The latest scalps that conservative activists have claimed (ACORN and Van Jones) got me to thinking about Thomas Frank's book The Wrecking Crew. If you want to understand why the right hates ACORN so much, read this book. In fact, if you want to understand the right at all and why I say the things I have said in some of the latest threads, you really need to read this book.
From the first review on Amazon.
According to Frank, the conservative worldview is totally committed to "the ideal of laissez faire, meaning minimal government interference in the marketplace, along with hostility to taxation, regulation, organized labor, state ownership, and all the business community's other enemies. "The conservative movement promotes the interests of business exclusively over all else in accordance with the motto, "More business in government, less government in business." So-called "big government," also tagged as the liberal state, is the enemy; in fact, virtually all government is the enemy, other than the national defense.
Juxtapose this with ACORN's central causes: higher minimum wages, more affordable housing, and voter registration and one can easily see why they are rabidly against everything that ACORN stands for and will stop at nothing to destroy them.
Further, from the same comment
Frank also highlights the manner in which conservatives have repeatedly run the country into huge spending deficits in order to "defund the left" while simultaneously politicizing government management positions by favoring ideology over competence. The end result under Republican conservative stewardship is government that demonstrates itself as ineffectual and incompetent, offering but further proof that big government is inherently incapable of working and needs to be outsourced to private, professional concerns who can do the job correctly (and then inevitably failing to do so).
Which is exactly what happened in the Bush Administration. Folks, continue to try to "see all sides" and "be fair" with the current incarnation of the right today and you do so at your own peril as we see in the final line of this review of Frank's book.
Frank demonstrates well that present day politics has truly become, to invert von Clausiwitz's famous maxim, "a continuation of war by other means." Regrettably, one side of the battle (liberals/progressives) continues to play the game as politics, as elections won or lost and citizens swayed or not, while the other side (the conservative base) approaches it as an act of war, a no-holds-barred contest in which the only goal is the complete and utter destruction of the other side.
Folks, this how the right thinks. Jones and ACORN are just the beginning. They can't accept the fact the Barack Obama is president and will do everything in their power to see him brought down. It's only going to be a matter of time before the methods they use will become violent. Their rage is too great and history, I fear, will be repeated.
24 comments:
Thomas Frank is a moron. When he asked "What's the matter with Kansas?", what he was really saying was "I don't understand these people, but I'd rather insult them than consider why they are different than I expect".
What a stunner that you should admire him.
Why don't you read the book and judge for yourself? I think the statements I have made in this post a extremely accurate. This is, sadly, what the right has become. It's also quite an indictment of the left who still can't figure out that they are bringing a knife to a howitzer fight.
Ooops...ARE extremely accurate.
...along with hostility to... all the business community's other enemies.
...virtually all government is the enemy, other than the national defense.
That part I agree with. Have you ever wondered why this is so?
Who is the "business community"? That's the people I buy gas from, the people I buy groceries from, the people I buy a house or a car or a refrigerator from. If I start a business doing what I think should be done, that's me.
When you support "the enemies" of those people it's harder, thus more expensive, for them to do business, thus prices go up, buying power goes down. My life gets harder because I didn't think attacks on those I do business with were worth defending against.
To be sure, those "enemies" are my neighbors as well. So what's the difference between a service provided by "the business community" and a service provided by the "enemies", that holds true regardless of the service, the business, or the government involved? Simply this: The "government" can force me to support that service whether I want any or not, the "business" can only persuade.
So yeah, the conservative position is that those who use force as the first option are the enemy, to be resisted whenever possible. And that's bad how, exactly?
Juxtapose this with ACORN's central causes:
You veer from fact into fantasy very quickly. Is anyone who is not in the housing market themselves actually against more affordable housing? C'mon, that proposition is just plain idiotic. Rather than just dismiss people as insane, turn your brain on and consider what could make them think being anti-ACORN is justified. Perhaps the demonstrable fact that ACORN doesn't think they should be bound by the same laws everyone else is when buying a house or registering voters?
Minimum wage: I'll address that separately if you want, but it'll be long.
Which is exactly what happened in the Bush Administration.
While you are quick to conflate Republicans with conservatives and paint both with the GW Bush brush, you fail to mention that GW Bush himself claims he tried to destroy conservatism in the Republican party.
one side of the battle (liberals/progressives) continues to play the game as politics... while the other side (the conservative base) approaches it as a no-holds-barred contest in which the only goal is the complete and utter destruction of the other side.
You leave out the fact that the right tends to be wedded to the concept of equal treatment under the law, while the left throws that under the bus from the start. The left demands different rules for rich and poor, for black and white, for male and female, for straight and gay. The right is demanding Congresspeople be subject to whatever health coverage they pass. For the same rules to apply equally to everyone is "unfair", "racist", "sexist" and "mean spirited" in the language of the political left.
This is why the same people who loudly heckled the President en masse a few years ago denounce a single outburst at their President to be racist, regardless of the fact that it was accurate (perhaps because it was). Why the stereotypical right wing extremist builds a "compound" and holes up in it, while the stereotypical left wing extremist blows up people's homes, businesses and public buildings. Why the left lionizes a man whose personal definition of "success of my plans" included the deliberate murder of 20-25 million of his countrymen, yet consider their opponents "the party of violence".
Why don't you read the book and judge for yourself?
What makes you think I haven't?
He is a perfect example of refusing to question his worldview and instead condemning people for failing to understand their own needs as well as he does. The hubris in that is overwhelming.
I've actually READ "The Wrecking Crew" within the last couple of months. Modern Reichwing looney tunes are not conservatives. They are a combination of people who are at heart nothing but looters who (1) want the public to own nothing, because to them there is no such thing as a public or common good; and (2) are at essence spoiled, greedheaded children who feel a sense of absolute entitlement to every possible material good and advantage that they can steal.
They gaze back with envy and awe to the days of old where the most powerful in a properly ordered society (think the days of feudalism) where a tiny slice of the populace wielded absolute power over the rest of the population, which lived in subservient peonage. As long as their infantile desires are served, the rest of the population can rot in their hovels and pay the proper obeisance to their rightful masters. Save us from some hell like Norway, Sweden or Denmark, those dens of social democratic iniquity, longer life spans and better adjusted people.
The "religious" crazies deserve a little more explanation than I have time for right now. Save it to say that anyone who worries about "witchcraft" in Harry Potter books and thinks the earth is 6000 years old is far too delusionally paranoid to engage in anything resembling rational discourse.
And Glenn Beck should prompt be packed off to a nice safe rubber room at the funny farm, straitjacketed and given either heavy duty electroshock therapy or a horse-sized shot of Thorazine every hour. So Obama hates all white people, a group which includes his mother and his maternal grandparents who raised him for several years. Only someone with a room-temperature or lower IQ could actually believe this kind of sheer idiocy, but given the number of drooling nitwits standing around and waiting gleefuly for the earth to be destroyed and most of inhabitants killed so they can be "raptured" up to their Sky Daddy, it is no surprise that credence is actually given to such sub-moronic notions.
Cats and kittens, just because you can pull some insane idea out of your ass and desperately want to believe it does not make it so. This makes you Michele Bachmann, Aqua Teen's Master Shake or the Queen in Alice in Wonderland who could believe a thousand impossible things before breakfast. Which means you are by definition, bat-shit insane.
Humans have one tool that always works - it is called reason and it is applied through the scientific method. Jeebus did not cure polio. Nor did he put a man on the moon, discover the theories of special and general relativity or design the Porsche 911.
The intelligent and rational person is smart enough to know what s/he doesn't know and moves towards an understanding that will be greater, though always imperfect.
Oh, and a little compassion for the enormous suffering of so many of your fellow human beings might just lead to a more humane, constructive and helpful way of looking at the world.
KennedyDem
Thank you, Karl.
Longer life spans, better adjusted people, and a whole lot of people living on government subsidies.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a3018ceef6a0590e0fe87c97c608ebdc.4b1&show_article=1
Apparantly a generation of economic stagnation has taught the Swedes a lesson. They've learned that government does not produce wealth. Now the country is passing a series of tax cuts aimed at preserving the long-term viability of its economy. Sweden experimented with the nanny state, learned that it was devastating to the economy, and is moving back toward individualism. Here in the U.S., half you morons think that everything is wrong and want to socialize everything.
You are apparently operating under the assumption that any criticism of this country is based on a Marxist dialectic. If this is the case you are a blindered, Kool-aid drinking Reichwing fool not worth wasting my time on.
BTW, define the terms Socialism, Fascism and Communism for me if you can.
As for people "living on government subsidies," so what the hell is your point? The physical and psychological health of a society and the people in it is my touchstone, not how thoroughly the elite can screw the rest of the populace.
KennedyDem
Furthermore, chew on these inconvenient truths for a while:
US Ranks 1st in Health Care Spending, 37th in health
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02092009.htm
Insurers consider acne and pregnancy to be preexsisting conditions justifying rejection of applicants
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/18/AR2009091803501.html
Harvard Report finds nearly 45,000 people in US die annually because of lack of health insurance.
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/healthquest/harvard-report-finds-nearly-45000-americans-die-annually-because-of-lack-of-health-insurance
These are FACTS, and while you may be entitled to your own opinion, you are NOT entitled to your own facts.
I dare you to justify this kind of cruelty and insanity. If you thought is "fine, who gives a crap, it ain't affecting me" you have forfeited anything like a claim to being a human being.
P.S., I don't see the Scandinavian countries scrapping their single payer health systems now or anytime soon.
...you have forfeited anything like a claim to being a human being.
Well, that defines his version of the untermensch.
C'mon KD, go ahead and say it... "sub-human". Sure you can! And from there, well, it's a short step and one that won't take you long to make.
Nope. It just means that you are a moral pygmy, devoid of compassion or feeling for your fellows and the suffering inflicted on them by the greed of corporate America.
I don't see a lot of refutation of my arguments here, just a twisting of my words to mean what you want them to mean. How Clusterfox News of you.
You have no idea the extent of my feelings for my fellow man, nor is your assertion that you are the morally superior one any more convincing. When I give charitably I do so out of my own free will, not because some asshole demands it of me via taxes. You are certainly more smug and self-righteous than me, but hey I'll happily concede that to ya.
kennedy, your idea of compassion is the government paying your bills for you. Pay your own bills. the point of all the people living off government subsidies that rld mentioned is that that activity doesn't produce wealth and i'd be pretty healthy psychologically living in my parents basement the rest of my life, probably wouldn't feel any sense of accomplishment but maybe i'd live longer. if someone wanted me to define communism i'd tell them to read your posts. take care of your own zits.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/ranking-the-us-health-care-system/
"if someone wanted me to define communism i'd tell them to read your posts"
Truly, your ignorance is so monumental as to be breathtaking.
"Communism" is defined as "a form of socialism that abolishes private ownership." BTW, that means abolishing private ownership of everything save personal effects. If you can point out where I have argued for that, I doff my hat to you.
source:http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=communism
Still waiting to be contradicted on any of my facts, and citing to right wing websites doesn't count.
"Pay your own bills." Tell that to some auto worker in Michigan whose wife or kid just got diagnosed with a chronic disease and who hasn't been able to find work since the plant shut down or the white collar IT professional whose job was outsourced to India last year in the same situation.
Are you really that completely oblivious to and unconcerned with the plight of people other than yourself? If you are, I am truly sorry for you.
I thought the stimulus bill your president passed was going to create all kinds of jobs immediately. Guess that didn't happen huh.
Justify it?
Happily.
Who is owed a living?
Who owes it them?
And how shall said obligation be enforced?
(If you're thinking this is starting to sound like Kto kogo?, you're catching on.)
kennedydem, I'll make you the same offer I made Mister Awakened and Gigantic here. If you think it's all right to confiscate resources from some for the benefit of others, why don't you go door to door and do it yourself, on the righteousness of your own convictions and with your own resources?
Ken, no one is owed anything. Your head is still stuck in the "welfare momma with a Cadillac" mentality. I'm not sure if you noticed but there are people that work really hard--sometimes three jobs--and can't afford health care. That is who needs help. That is who people like President Obama are talking-people who live in reality as opposed to fantasy land where you live.
What about them? These are the people that waited in line for hours with 5000 other people to get free health care at the Staples Center from a group that does it in Third World fucking countries! And why are we that way? Because people like you defend the right for the upper 1 percent of this country to be criminals. You vilify people like me, calling me a "socialist," when all I really want is my capitalism back...the actual version as opposed to the sick perversion that you defend.
You are going to have to pay for it one way or another, Ken. Whether it's an insurance company or the government. I'm sure in your warped mind that if does end up that health care reform isn't passed and WHEN our economy collapses as a result of the back breaking costs of health care, you'll still blame the government.
The disconnect from reality that you people have astounds me. I guess you won't find out what I am talking about until it happens to you.
Let's see... Obama and the Democrats want to increase choice, increase competition, cut costs, keep the insurers honest and give as many Americans as good of healthcare as possible, right? That's the claim, right?
But you'll notice they have little to no interest in tort reform, which would cut costs by up to 10% without costing the taxpayers.
You'll notice they actively oppose allowing insurers to operate in all 50 states, which would increase both choice and competition without costing the taxpayers.
You'll notice that they haven't said a word about fixing the VA or the IHS, the complete and utter fiasco health service the government already runs.
You'll notice Democrat leadership has been making back room deals with PhRMA and United Healthcare.
So let's see... want to cut costs but don't want tort reform, want more competition and more choice but won't lift the market restrictions that would actually allow for that, want better care but doesn't give a shit if the IHS works or not, want to "keep companies honest" while making backroom deals themselves.... and intends to give the whole thing to a bunch of people who, while touting their "transparency", don't obey the laws, deliberately withholds information and denounces anyone who finds flaws in their work as "liars", "terrorists", "un-American" and "racist".
And you're surprised that the only consistency some people can find in that mare's nest is a) they want to soak the taxpayers, and b) they want to benefit the trial lawyers? You're surprised that all the other words that are directly contradicted by their actions might strike people as possibly being bullshit?
The disconnect from reality that you people have astounds me.
I'm not sure if you noticed but there are people that work really hard--sometimes three jobs--and can't afford health care.
Yes, I have. And watching you aid and abet Obama, Pelosi et al in their efforts to use those people as human shields to cover their own scams is nothing short of nauseating.
Get em Grumpy. Boo-ya.
Because people like you defend the right for the upper 1 percent of this country to be criminals.
That include your supposed friend - the retired, and very wealthy, executive?
Exactly what crime did Bill Gates perpetrate - other than crappy software (that lots of people were happy to buy)?
Do you have any idea how fucking stupid you sound when you say shit like that?
If your moral system has all the sophistication of a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum, do you wonder that people might not think your policy prescriptions are sound?
Okay, let's see.... the upper one percent of this country are criminals... based on nothing but the fact that they are the upper one percent....
I can't help but wonder why, since you're so against "the right for the upper 1 percent of this country to be criminals", why you are so proud of being an accessory after the fact to Tim Geithner's income tax evasion?
The bottom line is that in your eyes, "the upper 1 percent of this country" is only "criminal" if they're conservative, in which case they're automatically criminal, regardless of whether or not there is any actual evidence. If they support taxing everyone around them, but don't pay taxes themselves (like little Timmy or Charlie Rangel or Tom Daschle), you're happy with them getting praise, promotion and a pat on the back.
Why is that?
Why is that?
People that believe things like M stated are:
A) fucking idiots (literally - ultimately producing Idiocracy in the real world)
B) easily manipulated by the promise of shiny things
C) absolutely baffled that the most unthinkable consequences are unforeseen by those with the best intentions
D) all of the above
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