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A couple from last Fridays Radio Derb.

(1) I said that:

The Republican faction George Orwell joined in Catalonia, fighting against the Francoists, was another anarchist group, the POUM, the Workers Party of Marxist Unification.

That brought in an email from a libertarian listener:

POUM was a Marxist party, not anarchists. As Orwell wrote, Had I known more when I arrived in Barcelona, I would probably have joined the anarchists instead. His experiences made him strongly supportive of the libertarian labor union the CNT.

Today the libertarian labor union the CGT represents about 1-1.5 million workers through the work councils in the country, and has about 100,000 members today a far cry from the 1.5 million members of the 30s, but making CGT still one of the most influential anarchist organization in the world today.

I hope you will discover more amazing facts as you look deeper into the rich history of the libertarian movement.

Thank you, Sir. You are right: POUM were Trotskyites (i.e. anti-Stalin Marxists). The Anarchists were a different crowd.

Several crowds, in fact. Interested readers can consult Homage to Catalonia(there is a full text of the book here) where Orwell describes the anfractuosities of leftist politics in late-1930s Spain in painstaking detail.

Orwell does tell us, though (Chapter 5) that From about February 1937 onwards the Anarchists and the P.O.U.M. could to some extent be lumped together; so Im not too vexed over this error.

And I was interested to see, scanning the text of Homage for relevant references, that the word libertarian occurs three times. Down there in the leftist pond life was something called Libertarian Youth. Orwell scolds a British journalist for saying that this faction was controlled by POUM.

There is a piece of very serious misrepresentation here. [That journalist]describes the Friends of Durruti and Libertarian Youth as controlled organizations of the P.O.U.M. Both were Anarchist organizations and had no connexion with the P.O.U.M. The Libertarian Youth was the youth league of the Anarchists.

Its a nice historical curiosity that Libertarians, who today are regarded as being on the eccentric Right, were a Left faction eighty years ago Which brings to mind the editorial cited by Simon Leys from the ChiCom Peoples Dailyduring the Cultural Revolution years, explaining to the Party faithful that extreme leftism is a rightist deviation.

As my correspondent said, theres some rich history here.

(2) For saying that the Boston Tea Party got the American Revolution started, I hadmy knuckles e-rapped by Ann Coulter, who emailed in to tell me that:

The Boston Tea Party started nothing. It was abhorred by half the founding fathers, nearly lost us our main ally in Britain (Burke) and was not celebrated or spoken of for at least another 50 years.

George Washington apologized for it. Its leaders were rebuked by Benjamin Franklin.

Nothing was broken on the ship (nothing that wasnt fixed that night), so the only vandalism was tea being thrown into the ocean and Ben Franklin forced the Americans to repay the tea company for that.

So it wasnt much disorder either, and still our founding fathers were horrified.

Our revolution began with a legal document, the Declaration of Independence. I believe the Boston Tea Party became a big thing only in the last 50 years.

Paul Reveres midnight run and the declaration were the true precipitating events. I tell the true story of the Boston Tea Party in Demonic.

Thank you, Maam. In defense, I plead my fault here as arising from the immigrants excessive keenness to get an American reference into every historical generality.

The American Revolution was a different kind of thing from the French, Chinese, and Russian revolutions.

The Chinese Communist textbooks I was teaching from 34 years ago could barely contain their scorn at the phrase American Revolution. Our founding events were at best, they jeered, merely a bourgeois revolution. The suffering proletariat of North America were still waiting for a real revolution.

Possibly they were right.

See the original post:
Radio Derb Errata: POUM And The Boston Tea Party - VDARE.com

Fundamental misunderstanding sends progressives off the radical leftist rails

Kimberley Strassel over at the Wall Street Journal has some good advice for the progressive tea party resistance movement: dont go down the path youre on because its based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the Tea Party.

Strassel writes:

The conservative tea-party phenomenon is overall one of the more successful political movements in modern American history. Even the left acknowledges it now.

. . . . Consider the recent rallying cry of progressive star Markos Moulitsas. The Tea Party didnt really become a force until it started ousting Republicans it didnt feel represented them, he told the New York Times. Democrats either need to feed, nurture and aggressively champion the resistance, or they need to get out of the way in favor of someone who will.

Message: Get with our agenda, or be purged. The progressives showing up for protests and demanding Supreme Court filibusters are determined to move their party aggressively to the left. Any Democrat who does not sign up for their policies and their resistance will face a primary.

. . . . The tea party erupted for a lot of reasons, but a big one was frustration with Washington business as usual. Activists in the main werent demanding the Republican Party become something new, or ultra-right-wing. They were demanding the partybeset at that time by logrolling, earmarks and corruptionsimply hold true to its stated and longtime principles of free markets and limited government. It was a quest for a better-quality product, not a different one altogether.

. . . . The original tea party was about making conservatives in this center-right country act like conservatives again. The progressive tea party is about making Democrats in this center-right country act like Bernie Sanders. Have at it.

Shes right, and I hope they dont pay any attention to her at all.

See the rest here:
WSJ: Progressive Tea Party, You're No Tea Party - legal Insurrection (blog)

HARLINGEN Hi, my name is Maggie, so nice to meet you, said Maggie Aguigana, shaking hands with another young girl before they both curtsied with big smiles on their faces.

Maggie, 10, and several other girls were attending a tea party at the LeMoyne Gardens unit of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harlingen. The girls, ages 9 to 12, were learning table etiquette, the manners of young ladies, and how to maintain proper poise in social situations.

We are trying to teach them the way to speak, said Sophie Cantu, youth development worker at LeMoyne Gardens.

We are trying to teach them how to conduct themselves, how to have poise, the way they present themselves, Cantu said.

She was teaching them such things as how to get someones attention. Instead of yelling, they should quietly approach the individual.

They are transitioning from children to pre-teen, she said.

The girls listened attentively as Cantu spoke to them.

Do you know how to sit in a dress, she asked them. They shifted slightly and she indicated approval.

Do you know how to pull out a chair? she asked. She leaned over and pulled a chair from a table. Several girls stood and tried to copy her technique, only to receive some extended instruction from Cantu.

She now moved to greetings, approaching one girl and shaking her hand.

What was wrong with that? Cantu asked.

She didnt say her name, answered a girl.

Cantu nodded. She didnt even greet me, she said.

Cantu gestured to another girl to stand and practice a greeting.

Hello, my name is Jazmine Ajca, said the 12 year old. Whats your name?

My name is Maggie, answered Maggie, who wore a pink top and a skirt with a bold zig-zag line of magenta and aqua blue.

Then, upon completing the courtesies theyd just learned, they slapped each others hands in a more familiar greeting for good fun.

Jazmine had been somewhat nervous about the event, although most excited at the same time.

I feel nervous and happy, she said.

Maggie was also excited about the event.

Its my first time for a tea party, she said. I just want to have fun, dress up. Were going to learn how to listen and be loyal.

Were going to learn how to hold a tea cup, said Yarely Aguilar, 10.

These basic social skills will serve them well in many arenas, said Hilda Gathright, unit director at LeMoyne Gardens.

I feel its important for them to be able to apply some of these life lessons, she said. They will use them later in life.

twhitehead@valleystar.com

Excerpt from:
First tea party: Girls learn the poise of socials - Valley morning Star

WINCHESTER Chuck Smith, a Virginia Beach attorney seeking the GOP nomination for state attorney general, spoke to about 30 people at a meeting of the Apple Valley Tea Party on Thursday.

We need an American attorney general, Smith said, touting his service in the Marine Corps infantryman during the War in Vietnam and, later, his career as a military attorney. We need an attorney general who stands up for Virginia.

Smith, 64, is running against Richmond-based attorney John Adams for the party nomination; they are currently the only two candidates, as Del. Rob B. Bell, R-Albemarle, unexpectedly dropped out of the race in November.

The attorney general post is now held by Democrat Mark Herring who plans to run for re-election this year.

Smith told the group, meeting at the Frederick County Sheriffs Office that he is the most qualified person to ever run for attorney general, citing his 37 years practicing law and his experience heading various groups, including the Virginia Beach Republican committee.

We are 0-7, he said of the state GOP, referring to the fact that Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009. Weve got to stop voting for money.

According to a November report from the Washington Post, Smith trailed GOP primary contender and Richmond-based attorney John Adams $4,000 to $432,000 in fundraising. Smith said the party consistently chooses the candidate with the most money, which leads to losses.

As a black conservative, hell bring diversity to the ticket, he said. A lack of diversity among statewide candidates could cost Republicans to lose future elections.

We want to win again, Smith said. We dont want to be 0-8.

He said the party has to get God back in the classroom and that 13 million illegal immigrants can be deported from the United States. He said hell protect the state from federal settling of refugees and from Muslim radical terrorists running around our country.

He spoke about the 10th amendment and fighting federal overreach.

The role of an attorney general is not to legislate, he said, citing Herrings refusal to enforce the state marriage law as being between a man and a woman.

Several times Smith mentioned transgender men using female restrooms.

Smith receded from some attendee questions regarding education and protests.

Where in the Constitution does it say education? one person asked.

Nowhere, Smith said, adding that he feels the Department of Education should be abolished but as state attorney general he wouldnt have anything to do with that.

I didnt see one broken head ... lots of broken windows, said another person, apparently referencing civil unrest at the University of California, Berkeley, earlier this week. Would the Marines have let them break windows without breaking a head?

At that Smith segued into a speech about patriotism, military service and defending the laws that are already on the books.

I didnt use a script, he said of his speech, which lasted about 45 minutes. You dont need a script if you believe what you say.

Smith handed out signature sheets after the meeting. He needs at least 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot and a minimum of 500 from each congressional district.

Before Smiths speech, the meeting discussed various issues, including Frederick Countys debt and the concern that new housing developments are not paying for themselves.

Jeff Isaak, a state GOP field operative, spoke briefly about Denver Riggleman, a former USAF Intelligence Officer and co-owner of Silverback Distillery. He lives in Afton and is seeking the GOP nomination for governor in the November election. Riggelman also circulated signature sheets.

Link:
Smith addresses Apple Valley Tea Party - The Winchester Star

Christopher Hooks

Many progressives remember the tea party revolution of 2009-2010 as an extended exercise in unreason. Thats not wrong. But it was also, quite possibly, the most successful political organizing movement in the last half-century of American politics. The tea party transformed the GOP from a broken and battered political party to a ruthlessly effective organ in the body politic all in the space of about 18 months. As Democrats plot a path out of the wilderness, its important to consider how the right did it.

In those years, the tea party was full of scorn for Barack Obamas background as a organizer, and the feared name of Saul Alinsky was never far from conservative activists lips. But these right-wing rabble-rousers were much better organizers. For decades, the American left has dreamed about building a national movement of self-organizing cells by unifying political neophytes with disparate beliefs into a single, broad cause, and operating both within and outside its host political party. Conservatives realized that model. It worked. And Democrats still have nothing like it.

In Texas, there were tea party groups at the county, city and even neighborhood level. They were hyperlocal organizing engines whose events also offered camaraderie. They often met in churches, and many were involved with their own politically active congregations.

By creating a circuit where politicians such as Ted Cruz and Dan Patrick could speak directly to conservative activists, tea party groups changed the future of the state simply by existing. It became more important to tailor messages and political activity to these small crowds. The network was also an excellent way to train activists in more complex forms of organizing, such as block-walking and voter outreach, and a way for big conservative groups to reach local folks. It was all stunningly successful.

Democrats are supposed to be the party of the collective, but Democratic politics is intensely atomized, and many of its would-be voters are alienated from politics. Unions are capable of creating some energy, which is one reason theyve been so intensely targeted by the GOP. Same with groups like ACORN. But theyve all been decimated.

The social function of tea party groups was just as important as their organizing ability. Its in linking and threading social groups together that politics can become a part of a persons life, as it is in many other countries, instead of something to be argued about online. Its here where Democrats truly have nothing. In part, thats because there is no broader goal at the moment. Democrats have no fleshed-out answer to the exceptionally effective motivating ideologies of the tea party, no worldview that constitutes a cause.

Theres been ample and often deserved criticism of Obama for letting his own grassroots vehicle, Organizing for America, molder, and of the Democratic Party for losing sight of precinct-level activity. But the tea party wasnt the invention of the GOP. It couldnt be. Activists did it themselves.

Jen Reel

Ive often wondered if the key difference here is cognitive maybe conservatives, who value tradition, hierarchy and in-group identities, are simply better at this than centrists, who care about little but the status quo, and the left, inherently wary of power and each other. The 2016 Democratic primary changed my mind, partly. Theres evidently a tremendous hunger on the left, particularly among young people, to take part in something politically meaningful.

One organizing group, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has seen its dues-paying membership quintuple since the start of Bernie Sanders campaign. Theyve seen growth in unlikely places like El Paso. Their chapters offer the social experience of the tea party, as well as focusing energy on local races, such as precinct chairmanships and community college trusteeships. But DSA is tiny, and the left needs a mass movement.

Many in the Democratic Party innately distrust this kind of talk. Some hated or distrusted Sanders. They hold essentially centrist policy beliefs, and find ideological talk icky. Their fear is misguided. The party needs all of the energy it can generate, and many different approaches can exist simultaneously. The belief that Donald Trumps party is too stupid or evil and will necessarily self-destruct is terrifically dangerous and must be quashed. (Texas Democrats have been using that line on each other since I was in elementary school.) The Trump era is something new in American politics, and only a new approach can counter it. The clock is ticking.

This article appears in the February 2017 issue of the Texas Observer. Read more from the issue or subscribe now.

Excerpt from:
The Left Needs Its Own Tea Party - The Texas Observer