How far to the left is MoveOn, really?

Great Debates
21

Yes. And the Republicans have variously been described as anti-woman, reactionary, cruel, bigoted and disrespectful of international law by this association. However, this was not the question posed to me at the time.

The question was what the Democrats needed to do to regain credibility on national security and defense. I gave an honest answer, based on quite compelling evidence.

Now, you as a party may decide that MoveOn’s wonderful qualities overcome many of their shortcomings. Certainly the Republicans have decided this regarding the individuals you mentioned. The danger of this is that someone may look at MoveOn’s rediculously naive viewpoint on national security and have this strengthen a perception of Democratic weakness that is already present.

Our country is at war, and concerns about this war are foremost in many minds. MoveOn’s position is not a workable one in this environment, and their association with the Democrats represents, to me, the worst possible political move. Taking the wrong position for the sake of fewer votes isn’t principled politics, it is instead the road to irrelevancy.

22

Does MoveOn.org put out policy statements so that we use those to judge how “left” they are? The points brought up so far (like Debaser’s) are tangential statements without any real meat on them. I spent a little time on the web site, but I didn’t find a summary of their policy statements, if they in fact have any.

Do they have a mission beyond getting Democrats elected and making sure Republicans don’t? Even if that were the case, I don’t see that that would make them “far left”, per se.

23

Fervently and with all my heart.

They supported the people that attacked us.

But something happened on the way to destroying the Taliban.

Hmmm…trying to remember…ah!

Iraq!

Suddenly we had to put the Taliban on the back burner.

Because we had to take Saddam out.

Now Saddam is in jail. Our finest are dying in Iraq.

And the Taliban is rebuilding.

This is a good thing?

24

BTW…if I look to the right…I see Moveon.org!

They need to go much more to the left.

To hell with playing to the center.

The center gives us Bush again.

And I see with Jeb’s trip to Indonesia they are readying him for 2008.

25

We’ve also done wonders for local warlords and opium crops. The “pharmaceutical” industry is flourishing like never before. (But the CIA was behind that anyway)

We’ve proven that, without a doubt, America can kill a lot of people and topple shoddy and poorly equipped and prepared governments, and leave behind nations in near total anarchy outside of tightly controlled centers of power. Go America! We did the geopolitical equivilant of punching a hamster with 4 broken legs in the stomach.

For what it is worth, I appear to have been more pro-war in Afghanistan than the Bush Administration was. They put, what, 11,000 boots on the ground and incompetently fumbled around blindly, looking like complete jackasses, unable to fight people living in caves as they slipped away into our regional ally. They did manage to bomb the Red Cross there repeatedly, eventually forcing a ICRC/RC pullout, maybe because it is marked by a giant freaking red cross on the top of the building. I can see how the GPS got confused.

Oh, and that natural gas pipeline Moore talked about in F 9/11? Yea, that went well. Go figure.

With Debaser’s debasement seemingly ongoing and of much interest in this thread, I’m sure it’ll wrap up well. I especially love the “What? Fox is a right-wing spin station? No way!” face that they put on.

26

Regardless of what any posters here might say, taking the position that the Afghanistan invasion was a mistake is what I’d call “far left”. We had bipartisan and international support for that effort. To the extent that MoveOn did in fact oppose that war*, I’d say that one mark on the “far left” column.

Anybody got anything else, policy wise?

*It’s unclear to me from the cites given so far that they actually did **fully **oppose the war.

27

From http://www.moveon.org/front/:

‘Bout fuckin’ time. Why does this rate your rolleyes?

Whether DeLay is “likely to be indicted” is debatable, but the vote on the ethics rules is a matter of record. What’s your point?

So what’s wrong with a petition? Or an investigation?

Actually, they were just quoting the opinion of a retired Army general.

Just a blurb for advertising Outfoxed, and don’t knock it if you haven’t seen it. And what else would you expect to read in a blurb advertising Outfoxed?

28

This OP speaks volumes about the biases of the resident SDMB conservatives.

29

Except that I’m about as left as you’re likely to encounter and I don’t know of anyone among my insular little world that claims that Afghanistan was a mistake. Quite to the contrary, they say (as do I, as do any number of people posting here) that it was proper. The problem is that it was done in a decidedly half-assed fashion with absolutely no idea what to do once the Taliban was defeated.

So, to reiterate: The invasion was not a mistake. The way that the US waged war (cheaply, with no idea what to do once they had won) was a mistake.

And in answer to the OP: Not very. Despite the wailing that they “Ran ads comparing Bush to Hilter”* or the scathingly witty exposition by local conservatives of what appears on their front page. They’re left, sure. But I don’t see a problem with that. It’s not like they openly lied to denigrate Bush, which makes them pretty goddamned saintly compared to “that other 527” the Swifties.

*They did no such fucking thing. Ever.

30

John Mace, I’ve looked high and low in moveon’s site and see no statement of opposition to the Afghan war. Do you have a cite to verify that moveon opposed the Afghan war?

31

Thats exactly what I thought, too.

32

I was unable to find anything by searching the site either. They do have an “about” page where they say this:

The lack of a clear list of objectives or policy issues is why I chose to simply look at the half dozen items on the main page as a place to start.

It seems as if their mission is whatever their two million members say it is. Since it’s fair to say that their members represent about the most far left two million people in the country, their mission tends to be promoting a far left agenda. When you take an extreme left group of people and let them drive the agenda, then you end up with ads comparing Bush to Hitler and lots of conspiracy nonsense like investigating an election that no reasonable person disputes.

33

Sorry to be unclear: The first and last quotes above are John Mace. The middle on is from Moveon’s site. Although, if you can’t tell the difference between JM and Moveon, then you probably don’t have too firm a grasp on the English language. :wink:

34

Please check out my cites, posted above. I think I have demonstrated that MoveOn opposed military action in Afghanistan at the time.

I’m frankly not surprised that you’ll not find much about this opposition on MoveOn’s page now. Embarassing stuff like that tends to vanish from web sites as events overtake them.

Successful policy doesn’t just depend on being right, it depends on being right at the right time. MoveOn failed this test after our country was attacked - the best people can do when faced with this evidence is state that they support MoveOn despite this position. That, or demonstrate through their own rhetoric that they don’t support national defense either.

If you want to consort with them, that’s your call. But sharing a long car ride with someone means you’ll be carrying their baggage too.

35

Scroll up.

A. I was replying to UncleBeer, not you. He makes clear that he considers MoveOn “unacceptably offensive” simply because it supports Democrats - and that is an answer to the OP question, of sorts. Unc, your candor here is refreshing, even if it oddly doesn’t lead you to condemn the Swifties for supporting Republicans just as faithfully partisanly.

B. I was not the OP, and did not “make this term up”. Got it now?

Other than that, though …

Explain. Less bluster, more facts.

*They * did not compare Bush to Hitler in an ad. You know the situation, or have no excuse not to, and to repeat that meme is an example of “tighty spin” - iow, lying. Got that now too?

36

And you know this…how?

37

First, as you already know, there was no such “ad”. There was an ad contest. Submissions were offered for general review and participants encouraged to vote their favorites. The dreaded “Bush = Hitler” ads were largely ignored by the MoveOn participants. At no time was there ever any possibility of their being selected and funded. Zero, zip, none, nada. Now then: if your laughable assessment of MoveOn as being “extreme left” were accurate, how do you account for the unpopularity of those ads? And how can we politely address your dissemination of blatant falsehood?

As to investigating elections: investigating elections is always legitimate, and the final outcome has diddly squat to do with it. There is no concept more fundamental, more essential, to our system of governance than the right to vote. We have to hold it as virtually sacred, it is not to be trifled with. By anyone. Ever. Whether or not such violations of sacred principle are effective or ineffective is a sophist’s argument, unworthy of belaboring harmless electrons.

38

Thank you kindly, Mr. Moto. I don’t always have the time to read each and every cite from each and every poster. It wouldn’t be like you to make a statement without cause, so I knew you’d have it. I assume you meant
this one. and this quote

With respect to Iraq, I support the above statements. With respect to Afghanistan, I don’t. I make the distinction that terrorists were running amok in Afghanistan but not Iraq. But on the whole I think moveon is pretty much in tune with me. I think each of us can support the overall goals and policies of a group without necessarily endorsing each and every one. So they’re a bit more pacifist than I would be about Afghanistan- I can live with that and I still wouldn’t call them a fringe group.

39

Neither of these quotes appear to specifically oppose the war in Afghanistan. Do you have something a little more convincing?

40

I’m surprised by this resistance to my post. Let me defend them each:

Moveon’s headline for this reads:

It sounds like they are trying to silence them to me. They also say that Sinclair presenting a conservative rant without balancing with a counterpoint is “an abuse of the public airwaves.”

This is silly because the massive majority of the media in print and television is biased to the left. However, the leftists members of Moveon can see the media to their right because they are so far left anything would be.

They say that:

Time will tell. If DeLay is indicted, I’ll retract this point. For some reason, I doubt I will need to.

The petition is very simple. Here it is in it’s entirety:

My summary was accurate. They want to investigate the election.

The “this” that they are referring to is the Iraqi War. True, they are quoting a Retired Army General. But, it is clearly the opinion of Moveon as well. If they disagree with it then what is it doing on the main page of their site?

I quoted Moveon directly here.

**Note: The list of stories on the main page has changed since my first post to this thread. If you look now, there are a couple of new ones.

Posters such as BobLibDem, Evil Captor, E72521, BrainGlutton and others seem to agree that my summaries are accurate but have posted to the effect that these positions and statements do not indicate that Moveon is a fringe left organization. To this I simply disagree. It is of course a matter of opinion.

It’s your right to think that Sinclair needs to be silenced, and that DeLay is going to be indicted. You are free to think that an investigation of the election is worthwhile, and that Fox News does nothing but turn GOP talking points into headlines.

However most people do not think these things. Sinclair broadcasting might be conservative, but that hardly makes up for the fact that 80% or so of the media is made up of democrats and newspapers and networks are overwhelmingly liberal. I doubt that DeLay is going to be indicted. Investigating the election is a waste of time, IMO. Nobody except for fringe leftists like those in Moveon and on the Democrat Underground dispute that Bush won fair and square. Fox News has both conservative and liberal views represented on it’s program. The straight news reporting is very fair and balanced on Fox. It’s overwhelming popularity vs the traditional liberal media choices is a testiment to the fact that most people agree with this.

When you take the most liberal people in the country and let them choose the agenda of an organization, you are going to get a fringe left organization whos goals and motives are not ones that resonate with most people. It’s funny that so many of you are so far to the left yourselves that you cannot see this.