Oh, how the Twitter device is aflutter about this "New Progressive Alliance" outfit out of Leftybagger Central, Firedoglake.
Oh Crap has been onto them since December. Irregular Times has made several posts on them. Deaniac83 at The People's View had some fun at their expense. The Reid Report's recap of This Week in Race on the Left here.
And while Angry Black Lady caught them trying to post a call for candidates on Craigslist, OCIHACOSP caught early their latest, ridiculous antic, using Cornel West as some kind of red herring to teach the Blacks a lesson.
Time to make – by educating Afro-Americans, and eventually the rest of the counrty – some enemies in high places, no? The folks at blackagendareport.com could also be key allies.
With so-called "allies" like leftybaggers, who needs the tea party.
Regular readers of OCIHACOSP already saw this latest form of whackjobbery coming. Quoting myself:
I don't think the choice of [Chris Hedges' May 16 Truthdig column] title, "The Obama Deception", is by chance. I own the freely-distributed DVD, which finds its home in my crankage stash along with the rightwing, segregationist, and nutball Evangelical materials. I acquired it from a friend who had the displeasure of being in the Haight-Ashbury district the day Cynthia McKlanny's "Power to the Peaceful" chemtrail circus came to town, distributing We Are Change 9/11 truth paraphernalia. With such has-been luminaries as rap artist KRS-One and reformed Jew-baiter Professor Griff, The Obama Deception video is directed squarely at pro-Obama Black youth. Upon viewing, one is to come away with the idea that Barack Obama is a puppet on the string of evil/sinister forces, such as international bankers and the vague, nebulous New World Order.
Hedges' piece, unsurprisingly, uses Dr. West to articulate and repeat similar, tired old tropes.
Hedges isn't the only one, apparently. Dr. West has lent his name to the steering committee of this (supposedly New) Progressive Alliance, along with Inside (hand)Jobber Cindy Sheehan.
Sheehan the Peace Mom, who broke with "the left" years ago, has associated herself with Alex Jones of "Obama Decption" fame since 2007.
As far as I can tell, these "progressives" are retreads of the old "anybody but Bush" so-called "movement", which was so wrapped up in their anti-Bush identity many follwed their leaders like Sheehan and Cynthia McKrankypants into the same J%w-baiting/Zionist-counting 9/11 Trutherdom that sunk Van Jones.
Jones ended up with his name signed to some stupid document at Rense.com, a UFO paranoia site which has long since gone full-blown David Duke (caution: hate site.)
Some of us tried to tell our fellow lefties prone to moonbattery and thus wingnut recruitment into causes against their own interests: check and double check those people's sources, check the sites they promote and constantly peddle (e.g. ; do not believe everything you read just because it's on the internet. And if it tells you what you want to hear, question it even further.)
Predictably, we were (and still are) called Bush-lovers, paid government shills, left-gatekeepers, sellouts, closet-cons and the like, even as literal cons and neo-nazis were recruiting and exploiting them. Too bad Jones' hubris got the best of him, and he did not have the integrity to tell the Obama administration of the views that could and did land him in hot water, ironically, with Elizabeth Dilling-hugger Glenn Beck.
Oh look! Now Prof. West has now been beatified by Chris Hedges into Prophet West.
Prophets put forward during their day ideas that the mass of people, including the elite, denounce as impractical and yet at the same time sense to be true. This is what invokes the rage against the prophet. He or she states the obvious in a society where the obvious is seditious. Prophecy is feared because of the consequences of the truth. To accept that Obama is, as West said, a mascot for Wall Street means having to challenge some frightening monoliths of power and give up the comfortable illusion that the Democratic Party or liberal institutions can be instruments for genuine reform.
Etc., etc. By the way, the exact phrase was, "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats".
Does anybody else wonder why Chris Hedges deems it necessary to showcase Prof. West, or is it hide behind the words of West to call Obama a black so-and-so, as a lot of these other leftybaggers? How would our supposed allies respond -- how DO they [sometimes rightfully] respond [even if by accident] -- if/when Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, and other celebrity talkers use racialized language regarding the president? How did the dumb teabaggers respond when a Black liberal man used it regarding Herman Cain? Where are all their loud wails of protest, now? Why did Hedges decide to refashion West's words and censor out the black-on-black criticism in his latest article when he featured it in his first? Did the inevitable pushback that prompted his latest attempt at West hagiography hit too close to home?
Probably.
My city has long stood as an outpost of moonbattery, some of it deadly. "Drank the koolaid" can be said to have originated here. Carol "Cookies for Truth" Brouillet and her absurd, right-woos-left "Deception Dollars" were a staple of the antiwar left throughout the '00s.
At the same time, under the "antiwar" and "anti-imperialism" guise, straight-up neonazi Wendy Campbell went all over gullible progressive radio station KPFA and Indymedia to peddle her bigoted wares, also showcased at LaPena Cultural Center. Countercurrents published her Nazi 2.0 screeds as late as 2008. This time last year, they were featuring Cynthia McKinney.
Across the bay, they still haven't learned one goddamned thing. According to Adam Holland, professional bigot Gilad Atzmon >appeared at Lake Merrit United Methodist Church, just two weeks ago. Countercurrents still carries Rense.com featured "artist", Gilad Atzmon. It's just a hop/skip/jump to crankodoodlery of the heinous kind, with some elements of the so-called progressive left.
They -- the truthers, the supposed "anti-Zionists" peddling neo-nazi ideals, the Innises of CPAC/CORE, the Alveda Kings, the Cynthia McKinneys, the Cornel Wests -- get away with this behavior because we allow it...just as we allow(ed) Sarah Palin to run roughshod over the populace for two years straight.
From where I sit, yeah, they look the same to me: celebrity opportunists looking out for their personal legacies and not the people they claim to represent. The right-woos-left crankodoodle set deserve each other as adversaries and colleagues. They can have each other.
