Libertarianism is about the least government intrusion possible for the pursuit of individual happiness and wealth. It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE to have a so-called "left-libertarianism" because it is inherently opposed to the pursuit of individual wealth. Calling one's self a "left libertarian" is not only moronic, it is oxymoronic.

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thanks to weight loss i am not a fatty anymore.

Back to the National-Kiss-the-Ring-of-Power Death Ritual for Gerald Ford. There's so much to find offensive in the ongoing memorial, which culminated (thankfully) in the Ford funeral today. There's the revolting praise heaped again and again – in “liberal” newspaper editorials and by the Worst President Ever today – on Ford's arrogant decision to grant an advance, all-inclusive pardon to the monumental, many-sided war criminal Richard Nixon. We are being told over and over again (by dominant media) that Ford's pardon was a "wise decision" that “healed a nation.” Never mind that the pardon was vastly unpopular with the American people at the time. The populace found the pardon deeply offensive. The people never forgave Ford for granting Nixon royal exemption from the laws of the land. Could the not-so hidden dominant media message behind all the Ford as Great Healer and Unassuming Savior of the Nation coverage and commentary be any more obvious? The thought-coordinator class is using Ford's death to signal to We the officially irrelevant People the dysfunctional silliness of our widely held desire to see the Cheney-Bush White House held accountable for its colossal crimes against democracy and humanity – crimes that were and are deeply enabled and encouraged by ruling media elites. Yesterday we were expected to sit silently and respectfully on our couches and watch the Public Broadcasting System's Nightly News mystifiers respectfully broadcast and respectfully comment on Darth Cheney's sickening Ford oration in the Capitol. The most Evil (and powerful)Vice President Ever likened the openly mediocre Ford to Abraham Lincoln, the nation's actual Greatest President Ever. We have the mandatory ignoring of Ford's criminal attacks on Cambodia (the forgotten and scurrilous little Mayaguez affair). We have the even more necessary official forgetting/deletion of the bloody green light Ford and his inherited Dr. Strangelove (Henry Kissinger) have to Indonesia's nearly genocidal invasion of East Timor and of the support the Ford White House proffered to military fascism in Chile. We have corporate media's incessant, addictive banging on the odious Greatest Generation (Ford was a veteran in the “good war”) Drum, meant to deafen us to the terrible crimes against justice, peace, democracy, and livable ecology that were committed under the supervision of the endlessly self-flattering and earth-befouling WWII generation. Yes, let us pray yet again to the Great Elders who brought us the interstate highway system and the Crucifixion of Southeast Asia. When is Thomas Brokaw going to climb into a mass grave with the heroes who brought us Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Operation Phoenix...who brought us to within a Soviet submarine commander's decision of nuclear annihiliation in the fall of 1962? Then there's the media spin masters' repeated broadcast of statements from some of our more pathetic and Uncle-Tom-like citizens, who dutifully tell local and national television, newspaper, and radio reporters that they signed a Gerald Ford Condolence Book or traveled to Washington to “show respect for the office.” “Respect for the office?” With all due respect, what the Hell is that? What is this, feudalism? What about showing some respect for yourself and for the concept of a democracy? Democracy – the purported purpose and ideal of the U.S. – isn't about power worship. Office-holders aren't supposed to get respect because they hold offices – at least they aren't supposed to in a democracy. Ford didn't earn the respect of the people when he held the nation's highest office through appointment by one of the most corrupt and abusive office-holders of all time. He pardoned a disgraced power abuser and then went on to commit his own significant crimes. And now we're supposed to get all teary-eyed and bow our heads because of... ”respect for the office” Because of our deep and heartfelt respect for Authority as such. Because of our Cringing Deference to Power per se. Sorry. Not interested. The thing that offends me most is the way we are expected to cry our ruling-class's dead white males a deferential river of tears while the current blood-soaked war criminals in power produce an ever-expanding new crop of unjustly slaughtered victims within and beyond Iraq. Gerald Ford was rewarded with 92 years on this wonderful earth. On PBS today, I saw the quickly forgotten names and faces of a large number of mostly working-class Americans who didn't get to live past age 22 because of an illegal, racist, and imperialist oil war that was ordered from above, by the members of the same dominant class that wants us to spend days and days reflecting on the humble greatness of the President who okayed the crucifixion of East Timor and who Let Tricky Dick Run Free. Forget it. The most offensive thing of all is the differential value we are expected to place on people's lives in accord with their position in the nation's rigid structures of inequality.

And acquitted by  the Senate - an excellent case on point!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment

 

Bill Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998 by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (by a 228–206 vote) and obstruction of justice (by a 221–212 vote). Two other articles of impeachment failed—a second count of perjury in the Jones case (by a 205–229 vote), and one accusing President Clinton of abuse of power (by a 148–285 vote). He was acquitted by the Senate.

If Presidents are above the law, explain the impeachment of Clinton?  He has been permanately disbarred, which may mean nothing to you, but it means a lot to a lawyer. 

Amen!

Talk about ludicrous, (beside the fact that you can't respond to an idea unless there is a name attached), what could be more democratic then the capitalist system that allows people the choice to buy or not buy? 

You are proposing a system where not only do not give people a choice to buy, you are doing so because you are not giving a person the choice to produce or not.  That is authoritarian in is essence. 

Further, if a person "makes too much money," you will take it away and redistribute it.  To whom you distribute it or why is nugatory.  The very act of taking away is authoritarian - and taking away is central to what you want to do.  There is absolutely nothing libertarian about that. 

Ford considered Nixon his "best friend".

Ford's appointment and Nixon's pardon stand as historical observed reality. Presidents are Above the Law and we as American citizens are forced to accept that reality.

The Evil we are now witnessing is but one by-product of that pardon.

Fact is Ford showed the world that the Rule of Law does not apply to an American President. Observed reality has now shown the world that one man who is Above the Law, can lie his way into a war on behalf of all American Citizens and never be held accountable.

   

I don't call for banning differing viewpoints but I don't think anyone should take anonymous shots (personal ones especially...as when "Anonymous not verified" suggests that my critique of U.S. academic work was motivated by professional jealousy/failure, not a sincere, genuinely critical perspective rooted in moral and intellectual judgement) at the blog host (and this was precisely the main behavior of the earlier banned troll ...along with the same ideological confusions and accusations) or at other commenters. An earlier (probably the same "person") "ANV" actually asked me to report my home address on the blog...a provocative and potentially threatening comment to say the least (people who have followed this blog from the beginning know that some right antagonists will make genuine physical threats). I honestly think that "Anonymous" trolling is ridiculous. I argue that the coming revised blog system should ban it and won't read things from people who don't have a name. For what it's worth, I think mainstream market libertarianism is childish and actually authoritarian. "Free market" doctrine and rhetoric is just transparent cover for the de facto dictatorship of the business community. So-called market rule is imposed and sustained against the popular will and through state violence and subsidy. It is about class oppression through the intertwined mechanisms of concentrated private and public power. It is a seedbed for the rise of the great institutional tyranny of the modern age: the sociopathic Corporation, the Frankenstein-like behemoth that is both product and master of the state capitalist market. Market rule is corporate rule since the massive "visible hand"/"managerial" corporation (dedicated to the mastery and restriction of market freedom) is the organic product of market logic enabled and maintained through an in-fact interventionist, regressive and repressive state run by and for the privileged few. Market libertarians occasionally voice some interesting ideas and sentiments that involve some shared space with left libertarians --- on lifestyle issues (sex and narcotics for example), foreign policy (sometimes) and other matters --- but at the end of the day they are ridiculous enablers of the ever-more filthy-rich class enemy. They absurdly call left radicals authoritarians because we don't think the top 2 percent should be permitted to own half the planet's wealth (and probably more of its policymakers) in a world where two billion people or more live on less than a dollar a day. Left libertarians know that democracy and capitalism are ultimate life and death antagonists; it's one or the other. Supposed market/capitalist libertarians are wasting time looking for me (anyway) to take their ideas seriously, especially when they don't even have so so much as a half anonymous Internet name. If they don't like it then what's wrong with using their marvelous American market freedoms to go and get their own blog(s)?

Liberation without people being both spiritually and materially empowered is no freedom at all. Thank you for pointing this out - its something that many of us leftists seem to forget

 

eb

Anonymous seems to suffer from a notion of “hard vocabulary.”  Individual liberty with words is limited by the free-market of word usage.  Although words can't mean anything anyone wants them to and still facilitate communication, they can mean anything WE want them to: the meaning of words changes over time—an undeniable fact for anyone who's studied etymology. 

For example, does the definition of “marriage” exclude same sex couples?  Can that definition be changed?  Why or why not?

I have no problem, am not confused, nor am an “oxymoron” for calling myself a “sustainability libertarian.”  You can my stab at reconciliation of the possible value contradictions (through “institutional internalization of taxation”) here:

http://www.jdcasten.info/Philosophy/Capital_Regulation/capital_regulation.htm

If your one-note politics is “no government” then maybe it seems as if you can't have contradictions.  I think you probably also have deep seated values that might conflict with some of the possible results of say, “anarcho-capitalism.”  Although some leftists simply take our freedom for granted, and don't think we need to worry that much about how some systems might curtail that, some rightists seem take the lack of bread lines (at least in their neighborhoods) for granted.  We did have eras with more capitalism: just like Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” individualism grew out of her rejection of her experience with communism, more socialistic aspects of the US developed out reaction to the Great Depression—have you read John Steinbeck's “The Grapes of Wrath?”  Maybe you'd change your mind if you saw some full grown man nursing on woman's breast because he was starving.  Rockefeller's 10% for charity wasn't going to help someone like him out.  Do you think suffering homeless schizophrenics should rely on the kindness of strangers?

Now, I realize that libertarian theorizing about free-market solutions to sustainability can be compelling—but just like radical left solutions, like “Parecon,” the proof is in the pudding.  Again, totalitarian systems have proven failures, but wouldn't you call the Great Depression a failure too?  Free-market excuses for the great depression are no better than socialist apologists for totalitarian failures.  Who wants Only business cycles  that starve people every few decades?  Although global warming may be a socialist as well as a free-market failure, don't you think that just as property rights might require governments (rather than militia hired with gold) that the ecology needs a police force to protect it too?  (What sort of insurance militia would protect the planet without governments?: eco-fascist factions?)

Is your libertarian notion of freedom entirely negative (i.e. freedom from constraint) rather than positive (power: the freedom to actually do something)?  If so, you may feel constrained by governments, but, to use contemporary liberal terminology, governments can invest in people and give them the tools to empower themselves.  Do you believe in simply liberating people, or also empowering them?  Do you believe in equal opportunity?  Some libertarians wouldn't have a public schooling system: are you in that crowd?

Governments often constrain institutions: do you see that as a limitation of freedom?  Maybe you're not a libertarian—and just my first remarks are relevant.  But if you are, I think you might consider the flip side of freedom: power and its effects.

Is what the hell does all this piffle about fealty to ruling class diktats have to do with Ford??? Republicans drone on about the 'free market' too, Anon, and they are just as deluded as you seem to be. Here's a thought: Read a few books on anarchism, and that may give you a clue what left libertarinaism is about.

But, I suppose you'd rather invest more time in your narcissist pursuits where savagely unequal, winner-take-all political and economic systems of empire allow your version of "liberty and freedom" to occur, where billions round the world live on a few $$ a day, and the super rich got there due to "working harder' than the other bloke.

"To the winner goes the spoils of victory" ain't a world I'm interested in living in. Your "libertarianism" is just another form of exploitation and domination. 

eb

 

 

Because many of you seem confused to what libertarianism stands for, below are some links.  The central points are: individual liberty, private property, the free-market, and the elimination of the welfare-state.  I don't think anyone posting here would agree with any of those central tenants beyond individual liberty. Thus, "left-libertarian" is a misnomer. 

 

http://www.theihs.org/about/id.1084/default.asp

 

http://www.theadvocates.org/library/libertarian-faq.html

 

 

I don't know who Yakov Bok is (the person, not the character), but I highly doubt he, or I, are the only ones who disagree with Paul Street and his "Znet posse." 

Speaking of authoritariansim:

Isn't it authoritarian to speak of banning someone simply because you don't like his point of view?  It appears the desire is to be surrounded by "yes men." Which of course, it what all tyrants do.

How is a libertarian who is opposed to government intervention libertarian?  Talk about oxymoronic.

Finally, I don't understand how there can be such a thing as a "left" libertarian when the "left" wants to restrict and the "libertarian" purports to want freedom?  Remember, for all those who doubt, the root of libertarianism is classic liberalism, which is something the left is opposed to.  Someone mentioned he was pro-ecology which made him leftists, but pro-market which made him libertarian.  Those two ideologies, while compatible, may make him confused as to what to call himself, but it certainly doesn't create the impossible "left-libertarian." 

 

 

ebogan summarizes the essence of "Anonymous (not verified)," who is very possibly the Internet reincarnation of the formerly more energetic right-"libertarian" (authoritarian) troll (Chicago-area-based) "yakov bok" (a handle stolen from a Bernard Malamud novel). "Yakov Bok" was banned from ZNet for personal abuse of this blogger. The tone and content (combining right "libertarianism" with refusal/inability to distinguish left-libertarianism from Stalinism and a special taste for trying to get provacative personal and career digs in on the blogger). Under the latest version of ZNet blogs, such reincarnated and now more careful trolling is apparently allowed; hopefully it will not be in next version.

For someone who claims to make critical analysis, you seem to rely on reactionary, tired, mid 20th century cartoon-like assuptions by lumping all leftists as communists, an all too typical rhetorical device for right wing ideologues like yourself "anonymous". And, who in the hell made you the arbiter of whats "libertarian", which seems to me: self-aggrandizment + gobs of cash ="individual happiness and wealth" if I get your drift.Never mind, if only the lucky few can join in this party of yours, as long as you have the "freedom" to pursue your narcissist project, who the f cares?.

 

Scrach this brand of libertarian, you'll find a Republican every damn time. 

 

 

eb

Mr./Ms. Anonymous: Do you suggest that Jean-Paul Sartre could not both be an existentialist who was for freedom (and against “bad faith” that one is not free) and be committed to the project of communism? It seems to me that the world is complex, and requires a semi-complex responses: I'd feel barbaric if I didn't balance my own pro-economic growth autonomous libertarianism with a counter of ecological and economic sustainability. Not absolute freedom: freedom within laws. Just because you may have the free will to kill, doesn't mean you have the freedom to do so. And even free will is limited by the facts: gravity is a hard habit to break—can you levitate? The fact is your free acts have consequences, and you ought to take responsibility for them—Anonymous!

Let's think critically.

Libertarianism is about the least government intrusion possible for the pursuit of individual happiness and wealth.  It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE to have a so-called "left-libertarianism" because it is inherently opposed to the pursuit of individual wealth.  Calling one's self a "left libertarian" is not only moronic, it is oxymoronic. 

If you are against "government," fine, but that doesn't make one libertarian. In fact, many of the Z-net bloggers are not against government per-se, they are simply against the current form of government.  They are for community councils, soviets, or whatever you want to call them, which will make the decisions for people.   One of those decisions is the ability to earn and produce.  That is hardly libertarian.

So, cold-war binaries, or any other academic sounding term you may choose, to describe marxism, socialism, progressivism, or leftism, are not dead. I suspect that since the Wall fell, and communism "died," leftists found catchy new names for themselves, because afterall, socialism failed, and no one wants to be associated with a failure.

An anonymously asked question does not take away the legitimacy of the question. 

 

It's interesting that you mention free will.  As a socialist, you are inherently opposed to free will because it is indicative of self-interest, i.e., the pursuit of personal gain whether materially or spiritually, which is in direct opposition to the socialist concept of "the greatest good for the greatest number."  

You sir, are nothing more than a tyrant in sheep's clothing. 

"Anonymous [not verified]" nobody "makes" "you" have and then transmit (anonymously) inane cognitions. "You" choose them of your own free will. People should refrain from commenting as "anonymous." Those who want their opinions to be taken seriously should have actual names; otherwise I'd say or at least request don't comment. It's kind of absurd to be attacked by "anonymous" folks, "verified" or not. Lack of any identifiable identity takes away accountability and incentive for decency in communication.

Wow Paul, that's two posts in a row that you've ranked on academia.  Are you sure you're not bitter about not getting a job or something like that?  This recent post makes me think someone on a hiring committee criticized your historical research.

I need to do a little more homework on Ford and Zinn—but I think these two recent news items are relevant:

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/27/AR2006122701558.html

 U.S. Is Being Told Hussein Hanging Seems Imminent

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/29/world/middleeast/29saddam.html

I have found occasional problems in Zinn's bestselling volume and hardly think its the last word on the American past. But no such word exists and on the whole I think it's a monumental accomplishment that is simply unequaled as a readable, engaging, informative, inspiring and yes radical-democratic synthesis. The accuracies and positive contributions vastly outweigh the problems and I rarely if ever have trouble finding a source for Zinn's assertions in the bibilography he provides. Academic historians like to bitch and whine about real and perceived innacuracies and alleged professional sins in People's History but the basic fact is that many of the academorons are just dull and jealous.

The book is not a no-hitter, but Zinn walked out to the mound and pitched a rich, strike-out filled masterpiece that could only be thrown by a left libertarian and the sad reality is that most of the liberal, conservative and semi-marxian academics who rip on him would be lucky if they could get a ball to home plate on less than one bounce. Write a better book if you can...oh, you can't, because (among other things) your field is paralyzed by incestuous hyper- specialization and an ongoing flight from meaningful politics and public engagement.

Some historians end up assigning People's History because, guess what, kids read it and are bored to tears with a lot of what the little professors write and say. Another good one for actually being read is James Loewen's Lies My Teachers Told Me: Everything Your High Schol Text Got Wrong - a marvelous critique of what passes for historical education in grades 9-12 in the United States of Amnesia. 

It's interesting that Loewen is a sociologist: I doubt that the U.S. historical profession could generate a widely selling and important book like that at this point. Loewen BTW has gone to to do historical monuments (Lies Across the Country) and just did a brilliant book I'm in the middle of right now: Sundown Towns: A Hidden History of American Racism. As usual he is synthesizing and reflecting on U.S. history in big ways that seem to evade most of the professional historians.

Also in the BTW category, one of the first books I ever read on American History just blew my mind.  It was by Zinn. It was called Postwar America, 1945-1971.  It's also better than 99.95 percent of what professional historians write.  

I'd love to see cooberative evidence of these inaccuracies you state, of which, JoJo, you have provided none. 

To paraphrase Gil Scott Heron, "Pardon us, Mr President, because the pardon that you gave was not yours to give." Gerald Ford was but a loyal minion of one wing of the business class following orders, which was to pardon a despicable criminal, and to continue the rule of Empire and inequality. Orlando Letelier, Chilean official under Allende, and Ronni Moffit were murdered by Pinochet's thugs in D.C. in broad daylight on Dupont Circle, and this 'healer of the country' did nothing about it!!

 

So, my rememberances of Ford ain't so kind as the dreck comming from the state corprotist media.

 

 

 

 

eb

 

 

 

 

Added to the interesting lack of retrospect, it is notable that:

1.  Ford appointed George HW Bush as CIA director, 2. Don Rumsfeld appointed as Chief of Staff, 3. Dick Cheney as Deputy Chief of Staff, 4. Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, 5. Cheney as Chief of Staff.

Ford (along with co-conspirator and war criminal, Henry Kissinger) met with Suharto and assured him that the US would not intefere with his impending invasion (and genocide) on East Timor.

He (Ford) also flew to Spain and met with Generalisimo Franco...whatta guy!

It is curious what time does to history, isn't it?  How many are paying attention?

R

You do realize of course, that Howard Zinn, on whom you rely, has largely been discredited because of his inaccurate and faulty research?  He doesn't site primary sources and often misreads and misquotes other sources.

Paul Excellent insights. Being present in those days meant being subjected daily, hour by hour, with the ever-increasing revelations of graft and corruption coming from the highest levels of our government. To properly communicate the emotional drain this took upon each individual and the country would be difficult to describe. We just wanted an end to it. But not THAT fucking end! We wanted these folks, especially Nixon, Kissinger and their ilk to be made examples of for future generations of Presidential Administrations. What we got instead were full pardons and a sudden realization that the people were no longer in charge of the United States of America - indeed, it was at that point that the realization hit me that it was no longer the USA, but the Dark Empire - which indeed it had been for many years and I had just not understood. Government was populated with their own class of people, their own structure, their own constituent loyalties (large corporate, foreign and special interests), their own media outlets, and indeed their own culture, almost wholly disconnected from and independent of the man on the street who elected them. And I realized then that they protect their own. And in typical double-speak manner, the instability they referred to was not that of the Great Unwashed masses of America, but instead, the instability being felt by the ruling elite, that the people in the streets might actually take back their power.