Gary Chartier and The Young Turks.

Posted by on Dec 29, 2011 in Media Appearances • 6 comments

On December 26, 2011, C4SS Board and Advisory Panel member Gary Chartier appeared on Current TV’s The Young Turks with Cenk Uygur. The show featured two leftists—Chartier and AlterNet editor Adele Stan—discussing the merits of Ron Paul’s candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. As a passionate foe of militarism, aggression, and empire, Chartier used the limited time available to him to focus on Paul’s opposition to war and domestic authoritarianism, which he regards as the most important issues in the campaign.

ron-pauls-more-sinister-than-peace-love-and-no-jail-for-pot

In this blog post, Chartier examines the Paul campaign in more detail from a left-wing market anarchist perspective, noting that leftists have every reason to welcome Paul’s stances on war, empire, civil liberties, the drug war, and corporatism, but that Paul’s conservative views on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, and immigration should be rejected and that his campaign should take, as it so far has not, unabashedly radical positions regarding poverty, worker empowerment, racial and sexual discrimination, and intellectual “property.”
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  1. Null Void on Dec 29, 2011, 5:48 pm:

    The recent arrests outside Ron Paul's Iowa Campaign office won't help his popularity with the non-libertarian-left. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2011-…

    Add in the recent second flap on his newsletters, which as I predicted years ago would eventually come back to haunt him, and it looks like the second campaign is sunk. One can only hope the movement-our faction aside-will survive this.

    BTW, get a loud of Cavanaugh's flippant handling of the protestors. Clarkson being worth at least five protestors? Give me a break. http://reason.com/blog#article_154616

  2. Null Void on Dec 30, 2011, 9:26 pm:

    Alright, alright-mea culpa. The only people who seem to be getting their panties in a bunch over the newsletters are opportunistic rightists trying to shut down Paul and the Red Tories up in the cities. Everyone else seems to be coming to his side on the most important issues-namely, serious fellow leftists (libertarian or otherwise) and right-libertarians.

    Still, I am not happy about the arrest of those protestors.

  3. Thomas L. Knapp on Dec 30, 2011, 11:40 pm:

    Null Void,

    Actually, I think the newsletters are probably hurting Paul quite a bit among undecided/uncommitted/marginally committed caucus participants and primary voters.

    He seems to perceive them as hurting pretty badly — badly enough that he finally threw Rockwell and Rothbard under the bus in the New York Times the other day.

    But still not badly enough for him to just plain admit that he was on board with the "paleo strategy," admit that that strategy was noxious, and apologize for it.

  4. Null Void on Dec 31, 2011, 7:09 am:

    Indulge my curiosity; how has Rockwell and company reacted to Paul's comments? I am dying to know.

  5. Thomas L. Knapp on Dec 31, 2011, 8:32 am:

    Null Void,

    To the best of my knowledge, they've not reacted publicly at all. But it's possible that they have, and that I've missed it.

    I try to keep an eye on e.g. the LewRockwell.com blog, but its content at points of trouble for Paul always reminds me tediously of this passage from Solzenytsin's The Gulag Archipelago:

    At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with “stormy applause, rising to an ovation.”

    For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the “stormy applause rising to an ovation” continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.

    However, who would dare be the first to stop?

    Needless to say, no Radio Free Liberty broadcasts were simultaneously played in said room.

  6. Keith Preston on Dec 31, 2011, 9:31 am:

    There does not yet appear to be any evidence that the newsletters issue has hurt Ron Paul's campaign. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/newsletters-issu…

    If anything, Paul's social conservatism and past associations with paleocons may have attracted disgruntled conservatives who are fed up with mainstream Republicans to the Paul camp. Abortion, gay marriage, and immigration are the hot button issues for the right, and RP passes their litmus test on all three.

    Gary Chartier handled the issue very well in the Young Turks segment. I have long believed that if any kind of anti-state movement is ever going to have a chance in the U.S. then libertarians and anarchists are going to have to get past the "right-phobia" that so many of them seem to possess. That may make some people uncomfortable but that's how it seems to be.

    Btw, I don't think RP is "the answer." I see him as a prelude to something more radical in the future.

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