people in power do not give up the power with a smile.
Posted by T2 at October 20, 2008 07:10 PMTrue, T2. It has been reported that Sadaam was rather stearn faced bordering on outright crabby while being dragged from his spidy hole.
Posted by TIKI AL at October 20, 2008 07:26 PMContrary to caricature,...
to be conservative is not necessarily to be racist,
Yes it is. You son-of-a-bitches have proven you are racist assholes. Your racism knows no bounds. Home foreclosures? "Niggras and Spics." Wallstreet meltdown? "Niggras and Spics."
or retrograde,
Oh sure, you assclowns are not the most backwards fucks out there. Liberals and progressive are "Communists" or "Commie pinko fags." Don't want to give money to the wealthy? "Socialism." Got a problem? "McCarthy it." If you were any more backwards you'd have to crap out your navels. Your perfect society exists...55 years ago.
or close-minded.
"Obama support is obviously some form of Bradley effect" or "Of course Colin would support Obama, he is black."
It is, rather, to be driven by a fundamental human impulse to preserve what one has and loves.
Indeed, it is. "Han me a six-pack an muh huntin gun a fore I bitch slap ya, woeman!"
Conservatism is dead. Dead, dead, dead. It's on the ash heap with the other failed "isms."
Some...progressive stuff is authoritarian too though: like speech codes, hate speech laws, smoking bans,... political correctness,....
And you could also argue that on economics liberals/progressives are more "authoritarian": for higher taxes, more regulation, more rules, red tape, beauracracy....
If conservatives actually were for less government they wouldnt be authoritarian, but they have to satisfy the religious right theocrats and thats where they betray there own philosophy.
The real anti-authoritarian party/philosophy is the Libertarian party: socially liberal, fiscally conservative.
Posted by Jonesy at October 20, 2008 08:13 PMThe real anti-authoritarian party/philosophy is the Libertarian party:
You bet. Just ask the libertarians in Katrina.
Posted by phidipides at October 20, 2008 08:55 PMTechnically speaking, there are conservatives and there are right-wing conservatives. Altemeyer talks about right wing authoritarians (RWAs). I don't know if Altemeyer talks about it but the distinction is that you can reach conservatives on a number of issues but right wing authoritarians are very difficult to reach once the authoritarian dynamic has been cranked up (just as McCain is currently trying to do).
There's also another distinction to make. Right wing authoritarian followers are not the same as right wing authoritarian dominators. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilley, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are examples of not just dominators, but, as John Dean so eloquently expressed it, conservatives without conscience. Bush, for example, used to 'win' basketball games by changing the rules if he was losing. A more obvious gimmick was the way Bush would work a room of GOP donors and do a two-handed hand shake while holding the person's arm until that person looked him directly in the eye; it was a cheap Dale Carnegie trick designed to show who is supposedly in charge.
Isolate these right wing dominators and it might be possible to turn the country around.
By the way, in the next four years, the most dangerous dominator might possibly be Newt Gingrich. He blew his chance as House Speaker but he has a proven record as an opposition leader. I would like to think his time has passed, particularly since he's not in Congress, except for one thing: I suspect he has damaged McCain several times with back room manuevers while pretending to be for McCain. I would like very much to believe that right wing Republicans are turning on one another, but if Barack Obama wins, guys like Gingrich may have one last fling. In that case, traditional conservative to moderate Republicans become our allies; I believe many have reached the point where they're just as sick of the right wingers as any Democrat.
Why would moderates and traditional conservatives be useful allies to have? Because they can help crank down the authoritarian dynamic among the right wing followers. They can do this better than most Democrats.
Posted by Craig at October 20, 2008 10:21 PMWhy would moderates and traditional conservatives be useful allies to have? Because they can help crank down the authoritarian dynamic among the right wing followers. They can do this better than most Democrats.
Uhhhh, no. Conservatives do not exist except in very limited numbers. Nor do "right wing moderates". About 10% of these self-proclaimed "moderates" have a value. The rest should be nailed to crosses on I-70 to celebrate their X-tianity. Democrats and Independents are the hope we have. 14 days. 14 freakin days.
Posted by phidipides at October 20, 2008 10:34 PMPhldlpides, there's a fair number of Republicans voting for Barack Obama. The percentage may be small but they could potentially be the difference in a Barack Obama win. We're talking about potentially 1 or 2 million people, perhaps more.
As much as I want Barack Obama to win, I have to think of what happens next. Even if Barack Obama wins big, say 55 percent of the vote, he will still need to create a broader consensus, broad enough to pretty much shut down the right wing noise machine. Most Americans still don't understand the deep crisis we're in. We're going to need progressive solutions. There's no question of that. But it's going to take awhile for Americans to really get it.
Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe there'll be such a huge turnout for Barack Obama that it will be a statement we haven't seen in three generations.
Posted by Craig at October 20, 2008 11:50 PMNow that the Democratic Party has adopted the authoritarian nature and tactics of the Republicans, the only answer is a third party.
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Carolyn Kay: your statement is sooo retro cool. As in Florida, 2000.
Sorry, first we save the world. Kicking out the right wing extremists and replacing them with a centrist party is not selling out our principles. Not in this situation.
Posted by Anonny at October 21, 2008 05:20 AM