Everything old is new again gentle reader. Not only has the Reactionary Right attempted to drag us back in to the sexual and social mores of the 1950’s. No, not satisfied with wiping out the successes of liberation movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s; they want to return to the politics of the 1950’s.
You may have missed it, but Communism, dead and buried since 1989 is back. Well, at least it is back in the fevered imagination of TEA Party Politicians and Fox News commentators.
It is passing strange that the Red Menace has returned, I thought that the Sainted Reagan had single-handedly torn down Communism, and its Berlin Wall, with his bare hands, in a feat of super-human strength and will. After all, Don Reynaldo had told the evil Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and Gorby complied. How did the evil, rotten, feral, traitorous, soulless, and no-good Commies come back after the Gipper had stomped them flat? It is a puzzle.
But we have the word of Congressman Allen West that the nefarious Commies, those termites of liberty, are at again. They have regrouped, they have reformed, and true to character (or is that caricature?) have taken up false colors to fool the unwary. They have gained electoral office and become the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
No, seriously, this is the talking point. I hardly believed it myself. How any person conflate the highly disciplined, ideologically committed, and organizationally brilliant men and women who followed V.I. Lenin with the feckless lot of Congresscritters manning the battlements of the CPC is beyond me. Lenin had a will of hardened steel; the Congressmen and Women of the CPC are political jellyfish.
But this is state of play with the Rigid, Reactionary, Right. This is the authoritarian mind set laid bare. This is “my way or the highway” on steroids. This is the death rattle of the Conservative Movement. Bankrupt of new ideas, seeking only the destruction of their “enemies,” the default has become name calling. The default has become an abandonment of logic or debate. The default has to become political bullies.
This style of politics has a very long pedigree. It is the politics of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy. It is the politics of resentment; a resentment rubbed raw. It a politics that brooks no opposition at all. Opposition to the Radical Reactionary Right is seen as illegitimate. The opponents to the right are seen as deliberately evil. The opponents are seen as other.
This ugly messaging of the right has really taken off since the election of Barak H. Obama. At first the messaging was muffled, well as muffled as the Authoritarians of the right could mange-- that is to say not much. Words like “Marxist” and “Socialist” were whispered sotto voce by pundits and others as dog whistle politics to substitute for the politically incorrect “The President is a Ni-CLANG!”
But with the victory of the TEA Party, and their capture of the Republican Party, what was whispered is now shouted from the rooftops. And is no longer just a black president who is catching the flack; it is the entire Democratic Party. When challenged about their toxic messaging, TEA Party types just double down with old canard about “Liberal Media Bias.”
At a certain point outrage is not enough. At a certain point only sarcasm and out-right contempt are an adequate answer. Communism is dead, it exist exactly nowhere: not in China, not in Vietnam, not even in North Korea. Marx is dead. Lenin is dead. Stalin survives in a oddball rouge state that depends on the kindness of strangers to survive. No one in the US calls themselves a Communist, the CPUSA is now the Committees of Correspondence. The CoC is perhaps still Marxist, but even the geriatric Reds of the CoC know that the Old Soviet model is a rotted corpse, and a new ideology, a truly democratic Marxist model, must be built from the ground up.
The mainstreaming of this meme, of the opposition being traitorous Communists, is flat out wrong. The men who give this idea legitimacy by forwarding it are bullies and demagogues; yes, I’m talking to you Bill, the shill, O'Reilly. You are not “cultural warriors.” You are the exact opposite, Philistines, uncultured louts. Robert Reich need not respond to Bill O’ Lie-ly and the charge of Communism. The former Labor Secretary of Labor should not engage BIll the Bloat in a debate. Bill does not do debate, he does shouting matches. If the idiot Irishman could not show the President of the U.S. the kind of deference the office demands, do you think he going to show any kind of manners to a Cabinet Secretary?
No, the only possible response is confrontation with these troglodytes. manners will get you exactly nowhere. Call them out. Get in their grills. Most of all, mock them unmercifully. Turn them into laughing stocks. Point out the absurdity of their talking points. Do not give an inch, give them only push-back. They are not here for a conversation, do not engage them in one. The only response to “you’re a Commie” is “and you are a total idiot.”
You may have missed it, but Communism, dead and buried since 1989 is back. Well, at least it is back in the fevered imagination of TEA Party Politicians and Fox News commentators.
It is passing strange that the Red Menace has returned, I thought that the Sainted Reagan had single-handedly torn down Communism, and its Berlin Wall, with his bare hands, in a feat of super-human strength and will. After all, Don Reynaldo had told the evil Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and Gorby complied. How did the evil, rotten, feral, traitorous, soulless, and no-good Commies come back after the Gipper had stomped them flat? It is a puzzle.
But we have the word of Congressman Allen West that the nefarious Commies, those termites of liberty, are at again. They have regrouped, they have reformed, and true to character (or is that caricature?) have taken up false colors to fool the unwary. They have gained electoral office and become the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
No, seriously, this is the talking point. I hardly believed it myself. How any person conflate the highly disciplined, ideologically committed, and organizationally brilliant men and women who followed V.I. Lenin with the feckless lot of Congresscritters manning the battlements of the CPC is beyond me. Lenin had a will of hardened steel; the Congressmen and Women of the CPC are political jellyfish.
But this is state of play with the Rigid, Reactionary, Right. This is the authoritarian mind set laid bare. This is “my way or the highway” on steroids. This is the death rattle of the Conservative Movement. Bankrupt of new ideas, seeking only the destruction of their “enemies,” the default has become name calling. The default has become an abandonment of logic or debate. The default has to become political bullies.
This style of politics has a very long pedigree. It is the politics of Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy. It is the politics of resentment; a resentment rubbed raw. It a politics that brooks no opposition at all. Opposition to the Radical Reactionary Right is seen as illegitimate. The opponents to the right are seen as deliberately evil. The opponents are seen as other.
This ugly messaging of the right has really taken off since the election of Barak H. Obama. At first the messaging was muffled, well as muffled as the Authoritarians of the right could mange-- that is to say not much. Words like “Marxist” and “Socialist” were whispered sotto voce by pundits and others as dog whistle politics to substitute for the politically incorrect “The President is a Ni-CLANG!”
But with the victory of the TEA Party, and their capture of the Republican Party, what was whispered is now shouted from the rooftops. And is no longer just a black president who is catching the flack; it is the entire Democratic Party. When challenged about their toxic messaging, TEA Party types just double down with old canard about “Liberal Media Bias.”
At a certain point outrage is not enough. At a certain point only sarcasm and out-right contempt are an adequate answer. Communism is dead, it exist exactly nowhere: not in China, not in Vietnam, not even in North Korea. Marx is dead. Lenin is dead. Stalin survives in a oddball rouge state that depends on the kindness of strangers to survive. No one in the US calls themselves a Communist, the CPUSA is now the Committees of Correspondence. The CoC is perhaps still Marxist, but even the geriatric Reds of the CoC know that the Old Soviet model is a rotted corpse, and a new ideology, a truly democratic Marxist model, must be built from the ground up.
The mainstreaming of this meme, of the opposition being traitorous Communists, is flat out wrong. The men who give this idea legitimacy by forwarding it are bullies and demagogues; yes, I’m talking to you Bill, the shill, O'Reilly. You are not “cultural warriors.” You are the exact opposite, Philistines, uncultured louts. Robert Reich need not respond to Bill O’ Lie-ly and the charge of Communism. The former Labor Secretary of Labor should not engage BIll the Bloat in a debate. Bill does not do debate, he does shouting matches. If the idiot Irishman could not show the President of the U.S. the kind of deference the office demands, do you think he going to show any kind of manners to a Cabinet Secretary?
No, the only possible response is confrontation with these troglodytes. manners will get you exactly nowhere. Call them out. Get in their grills. Most of all, mock them unmercifully. Turn them into laughing stocks. Point out the absurdity of their talking points. Do not give an inch, give them only push-back. They are not here for a conversation, do not engage them in one. The only response to “you’re a Commie” is “and you are a total idiot.”
1 comment:
Actually, I'd call this the death rattle of the current Republican coalition. Conservatives are alive and well, and running the Democratic Party. Republicans are just having a more difficult time differentiating themselves from Democrats, and at the same time being more conservative. That's tough to do without sounding crazy.
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