I'm very disturbed by the campaign to vilify us on the "far left" for criticizing Obama

For one, it seems pretty orchestrated. That's disturbing enough. It's very disturbing to see the name calling towards those that are simply advocating transparency, and adherence to the law. Reasoned debate has its place with this issue, but the name calling seems orchestrated and desperate.

I guess disagreeing with the President *does* make you a commie.

Because I point out the flaws in the capitalist system that can be reformed, something communism also did. However I believe in much of the capitalist system if moderated.

If I was in an extream system like a communist country I would try and pull them to the right, because either extream has more flaws then a mix.

I would tell him he's a Far Left Commie Pinko, but he might have a stroke, so I won't.

When I stop seeing leftist calling Democrats and Obama a Fascist on this site I will stop calling them out for acting as bad as the republicans.

:shrug:

That's not criticizing that's just name calling.

Rather, they're in favor of criticizing the President for anything and everything no matter how valid the criticism is.

:shrug:

Because Republicans are hypocrites?

Are you that unused to being disagreed with?

or its policies is automatically "far left," or indicative of "Obama hatred," or some such, rather than a principled disagreement with the Executive branch?

I don't think any challenge to this administration is automatically "far left." Obviously the challenges from Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are not, though I suppose they are often similar in tone (and occasionally in content) to challenges from the left. I think that it is certainly true that most challenges to the administration on this site come from the left, and I do not see anything wrong with identifying criticism from the left as being such.

As for the term "far left?" It's value-neutral, just like "moderate," "centrist," and "DLC" are. And just like those three terms, "far left" can be used as a means of discrediting a messenger: of course you believe that, you're obviously (on the far left/a centrist/a DLCer). And just like "right-wing" is here, it's often misused as a means of exaggerating minor differences between people.

as a way of discrediting the validity of any criticism of the Obama Administration, including over the decision whether to release the torture photos or not.

Now, while I myself am probably to the left of many on DU, and knew Obama would -- and could -- never be my "ideal" President, given the restraints (corporate, perceptual, etc.) he has to operate under, that doesn't mean I dislike.

But nor does generally liking him mean I'm gonna sit on my virtual hands when he signs off on wolf-killing, say, or suddenly hesitates to keep his pledge about transparency in government, etc.

Nor does any of that make me -- or anyone else looking to disagree with Executive policy - automatically like Glenn Beck. Unless we can throw around analogies and say anyone refusing to allow any critique of their party's President from their own side is like a Freeper?

After all, he is a public figure with a strong, smart wife to defend him as well as the Secret Service and the entire US military.

But when you attack other fellow DUers it IS personal because they are right here and are NOT public figures.

Of course I can see this as a confusing thing if you have so much emotional investment in Obama that you see any attack on him as personal towards you, but that says more about you than it does those you attack if that is the case.

In bizzaro world. I don't see this as a personal attack on me, but a reason as to why the far left is taken about as seriously as the far right. Which is why it's so hard to tilt the county further to the left because stupid people let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but if you don't care to get anything done and just want to bash Democrats and their supporters as Fascists then by all means go ahead and see how far that gets you.

So you are barking up the wrong tree there.

As far as the far right and far left being taken seriously, just look around you. This country takes the far right seriously, or we would not be in our predicament. The centrists take the far right seriously while completely ignoring the left, and that has been what led to this country's downfall.

There IS no far left in this country any more. You are shadow-boxing with a dead concept. American liberals are way more moderate than you seem to imply. As a progressive populist, long ago I used to be considered fairly moderate. There were plenty of representatives in Congress who held exactly my views...heck, some were even Republican.

This country moved so far to the right that being "moderate" now means giving away the farm to the corporations without strings attached.

Perhaps calling American liberals "far left" is a matter of relativity. "Centrists" are so far right that American liberals only look far left from way over there, but the Maoists and Trotskyites have long left the American body politic, I assure you.

That's another thing that needs to stop.

I'm not doubting you, just haven't seen that here and would like to read some of those remarks. Thanks.

Things get rather sticky in a hurry.

The banksters would tell you not to take it personally, it's just business.

criticizing him since the day after the election on DU. The Greatest Page is, on many days, full of posts critical of the administration, yet almost every day I see posts like this one saying that Obama critics on DU are being villified or made unwelcome. I think Obama opponents on DU get there message out loud and clear here every day.

When information is taking out of context and quoted as facts, that makes those doing it guilty of propaganda, regardless of their ideological stance.

far left were such extremists..now I do.

that any disagreement with them is an "orchestrated" "campaign" designed to silence. It's paranoid, to say the least.

They post on every thread, high-five each other constantly, and basically amplify their voices here four-fold. It is never enough to type one's opinion once or twice on a thread....but to post 20 times or more, often with one-liners that are nothing but eye-rolling and attacks on other DUers. There is also the "throw the commentator who disagrees with Obama" exercise we get to see pretty much every time one from the left dares to offer a criticism on television.

That will definitely get people starting to think about orchestration.

I do not subscribe to that premise, myself, but then again I have been a mod here and know that some people just post an awful lot, get nasty regularly, and many of them run in the same groups together.

I wouldn't call it coordination or orchestration, but cliquishness.....yes, definitely.

I've seen the same kind of behavior on threads of all kinds.

All I figure is a few like-minded people are on one thread. No cliques or coordination required.

As for coordination, I said that I do not subscribe to such notions but know what observations lead some to that conclusion.

I can't tell whether you're talking about the handful of people that loudly and vociferously attack Obama, or the handful of people that loudly and vociferously defend Obama. I also cannot see anything in that post that would support a belief in "orchestration;" I would think the obvious cause of what we see would be a combination of strongly held beliefs and of approval of others who hold the same beliefs. That is not conspiracy, and I find the eagerness some have to leap to claims of conspiracy to be mildly imbalanced.

Is suspect. I suspect them of not having the ability to LISTEN to another's argument. I personally do not understand what motivates a person to post over and over again, multiple times in every thread on the same subject, one-lining to agree with every poster on the thread who agrees with them, and a one-liner insult to everyone who doesn't agree. There is some sort of level of obsessiveness to it, especially when a lot of said activity is devoted to insulting fellow DUers and actively adding negativity to this community.

As I said before (and had to explain three times, now), I do not subscribe to the orchestration hypothesis, but I understand where such a hypothesis comes from.

As far as cliquishness is concerned, let's just say that "approval of others" who hold the same belief somehow repeats itself over and over again...the same few posters high-fiving each other from thread to thread. You would think that stating such approval and seeking out like-minded DUers would only have to take place once or twice. After 5+ times a day between the same two posters, it is simply high-fiving. And, yes, I think it is a rhetorical device.

a lot lately, which is why I've chosen to no longer donate.

I said I do not subscribe to such notions, but understand where such notions come from.

As for your desire to donate...that is your decision. Don't put your lack of funds or unwillingness to donate funds on me. Now THAT'S projection.

ON EDIT: since this post, someone donated in my name....so I guess DU got its money, after all. :hi:

people can post whatever they want, whenever they want, with no regard for the people who continued to support this place when they all stormed off in a huff. I'm glad they're back now so that those of us who still support this president can post our views on their dime.
:hi:

There are signs.

in the past.

I was offered a job by a large, well known movie studio to be a paid blogger and be a part of their orchestrated publicity campaigns. Paid bloggers exist, and they exist here. That's just my Occam's Razor take on things--the name-calling here resembles past efforts I've been validated in calling out.

I don't think that means that people who disagree with you on DU are disagreeing with you because they're paid to do so.

I'm saying the people trying to out and out vilify those who want the pictures released---those particular efforts seem orchestrated.

Why you should claim defense and counter-attack in support of elected officials of the Democratic Party is 'orchestrated' escapes me. Would you be willing to make the same claim regarding the assaults from the left on President Obama and Speaker Pelosi? If not, why not? After all, a number of persons engage in them, they use the same lines of attack, often enough employing similar, even virtually identical, language in doing so. There is certainly a good deal of personal vilification employed from the left, both against the Democratic Party leaders assailed, and against those who defend them. Very little of the assault on President Obama and Speaker Pelosi from the left just now meets any standard of reasoned debate known to me.

If you come here to voice an opinion expect those who don't agree with it to argue back.

That's not suppression. It's called dialog and it's what happens on a message board.

I'm just adding that observation to the dialogue. This also happens on message boards.

They think that ANY criticism of a Democrat will lead to a Republican takeover. Remember how progressive critics of Clinton got the blame for Repug wins in 1994? After all, it couldn't possibly be Clinton's lame-ass, pro-corporate policies that kept people away from the polls. It was the "critics" of his lame-ass, pro-corporate policies who were at fault.

Even now, with the GOP on the verge of becoming an historical curiosity, people are still afraid of pursuing a legitimate gripe with an elected Democrat. The end result is that our incipient progressive resurgence is being sacrificed, once again, to perceived political expediency.

Obama is pissing off people on the right and left - maybe that means he really is doing something right. :toast:

This sounds like paranoia.

Are you saying any disagreement with the "impeach Obama right NOW" crowd is a campaign?

that there would be people who are committed to defending a progressive Democratic President.


Must be a conspiracy.


The blue finch flies in a southerly direction

repeating for our friends in Peoria

The blue finch flies in a southerly direction.

Those who disagree with those who criticize Obama are equally open to seemingly "orchestrated...name calling."

defends the president is summarily dismissed by those who have it in for him. Works both ways doesn't it?

I never imagined that a newly elected progressive Democratic president would be villified to such a degree, this early into his first term. We already knew the right was going to attack, but the attacks coming from the left seem pretty "orchestrated" as well.

but deal with the fact that for many of us, he is very backward thinking. He opposes equal rights for all citizens of the country. He has appointed a party chairman who is even more conservative on human rights issues than he is. Kaine opposes even civil unions. They both wish to keep some Americans without rights because of their religion. They want me to live their faith, which they certainly do not do themselves.
That is not progressive. Sorry, but it is relgionist bigotry just as it was from Bush. Don't like it? Tell the man who needs to change.

That should tell you all you need to know...

or is the president "exempt"? I have seen folks called everything under the sun for daring to question the methodology of the bailout or questioning the declared lack of priority of DADT or FOCA.
I like some of what the President has done and some I don't like but certainly folks shouldn't be "labeled" for expressing discontent! That is what we are supposed to do as Americans.

For one, it seems pretty orchestrated. That's disturbing enough. It's very disturbing to see the name calling towards those that are simply advocating transparency, and adherence to the law. Reasoned debate has its place with this issue, but the name calling seems orchestrated and desperate.

I use the term "far left" on my own. I don't tell people who disagree with me they have no right to speak. I haven't even seen it done.

I don't use the term "far left" over somebody who disagrees with Obama or gets angry over, for example, his decision not to release torture photos. I expect people to complain that a campaign promise was broken.

An example of something I don't like is that there are far more tirades against Nancy Pelosi than there are tirades about the recent revelations that Cheney's office wanted torture used on an individual who wasn't linked to terrorism. Cheney wanted the torture to produce a false answer that he could use for propaganda purposes.

Of course, the media is going after Pelosi instead of Cheney, even though at most all Pelosi did was fail to stop criminals. Outright criminal acts are ignored. Cheney's defenders are going after Pelosi to distract attention away from Cheney. The far left, by going after Pelosi and ignoring Cheney, furthers the GOP strategy.

All that bothers me but it doesn't mean I want people to be silenced. I want them to think about what I'm telling them.

What a bunch of crybaby paranoia!

:rofl:

your heads off but there will be no equating Prez Obama to bush.

If I didn't know better I'd be sure we have some sort of campaign going on.

Strangely enough, they seem to be around 24/7, posting the same insults/non-responses who dares hold Saint Obama's feet to the fire. It's like they punch-out at 5 pm, then hand the job over to the night crew, who then takes over their DU handle.

If anyone wants to villify me for my views, that is fine. I'm perfectly comfortable as a villain.

On the other hand, there is something to be learned by the qualitative quantity of villification one finds oneself subjected to... the more I am villified for my vews, the more I simply realize that my views are far, further, or even further yet from the mainstream... even the mainstream of DU thought.

The next time you find yourself under villification-siege, you might consider trying to use the villification volume as a possible measure of how far out of the mainstream you might be on the issue. After all, there's nothing wrong with being wrong... but it does help to know when you're "wrong".

(In a "Democratic" country, right and wrong is subject to a vote, right? I know it is here in CA...)

for wanting the torture photos released. I think you are correct in your assumption since it is happening to a lot of other posters.

And so you should laugh. Goes a long way to stop it from happening to other DUers.

Those more zealous defenders of Obama's torture photo decision also tried the "your a pedohile sicko" angle, too. Seriously, those accusations are only there to insult you and get you riled. Riled DUers sometimes post things that get them tombstoned. The less this sort of behavior is tolerated across the board, the less good DUers get the pizza from saying something impolitic in the heat of debate.

Someone not agreeing with you doesn't mean you are being silenced or supressed or that there is a conspiracy going on. The bigger problem seems to be that people can't take a difference of opinion and only want to have people agree with them. Echo chamber much. It seems you can't point out that an article may be misleading or that Obama is being unfairly attacked for having a position that he never held without being accused of being an apologist or some other nonesense.

Unfortunately, they are on the left. whether paid, volunteer, or a mixture isn't clear.

But you can spot them clearly by their use of the talking point code words of the day.

"Ideological purist" is one of them. I thought it was strange to see that term coming up repeatedly, and then I saw Obama use it the other day in a video clip. So, you know that came from the White House -- and it's used quite a bit by the apologists on DU.

There are other terms.

It's Rovian tactics all over again and it's very disturbing.

on all sides. It is not going to change.

Certainly, there are some people here who think that Obama should NEVER be criticized and will attack everybody who disagree with them with every insult they can find. Just ignore them. They just think that Obama is another American Idol and play this way.


Thankfully, it is just a small minority that I have decided to ignore. No constructive dialogue will come with them because, even if they believe in something, tomorrow they will change their view and tell you this thing is wrong if Obama says so (I have seen the same phenomena with people supporting other Dems throughout the years, to be honest). These people do not care about ideas. They have made a man their hero.

The vast majority of DUers is able to think by themselves though, thankfully, whether they agree or disagree.