When Brits ask me questions like, "What do people on the left in America think?" my answer is: "There aren't any, unless you count a few media groupies and policy wonks."

i posted this because i want to understand america a little better. i would also like to talk to people from sweden about life there but i don't think many post on ilx.

tuomas to thread (isn't he swedish?) Or is that Geir...

tuomas is finnish... geir was born in austria, near the german border, i think.

lol @ president roslin

i met atilla the stockbroker once. he was pretty left wing.

geir was born in austria, near the german border, i think.

hahaha is he also a failed painter?

I think that was the point

B-

Nab: The usual line goes something like how Nixon and Clinton were around the same spot on the spectrum, but of course one was considered conservative in his day and the other liberal. Rosy 30s radical left/New Deal, perhaps, is closer to where Euro-style leftiness comes from? I don't feel qualified to really judge this line of thought, but it's not exactly uncommon...

the most basic terms i think of this in is britain has free point of access health care, america doesn't. i get really freaked out thinking about not having free healthcare.

Yeah, C, that's why I was asking what kind of timeframe he's talking about. If he's positing a rightward shift from, like, the New Deal, he still has ridiculous problems: (a) why is he writing as if this is current-events news, as opposed to broad-scale history? (b) why is he talking about Edwards and Kucinich, who are practically meaningless on that large scale? and (c) per Acrobat, doesn't that involve selectively deciding which indicators you're following the shift in, even as other (mostly social) elements have progressed decidedly to the "left" in that sense that history tends to?

As to health care, I'm not sure how that indicates a rightward shift in politics, either. The past two decades have seen Democrats make one large failed effort to provide it and many small failed efforts to gesture at it, all with several changes in the politics but few in the general aims. The decade before those two saw what health programs we did have weakened not by a change in public opinion, but by Republican administrations systematically dismantling those services, just as they continue to work on dismantling certain aspects of government. It's a stretch to just claim without argument that that's symptomatic of a rightward shift in people's opinions, as opposed to a higher level of effectiveness for one party -- and if you want to claim there was a shift in sentiment toward public-welfare programs in particular (which I would agree with), that's a broad-scale thing that goes back at the very least to the Reagan era, and talking about Edwards's haircut has more or less zero to do with the topic.

But anyway yeah, if the multi-decade public shift you want to posit is "increased unwillingness to pay taxes to fund social programs for others," then yes, there's plenty of shift on that point: it happened either (a) at the postwar boom moment where lots of Americans became middle-class and everyone stopped thinking of themselves as the potential beneficiaries of such programs, and (b) during the 70s/80s moment where a conservative myth appeared of said programs being wasteful bureaucracies that existed only to be sponged off by lazy minorities.

i also think my personal view of america is very much tainted by reading the kingfish threads most days.

a nation is best defined by its blogosphere

Don't worry, Americans' views of America are tainted in large part by reading that kind of trash. (Or, e.g., Reagan telling tall tales about "welfare queens" driving their Cadillacs.) (GEE I WONDER WHY IT WAS A CADILLAC IN THAT STORY)

Of kind of tangential interest, did anyone else hear the former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, on R4's Today this Thursday?

I know John Humphrys is a pompous twat, but still, to hear Bolton describe George Soros and Humphrys as "men of the extreme left" for questioning US-UK policy in Iraq was ... interesting listening.

at 8.45 or so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/thursday.shtml.

Bolton is an asshole and a bozo and everyone in the US knows it. Note that he is the only US delegate to the UN to never be confirmed by the Senate.

he was appointed to be Dubya's bullyboy and mouthpiece - the guy has no credibility or general support from the US public at all

It's his looks, end of story. God Bless America.

Possibly also the "Department of Peace."

but surely the things he says and the very fact he exists is a sign of "extremism". thou tbh you have to bear in mind a lot us brits do love, or our press certainly does, seeing america as a BAD THING. y know when green day fans sing along to american idiot in milton keynes it means something kinda different than when they do so in iowa.

reading the kingfish threads most days.

branded tho I am, half my recent threads have involved dogs and/or pulp sci-fi.

Bolton describe George Soros and Humphrys as "men of the extreme left"

This is a standard american rightwing device. Portray anybody on the other side(or even on your own side who don't agree with the extremism of your own positions) as far-out unserious wackos. Has nothing to do with the actual reality, or the fact that you're talking about a guy heavily involved in world currency markets.

"He believes the US constitution bestows the right on Americans to carry guns and is a supporter of the death penalty."

The dastard!

And incorrect, besides. Edwards is no friend to gun owners. Observe:

Q: How will your gun stance play among Southern voters?

EDWARDS: I grew up in the rural South. Everyone around me hunted, everyone had guns. I respect and believe in people's Second Amendment rights. That does not, however, mean that somebody needs an AK-47 to hunt. It does not mean that somebody who's been convicted of a violent crime should be able to walk out of prison, walk across the street and buy a gun. It does not mean that we shouldn't take every step that we can take to keep guns safe and keep guns out of the hands of kids. So, my belief is, first, I defend people's Second Amendment rights, but I don't think it's without limit.

Q: What federal gun control measures you would propose?

EDWARDS: I think we should extend the Brady Bill, which is set to expire. I think that we need to close forever the gun-show loophole, [to avoid criminals] buying a gun. I think it does make sense to have trigger locks for the purpose of keeping guns safe from children.

Source: Democratic 2004 Primary Debate at St. Anselm College Jan 22, 2004

As someone once put it, "He's the working man's gun banner." I think that's spot on and I wish I'd thought of it first.

But let's not make this about guns and get off track - this article is absurd. Did he sleep through the primaries? I'd argue that Dems today are more liberal than they've ever been.

you'd argue

yeh but he's writing for british people. our government is anarcho-communist.

we all grew up singing L'Internationale in school assembly.

But let's not make this about guns and get off track - this article is absurd. Did he sleep through the primaries? I'd argue that Dems today are more liberal than they've ever been.

oh idiotpaws

Edwards is worth tens of millions of dollars, partly because he exploited a tax loophole that meant he avoided Medicare taxes

???

Two years ago, he decried the "two different economies in this country: one for wealthy insiders and then one for everybody else"; four months later, he started working for the $30bn Fortress Investment Group hedge fund

LOL

I heard Humphrys and Bolton on R4. Humphrys, for all of his reputation, wasn't very good at catching Bolton out. Bolton was being so obviously solipsistic and disingenuous and Humphrys just spluttered and exaggerated, opening escape hatches wide enough for Bolton to drive a big truck through, which he did, over and over.

GREEN PARTY RULE --- WE WILL WIN THE DRUG WAR

Step 1. Liberal arms training

This thread is depressing.

You know, in regards to using 800 from a campaign fund for haircuts, let's be realistic here: In terms of campaign dollars, that was money well spent. The American public cares about hair cuts. That may be one of the few things they do care about. If Edwards showed up to a debate with a 20 dollar hair cut from super cuts, it would be replayed on the Daily Show, Best Week Ever, Leno, Letterman, Conan, Regis, Good Morning America, that hideous Fox news morning talk show thing, and whatever the fuck else for ever and into eternity. Least we forget that Howard Dean sort of made a noise one time and America almost threw up in disgust.