"conservative vrs liberal"-- discussion at dar kush blog
*this post resulted from a discussion at dar kush web blog .http://darkush.blogspot.com/
my full and as usual , lengthy response , wouldn't fit the response format there... so i posted it here...
it may not seem so , but i really don't like labels , but in this country the radical right wing is on the offensive and has been so since at least the election of ronald reagan and also the nixon/ford years before that.
i use the term radical rightwing because a distinction need be made between the person living from paycheck to paycheck who has "conservative" values that the radical right wing has decided to mouth and pay lipservice to in order to get votes , and the wealthy defense contractors-pharmaceutical giants , oil-garchs, wallstreet bankers, former military generals and former senior intel officials and now also , born again and very war-like armageddon-bible-thumping ,wealthy right wing christians---the successors to the old "military-industrial complex" that president eisenhower--a republican btw --warned the nation about decades ago.
the element of the rightwing that is in power today can be traced back over a century ago to the social darwinist movement that began as a counter offensive to a then infant labor movement .
the social darwinists see the poor of the world as sucking up dwindling resources that they claim the "bluebloods" and elites of the world, are by superiority of birth, rightfully entitled to .
they are in general , racist and eugenicist, social and economic elitists who do not believe in democracy , but instead believe in plutocracy --and have no qualms in using the "unwealthy with conservative values" , as the footsoldiers in their quest to set and control the national agenda.
a decent free source on-line about the history of the radical right wing is "george bush --the unauthorized biography" by chaitkin and tarpley
http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm
the radical right wing's agenda is to turn back the clock and undo the reforms made as far back as the labor movement era and the new deal of franklin roosevelt .
reagan administration's goal was to "starve the beast"-- kill the government safety nets installed during the great depression in the 1930s-40s and the "great society" era of the 60s .
the strategy to carry this out was first through huge tax cuts --50% of which went to the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers .
the second part was to begin an arms race with the then "bete noir" of that era , the soviet union (now it's the boogeyman of "international terrorism" that will be used to keep us in a $tate of perpetual war)--an anti-soviet arms race was begun by reagan which of course amounted to more corporate welfare for big defense contractors --a key reagan voting constituency
the way it worked out was this :
1. with decreased government revenues due to tax cuts the rightwing could say "the nation can no longer afford the expensive government safety nets--we need fiscal responsibility"-- which meant slash the funding to these social programs.
reagan for example , wanted ketchup declared a vegetable so that federal funding for school lunches for school kids could be slashed-- the law passed by "liberals" back in the 60s stated that federally subsidized school lunches must include two vegetables daily.
if ketchup is a vegetable ,just give the kids some ketchup with french fries and "abra-cadabra" --you've met the federal daily requirements and at significantly reduced cost.
2.at the same time that you slash social spending --which was a small fraction compared to other much larger segments of the federal budget , you create huge deficits by borrowing trillions of dollars--basically for what was the largest peacetime arms buildup in history--to counteract the hyped up "threat" of that "bete noir" soviet union --a nation that Us army intelligence said at the end of world war 2 was NO THREAT to western europe or america after being physically exhausted from having borne the BRUNT of the fight in defeating nazi-germany (sorry hollywood , "private ryan" and steve speilburg but WW2 in europe was much more than the Us invasion of italy and and "d-day").
50 years of phoney cold war and 6 to 10 trillion of taxpayer dollars spent in defense of an "enemy" that we find was scared to death of being attacked first by us --what a windfall for weapons manufacturers !!!
3.reagan bush under the banner of deregulation allow a looting hog-run at the public trough --culminating in the savings and loan debacle costing the taxpayers 150 to 300 billion dollars in bailouts to banks---more corporate welfare at the taxpayer's expense --so much for "individual responsibility"
also under the watchful eyes of the right wing , Us factories and their high paying manufacturing jobs are encouraged to leave the country and scour the third world in search of the "good old days" of penny wages , child labor , no health or retirement benefits , no environmental safeguards , and of course , NO LABOR UNIONS...
under the right wing -- americans are working more hours and earning less because of the shift from manufacturing to a service economy, and facing sky-rocketing costs for fuel , housing and medical expenses .
just 30 years ago families were still debating whether the wife should work or be a stay at home mom . dads still made enough money to support the family in many cases--most families now NEED two incomes if they want a home and a decent standard of living ---the average working american has suffered a disasterous decline in living standards --working harder just to tread water--yet many of these same now harder-working americans who happen to have conservative values somehow actually believe they have more in common with the wealthy right wing millionaires and billionaires than they do with the also harder-working americans that have been demonized as "liberals".
we look at the election of 2000 and clearly see oilman bush jr gains the whitehouse by an illegal pattern of vote suppression by the right wing
orchestrated against african americans
after the "terrorist" attacks of 9-11 bush declares that it's like "hitting the trifecta " , and implements war plans prepared well before he took office .
he invades iraq on phoney charges despite no evidence of wmd or evidence of a working relationship between osama and saddam --saddam and sons lived lifestyles of western playboys-- non-religious secularists who enjoy the luxuries of the modern world especially western suits , whiskey ,pornography, beautiful women , cars and cigars --osama is a strict , pleasure shunning religious fundamentalist, a zealot who hates the worldly pleasures saddam and sons love --osama thinks that socially and religiously that time stopped 1400 years ago ---the two would gladly kill each other if locked in the same room .
it's like teaming up hugh hefner with john the baptist and expecting a working alliance.
but we are sold a bill of goods that iraq was a threat and 300 billion dollars later with a haliburton , bechtel , brown kellog and root--all fat and well fed from sweetheart deals gouging the taxpayers while overpaying themselves and their corporate friends in every way imaginable --- now with 1500 dead americans , about 10,000 wounded and permanently maimed american soldiers --those IEDs and RPG's are a bitch on the arms , legs and genitals that all the flak jackets in the world cannot protect-- add to the human tragedy 100,000 iraqi casualties and the threat lingering in the air from 4,000,000 pounds of depleted uranium dust , NOW we see what this war was all about .
by law apparently inspired by grover norquist and passed by paul bremmer's rubber stamp iraqi governing council , iraq's oil above the ground and below the ground can now be bought up by international big oil---odd that the recent "democratic" elections in iraq --didn't have THIS issue on the ballot for voters to decide on .
but hey our recent "democratic" elections over here have a similar taint ---deliberate suppression of the african american vote in ohio--not nearly enough machines to handle the EXPECTED record turnouts ---and electronic voting machines conveniently leaving no paper trails manufactured by companies owned or controlled by ---YUP you guessed it ! members of that same wealthy religious right wing determined to make their agenda the national agenda--in other words , companies owned by "bush-buddies"
dsekou | Homepage | 03.17.05 - 2:35 pm | #
my full and as usual , lengthy response , wouldn't fit the response format there... so i posted it here...
it may not seem so , but i really don't like labels , but in this country the radical right wing is on the offensive and has been so since at least the election of ronald reagan and also the nixon/ford years before that.
i use the term radical rightwing because a distinction need be made between the person living from paycheck to paycheck who has "conservative" values that the radical right wing has decided to mouth and pay lipservice to in order to get votes , and the wealthy defense contractors-pharmaceutical giants , oil-garchs, wallstreet bankers, former military generals and former senior intel officials and now also , born again and very war-like armageddon-bible-thumping ,wealthy right wing christians---the successors to the old "military-industrial complex" that president eisenhower--a republican btw --warned the nation about decades ago.
the element of the rightwing that is in power today can be traced back over a century ago to the social darwinist movement that began as a counter offensive to a then infant labor movement .
the social darwinists see the poor of the world as sucking up dwindling resources that they claim the "bluebloods" and elites of the world, are by superiority of birth, rightfully entitled to .
they are in general , racist and eugenicist, social and economic elitists who do not believe in democracy , but instead believe in plutocracy --and have no qualms in using the "unwealthy with conservative values" , as the footsoldiers in their quest to set and control the national agenda.
a decent free source on-line about the history of the radical right wing is "george bush --the unauthorized biography" by chaitkin and tarpley
http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm
the radical right wing's agenda is to turn back the clock and undo the reforms made as far back as the labor movement era and the new deal of franklin roosevelt .
reagan administration's goal was to "starve the beast"-- kill the government safety nets installed during the great depression in the 1930s-40s and the "great society" era of the 60s .
the strategy to carry this out was first through huge tax cuts --50% of which went to the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers .
the second part was to begin an arms race with the then "bete noir" of that era , the soviet union (now it's the boogeyman of "international terrorism" that will be used to keep us in a $tate of perpetual war)--an anti-soviet arms race was begun by reagan which of course amounted to more corporate welfare for big defense contractors --a key reagan voting constituency
the way it worked out was this :
1. with decreased government revenues due to tax cuts the rightwing could say "the nation can no longer afford the expensive government safety nets--we need fiscal responsibility"-- which meant slash the funding to these social programs.
reagan for example , wanted ketchup declared a vegetable so that federal funding for school lunches for school kids could be slashed-- the law passed by "liberals" back in the 60s stated that federally subsidized school lunches must include two vegetables daily.
if ketchup is a vegetable ,just give the kids some ketchup with french fries and "abra-cadabra" --you've met the federal daily requirements and at significantly reduced cost.
2.at the same time that you slash social spending --which was a small fraction compared to other much larger segments of the federal budget , you create huge deficits by borrowing trillions of dollars--basically for what was the largest peacetime arms buildup in history--to counteract the hyped up "threat" of that "bete noir" soviet union --a nation that Us army intelligence said at the end of world war 2 was NO THREAT to western europe or america after being physically exhausted from having borne the BRUNT of the fight in defeating nazi-germany (sorry hollywood , "private ryan" and steve speilburg but WW2 in europe was much more than the Us invasion of italy and and "d-day").
50 years of phoney cold war and 6 to 10 trillion of taxpayer dollars spent in defense of an "enemy" that we find was scared to death of being attacked first by us --what a windfall for weapons manufacturers !!!
3.reagan bush under the banner of deregulation allow a looting hog-run at the public trough --culminating in the savings and loan debacle costing the taxpayers 150 to 300 billion dollars in bailouts to banks---more corporate welfare at the taxpayer's expense --so much for "individual responsibility"
also under the watchful eyes of the right wing , Us factories and their high paying manufacturing jobs are encouraged to leave the country and scour the third world in search of the "good old days" of penny wages , child labor , no health or retirement benefits , no environmental safeguards , and of course , NO LABOR UNIONS...
under the right wing -- americans are working more hours and earning less because of the shift from manufacturing to a service economy, and facing sky-rocketing costs for fuel , housing and medical expenses .
just 30 years ago families were still debating whether the wife should work or be a stay at home mom . dads still made enough money to support the family in many cases--most families now NEED two incomes if they want a home and a decent standard of living ---the average working american has suffered a disasterous decline in living standards --working harder just to tread water--yet many of these same now harder-working americans who happen to have conservative values somehow actually believe they have more in common with the wealthy right wing millionaires and billionaires than they do with the also harder-working americans that have been demonized as "liberals".
we look at the election of 2000 and clearly see oilman bush jr gains the whitehouse by an illegal pattern of vote suppression by the right wing
orchestrated against african americans
after the "terrorist" attacks of 9-11 bush declares that it's like "hitting the trifecta " , and implements war plans prepared well before he took office .
he invades iraq on phoney charges despite no evidence of wmd or evidence of a working relationship between osama and saddam --saddam and sons lived lifestyles of western playboys-- non-religious secularists who enjoy the luxuries of the modern world especially western suits , whiskey ,pornography, beautiful women , cars and cigars --osama is a strict , pleasure shunning religious fundamentalist, a zealot who hates the worldly pleasures saddam and sons love --osama thinks that socially and religiously that time stopped 1400 years ago ---the two would gladly kill each other if locked in the same room .
it's like teaming up hugh hefner with john the baptist and expecting a working alliance.
but we are sold a bill of goods that iraq was a threat and 300 billion dollars later with a haliburton , bechtel , brown kellog and root--all fat and well fed from sweetheart deals gouging the taxpayers while overpaying themselves and their corporate friends in every way imaginable --- now with 1500 dead americans , about 10,000 wounded and permanently maimed american soldiers --those IEDs and RPG's are a bitch on the arms , legs and genitals that all the flak jackets in the world cannot protect-- add to the human tragedy 100,000 iraqi casualties and the threat lingering in the air from 4,000,000 pounds of depleted uranium dust , NOW we see what this war was all about .
by law apparently inspired by grover norquist and passed by paul bremmer's rubber stamp iraqi governing council , iraq's oil above the ground and below the ground can now be bought up by international big oil---odd that the recent "democratic" elections in iraq --didn't have THIS issue on the ballot for voters to decide on .
but hey our recent "democratic" elections over here have a similar taint ---deliberate suppression of the african american vote in ohio--not nearly enough machines to handle the EXPECTED record turnouts ---and electronic voting machines conveniently leaving no paper trails manufactured by companies owned or controlled by ---YUP you guessed it ! members of that same wealthy religious right wing determined to make their agenda the national agenda--in other words , companies owned by "bush-buddies"
dsekou | Homepage | 03.17.05 - 2:35 pm | #
posted by dsekou at 4:34 PM
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