Obama and the Hard Left

Progressives For Obama, a group counting among its membership many names recognizable from that by-gone era of the '60's--are, along with their brethern and sistern over at Recreate 68, bent on making sure their shopworn brand of politics prevails in the Democratic party. Here is a stirring call to action by Kieth Joseph, self-identified as "Rutgers SDS Member". (Are the Students for a Democratic Society still active at Rutgers? Or is this just Joseph's way of giving his 1960's revolutionary bona fides and showing solidarity with the aging left-wing idlers still dreaming of a classless society?) Anyway, he is clear on what the way forward looks like:

We have a couple of immediate basic tasks: Obama must be the Democratic Party candidate—By Any Means Necessary. We should plan to camp right outside of Denver during the Democratic Party's Convention and hold anti-war demonstrations and our own left convention. If right wing Democrats try to force Hilary-Herbert Humphrey-Clinton on us we march on the convention and make sure Obama gets the nomination--By Any Means Necessary. In November, we must make sure Obama defeats the war criminal John McCain. And finally, after the election, we must be prepared to convene anywhere in the country (Florida, Ohio etc.) to make sure that the Supreme Court does not decide the contest.

By. Any. Means. Necessary. That was one of the more chilling mottos coughed up by the New Left revolutionists of that dark era, and here we see, as it is said also of the Russians, they forget nothing, and they learn nothing. To the hard left, Amerika was and is a police state--no, really, check Recreate 68's site--it says so right there. To people in this sort of fevered mindset, vulnerable to the exaggeration born of conspiracy mongering and left-wing ideology, violent action is not only sanctioned, it is necessary; violence, logically, comes under the umbrella of any means necessary. And, to the romantics drawn to the"progressive" side of the spectrum, its kind of fun to smash things up. But even if they don't get to pillage and burn, the high from facing down the establishment Party hacks with threats of violence--ANY MEANS NECESSARY--is a thrill that will almost make up for not breaking things and frightening people, and by reprising 1968's college tantrums, recreate the power rush that came from backing down the feckless administrations of universities across the nation. They're still proud of that--just ask Keith "Rutgers SDS Member" Joseph.

Watch closely this August in Denver for the mobs of unruly youths in Che t-shirts, ready to rumble, and, new this cycle, aging gray-beard '68ers, longing for the lost days of their mis-spent youth, pushing their walkers in solidarity with the future of the party.

For more on what was great about '68, Christopher Hitchens, Kay S. Hymowitz, Stefan Kanfer, Guy Sorman, Harry Stein, and Sol Stern weigh in in May 1968: 40 Years Later over at The Manhattan Institute's City Journal.