Author Topic: Protesters aren't protesting Obama because of Right-Wingers? WTF?  (Read 842 times)

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Offline thundley4

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Bluebear   (1000+ posts)             Tue Mar-22-11 03:39 PM
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Today's activists are so fearful of the right wing that they give Obama a pass on almost every issue
   
by Randy Shaw


The remarkable new documentary on 1960’s folksinger and activist Phil Ochs offers a striking contrast between 1960’s activists and those of 2011. The former engaged in massive anti-war protests against Democratic President Lyndon Johnson – despite his historic enactment of federal civil rights laws, Medicare, and the War on Poverty. Yet Barack Obama’s endless, $2 billion a week war in Afghanistan, and his capitulation to Wall Street proceeds without a peep. Even well-known musicians involved with social justice causes have avoided playing at protests against Obama’s policies. For all of their sometimes naïve idealism, 1960’s activists understood that “liberals” also wage unnecessary wars and weaken social and economic justice. But today’s activists are so fearful of empowering the right wing that they give Democrat Obama a pass on almost every issue, and then complain that he ignores progressive concerns...

It could be said that activists felt comfortable bashing Democrat Johnson, because the only Republican President they had lived under was moderate Dwight Eisenhower. Yet progressives protested Jimmy Carter after experiencing Richard Nixon’s presidency, and also engaged in massive resistance – recall the Battle of Seattle in 1999 – against many of Democrat Bill Clinton’s policies.

But either due to the legacy of George W. Bush or increased political conformity, fears of the right wing has stifled progressive dissent in the United States. Activists ignore Barack Obama’s actions in boosting Wall Street and the military industrial complex, when they would have been out in the streets protesting similar actions under previous Democratic Presidents...

Today’s progressive activists and groups understand Obama’s betrayals, but by limiting protests to Republicans they confuse – rather than clarify – the dynamics of national power.

http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=9011

Randy Shaw is is the author of Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century, and The Activist’s Handbook.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x717168

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villager   (1000+ posts)           Tue Mar-22-11 03:40 PM
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1. It's part of why the other side routinely wins -- we hold no one accountable for anything
   
n/t

No, it's because you DUmmies are hypocrites  and give Obama a pass.

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ClarkUSA (1000+ posts)             Tue Mar-22-11 03:43 PM
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3. "activists" must've been "so fearful of the right wing" that "they" gave Bill Clinton "a pass" too   
   
Edited on Tue Mar-22-11 03:46 PM by ClarkUSA
I must've been imagining all the vitriolic garbage thrown at President Obama during the past two years.

Not from the left, and not covered by the MSM.

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Catherina   (1000+ posts)             Tue Mar-22-11 03:44 PM
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4. Same activists who consistently & coherently spoke out against Bush   
   
Edited on Tue Mar-22-11 03:44 PM by Catherina
are still speaking out. I don't think you can call fair weather activists with loyalties to a personality *activists*. Those are partisans.

Rec'd for the general point.

Even Cindy Sheehan is fairly muted.

Offline Mr Mannn

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Re: Protesters aren't protesting Obama because of Right-Wingers? WTF?
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2011, 06:53:55 PM »
This doesn't make sense. Anti-war protesters screams for the murder of officers and fantasized about Pres Bush's death...but they are afraid of the right wing?

Why would the right wing want to suppress anyone protesting the left wing?

Once again, DUmmies reveal their drug induced brain damage. 

Offline Ballygrl

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Re: Protesters aren't protesting Obama because of Right-Wingers? WTF?
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2011, 07:24:39 PM »
? so we're responsible for what?
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"The nation that couldn’t be conquered by foreign enemies has been conquered by its elected officials" odawg Free Republic in reference to the GOP Elites who are no difference than the Democrats