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If Conservatism Is The Ideology of Freedom, I'm The Queen of England
I wish I had a nickel for every time a conservative told a lie in order to sell an ideology that would otherwise be hopelessly unappealing.
But, then, what the hell would I do with ten kazillion, trillion, dollars? I wouldn't know how to spend that much loot.
These lies are legend, and they're endlessly retold. Everything from the one about the liberal bias in the media, or the one about Ronald Reagan ending the Cold War, to the one about how the private sector is so much more efficient than the government. And how about Saddam's arsenal of WMD, eh? Or the tax cuts that weren't going to drive the federal government into deficit? Or remember when George Bush told us that the war in Iraq was over, before it had even really started? Or the bit about how global warming is just a great big conspiracy among those noted well-known cabalists, er ... climatology scientists?
I'm only just getting started here, but you get the point. If you're a conservative you basically have two choices - lie or lose. 'Cause if you tell the truth, no one in his or her right mind would buy the garbage you're peddling.
The list of lies is endless, but my personal favorite is the one about how conservatism is the ideology of freedom, and specifically freedom from an overweening, intrusive, liberty-stealing, nanny-state government.
Sometimes when I hear that howler, I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not off in some virtual reality world (like 'Liberty' University, or the Republican national convention) somewhere. Because, clearly, between me and the well-programmed fool mouthing these hopeless inanities, one of us is, that's for sure.
But I'll tell you what, if conservatism is the ideology of freedom - then I'm the Queen of England. And, one thing you can be sure of is that I'm not the Queen of England. I don't even have the right parts and pieces, and the only crown I've ever worn was given to me forty years ago by some pimply-faced teenager working the cash register at Burger King. Somehow, I don't think that counts.
Meanwhile, here's what I'd like to know:
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who fought against the American Revolution?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always trying to take that freedom away from us, especially women and minorities? Why did they fight against the effort to end slavery, or to give women and minorities the vote, or to protect them from discrimination? Why are they still supporting efforts to disenfranchise minorities?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who bitterly opposed the New Deal at a time when Americans were ravaged by the Great Depression and the only freedom they were desperately seeking was from unemployment, starvation, humiliation and death? We should give thanks for their efforts ever since then, though, as they've been kind enough to keep trying to liberate seniors from the hell of receiving their Social Security benefits, bravely volunteering Wall Street to carry that burden instead.
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always propping up foreign dictators, like Saddam, Musharraf, Mubarak, Marcos, Pinochet, the Shah, Batista, the House of Saud and apartheid South Africa? Why did they, in some of these cases, secretly topple democratically elected governments to install repressive regimes, which they then assisted in the torturing of their own citizens? Exactly which definition of 'freedom' does that fall under?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always trying to control other people's sexuality? Why are conservatives always telling us whom we can sleep with and what we can do in bed, even including whether we can use birth control?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always trying to make sure that the state takes control of women's bodies, denying them reproductive choice and freedom?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always trying to tell us who we can marry? How come they believe that the state - which they always seem to hate, except when it is at war - should be able to make that most personal decision for us?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always blocking the environmental regulations which are the only hope to keep our bodies free from carcinogens and other harmful effects?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who refuse to allow us to use medical marijuana when we are suffering the effects of chemotherapy, and even perhaps at risk of dying from the wasting it causes?
Indeed, if conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are limiting the freedom of individuals to use drugs of any sort? If people want to use these substances and can do so without harming others, why do conservatives insist on restricting that freedom?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who refuse to allow us to die with dignity when we have a terminal disease, instead thrusting the state into the most personal and private decision a human being can make?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who passed an act of Congress intervening in the personal family tragedy of Terri Schiavo, with the president of the United States - the same one who couldn't be bothered to come off vacation to deal with the 9/11 threat or the Katrina disaster - flying across the country to sign it?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are denying many of us the freedom to live by forbidding the stem-cell research that would likely produce cures to all manner of diseases now killing of millions of us every year?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are loading up our children with mountains of debt that the federal government has borrowed under the stewardship of such notorious liberals as Ronald Reagan (who quadrupled the national debt) and George W. Bush (who borrowed more money from foreign governments than all 42 of his predecessors, combined)? Right now, every eighteen year-old just starting a payroll job owes $60,000, and rising, plus interest, as their share of the nine trillion dollars conservatives have been especially instrumental in running up as national debt. What kind of freedom, exactly, does that represent? Assuming (quite 'conservatively') that that number rises to $100,000 before it is paid off, and that our young friend earns ten bucks an hour, it is the freedom to work five solid years, bringing home zero dollars after taxes, to do nothing whatsoever but paying off his share of the conservative binge.
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who have taken the very lives of four thousand of our soldiers for a war based completely on lies? This same war has left tens of thousands of Americans gravely wounded, likely more than a million Iraqi civilians dead, and well over four million more Iraqis as refugees from the violence. What kind of freedom is this? The freedom from having to be alive and well? The freedom to serve three and four rotations of extended tours in the hell of Iraq, keeping our military personnel safe from their nagging mothers-in-law at home?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are so anxious to take away our civil liberties, the most important of American freedoms, as enshrined in one of the greatest statements of freedom ever, the Bill of Rights? What happened to habeas corpus - a freedom dating back almost a thousand years - or the right to an attorney, or to have a trial, or to be protected from search and seizure without a judicially-issued warrant based on probable cause, or protection from torture? What happened to all those freedoms? What happened is that conservatives came to town and erased them.
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always trying to have the government jam their religion down our throats, in direct opposition to the intentions of the Founders? The United States Constitution makes precisely the same number of references to the Christian god as it does to the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Zoroastrian. That would be none. What kind of freedom is it for everyone's tax dollars to support one group's religion, or for our government to impose a single religion on all of us?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are always telling me I should leave the country if I don't approve the latest war for lies they've cooked up? How exactly does 'shut-up or leave' qualify as freedom of speech?
If conservatism is the ideology of freedom, how come they're the ones who are constantly attempting to turn the executive branch of the federal government into a monarchy? By using signing statements, endless claims of executive privilege, lack of congressional oversight when they controlled Congress, thwarted oversight when they didn't, and unprecedented levels of secrecy, they have shredded the fundamental doctrine of separated powers checking and balancing against each other. Since those ideas - the most basic concept of the Constitution - are intended to keep us safe from governments that would steal our liberties, just how is it that conservatism is the ideology of freedom?
Any one of these inconvenient truths, let alone the sum of all of them, demonstrate the absurdity of this claim. Not only is it ridiculous to call a conservatism that at every turn seeks to limit you - in what you can say, what you can ingest, who you can sleep with, marry, and even when you can end your own life - the ideology of freedom, but the only real conclusion that one can honestly come to on the basis of this historical record is of course just the opposite: Conservatism is, and has almost always been, the ideology of oppression - the very opposite of freedom.
When Americans wanted liberty from the British crown, conservative Tories not only in Britain but here as well fought to block that freedom. When 'radicals' sought to emancipate the slaves, conservatives fought to keep them in chains. When progressives later sought equality for women and blacks, it was conservatives who stood in the doorways blocking entrance. And, today, as we seek justice and fairness for all people regardless of their sexual orientation, it is - wait for it, now - the conservative movement which not only resists that effort at every turn, but in fact shamefully turns their homophobia into a tool used to win elections, just as they have been doing with racism for forty years now.
Indeed, you have to be more or less deaf, dumb and blind - or perhaps simply watching Fox every night for your 'news' (which produces the same result) - to buy into this rhetoric from the theater of the absurd. Let me reiterate: If you think these monsters who are depriving you of your liberties at every opportunity represent freedom, then you need to bow, scrape and walk backwards in my presence, as a sign of respect for the British crown. I'll take a bunch of your money, too. Palaces aren't cheap to maintain, buddy.
Yeah, sure, it's true that conservatives will be right there for you if you want the freedom to buy guns and ammo, including 'cop-killer' bullets, assault rifles (to nail those most obstinate of pheasants, of course), or a fifty caliber rifle capable of bringing down a jumbo jet, and advertised as such in its sales literature. Of course, along with the freedom to buy these weapons (and how come, if the Second Amendment protects the bearing of "arms", not 'guns', I can't also legally buy cannons, napalm and tactical nuclear warheads - just in case the neighborhood gets a little rowdy?), also comes the lovely 'freedom' to join the 35,000 or so Americans every year who become very stiff corpses as a result of the massive proliferation of weapons in which America uniquely specializes. Perhaps you'd rather live in Europe, eh, enjoying being alive? Well, for the rest of you non-sissies out there, conservatives have made sure that you have the freedom to take your bullet along with you when you're buried. What cheese-eating Frenchman ever had that freedom?
Conservatives are also busy making sure that there is plenty of freedom for corporations to pollute the land, water and air we depend on for survival. Regulation is bad, you see. Very bad. It's much better to have freedom - including your freedom to get sick, or to live in a world careering toward global disaster - than it would be to impede on the freedom of the super-rich to make themselves super-duper-rich.
No need to worry too much about the health implications of global warming, arsenic or radioactive waste, though. Chances are you won't live long enough to get killed this way, or to be shot by somebody whose freedom to own a gun has been well protected by nice right-wing people. That's because conservatives are also on the front-lines in the lonely battle fighting to make sure that you have the opportunity to join the more than 47 million Americans free from having healthcare coverage, or the many tens of millions more whose policies are insufficient to keep them alive. Don't you feel good knowing you're free from the evils of 'socialized' medicine? Isn't profit-driven corporate non-care so much better? Forget about "Give me liberty or give me death". Now you can have both!
One thing you can't argue about, however, is that it is conservatives who will keep your taxes down. Right? Well, yeah, if you mean this year. And if you mean nickels and dimes. But then, by applying the same logic, making your house payment on a credit card would be defined as keeping your monthly expenses down. (Of course, since you're about to lose your house anyhow, as a result of conservative economics, that may be a moot point.) But there's just these two little problems. One is that the nice people who loan you money invariably want to be paid back. And, two, they want interest on the loans as well. I don't know who middle-class Americans dreamed would be paying for their meager tax cuts, which - along with massively increased government spending by those paragons of fiscal responsibility, you guessed it, conservatives - were funded by charging it all on the federal plastic, but you can bet America's creditors know all our addresses. They'll find us when the bill comes due.
Of course, this is only the beginning. What the tax cuts were really about was shifting the burden of funding government from the wealthy to the middle class, and from today's generation to tomorrow's. So, not only will middle class Americans, or their kids, have to pay back everything borrowed these last six years to fund their piddly little tax cuts, plus interest accrued, but they will also be paying for the massive tax cuts that were given to the massively wealthy.
Which, of course, is really what the whole elaborate kabuki dance of conservative 'freedom' was ever all about, from the beginning. As one of the greatest political marketing ploys of all time, it used pathetic middle class tax cuts plus supremely ironic restrictions on social and personal liberties to sell a bunch of frightened naifs on the notion that conservatism is the ideology of freedom, all so that the ubër-class could realize their dream kleptocracy in place of a government actually devoted to public service. And, remarkably, it worked - at least for a time.
Don't you feel better now that you're free after decades of Reagan, Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, DeLay and Scalia? You're free to shut up with your unpopular ideas. You're free from having to make difficult decisions when you're pregnant. You're free to be arrested for smoking a joint to keep from vomiting while you're doing chemotherapy. You're free from having to worry about which sex you're going to sleep with or marry. You're free from protection against guns or from long life in a healthy environment. And when you do get shot or sick, you're free from adequate medical care. Moreover, should you find yourself stuck with a painful and terminal illness, you're also free from either stem-cell remedies or your own choice to end your suffering and die with dignity.
You're also free to fall through the tattered safety net of government programs during a recession or a depression, and you'll likely be free from making those pesky house payments very much further into the future either. You're free from wondering whether the rest of the world hates you and your country because it's been undermining democracies, propping up dictators, and invading oil-rich countries on the basis of completely fabricated war rationales. You're free from having to pay your taxes today. But you'll also be free from buying those things you wanted tomorrow, as you'll instead be paying today's taxes, interest on those taxes, tomorrow's taxes, plus the share that the wealthy used to pay.
So whattaya think? Ain't conservative freedom great?
Next time you hear a conservative ranting about the wonder and joys of freedom, tell them: "Yeah, no kidding, freedom is a really good thing. You'd like it even better if you actually tried it out some time".
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
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111 Comments so far
Show AllDAVID GREEN----There is no comment needed about your great assessment on "conservative freedom', other than every citizen in these United States of America should read it and realize what has really happened to our beloved country due to selfishness, greed, lies, and ignorance. Hopefully there is still time to reverse some of the damage before our country is lost permanently, but disaster may be closer than most people realize.
How about Free Markets and no regulations, giving us freedom from our jobs as they move to countries without any worker or environmental protections, just so the multinationals can make profits.
It's not all conservatives though, but many have been towing the party line nicely. Most spout the same junk I hear on Faux News.
These people, especially the mega-religious are the people that the bible warned us about. They follow and support the very entity they say they battle against!
I have a basic mental plan when I have conversations with them.....I use the law of opposites with everything they say. If they say one thing, then they mean another. Most of them aren't even aware of it.
If stuck in a room with them, you can even make a game of it-I do not suggest doing this with drinking tho'....you would become drunk rather quickly :)
If Conservatism Is The Ideology of Freedom, I'm The Queen of England
True, but so what? Real conservatism has about as much relevance to today's neo-con 'full spectrum dominance' program and priorities as liberalism has to the neo-liberal economic agenda.
A conservative is one who enshrines his grandfathers' revolution and fears his children's.
"Real conservatism has about as much relevance to today's neo-con 'full spectrum dominance' program and priorities as liberalism has to the neo-liberal economic agenda."
The conservatism which Reagan & his cronies & their aides rode to power on was the neo-conservatism (tho' not called that) of the 1950s; this crowd continued to oppose national recognition of Martin Luther King, disinvestment in South Africa, and if they had their preference, the war against Vietnam would have continued into my college years.
As part of the "Great Silent Majority," my parents accepted the early versions of all these lies, and for a couple of decades I believed them.
The "real conservatives" are as much opposed to reproductive rights for women, to the rights of working people, to the goal of equality as they ever were. Hard as it is to believe, the Real Conservatives would be EVEN WORSE in power than the Bushits.
Hard as it is to believe, the Real Conservatives would be EVEN WORSE in power than the Bushits.
That certainly is very hard to believe and open to some debate, I would think. But, in any case, I was just making the point that "neos" ain't conservatives, not disagreeing with anybody's characterization of the original variety.
Maybe it's time to admit that the great experiment in American democracy and freedom has, sadly, failed?
Give up. Get out. While you still can.
It's an old rhetorical trick to set up a straw man and take him apart, but it's more difficult to define "conservatism" and give it a fair critique.
Bush Republicans are not "conservative", if conservatism refers to a respect for the Constitution. Ronald Reagan was not a "conservative" if the Constitution is considered the supreme law of the land.
"Liberal" of "progressive" are neither liberal nor progressive if they empower a parental government that over rules the prerogatives of the individual.
Everyone dreams of an ideal government that will use its power in one's own interest, but few understand the meaning of individual liberty that was the basis on which our constitutional republic was built. The story of democratic development has been a sorry tale of the continuing trade-off of personal liberty in the name of a greater social good as defined by a powerful parental government.
Conservatism, as represented by candidate Ron Paul, is equivalent to a respect for personal liberty as the basis for social administration. Corporations are not "persons". Our republic was designed to protect the individual. Gradually, the individuals of all races have been granted their unalienable rights, but at the same time the power of government has overwhelmed its Constitutional limits and denies the rights of individuals with impunity. This power must be stopped if individual liberty, the foundational value of this republic, is to survive.
It is impossible to "promote the General Welfare" through the sacrifice of individual liberty. But one finds, especially among "progressives" a willingness to do just this in the name of "social justice".
It is time to read the Constitution, friends, study it, and understand it.
You may discover that you value social justice more than you value your own personal liberty. You may discover that you believe that you must sacrifice your individual liberty so that some one else will get "justice".
If that's the case, then lay yourself down on a cross and get a friend to drive some nails through your extremities.
JACK 37; Very interesting comment on the origins of the words liberal and conservative.
David Michael Green; I agree with Kernal. You have covered just about everything. George Seldes used to call them 'reactionaries', rather than 'conservatives', as they 'react' in opposition to any liberal or progressive change for the betterment of society.
Thank you very much for this insightful essay.
When will the progressive media stop calling George Wanker Bush and his ilk "conservatives"? Libertarians like Ron Paul are the actual conservatives. George Wanker Bush is a radical reactionary; or, if you think that's too generous, he's an out-and-out fascist, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the United States. If the Libertarians had their way, they would reduce the federal government to the Departments of Defense and Justice, do away with everything else and hand the power back to the states. They're also not interested in running an empire nor are they necessarily possessed by one of the great reactionary/fascist tendencies - kicking ass. Kicking ass is as important to Bush Cheney Limbaugh Malkin Hannity Beck ad infinitum as breathing. In fact, it is probably THE single most important factor in fascist psychology. Fascism is not necessarily the corprate takeover of the state but the state being deeply in love with, and totally dedicated to, hatred, cruelty and death and militant stupidity. That's George Wanker Bush!
HORSESHIT!!
"It is impossible to "promote the General Welfare" through the sacrifice of individual liberty. But one finds, especially among "progressives" a willingness to do just this in the name of "social justice".
It is time to read the Constitution, friends, study it, and understand it.
You may discover that you value social justice more than you value your own personal liberty. You may discover that you believe that you must sacrifice your individual liberty so that some one else will get "justice".
If that's the case, then lay yourself down on a cross and get a friend to drive some nails through your extremities".
There is nothing INHERENTLY incompatible between government working to provide for the common good and freedom.
And one certainly doesn't need to suffer from a martyr complex to believe that.
And for what it's worth, despite a few good things that Ron Paul has to say, he is a libertarian, not a conservative.
His ilk would happily watch people starve to death.
I fail to see what is admirable about that philosophy.
Great article, David Michael green, but you left off the name of Bill Clinton on your list of conservatives destroying our country. I think his actions qualify him for the list of that gang. It was he who signed NAFTA, signed welfare "reform", accelerated the flow of our national wealth to the top. Now his wife is promising to carry on the family tradition.
cruxpuppy, the Constitution does not forbid us from supporting and helping each other. Publicly funded health care, education and elections make a country stronger with citizens who are healthy, an economy with a competent workforce and politicians who can represent us instead of the corporations. The horrors of it all! The problem with "conservatives" like Ron Paul is that they want to let the market run the country. These days it looks like it can't even run itself.
Great article. So very true.
Jeff Moehring, you're right about Ron Paul. He is a Libertarian.
I think the basis for conservatism is resistance to change. And these neo-cons are really a bunch of fascist thugs who want to rule the world. And like the Nazi fascist thugs, many of them have a taste for hurting (torturing) others. After all, George W. Bush, I've heard from many sources, liked to shove lit firecrackers into the orifices of frogs, and who knows what else he was doing in his youth. He also was burning pledges with red hot coat hangers in college.
Hitler reportedly murdered 11 million people and Stalin 20 million so George has a way to go to beat those records, and hopefully not much time left. He's already on the list of mass murderers and if he gets us into Iran he may well end up being # three on it.
No Tijuana, you won't get banned, but your head would be clearer if you stopped drinking Fox's Kool Aid and started reading news from a larger variety of sources. Check your facts somewhere else besides Fox and Rupert Murdoch (they just want to pick your pockets anyway).
At least Hugo Chavez isn't stealing his elections, unlike the Republicans in America.
Definition of Conservative
American Heritge Dictionary:
Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. EXCEPT CHANGES BENEFITTING THE MONIED CLASS?
Traditional or restrained in style: LIKE INVADING IRAQ?
Moderate; cautious: LIKE INVADING IRAN?
Dear Mr. Green
And I always thought you WERE the Queen of England. Another illusion dashed.
"Liberal" emerged in its modern sense around Shakespeare's time---the "Liberal Arts" were things people did when their daily work was done, and their self-cultivations (THEN vs. now) became the good soil of social compassion and Enlightenment: hmmm, maybe we don't have a complete right to conquer and rape). "Conservatism" emerged of course at the same time: not so fast with all this "progress" stuff or who's going to clean the stables? LIBERALS most fundamentally believe that life is more than work---and that what most people do AFTER work is where they "live," and social progressivism is born of that. So no wonder that "Conservatives" are ashamed of their own true philosophy---It says that life "must" be at least as hard for the masses and profitable (for me) as it was for my forefathers....
Real conservatives hate Bush.
Sorry this format is not so easy on the eyes. It did not transfer well...However,
it makes some interesting points!
IV.
Tracking Fascism
by David Neiwert
"...from Robert O. Paxton, who is Mellon Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus at Columbia University. His essay "The Five Stages of Fascism," which appeared in the March 1998 edition of The Journal of Modern History, proposed an even more helpful model for understanding the
phenomenon....
"...As Paxton describes it:
"...Feelings propel fascism more than thought does. We might call them
mobilizing passions, since they function in fascist movements to recruit
followers in fascist movements to recruit followers and in fascist regimes
to "weld" the fascist "tribe" to its leader. The following mobilizing
passions are present in fascisms, though they may sometimes be articulated
only implicitly:
1. The primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every
right, whether universal or individual.
2. The belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any
action against the group's enemies, internal as well as external.
3. Dread of the group's decadence under the corrosive effect of
individualistic and cosmopolitan liberalism.
4. Closer integration of the community within a brotherhood (fascio) whose
unity and purity are forged by common conviction, if possible, or by
exclusionary violence if necessary.
5. An enhanced sense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeur of
the group reinforces individual self-esteem.
6. Authority of natural leaders (always male) throughout society,
culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the
group's destiny.
7. The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's
success in a Darwinian struggle.11
Going down Paxton's list, it is fairly easy to identify these "passions" at
play today, particularly in the debate over the Iraq war and the attacks on
dissenters that occurred during it.
1. [Group primacy]: See, again, the Bush Doctrine. An extension of this
sentiment is at play among those jingoes who argue that Americans may need
to sacrifice some of their civil rights -- say, free speech -- during
wartime.
2. [Victim mentality]: This meme is clearly present in all the appeals to
the victims of Sept. 11 as justifications for the war. It is present at
nearly all levels of the debate: from the White House, from the media, even
from the jingoist entertainment industry (see, e.g., the lyric of Darryl
Worley's extraordinarily popular country-western hit, "Have You
Forgotten?": "Some say this country's just out looking for a fight / Well
after 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right.").
3. [Dread of liberal decadence]: This meme has been stock in trade of the
talk-radio crowd since at least 1994 -- at one time it focused primarily on
the person of Bill Clinton -- and has reached ferocious levels during the
runup to the war and after it, during which antiwar leftists have regularly
and remorselessly been accused of treason.
4. [Group integration] and 5. [Group identity as personal validation] are,
of course, among the primary purposes of the campaign to demonize liberals
-- to simultaneously build a cohesive brotherhood of like-minded
"conservatives" who might not agree on the details but are united in their
loathing of all things liberal. It plays out in such localized
manifestations as the KVI Radio 570th On-Air Cavalry, which has made a
habit of deliberately invading antiwar protests with the express purpose of
disrupting them and breaking them up. Sometimes, as they did recently in
Bellingham, this is done with caravans of big trucks blaring their horns;
and they are also accompanied by threatening rhetoric and acts of physical
intimidation. They haven't yet bonded in violence -- someone did phone in a
threat to sniper-shoot protesters -- but they are rapidly headed in that
direction.
6. [Authority of leaders]: This needs hardly any further explanation,
except to note that George W. Bush is actually surprisingly uncharismatic
for someone who inspires as much rabid loyalty as he does. But then, that
is part of the purpose of Bush's PR campaign stressing that he receives
"divine guidance" -- it assures in his supporters' mind the notion that he
is carrying out God's destiny for the nation, and for the conservative
movement in particular.
7. [An aesthetic of violence]: One again needs only turn to the voluminous
jingoes of Fox News or the jubilant warbloggers to find abundant examples
of celebrations of the virtues -- many of them evidently aesthetic -- of
the evidently just-completed war.
Again, the purpose of the above exercise is not to demonstrate that
mainstream conservatism is necessarily becoming fascist (though that is a
possibility), but rather to demonstrate how it is becoming hospitable to
fascist motifs, especially as it resorts to strong-arm tactics from its
footsoldiers to intimidate the political opposition. This underscores the
real danger, which is the increasing empowerment of the extremist bloc,
particularly as it has been blending, as we shall see, into the mainstream
GOP. The increasing nastiness of the debate over Bush's war-making program
seems to be fertile territory for this trend.
More than anything, the exercise underscores just to what extent fascism
itself is made of things that are very familiar to us, and in themselves
seem relatively innocuous, perhaps even benign. More to the point, this
very familiarity is what makes it possible. When they coalesce in such a
crucible as wartime or a civil crisis, they become something beyond that
simple reckoning."
BeForKids ~ You don't think people get banned from this forum? Surely you jest! I've been summarily banned three seperate times because I didn't march in lockstep with the left. All it takes to get banned is to question the progressive status quo and you are deleted. Just try offering some alternative viewpoints, and you're done for.
Oddly enough, since I sent in a donation this year, I haven't yet been banned! We'll see how long that lasts....
..and I'd have to agree with the commentary that "real" conservatives hate Bush. He wasn't voted into office by the support of conservatives, he was voted into office by the real conservatives who hated even more the alternatives to Bush. It was a "least offensive" strategery.
The above quote is from a free "book online" entitled:
Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An exegesis
by David Neiwert
Address: http://www.cursor.org/stories/fascismintroduction.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------
Some good stuff here...
Chapters:
Introduction
I. Projecting Fascism
II. Understanding Fascism
III. The Core of Fascism
IV. Tracking Fascism
V. Proto-Fascism in America
VI. Crossing the Lines
VII. The Transmission Belt
VIII. Official Transmitters
IX. Media Transmitters
X. Reaching the Receivers
XI. Dualist Receivers
XII. Divine Transmissions
XIII. Fascism and Fundamentalism
XIV. The War on Liberals
XV. Waiting for Godwin
Bibliography
Auntie Jane, are you fearful that some Fascist King will ask you to shut up?
After all, look at everything that Latin America has to thank Spain for, Columbus, Cortez and the destruction of their civilization, smallpox and the destruction of their population.
Don't confused being banned with having a post deleted. Plenty of mine have been deleted. Then I found myself unable to log on - that would be banned. But the CD editor said, it's a program glitch, they've never banned anyone. And you can email the CD editor for a new password if that happens.
Kudos to David Green. What an apt title.
My progressive friends I am still confused by one thing:
Why is extreme, fascistic "conservatism" of the last 25 years since Reagan still so attractive to tens of millions of Americans, most of whom have received nothing of value in their economic welfare from it?
Deeply puzzling to any human with even an IQ of 90.
Please explain.
Wow! Great article. And of the equivocation that is happening with the word "conservative"? (as there is with the words liberal, freedom and profit and on and on) I think of my self as being conservative when I think of self reliance, belief in individual initiative, the conservative use of resources.
The "real" conservatives have clearly been as betrayed as the "Liberals" and the rest of us.
Here's a suggested definition: Those who's ideology is to use lies to gather power. Those who's actions are to use any means most readily lies and other tools of violence to eliminate or marginalize what and who they see as competing.
And then there are those that embrace transparency and accountability.
SO this article reads better for me when I think of it that way: The power addicted liars and the rest of us. There are a great many areas for contention amongst us. Believing in the Democratic Process means that with access to resources, educational, media we can enter into discussions and get to know each other so we can arrive at higher levels of understanding.
BeForKids, I know this is a bit off-topic, but you may want to reconsider your support for Hugo Chavez. I, too, was one of his supporters, but all his recent actions have revealed him to be just another petty dictator who will do anything, preferably "legal," to remain in power. He has done some great things for the common and poor people of Venezuela, but all his maneuvering to stay in power and become President for Life will probably result in his own form of dictatorship and future oppression of those who question his motives and methods. We are already seeing the results of this same political maneuvering in Pakistan with President Musharraf trying to stay in power. I'm still wondering if George W. will try something similar at the end of his term.
I have on more than one occasion posted things that went against the popular grain on a given subject.
And have never been "banned".
But I have to wonder why a few of the people who posted on this subject bother to read Common Dreams in the first place.
It is for "The Progressive Community".....says so right at the top.
I think that makes some of the posters what folks call "trolls".
And I've never understood why those kinda folks show up and spout the things that they do.
There are plenty of right wing blogs out there.
I can only speak for myself but I can do without their drivel.
It's not like the things they have to say are novel.
You can find them on Fox or the right wing radio should you wish.
It seems to me to be simply childish and a form of taunting to go to a progressive blog and spout simple minded right wing talking points.
And don't try to tell me that you are hoping to "change minds or educate" us poor uninformed progressives.
The crap I have read on this one post alone is the same tired pack of lies the regressive right have been spouting for years.
I seriously doubt that there is a regular reader of Common Dreams who hasn't heard all that B.S. a hundred times already.
Good job Mr. Green. What those of us who understand Conservatism need to do is (like you) speak up about the subject LOUD and CLEAR...especially in mixed company. Speak truth to power. When joining internet discussions such as this one, use your real name...not some cutsy pseudonym. Be proud that you have the compassion and the intelligence to see through the idiocy that is ruining the USA and the entire world. HEAR THAT GEORGE??? Ya sorry f**k of an excuse for a president.
You may have all noticed how often the conservatioved old and neo make use of the words 'freedom' and 'liberty'...Think of 'Freedom' House, which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. Im sure you can all come up with eghs where this word is used to mislead the Sheeple down the road to fascism:
'From The Mind Of The Sheeple
Oh yes, I am a sheeple, and oh so proud to be.
I'm way too smart and clever, to believe in conspiracies.
Three towers falling straight down - it all makes sense to me.
"They're all just jealous", Bush tells me, because I live so free.
Terrorists hiding everywhere, even places I cannot see.
I know they must be out there, cause I heard it on tv.
My newspaper is completely honest, it would never lie to me.
Oh yes, I am a sheeple, and so proud to be.
Did you know we saved the Iraqis? The bad guys had to flee.
And now those people love us, that they're dancing with such glee.
The whole wide world should thank us, all on bended knee.
Oh yes, I am a sheeple, and oh so proud to be.
You Conspiracy theorists are so stupid, as blind as blind can be.
Even Anti-war protestors should be hanging from a tree.
They and all the traitors - ship them off to Germany!
But me, I am a sheeple, and oh so proud to be. '
Don't kid yourself: someday it will be your grand- or great- or great-great grandchild who has this disease... or a another family member's child... or the child of someone you love. Finally, as we live our lives on this precious blue planet, it is wise to realize: The human family is One; the human family is YOUR FAMILY. To ignore this is to break your own heart.
I find it interesting to contemplate what is going on "inside" both the leaders and followers of the "By-Definition-Lying-'conservative' ideology."
(Obviously, as humans we are all astoundingly complex, so what follows is a gross generalization).
How many are "leaders" are cynically aware of the built-in lies and clear contradictions between what is said and what is done? ...for instance, accusing other governments of being repressive, anti-democratic, trying to create a Fundamentalist Theocracy? Pulease!
Of the folks who keep all this unconscious - what does it do to their sense of self, of worth, of inner integrity to be split down the middle --- which is to say --- to lie to Onesself day after day, year after year?
Also, just what is it that motivates so many people to embrace this "creed of greed" and meanspiritedness when they'd like to be thought of, and think of themselves --- as just the opposite?
I wonder: what it is that makes people gravitate toward supporting policies based on hate, and then think of themselves as caring people (and often followers of Jesus - who gave a 'new' commandment -To Love thy neighbor as thyself"). Meanwhile, it's also quite true that many of these folks very much strive to be caring people in their personal lives.
I'm talking about Large segments of the U.S. population, who are apparently Unable to see through the "right-in-front-of-your-face" absurdities and bald mind-boggling contradictions that lay before them.
I guess one could understand why so many non-Americans see us as "Insufferably Stupid."
I believe it is unfortunate to have such labels. I wish the only label applied to any elected was one of only two.
1. An honest Statesperson
2. A lying crooked idiot.
An honest statesperson would display a HIGH degree of ntelligence, honesty, sobriety, and good common sense,, mixed with the favorable elements of having a kindred soul with love and compassion for all others.
A stupid, ignorant, lying, crooked, selfish, jealous, mean spirited, cruel, greedy, psycotic, rat SOB fits the other. I do beleve, we have more of the other, than the former.
Liberal/conservative and left/right are useless terms, now more than ever.
There is only the politics of the up (plutocracy/autocracy) and the politics of the down (grassroots/populism). The politics of oppression vs. the politics of self-determination.
There's no need to waste brain cells on pedestrian or "academic" redefinitions of labels.
If you had a nickel for every conservative lie you'd make Carlos Slim look like a pauper, but we have been impoverished, not enriched, by their duplicity. The only ones who have benefited are the corporate fat cats, war profiteers and power-mad neocons, while our country has fallen on evil days. The dollar is becoming worthless, our reputation vile, our rights only a memory and our children's future dismal in a war debt crippled, overextended, socially incoherent and environmentally devastated America.
cruxpuppy, most people exposed to the truth want to build a good-faith concensus standard for the general welfare, and promote individual liberties that preserve it. Limits must be imposed on the general welfare to preserve individual liberty, and limits must be imposed on individual liberty to preserve the general welfare. Americans are taught differently of course. The Randite indoctrination is at the root of the whole problem.
Good Lord my dad, always a staunch conservative, a McCarthy era guy and a self-made capitalist who voted for Bush, told me this Thanksgiving that he thought democracy had failed in the U.S. I almost choked. I never thought I would ever hear that from him. He said, sadly, "the system just doesn't work."
He suggested to me, and mom, who aren't conservatives, that in the next election Americans of all stripes go and vote all their incumbents from both major parties out of office.
Is more afoot in America than I could have known?
@rtdrury "consensus" always makes policy and it determines just about everything. My concern is that the consensus represented by the Constitution with its emphasis on individual liberty and Emersonian values such as self-reliance and self-determination no longer exists. The republic envisioned by our 18th Century ancestors may no longer be possible because people no longer define themselves individually, but only in terms of their identity within politically defined groups. Our notion of individual liberty and concordant responsibility is very limited when compared with so-called primitive native Americans, for example. A consensus of self-determining individuals looks very different from a consensus of those habituated to obedience to authority.
I'm not sure voting is the best democratic mechanism any more. And it remains unclear whether anyone who'd properly turn this country around has the least interest in running for office.
ok i agree with much of this article and i hate conservatism but you lost me here:
"Yeah, sure, it's true that conservatives will be right there for you if you want the freedom to buy guns and ammo, including 'cop-killer' bullets, assault rifles (to nail those most obstinate of pheasants, of course), or a fifty caliber rifle capable of bringing down a jumbo jet, and advertised as such in its sales literature. Of course, along with the freedom to buy these weapons (and how come, if the Second Amendment protects the bearing of "arms", not 'guns', I can't also legally buy cannons, napalm and tactical nuclear warheads - just in case the neighborhood gets a little rowdy?), also comes the lovely 'freedom' to join the 35,000 or so Americans every year who become very stiff corpses as a result of the massive proliferation of weapons in which America uniquely specializes. Perhaps you'd rather live in Europe, eh, enjoying being alive? Well, for the rest of you non-sissies out there, conservatives have made sure that you have the freedom to take your bullet along with you when you're buried. What cheese-eating Frenchman ever had that freedom?"
why the hell do the "progessives" hate gun owners so bad? this is why i could never call myself liberal or progessive. It alienates me from the progressive movement very much.
yeah so let's get rid of all private gun ownership, and hold hands with each other by the campfire. I just knew i'd find an anti-gun message in this article. also i understand that progressives seem to scorn people in the ideological middle yet we have so much in common with them.
We must remember that there are millions and millions of Americans who are conservatives. And many of them are led to conservatism through their religious beliefs (Where? see the red states). It explains why Republicans are so tormented about their canidates this year - none is a saintly, rock-solid conservative. To overcome this grassroots conservatism is a daunting task. Liberals are viewed as unpatriotic, anti-religion, and heralds for homosexuality and abortion. That's why a unrepentant, progressive, hard-left Democrat will never be president. But, never say never...
A large part of the problem is the simple abuse of language.
The AMerican political spectrum has in the last couple of decades been forced into the Conservative-Liberal duality.
This binary is ludicrous.
The Liberal label covers Social Liberals and Social Democrats.
The Conservative label bizarrely covers genuine Conservatives (a spectrum in itself) and economic Libertarians (though not of course Anarchists).
Conservatives believe in a strong state. Libertarians formally believe in a minimal state, albeit the vested interests behind libertarian ideologues believe in a strong state acting in their interests (neo-feudal labor regulation for example, or imperial outreach as cover for multinational capital).
The label Conservative does appear to have been used appropriately (i.e. in common with the rest of the world) until the early post-WWII period. Clinton Rossiter's 1955 COnservatism in America gives a feeling for the transformation. William Buckley Jr's 1970 American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century obscures the hell out of the label.
A large part of Green's conundrums could be cleared up readily by acknowledging that the conventional use of the word Conservative in contemporary American parlance is a joke.
Your Royal High-ness:
I find it interesting to think about what goes on "inside" both the leaders and followers of the "By-Definition-Lying-'conservative' ideology."
(Obviously, as humans we are all astoundingly complex, so my thoughts speak to a general condition rather than about any specific individual).
How many "leaders" are actually quite aware of the built-in lies and clear contradictions between what they said and what they do? …for instance, accusing other governments of being repressive, anti-democratic, trying to create a Fundamentalist Theocracy? Pul-ease!!
Of the folks who manage to stay unconscious about all this - what does it do to their sense of self, of self-worth, of inner integrity - to be chronically split in two...
(that is, stuck in a wierd limbo-like dimension...where citizenship depends on having to lie to onesself, to deceive onesself - day after day, year after year)?
Also, just what is it that motivates so many people to embrace this creed of greed and meanspiritedness when they'd like to be thought of, and think of themselves — as just the opposite?
I wonder what it is that draws people indulge themselves - (while decrying liberal lack of self-restraint) - giving in to their basest impulses (often vicariously) as they freefall into the gravitational field of policies based on hate. All the while considering their motivations to be above reproach. They are "decent, moral, 10 commandment following, caring people >>>>>>
(and often followers of Jesus - who gave a 'new' commandment -To Love thy neighbor as thyself"). >>>>>>
While it's true that many of these folks may try their best to be kind at home or at work, it's also true that they fervently believe that they are Fair-Minded and Honest Folk. They're not.
Conservatism, as the ideology we observe playing itself out -
(notice the steady drift of neo-cons toward neo-fascism)
- apparently is - in its very essence Unfair, to say the least.
We're talkin' here 'bout Large segments of the U.S. population, - apparently Unable to see through the "right-in-front-of-your-face" absurdities and wild mind-boggling contradictions that lay before them.
And either unwilling or unable to notice that while they believe in Heaven, they are supporting policies that create economic, social, and political hell for others.
I guess one could understand why so many non-Americans see us as "Insufferably Stupid."
Continuing the previous post.
Barton Bernstein's 1969 Towards a New Past contains a brilliant essay titled 'The New Deal: the Conservative Achievements of Liberal Reform'.
What is titularly labelled liberal reform had generally conservative outcomes - that is, patching up the system in order to maintain its essentials (which was the existing class hierarchy), in order to save the system from itself. Roosevelt as Conservative. The label is consistent with his privileged origins. Much of reform globally in the last three hundred years has actually been engineered by intelligent conservative forces - I call it the 'head 'em off at the pass' strategy.
Yet James Patterson wrote a book in 1967 that captures the conventional language: Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: the growth of the conservative coalition in Congress, 1933-1939.
However, this COngressional coalition is more accurately labelled reactionary. These forces of reaction are forebears of the radical reactionary ascendancy that came to fruition with Reagan and have reached their insane apotheosis in the reigning junta of Bush junior (junta because the regime has never been granted legitimacy by an authentic popular vote).
Lots of talk about whether Republicans in the mold of George Bush are truly conservatives, and a lot of conflicting opinions that confuse economics and social issues.
I prefer to look at these charts to keep it in perspective:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2
http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2007
Godlessrant--
I'm a progressive (a libertarian socialist actually) and I don't mind gun owners. Although I don't own a gun many of my friends do and it's not typically an issue for me. I do think there's an obsession with guns and violence in the U.S. but I don't make it a litmus test for friendship or political purity.
I guess that's the libertarian side of my political perspective. So don't give up on 'progressive' politics!
Hi dingo, thanks for your comments, i don't want to give up on progressive politics. however people on the left also need to be as tolerant as the people they are opposing, the conservatives. i also agree there is too much violence in america, and especially in the media/movies. mocking firearm owners or people who don't agree with every aspect of progessive ideals isn't helping; it's dividing us. i've read many posts on here, mocking people who are centrist oriented, so i don't see much difference between the hard left or the lunatic right. many of us despise the current situation and the war and i've marched in many peace marches
godlessrant-
It IS important to realize "progressivism" is an ideology and requires a certain tolerance from you as well. There are actually many points to it that cross my lifestyle as well, but I'm flexible enough to stick to it. Who's being intolerant here? No matter how you consider the gun owership issue, just imagine a world without crime or guns or gun killing. That would be pretty cool wouldn't it? An ideology is NOT necessarily set up to reflect reality; it presents a sometimes intangible IDEAL (hence the name), something to shoot for, if you'll forgive the...
I'm afraid that's the best you've ever going to find for yourself - there's never going to be a movement called godlessrantism, unless you want to start it.
Mr. Green, you've got people laughing. And when you get people laughing, people start thinking. That's why all the totalitarians you care to name, ranging from the Emperor Diocletian, to Henry VIII, to Stalin, to Hitler, and to George Bush, hate it when people start to laugh, since they've always had to rely on the peoples' non-thinking.
Humour gives people courage to doubt the slogans and soundbites passed down to them by the mighty. It is to any totalitarian system as the spark of static was to the Hindenburg.
Re noonespecial's 'a lot of conflicting opinions that confuse economics and social issues'.
The crude duality Conservative vs Liberal contributed mightily to the confusion of economics and social issues.
Economic libertarians will be put in the Conservative box in the US, even though they may have 'liberalist' views regarding social issues.
As for noonespecial's 'politicalcompass' site, the quadrant structure is a major advance on the cretinous straight line duality. But myriad details laid out didactically on that site are all over the place. Getting there, but in general a mess.
Why then is the richest country in the world, with the most elaborate and well resourced academic establishment in the world, incapable of coming up with a rudimentary matrix of the political spectrum that has a modicum of plausbility?