The Third Front

Ken AshfordDemocratsLeave a Comment

Billmon of the Whiskey Bar has some interesting thoughts on the unification of interests between progressives (as distinguished from John Kerry-like "neolibs") and libertarians. It takes him a while to get to that point, but the journey is interesting as well. An excellent read from an underrated blog.

Excerpted highlights:

Strategically, the neocons and their neoliberal collaborators now hold the center of the political spectrum. The anti-imperialists hold the two edges — historically not an enviable position. To continue the military analogy, the hawks enjoy the advantage of "interior lines of communication." The two wings of the anti-war movement, on the other hand, barely speak the same language.

The fact that realism has been pushed to the fringes of the political debate says a lot about America’s collective mental condition. Sanity isn’t very popular these days . . . We seem to have reached the point where a half-baked strategy for endless war in the Middle East is actually easier to sell politically than a sensible energy policy, an end to America’s fawning subservience to worst instincts of the Israeli national security state, and a focused, relentless campaign to destroy Al Qaeda while drying up the pools of hatred in which jihad festers and grows.

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For libertarian conservatives, the great fear is of a state that gradually overwhelms and crushes human liberty. For progressives, it’s a state that ignores the needs of the weak and the powerless at home, while acting as an engine of oppression in the developing world. Thanks to the war in the Middle East, it looks like both of our worst fears could come true. Thus, the idea of a coalition of both ends against the middle.

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Lets just call it "Americans for Sanity," and leave it at that.