Peter Dreier is the latest entrant into the roiling controversy over conservative criticism of leftist strategist Frances Fox Piven. He is also clearly trying to use the Piven controversy to discredit my book, which contains many revelations about Dreier’s own radicalism (a fact of which Dreier makes no mention when he attacks me).
Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College. He is also a leading figure in the development of modern American socialism, an influential theorist of community organizing, and the most prominent public defender of ACORN. Dreier was an advisor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and embodies the continuing influence of the world of socialist community organizing on the president. That’s why Dreier is an important character in Radical-in-Chief.
As much as anyone, Dreier has made the case that community organizing is a quiet and slow-motion way to move America toward socialism. Dreier also adapted Frances Fox Piven’s targeted “crisis” theories to a wider political milieu. He was one of the first to float the idea that flirting with a general fiscal crisis through a steady but politically irreversible expansion of America’s entitlement system would be the smart path to socialism in the United States. Along with his colleague John Atlas, Dreier has positioned himself as a sympathetic academic outsider inclined to defend ACORN from criticism by conservatives. In fact, as I show in Radical-in-Chief, Atlas and Dreier worked with ACORN behind the scenes to influence housing policy in the Clinton administration, so their outsider status is open to question. Obama may well have encountered Dreier at the Socialist Scholars Conferences he attended in the mid-eighties, but I argue in the book that regardless of that, Dreier’s theories have had a seminal influence on the world of socialist community organizing and, through that world, on Obama. That Obama chose Dreier as an advisor in 2008 only drives home the point.
Now that the Left has decided to use the Tuscon shootings as a way to ban criticism from conservatives, Dreier is out with a piece at the Huffington Post following up on the strategy. The latest scheme is to use threats and hate-mail directed at Dreier’s leftist colleague, Frances Fox Piven, to pull Glenn Beck’s show off the air and shut down Piven critics (and Dreier critics) like me and Ron Radosh. Dreier is clearly using the Piven controversy to try to discredit my book, with its many revelations about his own problematic activities.
Since Dreier apparently has no substantive reply to my treatment of either Piven or himself in Radical-in-Chief, he settles for calling Ron Radosh and me lunatics and dashing off two-sentence summaries designed to make our writings seem as silly as possible. Dreier’s aim is not to offer a serious reply, but to wrap his critics around the rantings of a few unhinged reader comments on a conservative blog. Over at Powerline, John Hinderaker has nicely dissected the latest turn in the Left’s post-Tucson strategy. Ron Radosh comments on the controversy here.
Dreier’s defense of Piven is completely at odds with the upshot of her writings, which lovingly chronicle efforts by community organizers to intensify riots and violent protests. I explain Piven’s strategy on NRO’s homepage today in “Frances Fox Piven’s Violent Agenda.” Dreier’s efforts to turn Piven into a latter-day incarnation of Martin Luther King are absurd. Piven looks forward to rioting and urges community organizers not to waste time channeling violent protests into conventional politics but to escalate disruptions for maximum leverage. Dreier’s defense of Piven’s latest controversial editorial in The Nation leaves out the crucial passage where she calls for Euro-style protest riots in the United States.
The hope of silencing Beck in the wake of Tucson has lured the Left into a strategic blunder. They’ve decided to turn Piven into a martyr. Yet in doing so the Left has tied itself to Piven’s wild writings and over-the-top radicalism. Dreier acts as though Piven’s scholarly work is somehow different from the calls for rioting, crisis, and polarization in her two notorious Nation articles. Actually, Piven’s scholarly writings are worse. Read Poor People’s Movements and you’ll see what I mean. The Left could and should have disowned Piven’s extremism long ago. Jack Beatty’s 1977 review of Poor People’s Movements in the Nation was actually negative, calling Piven to account for her counterproductive and intentionally polarizing tactics. A quarter century later The Nation has embraced Piven’s call for Euro-style rioting in America, allowing her to speak with the magazine’s editorial voice. It’s not Beck who’s tarring the Left with the Brush of Piven’s radicalism. They’re doing it to themselves.
Speaking of disowning extremism, could you maybe, just maybe, mention that no matter what we think about Fran Piven, she shouldn't have her life threatened? You know, things like ""Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and [cut[ the hateful cow's throat." (External Link
)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseKurtz's argument here seems more aspirational than forceful; more concerned with what he sees as an attempt to "discredit" his book than with the actual facts; and of course, an excuse to say "Socialist!" over and over again. What Piven has said is open to criticism; but Beck's extreme emphasis and his habitually over-the-top delivery - which has reportedly inspired would-be assassins in plans to attack the Tides Foundation (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/30/AR2010073003254.html)- is correlated with this aging woman becoming the target of death threats. Whether she's a "socialist" or whatever, whether Dreier has defended ACORN, or any other political charge Kurtz wants to level - Beck is the person in this drama who's clearly in the wrong.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo Jeff,
If Beck just speaks with a monotone voice on this matter, he's in the clear then? Just want to make sure.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'd like Dr. Kurtz to compare and contrast the phenomenon he describes here, and in his book, with Fabian Socialism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAemJeff: You will be hard-pressed to locate any call for violence by Beck. It simply is not there.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUm, your external link is to the view, where Ms. Piven talks about emails she's received -- without any sort of documentation whatsoever. They taught us in school that you need corroborating evidence, not "what the person themselves said". If she'd like to provide said emails, then that would be good. Let's also say this upfront, as conservatives literally always do: there is no excuse for threatening someone specifically and directly with violence. Of course, just once, I'd like to see someone from the Left say the same thing when one of their own, for instance, stands in the well of Congress and advocates violence against the sitting Vice President; or when then-Speaker Pelosi says of "protest group" that they're "her kind of people" and she "likes their work" -- a group currently facing video and charges of assault, destruction of private property, and a litany of other actual violent crimes. Just once I'd like to see the Left actually take responsibility for its own ranks and condemn the actual violence coming from them. The Right is always condemning violence, hate speech, etc, as the Press always pushes them to do so -- but the Left literally gets away with encouraging these groups and with never having to condemn them. Such is the topsy-turvy, warped world we live in.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLovely, two comments that prove the point Kurtz is trying to make: the left just wants the right to shut up. The 'Oakland shooter' is no different from the attempted Discovery Channel bomber, except that the former is good reason to shut down a prominent political personality, and the latter is ignored because it (ironically) raises too many inconvenient truths.
If the left had to disown radical comments against GW Bush, they never would have had time for anything else. But now that a Democrat is in the white house, well clearly the right needs to be diplomatic and not use harsh words like 'socialist' when discussing the left's agenda of entitlements and taxation.
If either of you could offer SUBSTANCE about what Beck or Kurtz did wrong, maybe I could take you seriously.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust so I understand this correctly, the argument being made by Jeff is "it doesn't matter that Piven is advocating political violence; Glenn Beck is wrong."
Okay, got it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@ AemJeff: And of course you maneuvre arround the central accusation of Kurtz Article, which is a factual claim that could be easily disproved if wrong. Did Fox Piven call for riots or didnt she?
@mirrormirror: Of course she shouldnt have her life threatened. But she shouldnt threaten unspecified Americans, who could be the colateral damage, the anonymous victims of her riots either. The selfpity of a person confronted with violence, who is otherwise comfortable calling for it from the safety of her academic ivory-tower is laughable and telling nonetheless.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse@JMScott, if you want evidence, what about the 400% increase in death threats against the president and congress over the past 2 years (External Link
). Or the 30 daily threats against Obama that are stretching the secret service beyond their limits (External Link 
).
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe truth often hurts. The lady in question,by her words
is condoning riots and violence. Beck did not say any
thing other to what she said. It was her in her own
words. What's the problem? When did the truth hurt anyone except to bring them to their sences???????
Where is the Media? Surly one of them have got the guts
to tell the truth.
Thanks,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRose
Minor Mirror, from your first link: "A CNN source with very close to the U.S. Secret Service confirmed to me today that threats on the life of the president of the United States have now risen by as much as 400 percent since his inauguration, 400 percent death threats against Barack Obama — quote — “in this environment” go far beyond anything the Secret Service has seen with any other president." Rick Sanchez at CNN.
Sorry, this hardly stands as "fact". Might be true and it might also be because "threats" were lower than average when Bush was president....might also be because "threats" have been redefined in some manner, bureaucratically. There's no way of knowing anything from this link.
The above holds true for the second link, the Kessler book, you reference. Its his account of an increase, from his sources, with no official documentation or any detail to determine the significance of any "increase" of threats with Obama.
Are threats higher? I'd imagine so. Could be the threats are from Islamic sources, no? Can't tell what the sources are from either of your links so any suggestion that there is some massive right wing "threat" of violence against Obama is suspect at best. Nice try.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is all about the left trying to suppress conservatives' free speech. Not going to work. BTW, the left routinely uses political violence to attempt to suppress conservatives. Maybe they are terrified about reciprocal political violence because they are projecting.
In this case, the left has no case. Beck is merely publicizing what the left has been saying and writing for decades. The left should be happy that Beck is presenting the left's message to a wider audience.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse(source)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAem, that column isn't any more persuasive after a copy/paste than it is in a link. Beck criticized her harshly, just like thousands of commentators do about thousands of figures every year. And thousands of people get death threats from crazies. It has been ever thus since the founding of the republic.
The crass opportunism of the left in attempting to paint this as a phenomenon only of the modern right is going to backfire.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNot persuasive? Is it factually incorrect? Is Beck quoted falsely, or is some mitigating fact omitted? Beck names obscure people and organizations who then become subject to death threats and assassination attempts. Is that happenstance? Do they deserve it, as commenters here seem to have implied? Persuade me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo because they're deemed "obscure", they shouldn't be criticized? He has 3 hours of radio and an hour of TV, every day. He criticizes lots of things. So do the countless other pundits in the US. And crazy people sometimes take things too far. This is not a unique thing to:
-2011
-Conservatives in general or Glenn Beck in particular
-Americans
Yet the commentary post-Tuscon is entirely fixated on those three things. Funny, that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable". Did JFK say that?
Let's paraphrase.
'Those who make the exercise of our First Amendment rights impossible make the exercise of our Second Amendment remedies inevitable.'
Do you left-wingnuts REALLY want to cross that line?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInstructive to see which pheromones draw the most trolls.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBy this logic, since Beck is getting death threats, the "Nation" should be shut down.
p.s. If someone refers to themselves as a socialist, calling them a socialist is not an uncalled for act.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse