All right, my friends, welcome back to Anti-War Radio on Chaos 95.9 in Austin, Texas, and next guest today is Joshua Frank.
He is the author of Left Out, How Liberals Helped Re-elect George W. Bush, and you can check out his blog at brickburner.org.
He also writes for Counterpunch, and we're featuring an article of his today at antiwar.com.
You can find it, just go to antiwar.com/frank, and the article is called Anti-War Left Should Look Beyond Democrats.
Welcome to the show, Joshua.
Hey, thanks for having me back, Scott.
Yeah, it's good to talk to you again.
And, you know, I think something that you and I really saw eye to eye on over the telephone the last time we spoke was the idea of a realignment where the liberty-loving parts of the left and the liberty-loving parts of the right can kind of rally around with sort of libertarians in there somewhere, and we can get back to preserving some basic liberties while putting aside some of our other ideological gripes and so forth, for the time being, just in order to bring the empire home, reinstate the Bill of Rights, kind of get our house in order, and then get back to griping about other stuff.
Is that pretty much sum up where we were last time?
I think so, yeah.
I mean, I think we agree that right now the U.S. war in Iraq and our foreign policy agenda takes precedence over a lot of the other issues that I think we'd love to debate.
Unfortunately, we're not at a position to debate those other issues right now because of the gravity of the situation in Iraq and the state of the U.S. globally.
And, you know, I really like the way you phrased it in your article.
You talked about beer-swilling rednecks, and mushroom-eating hippies, and how, you know, really the culture war is kind of just a big distraction where we all have so much in common.
I don't think I quite fit into either of those camps, but in any case, a little bit of each, I guess.
And it seems like we have these cultural hangups that prevent people from protecting their common interests, even on the most basic things, such as whether the Fifth Amendment is going to remain the law of the land, or whether people are just going to be spirited off to military tribunals, that kind of stuff.
Right, and I think both sides, whether you're talking about the classic strain of the left, and be it Trotsky or Marxist philosophy, or the other end of the spectrum, libertarians or even conservatives like Pat Buchanan, I think a lot of times we get caught up in these culture wars, and we don't realize that we have so much in common, especially on the important issues like the war.
And I think we needed to put those sort of, I think, false differences aside, because I think we are much more alike than we might want to admit, to come together and come in cause on these important issues.
Yep.
And not to even bring it up as a point of discussion or anything, but just as an example, the abortion issue.
I mean, this is the thing that keeps people more separated from each other, and it seems like, you know what, here this issue has gone on like it is unresolved for a couple generations.
Can we just ignore it for another couple of years until we get some other things worked out here?
I hate to think that people who all support the Bill of Rights think that they can't stand each other and will have nothing to do with each other.
Yeah, well, those are the kind of wedge issues that I think the big parties would rather throw to the public as fodder to sort of distract us from the bigger issues.
So they'll give us the gay issue, they'll give us the abortion issue, but really they're not going to address any of the real issues like the economic state and the United States, or the war, or the environment.
And even if they are talking about those other issues, they're always just sort of side issues.
They're sort of the potatoes and not the meat.
And that's kind of how they get their funding, that's how they don't want to step on the toes of any corporations, be it Bechtel or Halliburton.
I mean, right now Hillary Clinton is getting more money from the defense contractors than anybody else, so of course she's not going to talk about the war, or at least talk about ending it.
And this is sort of the system that we're going to see continue over the next 11 months.
And so it's really important that I think people that agree on these bigger issues come together.
And after this article went up today, I've got a lot of flack from the anti-war left for saying that we should align with the anti-war right on this issue.
Because they see building the left as more important, unfortunately, than building an anti-war movement, and they put revolution or these sort of other classic ideologies above ending the war.
And that's the real distraction, and I think it's negatively affecting the anti-war movement.
Yeah, that's just, I mean, yo, a million Iraqis, by last count of that British group there, at least hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed violently since this war started.
We've got a group of crazies in the government who are looking for any excuse to spread the war next door.
I can't imagine how anyone thinks, well, shit, I can't imagine how anyone in America thinks anything is more important than putting an end to this stuff.
Exactly.
And that's where I think the left fails in reaching out to people.
And I think the Ron Paul supporters are an example of the kind of work that needs to be done, or at least what Ron Paul's campaign is doing, is reaching out to, I would venture to say that a lot of his supporters are newcomers to the electoral arena, a lot of people that have been disenfranchised.
And his message is coming across, and it's rallying a lot of new folks.
Something the left, and definitely the left being a Democratic Party, has been utterly unable and incapable of doing.
And I think an example of this is Dennis Kucinich, and this is what I wrote in the article.
I mean, he's been running in Iowa now for nine years, and he's barely polling at one percent.
So, I mean, there's something pretty wrong with his campaign if he's unable to rally new support.
Yeah, I mean, you know, no offense or anything, and I'm not exactly sure where on the left you categorize yourself.
I'm not one to categorize you, and I don't really know that much about you except the reporting that you do, and I haven't unfortunately read your book, but I know it's about how you should have been more anti-war, you jerks, and now look what you did.
Right.
But, frankly, the war's over, and the war's just over.
Yeah, I mean, I guess I'm somewhere in between the libertarian and the left, so I guess maybe it's easy for me to call for a unity sort of campaign.
No, I didn't know that.
Yeah, and I guess I would hope, too, that Ron Paul, and I think this is the big thing that his supporters should be pushing for if he doesn't come out of the primaries alive, is that they push him to run in the general election, because this is the sort of pressure we need on the two major parties throughout the rest of the campaign season, and he definitely has the momentum to make an impact and to make the war issue a central issue in this campaign, and both candidates from both sides, whether it's Romney or Clinton or whoever, I think that he could make this issue front and central so that they couldn't ignore it.
Yeah, and you know, it's funny, I think right wingers and left wingers think that they have a monopoly on being loyal to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and so forth, and I know that I learned first from, well, not liberal, but leftist teachers in high school about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and how the right were the enemies of it, and of course then there's just as much or more information you can find where it's the right who knows and cares about the Constitution, it's the left who are the enemies of it and whatever.
It seems to me like if we can just get all the people who care about the Constitution together, you know, take the good halves of the left and the right, I think Ron Paul's campaign is the perfect vessel for it because, I mean, he's a true conservative in that he means to conserve classical liberalism, a Jeffersonian America that we were all brought up to believe in.
There ain't a damn thing wrong with that.
I can't see why, you know, I mean, as much as it's taken off, he ought to be blowing Huckabee and the rest of these guys absolutely away by now.
Right.
Well, and I think that goes back to the sort of labels and the ideologies and the shackles that the left is unable to shake loose, so they get trapped in these archaic philosophies of what they see as driving social change, and we're in a different era than we are in the Vietnam era even, and we're obviously not in where the Bolsheviks were or what have you.
This is a new age and we need to have new thinking about changing the structure of the U.S. government and our military apparatus in general.
Yeah, I have to say, when I read the woman from the International Socialists and her rebuttal to you on counterpunch, I honestly, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or what because there was so much wrong with it that I realized if I was to try to write a, you know, hey lady, really, it ain't so bad kind of article and try to set her straight that it would take me a year, someone on my blog wrote, you'd have to write a book to correct all the fallacies in this thing, and on the other hand, it was almost just funny in the sense that like, you know, who does she think her audience is?
I mean, the Cold War is over, Marxism is over.
You talk about the young people joining the Ron Paul revolution, the people who the leftists think ought to have all been leftists, they're not into Marxism, they're not going to be.
They want what they were promised for America to be, not that, you know, they're not a bunch of Giuliani supporters, a bunch of right-wing warmongers, they're Ron Paulians.
Yeah, well, and Sherry Wolf was the woman who wrote that article and she's a friend of mine, she's a great activist, but unfortunately, I think that a lot of people that are in her circle of thinking believe that they have to go about forming a class revolution using the old methods, and it shows just how marginalized and how they become, and they may be a significant part of the left, but the left in general is minute, and I think what we need to learn is, at least for those that are on the left, or consider themselves on the left, they need to take some pages from the Ron Paul playbook and really look at why these people are coming out in support of his campaign, what about his campaign is galvanizing them, and from what I've heard and the polls that I've read, it looks like the war is one of those big issues and the Constitution is one of those big issues, and the left is unable, or maybe even worse, unwilling to look at that.
Yeah, well, and frankly, I have my problems with the Constitution, too, and I know there are a lot of people on the left who, well, I don't know, it sort of goes back to Federalist number 10, James Madison, where you can read it kind of one or two ways, where liberty is owning your own property and being able to keep other people off of it, and the left view of that is liberty is stealing from everybody else, and I guess if you start from that understanding of the American system, then rallying to protect it is not going to be on your high list of priorities.
Right, and I don't think that any of these issues are on the high list of priorities, and they tend to put all these other issues above, when really the war and the war machine is central to everything that we ought to be fighting against, whether it's exploitation of resources, I mean, obviously the war, part of the reason we're there is to control resources there, or whether it's Israel or whether it's the environment, the war has been horrific on the environment, just the amount of oil that we're consuming, the toxins, depleted uranium, or whatever, I mean, all these issues, really, a focal point could be a rallying cry, could be this war, yet the left is really unable to reach across the lines, and I would hope that the right would be willing to reach across those lines, but I just happen to be on the side that isn't reaching across, so I'm trying to do my part to do that, I'd hope that the libertarian wing or even Ron Paul supporters, however they could categorize themselves, would do the same thing.
Well, you know, this has always been my thing, why I always wanted to really be on the radio, I guess, was to try to bring the best parts of the left and right together.
I'm a libertarian, and I see myself, as I was explaining to the audience earlier on in the show, as completely outside the left-right spectrum, I know a lot of people see libertarianism as a species of right-winger or something like that, I reject the spectrum entirely, and I like to think I'm in a good position to bring together the best of the left and the right, I could interview you and William Lind on the same day, and we could all agree on a hell of a lot of things.
And that's what we should be focusing on right now, because I would rather be talking to you about these issues than dealing with the neo-cons and the neo-liberals in Washington, and I would rather have Ron Paul in the White House doing what he does and curbing empire than Hillary Clinton in the White House, or George Bush in the White House.
So these are the kind of things that we need to start thinking about, and I don't think, there's definitely parts of Ron Paul's campaign and his ideologies that I don't 100% agree with, but when it comes to restoring civil liberties, ending the war in Iraq, we're in total agreement, and for me, I prioritize these issues, and that issue is issue number one.
Well, this may shock you, and this may reinforce the argument of those on the left who disagree with you, Joshua, but there are at least two guys at the National Review who are now on board for Ron Paul, and I talked to my friend David Beto at the University of Alabama who set up academics for Ron Paul, and he's gotten incredible support just right off the bat, and dozens and dozens of people, professors signing up every day, and including, according to him, many pro-war Republicans who say they love Ron Paul so much on every other issue and personally and so forth that they're willing to overlook his weakness on the war against Islamofascism or whatever they believe in in order to vote for him.
So you talk about a powerful coalition, this is really a hell of a thing, whether it really puts him in the White House or not at the end of the day, I guess remains to be seen, but in terms of a new realignment, you know, here's Joshua Frank, the liberal leftist of some brand or another, I'm not sure, libertarian leftist, me, the plumb line libertarian, and then some libertarian right-wingers over even at the National Review, can you believe it on board for the same presidential campaign?
Yeah, well, and I think it's less to do with Ron Paul the person as it is with his movement, and what I embrace is the movement, and I embrace this sort of call for change, and I think that's what the left should consider.
I mean, if they have problems with some of Ron Paul's policies, whether it's dismantling the EPA or some of these state agencies or the Department of Education or whatever, that's, you know, that's okay to disagree with that, but let's embrace this movement, let's embrace the new people that are coming into this movement that typically were, you know, probably not going to get out there in March or thought that, you know, the left wing is sort of crazy and now we're being legitimized.
The anti-war movement, through Ron Paul's candidacy, is being legitimized, and really, they're at the forefront of a new movement here, and I don't think the left right now has the power to lead, and I think this movement, Ron Paul's movement, is setting a new precedent, and I think the left needs to reevaluate its position, and I think there's a lot of people on the left that agree with me on this, unfortunately most don't, but I think it's something that we need to debate and to reconsider.
Yeah, well, I really appreciate that, and, you know, a message for leftists in the audience listening to this now or later in MP3 format, Dr. Paul has made it abundantly clear, I mean over and over and over again, that he means to end the empire, that he is running on his foreign policy and on the IRS and a couple other things, and when they ask him about the EPA or the Department of Education, he's pretty specific about that one, but when they ask him about dismantling the regulatory state and dismantling the welfare state, his answer is always, no, no, no, no, that's last.
Talk to me in the last year, my second term, my eighth year in office, and we'll see how we're doing in terms of completely rolling back the federal government.
He is not running against Medicare and Medicaid.
He's not running against Social Security.
In fact, he keeps saying over and over, only by ending the empire can we make sure that the people who have paid into these systems and have been promised their money will get money of any value.
I mean, what good is a Social Security check if a dollar's worth a dime?
Not much.
Right.
Well, I mean, he always brings it back to the war, and he always brings it back to empire, like you said, and that's an important distinction between him and any of the other candidates, whether it's Gravel from Alaska or Dennis Kucinich.
Ron Paul is running an antiwar campaign, and he is the only one that's getting any attention, whether it's through the media or online, and I think it's an important new development in the antiwar movement.
I recently talked to Cindy Sheehan about it, and she's total agreement that we need to embrace Ron Paul supporters into the antiwar movement, and she's absolutely right, and if there's anyone that has anything to say about it, it should be Cindy Sheehan.
She resurrected us after the 2004 debacle, the elections, by going out and camping outside of Bush's ranch in Texas.
That's true.
She does have a lot of friends in that.
Without her, we probably wouldn't be where we're at now, and without Ron Paul, I don't think that there would be much hope, at least at this stage, to pressure any of the major candidates on the war issue.
Hey, I mean, I'd be all for Ron Paul teaming up with Ralph Nader in the general elections and trying to bring everyone together to end this thing.
I think it's that important.
Yeah, well, and you know, it's funny, too, because I have to give some credit to James Madison.
It does sort of seem, at least within the realm of possibility, that the one man, one vote, limited republic form of government that we have, and in combination with the market in political advertising, kind of shows the American people can raise just as much money and have just as much support for a candidate like Ron Paul as Lockheed can put together for somebody like Giuliani.
Maybe not quite as much, but we all know, I guess we all thought before this, I certainly thought before this, forget it, you can never have a presidential candidate who could make any showing, any real showing, because he just doesn't have the money.
You have to have Lockheed to pay your way or you're stuck out.
And Ron Paul, and this thing has proven me wrong, the American people actually can pick their own candidate for president and not have it chosen for them by the military- Well, there's 50% of voters that stay home on election day.
That's a huge number of people that could make a difference.
And both major parties in the left and third parties in the past 40 years have been unable to pull together and get those people out to vote.
And the left, they constantly debate about it, they've been writing about it for decades on how to do this, who do we organize, how do we do this, and they've been totally unable to do it.
But here's Ron Paul coming out of nowhere and doing it, and the left is totally ignoring it.
So, I mean, it just goes to show that the left is not willing to analyze themselves, they're not willing to embrace a true movement, a movement that is organic, a movement that doesn't have leaders necessarily, a movement that doesn't necessarily know what direction it's going, only in that we know that it's going in the direction of ending this war and curbing U.S. imperialism.
That to me, as I've said repeatedly, is the number one issue, and I would hope that more people would come on board and join this movement, be it as a Ron Paul supporter or be it as someone that supports an end to empire.
And I think there's a lot of people out there that realize what the Bush administration has done, what the Clinton administration initiated and was carried out through Bush.
I think a lot of people want to come back home and realize that their tax dollars aren't being wasted on an endless war.
Now, if I can just say one more thing to try to reassure liberals and leftists who listen to this later on, I can definitely see the point of view of a liberal leftist in class conflict terms who generally sees libertarians as even worse than Republicans, because at least the Republicans don't want to just get rid of welfare.
They're the rich white man's anarchy at the expense of the rest of us, and I'll be the first to say that there are libertarians who give the rest of us a really bad name by seeming to fight for the rights of giant corporations rather than the rights of individuals, and who seem to oppose something I think of like Neil Bortz on the radio, who, you know, welfare for a single mother is pure evil.
But he's never heard of Lockheed cashing a government check in his whole life, apparently.
He's never heard of the idea that the central bank, for example, exists for the purpose of transferring wealth from the poor and the working classes and retired people to millionaires and billionaires and people who make bombs and airplanes for a living, and Ron Paul understands that.
Ron Paul is not at all like one of these, you know, maybe caricature, Cato libertarians that people have in mind.
Ron Paul never, you know, scapegoats single mothers on welfare.
He scapegoats Lockheed.
He scapegoats the military industrial complex.
He's the only presidential candidate or presidential office holder since Eisenhower to even use that term.
And he uses it as often as possible.
And he's certainly not the kind of guy who goes around blaming all of America's problems on single black welfare mothers who have no power whatsoever.
His enemy is the people who are using the state to steal from the rest of us and to wage war.
That's the real class conflict.
That's the inside of the libertarians.
The real class conflict is the people who use the state to make their ends versus everybody else.
And of course, Ron Paul has decided clearly that it's the millionaires and billionaires who use the state against everybody else to make themselves rich that are the top of his list of targets to be kicked off welfare.
The single mother is last on the list for generations from now, is the way he says it.
And I just, I understand the false understanding of libertarianism from the left, and I try to confront it.
I don't know if that's convincing to anybody or not, but that's my shot.
No.
I mean, I think that goes to the piece Cherry Wolf wrote for Counterpunch to refute mine.
And it goes up and tries to attack these sort of general ideas about what the left thinks the libertarians represent.
And really, I mean, from an environmental standpoint, here's Ron Paul saying that he would end all subsidies to oil, gas, and coal companies.
Could you imagine Al Gore saying this?
I mean, Mr. Global Warming himself wouldn't even call for such drastic measures.
Never.
All the way down the line, really, there's a curbing of money in Washington, and that's what Ron Paul is calling for, and into supporting corporate welfare.
I mean, this is Ralph Nader's stuff.
This is the stuff Ralph Nader's been calling for and been running on for the past two elections.
That's right.
And here's Ron Paul doing the same thing, and the left was quick to embrace Ralph Nader, but will not even consider Ron Paul's candidacy.
Well, you're absolutely right about Ralph Nader, Justin Raimondo endorsed him in 2004 for the American Conservative magazine, called him Old Wright Nader, and talked about going to a rally.
And there was Ralph Nader talking about the marriage between big business and big government against the rest of us, and how war is the driving force behind the whole thing.
And he called him Old Wright Nader, sounded right out of Albert J. Knock.
Right, well, and I hope that Ralph Nader will listen to this interview and consider endorsing Ron Paul's candidacy, or at least aligning himself with it, if he jumps into the general election.
Because that's the kind of unity campaign we need.
This is what we need.
We need people to come together under a common banner and fight for the things we agree in, because certainly not even all of Ron Paul's supporters believe everything that he says.
And likewise, not everybody that supported Ralph Nader agreed with everything he said.
But on the issue of corporate welfare, on the issue of war, they're in total agreement.
And these are the big issues.
These are the issues that affect every one of us and are affecting more people than we'd like to admit globally.
So I think we need to really reconsider our positions and shake loose the shackles that keep us tied to ancient ideologies.
Well said, Joshua.
Thank you very much for your time today.
Everybody, Joshua Frank, he's the author of Left Out, How Liberals Helped Re-elect George W. Bush.
His blog is brickburner.org, and you can just find him in the margin at thestressblog.com in my blogroll there, that way.
And also writes for Counterpunch, you can find all his antiwar.com archives at antiwar.com/frank.
Thanks a lot, man.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
