Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 996 Editor's Choice: 2
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Military Patriot
[Read the article: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I’m not ready to buy into the theory that Rudy will continue to be framed as a moderate when his election team is examined and the strong neocon stench starts to come through to American voters.
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And even if say Obama who wants to send a unifying message is the candidate and doesn’t speak strongly enough, the M$M and folks like MoveON and Robert Greenwald will sound the alarm for him. I just can’t buy the argument that sufficient Americans will not see who Ghouliani truly is and represents.
These are two different propositions, and I want to be clear about what I'm saying. I'm not saying that "sufficient Americans will not see who Ghouliani truly is and represents," so that Rudy will win the presidency. I'm saying that too many Americans will not learn the true lesson of a Giuliani defeat -- particularly those who need to learn it most, such as the traditional media and Washington establishment.
The "lesson" of course being that rampant militarism and authoritarian impulses, while tempting during periods of national trauma, are about as un-American as ideologies come. Yes, enough people recognize this (even if only on a more visceral than intellectual level) to ensure that the Democrat wins in 2008, in my estimation.
However, as I said, the so-called "chattering classes" that we hear from in major media outlets will, for the most part, miserably fail to learn this lesson, instead fixating on Rudy's positions on abortion and gay rights. The result will be an emboldened Republican minority (as if they need to be emboldened) that will fall back into the mold of 90s Democrat-baiting, and a media that will hardly cease framing militaristic, authoritarian tendencies as "moderate" or "mainstream."
The American public as a whole is often an enigma, with sentiments only fleetingly measurable in polls, and often subject to mercurial changes in attitude depending on the circumstances and narratives of the time. Also, we are a big enough country that a majority of people can feel a certain way and still their government refuses to accommodate them. For these reasons, other than to point out how erroneous and radical "mainstream" chatter in major media really is, it is the attitude of this establishment that requires our greatest vigilance.
Let's keep in mind that, in this republic, majority sentiment only sometimes affects the behavior of our government. In many ways, our Congress and other organs of the government are much, much more responsive to the very most elite observers and insiders -- those who control the major editorial pages, newspaper content, and prime time television narratives. Let's not forget how the media, spurred on by the GOP, snapped at the heals of President Clinton relentlessly even though the vast majority of the American public took his side.
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zack
[Read the article: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, there you have it. By selecting “the most bloodthirsty neo-conservative militants to serve him” Giuliani won and earned the title of the “most influential conservative” in America.
That’s says a whole lot about what “conservatism” in America has come to mean in this country.
Absolutely. Foreign intervention and "security issues" have about eclipsed every other component of the conservative political platform. It's actually kind of ironic, but I definitely believe that this new preeminence of militarism in the conservative ideology (embodied now as Giuliani) is almost entirely due to the rise of the evangelical social conservative movement (embodied by those who many say are Giuliani's biggest challenge), as opposed to in spite of it.
The religious right's ascendancy in contemporary American politics has exhibited, from the outset, every dominant trait that we now see underpinning the authoritarian, neoconservative right. Philosophical rigidity, defiance of facts in favor of ideological aspiration, unquestioning obedience to authority, fear and hatred of outsiders, group-think, and a virulent need to force their value systems on others.
I took a class in college about American militarism, and one of the sections of the class focused on the striking overlap of religious ritual and war. I won't get into it all here, but a close look at politically dominant religion and militarism reveals a surprising amount of overlap in attitude, ritual, and behavior. Their preponderance even tends to peak simultaneously, the one accompanying the rise of the other. Even their exhibition occurs simultaneously, with warriors overwhelmingly being blessed by religious authorities prior to battle, and so many wars having religious conflict at their core. Also think of the excellent example of the extensive Christian proselytizing and religious intolerance occurring at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062200598.html).
This is no coincidence, and it makes Pat Robertson and Rudy Giuliani's new alliance hardly as surprising as many have portrayed it. Indeed, they have been "close friends" for several years now.
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"defeating" Giuliani
[Read the article: Rudy Giuliani's messianic paranoia]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have to second that emotion. Allowing Rudy to get a solid foothold in national politics does not bode well for our future no matter who our next President ends up being.
I'm all for Giuliani being electorally defeated as soon as possible, but we must remember that, no matter what happens in the 2008 election, this ugly strain of conservatism will only get worse. In fact, they are arguably more dangerous out of power than they are in power (with the exception, of course, of being unable to directly initiate a war).
Particularly if Hillary Clinton is elected, not only will we see ever-more trenchant neoconservatism, but the self-identified "libertarians" of the right will suddenly awake to find themselves stridently flexing their "principle" in ways we never saw during Bush. It will be a period of Republican obnoxiousness like none we have seen since Gingrich was Speaker of the House.
We will need a blue ribbon council of neurologists to figure out how so much amnesia could afflict so many Republicans.