The Cloward-Piven Conspiracy

[Walter Ego]

Just found this today and there is a lot of nuttiness to explore, but it's just another example that the conservative right has tumbled back to the conspiratorial John Birch Society period of the early 1960s. There doesn't seem to be a 21st century William Buckley around to restore it to any intellectual respectably either.

One of the chief promoters of this lunacy describes it in an article (http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html)in the American Thinker (a respectable conservative publication, I believe, not some internet conspiracy site) summarizes it thusly.

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.


As you might suspect, this crap has its own website (http://cloward-piven.com/).

More from the Nation magazine who published the article by two academics back in the 1960s that set this off.

What is this plot? According to David Horowitz, who apparently coined the expression, Cloward-Piven is "the strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis." Named after sociologists and antipoverty and voting rights activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who first elucidated it in a May 2, 1966, article for The Nation called "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," the Cloward-Piven strategy, in Horowitz's words, "seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse." Like a fun-house-mirror version of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine theory, the Cloward-Piven strategy dictates that the left will exploit that crisis to push through unpopular, socialist policies in a totalitarian manner.

Since Obama's election and the financial crash of 2008, Horowitz's description has been taken up by a clutch of tea party propagandists--from TV and radio hosts Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, National Review editor Stanley Kurtz and The Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi--to explain how both events could have happened, here, in the U-S-A. In their historical narrative, it was Cloward and Piven's article that gave ACORN the idea to start peddling subprime mortgages to poor minorities in the 1980s, knowingly laying the groundwork for a global economic meltdown nearly thirty years later. Beck calls Cloward and Piven the two people who are "fundamentally responsible for the unsustainability and possible collapse of our economic system." It was Cloward and Piven who had the diabolical idea of registering (illegal or nonexistent) poor and minority voters through Project Vote and the Motor Voter Act, thus guaranteeing Obama's "fraudulent" victory. And it is the Cloward-Piven strategy that guides the Obama administration's every move to this day, as it seeks to ram through healthcare reform, economic stimulus and financial regulation (all of which, in reality, have enjoyed majority support in many polls taken during the last two years).

As proof, Beck & Co. point to what they see as a shadowy web of associations: Cloward and Piven worked in alliance with welfare rights organizer George Wiley, who mentored Wade Rathke, who went on to found ACORN, which sometimes coordinated registration drives with Project Vote (whose board of directors Piven just recently joined), a previous incarnation of which employed Obama to run a Chicago chapter in the early '90s. They also repeatedly cite Emanuel's statement, made in November 2008 after the passage of TARP but before the stimulus, that "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." From The Nation's pages to the White House's brains and muscles--it took only forty-four years!

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100412/kim/print

[Peephole]

American Thinker (a respectable conservative publication, I believe, not some internet conspiracy site).
You believe wrong.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/04/ominous_rumblings_of_a_north_a.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/the_case_against_darwin.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/03/no_wmds_really.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html

[Walter Ego]

You believe wrong.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/04/ominous_rumblings_of_a_north_a.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/the_case_against_darwin.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/03/no_wmds_really.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html

Hummm... let's see... A North American Union may be on its way, Global Warming denial, creationism, WMDs did exist, and communism may still be alive.

AT may be more libertarian than conservative but what is there in that list that hasn't been promoted by the right-wing in America?

[Peephole]

Just saying they're not really respectable.

[babycondor]

Bump.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/business/media/22beck.html?src=me&ref=general



[Piven's] name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.

Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.

In response, a liberal nonprofit group, the Center for Constitutional Rights, wrote to the chairman of Fox News, Roger Ailes, on Thursday to ask him to put a stop to Mr. Beck’s “false accusations” about Ms. Piven.

“Mr. Beck is putting Professor Piven in actual physical danger of a violent response,” the group wrote.

[Ziggurat]

Just found this today and there is a lot of nuttiness to explore, but it's just another example that the conservative right has tumbled back to the conspiratorial John Birch Society period of the early 1960s.

It's not a conspiracy, it's all out in the open. The Cloward-Piven strategy was something they wrote about publicly. Now, you can argue about how much their writing actually influenced things, but what they called for is exactly what's being charged: they wanted to bring about revolution by collapsing the system with unmeetable demands.

[varwoche]

You believe wrong.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/04/ominous_rumblings_of_a_north_a.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/global_warming_bring_it_on.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/the_case_against_darwin.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/03/no_wmds_really.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/did_communism_fake_its_own_dea.html Thank you for documenting that mainstream conservatism circa 2011 American Spectator isn't within shouting distance of rationality.

It's not a conspiracy, it's all out in the open. The Cloward-Piven strategy was something they wrote about publicly. Now, you can argue about how much their writing actually influenced things, but what they called for is exactly what's being charged: they wanted to bring about revolution by collapsing the system with unmeetable demands. OK, if we accept an extremely liberal interpretation of the word revolution. Realize, Beck et al are foisting the asinine notion that she advocated violent overthrow.


An interesting aspect here is how Beck plucked her from the obscure dustbin of decades past, and holds her up as a big league boogie-person, and the subsequent harassment she has endured including death threats.

[YoPopa]

... Realize, Beck et al are foisting the asinine notion that she advocated violent overthrow....

Not my understanding at all. You have evidence of the accusation of "violent overthrow"?

I've only seen that she was promoting the overthrow. It's hard to imagine how that could happen without some violence occurring as well but ANY overthrow of our Government would mean a destruction of the Constitution. Sounds pretty anti Constitution to me.

Most important to this discussion. Has she renounced these ideas that she promoted in her early years?

[Tsukasa Buddha]

But she wasn't advocating a revolution or overthrow, so there is nothing really to renounce. The plan was to get everyone who was eligible on the rolls. This would be too much for the States and would require the Federal government to step in and (hopefully) provide a national minimum income standard.

Well, the idea of our original strategy went something like this. There existed within the welfare system some legal rights that people had which were not being honored by the welfare bureaucracy – they were being denied. And in fact, at that time in New York City the welfare department was giving people bus tickets to go back to the rural South. So we said “what if advocates and organizers help people to demand those benefits at a time when the cities are in a certain amount of turmoil?” Then we said, let’s look at the way in which demands on the welfare system would play themselves out in mediating institutional spheres. So supposing people demanded welfare, and that there were a lot of them. Then the welfare department would have to start writing checks, which it did, by the way, all over the country. Well, that would be a problem for urban administrations because there was a lot of conflict in the cities. A lot of white, ethnic, middle-class groups wouldn’t like it if the welfare rolls rose, because city taxes would have to be used to pay for it and they would oppose any increase in taxes. So there would be political troubles, financial troubles. What would a Democratic administration do about that? A Democratic administration that had become by the late 1960s become excruciatingly dependent on its urban base because they were losing the vote in the South? We thought they would do something about it – that they might federalize the program to reduce the fiscal pressure on the cities and reduce the political pressure on the cities. And in fact it was Richard Nixon who proposed a kind of guaranteed income. Then in 1972 the federal welfare programs that reached the blind, the aged and the disabled were in fact federalized. Supplemental Security Income, the program that replaced those welfare programs, was better. It was a modest effort to analyze the impact of a protest movement. Protest doesn’t just mean that you go and yell at the mayor or the boss and you say “give me more!” You have to figure out what people can do and how what they do collectively can build up to create institutional pressures that will perhaps lead to reform. And that’s what we tried to do with that article.

Linky. (http://theactivist.org/blog/challenging-authority-an-interview-with-frances-fox-piven)

[babycondor]

...

I've only seen that she was promoting the overthrow. It's hard to imagine how that could happen without some violence occurring as well but ANY overthrow of our Government would mean a destruction of the Constitution. Sounds pretty anti Constitution to me.

Most important to this discussion. Has she renounced these ideas that she promoted in her early years?

It seems to me there is a huge difference between the Cloward-Piven strategy of forcing welfare reform (employing Consitutionally-guaranteed rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly) and promoting the overthrow of the government or the "destruction of the Constitution."

[varwoche]

Not my understanding at all. You have evidence of the accusation of "violent overthrow"?

Here you go:
Frances Fox Piven calls for Violent Revolution in U.S. link (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/frances-fox-piven-rings-in-the-new-year-by-calling-for-violent-revolution/)

[YoPopa]

But she wasn't advocating a revolution or overthrow, so there is nothing really to renounce. The plan was to get everyone who was eligible on the rolls. This would be too much for the States and would require the Federal government to step in and (hopefully) provide a national minimum income standard....

In the words of the Cloward-Piven friendly Commondreams.org: linky (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4)The theory here, to force change through chaos, was among the most provocative of the 1960s.."

Even the lefties at Commondreams recognize that the strategy was to promote chaos.

And from the text of the article printed in The Nation May 2, 1966 link (http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty?comment_sort=ASC)


precipitate a profound financial and political crisis.


In Piven's own words we have it that the chaos would precipitate political crisis promoted by militants.

The goal of this crisis? To force the implementation of redistributionist anti-capitalist society.

Has Piven renounced the call for chaos because she never called for chaos or because she still believes that violent protests are necessary? These are her words in The Nation January 10/17, 2011 Link (http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless)
An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.

Only a fool would think that the strikes and riots in Greece were anything other than violent.

[ANTPogo]

Only a fool would think that the strikes and riots in Greece were anything other than violent.

The protests in Greece and in England weren't anything like "chaos [that] would precipitate political crisis". And they're definitely not anything like "violent revolution or overthrow" of the government!

[GreyArea]

It's not a conspiracy, it's all out in the open. The Cloward-Piven strategy was something they wrote about publicly. Now, you can argue about how much their writing actually influenced things, but what they called for is exactly what's being charged: they wanted to bring about revolution by collapsing the system with unmeetable demands.

Of course it's a conspiracy theory. Beck is mischaracterizing the original 1966 Nation article as "a radical Marxist idea" "to overthrow the Constitution" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575565,00.html). Nevermind that the article (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/03/24-4) says nothing about revolution, and even describes why riots are counter-productive. Unless what was "written about publicly" excluded the "secret" parts of the plan, right? The parts that only Beck and company are smart enough to find out.

But the conspiracy theory doesn't stop with 1966. Beck claims this is "a long-term strategy" "to melt the system down and have it collapse into a new system" (http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007214&docId=l:1146993616&start=2), still underway. He has broadcast a video interview with Stanley Kurtz (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/transcript/meet-radicals-warning-signs-revolution?page=2), who says that in the 80's Barack Obama's life was changed by attending socialist conferences. There, Obama heard about socialist strategies like Cloward and Piven's plan, and Piven spoke at these meetings. Today, Obama is aiming to foment a financial crisis that will increase taxation and enlarge the welfare state (after he can no longer be held accountable for the disaster, of course). Or something.

Beck himself has suggested of Congressional Democrats, "Maybe they all believe in Cloward and Piven and they're intentionally trying to collapse the dollar (http://mediamatters.org/research/201101230012). Oops, did I say that out loud?" The current recession, and then a collapse of the dollar, are just steps on the way to One World Government (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575565,00.html).

How much more conspiracist can you get?

-----------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Frances Fox Piven was interviewed on Democracy Now! a couple of weeks ago.

"Why is Glenn Beck Obsessively Targeting Frances Fox Piven?"
January 14, 2011
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/14/why_is_glenn_beck_obsessively_targeting

I think that all of my work has been devoted to remedying the flaws, the distortions in American democracy. If you go back to the first project that I worked on politically, which is what the—it’s where the article comes from about the—which they call a conspiracy to crash America. That article didn’t call for crashing anything, except the existing welfare system. It proposed that people on the left help poor people in the cities get their full benefits from welfare. Now, at the time, welfare was denying benefits to over half of the people that were eligible. It’s doing that again now. But the article helped inspire—it helped inspire an effort by poor people, many of them people of color, in the cities to get the benefits that they were entitled to from welfare. Now, you can disagree with that effort, but it’s not crashing the system.

Democracy rests on inclusive participation and inclusive voting by an entire population. And so, it’s so strange, really, that efforts of this kind can be characterized as violent and bloody revolution.


Most important to this discussion. Has she renounced these ideas that she promoted in her early years?

Why would anyone renounce the idea that citizens in a democracy should organize to make sure that their elected government is fulfilling its legally-enacted obligations?

[varwoche]

These are her words in The Nation January 10/17, 2011 Link (http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless)

Only a fool would think that the strikes and riots in Greece were anything other than violent. I hadn't seen this. And I'm sorry to say, you're right. Advocating riots is advocating violence. The examples barely matter.

[Ziggurat]

Of course it's a conspiracy theory.

You misunderstand me. The Cloward-Piven strategy isn't a conspiracy. That was my claim. Whether or not someone invents a conspiracy theory around it is a different matter.

Beck is mischaracterizing the original 1966 Nation article as "a radical Marxist idea" "to overthrow the Constitution" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575565,00.html).

Well, he's right about the "radical Marxist idea", even if he's wrong about overthrowing the constitution.

But the conspiracy theory doesn't stop with 1966. Beck claims this is "a long-term strategy" "to melt the system down and have it collapse into a new system" (http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007214&docId=l:1146993616&start=2), still underway.

Well, yes. Of course it's still underway. And the purpose was always to collapse the current system. Again, this is public, no conspiracy. If Beck has added some ideas of a conspiracy on top of that (and I haven't paid enough attention to know what exactly he's been saying), that may well be wrong. But this bit? Oh yeah, it's true. And it's not a conspiracy.

He has broadcast a video interview with Stanley Kurtz (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/transcript/meet-radicals-warning-signs-revolution?page=2), who says that in the 80's Barack Obama's life was changed by attending socialist conferences. There, Obama heard about socialist strategies like Cloward and Piven's plan, and Piven spoke at these meetings.

And is that true? If so, that wouldn't make it a conspiracy, since that stuff is pretty public.

Today, Obama is aiming to foment a financial crisis that will increase taxation and enlarge the welfare state (after he can no longer be held accountable for the disaster, of course). Or something.

That would be a conspiracy. But then we're no longer simply talking about the Cloward-Piven strategy, and my previous post was about the strategy, not about Beck.

Why would anyone renounce the idea that citizens in a democracy should organize to make sure that their elected government is fulfilling its legally-enacted obligations?

Why would anyone renounce the idea that rioting is a legitimate method to achieve one's political goals within a democracy?

I just can't figure it out. I guess I'm not as smart as Frances "I don't have any data on this" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwMMmhstQs#t=1m26s) Piven.

[GreyArea]

Most important to this discussion. Has she renounced these ideas that she promoted in her early years?

Why would anyone renounce the idea that rioting is a legitimate method to achieve one's political goals within a democracy?


From "her early years":
Spontaneous disruptions, such as riots, rarely produce leaders who articulate demands; thus so [or is that "no"?] terms are imposed, and political leaders are permitted to respond in ways that merely restore a semblance of stability without offending other groups in a coalition.

When, however, a crisis is defined by its participants--or by other activated groups--as a matter of clear issues and preferred solutions, terms are imposed on the politicians' bid for their support.

[Ziggurat]

From "her early years":

I see no condemnation of violence or rioting within that quote. It implies that rioting might not be effective, but neither states nor implies that there's anything otherwise wrong with it. And from this year (http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless), a statement which does advocate rioting:
An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.

[GreyArea]

It implies that rioting might not be effective...
The piece does more than imply that. It is clear about it.

...but neither states nor implies that there's anything otherwise wrong with it.
Having rejected rioting, perhaps they didn't think there was any need to comment further. You seem to think there was such a need. I can't help you there.

[YoPopa]

From "her early years":

You are using a quote from her early years to show that recent comments lamenting the lack of Greece style riots are somehow innocuous? :boggled:

Sorry, that ain't how it works. Her recent comments might be interpreted as a refutation of what she said in the 60s but not the other way around.

Find something she's said lately that refutes her 60s era goal of bringing down capitalism and replacing it with the looney Socialist idea of minimum income level for everyone.

[GreyArea]

Most important to this discussion. Has she renounced these ideas that she promoted in her early years?
Renounced which ideas...?

Has Piven renounced the call for chaos because she never called for chaos or because she still believes that violent protests are necessary?
Oh, you mean renounced ideas such as the promotion of violent protest? Well, as you suggest, she and Cloward weren't calling for chaos or violence in the article under examination. This means that the "still believes" part starts to sound like you are asking if she has stopped beating her wife.

You are using a quote from her early years to show that recent comments lamenting the lack of Greece style riots are somehow innocuous?
No, I am using her quote from her early years to show that her comments then were not in favor of riots. That is how I interpreted your interpretation of the 1966 article. I don't think I've said anything about her comments about Europe today.

Find something she's said lately that refutes her 60s era goal of bringing down capitalism and replacing it with the looney Socialist idea of minimum income level for everyone.
Do you consider advocacy of a basic income to be misguided, or impractical, or not in your interests? If so, aren't these good enough reasons to argue against the idea? Or do you honestly think that such advocacy is a symptom of a mental illness?

[gnome]

It almost reminds me of the "fill the jails" strategy from the civil rights movement.

[YoPopa]

Renounced which ideas...?

The anti Capitalist, pro Marxist ones are the ones are the ones I find most repugnant.


........
No, I am using her quote from her early years to show that her comments then were not in favor of riots. That is how I interpreted your interpretation of the 1966 article. I don't think I've said anything about her comments about Europe today.

You don't know about her comments about Europe today? Or you are ignoring them because they don't fit with your defense of her?

Do you consider advocacy of a basic income to be misguided, or impractical, or not in your interests?

Misguided is a woefully inadequate word. Something happened in 1996 that kind of changed most Americans' thinking on the wisdom of guaranteeing welfare recipients an annual income. Can you think of what that was? Hint: Newt proposed it and Clinton signed it.

..... Or do you honestly think that such advocacy is a symptom of a mental illness?

I did not say mental illness. If I had the qualifications to diagnose mental illness I might have said that but as it stands I am qualified to have the opinion that it is looney.

[mhaze]

Thank you for documenting that mainstream conservatism circa 2011 American Spectator isn't within shouting distance of rationality.

OK, if we accept an extremely liberal interpretation of the word revolution. Realize, Beck et al are foisting the asinine notion that she advocated violent overthrow.
...

Umm, yes, because she did, and she does. Although I'm sure you can mince the definition of "violent overthrow" to find some fragment of meaning by which that is not what Piven advocated.
the upshot of her writings, which lovingly chronicle efforts by community organizers to intensify riots and violent protests. I explain Piven’s strategy on NRO’s homepage today in “Frances Fox Piven’s Violent Agenda (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257733/frances-fox-piven-s-violent-agenda-stanley-kurtz).” Dreier’s efforts to turn Piven into a latter-day incarnation of Martin Luther King are absurd. Piven looks forward to rioting and urges community organizers not to waste time channeling violent protests into conventional politics but to escalate disruptions for maximum leverage.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/257747/tucson-piven-and-lefts-strategic-blunder-stanley-kurtz

Have fun!

PS: I just returned from Greece. To Piven's suggestion that America experience Greek style riots, I suggest she try to survive a couple of days in such riots. I'm sure she would feel at home in the communist section of Athens...

[varwoche]

Umm, yes... Whatever the circumstance, I know I can always count on you for inattentiveness.

[GreyArea]

The anti Capitalist, pro Marxist ones are the ones are the ones I find most repugnant.
Okay, then, I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about riots and such.

You don't know about her comments about Europe today? Or you are ignoring them because they don't fit with your defense of her?
Beck has been talking for a few years now about the 1966 article. He's based a whole conspiracy theory around it. That's what I'm talking about because that's what was cited in the original post of this thread.

Whatever Piven said or meant in 2011 does not change what was published 45 years ago, and may even contradict it. If Beck wants to build a conspiracy theory around that, he needs to go (ahem) back to the drawing board.

I did not say mental illness. If I had the qualifications to diagnose mental illness I might have said that but as it stands I am qualified to have the opinion that it is looney.
So maybe "wildly foolish" might be what you mean?

[YoPopa]

.......Beck has been talking for a few years now about the 1966 article. He's based a whole conspiracy theory around it. That's what I'm talking about because that's what was cited in the original post of this thread......

Oh, this is the thread about Beck and what he said years ago!

I thought it was about Frances Fox Piven and the Cloward-Piven strategy.

[babycondor]

Oh, this is the thread about Beck and what he said years ago!

I thought it was about Frances Fox Piven and the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Actually based on the original post, it is about both of those things. I bumped the thread the other day when a story appeared in the New York Times about threats against Ms. Piven on Beck's web site, The Blaze.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/business/media/22beck.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
One such threat, published as an anonymous comment on The Blaze, read, “Somebody tell Frances I have 5000 roundas ready and I’ll give My life to take Our freedom back.” (The spelling and capitalizing have not been changed.)

That comment and others that were direct threats were later deleted, but other comments remain that charge her with treasonous behavior.

[leftysergeant]

I think that that little worm Rove and the Shrub's merry morons set the ecconomy up to fail so that the people woulld accept a fascist revolution.

The far right are not all that creative, so it is not unthinkable that they might pervert an idea that came form the left to their own purposes.

[babycondor]

I think that that little worm Rove and the Shrub's merry morons set the ecconomy up to fail so that the people woulld accept a fascist revolution.

The far right are not all that creative, so it is not unthinkable that they might pervert an idea that came form the left to their own purposes.

LOL. Now that's a conspiracy theory!

In truth, all of history is a grand interplay of conspiracies.

[dudalb]

I think that that little worm Rove and the Shrub's merry morons set the ecconomy up to fail so that the people woulld accept a fascist revolution.

The far right are not all that creative, so it is not unthinkable that they might pervert an idea that came form the left to their own purposes.


Proof the crazy conspiracy theories come from both sides of the political fence.

[leftysergeant]

Proof the crazy conspiracy theories come from both sides of the political fence.The Republicons have stated repeatedly that they intend to castrate government and privatize as many functions as possible. What better way to do that than to deregulate commerce to the point that the investor class could suck the treasury dry, then claim that government is broken and not repairable because it was faulty to start with?

We are not talking about totally rational people here. They are whacky enough to expect us to trust the people who drove the ecconomy into the ditch to take over our Social Security and make sure that we get our pensions.

What could they possibly be smoking?

[INRM]

Forcing change through crisis is not anything that's confined to the left or right wing, there are left-wingers as well as right-wingers who are more than okay to exploit a crisis whenever they get the chance

[Skeptic Ginger]

Umm, yes, because she did, and she does. Although I'm sure you can mince the definition of "violent overthrow" to find some fragment of meaning by which that is not what Piven advocated.
the upshot of her writings, which lovingly chronicle efforts by community organizers to intensify riots and violent protests. I explain Piven’s strategy on NRO’s homepage today in “Frances Fox Piven’s Violent Agenda (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257733/frances-fox-piven-s-violent-agenda-stanley-kurtz).” Dreier’s efforts to turn Piven into a latter-day incarnation of Martin Luther King are absurd. Piven looks forward to rioting and urges community organizers not to waste time channeling violent protests into conventional politics but to escalate disruptions for maximum leverage.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/257747/tucson-piven-and-lefts-strategic-blunder-stanley-kurtz

Have fun!

PS: I just returned from Greece. To Piven's suggestion that America experience Greek style riots, I suggest she try to survive a couple of days in such riots. I'm sure she would feel at home in the communist section of Athens...That article is so full of CT Koolaide it truly boggles the mind.

[leftysergeant]

It's all over the internet. Use Google. No need to get fancy. Just type "Cloward-Piven". You will instantly be rewarded with about 36,000 hits. Some of those hits will tell you about widely reported statements and charges by senators, NY Governor Giuliani, articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc, etc, etc. This nationwide exposure marked the beginning of the end of "welfare as we know it".

Excuse me, but did you think that Rotten Rudy's opinion is worth anything to rational people?
:dl:

[Toontown]

Excuse me, but did you think that Rotten Rudy's opinion is worth anything to rational people?
:dl:

How about the New York Times? Isn't that leftist enough for you?

Typical. I offer 36,000 hits in response to a stupid cherry-pick dishonestly attempting to deny the national exposure I mentioned, and you respond with yet another stupid cherry pick, clearly motivated solely by the fact that you just happen to have a nickname for Giuliani.

Talking to you people is like talking to a bucket of rocks. I say something. Then I shake the bucket. Then I hear rattles.

Don't mean nuthin.

[varwoche]

Typical. I offer 36,000 hits... Wow, the standards around here are slipping precipitously. As if offering up a naked google search string amounts to credible evidence.

On top of which, as I previously noted, it looks as if all 36,000 are direct echoes of the same article by the same frothing nutjob, David Horowitz. Which amounts to one (really crappy) source, not 36,000.

[Toontown]

Wow, the standards around here are slipping precipitously. As if offering up a naked google search string amounts to credible evidence.

On top of which, as I previously noted, it looks as if all 36,000 are direct echoes of the same article by the same frothing nutjob, David Horowitz. Which amounts to one (really crappy) source, not 36,000.

You asked for evidence of national exposure. I gave you evidence of national exposure. Then you move the goalposts and lie about the content of the 36,000 hits.

Like I said. Talking to you is like talking to a bucket of rocks.

But thank you for your service as poster boy.

[TraneWreck]

You asked for evidence of national exposure. I gave you evidence of national exposure. Then you move the goalposts and lie about the content of the 36,000 hits.

Like I said. Talking to you is like talking to a bucket of rocks.

But thank you for your service as poster boy.

You're non-sarcastically arguing that 36,000 google hits is evidence of national exposure?

Wow.

I got 18,000 hits on Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim.

National exposure? You think 1% of the American population has any idea who that is? Hell, I would bet less than 5% of the exceedingly above-average educated JREF crowd even knows who that is. I just remember the name because it's hilarious.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You asked for evidence of national exposure. I gave you evidence of national exposure. Then you move the goalposts and lie about the content of the 36,000 hits.....Let's cut the wheat from the chafe here. You made an assertion that myself and 3 others are challenging and rather than supporting your assertion the discussion drifted into meaningless territory. Perhaps I can bring it back to the point.

The goal of many on the radical left has long been to destroy the "system" by overburdening it, by any and all means. Nationwide race riots would certainly advance that cause....The zombie left System Collapse stragedy has been around for ages in one form or another:

http://cloward-piven.com/

The Cloward-Piven strategy backfired when it bankrupted NYC and got nationwide exposure, but the rubble rats of the radical left thrive on failure. They'll be bakk. In fact, they've been here all along. If only they would start a violent revolution, we could get rid of them. But they know that.
NYC wasn't bankrupted by any Cloward-Piven strategy. You do know your web site reference is totally fake, right?

Andrew Brietbart made all that stuff up, including using another fake (IE heavily edited to completely distort) O'Keefe style video of two anti-union activists posing as students to interview Piven 45 years after the paper she co-wrote with Cloward. The disgusting thing about it is the Breitbart attack was to supposedly discredit the teacher's union and it was the unions that bailed NYC out in 1975: (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/nyregion/recalling-new-york-at-the-brink-of-bankruptcy.html)Mr. Bigel helped persuade union leaders, including the last holdout, Albert Shanker of the United Federation of Teachers, to use union retirement funds to back loans to the city, a breakthrough that staved off bankruptcy. In any case the cause of the near bankruptcy of NYC in 1975 was not the result of any leftest conspiracy.

The cause of the '75 fiscal catastrophe: (http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/02/02/2009-02-02_fiscal_crisis_in_1975_taught_new_york_ha.html)Y ears of fiscal mismanagement, coupled with a national economic downturn, forced then-Mayor Abe Beame to go to the White House begging for a bailout.
President Gerald Ford turned Beame down, prompting the famous Daily News front-page headline: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
..."Lots of warning signs ... were ignored, starting with a city budget that just ballooned.New Yorkers continue to debate what drove the city to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975. (http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/iotw/20051010/200/1612)Some argue that New York City’s liberal officials borrowed money freely to spend on social programs, while powerful municipal unions forced them to agree to obscenely generous contracts. Others say that a variety of outside factors were a driving factor –- the city was increasingly tied into a world economy that was in shock from the 1973 Arab oil embargo; it was victimized by the banks upon which it relied to buy bonds; the federal government left the city in the lurch.Claiming this was some conspiracy that poor people were organized to all ask for assistance bankrupting the city is too ludicrous for words. Unemployed people may very well have applied for aide. THEY WERE UNEMPLOYED! :rolleyes:

Recent interview with Piven (http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/14/why_is_glenn_beck_obsessively_targeting) explaining the Beck/Breitbart contrived fantasy.

Piven currently writes about mobilizing the poor (http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty) and the unemployed (http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless). Where is the conspiracy in that?

Lots of people had all sorts of ideas in the 60s and 70s. So what? I don't think Hoffman is still advising people to steal his books. Timothy Leary sounds like an idiot if you listen to his "turn on, tune in and drop out" speech today. I can't find a copy online of Piven's actual work in 1966. The link you provided claiming the plan nearly bankrupted NYC is a complete fabrication. This Freeper site (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2183968/posts) claims the strategy was based on welfare being the opiate of the masses so the idea was to interrupt the welfare system in order to get the no longer placated poor people motivated to political action. I wouldn't give a lot of credence to all the claims in the Freeper article without some corroboration from a non right-winger nut job influenced source.

But it doesn't matter. No one is advocating any such thing today, including Piven. The whole thing is made up for the purpose of fear mongering. But it would appear a lot of the more flaky among the right wingers (the ones that actually take Glenn Beck seriously) bought the fantasy hook, line, and sinker.



As long as I've gone back to these posts, might as well address these assertions too:
...Why not? Race riots would help to bring about System Collapse. Funny, there've been 3 race riots in my lifetime, Watts, Detroit and LA. None of them brought down "the system".

....And lefties trying to frame righties wouldn't exactly be unprecedented, would it.

.....Come to think of it, haven't you recently been involved in heated discussions in which you have sought to frame Palin, Limbaugh, various Teabaggers and the like for the Tucson shooting?You need to check the definition of "to frame". Believing someone or some group is partially responsible for egging on lone wolf murderers does not fit the definition of seeking to frame someone.


Perhaps we can conclude from your race riot nonsense and the Cloward-Piven strategy comments that you've been drinking the Glenn Beck koolaide?

[Skeptic Ginger]

I posted this summary in another thread where this Piven nonsense continues so I thought I post it here as well. Some of the links have already been posted in this thread, others have not. Of particular note is the fake web page that took the domain name of cloward-piven.com. It takes the Glenn Beck cake.

The goal of many on the radical left has long been to destroy the "system" by overburdening it, by any and all means. Nationwide race riots would certainly advance that cause....The zombie left System Collapse stragedy has been around for ages in one form or another:

http://cloward-piven.com/

The Cloward-Piven strategy backfired when it bankrupted NYC and got nationwide exposure, but the rubble rats of the radical left thrive on failure. They'll be bakk. In fact, they've been here all along. If only they would start a violent revolution, we could get rid of them. But they know that.
NYC wasn't bankrupted by any Cloward-Piven strategy. You do know your web site reference is totally fake, right?

Andrew Brietbart made all that stuff up, including using another fake (IE heavily edited to completely distort) O'Keefe style video of two anti-union activists posing as students to interview Piven 45 years after the paper she co-wrote with Cloward. The disgusting thing about it is the Breitbart attack was to supposedly discredit the teacher's union and it was the unions that bailed NYC out in 1975: (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/05/nyregion/recalling-new-york-at-the-brink-of-bankruptcy.html)Mr. Bigel helped persuade union leaders, including the last holdout, Albert Shanker of the United Federation of Teachers, to use union retirement funds to back loans to the city, a breakthrough that staved off bankruptcy. In any case the cause of the near bankruptcy of NYC in 1975 was not the result of any leftest conspiracy.

The cause of the '75 fiscal catastrophe: (http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/02/02/2009-02-02_fiscal_crisis_in_1975_taught_new_york_ha.html)Y ears of fiscal mismanagement, coupled with a national economic downturn, forced then-Mayor Abe Beame to go to the White House begging for a bailout.
President Gerald Ford turned Beame down, prompting the famous Daily News front-page headline: "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD."
..."Lots of warning signs ... were ignored, starting with a city budget that just ballooned.New Yorkers continue to debate what drove the city to the brink of bankruptcy in 1975. (http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/iotw/20051010/200/1612)Some argue that New York City’s liberal officials borrowed money freely to spend on social programs, while powerful municipal unions forced them to agree to obscenely generous contracts. Others say that a variety of outside factors were a driving factor –- the city was increasingly tied into a world economy that was in shock from the 1973 Arab oil embargo; it was victimized by the banks upon which it relied to buy bonds; the federal government left the city in the lurch.Claiming this was some conspiracy that poor people were organized to all ask for assistance bankrupting the city is too ludicrous for words. Unemployed people may very well have applied for aide. THEY WERE UNEMPLOYED! :rolleyes:

Democracy Now interview with Piven (http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/14/why_is_glenn_beck_obsessively_targeting) explaining the Beck/Breitbart contrived fantasy. (already cited above)

Piven currently writes about mobilizing the poor (http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty) and the unemployed (http://www.thenation.com/article/157292/mobilizing-jobless). Where is the conspiracy in that?

Lots of people had all sorts of ideas in the 60s and 70s. So what? I don't think Hoffman is still advising people to steal his books. Timothy Leary sounds like an idiot if you listen to his "turn on, tune in and drop out" speech today. I can't find a copy online of Piven's actual work in 1966. The link Toontown provided claiming the plan nearly bankrupted NYC is a complete fabrication. This Freeper site (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2183968/posts) claims the strategy was based on welfare being the opiate of the masses so the idea was to interrupt the welfare system in order to get the no longer placated poor people motivated to political action. I wouldn't give a lot of credence to all the claims in the Freeper article without some corroboration from a non right-winger nut job influenced source.

But it doesn't matter. No one is advocating any such thing today, including Piven. The whole thing is made up for the purpose of fear mongering. But it would appear a lot of the more flaky among the right wingers (the ones that actually take Glenn Beck seriously) bought the fantasy hook, line, and sinker. And worse than that, the believers are adding to their numbers. How can people be that gullible? It never ceases to amaze me.

[Toontown]

You lefties need to wave those majic wands harder. I'm still not having any trouble finding articles about the never-heard-of Cloward-Piven strategy. And they all tell much the same story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/the-cloward-piven-strategy/

No need to get excited, lefties. You like to point the finger of blame at Sarah Palin. Others like to point the finger of blame at Frances Fox Piven. Whether many people remember Piven's name is irrelevant. I am not responsible for the human brain's name-retention limitations.

So let's not argue for a week about a minor detail as piddling as whether The Strategy of Manufactured Crisis received national exposure or not, and what weight it may have carried in bankrupting NYC and bringing about the financial crisis. Let's just agree that the NYC bancruptcy happened because the city spent a crapload of money it didn't have on 'something' - who knows or cares what. And Let's just agree that the financial crisis happened because stupid Fannies and Freddies backed a lot of toxic housing loans to people who couldn't afford them, for 'some' reason - who knows or cares what the reason was. Let's just not talk about any of the stupid reasons why all the stupid people did all the stupid things they did. Let's just chalk it all up to stupid monkey politics.

And let's not talk about any stupid book some lefties wrote about how to bring about System Collapse (all for the highest of utopian motives, of course).

In fact, lefties, let's just not talk about anything.

[leftysergeant]

You lefties need to wave those majic wands harder. I'm still not having any trouble finding articles about the never-heard-of Cloward-Piven strategy. And they all tell much the same story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/the-cloward-piven-strategy/

Well, when you find something that was not pulled out of the rectum of a right-wing moron and published in a rag owned by an enemy of all that Amnerica stands for, we might think less than totally befuddled.

That rotten excuse for a retired Colonel apparently thinks that scumbag Breitbart and his pet pimp actually proved that ACORN is EEEEEBIL!

[Toontown]

The Republicons have stated repeatedly that they intend to castrate government and privatize as many functions as possible. What better way to do that than to deregulate commerce to the point that the investor class could suck the treasury dry, then claim that government is broken and not repairable because it was faulty to start with?

We are not talking about totally rational people here. They are whacky enough to expect us to trust the people who drove the ecconomy into the ditch to take over our Social Security and make sure that we get our pensions.

What could they possibly be smoking?

Whatever it is, Piven needs some of it.

Piven: "We need to bankrupt the gubbermint to make sure you all get your pensions. What? Oh, no problem. We can always print more of that green paper stuff. Now get out there, you poor downtrodden sumbitches. I want to see some Greece-style riots."

[leftysergeant]

Whatever it is, Piven needs some of it.

Piven: "We need to bankrupt the gubbermint to make sure you all get your pensions. What? Oh, no problem. We can always print more of that green paper stuff. Now get out there, you poor downtrodden sumbitches. I want to see some Greece-style riots."Source? (And if I smell the slightest taint of Breitbart, you may consider yourself to have been called names that may not be posted to this forum.)

[varwoche]

On top of which, as I previously noted, it looks as if all 36,000 are direct echoes of the same article by the same frothing nutjob, David Horowitz. Which amounts to one (really crappy) source, not 36,000.

I'm still not having any trouble finding articles about the never-heard-of Cloward-Piven strategy. And they all tell much the same story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/the-cloward-piven-strategy/ (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/the-cloward-piven-strategy/) Your new cite -- to an op-ed piece in the [guffaw] WA Times -- indicates to me that you still don't get the difference between credible evidence and crap.

(Makes me wish I didn't change my sig (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyS0oHLNFA).)

[KoihimeNakamura]

Please make sure to enjoy your Two Minute Hate.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You lefties need to wave those majic wands harder. I'm still not having any trouble finding articles about the never-heard-of Cloward-Piven strategy. And they all tell much the same story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/15/the-cloward-piven-strategy/

No need to get excited, lefties. You like to point the finger of blame at Sarah Palin. Others like to point the finger of blame at Frances Fox Piven. Whether many people remember Piven's name is irrelevant. I am not responsible for the human brain's name-retention limitations.

So let's not argue for a week about a minor detail as piddling as whether The Strategy of Manufactured Crisis received national exposure or not, and what weight it may have carried in bankrupting NYC and bringing about the financial crisis. Let's just agree that the NYC bancruptcy happened because the city spent a crapload of money it didn't have on 'something' - who knows or cares what. And Let's just agree that the financial crisis happened because stupid Fannies and Freddies backed a lot of toxic housing loans to people who couldn't afford them, for 'some' reason - who knows or cares what the reason was. Let's just not talk about any of the stupid reasons why all the stupid people did all the stupid things they did. Let's just chalk it all up to stupid monkey politics.

And let's not talk about any stupid book some lefties wrote about how to bring about System Collapse (all for the highest of utopian motives, of course).

In fact, lefties, let's just not talk about anything.You are claiming that anything one can find on the Internet is therefore in the national spotlight.

If you only hang out in Beck/Breitbart believer circles, I can see why you'd think this story had national attention. It's not how most of us define national attention.

I can find lots of websites about sea slugs including a sea slug enthusiasts' forum (http://www.seaslugforum.net/) whose members come from all over the world. (http://www.seaslugforum.net/participants.htm) Does that mean sea slugs are in the national spotlight?


Your op-ed link is clearly from the Beck/Breitbart believer circle. It makes ludicrous assertions.

[Toontown]

Your new cite -- to an op-ed piece in the [guffaw] WA Times -- indicates to me that you still don't get the difference between credible evidence and crap.

(Makes me wish I didn't change my sig (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyS0oHLNFA).)

Your new cite -- to an op-ed piece in the [guffaw] WA Times -- indicates to me that you still don't get the difference between credible evidence and crap.

You still don't get it. The only evidence I'm presenting (at the moment) is evidence of national exposure of the Cloward-Piven strategy, as per your request, that being the part of one of my previous posts you chose to take issue with for some reason.

your contrived [guffaw] notwithstanding, the amount of national exposure of the destructive leftist Trojan horse is an issue quite apart from the ideological purity angle you have chosen to fixate on.

Here are a couple of links to videos showing Piven herself giving national exposure to her Trojan horse. My apologies for the ideological impurity of the sources, but the ideologically pure sources do not seem to be offering the videos. And, unlike the armies of the ideologically pure, I do not languish within the confines of an informational gulag.

https://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/audio-of-speech-given-on-11-17-2010-by-piven-who-is-still-teaching-really-nytimes-obscure-speeches-from-40-years-ago-you-have-really-hit-the-bottom-here-nytimes-and-owe-an-apology-to-the-ame/

http://bunkerville.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/frances-fox-piven-rings-in-the-new-year-by-calling-for-violent-revolution/

P.S. - you seem to be suffering from a case of thread drift. The quotes you posted were from another thread, which could be confusing to readers of this one.

[leftysergeant]

I do not see the same things in those videos as you do. I think it is a result of confirmation bias on your part, and on the part of the frothing lunatics who think that Glenn Beck is doing a rational expose of Piven.

[Toontown]

I do not see the same things in those videos as you do. I think it is a result of confirmation bias on your part, and on the part of the frothing lunatics who think that Glenn Beck is doing a rational expose of Piven.

Piven hardly needs exposing. She exposed herself in 1966 when she co-authored the book. And now she's gone public again. Still advocating monkey-wrenching the system. Still advocating mass riots by the poor. Hard-wired. She was already hard-wired when she wrote the book.

We believe you, Dr. Piven. That broke-ass gubbermint will be spewing out them "guaranteed income" checks by the trainload, shipping them all over the country. The printing presses will be working overtime. All we need is forests of paper and oceans of ink, and we'll all be sitting on easy street.

[Toontown]

Your op-ed link is clearly from the Beck/Breitbart believer circle. It makes ludicrous assertions.

No more ludicrous than Piven's assertions, given that the Beck/Breitbart assertions were derived from the Piven assertions.

At any rate, what's holding all of you back? Heaven wheels above you, in the form of guaranteed income checks. All you have to do is overload the system and riot until the system cracks, and then the broke-ass gubbermint will be printing trainloads of "guaranteed income" checks and shipping them all over the country. All we need is a broke-ass gubbermint, forests of paper, and oceans of ink, and we'll all be sitting on easy street.

[varwoche]

You still don't get it. The only evidence I'm presenting (at the moment) is evidence of national exposure of the Cloward-Piven strategy, as per your request, that being the part of one of my previous posts you chose to take issue with for some reason. Your claim of "national exposure" concerned events that took place when Giuliani was mayor, right?

The incredibly goofy 36k hits that you keep waving around are the result of the present day right wing echo chamber, courtesy of nutcases David Horowitz and Glenn Beck.

Then when challenged, you cite a present day op-ed piece, published by a sketchy source, which again sheds no light on facts from the past.

I readily acknowledge that Piven is being batted about with great zeal by the present day right wing echo chamber, even before I was presented with your 36k hits.

Then again, maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe the steaming pile of 36k actually contains some gems in the rough. Not my job to sort out I'm afraid.

P.S. - you seem to be suffering from a case of thread drift. The quotes you posted were from another thread, which could be confusing to readers of this one. I did that on purpose, because the drift fits this thread, not that one. Pardon me for not clarifying.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Edited to add, this post was composed in the other thread and moved here (appropriately) by the mods as it was off topic there. No more ludicrous than Piven's assertions, given that the Beck/Breitbart assertions were derived from the Piven assertions.

At any rate, what's holding all of you back? Heaven wheels above you, in the form of guaranteed income checks. All you have to do is overload the system and riot until the system cracks, and then the broke-ass gubbermint will be printing trainloads of "guaranteed income" checks and shipping them all over the country. All we need is a broke-ass gubbermint, forests of paper, and oceans of ink, and we'll all be sitting on easy street.I've found Piven's paper from '66 because someone linked to it in the other thread. (I mistakenly linked to it above thinking it was a recent article.) After reading it I can say a lot of what the Freeper article complains about comes from a misunderstanding of the points. I'd say that was true for all the right wing sources I've read so far. They cherry pick a term here and a term there and totally miss the entire point of the paper.

The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty (http://www.thenation.com/article/weight-poor-strategy-end-poverty)If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty...

...for every person on the rolls at least one more probably meets existing criteria of eligibility but is not obtaining assistance.

...public welfare systems try to keep their budgets down and their rolls low by failing to inform people of the rights available to them; by intimidating and shaming them to the degree that they are reluctant either to apply or to press claims, and by arbitrarily denying benefits to those who are eligible.

[NYC data from 1959 and 1960 are cited showing census data on income mismatched welfare recipient data]

In order to generate a crisis, the poor must obtain benefits, which they have forfeited. Until now, they have been inhibited from asserting claims by self-protective devices within the welfare system: its capacity to limit information, to intimidate applicants, to demoralize recipients, and arbitrarily to deny lawful claims.

During the realignments of 1932, a new Democratic coalition was formed, based heavily on urban working-class groups. Once in power, the national Democratic leadership proposed and implemented the economic reforms of the New Deal. Although these measures were a response to the imperative of economic crisis, the types of measures enacted were designed to secure and new Democratic coalition.

Such an attack should also be welcome to those currently concerned with programs designed to equip the young to rise out of poverty (e.g., Head Start), for surely children learn more readily when the oppressive burden of financial insecurity is lifted from the shoulders of their parents.

I can see the paranoid right wingers seeing nothing but "redistribution of the wealth" in the article and totally missing the part about "programs designed to equip the young to rise out of poverty".

I could spend an hour explaining this paper the way I interpret it, but why bother? It's simpler to state the obvious: nothing about the concepts here are in any way, shape, or form some kind of mantra of the country's liberals or Progressives.

But even if it were, why should you fear an organized population of the people who are currently underrepresented in the country? One would think we have more to fear from the over-representation of the people who can buy off our legislators.

[Toontown]

Your claim of "national exposure" concerned events that took place when Giuliani was mayor, right?

The incredibly goofy 36k hits that you keep waving around are the result of the present day right wing echo chamber, courtesy of nutcases David Horowitz and Glenn Beck.

That's because those events of the past that got so many people riled up back then, including governors and senators, still live in infamy today.

If you "challenged" me to prove that the attack on Pearl Harbor received national exposure, how many of the myriad Google hits I might arouse would come directly from 1942? None, I think. I think all the hits would be contemporary, but would reference the events of 1941.


Then when challenged, you cite a present day op-ed piece, published by a sketchy source, which again sheds no light on facts from the past.

"Challenged" is a mighty strong word, bub. You're not challenging me. You've just been nit-picking for what now seems like ages about an offhand remark I made in a post several days ago. Still trying to score a point.

[babycondor]

Piven hardly needs exposing. She exposed herself in 1966 when she co-authored the book. And now she's gone public again. Still advocating monkey-wrenching the system. Still advocating mass riots by the poor. Hard-wired. She was already hard-wired when she wrote the book.

We believe you, Dr. Piven. That broke-ass gubbermint will be spewing out them "guaranteed income" checks by the trainload, shipping them all over the country. The printing presse swill be working overtime. All we need is forests of paper and oceans of ink, and we'll all be sitting on easy street.

I think this is called a straw man. Piven's view do not represent the views of today's liberals and progressives, yet they are being held up as they did.

Also, using phrases like "broke-ass gubbermint," which Piven never used, misrepresents, oversimplifies and dumbs down her position.

Beck and others like him find her an easy target, but attacking a distorted version of her position doesn't constitute a rational debate on the actual position or its faults. It's just more fear- and hate-mongering.

[Toontown]

I could spend an hour explaining this paper the way I interpret it, but why bother? It's simpler to state the obvious: nothing about the concepts here are in any way, shape, or form some kind of mantra of the country's liberals or Progressives.

What a relief. I was hoping the country wouldn't be monkey-wrenched, bankrupted, and destroyed by leftist-driven po peoples during my lifetime.

FYI, I don't think of Piven as a liberal. I think she's a leftist. I'm not opposed to anyone having what they need to live. But I am very much opposed to Piven's bull-in-a-china-shop method.

FYI, I don't lump liberals with leftists. I draw the leftist line slightly to the left of Bill Maher. I consider Maher a bonehead in some ways, insightful in some ways, and somewhat funny. I don't think he's out to collapse the country in an insane bid to seize POWAH over the quickly decaying remains.

But just to Maher's left stalks the Zombie Left - the stiffened, undead corpses of people who were once the Mahers of the world, lured, drugged, skull-raped, and then embalmed by voodoo witch doctors like Abbie Hoffman and Noam Chomsky. Dead, and yet not-dead. Undead.


But even if it were, why should you fear an organized population of the people who are currently underrepresented in the country? One would think we have more to fear from the over-representation of the people who can buy off our legislators.

Look. I have no problem with the idea of providing a guaranteed income to people who can't or won't work. I've always known that people are lazy hunter-gatherers by nature, and don't like to perform regimented labor. People like to get up when they wake up, go to sleep when they're sleepy, and hunt, gather, and make stuff under their own supervision, with their own hands, in between waking up and going to sleep.

However, the hunter-gatherer days are gone forever.

In order to make the guaranteed income checks spendable, we will be needing millions of smart robots to perform all the tasks necessary to keep the topheavy unemployed-hunter-gatherer system running. Because it ain't gonna do no good to have a gubbermint guaranteed income check if there ain't nothin to buy.

So, you lefties let us know when you've got the robots all oiled and programmed up, and we'll put those suckers to work and start printing up them guaranteed income checks. By the trainload. Then we can skip the part where the Ayerses and the Dohrnses and Pivenses tear everything all to hell and crap on what they don't tear up.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Look. I have no problem with the idea of providing a guaranteed income to people who can't or won't work. I've always known that people are lazy hunter-gatherers by nature, and don't like to perform regimented labor. People like to get up when they wake up, go to sleep when they're sleepy, and hunt, gather, and make stuff under their own supervision, with their own hands, in between waking up and going to sleep.

However, the hunter-gatherer days are gone forever.

In order to make the guaranteed income checks spendable, we will be needing millions of smart robots to perform all the tasks necessary to keep the topheavy unemployed-hunter-gatherer system running. Because it ain't gonna do no good to have a gubbermint guaranteed income check if there ain't nothin to buy.

So, you lefties let us know when you've got the robots all oiled and programmed up, and we'll put those suckers to work and start printing up them guaranteed income checks. By the trainload. Then we can skip the part where the Ayerses and the Dohrnses and Pivenses tear everything all to hell and crap on what they don't tear up.

That's some straw.

[varwoche]

That's because those events of the past that got so many people riled up back then, including governors and senators, still live in infamy today. But of course, they wouldn't be worked up unless there's good reason to be worked up. And around in a circle it goes.

If you "challenged" me to prove that the attack on Pearl Harbor received national exposure, how many of the myriad Google hits I might arouse would come directly from 1942? None, I think. Although you're taking a circuitous route, you seem to be finally arriving at the realization that argumentum ad hitcount is hugely ridiculous. Congratulations!

I think all the hits would be contemporary, but would reference the events of 1941. But in the case of Piven you'd be wrong, at least according to my perusal of the first couple of google pages. What I saw was echo after echo after echo of the same contemporaneous David Horowitz article.

The reason your statement caught my attention in the first place is I never heard of Piven until the present day hubbub, and nobody I know has ever heard of her either, which is why I'm dubious about your claim of Piven's "national exposure" in the past.

"Challenged" is a mighty strong word, bub. You're not challenging me. You've just been nit-picking for what now seems like ages about an offhand remark I made in a post several days ago. Still trying to score a point. Allow me to fill in the parts you skipped: Our discussion began in a different thread where indeed I questioned a claim you made, and you foisted these ridiculous 36k hits in response. I didn't press the matter because it was off-topic. Then some time passed and I saw that you were again foisting the 36k hits, and now I'm pressing the point because we're having the discussion in the proper thread.

[babycondor]

You lefties need to wave those majic wands harder....<snip>

So let's not argue for a week about a minor detail as piddling as whether The Strategy of Manufactured Crisis received national exposure or not, and what weight it may have carried in bankrupting NYC and bringing about the financial crisis. Let's just agree that the NYC bancruptcy happened because the city spent a crapload of money it didn't have on 'something' - who knows or cares what. And Let's just agree that the financial crisis happened because stupid Fannies and Freddies backed a lot of toxic housing loans to people who couldn't afford them, for 'some' reason - who knows or cares what the reason was. Let's just not talk about any of the stupid reasons why all the stupid people did all the stupid things they did. Let's just chalk it all up to stupid monkey politics.
---<snip>.

Let's not "just agree." This thread is not about the cause of the financial crisis. And that's not why it happened. Nice try though.

[Toontown]

Although you're taking a circuitous route, you seem to be finally arriving at the realization that argumentum ad hitcount is hugely ridiculous. Congratulations!

No. I keep arriving at the same realization I arrived at when I read your first post on the subject.

I don't really care how much or how little national exposure The Cloward-Piven strategy received back in the day. And I care even less that you've never heard of it.

You've been slamming that dead fish on the table for nearly a week now. Why is this minor detail so important to you? Are you trying to prove the Cloward-Piven strategy was never a part of mainstream leftist thought?

[Toontown]

Let's not "just agree." This thread is not about the cause of the financial crisis. And that's not why it happened. Nice try though.

At last! Someone who knows what caused the financial crisis.

Silly me. I thought toxic mortagages, and the packaging of same into toxic "instruments" (or whatever), to spread the toxicity around, had something to do with it.

Sounds like something a Cloward or a Piven, or even an Ayers or a Dohrn, might do. Now I see how silly the whole idea was.

BTW, babycondor, if you know what caused the financial crisis, I'm sure the government would love to hear all about it. They're kinda confused. I think civic duty would compel you to tell them what you know.

BTW, I'm sure the governor of California would also like to know what drove California to bankruptcy. Assuming you know the answer to that one too.

http://www.suntimes.com/business/3527431-420/financial-report-crisis-commission-panel.html

WASHINGTON — A government panel’s failure to reach a firm conclusion about what caused the financial crisis shows how complex Wall Street has become and how partisan Washington has grown.

The blurriness of its report comes months after a new law already has begun tightening financial rules to prevent another crisis.

All of which raises a question: Do the findings of the 633-page report matter?

In its report, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blames a range of obvious culprits: Banks that made reckless bets. Credit rating agencies that endorsed risky mortgage bonds. Government regulators who overlooked danger signs until they threatened the global financial system.

It concludes that the crisis might have been prevented if banks had been more careful and regulators had asked tougher questions.

[TraneWreck]

At last! Someone who knows what caused the financial crisis.

[...]

It concludes that the crisis might have been prevented if banks had been more careful and regulators had asked tougher questions.[/COLOR]

Politicians that recieve millions of dollars from Wall Street probably aren't the best people to do an investigation into the issue.

As for Fannie and Freddie, the notion that they were the cause of the crisis is idiotic:

So are Fannie & Freddie a “BUT FOR” ?

I don’t see how. Wall Street had been securitizing most of the sub-prime mortgages for years without the GSEs — Fannie and Freddie jumped in very late because they were losing market share. Their timing was perfect they started doing nonconforming mortgages just as the market peaked.

And if Fannie & Freddie didn’t exist, mortgage securitization would have happened anyway, the way it did in areas where their were no GSEs — securitized credit card receivables, auto loans, small biz loans, etc. took place without GSEs. I assume there would likely have been a private sector version for conforming loans, the way there was a private sector securitizing response to the demand for non-conforming (sub-prime) loans.

That’s how I end up saying they were not a prime cause of the crisis.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/02/did-fanniemae-cause-the-financial-crisis.html

Fannie and Freddie involved themselves in the subprime market very late in the game, and their quality control, even then, was significantly better than the private markets.

Anyone who blames Fannie and Freddie is just venting ignorance born of partisanship.

[babycondor]

At last! Someone who knows what caused the financial crisis.

<snip>

It concludes that the crisis might have been prevented if banks had been more careful and regulators had asked tougher questions.

This thread is about the Cloward-Piven "conspiracy." It is a breach of the MA to attempt to derail the thread. If you want to discuss the causes of the financial crisis, you should start (or post on) another thread.

[Toontown]

This thread is about the Cloward-Piven "conspiracy." It is a breach of the MA to attempt to derail the thread. If you want to discuss the causes of the financial crisis, you should start (or post on) another thread.

Tell that to Tranewreck, the second politics-driven internet financial wizard to weigh in on the subject.

And tell that to yourself. You are the one who picked out that one sentence in my post, highighted it, brought it to the fore, and made a tense issue of it. Had you not done that, the infamous sentence would have quickly faded into obsurity.

[Toontown]

Well, back to the old Cloward-Piven grind.


The reason your statement caught my attention in the first place is I never heard of Piven until the present day hubbub, and nobody I know has ever heard of her either, which is why I'm dubious about your claim of Piven's "national exposure" in the past.

And the reason I told you to google "Cloward-Piven" was to get rid of you, quite frankly. I quickly tire of people trying to make me their step-and-fetch-it boy.

I wasn't even aware of the "present day hubbub" until I did a Google in response to something else someone said. I was not aware of Beck bringing up System Collapse issue and pinning it on Cloward and Piven. I don't watch Beck much. I've been aware of the leftist System Collapse strategy for a long time, from various sources, including, primarily, leftists.

Frankly, I have no direct recollection of the names "Cloward", or "Piven" from the bad old days either. However, I have heard of the leftist System Collapse strategy for much of my adult life. I find it difficult to believe political hacks havent heard of it. I was mildly interested to find that Cloward and Piven might have been the originators, But I doubt they were the originators. I suspect their book was just an offshoot. The memes of destructive bull-in-the-china-shop revolution were in the wind well before 1966. Systematic indoctrination advocating Leftist revolution was a central artifact of the cold war.

[TraneWreck]

Tell that to Tranewreck, the second politics-driven internet financial wizard to weigh in on the subject.

Yes, how dare I link to the work of an economist. Truly such an egrigious act could only occur on the internet.


And tell that to yourself.

Did you really say, "tell that to yourself?"

When one's life reaches the point where such a statement is made, it should be cause for introspective reflection.

[Toontown]

BTW, babycondor. The infamous derail sentence you seized upon was imported by someone else from another thread.

And Tranewreck:

"You can go to hell, hell, hell! He he he he he he he..." - statement to a judge, attributed to Billy the Kid after his death sentence in the movie "Young Guns II"

[Toontown]

Yes, how dare I link to the work of an economist. Truly such an egrigious act could only occur on the internet.


How dare you mention the subject of the financial collapse at all? Did you not read babycondor's stern proclamation forbidding and condemning all mention of the subject?

[babycondor]

BTW, babycondor. The infamous derail sentence you seized upon was imported by someone else from another thread.

And Tranewreck:

"You can go to hell, hell, hell! He he he he he he he..." - statement to a judge, attributed to Billy the Kid after his death sentence in the movie "Young Guns II"

:dig:

[leftysergeant]

I wasn't even aware of the "present day hubbub" until I did a Google in response to something else someone said. I was not aware of Beck bringing up System Collapse issue and pinning it on Cloward and Piven. I don't watch Beck much. I've been aware of the leftist System Collapse strategy for a long time, from various sources, including, primarily, leftists.

Ermmm....

How come I, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum and old enough to have been around when Piven was , supposedly, a big name among leftists, never heard of her before the lunatic right started shrieking about her?

[Toontown]

Ermmm....

How come I, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum and old enough to have been around when Piven was , supposedly, a big name among leftists, never heard of her before the lunatic right started shrieking about her?

How come you, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum, didn't bother to read the whole post?


Frankly, I have no direct recollection of the names "Cloward", or "Piven" from the bad old days either. However, I have heard of the leftist System Collapse strategy for much of my adult life. I find it difficult to believe political hacks havent heard of it. I was mildly interested to find that Cloward and Piven might have been the originators, But I doubt they were the originators. I suspect their book was just an offshoot. The memes of destructive bull-in-the-china-shop revolution were in the wind well before 1966. Systematic indoctrination advocating Leftist revolution was a central artifact of the cold war.

Are you saying that you, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum, have never heard of the leftist strategy to collapse "the system" by overburdening it?

See, Leftie, the thing is, I didn't write all that stuff you read, and I didn't write all that stuff Piven herself has said. I have not claimed Piven was a rock star of the far left. And Pivens' overtly destructive "Weight of the Poor" crap is all out in the open, especially now that she's started speechifying about it again. There is no use trying to pretend it's not there.

What are you all getting all excited about? You like to point fingers of blame at Sarah Palin. Righties like to point fingers of blame at Frances Fox Piven. That's just the way it is, because that's the way you've made it.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Ermmm....

How come I, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum and old enough to have been around when Piven was , supposedly, a big name among leftists, never heard of her before the lunatic right started shrieking about her?I never heard of her either until I saw her interviewed on Democracy Now, and I was active in the anti-war movement a little after that paper was written.

[Skeptic Ginger]

..
Are you saying that you, as one of the more clearly left-leaning members of this forum, have never heard of the leftist strategy to collapse "the system" by overburdening it?...That's what Lefty and I are both saying. The idea this is some left wing strategy is ludicrous.

Not only that, "collapse the system" is a total mischaracterization of the paper.

[varwoche]

I don't really care how much or how little national exposure The Cloward-Piven strategy received back in the day. And I care even less that you've never heard of it. And yet oddly, you went out of your way to make up a lie about it.

Why is this minor detail so important to you? Are you trying to prove the Cloward-Piven strategy was never a part of mainstream leftist thought? In the prior paragraph, your disinterest in our dialog was made pretty clear, so I'm not getting why you're asking these new questions. If you wish to have a discussion, it would be my pleasure. If you don't, that's fine too.

I don't have anything more to add because you've already owned up to the fact that you were lying about Piven, and I appreciate your frankness about it.

[Toontown]

I don't have anything more to add because you've already owned up to the fact that you were lying about Piven, and I appreciate your frankness about it.

Oh, but you do have something more to add. You need to quote the lie. So I know what you're accusing me of.

[DavidJames]

Count me in as another liberal who never heard of this Cloward-Piven "conspiracy".

[Toontown]

I never heard of her either until I saw her interviewed on Democracy Now, and I was active in the anti-war movement a little after that paper was written.

OK, if you insist. I'll count you as another leftist who is determined to argue for days, perhaps even weeks, over a minor detail in a desperate bid to cloud the issue of the radical left's ...er...radicalness.

Naw. Anti-capitalist revolution is not even remotely related to any attempt to collapse the system. What a silly idea. No leftist has ever heard of anything like that. ha-ha-ha...

It's not that I don't believe you never heard of Cloward or Piven. I believe you've never heard of a lot of people. Perhaps you were more fixated on Bernardine Dohrn. If you've never heard of her either, here's a clue:



http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Weather_Underground_Declaration_of_a_State_of_War

Hello. This is Bernardine Dohrn.

I'm going to read A DECLARATION OF A STATE OF WAR.

This is the first communication from the Weatherman Underground.

All over the world, people fighting Amerikan imperialism look to Amerika's youth to use our strategic position behind enemy lines to join in the destruction of the empire.

Black people have been fighting almost alone for years. We've known that our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. We never intended to spend the next five to twenty-five years of our lives in jail. Ever since SDS became revolutionary, we've been trying to show how it is possible to overcome frustration and impotence that comes from trying to reform this system. Kids know the lines are drawn: revolution is touching all of our lives. Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches don't do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way.

Now we are adapting the classic guerrilla strategy of the Vietcong and urban guerrilla strategy of the Tupamoros to our own situation here in the most technically advance country in the world.

...

Snipped for compliance with Rule 4. Please do not post lengthy tracts of material available elsewhere. Instead, just post a short snippet and the link to the other source.

[DavidJames]

Could you find an older, less relevant, article to support your fantasy leftist boogieman ?

[Toontown]

Could you find an older, less relevant, article to support your fantasy leftist boogieman ?

No. Not when the lefties are claiming ignorant bliss about the aims and tactics of the radical left during the time frame in question.

[YoPopa]

Could you find an older, less relevant, article to support your fantasy leftist boogieman ?

Right, everyone knows that Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers totally changed their opinions from the 60's and renounced all revolutionary activities they were involved with. Besides that, anyone with any real power has pretty much never heard of them or been to political meetings at their home in Chicago.

All these protestations of ignorance seem real enough to me. Useful idiots all.

[ANTPogo]

Right, everyone knows that Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers totally changed their opinions from the 60's and renounced all revolutionary activities they were involved with.

As you can tell from the way they're still on the run from law enforcement as they carry out their continued bomb attack campaign as part of their revolutionary struggle.

[leftysergeant]

Sure, we've heard pf Dohrn. What of it? She was not any more influential than Piven.

Both approaches to re-ordering society had their weaknesses, and neither were needed as the radicalized youth entered the political main stream.

You are baying at the moon.

[YoPopa]

As you can tell from the way they're still on the run from law enforcement as they carry out their continued bomb attack campaign as part of their revolutionary struggle.

HuH?

You have no clue who I we are talking about or what they are doing now or how they have had influence on the current POTUS.

Like I said useful idiots.

[leftysergeant]

I see none of the 1960s radical ideas reflected in Obama's policies. He is far too corporate-friendly.

[DavidJames]

Right, everyone knows that Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers totally changed their opinions from the 60's and renounced all revolutionary activities they were involved with. Besides that, anyone with any real power has pretty much never heard of them or been to political meetings at their home in Chicago.They are irrelevant to any one but pathetic right wingers looking for someone to blame for their pathetic existence.

[varwoche]

Oh, but you do have something more to add. You need to quote the lie. So I know what you're accusing me of. When you repeatedly and willfully foist evidence that fails to support your claim, and when you know this to be the case yet won't retract said evidence, and when you even admit that you lack awareness of the facts and that you contrived the evidence in order to dismiss my questioning, it's certainly apt to call your statements lies. As for a precise quote, I refer to the totality of our exchange which is easily accessible via the inline links.

Mind you, I doubt there are many readers who are suckers to such an extent that they were actually swayed by your bogus cites. After all, this is a skeptical forum and most of us know that foisting echo chambers and agenda driven op-ed pieces, as if they constitute weighty evidence, simply doesn't cut it. But I digress.

[Skeptic Ginger]

As you can tell from the way they're still on the run from law enforcement as they carry out their continued bomb attack campaign as part of their revolutionary struggle.Yeah, and don't forget the Vietnam war was never the issue, it was always about communist idealism. :rolleyes:


I should also like to point out, speaking from being there at the time, the WeatherUnderground was never embraced by the bulk of the Vietnam War protestors. In case anyone needs a history lesson, peace love and understanding was the larger theme, not armed revolution.

[Skeptic Ginger]

HuH?

You have no clue who I we are talking about or what they are doing now or how they have had influence on the current POTUS.

Like I said useful idiots.Is that mind reading you've used to determine what other people know about Ayers and Dohrn?

Or are you just claiming that whatever you believe is the only possible interpretation of the facts?


Influence on Obama? Seriously? You drank that koolaid?

[Skeptic Ginger]

OK, if you insist. I'll count you as another leftist who is determined to argue for days, perhaps even weeks, over a minor detail in a desperate bid to cloud the issue of the radical left's ...er...radicalness....:dl:

[ANTPogo]

HuH?

You posted basically a declaration of war from active (at the time) members of a group that carried out bombing attacks in an attempt to foment actual revolution for specific, listed goals, and was being hunted by law enforcement authorities.

You also expressed doubt that the author(s) of said document had changed their views in any way.

I'm merely pointing out that, in order for that to be true, the individuals you named must still be active members of a group that carry out bombing attacks in an attempt to foment actual revolution for specific, listed goals, and is being hunted by law enforcement authorities.

So...are they?

You have no clue who I we are talking about or what they are doing now or how they have had influence on the current POTUS.

No, I'm quite familiar with the individuals in question, and the claims and accusations and guilt-by-association smears against Obama because of them. Mainly because people like you have been going on and on about it all since before Obama even secured the nomination, much less won the election.

Like I said useful idiots.

That's right, the only choice is between believing Obama is following a secret plan for leftist revolution laid down by his terrorist mentors decades ago, or being a "useful idiot."

[YoPopa]

You posted basically a declaration of war from active (at the time) members of a group that carried out bombing attacks in an attempt to foment actual revolution for specific, listed goals, and was being hunted by law enforcement authorities.

No. I did not make the post quoting Dohrn.

You also expressed doubt that the author(s) of said document had changed their views in any way.

I'm merely pointing out that, in order for that to be true, the individuals you named must still be active members of a group that carry out bombing attacks in an attempt to foment actual revolution for specific, listed goals, and is being hunted by law enforcement authorities.

So...are they?

I only pointed out that Dohrn and Ayers have not renounced their terrorist activities in the Weather Underground. And it is true that they have not. Charges against them were dropped but does that mean they were innocent of terrorist activities? About as innocent as OJ.

In fact, I've seen it said that Ayers wishes he had done more back in the 60's. If you have evidence to the contrary and think they really have changed their ways then provide it. Show where they said they were sorry.

Other wise I'll continue to regard you as one of their useful idiots who buys into the new and gentler Dohrn and Ayers public images.

Obama palled around with them when it was useful to him and denied it when that lie became useful.

[gnome]

There's that "palled around with" bit.

Tell me... would you apply the same standard to anyone who had similar contact with Ayers as Obama did?

[YoPopa]

There's that "palled around with" bit.

Tell me... would you apply the same standard to anyone who had similar contact with Ayers as Obama did?

Yes, anyone who later denies such important tidbits as knowing that Ayers was active in the Weathermen and who then goes on to run for president.

Same standard would be appropriate.

[ANTPogo]

No. I did not make the post quoting Dohrn.

You're correct; I apologize.

However, that doesn't actually change any of my argument.

I only pointed out that Dohrn and Ayers have not renounced their terrorist activities in the Weather Underground. And it is true that they have not. Charges against them were dropped but does that mean they were innocent of terrorist activities? About as innocent as OJ.

The issue isn't what they did then, it's what they're doing now.

Back then, they had issued a declaration of war, were setting bombs, and were on the run from the law since they were effectively a terrorist organization.

If they still believed in that, why are they not now still out there setting bombs and writing angry declarations of war and being hunted by the FBI?

In fact, I've seen it said that Ayers wishes he had done more back in the 60's.

"Seen it said", huh? With no interest in finding out where that quote originated (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B 63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all), or what what Ayers himself said in response (http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/clarifying-the-facts-a-letter-to-the-new-york-times-9-15-2001/) ?

If you have evidence to the contrary and think they really have changed their ways then provide it. Show where they said they were sorry.

You seem to be under the odd impression that Ayers and Dohrn were after a general revolution against...well, everything, and that therefore their terrorist actions in the 60's are a sign that they really want to blow things up today.

And the fact is, they aren't. They acted in a specific way in a specific era as a reaction to specific events. "I don't regret what I did, and I still want to do it" is not anywhere near the same as "I don't regret what I did, but I'd never do that again."

Ayers himself addresses that here (http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/im-sorry-i-think/), and here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?_r=3).

Other wise I'll continue to regard you as one of their useful idiots who buys into the new and gentler Dohrn and Ayers public images.

Obama palled around with them when it was useful to him and denied it when that lie became useful.

Again, Dohrn and Ayers have gone 40 years without setting bombs, or telling other people to set bombs, or writing "declarations of war", or spending time on the FBI's Most Wanted List. At what point does it stop being just a "public image"?

Whatever the true nature of Obama's relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, and whatever he may have learned from them, the plain fact of the matter is that he's now halfway through his first term as President, and yet the "Cloward-Piven strategy" isn't any closer to being implemented, and there's been no sudden wave of Weatherman-style anti-war bombings. Obama hasn't even closed down Guantanamo or completely ended the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, contrary to the explicitly-stated desires of Dohrn and Ayers themselves. You can make the argument that they're relevant to Obama's Secret True Inner Views, but they're sure as hell irrelevant to his actions.

In other words, the only one acting as a "useful idiot" here is you, for continuing to make these bizarre alarmist insinuations on behalf of those people who have a vested interest in trying to keep this now three-year-old smear alive in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

[Toontown]

When you repeatedly and willfully foist evidence that fails to support your claim, and when you know this to be the case yet won't retract said evidence, and when you even admit that you lack awareness of the facts and that you contrived the evidence in order to dismiss my questioning, it's certainly apt to call your statements lies. As for a precise quote, I refer to the totality of our exchange which is easily accessible via the inline links.

Oh, this is rich. You demanded "proof" that the Cloward-Piven strategy received national exposure. I invited you to Google it yourself. Then you continue to repeatedly complain about the ideological purity of the results of your cursory Google, as if it 's all my fault. Finally, you present your badgering posts and my dismissive replies to a largely disinterested world as evidence that I "lied" to you about the national exposure.

Jeezus freaking christ.

Call it what you like. However, irrespective of what you call it, I was only interested in ridiculing your pointless badgering and getting rid of you, an interest which continues.


Mind you, I doubt there are many readers who are suckers to such an extent that they were actually swayed by your bogus cites.

Apparently it is your greatest fear that some might become aware of the Cloward-Piven strategy. Oops, too late. That cat fled the bag ages ago. Still, you console yourself with the assurance that few "suckers" will be swayed by the existence of the strategy. Which, BTW, is now being touted again by Piven, in the Nation mag.


After all, this is a skeptical forum and most of us know that foisting echo chambers and agenda driven op-ed pieces, as if they constitute weighty evidence, simply doesn't cut it. But I digress.

Izzitnow. Prove this is a skeptical forum.

No, don't prove you're all very skeptical about what you want to be skeptical about. That's not skepticism.

I'll just go ahead and charge you with lying about being a skeptic, and I proffer your entire biased posting history as Exhibit "A".

[YoPopa]

..........

They acted in a specific way in a specific era as a reaction to specific events. "I don't regret what I did, and I still want to do it" is not anywhere near the same as "I don't regret what I did, but I'd never do that again."



You've summed it up nicely here. Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists responsible along with a group that planted bombs and killed cops but that's OK because it was a "a specific era as a reaction to specific events."

The liberal mind that can excuse such acts is beyond comprehension.

But alert the crypto zoologists. We've found a new breed of tiger that can change its' stripes. They no longer want to bring down capitalism with bombs they want to bring down capitalism from the inside. Totally different.

[Toontown]

You've summed it up nicely here. Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists responsible along with a group that planted bombs and killed cops but that's OK because it was a "a specific era as a reaction to specific events."

The liberal mind that can excuse such acts is beyond comprehension.

No it's not. The liberal mind is very comprehensible, and very predictable. With experience, you can practically write their posts for them.

[Toontown]

But alert the crypto zoologists. We've found a new breed of tiger that can change its' stripes. They no longer want to bring down capitalism with bombs they want to bring down capitalism from the inside. Totally different.

You have encapsulated the epic journey from bombs to monkey wrenches, spurred on by the watchful eye of the FBI.

[ANTPogo]

You've summed it up nicely here. Ayers and Dohrn were terrorists responsible along with a group that planted bombs and killed cops but that's OK because it was a "a specific era as a reaction to specific events."

The liberal mind that can excuse such acts is beyond comprehension.

It seems your keen insight into the "liberal mind" is overloading your reading comprehension, since nowhere in my post did I say they were OK, nor did I excuse them.

In fact, in the parts of my post you clipped out make it blatantly clear that I was addressing your apparent belief that Ayers and Dohrn haven't changed at all since their Weatherman days and have the same goals and still favor the same tactics to achieve those goals as they did forty years ago. I guess that's a lot harder for you to argue with than the strawman you're trying to pummel.

Unless, of course, you really do think that all far-leftist activism, whatever the goals and methods, is the same thing as terrorism, and that no one can commit violent illegal acts for specific reasons and then stop once those reasons are no longer applicable, because bombers just bomb indiscriminately with no rhyme or reason or goal in mind (and hey, once a bomber, always a bomber).

But alert the crypto zoologists. We've found a new breed of tiger that can change its' stripes. They no longer want to bring down capitalism with bombs they want to bring down capitalism from the inside. Totally different.

Never mind, you just answered my question.

EDIT: And I see you not only chopped my post to mockingly dismiss me with an unbelievably idiotic strawman, but in so doing you also completely ignored the second part of my post. Maybe if you called me a "useful idiot" again it'd help your case?

[varwoche]

Oh, this is rich. You demanded "proof" that the Cloward-Piven strategy received national exposure. Actually, I don't mean to nitpick, but even this is false. Quotation marks have meaning you know. But I will try to adopt a less demanding tone next time. :confused::D

Evidence of the nationwide exposure please?

[gnome]

Yes, anyone who later denies such important tidbits as knowing that Ayers was active in the Weathermen and who then goes on to run for president.

Same standard would be appropriate.

Tsk tsk--moving the goalposts.

Would you say that anyone who had similar contact to Ayers was "palling around" with him?

[Toontown]

Actually, I don't mean to nitpick, but even this is false. Quotation marks have meaning you know. But I will try to adopt a less demanding tone next time. :confused::D

Oh, but you do mean to nitpick. So you've lied yet again. That's what makes you so very interesting to talk to. Oops. I lied.

And you also lied about having "nothing further to add".

[Toontown]

"Evidence of the nationwide exposure please?"

Note to self: Articles in the Nation and the New York Times are not evidence of nationwide exposure if the existence of said articles are reported by ideologically impure (right-leaning) sources.

Besides, even if the articles were published in nationwide newspapers and magazines, that doesn't mean anyone read them or paid any attention to them. And that's what really counts to a desperate leftist. Not whether the Cloward-Piven strategy received nationwide exposure but whether the exposure actually sunk into the national consciousness to an arbitrary degree determined by the leftist.

[TraneWreck]

But alert the crypto zoologists. We've found a new breed of tiger that can change its' stripes. They no longer want to bring down capitalism with bombs they want to bring down capitalism from the inside. Totally different.

Yes, it really is.

I assume that was an attempt at sarcasm, but you nicely described the difference between terrorism and democratic activism.

ETA: I enjoy the total anonymity of the internet, so I will try to be as vague as possible, here.

I do know both Ayers and Dohrn. Not well, but I have encountered them both professionally and socially. Very good friends of mine are very good friends of theirs, and as I say, their professional world has crossed mine.

They are harmless. They're both engaged in very important advocacy work in Chicago, and they've left violent radicalism far behind.

That doesn't justify anything they did in the 60's and 70's, but the versions of these "radicals" that Obama met (and I met and worked with--guess I'm a terrorist just like Obama), are quite different from the probably drug-addled kids that did really stupid, dangerous things in the past.

I worked with a group during the last presidential election that ended up on projects with ACORN. I was, at first, amused by the insane conspiracy stories woven about that organization. Until we discovered that some percentage of our idiotic country actually believed that the half-million voters they managed to register somehow "stole" an election with a margin of 9,000,000, the idea that this group of well-meaning but largely incompetent workers could somehow undermine the system was hilarious.

Ayers and Dohrn remind me of the ACORN nuttiness. They just aren't radical or dangerous or violent. They were the radical extreme of a more radical time. I should point out that the SUCCESS of 60's radicalism is part of the reason they seem so absurd today. Progressives from that era solved some major problems and created a more stable, just country.

Let's not forget that in that era segregation was ended in a bloody battle, Native Americans were fighting against centuries of abuse, women were pushing off millinea of repression, and 18-22 year old men were forced to go fight an idiotic war. That was a society that either needed to change or be dismantled. Fortunately, it changed relatively peacefully (given the alternatives), and we're now benefiting from that work.

Contemporary progressives are free to pursue their agenda without radicalism because those 60's radicals succeeded. It is wrong to try and export ideas from such an unstable and frightening time to contemporary debates.

[varwoche]

I was in high school in 1966, along with blacks, Native Americans, and even...girls. I played sports and "palled around" with those oppressed minorities. Didn't see any oppression to speak of though.

Lucky you. We on planet earth lived through something quite different (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/6/newsid_3009000/3009967.stm).
1966: Black civil rights activist shot
James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, has been shot and wounded after entering Mississippi on a civil rights march. And guess what, I could cite even more high profile incidents from 1966 alone -- incidents that actually received national media exposure. :D

[leftysergeant]

No it's not. The liberal mind is very comprehensible, and very predictable. With experience, you can practically write their posts for them.Every time you have tried it, you have stomped on your crank. You have shown plainly that you have no bloody idea.

[leftysergeant]

You have no clue who I we are talking about or what they are doing now or how they have had influence on the current POTUS.


Be specific. How have they influenced the direction of the Obama aggenda?

Like I said useful idiots.

It would be better if you stopped using that term until you learn what it means.

[Toontown]

Sorry, leftie, can't talk right now. All my posts are getting deleted, for reasons ranging from hurting the lefties' feelings to no reason at all.

But you go ahead and believe what you wanna believe.

http://www.lyricstube.net/video.php?title=Refugee&artistid=14491&artist=Tom%20Petty&id=184807

OBTW: I knew you'd say something to that effect, as surely as I knew the sun would rise in the east.

[Toontown]

That was a society that either needed to change or be dismantled. Fortunately, it changed relatively peacefully (given the alternatives), and we're now benefiting from that work.

You got that, Merkins? Change, or be dismantled. The Bull Left has ordained it! So has it been written! So mote it be!

Left, FACE! Forward, MARCH!
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...

[TraneWreck]

You got that, Merkins? Change, or be dismantled. The Bull Left has ordained it! So has it been written! So mote it be!

Left, FACE! Forward, MARCH!
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...
Yer left, yer left, yer left, left, left...

Yes, segregation and its legacy in the South, as well as the historically poor treatment of Native Americans and women needed to end.

It substantially did, though it's not perfect now. If Eisenhower, Johnson and subsequent presidents did not enforce the demolition of segregation, something major would have had to change in this nation. Fortunately, they achieved results without resorting to more drastic measures.

[Toontown]

Yes, segregation and its legacy in the South, as well as the historically poor treatment of Native Americans and women needed to end.

It substantially did, though it's not perfect now. If Eisenhower, Johnson and subsequent presidents did not enforce the demolition of segregation, something major would have had to change in this nation. Fortunately, they achieved results without resorting to more drastic measures.

Sorry, tranewreck & co., but the constitution only allows for peaceful assembly to petition for the redress of grievances. And the armed forces are sworn by oath to defend the constitution.

I agree completely that it is fortunate that the government was able to enforce the constitution, so that the Bull Left did not feel compelled to go all the way into the abyss of your veiled threats. Scraping the Bull Left off the pavement (the only surface the city slickers can walk on) would have been a bloody mess. Far better to endure the neverending slings and arrows of outrageous leftist accusatory rhetoric and vile threats. As long as they don't try anything incredibly stupid and vile.

[TraneWreck]

Sorry, tranewreck & co., but the constitution only allows for peaceful assembly to petition for the redress of grievances. And the armed forces are sworn by oath to defend the constitution.

I agree completely that it is fortunate that the government was able to enforce the constitution, so that the Bull Left did not feel compelled to go all the way into the abyss of your veiled threats. Scraping the Bull Left off the pavement (the only surface the city slickers can walk on) would have been a bloody mess. Far better to endure the neverending slings and arrows of outrageous leftist accusatory rhetoric and vile threats. As long as they don't try anything incredibly stupid and vile.

Let me translate that for those of you that don't speak "Toontown":

"I have no argument so I'm just going to try and piss off as many people as I can."

[dudalb]

I do know both Ayers and Dohrn. Not well, but I have encountered them both professionally and socially. Very good friends of mine are very good friends of theirs, and as I say, their professional world has crossed mine.

They are harmless. They're both engaged in very important advocacy work in Chicago, and they've left violent radicalism far behind.



I wonder if you say that about somebody who was once involved with the Klan or other White supremists but have changed their ways.

[TraneWreck]

I wonder if you say that about somebody who was once involved with the Klan or other White supremists but have changed their ways.

I grew up with many such people, and I have family members (a safe distance removed) who were in the Klan in Texas. Those that have rejected their former positions I do accept.

Here's the fundamental difference, though. Dohrn and Ayers fought for positive ends, their methods were just idiotic. They're still working for social justice, they've just dropped the nuttiness.

For the Klan, both the ends and means were perverse. A Klanmember who said, "Yeah, I'm not into the lynching anymore, but I still favor a segregated society," would be less dangerous, but still wrong.

[Toontown]

Let me translate that for those of you that don't speak "Toontown":

"I have no argument so I'm just going to try and piss off as many people as I can."

Let me translate that for those of you that don't speak "tranewreck":

"I'm going to pretend I didn't say what I said so I can pretend Toontown has no argument. Hopefully, Toontown won't quote what I said again."

:D


"That was a society that either needed to change or be dismantled."


Ayers and Dohrn couldn't have said it better. Meanwhile, back in the USSR, vodka-pickled slimeballs were waiting like vultures, hoping U.S. society would suffer a drug-induced nervous breakdown and be dismantled by armies of crazed, self-absorbed, self-righteous cokeheads. They knew the Weather commies, after completing their purge of an estimated 25 million Americans (blurted out in front of an FBI infiltrator), wouldn't know what to do next. In fact, the FBI guy asked them what they would do next. They didn't know. They vaguely imagined the more experienced Soviets stepping in at that point.

BTW, I'm very sorry that the facts piss people off. I've long known facts do piss people off, but what's a muther to do?

[Virus]

Ayers and Dohrn couldn't have said it better. Meanwhile, back in the USSR, vodka-pickled slimeballs were waiting like vultures, hoping U.S. society would suffer a drug-induced nervous breakdown and be dismantled by armies of crazed, self-absorbed, self-righteous cokeheads. They knew the Weather commies, after completing their purge of an estimated 25 million Americans (blurted out in front of an FBI infiltrator), wouldn't know what to do next. In fact, the FBI guy asked them what they would do next. They didn't know. They vaguely imagined the more experienced Soviets stepping in at that point.

BTW, I'm very sorry that the facts piss people off. I've long known facts do piss people off, but what's a muther to do?

These guys are Tranewrecks new friends. I shudder to think of what sort of convention they met at. I'd be ashamed to admit that I'm friends with people who wanted to use terror to overthrow the US government and link up with the Soviet Union. Just as Ayers tried linking up with Hamas except the Egyptians wouldn't let him in.

[Toontown]

These guys are Tranewrecks new friends. I shudder to think of what sort of convention they met at. I'd be ashamed to admit that I'm friends with people who wanted to use terror to overthrow the US government and link up with the Soviet Union. Just as Ayers tried linking up with Hamas except the Egyptians wouldn't let him in.

I can't believe Ayers tried that. They never learn, do they. I wonder how many CIA and FBI agents hover around that crowd on a daily basis. I'll bet they attract lots of attention when they head for a hot spot.

[TraneWreck]

Hmm, I wonder if JREF offers courses on basic sentential logic.

When you guys reach the class on "disjunctive statements" a lot of this will make more sense to you.

[gnome]

They knew the Weather commies, after completing their purge of an estimated 25 million Americans (blurted out in front of an FBI infiltrator), wouldn't know what to do next. In fact, the FBI guy asked them what they would do next. They didn't know. They vaguely imagined the more experienced Soviets stepping in at that point.

BTW, I'm very sorry that the facts piss people off. I've long known facts do piss people off, but what's a muther to do?

This "fact" is rather shaky. It is the claim of an FBI infiltrator, yes. But it must be pointed out that deliberate deception was a standard tactic of the FBI in handling radical political groups. Remember COINTELPRO?

I don't think that claim can be accepted without evidence.

[YoPopa]

This "fact" is rather shaky. It is the claim of an FBI infiltrator, yes. But it must be pointed out that deliberate deception was a standard tactic of the FBI in handling radical political groups. Remember COINTELPRO?

I don't think that claim can be accepted without evidence.

The claim IS evidence. It may not be proof positive but it is evidence and it's just valid as the claims by former terrorists that they've mended their ways.

[leftysergeant]

Sorry, tranewreck & co., but the constitution only allows for peaceful assembly to petition for the redress of grievances. And the armed forces are sworn by oath to defend the constitution.Change was not going to come without violence, whether perpetrated by the advocates of change or by the reactionaries who resisted the change.

Maybe you were not alive when crowds assembled to spit on the first black children to enter previously all-white schools. Maybe you do not remember the church bomings and assassinations of black people who stood up to demand that they be treated as citizens with full rights of free movement in society.

I do.

And I was almost killed because I dared to cross lines that the KuKluxKrap thought inviolable in 1968. Don't tell me that there was not something hideously wrong with the way people thought about race back then.

To make it worse, people are still teaching their children the same garbage about race, still plotting an uprising to restore the festering old world order.Assemble as peacefully as you will in the face of such massive stupidity, nothing will happen until there is a crisis which forces the rest of the country to realize that there is a problem.

What happened in America in the 1960s was not that much different from what is happening now in Egypt. It is only a matter of degrees. The government of the country was reasonable in 1960. Some of the states were still living in 1860. Change had to come.

That government was so slow to act to fullfill the promise of equality, that the powers behind the military adventures in Asia were so entrenched left large parts of the popullation feeling that the whole of society needed to be forced to change.

Helplessness, or the impression of it, can lead people to commit acts that will shock you.

The radical left achieved its goals, for the most part, and most of the country was comfortable with that fact. There were and remain a few extremists who did not stand down from the fight, but they are rare and of little importance any more.

Worry about the extremists who resisted that change. They are still there, still angry, and armed to the teeth, and looking for ways to get people angry and convince them that they have to take up arms against the government.

I agree completely that it is fortunate that the government was able to enforce the constitution, so that the Bull Left did not feel compelled to go all the way into the abyss of your veiled threats. Scraping the Bull Left off the pavement (the only surface the city slickers can walk on) would have been a bloody mess. Far better to endure the neverending slings and arrows of outrageous leftist accusatory rhetoric and vile threats. As long as they don't try anything incredibly stupid and vile.

Living up to the intent of the Constitution was by far the better way to deal with the demands of the left. The legitimate goals of the left were met, to the betterment of society. There was no further popular support for the extremists who might have taken it beyond reason.

The war that the leftist radicals fought is over, and most of the fighters have long since stood down. Worry about the reactionaries on the lunatic right and the racists who still haven't.

[Virus]

This "fact" is rather shaky. It is the claim of an FBI infiltrator, yes. But it must be pointed out that deliberate deception was a standard tactic of the FBI in handling radical political groups. Remember COINTELPRO?

I don't think that claim can be accepted without evidence.

You find it hard to believe that radical leftist terrorists are radical?

[leftysergeant]

You find it hard to believe that radical leftist terrorists are radical?Thing is that there were never very many of them, nor had they such horrendous plans for the country as have the white natioalists who are recruiting folllowers now.

[Toontown]

Change was not going to come without violence, whether perpetrated by the advocates of change or by the reactionaries who resisted the change.

If change cannot come in a civilized democratic society without violence, then screw all of you, left and right. You're all cut from the same freaking cloth. Only the details of your opposing victimologies differ.


Maybe you were not alive when crowds assembled to spit on the first black children to enter previously all-white schools. Maybe you do not remember the church bomings and assassinations of black people who stood up to demand that they be treated as citizens with full rights of free movement in society.

I was born in 1949. Blacks and Native Americans have been in every school I've ever attended. No one spat on them. The Native Americans were actually looked upon as being rather special.

I know all about the incidents you've focused on. Those incidents did not represent the country the left has always wanted to broad-brush with false accusatory rhetoric.


And I was almost killed because I dared to cross lines that the KuKluxKrap thought inviolable in 1968. Don't tell me that there was not something hideously wrong with the way people thought about race back then.

That was stupid. Did you think you were superman? If you go looking for bad guys, you can find them. Better bring friends. You could just as easily have found a chapter of Hell's Angels to annoy. Or some black gang in Chicago or LA. Bad people exist. That doesn't give you the right to indict the entire country.


To make it worse, people are still teaching their children the same garbage about race, still plotting an uprising to restore the festering old world order..

What people? How many?

BTW, there are Neo Nazis in Germany. Better go get em, lefty. And dismantle that damn society while you're at it. Come back behind your shield, or on it.


Assemble as peacefully as you will in the face of such massive stupidity, nothing will happen until there is a crisis which forces the rest of the country to realize that there is a problem.

You still don't seem to understand. Dealing with that mass stupidity, should it rise up, is the responsibility of the armed forces police, and FBI. You are not authorized, unless they come for you, personally. Then you have the right to defend yourself.

What you don't do is go trying to stir up a counter movement, just in case the skinheads try something. Especially a drug addled counter movement, which will jack up as only the drug addled can. The idea is to evolve toward a civilized species, not devolve back into gaggles of warring tribes.

Remember what happened to the previous disorganized tribes that occupied the continent. Divided, they fell.


What happened in America in the 1960s was not that much different from what is happening now in Egypt. It is only a matter of degrees.

That remains to be seen. We don't have strongmen here who come to power by force and hold on for decades before being pushed out by another strongman. What we have here is a constitutional democracy which is guaranteed by an honorable military which grants civilian control while simultaneously riding herd on power grubbers. It's a delicate balance, but it has shown remarkable durability so far.


The government of the country was reasonable in 1960. Some of the states were still living in 1860. Change had to come.

And change came, but violent radicals need not claim any credit. The change came, not because of violence across the ideological divides, but despite it. Each divisive act of destructive violence only set back positive change.

Crediting force and violence for positive change in an existing representative democracy is ignorant and/or dishonest. The initial moves toward the positive changes you crow about predated your "forced" change movement by decades.


That government was so slow to act to fullfill the promise of equality, that the powers behind the military adventures in Asia were so entrenched left large parts of the popullation feeling that the whole of society needed to be forced to change.

I know what those parts of the population thought. They thought wrong.


The radical left achieved its goals, for the most part, and most of the country was comfortable with that fact. There were and remain a few extremists who did not stand down from the fight, but they are rare and of little importance any more.

There you go trying to take credit for the "change" again. Hint: the positive change that happened was the change most of the country wanted. Radicals had little to do with it, other than to impede it, in large part, I suspect, to indulge their obvious control issues.


Worry about the extremists who resisted that change. They are still there, still angry, and armed to the teeth, and looking for ways to get people angry and convince them that they have to take up arms against the government.

At the rate they're going, they'll all die of natural causes eventually. If they're smart. If they're stupid, I'm pretty sure the military, police, and FBI can handle them.


Living up to the intent of the Constitution was by far the better way to deal with the demands of the left. The legitimate goals of the left were met, to the betterment of society. There was no further popular support for the extremists who might have taken it beyond reason.

You overestimate the powah of the left.

The power of the left is proportional to the number of legitimate votes it can deliver.

The country is centrist or slightly center-right. The left is a minority. Any determined, persistent attempt by a minority to "force" unwanted change on the majority is likely to have grave consequences for the outnumbered bullies. Remember when you tried to force change on those KKKrappers? How did that work out?

Unless, of course, the minority has the weight of the constitution, government, police, and armed forces behind it.


The war that the leftist radicals fought is over, and most of the fighters have long since stood down. Worry about the reactionaries on the lunatic right and the racists who still haven't.

The "war" (snicker) the radical leftists try to take credit for winning, was not won by them, but by the government, police, and FBI. The radicals just got in the way, like a flock of fractious chickens.:D

[Skeptic Ginger]

This thread should be moved to the CT forum considering the claims.

[babycondor]

If change cannot come in a civilized democratic society without violence, then screw all of you, left and right. You're all cut from the same freaking cloth. Only the details of your opposing victimologies differ.

The United States was founded after a violent revolution. The Civil War, a bloody conflict, led to the abolition of slavery. I'm not advocating violence as a solution to solving problems in a civilized democratic society, because most of the time, change happens in an orderly (if slow) fashion anyway. But like it or not, throughout history, conflict and unrest have been a catalyst for change.

I was born in 1949. Blacks and Native Americans have been in every school I've ever attended. No one spat on them. The Native Americans were actually looked upon as being rather special.

I know all about the incidents you've focused on. Those incidents did not represent the country the left has always wanted to broad-brush with false accusatory rhetoric.

Apparently they represented a large enough part of the country to focus attention on the systemic injustices that needed to be corrected.

You still don't seem to understand. Dealing with that mass stupidity, should it rise up, is the responsibility of the armed forces police, and FBI. You are not authorized, unless they come for you, personally. Then you have the right to defend yourself.

Right. Sit quietly while the police state grows. When they come for you, despite whatever arsenal of weapons you may have amassed in your personal walled compound, you will lose that battle. And anyway, I thought you abhorred violence.

Remember what happened to the previous disorganized tribes that occupied the continent. Divided, they fell.

Yes, the "civilized democracy" wiped them out in an appalling example of mass genocide that remains a stain on our nation's history.

That remains to be seen. We don't have strongmen here who come to power by force and hold on for decades before being pushed out by another strongman. What we have here is a constitutional democracy which is guaranteed by an honorable military which grants civilian control while simultaneously riding herd on power grubbers. It's a delicate balance, but it has shown remarkable durability so far.

So far.

And change came, but violent radicals need not claim any credit. The change came, not because of violence across the ideological divides, but despite it. Each divisive act of destructive violence only set back positive change.

Crediting force and violence for positive change in an existing representative democracy is ignorant and/or dishonest. The initial moves toward the positive changes you crow about predated your "forced" change movement by decades.

I know what those parts of the population thought. They thought wrong.

There you go trying to take credit for the "change" again. Hint: the positive change that happened was the change most of the country wanted. Radicals had little to do with it, other than to impede it, in large part, I suspect, to indulge their obvious control issues.

Can you cite reliable independent studies that support your assertions?

The "war" (snicker) the radical leftists try to take credit for winning, was not won by them, but by the government, police, and FBI. The radicals just got in the way, like a flock of fractious chickens.:D

You underestimate the "powah" of the left. If the fractious chickens hadn't kept squawking, the complacent populace would have gone about their business as usual without a care in the world.

[gnome]

You find it hard to believe that radical leftist terrorists are radical?

I find it hard to believe that radical leftists who--despite still crossing a moral line by putting lives in danger--seemed to prefer damaging unoccupied buildings, intended mass murder on an almost unprecedented scale. That's quite a gap to bridge just on someone's secondhand account.

[gnome]

The claim IS evidence. It may not be proof positive but it is evidence and it's just valid as the claims by former terrorists that they've mended their ways.

You once told me in a private message that you beat your dog. I'd show you but I deleted it. There, that's now evidence too.

EVERYTHING is evidence, the question is how good is it? Not very.

You decide if someone's mended their ways by studying their behavior, not by trying to figure out if they're lying.

[Toontown]

I find it hard to believe that radical leftists who--despite still crossing a moral line by putting lives in danger--seemed to prefer damaging unoccupied buildings, intended mass murder on an almost unprecedented scale. That's quite a gap to bridge just on someone's secondhand account.

Standard communist purge tactics are hardly unprecedented. The Soviets did it. The Red Chinese did it. the Khmer Rouge did it. The Viet Cong did it on a smaller scale.

[Toontown]

Right. Sit quietly while the police state grows. When they come for you, despite whatever arsenal of weapons you may have amassed in your personal walled compound, you will lose that battle. And anyway, I thought you abhorred violence.

I do hope you're not trying to fob that alarmist strawman nonsense off as something I said or implied. You're not trying to do that, are you.

BTW, when is that "police state" going to get all grown up? I've waited and waited for it to come for me. Another decade or two and they'll have to exhume me if they want me for whatever vile purposes lurk there in your fevered imagination.

Tell you what. I've gotten a bit old to be fighting off police states. You guys go ahead and keep training and arming your militias, building your compounds, and...well, actually you shouldn't be building compounds. Those will get naped and overrun right away, come the revolution.


Yes, the "civilized democracy" wiped them out in an appalling example of mass genocide that remains a stain on our nation's history.

Thank you for inadvertently supporting my point. United democracy against divided tribes. Only one possible outcome.

Oh, I get it. You saw your chance to smear the evil Merkins, and you went for it.


Can you cite reliable independent studies that support your assertions?

Can you cite reliable independent studies that support leftysergeant's assertions?

My assertions are better than his, supported or not.


You underestimate the "powah" of the left. If the fractious chickens hadn't kept squawking, the complacent populace would have gone about their business as usual without a care in the world.

Actually, no, the chicken-squawking only annoyed the populace, which was already largely aware of the problem due to the efforts of leaders like Ike and JFK. Moves were already underway to correct the problems. That's actually what started the chicken-squawking. IOW, the chicken-squawking was reactionary. They weren't leading. They were just running out in front, trying to make it look like they were large and in charge. But actually they were small and should have stayed at the mall.

Eventually, the battleship turned, irrespective of the chicken-come-lately squawkers.

[babycondor]

I do hope you're not trying to fob that alarmist strawman nonsense off as something I said or implied. You're not trying to do that, are you.

BTW, when is that "police state" going to get all grown up? I've waited and waited for it to come for me. Another decade or two and they'll have to exhume me if they want me for whatever vile purposes lurk there in your fevered imagination.

I was responding to what you wrote: "You are not authorized, unless they come for you, personally. Then you have the right to defend yourself."


Actually, no, the chicken-squawking only annoyed the populace, which was already largely aware of the problem due to the efforts of leaders like Ike and JFK. Moves were already underway to correct the problems. That's actually what started the chicken-squawking. IOW, the chicken-squawking was reactionary. They weren't leading. They were just running out in front, trying to make it look like they were large and in charge. But actually they were small and should have stayed at the mall.

Eventually, the battleship turned, irrespective of the chicken-come-lately squawkers.

This is a chicken-and-egg argument that is going nowhere. The evolution of society is an ongoing process. Radical voices can serve as catalysts for change by focusing energy and attention on problems that should be addressed.

BTW I'm not defending Piven and her calls for Greece-style strikes, riots, etc. I still believe in the power of a representative democracy to address injustice and inequality by nonviolent means. What is objectionable to me is when people like Beck use the media to focus negative attention on people like her, in order to get people worked up into a lather or fear, intolerance and hate. We don't need that at all.

[Toontown]

I was responding to what you wrote: "You are not authorized, unless they come for you, personally. Then you have the right to defend yourself."

No you weren't. I wasn't talking about the "police state". I was talking about what leftiesergeant was talking about - white supremacists.


This is a chicken-and-egg argument that is going nowhere. The evolution of society is an ongoing process. Radical voices can serve as catalysts for change by focusing energy and attention on problems that should be addressed.

I'm sure that's possible. But nobody needs to be a freaking radical about anything. Radicals should take a chill pill, do some breathing exercises, put down the freaking dynamite, resist the urge to buy the assault rifle, and stop scheming on monkey-wrenching the system. Then, if they have any ideas that are worth a flying fart, and they have the education and language skills to articulate the undoubtedly wonderful ideas, then maybe people will be interested in hearing the wonderful ideas. If not, screw it. Going helter-skelter is not an answer.


BTW I'm not defending Piven and her calls for Greece-style strikes, riots, etc. I still believe in the power of a representative democracy to address injustice and inequality by nonviolent means. What is objectionable to me is when people like Beck use the media to focus negative attention on people like her, in order to get people worked up into a lather or fear, intolerance and hate. We don't need that at all.

Well...I guess you'll just have to suffer. That's the way it is. Lefties like to focus negative attention on people like Palin. Righties, and sometimes even JFK liberals (neocons) like me, like to focus negative attention on people like Piven.

[babycondor]

No you weren't. I wasn't talking about the "police state". I was talking about what leftiesergeant was talking about - white supremacists.

Oh sorry, I misunderstood.

I'm sure that's possible. But nobody needs to be a freaking radical about anything. Radicals should take a chill pill, do some breathing exercises, put down the freaking dynamite, resist the urge to buy the assault rifle, and stop scheming on monkey-wrenching the system. Then, if they have any ideas that are worth a flying fart, and they have the education and language skills to articulate the undoubtedly wonderful ideas, then maybe people will be interested in hearing the wonderful ideas. If not, screw it. Going helter-skelter is not an answer.

Tell that to the Glenn Back fan who threatened to hunt Piven down.

Well...I guess you'll just have to suffer. That's the way it is. Lefties like to focus negative attention on people like Palin. Righties, and sometimes even JFK liberals (neocons) like me, like to focus negative attention on people like Piven.

But why do they like to do that? Because it fuels intolerance, fear and hate? Why do people buy into it? Because it's entertaining? Because it's too hard to think critically for oneself? Because it's easier to be told what to think by some talking head on the radio?

[Toontown]

Tell that to the Glenn Back fan who threatened to hunt Piven down.

Beck threatened to hunt Piven down? What an ass. Sure. I'll chide Beck for that the next time I see him.


But why do they like to do that? Because it fuels intolerance, fear and hate? Why do people buy into it? Because it's entertaining? Because it's too hard to think critically for oneself? Because it's easier to be told what to think by some talking head on the radio?

I criticize people like Piven, Ayers and Dohrn because they've demonstrated their ignorant, destructive tendencies, born of the belief that they are so very very special that they have a right to touch off drug-crazed revolutions or bankrupt the government, so that they, the very very special ones, can take us all over and cull us down as they please, all under the guise of giving bouncy rubber gubbermint "guaranteed income" checks to the soon-to-be chronically unemployed.

But I don't know why anyone else would criticize such wonderful people.

[babycondor]

Beck threatened to hunt Piven down? What an ass. Sure. I'll chide Beck for that the next time I see him.

It wasn't Beck. If you re-read what I wrote, it was a "fan" of Beck's. The threat was mentioned further upthread, which you may have missed.

I criticize people like Piven, Ayers and Dohrn because they've demonstrated their ignorant, destructive tendencies, born of the belief that they are so very very special that they have a right to touch off drug-crazed revolutions or bankrupt the government, so that they, the very very special ones, can take us all over and cull us down as they please, all under the guise of giving bouncy rubber gubbermint "guaranteed income" checks to the soon-to-be chronically unemployed.

But I don't know why anyone else would criticize such wonderful people.


The highlighted portions are examples of "fear mongering."

[leftysergeant]

Righties, and sometimes even JFK liberals (neocons) like me, like to focus negative attention on people like Piven.

In no way do you at all ressemble JFK.

[YoPopa]

It wasn't Beck. If you re-read what I wrote, it was a "fan" of Beck's. The threat was mentioned further upthread, which you may have missed....

A crazy person did something crazy. Alert the National Guard. Meanwhile, Beck has as many as 15 credible death threats against him at any one time. All from fans of Piven no doubt.

[leftysergeant]

A crazy person did something crazy. Alert the National Guard. Meanwhile, Beck has as many as 15 credible death threats against him at any one time. All from fans of Piven no doubt.Utterly baseless assumption. I doubt that one in ten of the people who wish that anti-Semitic maniac dead have ever heard of Piven.

[varwoche]

BTW I'm not defending Piven and her calls for Greece-style strikes, riots, etc. An odd aspect of this Beck/Piven business is that, so far as I've seen, Piven never advocated violence in the past. Despite which, Beck held her up as the personification of evil, lumping her in with violent extremists. And then just recently, Piven makes this statement about riots. Geez, if that's not handing your enemies a stick to beat you with, I don't know what is.

[gnome]

A crazy person did something crazy. Alert the National Guard. Meanwhile, Beck has as many as 15 credible death threats against him at any one time. All from fans of Piven no doubt.

Unless I lost it in spam, did you skip my question?

Does everyone who had similar contact to Ayers as Obama count as having "palled around" with him?

[gnome]

Standard communist purge tactics are hardly unprecedented. The Soviets did it. The Red Chinese did it. the Khmer Rouge did it. The Viet Cong did it on a smaller scale.

Sorry, doesn't fly. The fact that communists with absolute political authority are dangerous and deadly is not evidence that a man said something.

I don't think it's at all a reasonable conclusion to imagine that even among actual communists that one can assume they advocate mass murder.

[Toontown]

Sorry, doesn't fly. The fact that communists with absolute political authority are dangerous and deadly is not evidence that a man said something..

Goes to motive. Propensity of communists to carry out bloody purges is exaustively documented. They did it to eliminate resistance. That was the motive. The man in question was a communist who wanted to seize power.


I don't think it's at all a reasonable conclusion to imagine that even among actual communists that one can assume they advocate mass murder.

Sorry, doesn't fly. Your unwillingness to believe the FBI agent doesn't mean he lied.

Obviously communists have not only advocated mass murder, but have done it repeatedly.

[Toontown]

In no way do you at all ressemble JFK.

FYI, I differentiate between liberals and leftists.

Your desire to re-label me notwithstanding, I'm afraid I must insist. You are a noninterventionist leftist, which puts me closer to JFK than you.

JFK was the liberal standard of his time, but if JFK was around today, these leftists would brand him a neocon. Read his inaugural address. It's neocon to the core. But that was liberal then.

If you insist on being stubborn, I'll post the inaugural address later with certain parts highlighted. Long story short, JFK gave short shrift to your central abiding belief in noninterventionism.

[Toontown]

The highlighted portions are examples of "fear mongering."

OK, I'll re-write it without the "fear mongering".

I criticize people like Ayers and Dohrn because they've demonstrated that they believe they have a right to quite soberly issue declarations of war, blow up buildings, advocate the killing of police, and advocate the overthrow of the government and the institution of communism. Other more reasonable leftists like Cloward and Piven advocated using the poor as pawns by overburdening the welfare system until it could no longer service all the dependents, causing widespread desperation resulting in mass riots, all for the purpose of weakening the government to the point where, in desperation, the government agrees to start printing and shipping trainloads of "guaranteed income" checks.

But I don't know why anyone else would criticize such wonderful people.

Is that less scary? I don't see how. It's just longer. Most of what I said during the "fear mongering" phase was quite predictable in terms of outcome, and essentially intended only to serve as a criticism of the perps and their proposed methods.

See, the thing is, if you describe the actions of radicals, you have to say scary things, because they try to do scary things. I guess that's why they're called "radicals".

After all, I'm not trying to write a Barney the Dinosaur script.

[gnome]

Goes to motive. Propensity of communists to carry out bloody purges is exaustively documented. They did it to eliminate resistance. That was the motive. The man in question was a communist who wanted to seize power.



Sorry, doesn't fly. Your unwillingness to believe the FBI agent doesn't mean he lied.

Obviously communists have not only advocated mass murder, but have done it repeatedly.

That still does not constitute evidence that THIS man did so. I do not claim the FBI person lied. I assert that we don't have enough evidence to take his statement as true.

Condemn him on his actions, not on what someone said he said. Shall we presume that if someone's a dangerous person that there is no extreme anyone can claim that need be questioned?

[Toontown]

That still does not constitute evidence that THIS man did so. I do not claim the FBI person lied. I assert that we don't have enough evidence to take his statement as true.

Condemn him on his actions, not on what someone said he said. Shall we presume that if someone's a dangerous person that there is no extreme anyone can claim that need be questioned?

I see. You don't want me to mention the communist purges.

[varwoche]

As for Piven's 1966 article that lies at the center of this teapot tempest... In the grand scheme, I don't see how it's any more subversive/radical than the present day GOP threats not to raise the debt ceiling.

[YoPopa]

As for Piven's 1966 article that lies at the center of this teapot tempest... In the grand scheme, I don't see how it's any more subversive/radical than the present day GOP threats not to raise the debt ceiling.

I see where you're coming from. The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism so they are equally subversive. :boggled:

[leftysergeant]

I see. You don't want me to mention the communist purges.How about if we just let you mention the communist purges and we remind you of Auschwitz and Dachau?

[leftysergeant]

I see where you're coming from. The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism so they are equally subversive. :boggled:Why are they even relevant to today? They weren't even especially important back then?

[gnome]

I see. You don't want me to mention the communist purges.

Mention them all you want. You don't need to convince me that communism is dangerous and evil.

It still does not add to the credibility of a second-hand account of someone's words.

[Toontown]

How about if we just let you mention the communist purges and we remind you of Auschwitz and Dachau?

Why? Is ethnic cleansing on an industrial scale a standard capitalist strategy? Would your mentions of Auschwitz and Dachau serve to counter my observation that there is nothing unusual about communists carrying out purges during their various seizures?

[varwoche]

I see where you're coming from. The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism so they are equally subversive. :boggled:Let's compare:

Both the Piven strategy and the GOP strategy are non-violent.

Both are legal, operating within the system.

Both threaten havoc, Piven on a small scale, GOP on a large scale.

So we're left with Piven wanting more govt spending on social programs, and the GOP wanting less. Oh the horror.

[YoPopa]

Let's compare:

Both the Piven strategy and the GOP strategy are non-violent.

Both are legal, operating within the system.

Both threaten havoc, Piven on a small scale, GOP on a large scale.

So we're left with Piven wanting more govt spending on social programs, and the GOP wanting less. Oh the horror.

The snow in my yard is cold and white.
The milk in my fridge is cold and white.
Finding parallels can be so much fun!

The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism.

Is that really too confusing for an apologist?

[gnome]

I take it YoPapa will no longer refer to Obama as "palling around" with Ayers. Since the question has been avoided.

[YoPopa]

I take it YoPapa will no longer refer to Obama as "palling around" with Ayers. Since the question has been avoided.

Asked and answered. You don't like or don't understand the answer is not my concern.

[gnome]

Asked and answered. You don't like or don't understand the answer is not my concern.

You answered a different question than the one I asked.

But I'm happy to clarify again. If someone else had similar contact to Ayers, do they count as "palling around"?

[leftysergeant]

Would your mentions of Auschwitz and Dachau serve to counter my observation that there is nothing unusual about communists carrying out purges during their various seizures?

Just pointing out that capitalists and libertartians have, at times, been entirely cool with mass murder and enslavement of foreigners and underclasses within their own borders, sometimes just for not being white.

It happened here, you know.

[YoPopa]

You answered a different question than the one I asked.

But I'm happy to clarify again. If someone else had similar contact to Ayers, do they count as "palling around"?

Petty parse the definition of "palling around" all you want. We're talking about the POTUS having multiple close contacts with a terrorist in his home. Any GOP president and the press would have been all over it as would you.

[gnome]

Petty parse the definition of "palling around" all you want. We're talking about the POTUS having multiple close contacts with a terrorist in his home. Any GOP president and the press would have been all over it as would you.

Then why not just say "Yes" to my question? I'm just trying to get your commitment not to apply a different definition of "palling around" or "multiple close contacts" if you prefer, depending on who it is.

[A Laughing Baby]

The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism.



Save it from what? Am I right to assume you're applying an argument of "Obama administration/policy = socialism, socialism ^= capitalism, partial or complete shutdown of government stops socialism and therefore saves capitalism?"

[YoPopa]

Save it from what?

Let's not derail this thread. Read any news on what the effect of crippling deficits is going to be.

Am I right to assume you're applying an argument of "Obama administration/policy = socialism, socialism ^= capitalism, partial or complete shutdown of government stops socialism and therefore saves capitalism?"

No.

[TraneWreck]

Let's not derail this thread. Read any news on what the effect of crippling deficits is going to be.

Please, capitalism needs to be saved from the vapid austerity fetishists. Look at what's happening in England. They started cutting based on deficit hysteria and their economy is falling back into recession.

Capitalism was saved by FDR, it looks like someone else is going to have to step in to fix it in the same way.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I see where you're coming from. The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism so they are equally subversive. :boggled:What a total distortion of the Piven paper. The strategy was intended to get the poor to use their political voice which they often do not do. The rest is a right wing fantasy.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

The Cloward Piven strategy was intended to bring down our system of capitalism and the GOP strategy is intended to save our system of capitalism. ...You really should consider other opinions of what the paper says if you can't figure it out for yourself. You seem to be getting your version of the paper straight from Glenn Beck's tinfoil covered head.

[Virus]

What a total distortion of the Piven paper. The strategy was intended to get the poor to use their political voice which they often do not do. The rest is a right wing fantasy.

Eh? It was not. It was a retarded scheme to solve poverty by bringing the government to a state of near-collapse so they would give out free money to everybody. Something so asinine, only a radical leftist could believe it.

[leftysergeant]

Eh? It was not. It was a retarded scheme to solve poverty by bringing the government to a state of near-collapse so they would give out free money to everybody.

Not a bit of it. As I read it, and from what I know of those times (which I experienced first-hand,) it was intended to wake the nation up to a problem tha people had dismissed as already solved when, in fact,, there had simply been an error in sampling. That this was a stealth revolution is something so asinine, only a knee-jerk right-winger could believe it.

[Virus]

Not a bit of it. As I read it, and from what I know of those times (which I experienced first-hand,) it was intended to wake the nation up to a problem tha people had dismissed as already solved when, in fact,, there had simply been an error in sampling. That this was a stealth revolution is something so asinine, only a knee-jerk right-winger could believe it.

How come the original article states that the objective is to wipe out poverty with "guaranteed income" checks? Why did they say that's the objective if it isn't the objective?

[leftysergeant]

How come the original article states that the objective is to wipe out poverty with "guaranteed income" checks? Why did they say that's the objective if it isn't the objective?What has that to do with destroying America?

[YoPopa]

How come the original article states that the objective is to wipe out poverty with "guaranteed income" checks? Why did they say that's the objective if it isn't the objective?

In the tiny minds of the Pivenpologists words like “fiscal and political crises in the cities,” were meant to strengthen capitalism. If everyone had a minimum income there would be more of everything for everybody. Everyone could buy everything they need, which would make all the capitalists happy :) and it would rain only at night. Of course somethings might be different today. Back in the 60s lollipops were all sugar. Today the lollipop trees would have a sugarless option.

[Virus]

What has that to do with destroying America?

Goalposts. You said it wasn't about forcing the government to hand out free money. Are you saying it was now?

[leftysergeant]

Goalposts. You said it wasn't about forcing the government to hand out free money. Are you saying it was now?No.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Eh? It was not. It was a retarded scheme to solve poverty by bringing the government to a state of near-collapse so they would give out free money to everybody. Something so asinine, only a radical leftist could believe it.I read the paper and a more recent interview with Piven. I drew my conclusion from those sources.

The only place I've seen your conclusion is on right wing blogs and in Glenn Beck's paranoid rants.

[gnome]

YoPapa... can you give me a yes or a no? Or need I conclude that you are not interested in clarifying your characterization of Obama's contact with Ayers?

[Virus]

I read the paper and a more recent interview with Piven. I drew my conclusion from those sources.

The only place I've seen your conclusion is on right wing blogs and in Glenn Beck's paranoid rants.

Then why did they say that's the objective?

"The ultimate objective of this strategy--to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income--will be questioned by some."

[Skeptic Ginger]

Then why did they say that's the objective?

"The ultimate objective of this strategy--to wipe out poverty by establishing a guaranteed annual income--will be questioned by some."Maybe we speaks different languages. Where in, "wipe out poverty", do you read, "destroy the system"?

[Virus]

Maybe we speaks different languages. Where in, "wipe out poverty", do you read, "destroy the system"?

So it was about wiping out poverty by forcing the government to hand out free money? You agree that was the objective? Because you just said that it wasn't.

[leftysergeant]

So it was about wiping out poverty by forcing the government to hand out free money? You agree that was the objective? Because you just said that it wasn't.Where do you get this free money " crap? Do you think that people are locked into being welfare recipients or producers and never cross from one to the other? Do stop and think some time.

[varwoche]

What a total distortion of the Piven paper. The strategy was intended to get the poor to use their political voice which they often do not do. The rest is a right wing fantasy. This post prompted me to review the thread, and here's what I noticed:

En toto, the Piven detractors have quoted a seven word snippet from the Cloward-Piven article that lies at the heart of the teapot tempest.

Lots of quotes from Beck, Dohrn, Ayers and various op-ed pieces. But just seven lonely words from the controversial article itself (which included some throw-away prepositions ;))

I call it argumentum ad Kevin Bacon.

[Skeptic Ginger]

So it was about wiping out poverty by forcing the government to hand out free money? You agree that was the objective? Because you just said that it wasn't.Of course I don't agree with your fantasy version of this CT. That's quite a stretch. Looks similar to how Glenn Beck puts pieces together on his chalkboards.

[Skeptic Ginger]

....

I call it argumentum ad Kevin Bacon.If I get the analogy: 6 degrees of word association to get to the answer? That would be Beck's chalkboard adventures, allright.

:D