Paul Krugman succinctly sums up the media’s belated understanding of the relationship among Fox News, Rightist Talk Radio, political extremism and now murders. He says in passing, “And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.”
Here at STSOZ since the early 2000s we diagnosed the differences among the Movement, its various strands and ‘Republicans”. Long ago we tried to explain that the Movement is the controlling parasite astride its enfeebled Republican host. The Movement’s reaction to Obama’s 2008 victory only underscores the point.
Today’s ‘mainstream media’ still do not fully understand the dichotomy. Or its implications. They still treat ‘Republicans’ and Democrats as equivalent political actors playing the same game by the same rules for the same prizes. As long as relative neophytes view politics in this prism, the Movement wins.
What we here at STSOZ call the Movement within the conservative base always plays a different game for a different prize. The Movement may speak in normal political talking points from ‘Republican’ institutions. Yet it isn’t not committed to Dahl-esque pluralistic politics. It has never sought or tolerated compromise or ‘moderation’. That’s because for the Movement, politics is existential warfare. Compromise is defeat.
Because Krugman et al. fail to grasp the fundamental differences among the Movement, the former Republican and Democratic parties, talking heads tell Americans the Movement is just the ‘Republican base’. As if somehow the Movement and its Manichean zero-sum nihilism is the same as the Democratic base. Say like the Sierra Club or unions.
It wasn’t always like this, of course. Until 1992 the Republican Party remained the dominant organizational entity and kept the Movement as a subordinate coalition partner within bounds. But after the Bush debacle in ’92, the Movement learned to seize power on its own within and without the Republican Party. The signs began with the Movement’s no longer filtered rage, paranoia, and conspiracy fever in 1993. By the 1994 midterms, the Movement began to eclipse the Republican establishment. By 2001-2008, the Movement completed its eclipse and take over of the old Republican Party.
The Movement is a self-contained functional social, cultural and political creature. Under Bush-Cheney, it tasted unfiltered power for 6 years and hung on for 2 more. Its Counter-Enlightenment, racial, authoritarian /hierarchical impulse was the official American government. With Obama’s victory its rejection is not only personal; for the first time, in 2006 and 2008, it as dominant political force (not as a minor coalition partner within the Republican Party) was rejected publicly.
For the Movement, as we said, politics is existential. And when survival is on the line, pluralistic compromise is for chumps. The stakes are higher than something so trite as the Constitution, etc. We saw this in part through Addington, Cheney et al. with their view on the Unitary Executive. As I wrote a while ago, during a lunch with John Ashcroft after his tenure as AG, he quite blithely said the President is entitled to ignore Congress and its laws — the only thing that matters is the plebiscite on a president because it is national. He then added if the president is re-elected that by definition means the country ratified everything he has done, even secret stuff the nation doesn’t know about.
Existential combat in ideological struggle for survival with a natural affinity for hierarchical organizations and militarized speech and thought patterns. Do you see now why to the Movement any criticism of Bush as Warlord was akin to treason? It’s not only mere warfare for any given news cycle, but deeply rooted in the non-liberal democratic, pre-Enlightenment agenda.
The Krugman and Joan Walsh fantasy that some ‘Republicans’ are going to put a stop to the Movement is a joke. This is precisely why a moderate Republican is actually the Movement’s greatest enemy. More than any Democrat. It’s often surreal.
We spent time in DeLay’s, Armey’s, Hastert’s and other offices discussing Republican ‘moderates’. The rage can not be described. ‘Communists’ or worse – much, much worse. Same on the Senate side. As we’ve said here many times before, if Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi or Daschle/Harry Reid didn’t exist, the Movement would create them. They need them as foils and useful idiots. But a moderate Republican must be destroyed or marginalized where ever possible. (In polite company they are denounced as ‘squishes.’ In private, the language is eliminationist). It’s a psychology familiar to students of European radical political history.
The Movement is unable to accept loss of power or control through liberal democratic means. The Movement’s eschatology is to higher truths than liberal democratic government: race, security, nationalism, order, security. The Movement’s psychology generates the rage as its Counter-Enlightenment agenda is revealed, expands in power and then snatched away. This compels instinctive de-legitimization of any political figure or movement that does not share its essential values and cultural (including racial) agenda.
Who are ‘Mainstream Republicans’ the Joan Walshes of the world call out to take on the Movement parasite? Defenestration of Tom Davis in VA and Arlen are old news.
There continue to be so many dog whistles going on. Key issues like race unify the Movement up and down the educational and socio-economic ladders.
In the case of racism, overt comments allow all quickly to depict a discovered outburst as an ‘isolated, unacceptable incident’, etc. The nativism swirling around the immigration debates is an easy example. Pat Buchanan long swam in those waters now plied by Lou Dobbs.
But what Krugman likely knows and won’t say is that some of the most refined, intelligent ‘conservative intellectuals’ at the highest so-called education and socio-economic levels trade in racism behind hi tech euphemism. It’s by code word, by invitation. At its core is the same pseudo genetic ‘science’ from Chamberlain (not Neville), etc. Again, most of it recycled from the Old World. Now, trussed up with slick Silicon Valley tech talk these conversations seek to mask old racial tropes.
Gender hierarchy issues play out the same way. Religion and moral posings are used to mask more primal racial and reproductive control. Sound ridiculous? You’d be surprised. An interesting fault line is the position of conservative Catholicism for the Movement. It’s a dual edged sword. Movement proponents of genetic racial agendas embrace the Catholic predisposition against birth control, etc. Yet the Catholic Church is (along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) one of the biggest proponents of immigration leniency for its own narrow institutional interests.
The Movement’s loyalty to higher existential values rather than ‘mere process’ like democracy (something Buchanan in his prime fumed about all the time) is overt. When one understands this dynamic, then the relative silence about Dr. Tiller’s murder, or the right wing extremism that let to Officer Johns heroic courage makes sense. As a famous ‘Republican’ once told me, he’d rather live an American version of Franco than have to deal with multiculturalism. *That’s* how existentialism trumps liberal democracy.
The Stiftung over decades worked with and saw first hand the Movement’s use of covert signals while using pluralist political platforms. If the Stiftung has seen and heard this stuff from Capitol Hill to refined salons in the Imperial City and across the country, so has everyone else. Anyone covering politics seriously can not miss them.
Krugman above just touched on three overriding conversations critical to the nation: (i) can the rump Movement ever be reconciled to participating in a liberal democratic society?; (ii) what is the price we pay for a enfeebled ‘Republican Party’ host shell paralyzed by the more powerful Movement?; and (iii) how can American liberal democracy be served if the media itself really doesn’t understand what it is reporting — *or more damningly* — won’t?
We all warned them, together 2006-2009 explicitly.
Here, Buzzfeed uncovers a tip of the iceberg.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism
As late as October 2016, a (nice, very well-intentioned) national NYT political reporter appeared on a DC panel with US foreign policy types on the Clinton emails and the elections. We outlined on camera the entire architecture of the white nationalist mechanism behind Trump, including names and dates going back years. He rejected the premise, as did the others. He said to general approval “the US doesn’t have a white ethnic tribal problem at all”. Now, of course, tout le monde knows and always knew. America, 2016-17.
Don’t forget smart professional political pundits insisted for critical months in 2016 that Trump was all about *economics*.
People were and are paid to be putative political experts. Yet, if they missed the obvious for so many years in front of our faces, what kind of hubris leads them to now claim to lead opinion for the future?
Just saw on Twitter your reference to this post. I re-read this one (along with your follow up comment on 07.01.2009) from time to time as it is one of my favorites from The Bunker. What you wrote here was so far ahead of its time.
Over the last 7+ years, there have been a few glimmers of people “getting it”, of awareness that the GOP is merely a name brand of a political party that has been co-opted by a counter-Enlightenment white nationalist “christianist” cult. From my limited consumption of US media and thought leaders, it seems like that idea is still far from mainstream. This despite all of the things the Trump campaign has done to put it out there in front of everyone’s faces. Maybe because his whole campaign has been so surreal, the actual realization that the GOP is not a political party interested in governance doesn’t register for most people? While media types want to keep pretending so as not to lose out on their access and click-bait friendly “it’s a horse race” type stories?
@Sam Lowry Thanks Sam, interesting to see awareness evolve even if it is, as you note, “mild”. Still, progress, right?
Krugman calling out (mildly) “the commentariat” and making many of the points that have been discussed in The Bunker for years: Kthug: Say Anything
It’s as if you say it here, it comes out there.
(H/T Balloon Juice)
Where is the rss feed?
@jersey
We garble things all the time. Kind members of our merry troupe here bail us out a lot.
The paragraph here, however, is a not one of those instances. It’s a pretty clear and concise summary of what our cozy community worked on for years at STSOZ 1.0. It makes sense if one understands the raison d’etre for that effort. More so than say Tweety’s hamfisted ‘documentary’ that came to the party at a minimum six years too late.
“It’s funny how the commentariat class are so visceral in trying to suppress ‘upstarts’ and new entrants.”
-A great example is that video clip of a nervous, petulant, and annoyed Dana Milbank sharing the stage on Howie Kurtz show with Nico from HuffPo (who asked a far more ‘Serious’ question of Obama than Dana ever has).
Milbank as Yglesias (self-interestedly) noted was stewing in status anxiety.
Milbank is part of the cosy decadent DC scene – He’s even Skull and Bones, which suggests something silly in New Haven.
Nico tooled on him on TV and Milbank called him a “dick” between segments.
Thanks for pointing that out – we tuned the whole ‘controversy’ out assuming it was empty but that is a priceless gem.
DM aside, the overall print commentariat seems emotionally stressed. Beyond the financial/job cutback thing. When we’ve chatted with acquaintances at wire services or other places, especially those over 45 or so, they seem genuinely freaked. Understandably in this economy they’re anxious about ‘what next?’ when the slip comes.
But it’s really more. They know print is dead. And all they do is print. How to reinvent oneself at 45-60 with no real discernible concrete job skill set? it seems a very legitimate question that alot (millions?) of Americans are asking themselves. It’s like a doctor who realizes in three years all humans will be self healing and have no need for them except the print journalist doesn’t have even the benefit of specialized skills/technical training.
In a way it’s easy to sit back and enjoy. How many of these same souls wrote blithely that Detroit should die, NYC in the 1970s collapse, and celebrated that the Internet in the 1990s would wipe out whole industries ‘with creative destruction’? And all was ok — ‘everyone would just go get job training’?
But in a way their plight is a mirror of the larger jobless recovery reality. Human capital mobility is mostly mythical and supporting statistics often either faked, incomplete or both. Everyone, especially our feminist friends, know the sexism when E.D. Hill at Fox, for example, nears 40 and disappears. Video all concede is age-ist. But these white males say 55-60 with no specific trade skills or professional license in a way are equally screwed (for the first time, compared to other backgrounds or genders who’ve long known the feeling).
None of which excuses DM. Wow.
_______________
Then there’s this:
http://bloggasm.com/out-of-work-journalist-descends-below-new-york-to-become-subway-musician
@ Alex
LOL, touche. One shouldn’t take it all at face value because frankly besides truly deep policy and natural smarts, it seems clear some people have a talent — like having perfect pitch musically — for both leading meme and policy debates as well as (to mix metaphors) identify and catch the perfect wave. So that gift combined with policy expertise can lead to spectacular and perhaps unmatched results.
Given your own witty and insightful blog, perhaps you have your own perspective which would be fascinating.
The trouble with D.C. is it is a one industry town and the industry really produces nothing but words, which become terribly close to ego and self identity. In NYC before the final collapse (say 1980s/early 1990s) one could encounter and battle with people over tangible things — deals and money, media contracts, and so on. Egos are huge but associated with something else.
In D.C., by contrast , when someone succeeds so spectacularly others are threatened solely on the ego front, there’s no tangible compensating ‘else’. Even more than the City, D.C. worships success but roots for failure. It’s funny how the commentariat class are so visceral in trying to suppress ‘upstarts’ and new entrants.
What we also love about this particular example is how not only was there the talent and astounding discipline required for successful self-branding (that is 100% a compliment, no irony) but also very skillful use of new technologies beyond just a blog. The threat to the old school think tank and commentariat classes was like one giant sweeping encirclement ala Cannae.
The truth is unlike thousands of monkeys, typewriters and the Bard, one has ‘it’ (however defined) or doesn’t it seems. And as much as we wish we could implement, copy, or study that pattern, in our heart of hearts we a know for a fact that within 10 days we’d be back to writing self-indulgent semi-haiku type posts with doodles attached. Unlike the Monkees who thought they could actually play, we know we’re not gonna blow the roof off Bill Graham’s old Filmore.
Ironic – We agree with the fact that Franken is a policy wonk (an annoying term that actually fits Franken) – But he is not a funny guy. Inhofe was wrong – Franken is not a clown – actually Inhofe is sort of a clown of a type – Franken is a wonk – an annoying term for a not funny comic:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/al-franken-policy-wonk.php
Oh – this is the link we were referring to above:
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/07/plurality-of-americans-have-un.html
This made us laugh – It’s a meaningless poll because most people don’t really know him enough to say. But never the less Franken has always been an annoying character and we never understood why he was considered a comic worth paying. His humor was always unctuous and banal. He struck as a bore. He’s a smart guy, but a tranparent misanthrop who tries and fails to mask it with faux-jocularity from time to time. We enjoy the fact he annoyed BillO etc, but so what. His fat joke against Limbaugh sort of meant nothing.
His air america show was a painful listen – It amazes that people dig his humor. He had the perfect opposition with Coleman – an empty suit pol.
His success at SNL was a reflection of a lack of free market in comedy at the time – His college pals promoted him and vica versa. So he became labeled “funny,” even though he really was not.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/07/plurality-of-americans-have-un.html
Pretty crazy stuff:
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/07/aipac-spy-figure-larry-frankli.html
There’s another story on that blog with Franklin speaking – some of what he says sounds very odd – but sadly plausible – that he would have to go outside to speak to his own superiors. Sort of like Harmon seeking lobbyists to get her a leadership spot. This kind
of thing speaks to a larger corruption similar in some
respects to the way corporate interests commander various committes.
Franklin is probably still not thinking clearly.
It is tremendously sad that some people have prospered who did bad things.
WaPo RIP
http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/blog/washington-post-rip
This individual blossomed from obscure think tanker in 2005 to blog supernova, guest of the fawning Rachel Maddow, recipient of generous grant monies and host of big name programs/events that turn most of his think tank ‘friends’ (this is Washington, D.C.) green with envy behind his back.
Shall we guess?
@ Anon — Howdy Anon, and mea culpa for the hassle of searching such disorganized items here and at 1.0. As per Hunter’s encouragement, will try to devote part of the holiday weekend to re-organizing more consistent themes from both sites and add them as permanent pages like the also in need of updating art gallery, etc.
“Old posts are a painful read on any anti-Bush blog.”
Agree – just happened to run into some folks who were old friends and were on the warlord’s bandwagon and filled with the kool aid – We could not even bother chatting during those years (ex ‘why don’t you support the troops? are you French or something?’) – But that was all so
over and it now seems like a bad dream as we chatted about good old times and acted as if warlord never happened.
Only found this blog recently – via balloon juice – and took me days of digging through archives to find the Movement posts. Would be nice if there was a way to quickly access those, for the next curious lurker.
Old posts are a painful read on any anti-Bush blog. The pain of those who saw him and his ilk for what they were, and couldn’t do a thing to stop it… The bad memories. And the certainty that whatever we suspected was going on, it will be proved much worse when light shines on it, like the torture issue.
The wow gold and viagra spam on 1.0 comments are such a crime! Yet somehow fitting because while you, me and others blogged about Strauss and the Warlord, the rest of the population just paid attention to the spam that was presented on TV and mass media.
My only request for 3.0 is that you keep on giving good insights on what’s going on. Like Billmon, I no longer blog myself, for years. Was just too hard. But enjoy reading others who still have the passion and energy to do so.
I second the call to keep the name. Also, before any 3.0 transition, I absolutely would love a Bring Down Statement (perhaps heavy with links to some greatest hits from both 1.0 and 2.0). Just my $0.02.
Quickly – we disagree with your friend’s idea of retiring a joke – In fact, after a ‘decent interval’ the joke becomes funny again for different reasons. You should keep it running, like a daemon or something. If it annoys people, then it still has comic potential.
The creative impulse that led to SLS is transferable to a completely fresh enterprise – with a different name and a different focus. But you can still do both.
We can elaborate more on our various theories about why we think this later on.
We have to give it some thought – In the meantime – we see Mort Zuckerman on c-span discussing that hezb plot that was wound up in Egypt – There was always much about that whole thing that did not really add up. Esp – the part about attacking international shipping – Any thoughts?
We remember first realizing his intellectual tourette syndrome (with respects to those actually afflicted). And his incoherent public pirouettes. His very existence as presence (let alone appointment) is merely another sign of CIA’s imminent institutional death in the 1990s through to the end.
If anyone knows if he is dumb enough to have a Twitter account, please advise. We in general avoid Twitter like the plague but would make an exception for that guy. The pure random thinking would be almost fit for MOMA.
________________
As for the requests for a more developed analysis of the Movement as both historical phenomenon and its contemporary individuals, it’s something that we have gone into at great length over the years at Stop The Spirit Of Zossen 1.0 and now here at 2.0 (and like the now ubiquitous iPhone we suppose we will have to ‘upgrade’ eventually to 3.0 for appearance’s sake). Long time readers are familiar with it all. Perhaps we should do the equivalent of a ‘Bring Down Statement’ to re-assemble/re-mix/summarize it all again.
Suffice to say that we have described with *what we hope* is precision and self restraint over the years our in depth real, personal working and social experiences with many of the most famous Movement figures of the last 20 years or so. This includes oblique but precise references to our in depth interactions across the Warlord’s regime from OSD to HLS to OMB. Even the bowels of GSA. Not to mention across both houses of Congress with members and staffers. We’ve been invited to the Warlord’s White House for national security signing ceremony and saw the actually slight figure strut to sign what we helped write.
Some of the non-national security laws that we discuss here (and allow you to buy books, stocks and iTunes online with a click) began their iterations as humble blank screens on the Stiftung’s Word program and pathetic Wintel machines. We’ve described in general terms from personal experience what happens sometimes at 2:30 AM in an empty congressional hearing room with special interest parasites (no one even remotely considering the public interest (a quaint joke under the Warlord) was ever present, naturally). And the chaos of conference madness and many a legislative firefight.
We also happen to know many of the Neocons and national security figures discussed here under formal and informal circumstances. Our participation in that arena is known to those who know and frankly not to those who don’t.
Beyond these specific if discreet (we hope) details re specific individuals we’ve devoted a great deal of bits – in fact a truck load — to discussing political philosophy, its role in shaping the contemporary Movement (often without its awareness), and its roots here domestically as well as often mimicked unknowingly from the Continent’s Counter-Enlightenment.
________________
All of which raises the question again of whither the Stiftung and STSOZ in 2009. A friend of ours who ran a successful presidential campaign suggested that the SLS ‘joke’ be retired. His political sense was that few if any can recall why it is in fact a joke. He recommended the blog transform from ‘inside baseball joke’ to a vehicle for successful individual personal branding and self-promotion. You know, with a driver’s license-ish photo in the upper left corner, a tip jar, Google ad sense, etc. His version of STSOZ 3.0 perhaps.
We have a mutual acquaintance (his friend, my acquaintance) who did precisely that. This individual blossomed from obscure think tanker in 2005 to blog supernova, guest of the fawning Rachel Maddow, recipient of generous grant monies and host of big name programs/events that turn most of his think tank ‘friends’ (this is Washington, D.C.) green with envy behind his back.
If only it were so easy. It seems to us to take a certain kind of thick skin to self-promote like that and a (to us) distasteful habit (necessity?) of both narcissistic ‘I’ and shameless name dropping. But he persevered — and this is a ruthless place. Now without a doubt because of his self-branded blog he’s a permanent fixture in the D.C. and even international policy constellation. After all, Howard Fineman told Tweety he’s a serious guy on air a couple of years ago, so like Moe Green he made his bones a while back.
We are actually glad for his success and shake our head at his ‘friends’ backstabbing. Watching his transformation into meme heavy weight showed us it takes a certain grit to bootstrap oneself so successfully. Like any good stadium pop music act, what looks like effortless inevitability began with alot of hard work, absolutely bullet-proof sensitivity to ego slights and refusal to stop.
We have said and still believe he should be in the Administration both because of talent and policy expertise. Apparently, the very traits that boosted his success rubbed some in the transition the wrong way. Beyond ruthless, the place is fickle.
A long winded explanation that can be summed up thusly: many of the questions asked are answered over the years as the sinew and marrow of this site and its precursor. We used SLS as a joke during the Dark Years. Over at the Unqualified Offerings site (a great libertarian site btw) a few years ago they joked that we were really a janitor or gym coach blogging. Alas, we lack the skills for either of those professions as well.
We have as much fun making the graphics for the site as we do exchanging written ideas with our merry band. Perhaps STSOZ 3.0 will move into the post-text world and be purely graphic symbology.
We’re open to suggestions. This site belongs to all of our readers (lurkers only get time share rights). But just know that at heart we are like countless unknown indie bands who reject the pleading and cajoling of their record producers to lay down more accessible tracks.
The public face is that integrity prevents it. The truth? We actually don’t know how.
Scheur is brilliant if he is a Cheney/neocon double agent looking to discredit the anti-interventionist pov. His deplorable performance before Congress – complete with pseudo-tough talk about not caring about non – americans (worst of both worlds – he is both a chickenhawk but without the sometimes charming love for military endeavors for noble causes).
His anti-Israel comments are always over-the-top and poorly phrased and not contextualized – as if he were auditioning to be an AEI straw man.
Then he boasts about his religiousness and his Catholicism – in such a manner to be an anti-evangelist of sorts, by providing an ogre-ish example
Via Andrew Sullivan —
Michael Scheuer on Fox calling for a new terrorist attack to stop ‘the liberals.’
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e2011570a43e97970c
The only comment one might add is that Scheuer is unstable as a meme weathervane simply because he has such a profound tin ear for meme politics both naturally apparently and also by professional background and training. N.B. it has taken the far brighter Dick Clarke some 5 years to stumble, learn and finally become merely a competent talking head widget.
The Air Force, anyway. And I miss Mr. Gilliard too. On another note:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE55H4Z220090618
With critics like these, he just can’t lose.
While the Movement lost the government, presumably they’ll settle for controlling the most formidable military in history.
Which, incidentally, is the bigger story, anyway.
I think this analysis is on-target. These are the descendents of Ford and Coughlin that Manchester caught so well in his The Glory and the Dream.
It really is an effort to overturn the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. Sigh…..
It is viewpoints (and times) like this that make me miss Steve Gilliard.
So why don’t you use your learned wisdom and attempt to scry the next few stages of this Movement, Dr Strauss. Maybe you can make clear for your readers if this movement is just the set of its members — just people aware of what they want and do, and taking steps to pursue their objectives — or it’s rather a kind of abstract historical object with a life of its own, over and above the heads of its membership?
Is it a movement composed of people who are conscious of it? All of them, or only some, e.g. a (counter)-enlightened elite of self-aware leaders? Or perhaps it’s just a large-scale historical force, a movement in the dialectical three-step, a “cunning of Unreason,” to speak with Hegel, a Movement that simply uses its members without everyone’s knowing that they work for it?
This matters, because we’d like to know where you get your knowledge of it — is it from explicit declarations and actions by the Movement’s members; or is it by divining the necessary unfolding of the Begriff, without much attention to contingent developments?
@Herr Doktor:
“As a famous ‘Republican’ once told me, he’d rather live an American version of Franco than have to deal with multiculturalism.”
The desire for/ belief in a Strong Man as a ‘best possible’ form of government is old, probably as old as human politics (i.e. the first cities). Certainly I’ve known Argentinians (upper middle class-ish) pining for the days of Peron. But it seems (and maybe this is an overly naive reading of US history, but…) that this is relatively new in American socio-political life. After Washington refused to be crowned King, and the next few presidents demonstrated the advantages of bloodless revolutions, we didn’t talk about strong men for a long while. Though we loved FDR, his strength caused us to rewrite (a portion of) our constitution. When the Unitary Executive theories were first seriously floated by Nixon, he (and thus they) were decisively rejected by our political establishment.
What seems to be especially interesting about our situation is the central complaint: multiculturalism. Why is this so bad that Movers ™ are willing to jettison freedom, security, sanity? Again, ethnic exclusionism is an old force in human nature and affairs, but again not one I understand. How do we rid ourselves of it? Making its most obvious manifestations (e.g. segregation) illegal has helped, sort of. Making it unacceptable to explicitly reference these things in polite company hasn’t really helped much, and may be making things much worse. I wish I even had a stab at an answer, but hopefully someone here can nudge my thinking out of its depressive spiral.
@MNPundit:
In the long term, yes. But fortunately Nature’s God has already implemented an elegant solution there. In the medium term, they need to be marginalized: first kept from any real power (e.g. not put in a position to order preemptive strikes on Iran), and second resolutely ignored in public debate. This is how the long term goal can actually work… if the Movement continues to recruit, then as the current crop passes away, more will come up. If, on the other hand, it were to somehow get through the thick skulls of the Movement’s enemies that they really are trying to destroy our governmental structure, then they could be truly, effectively silenced the way those crazy John Birch Society folks, or the members of the Communist Party, USA have been.
Then well, if it’s as you say, don’t all the members of the movement need to die? Isn’t that the only possible solution?
Marty still feel he has to pretend he likes Obama – but you can tell he is disappointed by the feeling (shared by moi) that Obama doesn’t wanna kill lots of Iranians (boosting the Mullahs) to stop a mostly fictional bomb program. We’re totally in the tank for Obama and loved his AMA speech today – we are pleasantly surprised to see Marty disappointed in Obama (but not yet able to admit loathing the popular President).
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_spine/archive/2009/06/15/dennis-ross-out-as-special-envoy-to-iran-was-he-ousted-because-he-s-a-jew-or-a-bit-hawkish-on-nukes.aspx
Interesting:
http://www.vancouversun.com/News/Supreme+Court+agrees+hear+Conrad+Black+appeal/1606398/story.html
Great stuff Leo – Though we think (guess) the Movement, such as it is, is walking into Cafe Terminus and getting ready to blow itself up.
We have to give NR props for their clever racism by portraying the ‘wise Latina’ as Oriental. Touch of Dada and absurdism in that kind of comical displacement – suggesting conservatives have been infected with ideas at odds with their suppposed ideals.
re racism agains latinos – Newt’s stupid blunder will hurt him down the road – He would have been more clever to offer soft support. The low info element in the GOP that believes Puerto Ricans from the Bronx housing projects are privlidged is in decline, but as you know well is supplanted by the ‘serious’ and presentable Movement types who keep a copy of the Bell Curve under their desk (despite many having medicore scores)
Bush blew a real opportunity with Hispanics and Mexico – Bush could have really changed the arc and tapped into the conservatives Hispanics.
Just recently we were chatting with an officer who had been in Iraq and he was talking about how many of the men in his unit are very conservative and black, but it would be unthinkable for most of them to vote gop because they sense the racial line.
Newt types seem insincere when they try to ‘reach out’ and then cynically try to re-frame.
Um, Dr Strauss, did your revision include aspects of style? The second paragraph of your post is rather garbled. Exempli gratia:
Here at STSOZ our community discussed … since 2004. Now, I’m just a foreigner, but don’t you need the present perfect here, instead of the simple past?
…its varies strands… Did you mean ‘various,’ by any chance?
The Movement is controlling parasite astride… Is the M. controlling anything, or is it a controlling parasite? It’s rather unclear.
There’s a lot more here I want to discuss, but for tonight let me just say that I think this page has my favorite artwork yet featured on this site. Bravo.
Uncle Pat on Sotomayor:
“To salve their consciences for past societal sins, the Ivy League is deep into discrimination again, this time with white males as victims rather than as beneficiaries. One prefers the old bigotry.”
Also, “even if the party loses the battle and Sotomayor sits on the court, it can win the war.”
He’s a generation to young for it to be acceptable old man crazy talk…