Talking East while Walking West
Lets talk a little bit about what conservatives and republicans champion to the poor, which is choices, responsibility and accountability. Apparently, the republicans like to talk East while walking West. No one in the current republican leadership, nor their pundits, are willing to take responsibility for all the miscalculations or outright prevarications concerning the Iraq occupation.
How can anyone of character and substance preach to the masses personal responsibility and accountability, while refusing to be responsibly and accountable when the shoe is on their foot. I guess the republicans are the party of do as we say and not as we do. This administration is not even willing to admit that it made mistakes or miscalculations. The first step in being responsible and accountable is to make an admission that one made errors, bad judgments in their choices. However, if one is lying about their motives, their were not mistakes, only prevarications.
How could Dr Rice be promoted after the Iraqi debacle? Talk about rewarding incompetence or deceit, this is a good example of it, notwithstanding her intellectual accomplishments and credentials. If she is as intelligent as they say, then by default she is either simply a token “yes man/women” or simply deceitful. However, what is even worse is that the people did not even hold the main choice maker, George Bush, accountable for all the know mistakes and unfounded pretexts given for out actions, which cost over a thousand American lives thus far.
This is supposed to be the party of morality. Well if that is so, they have their own self serving working definition of the term. I think what morality means for conservatives is simply sitting in church and professing a belief in Jesus Christ. There belief, in and of itself, is their salvations and thus requires no works or deed of righteousness and morality. When they are not faced with temptations, they seem moral. However, when they face temptation they are as immoral as they come. It is easy to say that others make bad choices and should be personally responsible, when one is not and have not been in their situation.
I refuse to accept that so many Americans can be that credulous and accepting of right wing propaganda. There is something insidious and ulterior about why so many people are still supporting the republicans to the degree that the president could be reelected. It has nothing to with morality, the belief in personal responsibility, accountability or anything like it. I think that the real reason that Bush was reelected is due to fear, taxes and racism.
The ubiquitous resentment of every republican is taxes. The crux of the matter is simply that they do not want to pay them. They/we are already the riches people on earth, yet, republican types want to be even richer and the government is keeping them from this goal with “big government” and giving their hard earned money to lazy black folk. That bring me to the other motive of why so many people continue to vote republicans. They want to cut aid and programs that they see disproportionably being utilized by black people. This is the old racist historical reality of America, represented in politics by the “Southern Strategy”.
Fear, however, following 911, is what really got Bush reelected. When people are scared, they and feel the need to be protected, they gravitate to the bad boys. People often wonder why women are attracted to bad boys types. One of the primary reasons for this is the sense of protection from others dating a bad boy, notwithstanding that the bad boy may whoop on them to from time to time. The American people in fear see republicans in general and George Bush in particular as “Bad boys”. They are willing to shoot first and ask questions later and a fearful America is attracted to such traits after 911.
I am almost totally repulsed by politics. How anyone can put so much faith and trust in this game is beyond me. People co-opt the parties platform and rhetoric and expose it with the passion as if it were dictates given to them by God personally. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
posted by Noah TA @ 1/30/2005 03:00:00 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Noah I understand your frustration but its the only game in town. And as you pointed out it has given us war on poverty, and AA which you believe has improved peoples lives.
Hell politics has given us Africa Town which you like.
I read a lot of political journals on both sides of the divide. In public (i.e. television news, newspapers, talk radio) there is certainly a type of “Crips vs. Bloods” gang war being waged amongst the parties. But the truth of it is that many, if not ‘most’ elite card-carrying Republican’s were against the Iraq War, and Bush’s re-election. Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos’ journal, The American Conservative has been pushing an anti-Bush Republicanism for some time now. If fact, Buchanan and Co. have stated emphatically that they are anti-imperialist and do not entertain, or advocate the “fantasies of global hegemony” currently in practice by the Bush camp. There is a distinct difference between the public’s ill-informed and coerced advocacy of Bush’s agenda, and hardcore card-carrying conservatism. To get a better sense for conservatism, I would stay away from Fox News, and spend more time reading Right-wing political journals.
I too despise politics, but I agree with Justin in that I find Liberalism to be equally, if not more repugnant than Conservatism. White Liberals are extremely condescending to, and dismissive of minority communities, especially in American Universities. For example, in America’s “elite” universities (which are notoriously liberal/Marxist) there are almost no African-America professors – despite their claims of academic openness. Many black neo-Conservatives are Liberal defectors that are fed up with Left-wing racist condescension. A good example of this is UC Berkeley linguistics professor John McWhorter, author of Losing the Race and Authentically Black.
In left-wing journals such as The Nation, you will not encounter many black political commentators. The Left considers its discourse to be very highbrow and intellectually elite, which is one of the reasons why Liberalism is failing. It does not speak to the masses in the way that Conservatism does. I don’t really believe that most people voted for Bush, I think they voted against Kerry, who was frankly a very weak candidate.
Politics is really only effective for constituencies wielding financial muscle. Politicians need money, without it you’re votes mean very little. Even if your candidate wins, without money, the needs of your community will not be met.
-Jean Michel
One thing that should be taken into account when dealing with Pat Buchanan is his beef with the Bush Administration is personal and goes back to Nixon White house. Pat has never liked Rumsfeild, Wolfowitz and Cheney. He despises the Neo-Con and their world Domination plans because in his eyes it is not necessary or possible and will cost too much. While he disagree with many of their tactics he is not in agreement with the Liberal arguements either and if forced to choose a side he will choose the republicans 100% of the time.
Jean, obviously the elite card carrying member of the Republican Party did not have the power to shape the policy and actions of the republican administration. Thus, in the context of this essay, their impotence renders that point moot. When I am talking about the parties, I am talking about the grass root masses and their motivation. If our form of government is a representative form of democracy, then power and policy is achieved by following or manipulating the mindset and beliefs of the grass roots masses. I am aware of the power and activity of lobbyist and elites in both parties; however, it is still the people and their votes that theoretically control who represents them and what policies they are allowed to actualize. This is why the propaganda machine of those in power works to control and shape what people think and believe which in turn will determine how they act and vote.
I have always seen politics in America to be primarily a competition between white liberal and conservative interest. Black interest only gets represented if it overlaps and intersects with a white interest. I tend to see compassion as a greater and more righteous virtue than having the lack there of. This is why I see the lesser of the two evils as being the white liberal interest. It may be true that some of them may accept the view that we are like helpless animals that need to be cared fore…since they brought us over here. However, I see that as being more righteous than the white supremacist that lack compassion and actually want to see us hurting. Both are damaging to black people, because both are rooted in the belief in black inferiority.
The anti-Bush sentiments within the Republican Party extend far beyond Pat Buchanan’s personal beef – that’s just one example. Of course, a Conservative is usually going to choose that side over Liberalism, but that doesn’t mean that divisiveness and malcontent don’t exist there. My point is that I’m bored with the flattening generalizations that get thrown around about the parties. Just because the Republicans are having their moment, doesn’t mean that most people favor Bush and his war. All of the polls leading up to the election made this clear. Besides, we just came off of eight years of Democratic phony-Liberalism bullshit with Clinton, and that didn’t bear any fruit for black people. Even though the media pumps this Us vs. Them partisan nonsense – the reality is that the parties (and their agendas) are much more complex than that. To dismiss anti-Bush Republicanism is a gross error because that kind of anti-Hegemonic dissent is needed to effectively produce a regime change in the future. It’s “hugely” important that there are Conservatives who reject ruthless imperialism and global domination. Yes, the masses have been manipulated into supporting the current administration, but so what! Both parties share the same basic agenda – they want America to win! They want the United States to dominate. Their strategies are just different. Liberals just pretend to be a friend to the Negro, while they placate and pacify us. Conservatives just don’t bother with that nonsense. But the most troubling fallacy within this discussion is the notion that politics is something that is inflicted upon us by whites. Are we just the hapless victims of White Supremacy that can only diagnose and complain about our plight? What is our stake in the political game?
I half-heartedly agree that politics (as it exists today) is essentially a white vs. white power struggle. But it doesn’t have to be that way – I think that attitude is just a concession. African-Americans – at least up to this point – have not put any serious money behind a candidate. But if we really believed that politics was not for us, we wouldn’t even bother talking about it – unless we’re just griping here. Nobody in America lives outside of politics, we live in it, and it shapes our very existence whether we participate in it or not. We’re (black Americans) also complicit with the system of global imperialism and exploitation because we do not resist it – we participate in it. Our perceived innocence as historical victims of this nation does not absolve us, or render us guiltless in the eyes of history, or in the global community. We’ve participated in every act of American barbarism throughout history – every atrocity from slavery, Native American genocide, to the many wars great and small. In fact, we as a people have fought tirelessly to participate in these events. There are many people of color fighting in Iraq because they believe in it and want to fully participate as American citizens. I know some people like this intimately.
I find nothing redemptive or empowering about Liberalism – and it certainly isn’t “more” righteous than Conservatism. I would be careful not to “inherently” conflate Conservatism with White Supremacy – or Conservatism with the Republican Party.
Bush’s re-election had more to do with the manipulation and galvanizing of fear than political allegiances. The best way to fight the political game is to play it as ruthlessly as those who currently dominate it.
Anyway, I feel your pain brother!
-Jean Michel
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