Sunday, January 1, 2012

Radicals? Moderates?






A email debate between Peter and Paul, but no Mary! Sorry but you have to read this from the bottom up.


Peter Schultz
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to Paul
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Ah yes, the good old thought that foreign policy and domestic policy are two different things, even though "you can't separate the two." But then you do. Hey, my friend, just take note that Obama just signed legislation that suspends habeas corpus - here at home. And what do you think the "Cold War" was about if not imposing discipline at home? McCarthy attacked us here. And of course all "moderates" like Obama sign laws that violate the Bill of Rights, right? Not so much. At least that isn't my idea of "moderation." Modernity is radical, that is, divorced from real reality and engaged in a politics that is little more than manipulation in attempt to become a "great" nation. Moral nation? Not so much. Free nation? Not so much. Relatively equal society? Not so much. Ah, but militarily predominant? Oh yeah. Engaged in inhuman acts, like torture [including Obama]? Oh yeah. That works. And Obama, your "moderate," just contributed to the cause. Isn't it amazing how language can be distorted so badly so that radicals are taken for "moderates" and moderates are taken for "radicals." See Orwell generally, and especially his essay on language and politics. He saw through the bullshit we call "reality." Until we see through this fog we have nowhere to go but down the road we are on now, the road to perdition. But at least we will be well armed when we get "there," if there is a there there!

Oh, and if you want "domestic" just consider the bailout and the fact that our level headed "moderates" thought that lowering interest rates would get us out of our troubles when it was that that got us into them! Or where most of that money went. Unintentionally, you say? Sure and the moon is made of cheese. Or consider the size of the prison/jail population in the United States. Another "moderate" policy? Not so much. Or consider that we put teenagers to death or the mentally incompetent as well. "Moderation?" Really?

And the problem with your argument about Stockman and shock therapy is not that you or Stockman is wrong; rather, it is that both parties collude in this policy because otherwise it could never have happened. For me, this is just further evidence that those in charge are radicals, not moderates. Only a radical could think and act like these guys and actually think such policies could work, in which they are just like the powers that use to be in the Soviet Union pursuing policies that could not possibly work, ever, except in their dreams. And for me this includes the Democrats as well as the Republicans.
On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 10:57 PM, Paul Gallagher <thepgallagh@gmail.com> wrote:
Peter,

I'm not saying you are a fan of Ann Coulter.  Our big problem, I think, is that you think primarily in terms of foreign affairs (note your examples) and I think primarily in terms of domestic policy.  Maybe you can't separate the two, but, rightly or wrongly, I tend to. 

 My only point is that with regards to domestic politics, the political center in this country has moved significantly to the right in the last 30 years, and that from 32-79, the New Deal was largely accepted as a Done Deal, and domestic policies worked under that paradigm.  Since Reagan, but especially since W., that paradigm has been rejected and is being attack more and more by conservatives.  And I do think that "Starve the Beast" accurately describes the right's domestic strategy.  David Stockman admitted as much in the mid-80s.  He may have been the one to coin the phrase.  Run up the deficit, claim to be shocked, and then claim that the only way that can be addressed is to ax domestic programs.

Be that as it may.  Have a good 2012, my friend.

Paul
On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 9:02 PM, Peter Schultz <lpkschultz@gmail.com> wrote:
You have totally misunderstood my "radical" comment perhaps because you cannot escape the idea that there are only two political alternatives, liberal and conservative, as currently understood and that if one calls Democrats "extremists" one must be a fan of Ann Coulter, et. al. Kissinger and Nixon not radicals? You're kidding right? Those who overthrew a democratically elected president in Chile and destroyed an essentially democratic society there are not "radicals?" JFK trying to kill Castro, assassinating Diem in Nam, and Trujillo and Lumumba, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war because he was obsessed with overthrowing Castro not a "radical?" Even Eisenhower overthrowing a democratically elected premier in Iran and supporting a hateful dictatorship while praising him as a bastion of decency not a radical? Carter praising the same dictator even as he was about to be overthrown and rightfully so not a "radical?" Bush declaring war on a tactic not a "radical?" FDR, stricken with polio, arguing that we have nothing to fear but fear itself not a radical? What about polio? Thankfully Jonas Salk did not listen to FDR! Why is it these people, all labeled "moderates" by the establishment, thought they could get away with supporting dictators and condone assassination and murder and terrorism if they were not "radicals?"

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Paul Gallagher <thepgallagh@gmail.com> wrote:
Cool.  Skip the rest and go and get "In the Garden of the Beast." Very good and disturbing book.  History written like a good novel.

And while you're there, check out any book by Ann Coulter (especially her Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America) or any book by Sean Hannity (a good start is "Deliver Us from Evil:  Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism) and show me a book from the American "Left" that engages in anywhere close to a  similar elimiinationist rhetoric.  The titles and five minutes of perursing is enough.
On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Peter Schultz <lpkschultz@gmail.com> wrote:
Too far apart here to have a decent conversation. Will resume on some other topics.

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Paul Gallagher <thepgallagh@gmail.com> wrote:
There are no extremists that control the Democratic party.  That's right wing media hype.  Obama, by any standards is a very moderate, overly moderate Democratic.  What you are seeing now is the dismantling, with Democrats wimpishly agreeing, or the social system put into place by FDR and expanded by LBJ.  Eisenhower was far to the left of most any Democrat in Congress right now.  Nixon was domestically to the left.  Those guys worked within the context of the New Deal.  We now are working within the context of the devised dismantling of that social structure.  The Tea Party is a lot closer to the SDS than to John Kerry.

"Starve the Beast."  Take a surplus, enact massive tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich, conduct an expensive, totally unneeded and unsuccessful war, cut way back on regulatory oversight of the financial sector, and create a huge deficit.  Create a crisis.  Then use that deficit/crisis to justify cutting back the social system that the wealthy have always hated.

I'm afraid we are seeing the status quo being shaken up, in a very,very bad.

It's right wing enacted class warfare.  And that's bad, bad, news.

The amazing thing that the right are starting to be called on is the bizarre attempt to mix Ayn Rand, staunch anti-Christian, pseudo Nietzschen "capitalist superman", heartless nut, with fundamentalist Christianity.  Certain mainstream Christian groups are calling them out on this.

Almost finished with "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larsen.  A very good, and very disturbing read.  A story about the new American ambassador to Germany four months after the ascension of Hitler.  Political paranoia throughout the air.
On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 8:20 AM, Peter Schultz <lpkschultz@gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, well, Lind could be right but I am more concerned with the extremists who control the Republican and Democratic Parties than I am with the Tea Party. Anything, or almost anything that shakes up the status quo is fine with me. I don't support the Tea Party and have no intention of doing so but this kind of stuff merely serves to preserve the status quo both at home and abroad.
On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Paul Gallagher <thepgallagh@gmail.com> wrote:







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