June 12, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NEOCON "IDEALISM"
Now that Iraq has descended into chaos and unending bloodshed, we're told that the neocons who advocated this war had good intentions, even if the results were horrible. I guess I'm cynical about everything conservative. I don't believe there is much idealism in conservatism. I believe it is a philosophy based on exploitation of other human beings, based on exploitation of other species, and based on exploitation of natural resources. At its core is a Social Darwinist belief that survival of the fittest is the way things should be. Higher motivations such as compassion and peace are weak, according to conservatives, and a drag on the "achievers." This article by Chris Christensen is at www.onlinejournal.com:
So the neocons do fly the flag of idealism, but always below the banner of their first love: military buildup and war. Of course, one could argue that invasion and occupation have to come first in the discussion because that is the means by which the ideal -- democracy -- is to be achieved. If one accepts the flawed premise that democracy can take root in an imperial bomb crater, the argument is not without a veneer of logic. But there’s another PNAC document that doesn’t even attempt to paper over the militarism.
A 90-page report of September 2000, entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” argues for permanent bases in southeast Europe and southeast Asia. It states that the U.S. must have the capability to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major-theater wars. It contends that the U.S. should “control the ‘new international commons’ of space and cyberspace, and pave the way for the creation of a new military service -- the U.S. Space Force -- with the mission of space control.”
The report also argues that the U.S. military should play a “constabulary” role in the world. All of these recommendations bristle with militaristic, anti-democratic fantasy, but it’s this “constabulary” business that best illustrates the neocons’ true colors. In America, the local constable, or sheriff, usually gets the job democratically -- by running for election. If a group of local citizens proposed seizing the badge by force, they’d be laughed out of town or arrested and thrown in the loony bin. Yet the neocons, supposed champions of democracy, propose that very thing for the entire planet, and are taken seriously by many.
Showing posts with label Neocons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neocons. Show all posts
Thursday, May 31, 2007
May 31, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE GREEK WAY?
At Fresno State University there is a professor of classical studies named Victor Davis Hanson who has done very well thanks to the war in Iraq. Professor Hanson became a kind of guru to Snarling Dick Cheney by putting an intellectual veneer on the U. S. attack on and occupation of Iraq. Hanson likes to apply the "lessons" of antiquity to our own times. Looking to the Greeks seems to be fashionable these days in neocon circles. This article by Maureen Dowd is at roziusunbound.blogspot.com:
The odd thing is that conservatives wear pinstriped suits, when they really should be walking around in togas. The main contribution of the Greeks to modern American politics may have been Michael Dukakis, who once climbed the Acropolis in wingtips.
But that doesn’t stop conservatives — especially the Straussians who pushed for going into Iraq — from being obsessed with ancient Greece, and from believing that they are the successors to Plato and Homer in terms of the lofty ideals and nobility and character in American politics — while Democrats merely muck about with policies for the needy.
Harvey Mansfield, a leading Straussian who teaches political science at Harvard and who wrote a book called “Manliness” (he’s for it), gave the Jefferson lecture recently at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington.
It was an ode, as his book is, to “thumos,” the Greek word that means spiritedness, with flavors of ambition, pride and brute willfulness. Thumos, as Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post, “is a word reinvented by conservative academics who need to put a fancy name on a political philosophy that boils down to ‘boys will be boys.’ ”
THE MEDIA AND LABOR
I've wondered sometimes why so much attention is paid to the stock market, big business, CEOs, and celebrities while scant attention is paid to unions and working people. There are far more of us who work for wages than there are stockholders. An index of how life is for working people would be more appropriate than the daily recitation of the Dow Jones average or where NASDAQ closed. Part of it, of course, is that the media are owned by the wealthy and the powerful. They have a vested interest in keeping working people ignorant. This article by Nancy Cleeland is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
In a way, the Times created my obsession for economic and class issues by sending me into low-wage Los Angeles as part of a 1998 initiative to increase coverage of Latinos. I was a seasoned journalist with lots of experience in Third World countries. Still, the level of exploitation I saw shocked me. Illegal immigrants, in particular, had no rights. In a range of industries, including manufacturing and retail, they were routinely underpaid and fired after any attempt to assert rights or ask for higher wages.
That disregard for workers spread up the chain of regional jobs, just as a crash in subprime home loans eventually lowers the entire real estate market. The same is happening to various degrees across the country.
Rather than reverse those troubling trends, recent political leaders have done just the opposite. Enabled by a Milton Friedman-inspired belief in free markets and the idea that poverty is proof of personal failure, not systemic failure, federal trade and regulatory policies have consistently undermined workers. The inequities worsened under President George W. Bush, who wears his antipathy toward labor on his sleeve. But few alarms were sounded by the mainstream press, including the Los Angeles Times.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE GREEK WAY?
At Fresno State University there is a professor of classical studies named Victor Davis Hanson who has done very well thanks to the war in Iraq. Professor Hanson became a kind of guru to Snarling Dick Cheney by putting an intellectual veneer on the U. S. attack on and occupation of Iraq. Hanson likes to apply the "lessons" of antiquity to our own times. Looking to the Greeks seems to be fashionable these days in neocon circles. This article by Maureen Dowd is at roziusunbound.blogspot.com:
The odd thing is that conservatives wear pinstriped suits, when they really should be walking around in togas. The main contribution of the Greeks to modern American politics may have been Michael Dukakis, who once climbed the Acropolis in wingtips.
But that doesn’t stop conservatives — especially the Straussians who pushed for going into Iraq — from being obsessed with ancient Greece, and from believing that they are the successors to Plato and Homer in terms of the lofty ideals and nobility and character in American politics — while Democrats merely muck about with policies for the needy.
Harvey Mansfield, a leading Straussian who teaches political science at Harvard and who wrote a book called “Manliness” (he’s for it), gave the Jefferson lecture recently at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington.
It was an ode, as his book is, to “thumos,” the Greek word that means spiritedness, with flavors of ambition, pride and brute willfulness. Thumos, as Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post, “is a word reinvented by conservative academics who need to put a fancy name on a political philosophy that boils down to ‘boys will be boys.’ ”
THE MEDIA AND LABOR
I've wondered sometimes why so much attention is paid to the stock market, big business, CEOs, and celebrities while scant attention is paid to unions and working people. There are far more of us who work for wages than there are stockholders. An index of how life is for working people would be more appropriate than the daily recitation of the Dow Jones average or where NASDAQ closed. Part of it, of course, is that the media are owned by the wealthy and the powerful. They have a vested interest in keeping working people ignorant. This article by Nancy Cleeland is at www.huffingtonpost.com:
In a way, the Times created my obsession for economic and class issues by sending me into low-wage Los Angeles as part of a 1998 initiative to increase coverage of Latinos. I was a seasoned journalist with lots of experience in Third World countries. Still, the level of exploitation I saw shocked me. Illegal immigrants, in particular, had no rights. In a range of industries, including manufacturing and retail, they were routinely underpaid and fired after any attempt to assert rights or ask for higher wages.
That disregard for workers spread up the chain of regional jobs, just as a crash in subprime home loans eventually lowers the entire real estate market. The same is happening to various degrees across the country.
Rather than reverse those troubling trends, recent political leaders have done just the opposite. Enabled by a Milton Friedman-inspired belief in free markets and the idea that poverty is proof of personal failure, not systemic failure, federal trade and regulatory policies have consistently undermined workers. The inequities worsened under President George W. Bush, who wears his antipathy toward labor on his sleeve. But few alarms were sounded by the mainstream press, including the Los Angeles Times.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
February 20, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NEOCON HEGEMONY
I've started reading Stanley Karnow's history of the Vietnam war, Vietnam A History. It's amazing how many parallels there are between Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam our troops were in constant combat, unlike the veterans of the Second World War. You never knew who the enemy was in Vietnam and you don't know who the enemy is in Iraq until he strikes. The Vietnamese effectively used guerilla warfare, just as we see in Iraq now. We were told by the elites that Vietnam couldn't fall to the Communists because the rest of southeast Asia would fall like dominoes. Now we're told we can't lose in Iraq because it means the impending destruction of western civilization. In this article Ernest Partridge looks at the imperial dreams of neocons like George Bush and Dick Cheney and the incredible mess they've created. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the sole remaining super-power. Many saw this extraordinary situation as an opportunity at last for world disarmament, a concerted attack on poverty and disease, and global harmony under a rule of international law.
Not the neo conservatives.
Instead, they announced, this was to be “The American Century” – a “benevolent global hegemony” imposed upon the world by the sole remaining super-power, the United States. In this new world order, the United States would renounce treaties and international law at will if they were found to be contrary to the interests of the “hegemon.” Military action by the super power would be taken “preventatively” if there was a perceived possibility that an upstart nation might resist the “order” with force. Aggressive initiatives would be taken to assure that no rival super power would arise to challenge the global hegemony.
The United States would, in short, become the kind of world empire we claimed that we were struggling, throughout the cold war, to prevent the Soviet Union from becoming.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NEOCON HEGEMONY
I've started reading Stanley Karnow's history of the Vietnam war, Vietnam A History. It's amazing how many parallels there are between Vietnam and Iraq. In Vietnam our troops were in constant combat, unlike the veterans of the Second World War. You never knew who the enemy was in Vietnam and you don't know who the enemy is in Iraq until he strikes. The Vietnamese effectively used guerilla warfare, just as we see in Iraq now. We were told by the elites that Vietnam couldn't fall to the Communists because the rest of southeast Asia would fall like dominoes. Now we're told we can't lose in Iraq because it means the impending destruction of western civilization. In this article Ernest Partridge looks at the imperial dreams of neocons like George Bush and Dick Cheney and the incredible mess they've created. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the sole remaining super-power. Many saw this extraordinary situation as an opportunity at last for world disarmament, a concerted attack on poverty and disease, and global harmony under a rule of international law.
Not the neo conservatives.
Instead, they announced, this was to be “The American Century” – a “benevolent global hegemony” imposed upon the world by the sole remaining super-power, the United States. In this new world order, the United States would renounce treaties and international law at will if they were found to be contrary to the interests of the “hegemon.” Military action by the super power would be taken “preventatively” if there was a perceived possibility that an upstart nation might resist the “order” with force. Aggressive initiatives would be taken to assure that no rival super power would arise to challenge the global hegemony.
The United States would, in short, become the kind of world empire we claimed that we were struggling, throughout the cold war, to prevent the Soviet Union from becoming.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)