The New Right Wing Agenda
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0613-02.htm "The most important implication of all this is that large segments of the domestic and world population are no longer seen as worth worrying about. On one level, this is just racism and classism. But there’s more than that going on. In the past, capitalism was optimistic and assumed that it would keep expanding, which provided the basis for a “corporate liberalism” that saw everyone in the world as a potential consumer and/or laborer - and therefore having some potential worth. But the new reactionaries see the future as much more of a zero-sum game. Partly, this is an expression of their incredible greed and corruption - their incessant efforts to rip off wealth for themselves and their narrow sets of cronies. In any case, the result is that most of Africa, large swaths of Latin America and Asia, and significant parts of the domestic US population have been simply written off -individuals who may arise from the trodden mass are welcome as junior partners, but there is no concern at all for the general well being of these sectors beyond token PR and the limited need to keep local elites from causing too much anti-American trouble on the world stage.
"The amazing thing is that the right wing fundamentalists have been able to seize power and win a large amount of support - or at least acquiescence -- among the US electorate. The people I talk with point to a number of contextual reasons. First, this country lacks any significant institutionalized alternative. The Democratic Party is both complicit and fratricidal. The labor movement is the only really powerful potential organized opposition, but they are ideologically scattered, organizationally weak, and under unremitting attack. In addition, the powerful role of money in shaping our electoral outcomes is another key ingredient in the right wings success, as well as in keeping liberal (much less radical) alternatives from gaining influence in the Democratic Party. The increasing dominance of US media by an incredibly small number of incredibly right wing corporations has a powerful impact. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the lack of any significant “third way,” and the resulting feeling that there is “no viable alternative” has been a very important context for the right wings’ ability to present themselves as inevitable and unstoppable. Finally, the current climate of insecurity, fear, and even paranoia - which the government and media are successfully doing their utmost to deepen and expand - plays an important role in making it hard for opposition to find political space.
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"Most important, by wrapping themselves in the mantle of religion, the GOP leadership has made themselves a vehicle for the growing religious fundamentalist upsurge - parts of which can accurately be described as a fascist movement. Having god on your side means you are always right, no matter what other people may think or how events may fall out. You simply never have to say you are sorry, and all your failures are the result of evil forces beyond your control. Being on a Crusade, having an absolutist and deeply ideological sense of mission, also underpins the right wing’s willingness to use all the power at their command - legal and extra-legal - to push for a maximal agenda. No matter how thin their electoral margin of victory, once in office, they act without hesitation or compromise. They understand that success creates its own legitimacy and its own tailwind, pulling others along with it.
"The scariest part is that the right wing lunatics feel that they’ll get away with it. Who remembers Afghanistan, or the absence of Iraqi’s supposed weapons of mass destruction? Who seems to care that our economy is collapsing? In the short term, Bush and company win not because of smarter strategies or brilliant tactics, but because they have access to overwhelming resources and power and they can simply outlast everyone and everything else. In fact, they are so incompetent and so blind to the complexities of the real world that they will make huge mistakes. So it is possible (but not inevitable) that the world situation will spin out of control and the small clique now running the country will have to pass the baton to others in 2004 or 2008. But we should not underestimate their willingness to keep imposing their will through direct (or indirect) force -- the racism, lies, manipulation, and violence used to secure the 2000 election are likely to be repeated or exceeded in coming years.
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*In my view the Dem Party is in big trouble. The only reason there is any unity now is due to the Neo Fascist stranglehold on Congress, most of the Courts and the Mass Media. Another term for the Neo Fascists would mean a Fascist Corporate State. Could Amerika recover from another term of the Neo Fascist progrom?
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