Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Evil Liberal John Dean Speaks


While America-hating radical Liberal Barry Goldwater looks on.

For all the general bebitching and bemoaning about the horrible state of public discourse in this country (now that Progressives have started to counterpunch) we Lefties are always faced with three, glaringly obvious facts:
1. The Right started this fucking firestorm. The evidence is overwhelming and incontrovertible. They did it to court the extreme, rightwing theocrats and racists that now have taken over their Party, and without whom it would be impossible for them to ever win another election. They did it coldly and with deliberate calculation.

2. Efforts to laugh off or “meet them halfway” have been a failure. Efforts at appeasement of the Mussolini-hearted men who rule the GOP have yielded nothing on the Left but the failed triangulation policy that keeps DLC consultants in big cake and hairplugs…and nothing from the Right except howls of laughter. In the absolutist conservative lexicon, Compromise = Capitulation, and therefore view compromise as spineless and cowardly. So at any effort to find genuine compromise and simply they redouble their “Liberals are vacillating Frenchmen who believe in nothing” narrative. Converselym any effort at standing pat on principle and they redouble their “Liberals are obstructionist” hooligans narrative.

To the Modern Conservative, democracy is a zero-sum-game and Liberals are not the opposition, but the Enemy. To be wiped out as expeditiously as possible.

3. The Persistent Vegetative Press have long since been beaten and starved to the point of abject capitulation, so no joy there. They steadfastly and conspicuously refuse to report on one of the biggest stories of the last 40 years: that Republican Party has been taken over by Stalinists. Instead they have positively sprinted in the opposite direction: burying any story that is critical of the GOP qua GOP, and forever fishing around in the margins for ways in which they can cast the Left as somehow equally and oppositely bad as the Right.

This “Fallacy of False Bisection” is the Conservative Propaganda Firewall; the press’ protective delusion that the “Center” is the Absolute Good wherever is happens to be located today. So that all a Conservative needs to do to radically shift the debate in his direction is to keep charging deeper into the twilight Tyranny/Fascism territory. And, no matter how far he goes, because the Lapdog Press has no fixed principle except “balance”, they will dutifully pace off half the distance between Ann Coulter and the Democrat Du Jure and arbitrarily declare that THIS is where the Reasonable Middle should be.

Today.

Ignoring, of course, the fact that tomorrow the "Center" will be 100 miles to the Right, and since Theocrat Conservative starting playing this game, “the Right” has been dragged so many million parsecs to the Right, the beliefs of a New Reasonable Middle Man would make Richard Nixon look like a Socialist.
So with the Press stiff and cold and the Right gone mad, who are we talking to anymore?

In the short term, I have always believed we are talking to the actual middle.

People who many have signed up with the Conservatives because they bought Rush’s despicable lies, because it gave them someone to blame and there was no one to tell them otherwise.

People who should be Democrats, but watched the Democrats roll over and try to play nice-nice with the GOP as it was infested and seized by the scum of the Earth, instead of whipping the crap out of them.

People who have been conned into believing they are forced to choose between “strong, vicious and stupid” and “weak, cowardly and smart”. Who have been brainwashed (with the assistance of Vichy Democrats) into thinking that those are their only options. Who hate those choices and long for others, but also know, in a dangerous world, stronger is a better bet.

People respond to strength, which is why when Dems fight -- really and persistently fight -- Dems eventually win.

Because our ideas really are better (and among them, yes, we will be raising taxes. Fucking-A. We’ll be rolling back the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, Day One, 8:00, you mooching, thieving pricks.)

Our theologies are better – all of ‘em!

Our sense of humanity and compassion is not only vastly superior, but something we are actually proud of.

We love our Constitution and not just our Flag.

We don’t think the end of the world is either inevitable or desirable: We pray for peace and a million more years of sunrises, and not for fucking Armageddon.

We respect the lessons on past, but passionately believe in the future; we fight for it and not some delusional, idealized, Disneyfied, Conservative Times of Yore that never existed.

We love our Nation Ideals and not just our zip code.

Our women are sexier and smarter and stronger that you can possibly comprehend. And instead of finding that threatening and terrifying, we find it...magnificent.

Our culture is healthier.

And although we love our beer, our Liberal Chardonnay kicks ass.

That’s in the short term.

In the longer term we are all addressing the Future. The generations yet unborn who will look back at America and wonder just what in the fuck happened to make us lose our natural minds!

Well, consider what would happen if we still lived in a society where “proof” actually meant something. Where clapping your hands over your ears and whirling away dervish-like screaming “La-La-La-I-Cannot-Hear-You” when confronted with facts would get you mocked and laughed at, and not appointed to head the local Republican Party.

Consider, say, the case of Albert Einstein and general relativity (In the end how do you know you're a geek? When all your little parables seem to feature a little physics)…
… of all the thousands of eclipses studied by scientists, the most important one was the eclipse of 1919, which was able to provide the clinching evidence in favour of one of the most revolutionary ideas in the history of physics, namely Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Although general relativity was a radically new formulation of gravity, its predictions were largely consistent with Newton’s highly successful theory of gravity. However, Einstein’s theory did make one or two predictions which distinguished it from Newton’s theory, and, if true, these predictions would show that Einstein’s model was closer to reality. For example, Einstein predicted that a gravitational field should bend rays of light much more than was expected by Newton’s theory of gravity. Although the effect was too small to be observed in the laboratory, Einstein calculated that the immense gravity of the massive sun would deflect a ray of light by 1.75 seconds of arc – less that one thousandth of a degree, but twice as large as the deflection according to Newton, and significant enough to be measured.

Einstein pictured a scenario whereby the straight line of sight between a star and an observer on earth would be just blocked by the edge of the sun. Einstein believed that the star would still be visible because gravity would bend the rays of light around the sun and towards the earth. The sighting of a star that should have been blocked by the sun would prove Einstein right, but it is generally to impossible to see starlight that passes close to the sun, because it is swamped by the brilliance of the sun itself. However, during an eclipse, the sun is blacked out by the moon, and under such conditions a gravitationally distorted star should be visible.
Light bends, so general relativity is true (well, relatively.)

The Sun does not travel around the Earth, and a look through any telescope proves it.

It doesn’t matter that “germs” ain’t mentioned in the Bible: Cough on a slide, look at it under a microscope, and tell me what you see.

Now take a look at this video



(originally found at Crooks and Liars) and see the evidence for our current plight just as unambiguous and quantifiable as orbital mechanics or the speed of light.

If you have the time, watch the whole thing, and to read the book, and realize that John Dean is, at heart, a lifelong and loyal old-school Conservative.

That his idol and friend was Barry Goldwater: Father of the Conservative Movement and a man who absolutely reviled the maggoty thing is had mutated into at the hands of the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

That what he is saying strongly parallels some of what founding Conservative Bill Buckley has already said.

And what Kevin Phillips (former Republican strategist and author of "The Emerging Republican Majority") said in his most recent treatise, “'American Theocracy”.

Conservatives all, each practically screaming in their own way that Conservativism is dead, gone, hollowed out and is being worn as sheep's clothing by despicable men who hate and oppose everything the Original Conservatives ever stood for.

So not only do Modern Conservative have contempt for the Founders of our country, they have moved so far into the abyss that they actually dismiss, ignore and revile the Founders of their own ideology.

Consider the numbers Dean is citing: That 23% of the American population are “pure, rightwing Authoritarian followers”. That a tiny fraction – perhaps 1% -- are Liberal, but the rest, the overwhelming majority, identify as Conservatives.

So right there you can kiss any precious pet theory of “balance” goodbye.

Then consider the shameful fact that only about half of the eligible public actually votes during Presidential elections anyway, and quite a bit less at the midterms. And given that it’s a pretty good bet that the 23% who are aggressive, dogmatic followers of a Dear Leader will be much more likely to find their way to the polls, they will be far more represented in the voting half of Americans than in the non-voting half.

So, being conservative (pun intended), lets say 40% of the actually voting public are those “pure, rightwing Authoritarian followers”

And then consider that the numerical split between Dems and Republicans is about 50/50, and the “pure, rightwing Authoritarian followers” tend to overwhelmingly be Conservatives, you end up with damned near 70-80% of Republican voters fitting this profile.

Then, just for good measure, figure out from your own experience how many voters of any Party are actually agenda-driving “activists” -- the ones who pound the pavement, evangelize and make and enforce policy and discipline -- and what kind of Leaders, Policy Makers and Disciplinarians you are likely to grow in this Brownshirt Hothouse, and you begin to see what Liberals have seen and tried to warn this nation about for decades.

That the Grand Old Party has been taken over by monsters.

That based on their perverse theology and enraged-sheep psychological makeup, they have very deliberately driven the traditional democratic model of leadership out of their Party in favor of an aggressively Authoritarian paradigm that is clear in its direction, ideology and intent.

That the GOP has a fascist soul.

Which is why we have to fight like hell. For our values. For our nation. And for that 10% in the middle.

Because appeasing people like this never works; just ask your fathers and grandfathers.

And because, specific programs, policies and timetables aside, in America when one Party openly runs on a single-planked platform of “FEAR” under the “Jebusland Uber Alles” banner, that should damned well be a good enough reason to vote for the other guys.

17 comments:

jurassicpork said...

Hell, we've been counterpunching since around 2002, Drifty. They're just starting to get around to noticing us because we're finally getting too big and loud to ignore. To quote Paulie in Rocky IV: "We're the unsilent majority, bigmouth!"

Speaking of counterpunching, Mo Do's latest is up a day early and I'm glad that she's finally back on the political beat. Contrary to my personal tradition, I have some handy-dandy illustrations to go along with her byline, in case ya'll get lost.

dcnative said...

That interview is frightening, especially for someone who grew up thinking Dean was part of the Nixon Axis of Evil. I don't know if I have the courage to read the book, but thanks for highlighting it. It explains why there are so few equivalent famous Liberal leaders and no dedicated followers. That's what thinking for yourself gets you. I hope we wake up, especially before the midterms this year.

Anonymous said...

Not to get all bookish and shit,, but S. Gordon Allport, an (imho) esteemed psychologist, has written extensively upon the subject of authoritarianism and its role in the merikan family. I re-read it from time to time. Dr. Allport's writings encapsulate the themes expressed by Mr. Dean. What strikes me is how widespread that authoritarianism has become in the usa.

I am reminded by an old line by Eugene Ionesco which goes to the heart of the matter; ' The leader has no head'.

Heaven help us. We are in deep doodoo.

Anonymous said...

Good stuff, Drift.

You nailed the "postional" crap of the right.

Anonymous said...

DG- thanks for articulating the pith essence of where we are, and pointing us towards the exit. Big kudos to KO for actually presenting news in an intelligent format, and John Dean for telling the truth.

Anonymous said...

oh oh! Eugene Ionesco alert! As a former 'Mr. Smith' player, I bring you a selected short from,

The Bald Soprano:

"The Fire"

The polypoids were burning in the wood

A stone caught fire

The castle caught fire

The forest caught fire

The men caught fire

The women caught fire

The birds caught fire

The fish caught fire

The water caught fire

The sky caught fire

The ashes caught fire

The smoke caught fire

The fire caught fire

Everything caught fire

Caught fire, caught fire.

MRS. MARTIN: That sent chills up my spine...

MR. MARTIN: And yet there's a certain warmth in those lines...

jurassicpork said...

Joe Lieberman, at the very least, has become a lightning rod of debate as to what Democrats should or shouldn't be. When looks at what a traitor Lieberman is, it's only natural for voters in other states to look to their own legislators and to start reappraising them with squinted eyes.

And when these voters look at the Bidens and the Hillarys long enough, they may not like what they see.

You know what the Democrats' problem is? No sense of timing or a sense of opportunism. And the Lieberman/Lamont campaign is helping to draw attention to that fact. The other NE Democratic senators could put the final nails in his political coffin by withholding their support, as John Murtha has, but they won't.

And George Bush is always right, btw.

Mister Roboto said...

I would also add to Uncle Drifty's list the Reality of Red-State Fascism essay by libertarian conservative thinker Lew Rockwell. This guy is somebody who thinks we liberals are all wet on economic issues but recognizes the fact that we're mostly trustworthy (at least when not influenced by "PC" silliness) on civil liberties issues.

Anonymous said...

That his idol and friend was Barry Goldwater: Father of the Conservative Movement and a man who absolutely reviled the maggoty thing is had mutated into at the hands of the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Drifty, methinks you're taking a somewhat Disneyfied view of the "old school" GOP. Read Gore Vidal's old piece on Goldwater and Republicans from days of yore and you'll see that they haven't changed one iota. The GOP has always, at least since the Civil War, been the stupid wing of the Party of Property (the Democrats are the other, somewhat more enlightened, wing of the same party). The GOP fought like hell to prevent the Statue of Liberty from being given to our country, and wouldn't give a penny when the gift became inevitable, because they despised immigrants and poor people so much. And nothing has changed.

Anonymous said...

Nailed it once again, drifty. I'll be printing this out and forcing people to read it.

BitterHarvest said...

Because our ideas really are better (and among them, yes, we will be raising taxes. Fucking-A. We’ll be rolling back the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, Day One, 8:00, you mooching, thieving pricks.)

I love it that you're not afraid to take a stand on issues when conservatives draw a line in the sand, D. Watch that you don't idealize those old-school conservatives too much, though. William F. Buckley is a rank propagandist and always has been.

Anonymous said...

But lots of folks are praying for Armageddon, because they want it. And I don't mean the leaders, but the folks on the ground.
And don't be braggin' about smarter, stronger women. What red-blooded Amerikan man wants a smart woman?!? They are just full of back-talk and vinegar, those damned, smart, uppity womenfolk.
And did you really say "Liberal Chardonnary?" You will not win a single red vote with that phrase.
Drifty, I dig what your saying, but I don't think those fellas on the other side of the aisle will. This was "addressed" to them, right?

Anonymous said...

Drifty,
Sorry to redirct from your most excellent post, but there's something that everyone should see.
Gang, stop by crookandliars and watch Donny Deutsch debate Ann Coulter. It is well worth a look.
He called her a human being, and she just laughed.

jurassicpork said...

I had the same reaction.

Anonymous said...

mr fibble
"When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."

~Barry Goldwater WaPo 1994

Buckley, an asshole perhaps, but never stupid. Some claim Goldwater changed with age, but he was always a libertarian and he had a hands-off philosophy on social issues...such as gays serving openly in the military.

Anonymous said...

Henry Holland - do a Google search.

The Los Angeles Times article was picked up by other newspapers, and you can get it from them.
e.g.
Link to Hastening the apocalypse
Christians, Muslims and Jews nudge return of the messiah
By Louis Sahagun
Los Angeles Times

Evangelist John C. Hagee speaks at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, Calif., asking local pastors to support Israel during the apocalypse. He has helped 12,000 Russian Jews move to Israel and donated millions to its hospitals and orphanages.

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Anonymous said...

Super color scheme, I like it! Good job. Go on.
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