Conservatives

Tea Party vs. Two Party

mfinbh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:10:29 -0500

The American two-party system is fracturing, as both sides are struggling with immense war debt, a crippled manufacturing base, and a Federal Reserve that is devaluating the currency in order to prop up financial institutions that gambled trillions and lost; their bets became our losses as they were “covered by the house”. Progressives have been decrying the centrist wishy-washiness of so many Democrats for years, and there was an outspoken expectation that once the Democrats were in power, new, more liberal parties could emerge to challenge the old-guard Democrats to veer left or be shown the door. The surprise is that the right beat them to it (and here's why that's fine...)

The Republican Party is imploding: many laughed as ½ term Gov. Sarah Palin walked away from her job in Alaska because she felt she could be more effective from outside government. Crazy? Foxy? Blithering idiot? None – and all – of the above; because La Palin has become the camera-ready face of the far right, and in the shallow world of contemporary media politics, that is about all it takes to grab attention (substance be damned).

Thus, the off-year special election in the 23rd congressional district of New York has given us a glimpse of the breakup of the Republican Party, as many of that party’s stalwarts have defected – following the Twittering Palin – to the Conservative Party, which has abandoned its longstanding tradition of simply endorsing the Republican, instead pushing a fairly conventional Republican out of the race. These conservatives mean business, and although they narrowly lost this race, don’t think for a minute that they won’t continue to pursue and fine-tune this method, forcing an ever purer version of the right’s hardcore ideology, previously reserved not for government, but for am talk radio.

Democrats should take no glee in the mess on the right, unless they play it right. It should be seen as a warning bell, because mainstream Democrats will be facing an enormous primary season push to the left in the coming month (with eleven months to go before the midterm elections). This week, MoveOn raised $2 million in pledges in one day to force the hand of the Democratic Party:

(from MoveOn solicitation letter 11/03/09)
"You tell us how much you'd give. Then, we make sure the media, Senate leadership, and conservative Democrats know just how many of us are willing to support a challenge against anyone who blocks reform. Hopefully, none of them actually do it, and health care gets an up-or-down vote.

But if the nightmare scenario happens, we'll encourage viable primary challengers to come forward, and if they do, make sure all of us who've pledged have a chance to support them. In other words, potential primary challengers will know there's a huge group of Americans who are ready to help. And conservative members of the Democratic Caucus will too."

This is an important move for the left, because there is an expressed intent to actively work within the Democratic Party, and that’s the key here. The effect of this effort won’t be the same in every district, and the Democratic Party could begin to rupture just as the Republicans have begun to do.

Where does it lead? Of course both sides would like to inject more ideological purity into their representation, but when there are four or six competing parties or factions, history has shown us that too often the worst hard-liners will win out.

Our currency is being devalued by a Federal Reserve using its power to prop up only the wealthiest investors (most of whom have moved their wealth out of this nation’s currency into high risk international trades), while millions more are going bankrupt and being put out of their homes and their jobs by the very institutions that were saved by the government (homes lost to foreclosure, jobs by the seized flow of credit that is killing small and mid-size companies). Many of the homeless and jobless now marching to the beat of Palin and her media tea party brigade find comfort in hate and scapegoating, worshiping a message of racial, ideological or even sexual purity.

We must heed history’s warnings. Millions of angry unemployed and displaced conservatives, given the direction of a charismatic leader (in today’s environment, probably from the media world), well-armed and hungry for power, can start a civil war. The contemporary American version would take the form of civil unrest and massive, coordinated riots, straining the resources of government authority.

There is activism and there is anarchy. Activism is the only civil approach. Let the Republicans fracture into two parties, but it is critical that liberals fix – and maintain – the Democratic Party, and thus retain a majority that can advance a progressive agenda. We must not allow a party schism to occur in the Democratic Party.

Please Join the conversation at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24771

David Brooks' White Guy Nightmare: What If All Westerners Were Suddenly Sterile?

dlindorff — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:12:25 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I don’t normally bother commenting on the writings of columnists like David Brooks, but today I can’t help myself.

Brooks earlier this week wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times elaborating on a blog on the site Marginal Revolution,
in which that site’s two economists speculated on what would happen if
a solar event instantly sterilized everyone, male and female, on the
side of the earth that was facing the sun at that moment, and if that
side happened to include both the US and Europe.

Brooks fretted that if the people of these regions (and off course
South America and Africa, which are on the same half of the globe, but
which Brooks conveniently ignores) were suddenly to realize they would
have no descendants, it would be the end of all “grand designs.” There
would, he said, be no more justice, no sacrificing for the future, no
more building of great buildings.

Brooks and the authors of this nightmare fantasy took the view that
if the citizens of what Brooks perceives as “Western Civilization” were
to have no hope of offspring, there would within weeks be an end to all
striving.

After I finished laughing, I started to think seriously about the idea...

For the rest of this column, please go to:
www.thiscantbehappening.net
___________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press,
2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Rightwing Violence

Bob Fertik — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:51:48 -0400

Date	Name	Rightwing activities	Violent act	Rightwing response
6/10/09	James von Brunn	wrote anti-Semitic books and blogs	Opened fire inside Holocaust Museum in DC, killing	Limbaugh, Beck, Goldberg call him a leftwinger
5/31/09	Scott Roeder	Operation Rescue	murdered Dr. George Tiller inside church	O'Reilly denies calling him Dr. Killer, insists he had "blood on his hands"
5/30/09	Shawna Forde	Minutemen American Defense ED	shooting deaths of 29-year-old Raul Flores and his daughter, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores, at their home in Arivaca, Ariz., a town 10 miles north of the Mexican border.
			murdered 3 police officers in Pittsburgh
7/08	Jim David Adkisson	owned books by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage; wanted to kill all liberals	opened fire inside Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, killing Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger and wounding 7

When Will Leading Rightwingers Denounce Violence?

Bob Fertik — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:19:57 -0400

U.S. Holocaust Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns became the latest victim of rightwing violence when he was shot and killed today by white supremacist James Wenneker von Brunn.

Johns' murder follows Kansas ob-gyn Dr. George Tiller and Pittsburgh cops Eric Kelly, Paul Schiullo, and Stephen Mayhle, all victims of rightwing hate.

When will the most prominent rightwing voices - politicians and talk show hosts - firmly denounce rightwing violence and hatred?

Update 1: Greg Mitchell visited Stormfront, the most popular neo-nazi website, and discovered lots of support for von Brunn, mixed with criticism for an attack they criticized for being ineffectual, not sufficiently deadly.

Update 2: James Ridgeway writes:

From his rather prolific writings, von Brunn's thinking seems to be indebted to two prominent white supremacists: Willis Carto of a now-defunct group called Liberty Lobby, and William Pierce, leader of the National Alliance. (Pierce died in 2002.) At least one of Brunn's books, Kill the Best Gentiles, was published by Noontide Press, which was run by Carto in the 1960s. Noontide later folded into the Institute of Historical Review, one of the major groups that denied that the Holocaust ever happened, according to Zeskind. In the acknowledgement to his book, von Brunn also lists Francis Parker Yockey, a longtime anti-Semite who was promoted by Carto, and Revello Oliver, an associate of Pierce's. In the 1960s, both Oliver and Pierce supported the presidential campaign of Alabama governor George Wallace, a staunch segregationist backed by Klu Klux Klan groups. In the 1990s, Pierce set up a National Alliance headquarters in southwestern Virginia.

In brief, the neo-Nazis with whom von Brunn associates himself in his writings believe the Jews control the "mud people." The "mud people" are all the non-white Aryans who, in the view of the racists, ought to be kicked out of the country. A sample of von Brunn's writing (titled "Hitler's Worst Mistake: He Didn't Gas the Jews") makes some of these connections.

Sotomayor's Problem isn't being Too Latina; It's Having Hung with White Suits Too Long

dlindorff — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:16:48 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

I don’t know at this point whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a good choice for Supreme Court Justice or a bad one.

She certainly is a lousy judge for writers and other creative
people, having ruled (and been overruled by an appellate court and
then, when that reversal was upheld, by the US Supreme Court in a case
called New York Times Inc. v. Tasini) that the Times and periodical
publishers could reprint, without any additional compensation, any
freelance works they contracted on the basis that they had a general
copyright on each entire issue they publish.

And she appears to have rarely met an insurance company that she
didn’t feel was more deserving of court succor than any insured person
suing an insurer. In a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer,
reporter Joseph N. DiStefano quotes an insurance attorney named Randy
Maniloff as saying that in cases involving insurance companies and
insurance policyholders “It’s insurers by a landslide.” Such a
pro-corporate position would put her in league with the
Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas wing of the court, and would be consistant
with her pro-corporate stance vis-à-vis writers and artists and
copyright law. (In fairness, Sotomayor did rule against an insurance
firm and in favor of a policyholder’s family in 2005.)

Having said that Sotomayor shows a disturbing pro-corporate stance
in her past rulings, I have to say that the freak-out on the right over
Sotomayor’s comments regarding the impact of her being female and
Latina on her decisions as a jurist is the height of nonsense and
hypocrisy. To watch them frothing, you would think that she was a
latter-day William O. Douglass, which is hardly the case.

What Sotomayor said that has the right in a lather was:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her
experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a
white male who hasn't lived that life.”

She made that comment at a lecture in Berkeley in 2001, but it came following this earlier statement:

“Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or
cultural differences...our gender and national origins may and will
make a difference in our judging. Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has
often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will
reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure....that I
agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted,
there can never be a universal definition of wise…”

She went on to note:

“Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and
Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race
discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever
upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.”

The point is, as long as we have an unequal society, in which some
people are denied equal treatment because of race or religion or
gender, and we clearly have that type of society in America today, the
people from those discriminated-against groups are bound to see the
world in a different way than do most white males.

But the elite—the white male editors and TV commentators, the white
male politicians, and the white male public—don’t see their own
decisions as rooted in their white male expereience. They see their
experience as being “normal” and “unbiased.” It is, to them, only
others who are not “normal” like them who are biased, or or who are
carrying some kind of chip on their shoulders.

What Sotomayor was saying at Berkeley was simply a fact of life: as
a Latina woman, and hopefully as a women who grew up in a poor,
working-class, fatherless family, she is going to view the world
differently than the white male and even black male or white female
colleagues who currently constitute the members of the US Supreme
Court. If this were not so, there would be no need to have women on the
court at all, or African Americans.

That is obviously ridiculous.

White upper-class males on the court for a century saw nothing
wrong with slavery being inflicted on black people, nor did they see
anything wrong with denying the vote to people who didn’t own property.
White males on the court for a century and a half saw nothing wrong
with women not having the vote. For two centuries they saw nothing
wrong with white governments using Jim Crow laws to prevent blacks from
voting, either. (Many of them still see nothing wrong with such legal
obstructionism.)

There are plenty of reasons to oppose President Barack Obama’s
appointment of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court—she is not a particularly
profound Constitutional scholar and she has a record of accommodating
corporate interests at the expense of individuals—but her acknowledging
that being female and Latina may have a positive impact on her judicial
decisions is not one of them.

If she is confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice later this year, as
appears likely, one can only hope that she will allow her decisions to
be informed by that background, and that she will not just become
another one of “the boys” on the bench.
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work
is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

the liberalization of America

mikelefty22 — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:42:31 -0400

A popular lament among Conservatives is the so-called "decline of conservative values." In fact, Dr. Jo-Renee Formicola, a professor of mine at Seton Hall University, a self-proclaimed "flaming conservative," referred to Obama's election as a "referendum on conservatism." Hate to burst their bubble, but this shift to the left has been going on for quite some time. In fact, it's been happening since 1776.

Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, which advocated liberty and individual rights, was an extremely liberal document in a coservative world dominated by totalitarian, absolute monarchies. The revolutionary war proved that the American colonists were willing to fight and die for this liberalist viewpoint. Our victory triggered this liberalization and was copied by France less than twenty years later. The constitution, which guaranteed these rights and ended religous domination of government officially put this liberalization into practice, despite the protests of conservative religous groups, who insisted on the continuation of an established state church that demanded taxpayer dollars whether the taxpayers believed in God or not. It wasn't until 1786 that the liberal view emerged victorious with the Statute of Religous Freedom that finally guaranteed "Freedom of Conscience", or the right to believe, or NOT believe in anything you wish.

One aspect of "freedom" that the founding fathers neglected was the institution of slavery, and it was in this horrible practice that liberalization took its next progressive turn. One thing the Republican party always seems to forget is the fact that they were the first liberals. The Republican Party was founded on the liberal principle of abolishing slavery. Early Republicans like Abraham Lincoln correctly pointed out the hypocrisy of the framers and argued that the constitution protected all Americans, including African Americans. Conservative, religous Democrats (yes, we were the first consveratives), didn't see it this way, arguing that slavery was mandated by the bible; that the apostle Paul and even Jesus himself condoned the insititution. Once again, liberalization won out, but unfortunately, it took the deaths of over 600,000 Americans during the Civil War to achieve this.

One of the principle beneficiaries of Liberalization were women. During the colonial era and through much of American History, women were relegated to the role of housewife baby factories who had no rights of their own. Once again, religous groups used the bible as justification for denying women their rightful inclusion in the American social and political fabric. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in 1870 that "God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action." Once again, liberalization carried the day. Women were granted voting rights in the early twentieth century and gradually established themselves in the professional world, eliminating the stereotype that women were not as smart as men (actually, the opposite is true).

Throughout much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, homosexuality was illegal in all states. People who were attracted to those of the same sex were seen as "perverts" by the religous establishment who argued that homosexuality was a mental illness. Before the outbreak of WWI, Sigmund Freud argued that homosexuality was a disorder that could be cured, but no "cure" was ever discovered. In the 1930s, the states passed laws advocating the persecution of gays and lesbians. It wasn't until 1973 that the American Psychiatric Society finally repudiated the opinion of homosexuality as a mental disease. Since then, the gay community has gained acceptance among the population at large, as more and more people realized that gays and lesbians were normal human beings like heterosexuals.

Despite the abolition of slavery, African Americans still suffered from American conservatism. Although freed after the Civil War and granted full rights under amendments 13-15 of the constitution, blacks were still subject to horrible treatment by the white, religous establishment. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was fought vehemently by conservative southerners, who contended that this "inferior" segment of the population should be seperated from whites, lest their "inferiority" rub off on them. Thanks to Democratic presidents like John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson, African Americans were finally integrated into mainstream society, which culminated in the election of a black President.

This liberalization process is far from complete. Religous groups still use the bible as justification for supressing individual liberties. They still tell women what to do with their own bodies. They still tell homosexuals that they can't get married, ignoring the heterosexual practices of two more mortal sins-divorce and, even worse, adultery. Athiests are still treated like lepers and are subjected to ridicule and condescending pity from the Christian Right. African Americans and other minorities are still subjected to racism, especially from the criminal justice system. However, America has come a long way towards actually fufilling the constitutional mandate for equal rights for EVERYBODY and will continue to do so.

So you see, my dear right-wingers, that this shift to the left that you complain about so much has been in progress since the nation's inception, and it is lucky for you that it has. Otherwise, the Catholic Church would be unable to persecute everybody that's not exactly like them, People like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bill O' Reilly would be unable to spew their discriminatory hot air, and Dr. Formicola would be unable to ply her teaching trade, which she's pretty damned good at despite her rightist affiliations. So before you go criticizing "liberal loons", keep in mind that these "loons" are the reason you have a job.

GOP Moderates Choose Obama Over Teabaggers

Bob Fertik — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:15:22 -0400

Arlen Specter's switch is the first sign of a real and lasting division between "moderate" Republicans and the conservative movement that elected them and gave them power for a generation.

These "moderate" Republicans are not liberals. Most call themselves "conservatives." Their ranks include Specter, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their spokesmen include David Brooks, David Frum, Daniel Larison, and Michael Smerconish.

They are rich, country club Republicans who like being the Upper Class. They live in wealthy suburbs (or posh urban neighborhoods) to be as far from "the rabble" as they can and to send their kids to mostly-white schools. They support the largest prison establishment in the world for the working class but oppose any form of accountability for Wall Street and Washington. They support imperial wars as long as Other People's Children fight and die.

They supported Richard Nixon, even through Watergate, and Gerald Ford too. They supported Ronald Reagan, even through Iran-Contra. They supported good ol' George and his boy George W, even through Iraq and Katrina.

But they couldn't support Sarah Palin because she was just too ignorant - and defiantly proud of it. They couldn't support Mike Huckabee because he's a fast-talking southern Baptist preacher.

Right now they're having a profound identity crisis. They like Barack Obama because he's smart and flexible - and willing to plant himself firmly between the anti-corporate Pitchforks and the CEO's. They don't like the Teabaggers or their champions - Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly.

Pundits like David Frum have the luxury of critiquing this division.

Let’s take this moment to nail some colors to the mast. I submit it is better for conservatives to have 60% sway within a majority party than to have 100% control of a minority party. And until and unless there is an honored place made in the Republican party for people who think like Arlen Specter, we will remain a minority party.

But Republicans who are up for election don't have the luxury of waiting for a conservative-moderate "deal." Because the 2010 campaign is underway, Arlen Specter had to make a choice - whether to stand with the Teabaggers or Obama. As he said this morning, he was not going to let his long career be decided by the Republican primary electorate - the Teabaggers.

It's not clear if other Republican Senators will follow Specter across the aisle. Neither Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, nor Richard Lugar are up in 2010. Judd Gregg and Mel Martinez are retiring. That leaves George Voinovich (OH), Charles Grassley (IA), and Lisa Murkowski (AK).

But it doesn't really matter. The Republican Party will keep shrinking as long as conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint (SC) insist on ideological purity:

“I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”

And he may get his wish because Republicans will losing key elections as long as Barack Obama is President and the Teabaggers go nuts - alienating all remaining Republican moderates.

Why Conservatives Cannot Govern

Bob Fertik — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 11:36:11 -0500

Last night, Laura Ingraham told FOX:

If McCain loses, if Republicans lose seats across the board, this is a rejection of Republicans who don't follow traditional conservative principles. It's not a rejection of conservatism, or Reagan, or small government.

... I think Republicans are going to have to do some soul-searching, but not on conservative principles -- on how they governed.

Dave Neiwert replies:

how they governed was precisely according to conservative principles!

The Big Shitpile is a direct product of conservative principles enacted in governance -- namely, the Panglossian belief that deregulation of business, and the financial sector, was an unrelievedly good thing.

Let me expand on that to lay out the core beliefs of contemporary conservatism:

1. Corporations are perfect and must never be taxed, regulated or criticized. That's how we got Big Shitpile.

2. Rich people are perfect and must never be taxed or criticized. That's how we got massive budget deficits.

3. American evangelical Christians are perfect and must never be criticized. That's how we got George Bush and Sarah Palin.

4. The U.S. Military is perfect and must never be criticized. That's how we got Iraq.

5. Conservatives are perfect and must never be criticized. That's how we got Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, and the rest of them.

These 5 core beliefs explain why conservatives cannot govern.

Update 1: Here's the view from the right:

What did it all get us, those 8 years of pandering and spending? If GWB had turned his face against new entitlements, closed the borders, deported the illegals, held the line on calls to loosen mortgage-lending standards, starved the Department of Education, and declined those invitations to mosque functions, would the GOP be in any worse shape now?

What won this election was the packaging skills of David Axelrod, the swooning complicity of the media, the ruthless opportunism of Barack Obama, and the unprincipled thuggishness of his supporters.

Conservatives Want Socialism for the Rich

Bob Fertik — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:04:39 -0400

Atrios is shocked at the absurdity Of CNBC:

The entire financial system is practically collapsing and they're lamenting the possibility of more regulation... People who prattle on about "the free market" are usually too stupid to have a clue how complicated and pervasive the "rules" had to be to to get a well-functioning modern market system: sophisticated concepts of contracts and enforcement, property rights, legal entities, proper accounting, bankruptcy, limited liability, etc... etc..., did not descend from the heavens but were, in fact, created.

So why do conservatives want to make all these crucial rules, regulations, and laws disappear? What would our financial system look like without them?

Initially, it would be pure anarchy. The world would devolve into a Hobbesian war of all against all. But that wouldn't last long; powerful warlords would quickly emerge, and then individuals would have to enslave themselves to one of those warlords to have a prayer of survival.

Is this what conservatives really want?

Perhaps some do, because they own lots of guns and think they will emerge on top in a world of anarchy.

But most of the bankers and brokers on TV are way too wimpy to survive anarchy. So what they really want is a government that (a) keeps wages as close to $0 as possible and (b) steals taxpayer money to bail corporations out of every crisis they create through their uncontrolled greed.

So the country's most powerful conservatives want Socialism for the Rich. Which raises the question: why on earth do we want conservatives to have any power at all?

GOP = GROSS OLD PERVERTS

mikekohr — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:44:38 -0500

In the last 23 months 10 Republican perverts have been exposed: Richard Curtis ®WA, Larry Craig ®ID, Bob Allen ®FL, Mark Foley ®FL, Michael A. Flory ®MI, Glen Murphy ®IN, John D.R. Atchison ®FL, Dennis Gallagher ®NY, Randall Tobias ® DC, David Vitter ® LA.

This rogues gallery accounts for at least 7 cases of infidelity, 6 cases of homosexual sex, 5 cases of prostitution/solicitation, 3 cases of rape/sexual assault, 2 cases of pedophilia, and 10 cases of hypocrisy.

The Republican party is the party of "Family Values," if your idea of a family is the Manson Family.

mike kohr