Where did the middle go?

[cally]

THis article contains many insights that are new.




How polarized politics and a radical GOP have put a chill on measured debate


Theodore Roszak

Sunday, October 10, 2004


Walk into a bookstore today, throw a stick in any direction, and it's likely you'll hit a dozen savage attacks upon George W. Bush. Future historians will surely regard the deluge of Bush-bashing books and films that appeared in 2004 as a remarkable cultural phenomenon, a tribute to the vitality of American publishing and to the surviving political literacy of the public.

They will certainly note that elevating the nation's liberal blood pressure helped rally the troops to John Kerry's campaign. But they may find themselves puzzling over why the assault on Bush had so little effect on his political base. They may conclude that this was the year partisan polarization spun out of control, the point at which persuasion and dialogue -- always in short supply -- became things of the past.

Behind all the Bush-bashing we have seen this year stands the same idealistic assumption that once inspired the muckrakers of old: If only we can get the truth out, the public will rise up in wrath and drive the "lying liars" from power. For that matter, Bush's handlers make the same assumption. That's why they labor so strenuously to exploit all the latest techniques for manufacturing consent.

But what if both sides are wrong about how much can be achieved by shocking revelations on film or in print? What if Bush's political base never needed to be lied to? That might explain why, despite "Fahrenheit 9/11" and all the other enraged documentaries (the best of which, incidentally, is "Hijacking Catastrophe" by the Media Education Foundation), the polls keep reflecting strong popular support for Bush's "leadership" and why he continues to find cheering crowds, especially at military bases where troops give their commander-in-chief the big "hoo-ah." These people aren't deceived. They know exactly what Bush is up to -- and it's OK with them.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/10/RVG1T9289T1.DTL

[FloridaPat]

1. The American public seems to love these reality shows. It seems to

me that the current system is a lot like the Roman Empire. They had all those collesuem shows with lion, tigers, Christians, and enemies all trying to kill each other. Kept the Roman population happy.

The American public just seem brain dead. And getting worse every year. When I order things in restaurants or catalogs, things come in wrong. Things I buy don't last a year. I am a computer programmer and in a 20 year career span, it has constantly amazed me how little logic is used to implement computer systems.

Is it the water? The education system? McDonald's food? TV? I just don't know.

[NMDemDist2]

2. yikes good article n/t

[teach1st]

3. Thanks for posting this..

From the article:

"Here's what I think most infuriates liberals. They are up against a Republican opposition that has shown no comparable willingness to risk party unity on a matter of conscience -- nothing that compares to the sacrifice liberals were willing to make over civil rights and Vietnam. Republicans have had no difficulty swallowing episodes like McCarthyism and Watergate. Indeed, the relentless effort to impeach Bill Clinton was largely retaliation for what conservatives still see as the "persecution" of poor Richard Nixon. Others (like Ann Coulter) are now toiling to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy, including his charge that liberals are traitors. And Ronald Reagan went to his grave this year all but officially pardoned by Republicans for Iran-Contra, the most blatant violation of constitutional government in American history.

We have yet to see any sizable group of Republicans who will admit to a single moral blemish, let alone display a willingness to defect. Hardly surprising, then, that Bush supporters display no discomfort over a war that liberals see as an obvious hoax. Bush's political base has become so ideologically entrenched that it is willing to offer his administration a blank ethical check."

[Hello_Kitty]

4. Sad to say, but I think he's right about that

You can argue facts and logic with Bush supporters until you're blue in the face. You may even get them to concede a few points. But they won't back down. I think a lot of people are willing to give up a lot of liberty and compromise a lot of ethics in order to preserve the illusion that someone will take care of them and keep them safe. The Repugs have been brilliant at exploiting this.

[HarveyBriggs]

5. He misses a big point, too.

By definition, a true conservative is ... well ... conservative.

Not wont to take to the streets in protest, foam at the mouth in rebellion, or scream at the top of his or her lungs in moral indignation.

They just change, quietly. After a period of considered thought.

Joe McCarthy was not deposed by screaming outrage, but by a quiet conservative, Dwight Eisenhower.

Despite all the protest of the Vietnam war, it was a moderate conservative, Richard Nixon, who brought the war to a close.

And in this era of screaming disagreement, it will be true conservatives who will hand George W. Bush his hat, and help bring this era of divsiveness to a steady close.

I am one of those kinds of conservatives, an individual who sees George W. Bush as a radical idealouge who combines his penchant for knee-jerk reactivity with a stubborn inability to admit when his quick draw and reckless shooting has failed to hit its mark.

In John Kerry, I see a liberal Senator with a conservative demeanor; an individual who takes his time to consider the facts, to weigh both sides and make a sure decision. In this race he is the true conservative. Not as flashy or fiery as Howard Dean, not as common or homespun as George Bush -- John Kerry offers a steady voice and sure hand in undertain times. Come election day, that may be the deciding factor.

The writer of this piece suggests the heart and soul of the Democratic Party is its wildly flairling progressive protestors. It's heart, maybe -- but its soul lies in progrossive thinkers with a more conservative demeanor: the FDR's and JFKs who can take a progressive message and make it meaningful to the nation's more conservative middle.

John Kerry may not be a Jack Kennedy or a Franklin Roosevelt, but he doesn't have to be. His quiet, assuring demeanor is appealing in such divisive times.

Harvey Briggs

[Demeter]

7. Bull! Conservatives ONLY Change When It's THEIR Ox Getting Gored!

We've seen it time and time again. The people without the capacity to empathise, to walk even two steps in another person's shoes, are born-again liberals when it's their lives, their families, their futures in the political crusher. When the Politics gets personal, the conservatives get that old-time Democratic religion. The Women's Movement told us 40 years ago: The Personal IS Political!

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Skittles]

9. WTF are you talking about?

we DO see time and time again how conservatives only give a rat's ass about ANYTHING *ONLY WHEN IT AFFECTS THEM*. Case in point - do you REALLY think Nancy Reagan would give a hoot about stem cell if her beloved Ronnie hadn'd died such a horrible death?

[Mikimouse]

10. True enough, but then...

You ARE just another one of those damnable Lefty Loonies (I should know, takes one to know one). (sarcasm off, and no offense intended, please don't KICK MY ASS!):evilgrin: :hi:

[mzmolly]

12. I wonder if Harvey's definition of conservative is the same as others here

???

:shrug:

Afterall, Dean said he was a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.

[mzmolly]

11. I think were all defining "conservative" in a different light.

:hi:

Harvey stick around, I don't label myself conservative, moderate or liberal. I am a Kerry supporter and a Democrat ... and this tent is big enough for us all!

[nonconformist]

13. Is it me or is this some bizarro shit?

I feel all parallel universey.

[Kenneth ken]

14. thanks

I for one know I don't have a lot to worry about from conservatives. I don't like some of the conclusions they come to after considering things, but I know they at least use thought in forming their opinions.

The people now in control of the Republican party are not conservatives; the people who advocate putting the party above the man as a rationale for supporting Bush* are not conservatives.

In discussing anything with a real conservative, I can find some common ground; the foaming-at-the-mouth Bush* supporters are just rabid.

[bogey18]

23. Conservative is as abused a term as liberal.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises
in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." John Kenneth Galbraith

I think our friend here is an old fashioned conservative, believing in fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, etc.

Welcome to the other side of the looking glass, where up is down, right is wrong, and George Bush is a moral leader and a conservative.

[baby_bear]

22. His book won't be published here? Why not?

From the postscript to the article:

Theodore Roszak is the author of "The Devil and Daniel Silver-man." His most recent book, "World, Beware! American Triumphalism in an Age of Terror," an appeal to America's global constituency, is being published in several foreign editions, but not in the United States.


???

s_m

[Larkspur]

24. You are wrong! Nixon wanted to escalate the Vietnam war

and he would have if it wasn't for the raging anti-war protests. Nixon wanted to use nuclear weapons against the Vietnamese to "win" the war but the anti-war protests made Nixon rethink that strategy and decline to use it because it would have been a political disaster for him.

While I'm no fan of St. Augustine, who I view as a misogynist, he did have an interesting definition of Hope. He said, "Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to change them."

The anger against injustice is a good and healthy response. It shows that we are human and we care. When we repress our anger at injustice, it shows that we will support the unjust status quo, just like the Germans who remained silent and followed the status quo under Nazi rule.

Let's also remember that anger against injustice drove the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. and his followers to march non-violently but passionately for civil rights for African Americans. And it was their courage in the face of our government's violent response to their non-violent demand for justice that altered America's conscience towards African Americans' plight.

Anger by itself is not the whole answer. It must be accompanied by the courage to face the consequences of challenging injustice and a good PR strategy to get the silent majority to witness the violence and injustice done in their name.

Jesus, who inspired Gandhi's and King's non-violent movements, said to pray for those that persecute you and blessed are those who hunger for justice because they will be filled. He didn't say to stand aside and let injustice continue. Without the anger against injustice, the moderate conservatives, whom you admire, would have allowed that injustice to continue because it would have been politically inconvenient for them to challenge injustice themselves.

[Starlight]

6. This is the article I would have written, if I only I could write.

Thanks so much for posting this. It literally brought tears to my eyes. It's what I've tried unsuccessfully to explain to my unconcerned friends & acquaintances who don't see "what's such a big deal" about the current election. The excerpt below clearly articulates the fear I have when I question why anyone would still vote for Bush.

"Suppose, then, George W. Bush dropped all pretenses and simply declared, "OK, you wanna know my domestic agenda? Here it is. Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay and I aren't just gonna defeat the liberals, we're gonna obliterate them, along with every progressive reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt, every New Deal program, every Great Society entitlement. Why else do you think we're running these sky-high deficits? We're handing as much dough as we can to the people who know how to run this country -- namely the super-rich. Sure, that's gonna cost the rest of you jobs and social services, but isn't it worth it to give the poor, the nonwhite, the welfare queens, the gays and the feminazis a swift kick in the teeth?

"What's my foreign policy? Listen up. We're gonna yank that oil out from under those dysfunctional Arabs because we need it to preserve our gas- guzzling way of life, and I'm not asking anybody for a permission slip to do that. We're God's chosen people and we intend to make the most of it. And if anybody gets in our way, we've got what it takes to clobber them."

If Bush took that line, I wonder if it would it cost him a single vote he doesn't already have. And how many swing voters might be won over by such decisive, non-flip-flopping leadership? As for the single-minded evangelicals who have become the key to any winning political strategy, the Republicans have them so locked in that even if Bush were discovered having lunch with the devil, they would still vote for him -- as long as he treated them to an occasional kick at the gays and the feminists."

[Strawman]

20. He's right on there

That's what you basically get when you really push a Republican in an argument and show an ability to debunk all the bullshit arguments they use as cover for their neanderthalism. Social darwinism and militarism. "I don't want to give my money to some lazy bastard on welfare" and/or "Fuck those Arabs. They would kill us if they could, so we have to show them we mean business so they don't fuck with us."

[Kenneth ken]

15. thanks cally

good read.

:hi:

[bpilgrim]

16. where is the republican middle?

watching surviver and the rest of the regularly scheduled programming :shrug:

"Looking back, Republicans might want to thank people like the young John Kerry and the Vietnam Veterans for Peace. Their opposition cost the Democratic Party dearly and launched the country toward the great conservative backlash of the Ronald Reagan presidency. For that matter, liberals were doing electoral favors for the GOP long before Vietnam."

sounds like he doesn't recognize the overall GAINS wrought by the eternal struggle between progressives and conservatives.

and so it goes...

peace

[George_S]

17. He's missing one point, cally

And that is that liberals have not waged the cultural war for years. Before 2000 there was an onslaught of propaganda from Limbaugh, Hannity, FoxNews and Coulter, not to mention lesser names, all attacking liberals. This really took hold when Gingrich released his propaganda booklet: http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/examples.newt.html

Still, liberals shrugged. It's only free speech

Liberals awoke some in 2000 because Bush is so extreme. After the conservatives violated their own principles and used to Supreme Court to take the election, many liberals were awake.

That is when the anti-Bush books started getting popular. Then the war. Then the effort by Bush to create a theocracy and ban abortion.

Liberals lost a lot of ground by being so passive over the years, and it is impossible to be effective by taking the high ground.

True, maybe no one is winning over anyone, but it is true that the base of both sides is energized, and the liberals are more united and determined than they have been for years.

Look what happened after the DNC tried to take the high road during the convention: the swift boat ads were the return fire.

Passive silence cannot be the only response. Repubs cry about how loud and shrill the liberals are, but that is only because they - the repubs - aren't used to return fire.

And liberals are moderate compared to the neocons.

[clyrc]

18. Now that was a good read

I glad I got to read it

[SoCalDem]

19. We only "know" what we are TOLD..

As long as ONE side controls the radio/newspapers/TV, etc, we will never truly KNOW what "we" think.. We are only shown one side, over and over..

We can "buy" the "other side" via books and movie tickets, but that is a piss-poor substitute for picking up any ole paper, turning on any ole channel, or listening to any ole radio station.. Until there is parity in those areas, we will just be "told" what everyone ELSE thinks, thereby making US the ones who are out of step..:(

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

21. wow..Theodore Roszak is still around?

Gee whiz..that name is a blast from the past.

And,yeah, I pretty much agree with him on this....People who like Bush know what hes about. Thats the scary part, really.