This is, for the most part, a really terrific piece. I've tried to explain to people without any great success that neoconservative isn't really conservative at all - this article very concisely and thoroughly explains how that is so. I agree that the turning point was Reagan. And I appreciate that the author pointed out that "their speeches in defense of the militaristic enforcement of global democracy and "freedom" are in the liberal tradition of Wilson, Roosevelt and Kennedy."
It's important to note that Bush is acting just like many liberal political heroes. He's inadvertently causing a lot of good things to happen some places in the world (like Latin America) because he is such a lousy imperialist. Many liberals long for the days of effective imperialism, and in 2004 John Kerry appealed to that desire, and the front runners in 2008 are positioning themselves that way, too. It's not the progressive position, but it's in the mainstream of modern liberalism to desire this.
However, I feel the author, "thereisnospoon," errors when s/he says American conservatism has been abandoned largely abandoned by both political parties--or is slowly being taken over in its most benign and idealistic form by the Democratic party as a secondary plank. I hardly regard the fiscal conservatism of Carter and Clinton to be benign and idealistic. While everybody nowadays seems to be a balanced-budget fundamentalist in the religious faith that passes for economic "science", nobody seems to take into account the damage it does to the poor. The successful rollback of the economic justice that culminated in the mid-70s has been the pet project of Republicans and Democrats alike since that time.
Also, I am uncertain what answers traditional, classical, cold-war, or bleeding heart liberalism has for the problems the author presents. I believe I am persuaded that industrialization, weapons of mass destruction, electronic media, the Internet, powerful accurate and cheap handguns, etc etc are not problems that Hamilton had answers for. What about Jefferson? He didn't believe in meteorites because he had a fundamental belief that "stones do not fall from the sky."
Fast forward to the present: the modern Democratic party has no faith in traditional liberalism either, or they'd try it. The DNC is pushing a neo-liberal agenda that is only cosmetically different from the Neo-conservative one.
Interestedly, Chomsky urged people to vote for Kerry over Nader because even minuscule differences in policy can mean big differences in the real world - significantly more or less suffering for many people in the world. But how do we get the really big changes that we need if we only get to chose between people who offer small differences? Does anybody know of liberal solutions that were proposed during that long period of time between Jefferson and Pelosi (another example of moral decay? I'm not sure - Pelosi never made a sex partner out of a person who was her property, as far as I know) that I skipped over? And if so, how do we access it now?
http://www.myleftwi
ng.com/showDiary .do?diaryId= 14312
...I realise this dates from January, but I just came across it, and
anyone who illustrates the moral decay of our society by using the words
"from Glenn Miller to Britney Spears" (that comparison works on so many
levels it's amazing) deserves fifteen minutes of anybody's time...
--
King Daevid MacKenzie.
No brag, just fact.
http://myspace.com/kingdaevid
http://groups.google.ca/ group/hateradiob oycott
"You're only entitled to your informed opinion." HARLAN ELLISON
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment