"How I Became a Red Neck Liberal"

[MissMarple]

No, not me...I'm not a redneck. I don't think this guy is either, but he makes excellent points and mentions Henry M. Jackson. Fromma Harrop did a column on Jackson also that is in todays' Post. I understand that a lot of DUers may not approve of Jackson because of his hawkish views and association with today's neocons. But I don't think he would support what those idiots are doing in Iraq. He opposed Reagan's involvement in sending troops to Lebanon, for the obvious reasons.

Anyhoo...We need dems like this. If you feel the need to outright reject what he says because you don't like some of his opinions on war and defense....well...he probably doesn't agree with you either on those particular points. But you may appreciate his comment re Paris Hilton and his reference to math challenged Republicans.

Eric Schuck is an assistant professor of agriculture and resource economics at Colorado State University

http://www.denverpost.com/voices/ci_3249734

"I'm a redneck liberal. I have a profound belief in social justice, union wages, the benefits of publicly funded education, the nobility of civil service, conservation of natural resources and a whole host of things typically associated with classical, early-20th century progressive politics. But there's one thing that I've kept from that early-20th century idealism that most of the folks in Boulder did not: I perfectly willing to turn some tin-pot despot's country into a parking lot before breakfast if I think the rodent poses a threat to my kids' future.
....

So while I firmly believe in the legacy of the Square Deal, Fair Deal, and New Deal, I think there is nothing in that precluding an, ahem, "assertive" position on national defense. Needless to say, this position tends to freak out a lot of my college professor friends.

Yet while I'm probably not going to get invited to any MoveOn.org luncheons, I'm still not quite ready to pack up, move to Colorado Springs and start "focusing on my family."

By profession, temperament and training, I'm an economist. I really do believe all of that stuff about invisible hands being the best way to produce and distribute goods and services, and that the profit motive is a fantastic engine of social welfare.

But one of the side-effects of my training is that I also know what market economics can't do. For example, when power, wealth and privilege mean that some folks start their lives with doors open that the rest of us have no chance of seeing, let alone opening, the system isn't going to work too well. So until all of those red-state folks start grasping the idea that economic policy based on making Paris Hilton richer by putting the rest of us in hock to the People's Republic of China tends to make that fundamental problem worse, I'm not climbing on board."

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I agree with him on national defense

but the thing is, I don't see Iraq as national defense. Remotely. I wonder how he weighs in on that?

[MissMarple]

4. I don't know.

If I had to guess, he might believe if it was necessary, do it. Go in, but do it well, not on the cheap, and not for oil profits or religious validation. And then ... get out.

Sometimes I think all this either/or framework that shapes our dialog about this war is beside the point. We're in...and how we act now is important. The means really does directly impact the quality of the outcome. Weather we are for or against the initial decision to invade Iraq (and he probably supported going in to Afghanistan) we must move forward in the best possible way.

I guess my point is that I don't dismiss prowar dems just for that fact alone. They have things to say we need to hear. And they are very close philosophically to moderate Republicans.

[Island Blue]

2. So he wants to turn the US into a parking lot?

"I am perfectly willing to turn some tin-pot despot's country into a parking lot before breakfast if I think the rodent poses a threat to my kid's future."

I know oodles of rednecks, but not a single liberal one. Glad to know such a creature exists!

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. The ***** conveniently forgot that that tin-pot dictator was

imposed on the innocent Iraqi people by rednecks like him and his hawk pals.

The fact is that he is as much to blame for the current state of your country as any honest-to-Lucifer neocon, because people who don't think the inhabitants of other countries deserve the just entitelment of being left in peace to run their own country as they see fit, don't deserve justice and peace at home, no matter how proudly they tout their union support, environmental concerns, all their exclusively domestic, progressive credentials.

Justice is a seamless one-piece garment; a job lot. That article is neocon spin, to get support to counter the storm of criticism they are getting over Iraq. Iraq had not been a threat even to US interests for some time. His own boastful, redneck demagoguery is more of a threat to his kids' future than any foreign tin-pot dictator.

[melody]

7. I know oodles of rednecks and only one is a Republican

Well, there is my uncle, but no one is perfect.

I'm a redneck - redneck is an ethnic group - it means southern Scots-Irish. I was born and raised in the southland (California, that is), but I'm still a redneck.

Most of the rednecks I know are liberals.

[MissMarple]

8. I do. We have a lot of red neck DUers.

We also have a variety of unconventional folks here who are progressives. And many of them like to shoot guns and go to war and police our communities.

Not all progressives are sophisticated and ideologically oriented. We need to communicate with them, not put them off. This administration is making a joke of national security and they seem to be doing the same "heck of a job" that Brownie did with Katrina. This is an point that Democrats need to hit hard and provide some answers for.

And this professor is well educated, he just understands where a lot of Americans are coming from. National security and the security of our communities mean a lot to them. And to us, as well. :)

[Joe Chi Minh]

13. That article contains precisely the kind of straw man

and the kind of phrase, supposedly punchy, but reeking of boastful, master-race, redneck bluster that a poster described last week on this board as the typical m.o. of the neocon spinmeisters. The smell of nayparm in the morning...

The author postulates, apparently quite arbitrarily and gratuitously, a scenario in which the future of his children might be threatened by the dictator of a "tin-pot" country. (Nice one! He'll get top marks for that little gem among the clueless saps he seeks to dupe). What on earth has that got to do with Eyeraq! In this context, an utterly deceitful and scurrilous attempt to demonise the Iraqis, who had a homicidal maniac imposed on them by the US, just like so many countries in South america. And now he's trying to use it to excuse bombing Iraq into the stone-age, his words evidently intended to give his red-neck pals an orgasm. You won't reach those people MissMarple without falling to their level, which our friend is seeking to do - although hardly to make a Democrat of him.

Parenthetically, we all know the meaning that most people understand attach to the term "redneck", and it has nothing to do with racial provenance and, in reality, little to do with geographic provenance. It is the mindset of people without the merest hint of worldly intelligence, but unlike most people in that category, equally bereft of the remotest glimmer of spiritual intelligence - which would ordinarily more than make up for the former.

[pelsar]

3. realistic politics.....

thats what its all about...not some "pie in the sky" idealism based on holding hands and singing "kumbaya".

feed the poor, provide social nets for those who have fallen, protect ones civil rights, seperate state from religion...and dont apologise for removing the ruling parties of countries that threaten and or support attacks on western democracy...and most important, understand that dictatorships, theocracies, have no right to rule those counties...they have stolen the country from its rightful citizens...and hence do not have the same set of rights that western democracies do....and should be treated as such.

we're whats called the "right wing liberal".....and if you check your definition of "liberalism' you will find that liberals may defend their way of life using "illiberal methods...which translates into removing such despicable govts as the taliban......

[MissMarple]

5. I don't believe war is inherently "illiberal" or even unprogressive.

And I don't believe we have a right to invade other countries just because they are dictatorships and theocracies and don't "have the same set of rights that western democracies do".

His point is that it's OK to defend our country from its enemies, not that we are the democracy/secular police having international oversight. Protecting national security is a legitimate function of government, providing for the democratization by force around the world is not. It is even counter productive.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Doesn't pretty much everyone in our party

believe in the right to defend our country from its enemies, other than a tiny minority of pacifists? This kind of seems like it's reinforcing the Republican's caricature of our party, since our party has always stood for legitimate self defense and national security.

On the other hand, if it really is about invading other countries willy nilly, on the vague suspicion that they may be a threat, then I have to part company with him. It's sort of like saying, "I don't like how my neighbor looked at me, and I think he may want to hurt me. Therefore I think I'll go blow his brains out." If we're going to behave in a lawless manner like that, then we'll have to expect to live in a lawless world with few friends. Under those circumstances, there really will be a threat to his kid's future.

[Hope springs eternal]

11. Of course...

How can we realistically take out Iran, but have "Focus on the Family" here at home? Plus, there's Africa and Asia to think about too. If freedom comes to the Middle East, then it would be wrong to turn our back to Africa, Latin America, or Asia.

Nice goal, but isn't totally realistic.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. We shouldn't get caught up in nonsense about bringing

freedom and democracy to Iraq by toppling Saddam Hussein, and thereby also taking way any weapons of mass destruction, etc., because we know that these were excuses for a campaign of imperial conquest to obtain hegemony in the Middle East, which they had been planning for years; including, of course, control of its oil and even an experiment in far-right economic policy in Iraq, as Naomi Klein reported.

Does anyone really think the neocons care about women having to wear burkahs? As for WMD, why they bought gas from that little sh*t to gas the Kurds. Does anyone doubt that he was on Government business, at the same time? It had been established before the start of this war that SH's capability for any kind of WMD attack was by then non-existent. My advice to our author friend is stick to your farming; and to MissMarple, why do you think worldly intelligence means anything but idiocy and bad news, when it is at the mercy of a black heart?

[BeFree]

9. Nope, Ain't buying it.

"I (sic) perfectly willing to turn some tin-pot despot's country into a parking lot before breakfast if I think the rodent poses a threat to my kids' future."

Using that logic, I have the right to destroy anyone I deem a threat.

That ain't right. Besides, he seems totally ignorant about the threat his children face from a multitude of environmental problems, debt problems, and the Nuclear problems. Or, he's just running his mouth. Stay away!

[Redneck Socialist]

12. Whatever...

While I'm glad this guy is "too good at math to be a Republican" his jingoistic willingness "to turn some tin-pot despot's country into a parking lot before breakfast..."leaves me cold, and frankly, as another self proclaimed Redneck Liberal (Socialist) anyone who goes panting after John McCain is certainly no liberal IMO. :eyes:

[xchrom]

15. what tin pot dictator can realistically be a threat

to the biggest, baddest country on earth?

in our current relationship -- we supported saddam until it no longer suited us.

how many tin horn's like saddam fit this exact scenario?

[MissMarple]

16. He does make a point to learn from.

He didn't sound so totally around the bend. I think an important point to take away from this article is that Democrats have let themselves be painted into a corner about national security. That wasn't always the case. In the 50's the Republicans were isolationists, and many Dems wanted more spent on the military, not the other way around as is the popular misconception today.

We do need to separate having a strong defense from the current messianic imperialism that is George&Co's current policy. We need to make the differences crystal clear.

[xchrom]

17. ok -- i'm unwilling to allow the american public to continue

to wallow in paranoid delusion.

truthfully -- with our cia budget and our military budeget -- the dollars we throw at research and develpment -- who is a threat?

you can't answer that question and neither can he.

if democrats are painted into this so called corner you're talking about -- maybe you should start examining the character of your fellow americans.

[MissMarple]

19. They are wallowing in paranoid delusion.

Many Americans are acting like willfully ill informed sheep.

And many of the Democrats who voted for the war appear to be confused how to deal with that. This is from an article on Iraq veterans coming home to run for Congress and the Senate. They seem to know how to roll over the Republican spin.

"Their opponents aren't waiting for them to suit up. The White House says it doesn't matter who the candidate is: the Democrats cannot argue from a position of strength on the war given the depth of antiwar sentiment inside their base. One senior Bush aide, who declined to be named while discussing political strategy, pointed to the Democrats' dilemma when confronted with Rep. John Murtha's calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. "It took Hillary Clinton five days to respond to the Murtha statement," the aide said, suggesting that Clinton was struggling to reconcile her hawkish position on the war with the demands of the party base. "That shows the dynamic of the Democratic Party. They are always pulled to the left, the same thing John Kerry found out during the primary process." "

Here's some more:
As a uniformed officer, Carney defended the road to war even as he began harboring concerns about its execution—the lack of troops on the ground and the absence of planning for a possible insurgency. He decided to run—as a Democrat, his lifelong affiliation—in part to reshape policy on the war, advocating a phased withdrawal with clear targets. "For every trained-up battalion of Iraqi security forces, an American battalion should get to come home," he told NEWSWEEK."

And ...

"While Carney watched the war from Washington, Patrick Murphy decided to get involved in politics shortly after returning from Iraq. A captain in the 82nd Airborne, Murphy was embarrassed by the lack of supplies and support as he helped train Iraqi security forces. If anything, Murphy—now running in Pennsylvania's eighth district northeast of Philadelphia—takes a harder line on the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq than many of his fellow vets. "To win the war on terror," he says, "we need to get the hell out of Iraq." A lifelong Democrat, he happened to vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. "At that time I believed the rhetoric that he was a compassionate conservative and that he wasn't going to start doing nation-building," he said."


Here's the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10219754/site/newsweek

[xchrom]

20. not sure what your point is with this --

my point is simply that dems should rather aggressively point out -- NOBODY can threaten us.

on the block that is planet earth -- we are the biggest and the baddest -- even if we cut the pentagon budget by x number of dollars -- simply put -- ''you can't touch this''.

[MissMarple]

21. I guess I'm a " walk softly and carry a big stick" person.

Since world peace is an ultimate goal but not anywhere near a reality, I think it is best to have an efficient and well prepared military. I believe we will continue to be involved in military conflicts. Eventually we will have to use the big stick.

You are probably correct in that we are the biggest bully on the block, but sometimes the other bullies can be pretty stupid, overestimate their abilities, and find out too late for all of us that victory will not be theirs. I guess that is where we may differ, I believe someone will get cocky, or outraged, or desperate, or greedy, or power hungry.

One problem is with the seemingly inevitable, if we have new weapons, we're going to want to try them out. And right now, we are at the mercy of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about. How ironic is that? Ike wanted to curb the military and Scoop Jackson wanted to grow it.

I used to teach school. If you go in to a classroom unprepared, you're toast. And if you go in with "guns blazing", you're pretty much toast, as well. But some dumb kid will push the boundaries, whatever you do.

I just think we need to acknowledge the need for an efficient, well trained military, with an emphasis on training, and redefine the conditions necessary before we go to war. And, yes educate the American public, maybe it will stick for a while. At least long enough for them to understand how the rest of world works and for the disparities in living conditions between countries that fuels much of the violence to even out. The Democrats need to stand up for that.

Oh, and world peace, I'd really like world peace.

[liberalitch]

18. Just because I'm a pacifist doesn't mean that I expect it of...

everyone.

The obvious things are:
Separation of church and state
reproductive rights
the environment
helping make american society more equitable

[MissMarple]

22. I think some people are born pacifists. And that's a good thing.

I'm just not one of them. But they have a lot to teach us, and some of us are willing to learn... while we sharpen our big sticks...just in case. ;)

All of us here have so much we agree on like the things you mention that the military issue shouldn't trump them at all.

I do believe directing and shaping the growth of the military is an important thing for Democrats to champion. This is not a task for aggressive bullies, but for the more peaceful among us. War may be diplomacy continued at another level, or a result of a failed diplomacy. So, we need our diplomats perhaps more than we need our warriors.

[eridani]

23. "Assertive" is the exact opposite of "defense"

What he means by that is the right to kick the shit out of smaller countries who won't sign their resources over to US corporations and supply a cheerful workforce of $2/day cheap labor.