Forum Post: Why is Dennis Kucinich considered far left?
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 11, 2011, 8:49 p.m. EST by hymie
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I've heard a number of people here refer to Kucinich as "far left", but to me, the far left would include communism, anarchy and environmentalism, and Kucinich doesn't particularly identify with any of those ideologies.
To me, he seems more like an FDR style democrat, someone concerned with creating jobs for his rust belt constituency.
Kucinich speaks out against the establishment too much so they slur him in order to marginalize what he has to say.
I like Bernie Sanders' words, what Elizabeth Warren has to say, and the out going Barney Frank. People in politics who speak truth are shunned and belittled by those who are lying to us.
What about Bernie Sanders' words and what Elizabeth Warren says?
And what about Barney Frank? Are you saying that he is someone who speaks the truth?
He isn't running for office again, Barney Frank, and so he has nothing to lose when he talks about the people he has worked with for all those years. He doesn't care what they think about him and he says what is really going on.
Barney Frank mostly represented the interests of Wall Street, didn't he?
He is far left from the seat of power not from the perspective of the people who don't swallow all the bullshit that the power throws at us.
interesting thread - my 4 favorites together
if you know anyone in MA - help EW
I've heard DK's district may be gerrymandered out -
lets keep an eye on him and help him next year too.
And Alan Grayson in FL
Dennis Kucinich is considered far left only for those that have been duped to fall for ultrafascism. That is because he is still a member of the oppressive ruling class serving a valuable function in their political Show Biz of virtual variety. Just like the "different brands" that you shop for in "different stores" only to find that both the brands and the stores had one and the same parent company - i.e., another sales gimmick!
Once you even accept the terminology of the "left vs. right" you have already fallen for the mental framework of the establishment gangster bankster mind control system who love to divide and carve up the sheeple into predictable punching bags as they hit their heads against each other while being milked dry by the gangster banksters on the way to the butcher shop.
So what alternative would you recommend? You've told us what is wrong, so now tell us what would be right.
Forgive the frankness, but "it is the economy, stupid". Follow the money. All the bucks stop at the banks, i.e., megabanks. The gangster bankster aristocratic families who own the world and have their hands in every racket of a government / its various institutions, and their client giant corporations.
These guys would sell you the rope to hang yourself. They will give you "democracy", "christianity", "libertarianism", "socialism / communism", or any other political flavor you like as long as they can milk and butcher you. Their achille's heel is private ownership of the means of production (the means needed to produce the stuff you need for survival, e.g., farms, factories, technology and intellectual knowledge, energy, water, other natural resources). By controlling these they control you, because you need to access these to survive. You can access these through your labor that they then profit from paying you at best a subsistence wage pocketing the rest as profit. With few of them controlling hundreds of thousands to millions of working people, and with extremely poor labor and environmental standards ravenous exploitation of the natural resources and they wrack up huge profits as they destroy innumerous lives and damage the global ecosystem.
We need to expose and shatter this illusion of variety / choice / freedom, waking up the sheeple about the true extent of their oppression and the class war that has been waged against them robbing them of their lives in permanent servitude. Once the class lines are clarified, i.e., the haves (<1%) and the have nots (>99%) we should plan for an alternative system that would not be based on money or any other type of private ownership, so the working class could survive, live, even thrive without fear of oppression / repression, by common ownership and cooperative production, with shared exchanged and distribution based on need and ability to produce. With no source of profit (i.e., no private ownership, no labor to be profited from, no one to buy / or buy, no one paying taxes) the capitalist Ponzi scheme will collapse. The rich will have to go to work to survive just like the rest of population. There will be no government or other source of hierarchy where they can hide and enrich themselves. Democracy will become a meaningful word for the first time in history as every individual will have equal power based on equal ownership and therefore equal possibility of participation and activism in their individual and collective future.
Yes, for that matter why is liberalism considered a leftist ideology in America whereas everywhere else it is clearly a centerist ideology and only in America would someone like Nancy Pelosi be considered a leftist, which only goes to prove not only how conservative American political ideology is, but also how narrow.
Conservatism can also have its advantages if its not overdone. I consider myself a moderate leftist, but not necessarily a liberal. Perhaps I am a conservative liberal.
How would you define liberal and conservative?
Since neither conservatism or liberalism are left wing doctrines to be some combination of the two could hardly be considered left wing in any sense.
What does it mean to you to be left wing?
The whole notion of left and right got screwed up in the 1930s with the rise of Stalinism, essentially an authritarian doctrine that claimed to be left wing. Before then (and also since the collapse of Communism), at least since the days of the French Revolution to be left always meant the most democratic tendency in the political spectrum. Basically, the more democratic you are, the more left wing you are.
Of course that doesn't really explain much because it is essentially explaining one abstraction (left wing) with another (democracy). Technically democracy means the rule of the people. According to that way of looking at it the most left wing society would be the most democratic in all aspects of peoples common lives, not just in terms of the political sphere but also in terms of economic and social life.
Liberty is something different. While democracy is about popular rule, liberty is about individual rights. Theoretically the democratic emphasis has been on popular rule, though many of the most important gains in recent decades have been about individual rights for workers, minorities, women, etc.
Technically classical liberalism really hasn't had much of a following since the late 19th century. What we call liberalism today is more accurately progressivism. Jeffersonian liberalism was, after all, extremely anti-statist whereas modern progressivism tends to see the state as a positive force in society. Progressivism evolved in the late 19th century largely out of the liberal middle class of that era who were embattled from above by the rise of the modern corporation and from below by a rising militant labor movement. Radical labor tended to counterpose itself directly to corporate power while the progressives looked to the state to regulate corporate power rather than transcend it.
In practical terms in Europe social democratic politics did not differ all that much from progressivism, especially after World War II, but the social base was considerably different as the social base of social democracy tended to be the working class rather than the middle class (I am speaking here in social terms, not in terms of income).
Also after World War II in America the labor movement more and more adopted a progressive agenda basically abandoning the more radical currents of previous decades.
I know. In most developed countries democrats would be considered pretty right wing extreme. While the republicans are off the spectrum.
I have never heard him espouse anything I would consider extreme. I would say that most modern day republicans are pretty extreme and a large majority of democrats are too. Although the republicans are more vocal about it.
The republicans, besides RonPaul, mostly seem bought out and like you say, the majority of democrats too.
Oh yeah they are all bought and sold. When ever I hear people talk about the great political families and I hear names like Bush, Clinton, Kennedy, Regan and Rockerfeller, I think Gambino, Genovese, Bononno, Columbo and Luchesse. Because to my way of thinking thats exactly what they are ,crimminals
In most of those cases, I would agree. Except Kennedy. I know he came from a crime family, but I think he was an honest citizen himself and probably one of our greatest presidents.
I am most impressed by his anti-war attitude, as well as his space program, which I believe had a highly beneficial effect on the economy, and could today as well, if it was reactivated.
I don't want to argue because I would say we are on the same side but do you know he got us into Viet Nam and carried out a terror campaign against Cuba?
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/vietnam.htm
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Kennedy_and_Cuba
I thought Kennedy tried to keep us out of Vietnam, didn't he? Wasn't that a big part of why he was assassinated?
Wasn't he misled into getting us into Cuba as well?
I would say you were misled. But thats nothing unsusual its a common misconception like "the emancipation proclamation freed the slaves". I would'nt feel too bad about it. They(media) always go to work on figures like Kenedy and Regan to make sure they are deified almost the same way that the state propaganda in North Korea deifies Kim Il Sung. My own grandmother practically had a shrine to the man in her house to the day she died.