and avoids the huge elephant in the room - the Republican party, as is the Democrat party, is controlled by corporate interests through the Council on Foreign Relations, personified by David Rockefeller.

To speak of W Bush (and HW Bush before him) without reference to his insect overlords is to misperceive the entire situation. The Iraq War continues against a 70% popular majority because a cabal of profiteering elites wishes that it continue.

The CFR controls the leading candidates in both parties. Only anti-CFR anti-war Ron Paul can be considered a populist.

http://RonPaul.meetup.com

Very well-written. Should be required reading for all "conservatives."

I wish I had more to say, but frankly, Mr. Kamiya has said it all. Extremely well-written, clever, and concise. This is the sort of article all thinking Americans need to read, regardless of party or ideological affiliation.

yeah forget it Gary, no one is coming to save this nation anytime soon. No one is revolting against this President because we aren't seeing bodybags in the way we saw them come home during WW2 and Vietnam. I know this is a cold calculation but lets face it, close to 4000 troops are dead in Iraq (and who cares about Iraqi deaths, they are savages right?). For most Americans its nothing compared to the 50,000 plus body bags that came from Vietnam. Right now we are superpower, we are smashing one fly after one another, have presence in just about every country, even that pesky Putin is hopping around sans testicles at all the changes happening around him and he cant do a damn thing...why should any American be worried? Plus the even better deal is the Arab world is getting humiliated everyday at what they see is the injustice towards Palestinians and that they cant do a damn thing..in fact we liberals are on the verge on electing another warmonger lady to possibly represent us, and this is the very lady who partially responsible for the quagmire we are in (oh please, cmon, dont tell me someone as smart as Hillary didnt know her husband was bombing the crapola out of Iraq for 10yrs..if she is smart enouugh to come up with a health care plan back then, she knew Iraq was too weak to do anything to us)..its fun for us to feel so powerful...

And we gave up our morals a long time ago..everytime Congress ceded a few powers here and a few powers there to the ex-presidents to do what they wanted, it was just another step towards shredding the Constitution. No person ever craving power is that dumb to make one big radical change for everyone to see. it happens slowly, chipping away, little by little....

Even Jimmy Carter, whom we liberals now treat as a liberal diety, supported the Shah even though he knew how bad the Shah was towards common Iranians. He was pretty much in love with Begin for making some small overtures to the Egyptians, while all along he knew Begin never intended to keep his bargain with the Palestinians. He let the military and CIA do their dirty little tricks around the globe (with Congress's knowledge sometimes, like that even matters). Same with Kennedy, Reagan, Ford, Poppy Bush, Clinton etc

So that moral clarity had long sailed away well before even strom thurmond had gained consciouness. we are simply wringing our hands for no reason. I will only believe American people want change when I see them on the streets denouncing the latest war mongering towards Iran. otherwise Gary you are simply wasting your time. We havent learned anything, especially liberals (so dont make it sound like this is all conservatives faults)

We'll see the Christian Right push aside its values and principles to ensure that a Republican is elected.

Never mind that the candidate has violated the moral preachings of the Christian Right. Those values are expendable in the fight for the presidency.

The Republican motto ought to read: "The Party first, the country second".

Why must today's conservatives be stupid? You have to realize that there's a difference between people who support conservativism (i.e., the Republican Party) and those who speak for it.

Conservative voters are the rubes. It helps if they're stupid, because of the number of contradictory positions needed to support the Party of Bush. Conservative officials and spokesmen need to be smart enough to pull the old bait'n'switch, wool over the eyes, sophistic tricks and pseudo-legalistic arguments to keep the rubes in line. They generate the lies (like "Reaganomics Worked!") and repeatedly impress them on their sheep. They rewrite history whenever it's politically convenient, and broadcast their falsifications throughout the country, 24x7, on all channels, all stations, and nearly all newspapers.

There's a hard core of people willing to believe anything (it's looking like 20-25% of Americans). As Bush said in his 2000 campaign,

"you can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones I have to concentrate on."

The conservative "message" is for them, and it's plenty good enough.

Bush did not wreck conservatism. Bush IS conservatism. All of their ugly principles are on display. Bush and Cheney and Rove (like Lee Atwater before them) just do it better.

In the past, conservatism was restrained by healthy institutions. A press that investigated, a congress that had teeth. The difference now is that the Republicans have systematically destroyed the checks on their power.

Witness the absurd spectable of the Stockholm-syndrome Democrats quaking in the face of a president with the support of less than a quarter of the country.

The right wing (excuse me, "conservatives") have simply gotten what they have always wanted. If we care to take it away from them it is going to take a long time.

Very, very.

And Mr. Kamiya is his cognitive cousin.

"If American conservatism will not take its stand in defense of these things, what will it take a stand for?

The answer, sadly, is nothing -- or rather, nothing except power. But power devoid of moral content is precisely what genuine conservatism should reject."

I think this is absolutely true, but part of the problem is the evaporation of the opposition party. Let's face it-- the democrats, at least the leadership, including the top-tier presidential hopefuls who hem and haw about whether they can foresee leaving Iraq-- can be described in pretty much the same way: just as unwilling to defend the constitution, just as cravenly hungry for power.