Northern Virginia has, to be sure, been tilting left of late, but if Pat Buchanan really think Alexandria is "Marxist country" he probably needs to think a bit harder.
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Defining Marxism Down
12 Feb 2008 07:17 pm
Comments (38)
He obviously got it confused with the People's Republic of Arlington
Ehh, I think it's called a joke. Conservatives always call the liberal enclave in an otherwise moderate state the "Peoples Republic of..." When I lived in Virginia, it was always the Peoples Republic of Arlington (even though Arlington is basically populated with moderate wealthy Democrats and lobbyists (probably the same thing).
In Arizona it was the Peoples Republic of Tucson or Flag (Flagstaff) which are hardly what you'd call LIBERAL per se, just to the left of an otherwise fairly conservative state.
Now that I'm in North Carolina, Chapel Hill is the brunt of that particularly unfunny conservative joke.
One seldom meets an intelligent reader of Marx who is conservative.
Of course it's also true that one seldom meets an intelligent reader of Marx who is liberal.
Aw ... who gives a damn about Marx, anyway?
I think that he might have been making fun of where David Gregory lives (given how David was laughing and Pat said it right to him).
I found out from Wonkette this week that Fred Barnes and I shop in the same Safeway.
Fred Barnes needs to find a Safeway in a non-Marxist part of Virginia. What would Bill Kristol say?
Man, still no links here.
I have a friend who often emails me snippets of news stories, with no links back to the original article, and it drives me fucking insane. What's the point of a blog if you're not going to follow through and give us a link to what it is you're talking about?
Yes, when visiting Old Town's art galleries and antique shops, I often overhear people agitating for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
PB may be joking, but to my experience the joke seems to be lost on many conservatives.
Pat Buchanan prefers fascist country.
How come Buchanan can call Alexandria Marxist country, but I can't call, say, Orange County CA Hitler country? IOKIYAR.
How come Buchanan can call Alexandria Marxist country, but I can't call, say, Orange County CA Hitler country? IOKIYAR.
The irony is that Buchanan is from the edge of what would actually become the People's Republic of teh Red Line. According to one of my colleagues, who used to play football with the other neighborhood kids on the Buchanan's lawn, Pat (by his own admission) used to hang out at the local diner and get into fights. What a shocker.
"He probably needs to think a bit harder."
Do you think that would help?
I second Joe Strummer
Ehh, I think it's called a joke.
and refine it: hyperbole for satiric purposes. Puhleez Matt don't start a jihad against the only good-humored conservative commentator we have left on the toob. What you'll get as a replacement you won't like, there ain't too many like him around anymore, who can both take ribbing and laugh at himself with the ribber.
The right wing has been defining anything less right wing than they fetishize as Marxist since, well, Marx.
If that bothers you, Matt, you should spend some time in the comments section of MegArdle's blog.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I've never heard of Arlington with the "People's Republic" label, but I have heard it used with Takoma Park, and it seems quite fitting.
Yeah, Buchanan's crap would be okay if the network would also give a spot to, say, Ward Churchill, who could call Utah "Nazi country" and refer to Bush as the Fuhrer of the GOP.
Of course, the fact that Democrats don't talk this way, and hence aren't giving people in red states the sense that liberals hate and despise them, is why liberals are winning all the national elections these days. It's really not very good Republican politics to smear the people they're trying to get to vote for them.
(even though Arlington is basically populated with moderate wealthy Democrats and lobbyists (probably the same thing).
That may be true in the aggregate, but my experience is that if you're a Republican who works in DC, you tend to live in Arlington. All the young idealistic liberals who come to work in DC want to live in DC.
Defending Buchanan: he still calls National Airport "National Airport". That's gotta count for something.
Calling it "National Airport" is more of a self-respecting Washingtonian thing than it is a political statement.
I don't know about NoVa, but Obama's (volunteer) office appears to be quite a hotbead of Marxist activity.
Yep another on of those conservative jokes.
You know like "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"
and "Blow up the New York Times building"
And "Liberal Fascism"
And only the last one is actually funny...
Re "It's really not very good Republican politics to smear the people they're trying to get to vote for them."
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Er.. Pat Buchanan is not a Republican. He burned those bridges when he ran for President as an Independent(Reform Party ) against George Bush in 2000. Arguably , Pat pulled some votes away from George H Bush and thereby aided Al Gore.
While I strongly disagree with Pat Buchanan's social policies, I tend to agree with his nationalist arguments and semi-isolationalism. He was beating the living shit out of Bill Kristol and the other Neocons from day one -- while the Democratic leadership still had their noses lodged in the butts of billionaire patrons of the Israel Lobby.
As I recall , Pat's campaign was supported by one of the leaders in the Socialist Party. In some ways, He's so far to the right that he's ..uh.. left. He's in the mold of Barry Goldwater -- who delighted in telling the Christian Right that they were assholes.
In the movie "Remember the Titans," Alexandria is portrayed as a quintessential small, racist southern town. That was 1971 and then next year it went for McGovern.
Defending Buchanan: he still calls National Airport "National Airport". That's gotta count for something.
Posted by monad
Agree.
But the best thing about Buchanan is he a sharp-minded analyst and writer, who is fearless and non-PC. With a sense of humor. His "Marxist" dig was right at Gregory - who is a hard Lefty who loathes Bush but pretends he is objective.
(There is a kernel of truth to it. When you look at DC Metro like Moscow Oblast. A ring around the ruling Elites of eager schmoozers, smug apparachniks with better pay than they could get anywhere else and perfect job security. With multiple times more dollars from Central Government flowing to their community as anywhere outside the DC or Moscow Oblast Beltways.
As devotedly Democratic as suburbanites as the Oblast people were once imperious, satisfied, and Communist.)
Buchanan's books are international best sellers. He has accepted the price he paid for taking on the Israel Lobby back when they could professionally damage any critic as "anti-Semetic". Now others can safely criticize Israel, but it took Buchanan to brave their wrath and open the doors.
He has accepted the price for saying in 1988 and 1992 that Republicans were corrupt, sell-out to the rich toady boys. Which they were.
Eddy - yeah, I remember watching that movie (at UVA with a bunch of Northern Virginians, in fact, who all seemed perfectly content to stand by for the ridiculousness), and it was totally absurd.
They made Alexandria look like some sort of small town in rural Mississippi. I just kept on looking at the thing and being utterly astonished that they thought they could get away with this.
"Which they were." What are they now, Chris?
Chris Ford, could you point to evidence of David Gregory's "leftism"? I think you are making Yglesias' point for him about the American Right's defining anything to the left of National Review as "Marxist".
Dwight - Marxist is hyperbolic.
Just as most members of the Hard Left in America are not true traitors. Just a few.
And add a bunch more Lefties that are just anti-American, anti-West and seditious - or simple cowards out to cut n' run. But even they are not a majority of the Left.
In Michigan, it's the People's Republic of Ann Arbor, but that's just more University of Michigan self-centeredness.
Where's the Marx love for Kalamazoo? We're pretty liberal and we're a blue dot in the middle of the west Michigan bible belt.
Thankfully we have Chris Ford (aka chris ford) lecturing us on who and who is not "anti-American".
exactly which part of "thinking hard" is required for the Buchanan's usual smearing, anti-Semitic, racist bile?
Twenty-five years ago, Alexandria and Arlington were populated by black people and white people who didn't mind living in proximity to black people. The white people who did mind had moved to Fairfax County. This was a pretty clear case of voluntary segregation by political/social outlook: The two groups of white people were quite similar by measures of age, income, education and the rest, but Arlington and Alexandria voted Democratic and Fairfax County voted Republican.
Today the same forces are at work, but a large and growing Hispanic population has been added to the mix, with the result that if you object to scary dark people generally, you have to move further out, to Loudoun and Prince William counties. Which are now the Republican stronghold, while Fairfax has shifted into the Democratic column.
The complication is that the Hispanics are also moving to the exurbs, because housing is cheaper there. The current calls for mass deportation are the result of the anti-scary-dark-people people having nowhere left to run to.
His "Marxist" dig was right at Gregory - who is a hard Lefty who loathes Bush but pretends he is objective.
Uh huh. If I were Gregory, I'd loathe Bush for being a fuckwitted manchild who has taken every opportunity to act like a frat bully towards him. He's waiting for that last Bush press conference next year to serve up some revenge straight from the freezer.
I've never heard of Arlington with the "People's Republic" label, but I have heard it used with Takoma Park, and it seems quite fitting.
Posted by Cain
They use it themselves. The people I know who live there are more socialist than Marxist, though.
Arlington IS communist.
Look at the "traffic calming" project and the other 25% of the budget that is given back to the local communities to spend. terrible.
Comments closed February 26, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Matthews' slam on Buchanan was particularly tasty given Pat's reductionist take on Obama's victory.
Posted by Chris de Vos | February 12, 2008 7:22 PM