Schaeffer and BradBlog fall-out over Obama

Interesting to witness BradBlog's reaction to their columnist Frank Schaeffer's column in which he blames the "ideologically purist" left for responsibility for the recent election of a Republican in Edward Kennedy's former seat, which has led to a setback to the likelihood of meaningful healthcare reform.

Bradblog has couched Schaeffer's article with all sorts of disclaimers. Bradblog makes clear it doesn't support Schaeffer's view, and claims it publishes such views for the sake of seeing opposing views, and arguing about etc etc.

Funny that Bradblog say this when they repeatedly deleted quotes from London Guardian by Michael Tomasky warning the left (in advance) not to listen to voices claiming "betrayal".......that opposition to even limited reform was very real and powerful.

Why didn't they delete Schaeffer's views, and denounce him as "insane" - as they did when I tried posting warnings (like Tomasky's) that their denouncements of Obama were going to risk reform - not help it.

When we look at BradBlog's moderator condoning views such as "Obama's *real* masters are in Israel" and "All media all lies = All jewish media" we surely get an inkling of the motivation for Bradblog's moderator opposing Obama on all fronts. ie not just on adequacies of healthcare reform.

Here's Brad Friedman's personal note added to Frank Schaeffer's article:

[Ed Note 11:16am PT: The views and opinions of guest bloggers, editorialists and essayists do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership of this blog. Nor do they necessarily not reflect them. We believe in actual democracy here and the expression of varying legitimate viewpoints and perspectives, as well as the civil and open debate and discussion of those points.

.....

This piece is clearly opinion, versus news, and should be both recognized as much, and serve, as it has, as a departure point for healthy and reasonable discussion and debate. --- BF]
LINK

Ha! That reads like some of the most hypocritical self-serving shit I have ever seen.

Bradblog has actually worked pretty hard to prevent "varying legitimate viewpoints and perspectives" appearing at Bradblog.

And look how clear it is that they (Bradblog) obviously never really print opinion pieces that disagree with their own view? So often do they do it, they feel the need to warn their readers they're doing it.......and they make such a point of simply fencing it off as such. Funny.

I wonder how Frank feels about having his article so couched in editorial disclaimers?

Especially as he's hardly saying something hugely reprehensible? Schaeffer's argument is a reasonable one to make: that the left holds some responsibility for undermining healthcare reform. It's simply true that Obama has been attacked from the left - on every issue?

I couldn't agree that sole responsibility lies with the left, and in that I disagree with Schaeffer, if that is what he was saying. I don't think he could have been saying that though - as he obviously recognises the opposition amongst the right.

I think Schaeffer is saying something important - that the criticism we've seen of Obama from the left has certainly not helped obtain a substantial healthcare reform. The criticism - from "the ideologically purist left", as Schaeffer calls it - has been that the reforms aren't going "far enough".

We've reached a point where reform might not go anywhere - let alone can it now go "far enough". At this moment this is a major political defeat - one for which the critics coming from the left must take some responsibility for.

For me, I see it as America having failed Obama, not Obama having failed America. If anyone thought there was an incipient socialist revolution underway in the USA, then they were mad, quite frankly. Obama clearly has struggles achieving even minor reform - to imagine there isn't genuine deep and powerful resistance to the least leftwards tilt is fantasy. Even moderate reform seems to represent "communism" to many americans - and worse, they equate Obama's "communism" with "fascism". Even Bradblog's moderator and friends denounce Obama's administration as "fascist".

This reminds me of Stalinist Communist International, which had denounced social democracy as "social fascism" and worked to oppose it - rather than to oppose the genuine fascism that was growing and was a real threat against the social democracy. Of course, social democracy is much more amenable to socialism (and most everything else) than is fascism, so Stalin made a major mistake to work against social democracy - rather than with it - a failure which helped lead to the rise of fascism (it can be argued).

Here's wiki:

Social fascism was a theory supported by the Communist International (Comintern) during the early 1930s, which believed that Social democracy was a variant of Fascism because it stood in the way of a complete and final transition to communism. At the time, the leaders of the Comintern, such as Joseph Stalin and Rajani Palme Dutt, argued that capitalist society had entered the Third Period in which a working class revolution was imminent, but could be prevented by social democrats and other "fascist" forces. The term "social fascist" was used pejoratively to describe social democratic parties, anti-Comintern and progressive socialist parties, and dissenters within Comintern affiliates throughout the interwar period.

Wiki also gives Trotsky's criticism:

Leon Trotsky argued against the accusations of "Social Fascism". In the Bulletin of the Opposition of March 1932 he declared:

"Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!"

For a Workers' United Front Against Fascism B.O. No. 32

I was initially amazed when I saw Bradblog printing Frank Schaeffer's articles: he's unlikely not to notice elements of the far-right and their memes and methods, should they appear at Bradblog. I'm pretty certain Schaeffer can spot such things pretty well. So I felt bradBlog was taking a fairly big risk, what with Brad's moderator condoning some extreme anti-semitic and fascist myths, propaganda and sources. (Of course, previously Bradblog have deleted my responses about any of this to Schaeffer. They also denounced me as "insane" - for trying to post quotes from the London Guardian, for example. One has to be insane to post Michael Tomasky quotes and Guardian opinion pieces?)

I'm interested to see what happens next. And well done to Schaeffer for putting something so incendiary into BradBlog's complacent little coterie.