasonably clear after more than 12 years online, even, in cases concerning people with whom I have exchanged e-mails, "only" for a few years. I am a Radical Centrist through and through; I do not assume much of anything that you may hear on TV news or radio opinion shows -or read on blogs or in the press. That is NOT my world; I detest that world and mostly have nothing but contempt for it. The same goes for most public political discourse, viz, campaign speeches, candidate screeds, PR by GOP or Democratic Party spokesmen, and the like. None of that is my frame of reference unless something is made explicit in what I write. I think the most confusion arises when I use the word "Left" or Leftist or Left-winger, or something similar. In almost all cases, certainly in excess of 95%, this refers to what is sometimes called the "New Left." Or -to distinguish it from the New Left of the 1965-1975 era- the New-New Left. Leftists these days -the kind of Leftists in my lexicon- often call themselves "progressives." Some call themselves "liberals" -and often their critics call them "liberals" in a derogatory sense. Right-wingers call these people "socialists." My reference is essentially to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party and even moreso to the Obama wing. That is, speaking of demographics, this refers to feminist-influenced single women, 90% of the black population, college students (vast majorities who are not in business school or anything technical), most upper class "gentry Democrats," Democratic Party loyalists in the movie biz or other entertainment, most Atheists, Marcuse-inspired 'social justice' people who affiliate with the Democratic Party, probably most trial lawyers, for sure the great majority of environmentalists, people who belong to public sector unions, and so forth. It also includes the majority (but not all) of journalists. This excludes, say, working class Democrats in Pennsylvania, farmers who vote Democratic in Iowa, coal miners in Kentucky who vote for the Democrats based on economic considerations, middle class ethnic people in Chicago, and the like. This is to say "pocketbook Democrats." In fact I have a great deal of sympathy for these people inasmuch as in my opinion the GOP is the party of the rich and always has been. However, the other Democrats make me sick. Please note that I never use the word "Socialist" in a derogatory manner, not do I accept the Marxist view that socialism is some sort of precursor to communism and, in any case -so say Marxists- the word socialism generally denotes Marxist politics. Like hell it does; I flat out reject any such usage. Moreover, I have no use at all for the way that Leftists use either the word progressive or the word liberal. As I see things, contemporary use of the term progressive by the Left is a gross insult to Teddy Roosevelt who is one of my greatest heroes, and their use of the word liberal is an insult to John Stuart Mill, FDR, and JFK. To restrict comments to an American context for the moment, today's so called "liberals" or "progressives" use these words in a totally unacceptable way. I intend to recapture these words for use by Radical Centrists -in their original sense. Furthermore, to think of JFK or FDR (or Harry Truman, for that matter) is to think of people who had values almost exactly the opposite of today's Democratic Party, viz "Leftists." William Clinton was bad enough but Barack Hussein Obama has been even worse in repudiating the Democratic Party of the New Deal / New Frontier era. Let me make this as clear as possible: Anyone who is an ideological Democrat in today's terms believes in ideas that would have been totally against anything JFK or FDR believed in. By and large I remain sympathetic to JFK and FDR. At the 80% level I utterly detest today's Democratic Party. Today's Democratic Party is the Evil Party. At the 80% level I regard today's Republican Party as the Stupid Party. Its leaders really are stupid -sometimes stupid beyond belief.
There may be difficulty with respect to Bernie Sanders. He is someone who can well be thought of as semi-Old Left. He was a member of YPSL at the same time that I was a member, and in the same city, Chicago. It is possible that I met Bernie back then. He belonged to the U of C chapter and I belonged to the Wright College chapter but there were a few times YPSLs from Wright went to U of C for special events and maybe our paths crossed. I have no specific memory to that effect but I did attend, for example, a screening of Alexander Nevsky. In those years YPSL was still under the spell of Norman Thomas and Eric Fromm. We were Democratic Socialists, aka, think Sweden or the British Labour Party, etc. My best guess, to judge from the times I have heard him speak in the Senate via C-Span, is that Bernie has a good deal of those kinds of values -even if he has added a lot of Marcuse style ideas to the mix, which is to say social values that I abhor. Which is to add that the force of my criticism was NOT directed at Sanders but at Hillary and the Obama wing of the Democratic Party. In any case, as I see it, with my YPSL values as a yardstick, plus what I studied at Roosevelt university as a graduate history major, Socialism primarily refers to: Saint-Simon and the New Christianity, itself based on what may be called "moral socialism." Saint-Simon, of course, invented the concept and that ought to count for something. In today's terms this kind of system combines elements of "labor socialism" with the best of capitalism -hence the interest of the Rothschilds in Saint-Simonianism. As everyone who knows me knows very well, I self identify as a Saint-Simonian. >From my perspective Marx was a heretic, a corrupter of Socialism, although he, in turn, was corrupted by Lenin and worse by Stalin and Mao. I also think favorably of various forms of Christian Socialism, including the original Social Gospel. Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
