| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"George Washington Hayduke" |
| Date: |
01 Dec 2004 08:33:31 PM |
| Object: |
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts11262004.html
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush
Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns
over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of
Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who
have seized control of the US government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war, and fully
half of the country's population is enthusiastic. Many Christians
think that war in the Middle East signals "end times" and that they
are about to be wafted up to heaven. Many patriots think that,
finally, America is standing up for itself and demonstrating its
righteous might. Conservatives are taking out their Vietnam
frustrations on Iraqis. Karl Rove is wrapping Bush in the protective
cloak of war leader. The military-industrial complex is drooling over
the profits of war. And neoconservatives are laying the groundwork for
Israeli territorial expansion.
The evening before Thanksgiving Rush Limbaugh was on C-Span TV
explaining that these glorious developments would have been impossible
if talk radio and the conservative movement had not combined to break
the power of the liberal media.
In the Thanksgiving issue of National Review, editor Richard Lowry and
former editor John O'Sullivan celebrate Bush's reelection triumph over
"a hostile press corps." "Try as they might," crowed O'Sullivan, "they
couldn't put Kerry over the top."
There was a time when I could rant about the "liberal media" with the
best of them. But in recent years I have puzzled over the precise
location of the "liberal media."
Not so long ago I would have identified the liberal media as the New
York Times and Washington Post, CNN and the three TV networks, and
National Public Radio. But both the Times and the Post fell for the
Bush administration's lies about WMD and supported the US invasion of
Iraq. On balance CNN, the networks, and NPR have not made an issue of
the Bush administration's changing explanations for the invasion.
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh and National Review think there is a liberal
media because the prison torture scandal could not be suppressed and a
cameraman filmed the execution of a wounded Iraqi prisoner by a US
Marine.
Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The
Village Voice is known for Nat Henthof and his columns on civil
liberties. Every good conservative believes that civil liberties are
liberal because they interfere with the police and let criminals go
free. The Nation favors spending on the poor and disfavors gun rights,
but I don't see the "liberal hate" in The Nation's feeble pages that
Rush Limbaugh was denouncing on C-Span.
In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience
much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational
emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George
Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a
large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George
Bush.
The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple
conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals,
pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in
public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the
cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against
America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."
This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits of no facts or
analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else
is wrong. End of the debate.
That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the
Wall Street Journal Editorial page, National Review, the Weekly
Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media
where noncontroversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.
Once upon a time there was a liberal media. It developed out of the
Great Depression and the New Deal. Liberals believed that the private
sector is the source of greed that must be restrained by government
acting in the public interest. The liberals' mistake was to identify
morality with government. Liberals had great suspicion of private
power and insufficient suspicion of the power and inclination of
government to do good.
Liberals became Benthamites (after Jeremy Bentham). They believed that
as the people controlled government through democracy, there was no
reason to fear government power, which should be increased in order to
accomplish more good.
The conservative movement that I grew up in did not share the
liberals' abiding faith in government. "Power corrupts, and absolute
power corrupts absolutely."
Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil
liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the
old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands,
there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act,
which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by
calling him a terrorist with or without proof.
Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other
countries based on unverified assertions.
There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them
conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German
Brownshirts conservative.
American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the
Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent,
delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction.
Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field.
Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing
implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.
Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism
of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy. I
went overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one
of derision when I wrote that the US invasion of Iraq was a "strategic
blunder."
It is amazing that only a short time ago the Bush administration and
its supporters believed that all the US had to do was to appear in
Iraq and we would be greeted with flowers. Has there ever been a
greater example of delusion? Isn't this on a par with the Children's
Crusade against the Saracens in the Middle Ages?
Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush
administration. We have smashed Fallujah, a city of 300,000, only to
discover that the 10,000 US Marines are bogged down in the ruins of
the city. If the Marines leave, the "defeated" insurgents will return.
Meanwhile the insurgents have moved on to destabilize Mosul, a city
five times as large. Thus, the call for more US troops.
There are no more troops. Our former allies are not going to send
troops. The only way the Bush administration can continue with its
Iraq policy is to reinstate the draft.
When the draft is reinstated, conservatives will loudly proclaim their
pride that their sons, fathers, husbands and brothers are going to die
for "our freedom." Not a single one of them will be able to explain
why destroying Iraqi cities and occupying the ruins are necessary for
"our freedom." But this inability will not lessen the enthusiasm for
the project. To protect their delusions from "reality-based" critics,
they will demand that the critics be arrested for treason and
silenced. Many encouraged by talk radio already speak this way.
Because of the triumph of delusional "new conservatives" and the
demise of the liberal media, this war is different from the Vietnam
war. As more Americans are killed and maimed in the pointless carnage,
more Americans have a powerful emotional stake that the war not be
lost and not be in vain. Trapped in violence and unable to admit
mistake, a reckless administration will escalate.
The rapidly collapsing US dollar is hard evidence that the world sees
the US as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency
will adversely impact American living standards, which are already
falling as a result of job outsourcing and offshore production. The US
cannot afford a costly and interminable war.
Falling living standards and inability to impose our will on the
Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our
country.
---
Stop Elmer Fudd web site: http://www.ElmerFudd.US/
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| User: "The Last Liberal" |
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| Title: Re: An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
02 Dec 2004 04:43:59 PM |
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On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 02:33:31 GMT, (George Washington
Hayduke) wrote:
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts11262004.html
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush
Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns
over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of
Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who
have seized control of the US government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war,
No, it has not. It is an invasion, not a "war."
and fully
half of the country's population is enthusiastic.
No, they are not. Just look at the Army recruitment figures---- where
are the 55,000,000 people who voted for Bush2? Why have they not
rushed to the Army recruitment centers to sign up? What could be the
hold-up keeping them?
---
http://lastliberal.org
"Ban 'gay pride' parades. I find them to be discriminating and a
source of social unrest and upheaval." --- Jim Staal
.
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| User: "~z~" |
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| Title: Re: An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
02 Dec 2004 07:21:18 PM |
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Bush was head of the Christian Coalition, and is current spiritual leader of
the Christian right.
http://dc-dev.co.uk/bush-finger.jpg
"The Last Liberal" <desertphile@cchr.ws> wrote in message
news:319nm9F39iuhoU3@individual.net...
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 02:33:31 GMT, (George Washington
Hayduke) wrote:
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts11262004.html
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush
Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns
over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of
Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who
have seized control of the US government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war,
No, it has not. It is an invasion, not a "war."
and fully
half of the country's population is enthusiastic.
No, they are not. Just look at the Army recruitment figures---- where
are the 55,000,000 people who voted for Bush2? Why have they not
rushed to the Army recruitment centers to sign up? What could be the
hold-up keeping them?
---
http://lastliberal.org
"Ban 'gay pride' parades. I find them to be discriminating and a
source of social unrest and upheaval." --- Jim Staal
.
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| User: "nJb" |
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| Title: Re: An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
03 Dec 2004 11:58:36 AM |
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The Last Liberal wrote:
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 02:33:31 GMT, (George Washington
Hayduke) wrote:
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts11262004.html
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush
Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns
over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of
Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who
have seized control of the US government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war,
No, it has not. It is an invasion, not a "war."
and fully
half of the country's population is enthusiastic.
No, they are not. Just look at the Army recruitment figures---- where
are the 55,000,000 people who voted for Bush2? Why have they not
rushed to the Army recruitment centers to sign up? What could be the
hold-up keeping them?
---Chickenhawks voting for chickenhawks.
Jack
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| User: "nJb" |
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| Title: Re: An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
03 Dec 2004 12:00:34 PM |
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The Last Liberal wrote:
On Thu, 02 Dec 2004 02:33:31 GMT, (George Washington
Hayduke) wrote:
An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts11262004.html
I remember when friends would excitedly telephone to report that Rush
Limbaugh or G. Gordon Liddy had just read one of my syndicated columns
over the air. That was before I became a critic of the US invasion of
Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who
have seized control of the US government.
America has blundered into a needless and dangerous war,
No, it has not. It is an invasion, not a "war."
and fully
half of the country's population is enthusiastic.
No, they are not. Just look at the Army recruitment figures---- where
are the 55,000,000 people who voted for Bush2? Why have they not
rushed to the Army recruitment centers to sign up? What could be the
hold-up keeping them?
I'm sure they have "other priorities". Chickenhawks voting for
chickenhawks.
Jack
.
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| User: "The Last Liberal" |
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| Title: Re: An Era of End-Timers and Neo-Cons |
03 Dec 2004 05:21:14 PM |
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On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 11:00:34 -0700, nJb <NoNHL@all.com> wrote:
The Last Liberal wrote:
No, they are not. Just look at the Army recruitment figures---- where
are the 55,000,000 people who voted for Bush2? Why have they not
rushed to the Army recruitment centers to sign up? What could be the
hold-up keeping them?
I'm sure they have "other priorities". Chickenhawks voting for
chickenhawks.
Maybe they are too busy burning crossing in black people's front yards
and burning down Jew-owned businesses and temples.
Jack
---
http://lastliberal.org
"All you've really given us is fake saint's blood ('Here for a
limited time Only! By the Pint or the Quart!') Wine that turns
into blood, with an entree of godburger ('Ya want Friars wid dat?')
And a Indian who brings roses to the local christian religious
overlord... Now you topped it with a girl who hallucinates, and
a girl who bleeds all over the place... This is gross Willie,
are the only 'miracles' you can come up with full of blood and
hysteria?" --- Rena Mcgee
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