Most Americans don't know who General Willoughby is, but it was his views that most in extreme right of US are espousing today.  It was his idea to come back to US following WW2 and demonize the word 'liberal',  not going after hard left groups, but rather the moderate left.

Links to interesting info below:

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwilloughbyC.htm

http://www.maebrussell.com/Articles%20and%20Notes/Charles%20Willoughby.html

As a member of the "hard left", I can say that we have hardly been left alone by government security forces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

https://www.theroot.com/fbi-launches-cointelpro-2-0-targeting-black-identity-ex-1819222532

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32043-beyond-innocence-america-s-political-prisoners-and-the-fight-against-mass-incarceration

Don't you find it interesting that Willoughby went after liberals?

If you look at the political spectrum, it's like this:

anarchists -- communists  -- socialists  -- liberals -- policital center -- moderate conservative -- conservative -- reactionaries -- fascists

I believe the decision to go after what I call 'the practical left' has engendered so much hatred and partisanship. It's been a constant attack since FDR died near the end of WW2, picked up steam during the McCarthy Era, then regressed to some regional areas (like Dallas) during the 60s and 70s, then ramped up again in the 80s during the Reagan Era, regressed a bit under Bush Sr and Clinton, then picked up steam again during Clinton's 2nd term and up thru today.

Very interesting links Chele.  Thanks for sharing those.

I didn't know anything about Willoughby before, so thanks for that info, but the articles you sent talk about his anti-communism, they don't say anything about him going after liberals. Can you point me in the right direction?

Regarding the political spectrum, the way you see it is one view, but I see it this way: https://www.politicalcompass.org/ I agree with the makers of the political compass that it's not only about how you stand on economic issues, but also how you stand on social issues and authoritarianism. 

I'm curious on how you define the 'practical left'? And why do you think moderate leftists are the target of repression and not more radical leftists?

I've done a lot of research over the years - those links that I put in there were just easy ones of the top of my head. In regards to Willoughby's promotion of assaulting the liberal or 'practical left', I just cannot cite where I was able to find that info off the top, but I remember coming across multiple sources which I considered reliable on it. I'll try to find those sources again.

In regards to Willoughby's motivations, I think anti-communism was definitely a driving factor. But I think it was more sinister with him. He was at heart a fascist (or as his boss in WW2, General MaCarthur referred to him, "my little fascist"). He pretty much looked down on people in general, certainly the average Joe. He did believe in a new order whereby there was a small ruling class and a huge slave or indentured servant populace. At some point, he had a falling out with the Nazis and put his backing behind the US, working to corrupt (in my view) the intelligentsia from within.

How would I define 'practical left'?  Hmmm, I would say the practical left believes in some similar social/financial themes as the hard left, but not to same degree. I think the liberal believes in a mixture of socialism and capitalism, trying to take the best ideas from both while guarding against the evils of each. The liberal believes (typically, but there are some rare exceptions) in evoking change over time, incrementally, so as to cause the least amount of pain and panic. After all, humans are at heart creatures of habit and there is a natural tendency to resist change.

Another intesting link regarding Willoughby, MaCarthur and the Korean War, but it has some interesting snippits about their philosophies as well. In essence, Willoughby thought of liberals as 'fellow travelers' and no different then communists. I think he felt that liberals would eventually evolve towards communism. This is a fault of many people who don't have a nuanced view of the world and see things in absolutes.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/10/halberstam200710

It's all dependent on your what kind of privilege you have.

If you are not a person of color, if you are not LGBTQ, if you are not a woman, if you have not been the victim of US imperialism, incremental change might seem the sensible thing to do.

If you are bearing the full brunt of capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, and/or white supremacy, change is not something that you want to see happen incrementally, it's something that's needed right now, because pain is already a part of your life, and you can't wait for people to become comfortable to change sometime in the future.  

Certainly. For some, change is required sooner. For the US, it can afford a slower pace. It’s interesting that in the US, the most angry folks are white middle-aged men (of which I am one). Unfortunately, most of the the anger is provoked by one side and guided towards the wrong target. Misguided anger is one of the worst actions, because these poor fools are just being used to attack or vote out truly good public servants and policies which would, in fact, reduce their own ‘pain’.

Yes, I agree. And i also think thay the democratic party is a very corrupt party that does not trully represent the 99%, so for me it's not surprising that people voted for somone who claimed to be anti-establishment. Many of these white middle-aged men are also working class, and have been hurt by NAFTA passed under Bill Clinton, by the many wars our country fights under both republican and democratic leadership, and domestic economic policies that have only exhacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor. People of color face all that plus a system of mass incaceration targetting them, and a system of mass deportations that is tearing immigrant families apart and sending people to very dangerous situations in their countries of origin, situations that our country played a very active role in creating in the first place.

Not sure why you would say the dems are a very corrupt party (unless you are believing everything the other side says). They do have a corrupt official here or there, but it's not systemic like the Republicans. By and large, the dems have been the only real choice for the working class since the Progressive Era in the early 1900s. Can and should they have been stronger - yes, for if there's one major frustration, it's that the dems don't show enough spine. This is a failure of the democratic leaders since JFK.

Economic policies which have exacerbated income inequality - like the latest GOP tax bill - $1.5 trillion bill with more than 85% going to the already wealthy and the next item on their agenda is to cut Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid.  One can also look at the reduction of block grants to the states since the Reagan Era which coincided with a significant reduction in income tax of the top rate. Within a small number of years, almost 40 states went well into the red.  This was a large shift of the financial burden onto the middle class as they saw states raise property, state and sales taxes to try to offset the loss of grant money.

NAFTA was signed by Clinton. It was a Republican initiative and had overwhelming Republican support and little democratic support. Clinton said he was given assurances that organizations such as WHO and IMF would take action to raise the standard of living in countries involved in the trade. They did not.

One thing people should note is, that since LBJ in 1968, the large share of government has been run by Republicans (at all levels - president, senate, congress, the courts, governorships, state legislatures). How's that been working out?  In contrast, the democrats had control of most of government from 1936 to 1952. In that time, the US rose to far-and-away the number1 superpower in the world.

I read somewhere real purchasing power for non-wealthy US citizens have barely risen at all the past 40 years, while the big shots have multiplied their earnings many times over. Is this so? You never know in this era of fake news. Mine is very much an outsider's perspective.

Litotes: Indeed, here's an interesting article that includes a graphic with that disparity: https://wolfstreet.com/2014/11/13/corporate-profit-margins-vs-employee-compensation-in-one-disturbing-chart/

Thingol: I think we agree on many political issues, but I can see we also have some significant disagreements:

-US being a superpower in the world. I don't see this as a good thing by any means. The US has continually waged war and/or taoppled democratic but leftist governments around the world because those governments will not bow down to corporate profits, and this happened in my home country of Nicaragua, as well as many more. Here's a map with a history of US military deployments in the last 200 years: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-10/us-military-deployments-map/5875274. The US likes to tell the story that's it's protecting democracy, when in fact its main mission is to protect US corporate interests. 

-NAFTA: No doubt more Republicans supported NAFTA than democrats, but it would't have passed without Bill Clinton's strong push for it and the over 100 Democratic congresspeople (40% of democrats) who voted for it. Democrats have failed the working class over and over regarding trade agreements, and these have resulted in worsening inequality and rising poverty, in the US and abroad. 

-Corruption in democratic party: The current political system is corrupt. Congresspeople listen to their donors more than their electors, and this is obviously more the case with Republicans, but Democrats also are often beholden to large donors. Is there any Senator or Member of the House besides Bernie Sanders who does not take Super PAC donations? I rest my case. 

-Control of government: Democrats have had ample control of the presidency and congress, one need only look at this graph to verify that:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidents_of_the_United_States_and_control_of_Congress

Re Nicaragua, I did a report in high school on this and the Iran-Contra scandal. I find we would be in agreement on this. FDR had a 'good neighbor' policy towards South America and whereby the policy was not implemented in an angelic way, it was better than has transpired before and after. JFK also realized the issues with US foreign policy towards South America (as well as everywhere else) and had sought back-channel communications on many fronts, seeking to outmaneuver his own state department, military and intelligence organizations...likely lead to his death (I'm being conservative there - in my studies, it's a no-doubter that it led to his assassination and his brother's). From LBJ thru to today, the US foreign policy has been pretty much the same up thru current, with some small nuances between administrations (democrats being slightly less imperialistic, republicans being moreso). So, I agree with you here and there is a lot of shame to be found due to war profiteering and fronting as anti-communism.

Domestically, republicans increasingly nullify and reverse policies of preceding democratic administrations. I was actually suprised by how quickly Clinton and Obama turned the economy around, though without being able to dig deeply into the morass which causes the economic disparity. Had Gore been elected following Clinton or Hillary been elected this past election, they would have been able to make headway there. American citizens, in their impatience and ignorance, have chosen wrongly multiple times now.

Litotes - to your post, it's been really been since the Reagan Revolution that income disparity has taken hold. From the mid-1930s through 1980, pretty much all US citizens saw a significant standard of living increase. That said, there is a fairly significant segment of US citizens who look back on Reagan fondly - go figure.

Chele - on measuring corruption based on donations? Really?  If the democrats take no money from these groups, they lose elections at an even worse level than they have been. The democratic position for decades now has been to take these donations, mitigate the influence on their policies and then work to move money out of government once they get in power. Senators Feingold and Wellstone, among many other, worked to that end. Bernie Sanders would remove all PAC donations from politics if he could. Democrats have had some modest success in the past on this front, but the Supreme Court has been in republican hands for 35 years - and Citizens United happened.

Thanks Thingol for a spirited debate. I'm going to sign off on this thread at this point, even though I'm sure we could keep on going a lot longer. 

FYI: I think you're talking about Latin America, as Nicaragua is not a part of South America.

Yes, indeed. However, US policy has been equally bad towards both Central and South America. 

I wouldn't agree with that.

Although the CIA deposed Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and Joao Gulart in Brazil in 1964, and has played a destabilizing role in all South American countries, Central America were the "Banana Republics" that Uncle Sam could more readily intervene in due to the huge disparity in economic, political and military power with the US.

South American countries have more geographic distance and larger populations and country sizes to be keep the US less present than Central American (or Caribbean) countries, which have been constantly targeted by US multinational corporations and US military presence. 

Reagan once said: "El Salvador is nearer to Texas than Texas is to Massachusetts. Nicaragua is just as close to Miami, San Antonio, San Diego and Tucson as those cities are to Washington, where we are gathered tonight. Strategic Importance"

What Global South countries have baseball as their #1 or #2 sport? Look up those with heavy US military presence during last century: Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Japan, etc.

Chele Nica wrote:

What Global South countries have baseball as their #1 or #2 sport? Look up those with heavy US military presence during last century: Cuba, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Japan, etc.

Weird but of course - that's a major way culture spreads...

Chele - are you familiar with the Dulles brothers - Allen and John Foster?

I only know the airport named after them, I assume, but nothing else

Japan and South Korea are not part of Global South, so I guess non-Western would be more appopriate term for that grouping