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Salon columnist says progressives should boycott anti-NSA rally because organizers are working with libertarian groups

Don’t ally with libertarians: Ideologues co-opt an anti-NSA rally

Hard-right, anti-government ideologues make poor coalition partners, even if they're right on surveillance


On Saturday, a coalition of critics of the U.S. surveillance establishment will gather in Washington D.C., under the banner Stop Watching Us for a rally asking Congress to “stop the NSA’s unconstitutional mass surveillance.” Participants will gather in front of Union Station and march to the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol.

Some of the biggest names in civil liberties and digital freedom of information will be there, including the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreePress and FreedomWorks. Sponsoring individuals include a great number people I admire (and in some cases, know very well), including Tim Berners-Lee, Daniel Ellsberg, Xeni Jardin, Eli Pariser, Anil Dash, Dan Gillmor, Rebecca Mackinnon, Glenn Greenwald, John Cusack, Molly Crabapple, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, and Andrew Rasiej. Companies backing the effort include Reddit and Ben & Jerry’s.

“We demand the U.S. Congress reveal the full extent of the NSA’s spying programs,” is the basic demand of Stop Watching Us.

This is a vital cause, and I agree with it.

Yet I cannot support this coalition or the rally. It is fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups; their hard-core ideology stands in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat.


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Those in charge don't have to

Those in charge don't have to worry about silly activists who can't get ouf of their own way fast enough. The Occupy crowd was a day late and literally a dollar short on figuring out the Fed because if the "tea party" is against the Fed, the Fed must be Occupy's friend, right? People are all ready to conquer the world until they trip over their own incompetence.

Who is Tom Watson?

Who is Tom Watson?

divide and conquor at work

Don't listen to him, he has his head in the sand.

This is just like the Republicans and Democrats fighting over who gets credit for whatever.


...so much for that libertarian/progressive coalition.

"Alas! I believe in the virtue of birds. And it only takes a feather for me to die laughing."

It shows we're FORMING one!

They have factions, just as the "right wing" does.

This is their equivalent of a neocon purist, screaming that these tea party people are the devil and nobody should talk to them. ("Don't listen! You might get corrupted!")

What does this tell me? It says it's WORKING. This is an early scream of pain and counterattack as we erode the base of the authoritarians among their side.

Don't fret. CELEBRATE!

= = = =

Note that the ACLU and the NRA have worked together a number of times - when the goal was common. (One example: Gun bans in Chicago public housing and door-to-door searches to enforce them.) This hasn't hurt either the NRA or the ACLU, while it DID advance both their causes.

This guy saying not working together in order to keep the rank-and-file's minds pure is more important that stopping NSA surveillance just tells us that HE is an authoritarian putting preserving his power base over advancing his stated agenda.

= = = =
"Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job."

That means: For each job "created or saved" about five were destroyed.

I hope you're right



Libertarians are not Right Wing!!!

Libertarians are not right wing any more than true progressives are left wing. They are authoritarians like their neoconservative "buddies" and like us, don't fit on the 1-dimentional political spectrum.

Favorite Comment:

"Only a fool continues to fight in a burning house."

-old Klingon proverb

tasmlab's picture

A pretty naked confession

Give him this, he's honestly coming out and saying it's about being with the right group of people and it's not about the ideas or the issues. Bam! He just came out and said it.

In the media, the left's entire argument these days is 'we're not them' and the Republicans do nobody a favor by continually having people pop up and say hateful sounding things. The progressives can continually point to the right and celebrate that they are not them without ever advancing a single idea.

I'm generalizing (for sure), but visit alternet.org or dailykos and every headline will just be a statement about how they are not republicans and almost nothing about what makes a good progressive.

And libertarians are simply seen as a weaponized version of a Republican.

Currently consuming: Harry Browne, Free Domain Radio; JT Gatto and Holt; Wii U


All you can do is...lol!

Check out http://iroots.org/
"If you’re into political activism, at least for Ron Paul if not for anyone else, I strongly recommend spending some time with iroots.org." - Tom Woods

Collectivists are short

Collectivists are short sighted.

Guy simply can't come to

Guy simply can't come to terms with the fact that his philosophy is based on aggression and theft, so he hates libertarians for sticking his nose in his reality.

Don't hate the guy, pity him.

Never trouble trouble til trouble troubles you. Fortune Cookie

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live my life needing

The government to wipe my ass and cut my steak for me.

Then I read stuff by people like Tom Watson, and it gives me a pretty good idea.

read the comments

read the comments after that salon.com article. they make me feel slightly optimistic.

I think this one said it all

"Brian M Freeman - you're just scared we'll co-opt a bunch of young progressive types. you're right, we will! muhaha"

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
~ John Muir

scared socialist statist scumbag


Official Daily Paul BTC address: 16oZXSGAcDrSbZeBnSu84w5UWwbLtZsBms
My ฿itcoin: 17khsA7MvBJAGAPkhrFJdQZPYKgxAeXkBY

just one more example/Exhibit A) clearly illustrating the fact

that there has never been such a thing called an "anti-war, pro-peace, pro-justice, pro-privacy, pro-Bill of Rights"-Left/Progressives.

Just Anti-Bush and/or Anti-Republicans.

Even after 8yrs of GWB and in second term of oBUSHma, these zombie buffoons still don't get that they'll have no pet issues to dicker over, when America fully succumbs to a full-on domestic policestate tyranny.

talk about 'knowing' their priorities, eh?

it's like: 'yay! screw privacy, accountability, and transparency! it's those principally consistent libertarians who are also involved! worse, they want to help a cause we are 'concerned' with, too?? screw it: I'd rather have my rights violated, than to align with 'those' people! eew! yay!!'

pathetic. but, wholly expected and predictable, and utterly irrelevant; how many fans does this "Tom Watson" have? 5? WhoTF would watch his ass if he had a show, let alone follow his blogs, religiously? Another delusional, ego-maniacal, commie non-entity.


Predictions in due Time...

"Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it's realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy." - Dr. Ronald Ernest Paul

""anti-war, pro-peace,


I was going to debate this, but then I realized that when I considered myself this years ago I just hadn't educated myself yet. The first time I could vote was when W was in office, and all I saw was an erosion of rights and endless war. I knew something was up when I got into an argument about gun rights with my very liberal girlfriend at the time. I read a Howard Zinn book when I was 18-19 and thought I was Anarcho-Communist for a minute but felt like there were logical inconsistencies I couldn't let go of. There are tons of young people, and I bet a lot of older people even, that just need to hear the message, and really think about their positions on different subjects. Liberty wins out every time. Ron Paul was a light in the darkness, we just need more people like him shining the light on the issues.

End The Fed!
BTC: 1A3JAJwLVG2pz8GLfdgWhcePMtc3ozgWtz

well put

+1 for posting a comment that almost didn't have a scroll bar. almost

“With laws shall our land be built up, but with lawlessness laid waste.”
-Njal Thorgeirsson

Well, I'll be! Kind sir, do yo mean to imply that

I'm usually verbo longwindy verbose?


Well, of course; I swear, I try my man, I do try: it starts with me thinking: 'this time, ACM, this time: it'll only be one single paragraph...'

Then, before you know it: YT links are flying up, pictures plastered and various past DP threads and internet articles are being hyperlinked, like almost on auto-pilot. Yes, I've become a drone of DP verbosity.o/

intervention? stat!


I QWERTY to inform and oft entertain, or neither, if you choose. All at, or not, your leisure.D

Predictions in due Time...


Dead on

Enough said

I think this is a common attitude

from all over the political spectrum, and it turns up here too. An admirable quality of RP is an unabashed strategy of building coalitions wherever they're available. Liberty is broken up into pieces, he says. We have to put the pieces back together. Amash and Conyers almost got it done last time with NSA.

I hope liberty minded people can see common cause when former supporters start getting Obamacare sticker shock.


just a pretty word for Communism!