Via : Buzzflash
Stephen Crockett @ Truthout
The shootings in Arizona should be producing a crisis of conscience
on the political Right in this nation. However, I am not sure we are
going to see that result.
Extreme language, violent rhetoric and demonizing opponents have
been very successful tactics in the quest for political and economic
power for the Right Wing of American politics. They have
institutionalized these tactics in many ways like the creation of Fox
News, a huge array of Right Wing talk shows and print publications
along with billionaire funded think tanks and various front groups
including most of the Tea Party movement.
These tactics have taken over the entire operations of what was once
the conservative movement. Today, the most extreme voices have largely
drowned out the moderate conservatives that once dominated the
conservative movement and the Republican Party.
As recently as ten years ago, I could still consider myself fairly
mainstream member of this moderate conservative tradition because I
supported certain policy positions although I was a mainstream
Democrat. Back then, the inmates were not yet completely running the
asylum.
I believe in gun rights with reasonable regulations to ensure safety
and that keep guns out of hands of criminals and insane people. I
believe in a strong military that would be used for defense but would
never attack first or commit war crimes.
I strongly support protecting the Bill of Rights and civil liberties
and wanted our government restrained from the horrors of dictatorships
which imprisoned people without trials and tortured citizens. I
supported a free market system with strong protections against the
abuses of monopolies exploiting consumers and workers.
I worried able technology transfers to foreign nations because they
would undermine our long-term military capacity and our governments
financial stability while creating national security threats from other
nations with growing military-industrial abilities and expanded
international ambitions. I wanted to preserve our strong middle class
because it strengthened our American democracy and helped create a
domestic peace because everyone had a stake in our society that
included real opportunities for economic advancement.
These were all widely accepted conservative values before George W.
Bush. The Far Right had them in their sites but had not successfully
tried to exterminate them from the conservative mainstream.
I never thought our limited welfare programs were a threat to our
free enterprise system and regarded those "conservatives" who thought
that way as extremists. As a working class man from a union family, I
thought those "conservatives" who hated unions were both extremists and
willing tools of international corporations.
Over the past ten years, these extremist positions have so taken
over the conservative movement that I can no longer call myself or them
"conservative." The reasonable conservatism of the 1960-1980's has
largely died.
I call their successors "rightists", "The Right Wing", "corporate
clowns" or "neo-fascists." I do not like using labels to define my
diverse policy positions but most others would consider me to be either
a "realist" (because I believe in fact based policy where results
matter), "a traditionalist (because my ideological views are largely
based on the Founding Fathers, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR and Christianity)
or a "progressive" (because I believe in our American tradition of
growing social progress, democracy and equality).
Unfortunately, as the Far Right captured the conservative movement
with corporate financial help, the tactics the extremists used to con
the ignorant, fearful, angry and greedy among our citizenry into
supporting political and economic policies that really only favored the
powerful elite became typical standard operating procedures of the
Right.
The Right in American politics does not have any specific policies
will improve the lives of most Americans. In fact, they stand in harsh
opposition to any policies that would help the majority of Americans.
They preach that our government is our enemy when the very core of the
American idea of government is that we are the government.
We need a strong government run by us to hold international
corporate power in check and to protect our standard of living from
these international predators. The Right wants a weak national
government when it comes to restraining corporate power but a strong
one under corporate control when it comes to citizens' demands for
better wages, more jobs, decent healthcare, quality and affordable
education and real economic mobility. They do not want a government
that pursues energy, military or trade policies that protect our
national interests instead of the interests of international
corporations.
The Right has nothing to offer voters, in order to achieve political
power, except fear and smears. It is little wonder that voter
suppression is such a key element is their campaign tactics. The
economic elite and corporate forces will dump tons of money into the
bank accounts of people like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin
and Rush Limbaugh because they use the kind of extremist language,
violent rhetoric and demonizing tactics that serve to promote the
"corporatist" economic and political agenda.
These same "corporatist" forces are funding the Republican Party.
They are buying up the media and rigging the rules of the economy
against the vast majority of Americans.
Things will likely get worse before the American middle class,
working class and poor revolt at the ballot box. We must shame the
Right and punish them with our votes to stop the abuses and violence
before it gets totally out of control. There should never be another
tragedy like the one in Arizona!
Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.
No comments:
Post a Comment