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September 10, 2005
The Weakness of Neo-Conservsatism Revealed
Yesterday, one of the folks in this community sent me an outstanding opinion piece that I just had to share with you. It was written by William Rivers Pitt, and appears on the TruthOut website. The op-ed says aloud what the conservatives have never wanted you to know, but that now the world cannot help but see: that the governing philosophy of neoconservativism is too arrogant and elitist to be effective -- and has in fact gravely harmed the United States. Excerpts:
What we are seeing in New Orleans is the end result of what can be best described as extended Reaganomics. Small government, budget cuts across the board, tax cuts meant to financially strangle the ability of federal agencies to function, the diversion of billions of what is left in the budget into military spending: This has been the aim and desire of the conservative movement for decades now, and they have been largely successful in their efforts.Combine this with a wildly expensive and unnecessary war, rampant cronyism that replaces professionals with unqualified hacks at nearly every level of government, and the basic neoconservative/Straussian premise that the truth is not important and that the so-called elite know best, and you have this catastrophe laid out on a platter...
The Katrina disaster in a nutshell: A storm that had been listed for years as #3 on America's list of "Worst Possible Things That Could Happen" arrives in New Orleans to find levees unprepared because massive budget cuts stripped away any ability to repair and augment them. The storm finds FEMA, the national agency tasked to deal with the aftermath of natural disasters, run by Bush friend Michael Brown, a guy who got fired from his last job representing the rights of Arabian horse owners. The storm finds a goodly chunk of the Louisiana National Guard sitting in a desert 7,000 miles away with their high-water Humvees parked beside them. The storm finds that our institutional decades-old unwillingness to address poverty issues left tens of thousands of people unable to get out of the way of the ram...
The house of cards has fallen in. A generation of conservative thinking, combined with five years of neoconservative thrashing, has finally come to an unavoidable head. The agencies tasked to protect us -- FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security to name two -- have been proven to be utterly useless. The heads of these agencies -- Chertoff and Brown -- are the perfect avatars of Bush's way of doing business, insofar as they have no business being in the positions they are in. The conservative movement has failed spherically, from all sides and in all directions.
The piece goes through a pretty damning deconstruction of all the failures of arrogant neoconservative thought. It's infuriating, but inspiring at the same time. Because for the first time in years, there's hope that not even conservative manipulation of the media or their attempts to eliminate dissenting thought -- either subtly, through their disgusting rhetoric of painting anyone who disagrees with them as "un-American," or their more overt and sinister intimidation of anyone who has the audacity to express anti-Bush sentiments (be it arrests for wearing a t-shirt in an Albany mall or marching people out of a West Virginia public gathering in handcuffs for wearing anti-Bush shirts, reporting anti-Bush citizens to the Secret Service, or using their puppets in the conservative media to use their clout to silence artists who oppose this administration) -- will be enough to keep the American people for seeing this movement for what it truly is: an arrogant oligarchy of elite who have mismanaged and bungled virtually every facet of power they have touched. Even their final red herring, that only a neocon can protect us from terrorism, has been exposed as a lie: we saw this month that neoconservatives can't even protect America from water, much less something that consciously wants to do us harm.
Even other conservatives are starting to notice (finally). From small town conservative newspapers (thanks, PSoTD!) to prominent conservative columnists, even Bush's base has begun to abandon him, his administration's utter incompetence and disingenuousness now so evident that even those who don't wish to see it have no other choice.
All I can say is, it's about damn time. Welcome to reality, my conservative friends. Kick off your shoes and stay awhile.
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Comments
"Reaganomics" is a word I've not yet heard associated with what's happened/ing yet it's highly appropriate. That's eaxctly where this started. I'm stil floored by anyone calling RR a "great" president. Conservatives will deny this is connected to the Reagan policies but all I needed was that one word to make me say "yes!"
You don't by any chance get HBO, do you? B/c last night's "Real Time" was almost as entertaining as last Friday's.
Posted by: eden at September 10, 2005 11:19 AM
wow, pretty harsh.
Im not sure that I can really blame a natural disaster on any politician or his/her administration. Also, its not an easy task to make order out of chaos, especially when conditions are worsening by the hour.
We can blame Bush, FEMA, HS, for response efforts, and you know that I know Iraq is a limitless drain on our billions of tax dollars.
However, I feel that given the severity of the situation, I think that the nation divided too quickly in deciding who is at fault. The Conservatives are in charge, so it falls in their lap. But I think that the time for wallowing in past mistakes has gone, and that this disaster needs the help of everyone in this country, which means setting aside our differences and uniting in an effort to cope with the near complete destructuion of a southern metropolis.
It is a difficult time to be a politician right now, this has created a very touchy situation that will likely come up in 2006, and 08.
All in all an excellent post Mudge. If nothing else it will make readers think.
Posted by: Cuzin Jose at September 10, 2005 12:50 PM
OK..Mudge...now for a little "levity" in these sad, sad times...
I KNOW you can come up with a great caption for this photo!
Posted by: jillian at September 10, 2005 04:39 PM
"Curt Schilling drags an unsuspecting grandmother to one of his Bush rallies?"
Posted by: Curmudgeon at September 11, 2005 07:15 PM
Bush was sworn to protect America. He has failed. He has failed beyond his previous failed attempts at leadership. He has failed in the most basic of duties expected of an American President: to serve and protect the American people. Unfortunately, through his actions and in-actions, President Bush has instead made lining the pockets of his friends and family his number one priority. His appointment of people with no skills or experience for the posts they were appointed to is downright negligence that cost American lives. As such, that negligence -- like a drunk driver, pun fully intended -- and the bucketloads of evidence supporting it, should be grounds for removal from office. I do hope there are lawyers in Washington, DC, who are initiating the paperwork.
Posted by: The SpinMD at September 11, 2005 09:33 PM
spin MD,
Are you kidding? You hope there are lawyers in DC doing something, if the bottom feeders left DC the population would be cut in half. Your post was great until you mentioned the one group of individuals that should be banned from earth. I would bet there is one of them trying to figure a way to sue the weather bureau for missing the landfall of Katrina by by15 min and blaming someone for the destruction. I understand that half the ambulance chasers in this country are in the south trying to talk evacuees into sueing someone for a 50% contingency fee. The looters in New Orleans can be trusted more then lawyers, they steal in front of you.
Posted by: unca jer at September 11, 2005 09:57 PM
Mudge... mega dittos baby!
I sure hope the red states are waking up man and joining the productive part of the country.
Posted by: usefulguy at September 12, 2005 12:44 AM
Unc, I agree with you in general, however, we have -- unfortunately -- shown that we are unable to mount a campaign against the Conservatives that ensures that smart people with true ethics are voted into office. The leeches may be our only chance.
Posted by: The SpinMD at September 12, 2005 07:26 AM
