← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Walter Yannis
Thread ID: 15789 | Posts: 19 | Started: 2004-11-26
2004-11-26 12:13 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=4056]What Became of Conservatives? [/URL]
by Paul Craig Roberts
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 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration, and the neoconservative ideologues who have seized control of the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. Marine.
Do the Village Voice and The Nation comprise the "liberal media"? The Village Voice is known for Nat Hentoff 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 e-mails 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 non-controversy 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 was 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 liberties 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 the 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 mistakes, a reckless administration will escalate.
The rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the U.S. as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling. The U.S. cannot afford a costly and interminable war.
Falling living standards and an inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.
2004-11-26 13:14 | User Profile
Another great article from PCR.
I add my minor quibbles below.
[QUOTE]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. [/QUOTE]
Yup. All the better to torch the Freepers with, my dear.
I dunno. It really beats me. Why does anybody see this as a bad thing?
Seriously. Celebrating the Empire's suicide makes perfect sense to me. A general collapse is the only way forward for us.
[QUOTE]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. [/QUOTE]
Bring it on.
Let's be clear, none of that good stuff associateed with a general financial and social collapse will happen without declaring war on Iran and the reinstatement of the draft. We NEED the war in Iran and the draft. It will hurt, and bad, but only for a while. Then we'll move on to the healing process (don't that give you a warm fuzzy feeling all inside? oh, baby, turn on the Barry White record.)
It's all good, oh my brothers.
[QUOTE]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 mistakes, a reckless administration will escalate. [/QUOTE]
It is precisely their delusional thinking that ensures our victory. Nothing like risking one's young ass (or that of your beloved son) in a needless and immoral foreign war to focus one's full and undivided attention on internal enemies.
We therefore need to encourage more delusional thinking in them even while deriding them for it.
Imagine neo-Kahns swinging from lamposts around Foggy Bottom and a national "Hunt Down a Dittohead Day". And I'm only half kidding.
One thing I'm nearly certain of is that they'll fatally overreach. They always do.
I would go so far as to speculate that it will be a "green-black" coaltion that wipes them out. Hey, if the greens really followed their talk about living "naturally" to its logical conclusion, they'd all be Nazis, because the Nazis were all about Nature, and there's nothing like a war to force things to their logical conclusions (note to file: we Christians will have to keep a close eye on that one).
[QUOTE]The rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the U.S. as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling. The U.S. cannot afford a costly and interminable war. [/QUOTE]
Right, but there's poetic justice in all this. It's all been obvious for some time now. It took longer than I thought, certainly, but this is really it. The dollar's goin' down, dawg. And all the good little consumers are gonna take it up their well-greased credit lines but good.
It is good indeed, it is good indeed!
The mob that we call the American electorate must be made to feel the consequences of its idiocy in the hope of their voluntary relinquishment of power over me and mine and their turning over all political power to white Christian men who were never convicted of a felony, who can read and write, who own a basic amount of wealth (especially a homestead or a trade), and who served honorably in the military.
I really can't have morons who regularly watch Monday Night Football and Oprah who own nothing and risk nothing - in a word, freeking cubicle serfs - with the power to vote themselves access to my wallet. Screw that noise.
We might even be looking at the end of democwacy, and not a moment too soon.
[QUOTE]Falling living standards and an inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country.[/QUOTE]
Well, it will diminish the Empire, which is all to the good.
The Republic has naught to do with these foreign misadventures.
The Empire must die for the Republic to live.
I hope that the good Mr. Roberts will in future dispense with this unbecoming hankering after the old America and set his steely gaze on bringing down the Empire and reinstituting our new Amreican Republic, run exclusively by white Christian men of property and good character.
We can do this, my European, Christian, and English-speaking brothers. But first we need to make peace with the fact that we'll have to do some questionable things. The Empire is the enemy, and this is war.
But the storm will pass, and we will have won our freedom from the the mob rule of mass democwacy.
We will secure our white, Christian and English speaking America - a nation run by and for the class that dreamt her up in the first place.
2004-11-26 14:25 | User Profile
My, my, my. I must say reading the delusional thinking of draft revival, senseless carnage, social and economic collapse was (dare I say) refreshing. I had not read such bird droppings since the week before the national election. Anyway, let me answer the Michael Moore's and others of his ilk out there. we are here, our troops are there, the terrorists are there. We make boom, boom with guns = no more terrorists (there or here.) Figure it out Muggles, have there been any attacks HERE since we went THERE?:box:
Jackd201
2004-11-26 15:31 | User Profile
Welcome, Jack.
Glad to have you here.
Walter
2004-11-26 17:58 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]It is precisely their delusional thinking that ensures our victory. Nothing like risking one's young ass (or that of your beloved son) in a needless and immoral foreign war to focus one's full and undivided attention on internal enemies.
Sobran thinks otherwise--he claims in his latest column (which is still embargoed) that something more pressing than Iraq will capture the public's attention: the falling dollar--and we'll likely pull out of Iraq without a decisive victory or defeat to lick our economic wounds at home.
My prediction: the name of Greenspan's tribe will soon be on the lips of ordinary Americans.
2004-11-27 01:58 | User Profile
I don't know if it's any more complicated than masses of misguided red-state whites going with what they sense to be "us," a sentiment brilliantly manipulated by "them". I think a lot of whites stumble around, looking for something that they think approximates the values they cherish: hard work, loyalty, toughness, etc. That's good. What they find is neoconservatism, and that's bad. It's made worse by the fact that the white males in the persuasion postions, like Rush & Co., are racially ignorant fools who aren't wise to what's really going on.
2004-11-27 07:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE]My prediction: the name of Greenspan's tribe will soon be on the lips of ordinary Americans.[/QUOTE]
Well, then, it's six of one and half dozen of the other!
That's the goal, and if a late recognition that the once mighty greenback was greenspanned into monopoly money does the trick, then by all means let's dispense with the war on Iran and the military draft.
I don't think so, though. It's going to take more than that.
Walter
2004-11-27 21:00 | User Profile
Walter Yannis,
Paul Craig Roberts speaks the truth! His words are all too true and it is so sad what has become of America.
[QUOTE]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 mistakes, a reckless administration will escalate.
The rapidly collapsing U.S. dollar is hard evidence that the world sees the U.S. as bankrupt. Flight from the dollar as the reserve currency will adversely impact American living standards, which are already falling. The U.S. cannot afford a costly and interminable war.
Falling living standards and an inability to impose our will on the Middle East will result in great frustrations that will diminish our country. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]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 U.S. Marine. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant, and irrational e-mails 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. [/QUOTE]
2004-12-12 23:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Figure it out Muggles, have there been any attacks HERE since we went THERE?[/QUOTE] [I]Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.[/I] Does that work for you, Walter?
2004-12-13 06:36 | User Profile
[QUOTE=mwdallas][I]Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.[/I] Does that work for you, Walter?[/QUOTE]
Works for me, MW!
Hey, where you been dude?
You've been missed.
Walter
2004-12-13 18:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Works for me, MW!
Hey, where you been dude?
You've been missed.
Walter[/QUOTE]
Amen to that. MWD, I thought you died or something. Come home, brother.
2004-12-17 01:19 | User Profile
It's hard to find time for writing, but I've been doing plenty of writing. Almost married a girl from Franklin County, but probably a good thing that didn't work out. I heard some crazy stories from that part of the state....
It's funny -- I posted for the first time in months, and then I saw that Tex had posted his "come home" thread that same day. Coincidence?
2004-12-17 04:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=mwdallas]It's funny -- I posted for the first time in months, and then I saw that Tex had posted his "come home" thread that same day. Coincidence?[/QUOTE]
Not at all. I don't believe in coincidence. It was meant to be.
2004-12-17 05:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]I hope that the good Mr. Roberts will in future dispense with this unbecoming hankering after the old America and set his steely gaze on bringing down the Empire and reinstituting our new Amreican Republic, run exclusively by white Christian men of property and good character.
We can do this, my European, Christian, and English-speaking brothers. But first we need to make peace with the fact that we'll have to do some questionable things. The Empire is the enemy, and this is war.
But the storm will pass, and we will have won our freedom from the the mob rule of mass democwacy.
We will secure our white, Christian and English speaking America - a nation run by and for the class that dreamt her up in the first place.[/QUOTE]
How is this going to come about? Most Americans tend to see Christians as more along the lines of the pre-Millenial Dispensationalist/"Christian" Zionist heretics, plus ignorant bigots & crooks like Pat Robertson, and pseudo-Bolshevist New Worlders like the National Council of Churches. While the Roman Catholic Church retains a few shreds of credibility (most people will bring up the pedophile scandals in that regard, however, fairly or not), very, VERY few people, I suspect, think of anyone anyway remotely like the gentlemen you see here when they hear the term "Christian." When one looks up "Christianity" in the Encyclopedia, Walter Yannis and OD are not shown next to it. Robert Schuller and suburban megachurches, financial behemoths devoid of all Christian theological notions, are what is shown next to the entry. The contemporary American perception of the definition of "Christian" has degenerated into something along the lines of a Yuppie who loves Israel and the Jews. So how do Christian gentlemen take control?
Frankly, it seems the future may well belong to the national socialists and assorted & sundry White nationalists, by simple virtue of the fact that we operate a team that is recognized as being in opposition to the enemies of America, and thus is ready-made for folks to join. Christianity needs to develop a whole new image in this country, especially among people under 40, before it can be a rallying force against our Talmudic-Zionist enemies, not to mention the Blacks and Mexicans. How do you propose this get accomplished in the short time remaining? I just don't see it happening.
2004-12-20 17:11 | User Profile
Walter,
My above post was not intended as a criticism of (authentic) Christianity. I'm sincerely curious how you believe that a movement (Christianity) that has largely been taken over by the the most loathsome of our enemies' allies, can be made to so utterly turn upon a dime and oppose the Jews. Christianity, as its known today, is a basis for institutions ("churches") that do little more than promote anti-Christian actions and ideas. I don't think we have enough time to bring back orthodox Christianity, what with the next war, the one with Iran, coming in the spring and all....
2004-12-20 18:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=jackd201]My, my, my. I must say reading the delusional thinking of draft revival, senseless carnage, social and economic collapse was (dare I say) refreshing. I had not read such bird droppings since the week before the national election. Anyway, let me answer the Michael Moore's and others of his ilk out there. we are here, our troops are there, the terrorists are there. We make boom, boom with guns = no more terrorists (there or here.) Figure it out Muggles, have there been any attacks HERE since we went THERE?:box:
Jackd201[/QUOTE]
When you (or your son) hooking up with an infantry unit over in Iraq, Jack?
Figure it out, Jackie, no attacks here since 9/11 because dem Ay-rabs had nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place. But you keep believing in your Rushannity doo-doo and sooner than you think, the consequences of the stupid and illegal invansion of Iraq will probably affect the whole country in worse ways than 9/11 did.
Take care.
2004-12-20 18:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=jackd201]My, my, my. I must say reading the delusional thinking of draft revival, senseless carnage, social and economic collapse was (dare I say) refreshing. I had not read such bird droppings since the week before the national election. Anyway, let me answer the Michael Moore's and others of his ilk out there. we are here, our troops are there, the terrorists are there. We make boom, boom with guns = no more terrorists (there or here.) Figure it out Muggles, have there been any attacks HERE since we went THERE?:box:
Jackd201[/QUOTE]
When you (or your son) hooking up with an infantry unit over in Iraq, Jack?
Figure it out, Jackie, no attacks here since 9/11 because dem Ay-rabs had nothing to do with 9/11 in the first place. But you keep believing in your Rushannity doo-doo and sooner than you think, the consequences of the stupid and illegal invansion of Iraq will probably affect the whole country in worse ways than 9/11 did. The country is declining HERE since we went over THERE.
Take care.
As for PCR's column. All too sad and all too true. To quote Walter Yannis, "The Empire Must Die So The Republic Can Live". I hope for that but I'm just not sure what's really going to take the place of the Empire when it croaks.
2004-12-20 19:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=jackd201]My, my, my. I must say reading the delusional thinking of draft revival, senseless carnage, social and economic collapse was (dare I say) refreshing. I had not read such bird droppings since the week before the national election.
Anyway, let me answer the Michael Moore's and others of his ilk out there. we are here, our troops are there, [COLOR=Red]the terrorists are there[/COLOR]. We make boom, boom with guns = no more terrorists (there or here.) Figure it out Muggles, have there been any attacks HERE since we went THERE?:box: Jackd201[/QUOTE]We in the United States have no idea where the terrorists are. If we are in a prolonged and unnecessary conflict, we may soon find out what real terror is like.
Paraphrasing Churchill, we have committed not a crime as much as a blunder. We may stlll be suffering for our actions decades later.
2004-12-20 21:12 | User Profile
Hey guys? why do you have to put in religion when you talk about war.
Religion is the excuse and not the reason to make war and what is going on in Iraq and elsewhere has nothing to do with religion, this is not a war of religion but and invasion made of greed.
Even I when I talk about the Jews I don't talk about them as a religious people but as a race, I say Jews instead of Zionists for in your mind they are both the same and yet they are not.
I feel that soon there will be another "terrorist" attack in order to distract everyone from what is really going on like the economy, wars, lies and so on.
[B]"When the truth comes into the light, the lies will hide in the dark",,, [/B] Ponce