[CTRL] Right-Left Coalition to Oppose War?
-Caveat Lector- The following appeared in the December 1995 issue of OUT OF STEP, my monthly newsletter, under the headline "Calling for a Left-Right Anti-War Coalition": "So Clinton is getting his damned shooting war - er, his 'peacekeeping intervention.' American troops are being launched into what has already been the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. After his November 27 television address, the president quickly fled the country while the nation's money powers, intelligentsia, and media fell into line behind his plan. "The New York Times called Clinton's plan 'limited, achievable and in accordance with American national interests.' The Miami Herald agreed with the president that 'only America has the armed might and geopolitical suasion to make this peace agreement work.' And the Los Angeles Times chimed in by calling Clinton's arguments for intervention "compelling." It continued: 'The United States has no choice. Clinton said the U.S. troops should be out in a year; that sounds optimistic. Congress must question that target date. But the president's cause is right.' "In a bizarre analysis, Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to President George Bush, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that to not send 20,000 troops to Bosnia would be a 'catastrophe for U.S. reliability.' He then added that if troops are deployed, 'the possibility for significant reverses, if not disaster, is fairly high.' Sounds like a no-win situation, doesn't it? Henry Kissinger, never far from any significant moves toward a New World Order, weighed in with some uninspired comment: 'I do not believe we have a vital national security interest in Bosnia. But the president has committed us and I don't believe that Congress will disavow the president at this stage. That would be harmful to the United States.' "Then, of course, the Republican Party leadership caved in to Clinton's desires 'reluctantly.' "But not so the American people. They don't seem to really have the stomach for another Iraq, or Somalia, or Haiti, or any U.S. military presence on foreign soil. Curiously, Clinton's TV talk was not followed immediately by the usual polling results. Instead, it took a day or two for any solid polling numbers to come in as Clinton's journalistic lapdogs scrambled to gather 'good news' for their man in the White House. And even then, the president's planned I-FOR - 'peace implementation force' - garnered a lackluster 46-percent support. This number will likely rise as the troops actually arrive in Bosnia accompanied by the expected patriotic pomp, then nosedive after the first few American deaths are revealed and the body bags start arriving home. "The most stirring speech given at last month's annual meeting of the paleo-right John Randolph Club in Northern California erupted from Justin Raimondo, libertarian political activist and author of Reclaiming the American Right, a well-written history of the Old Right of Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and Garet Garrett. Raimondo called for the building of a new America First Committee, following closely the anti-war and anti-imperialist model of more than 50 years ago. Declaring that the anti-war movement is now located on the Right, Raimondo concluded, 'We must act and organize now to stop the War Machine of the Power Elite!' "Raimondo's correct. The time to act and organize is now. And I think his call for a new America First movement is well-intentioned. But his right-wing vision may be too small. Take a look at the articles on intervention in Bosnia that appear on page two of this issue - one from the Far Left, the other the Far Right. We have now a rare opportunity to forge a solid coalition of New Left and Hard Right - anti-imperialist, anti-war, anti-interventionist, anti-conspiracy, anti-statist, and strongly anti-power elite - to fight the American Warfare State, now led by Bill Clinton but led earlier by every president since Woodrow Wilson. "The idea of such a coalition isn't new. The late founders of modern libertarianism, Murray Rothbard and Karl Hess, tried to build such a Left-Right Opposition back in the late '60s. Well, it's time to try again - particularly while the real Left is demoralized by liberal-centrists of the Clinton school and the hardcore libertarian Right is compromised and sold-out by political hacks of both the Republican and Libertarian Parties. "Earlier this year, my friend Samuel Edward Konkin III, of the Movement of the Libertarian Left, reintroduced the idea of a radical Left-Right partnership. He wrote in a pamphlet titled 'What's Left?': 'While we can and should discuss and debate the merits and demerits of a Left/Libertarian coalition, ultimately, someone will have to, as libertarians say, take the risk and make the investment.' "The time is now to take the risk and make the investment. "It's never been truer than it is today, friends: we have nothing to lose but our chains." The following appeared in the
Re: [CTRL] Right-Left Coalition to Oppose War?
-Caveat Lector- "One night, probably in 1880, John Swinton, then the preeminent New York journalist, was the guest of honour at a banquet given him by the leaders of his craft. Someone who knew neither the press nor Swinton offered a toast to the independent press. Swinton outraged his colleagues by replying: "There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. "The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." (Source: Labor's Untold Story, by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais, published by United Electrical, Radio Machine Workers of America, NY, 1955/1979.) Lloyd Miller wrote: -Caveat Lector- The following appeared in the December 1995 issue of OUT OF STEP, my monthly newsletter, under the headline "Calling for a Left-Right Anti-War Coalition": "So Clinton is getting his damned shooting war - er, his 'peacekeeping intervention.' American troops are being launched into what has already been the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. After his November 27 television address, the president quickly fled the country while the nation's money powers, intelligentsia, and media fell into line behind his plan. "The New York Times called Clinton's plan 'limited, achievable and in accordance with American national interests.' The Miami Herald agreed with the president that 'only America has the armed might and geopolitical suasion to make this peace agreement work.' And the Los Angeles Times chimed in by calling Clinton's arguments for intervention "compelling." It continued: 'The United States has no choice. Clinton said the U.S. troops should be out in a year; that sounds optimistic. Congress must question that target date. But the president's cause is right.' "In a bizarre analysis, Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to President George Bush, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that to not send 20,000 troops to Bosnia would be a 'catastrophe for U.S. reliability.' He then added that if troops are deployed, 'the possibility for significant reverses, if not disaster, is fairly high.' Sounds like a no-win situation, doesn't it? Henry Kissinger, never far from any significant moves toward a New World Order, weighed in with some uninspired comment: 'I do not believe we have a vital national security interest in Bosnia. But the president has committed us and I don't believe that Congress will disavow the president at this stage. That would be harmful to the United States.' "Then, of course, the Republican Party leadership caved in to Clinton's desires 'reluctantly.' "But not so the American people. They don't seem to really have the stomach for another Iraq, or Somalia, or Haiti, or any U.S. military presence on foreign soil. Curiously, Clinton's TV talk was not followed immediately by the usual polling results. Instead, it took a day or two for any solid polling numbers to come in as Clinton's journalistic lapdogs scrambled to gather 'good news' for their man in the White House. And even then, the president's planned I-FOR - 'peace implementation force' - garnered a lackluster 46-percent support. This number will likely rise as the troops actually arrive in Bosnia accompanied by the expected patriotic pomp, then nosedive after the first few American deaths are revealed and the body bags start arriving home. "The most stirring speech given at last month's annual meeting of the paleo-right John Randolph Club in Northern California erupted from Justin Raimondo, libertarian political activist and author of Reclaiming the American Right, a well-written history of the Old Right of Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and Garet Garrett. Raimondo called for the building of a new America First Committee, following closely the anti-war and anti-imperialist model of more than 50 years ago. Declaring that the anti-war movement is now located on the Right, Raimondo concluded, 'We must act and
