28 November 2004

Delusion is still the defining characteristic of the Bush administration

Former Reagan Assistant Secretary of the Treasury asks what became of Conservatives.
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.

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.

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 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.

Paul Craig Roberts is dead on in his assessment of the neoconservative mind mold.

Comments

http://www.phoenixnewtimes....

"Dangerous Dance
Ominous storm clouds threaten to trample the Constitution and turn our republic into a theocracy.
JOHN DOUGHERTY

For the roughly 735,000 Arizonans and 56 million Americans who got trampled by the November 2 election, the challenge now is to follow in the footsteps of the Boston Red Sox.
This is not the time to give up in despair after Senator John Kerry's narrow defeat. It's time to rethink strategy and renew our determination to wrest this country back from the increasingly intolerant religious right."
"We only need to look to our neighbor to the north, Utah. Dominated by the Mormon Church, a fanatical religion that has no problem with theocracy, the state gave George W. Bush his strongest backing with 71 percent of the vote."

"Dissent is no longer a normal discourse welcomed as a sign of political vibrancy. It is now met with the threat of arrest."

"The religious right wants the rule of God to be the ultimate constitutional authority.

Groups like Focus on the Family Action, a Christian advocacy group, are attacking Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican who won reelection last week, after Specter said he would oppose "pro-life" judges getting appointed to the Supreme Court."

""The people who put President Bush back in the White House and expanded the Republican majority in the Senate weren't voting for a party -- they were voting for candidates who share their pro-family values."

Well, there were enough such voters to put Bush over the hump, but how much of a mandate does Bush really have for a so-called family-values agenda when enough of his supporters agree with Specter -- along with practically all of Senator Kerry's?"

"And what about these evil terrorists?

First, I know that September 11 was horrible, but let's put it into perspective. Some guy hiding in a cave managed to get a few fanatics to hijack airliners and crash into three buildings and into the ground in Pennsylvania, killing a few thousand Americans.

It's shocking, despicable, and something we must never forget.

But this "attack" is more akin to a crime than a declaration of war. It in no way rises to the level of Hitler's Third Reich invasion of Poland or the Japanese air and sea attack on Pearl Harbor. "

"Yet, frankly, I feel more threatened by the constitutional terrorists at home than I do from the ones over there. "

"With a sword in one hand, and cash in the other, Bush has masterfully exploited the fanatic Holy Rollers in this country with his "faith-based initiatives" -- which pour tax dollars into select churches in violation of our constitutional separation of church and state.

Terrifying as the steady drift to the religious right is, the game is far from over. Bush may have gotten more votes than his Democratic opponent this time, but his win is still marginal. The Democratic party as well as tens of millions of independents remain a powerful force in this country. Democrats and their independent supporters must immediately make it clear they have no intention of rolling over to the Republicans.

Any calls to "just get along" so that we can "heal" the nation are ridiculous. Where are the leaders who are willing to trumpet: "The hell with extending a hand to the other side!"?

Do you think Republicans would be taking the same stance if the tables were reversed?"

"Rove and the Republicans spoke not only to the GOP's political base but to those on the fence who could be moved more by their hatred of legal abortion and the concept of gay marriage than by the fact that the Bush administration has failed at home economically and abroad with its idiotic, unwinnable war.

One thing the Democrats could have done was hammer on Dubya's cowardly avoidance of the Vietnam War. Instead, they let Rove & Company get away with its spin that war hero Kerry was somehow a disgrace because he returned home and courageously renounced our country's misguided war in Southeast Asia.

Rove told brilliant lies, and the Democrats must stop short of that. But, please, no more "Kumbaya" candidates! Change the party's theme song to "Street Fighting Man" -- because politics is the same blood sport it was when the protest movement was in its heyday. When cities were on fire.

Democrats have been extremely slow learners. They must take a cue from the balls-out Rove before the midterm elections in 2006 -- or the religious right will be ruling our lives in the Theocratic States of America."

http://www.phoenixnewtimes....


TALK ABOUT DELUSIONS

THIS LIB SURE SUMS UP THE MENTALITY THAT IS LEADING DEMOCRATS DOWN THE TOILET.

HE GOT ONE THING RIGHT.... THE DEM.S ARE DOOMED.