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August 17, 2007 at 12:08:17
Phyllis Schlafly's career as a NeoCon by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster Page 1 of 6 page(s) |
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Both the Left and Right have recently had the uncomfortable experience of discovering that their various icons possessed feet of clay – worse, had been employed by the NeoConservatives. My liberal friends wince when I mention Hillary. I cringe when other names are raised. Here is who the NeoCons are. It is not a large group. The NeoCons are the professional cadre, meaning they are compensated, who have provided the misdirection and chaff that kept Americans from seeing what was happening before their very eyes. They are in the media, policy, and write books that are intended to keep us in the frame most useful to their employers. 
It happened. All of us have been gulled not once but many times. Those operating the sock puppets have something in common. Left or Right, NeoCon or other ...ism, they are mostly working for corporations. Prominent among them are the self identified NeoCons. The NeoCons are a good example of the species.
You know who a few of them are now. You do not understand how long they have been at this because you were not around. But your perception does not alter the reality. I have had the experience more times than I would have wanted of having to reconsider my trusts and assumptions.
Phyllis Schlafly is a good example of this. Look at Schlafly's site and her issues. Then consider the history of the freedom movement for the last 40 years. Do you really mean to tell women that they do not have the same rights as men? If so just fold up your tent and go away. You have decided that you are going to lose. The direction for humanity to towards freedom, not slavery. Servitude comes in many forms but all forms use the tool of government to eliminate choices, truncating our right to decide for ourselves.
If you are a proponent of freedom and understand Austrian School Economics then consider what those values mean. That is simple. You have the right to determine your own destiny. Rights don't give you control over anyone but yourself. That is axiomatic.
Therefore children do not have a 'right' to a family made up of a mother and father. You get what nature and events deliver to you. This assertion makes no more sense than saying you have a right to be pretty instead of ugly. It is like deciding your DNA should be rearranged and getting Congress to pass a law. In Phyllis's world children have a right to a Mom and Dad, evidently issued by the State, but no right to free speech.
Rights are simple. You have a right to life, liberty and to pursue your own happiness. Nothing more and nothing demanded, coerced or forced fro someone else.
Schlafly's site is full of inane arguments that lead to fascist outcomes. The only sovereignty we need to worry about is that invested in each of us. Schlafly invests that in the State. She is therefore a centrist, a fascist.
You may find her emotionally satisfying because you have a secret hankering to use force to get your way. Or you may be emotionally and culturally invested in the status quo so you can't see what freedom means. You can learn. If not, join another movement.
Schlafly's job was to maintain a presence in the movement while ensuring that women were persuaded to see the Freedom Movement as hostile to their attempts to assert their inherent rights. She has been a lot more effective than Karl Rove. No one has any illusions about Rove now.
This is what happened.
Irving Kristol originated the term, "Neoconservative," using it in his book by the same name. He is not an ideologue but he uses ideas as his basic tools. He and others who can be identified by that term are opportunists who successfully profited by providing those services mentioned above, cultural and ideological positioning.
Today it is obvious to most people, ordinary Americans, that the War in Iraq was built on lies. Lying is one of the strategies those involved have used for several generations. Bald faced lies are so outrageous that we do not imagine anyone would say it if it was not true. Then we forget and then their strategy is to change the terms. For instance, we went into Iraq because of security and stayed to Make Them Safe for Democracy. Lies like this work very well. They deny the people access to the facts, provide justifications for all sorts of things and work to centralize power.
Those lies were constructed and inserted by a cadre of people with long term linkages to each other. They very knowingly reinforce each other's messages, helping to foster the feeling that the lies are true. Repetition is essential. These are the professionals mentioned above.
http://howtheneoconsstolefreedom.blogspot.com
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The Moral Is?
The Moral of the story is? What I am unsure of is this: you have been involved in many of the debates and actions and arguments which you clearly no longer feel are valid. Do you feel simply that you are better qualified or have a better understanding and thus a politiacl resentment at the the way the Christian Dominionists have hijacked the Republican Party? Reason is not effective against the unreasonable. It is foolish to try to understand through reason, positions that are themselves unreasonable. I no longer tolerate those who live and breathe intolerance. Dominionists, which I believe abound in the GOP, 1/3 of which believe in Rapture and that God makes war, 1/2 to 3/5th's biblical literalists, are the single biggest danger to America and our republic. I have watched them build since the Reagan era, the Eagle Forum, the Family Research Council, and more. What is being sold is what you have roundabout concerned yourself with. What makes us all squirm is that we feel in our guts what is is. Fascism. Not so is to say that to the faces of those who seem so 'nice and christian and well intentioned'. The Moral is: 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' Ask any Iraqi. George Matthews by Geno Matthias (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 17 comments) on Saturday, Aug 18, 2007 at 4:21:34 PM  (0+)
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Reply: You miss the point.
The Evangelicals did not hijack the GOP. The NeoCons did that using them. Do you blame the gun that is oblivious? Do you blame the foot soldier who is following orders and following a train of lies? While they did become those foot soldiers, mostly from the Southern Baptist Convention, the moving force was the operatives paid by the corporates. Some of these are Buckley, Schlafly, Robertson, and Reed. They knew what they were doing. by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster (141 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 121 comments) on Saturday, Aug 18, 2007 at 8:25:04 PM (0+)
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What about atheists?
You said "Marriage is a private and contractual matter more properly handled through churches." Does that mean that atheists can't marry? The way I see it is that marriage as a religious sacrament should stay within the religion, but marriage as a legal contract is a civil matter, like a lease or business contract. Marriage as it exists now is a weird mix of both, which results in nobody really knowing what their rights and obligations are. by lwarman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 98 comments [7 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Aug 18, 2007 at 6:20:08 PM (0+)
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Reply: Marriage and Freedom
And WHY would government then dictate the terms of the contract? Want them to write your employment agreement? Your lease? How about if they write your will for you? Handing them the right to legislate our lives was like making our own shackles. It shouldn't have happened then and it should not continue today. My atheist friends have mostly married by private contract - you can do that. They are all still married. by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster (141 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 121 comments) on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:27:31 PM (0+)
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Phyllis Schlafly's career as a NeoCon
Um, nope. Phyllis is a Paleo-Conservative. Paleo-Cons (as in Pat Buchanan, the late Sam Francis or the writers and editors of The American Conservative or Chronicles magazine) and Neo-Cons despise each other. Find a piece by Old Right Paleo-Con Russell Kirk, delivered as a speech for a broadside vs. the Neo-cons. Phyllis Schlafly and grassroots conservatism : a woman's crusade Author Critchlow, Donald T., 1948- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2005 by Jay Lovestone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 103 comments) on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:19:18 PM (0+)
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Reply: If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck....
It is a duck. Phyllis is a NeoCon for ease of explaining her function. Her function is to supply misdirection that leads to an acceptance of centralized government instead of freedom. A paleoconservative is essentially a decentrist and you can see that is true because if you follow the logic of the argument that is where it leads. But I know you would like Phyllis to be something else. I didn't like it when I realized I had been had either. by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster (141 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 121 comments) on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:32:23 PM (0+)
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Irving Kristol
Re: Irving Kristol originated the term, "Neoconservative," using it in his book by the same name. Sorry again. The term was coined by democratic socialist Michael Harrington. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harrington For a more accurate geneology of neo-conservatism, see this book by a Christian socialist academic who has written two books on it. The one I'll cite here has more on the origins of neo-conservatism. http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/959_reg.html Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 1994 "...a powerful and groundbreaking analysis...." For the past generation, neoconservatism has been the most powerful intellectual movement in American politics. Focusing on four of its most influential theorists—Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Michael Novak, and Peter Berger—Gary Dorrien presents a sweeping analysis of neoconservatism's history, ideology, and future prospects. He argues that it has the potential to become America's first genuine conservative intellectual tradition. Interviews with all the principal figures as well as with Michael Harrington and other opponents yield a rich and colorful portrayal of the figures and the publications that have shaped this ideological force. Neoconservatism grew out of the Old Left and retains the marks of its origins in the factional New York Intellectual debates of the 1930s. Dorrien traces the multiple strands that contributed to the new movement: former Trotskyites, trade unionists, and right-wing social democrats who opposed the countercultural movements of the 1960s, were disillusioned with the Great Society, felt alienated from the "fashionable liberal elite," and were repulsed by the anti-American sentiments of the Left. They attacked the "new class," an amorphous group of non-producing elites that at various times included liberal intellectuals, "parasitic" managers, and bureaucrats, social workers and psychologists, the major media, consultants, administrators, and lawyers. Throughout the fascinating intellectual biographies of Kristol, Podhoretz, Novak, and Berger, Dorrien describes the vast array of New York literati and political pundits who are or have been associated with these neoconservative leaders. Naming Commentary, The New Republic, The Public Interest, Orbis, The American Scholar, The New Leader, The American Spectator, and Society, among others which have been established by or which regularly host the writings of prominent neoconservatives, Dorrien demonstrates the substantial influence of the movement. Dorrien characterizes neoconservatism by its militant anticommunist and capitalist economics, and its support of a minimal welfare state, the rule of traditional elites, and the return to traditional cultural values. He describes its different ideological currents, its feud with the traditional Right and the many camps from which its adherents converted. Tracking the movement's attainment of political power in the 1980s, he explains how the collapse of communism has fractured neoconservatism's foreign policy consensus, and analyzes the movement's subsequently heightened concern with cultural politics. While Dorrien does not aim to refute neoconservatism, he offers a respectful but strongly critical review of its development and examines the contradictions of its appeal. "...a keen critical examination of the little sect of ideologues, most of them radicals formerly, whose influence during the past decade has been eclipsed, and perhaps extinguished, by the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the triumph of Clintonian liberals. Dr. Dorrien, not of their number, nevertheless perceives their talents and their infirmities. His impartial book, lucidly written, is painstakingly candid." "Professor Dorrien has written an extraordinarily clear, exhaustively researched exposition of the Neoconservative moment, an important chapter in recent American intellectual history. He provides extensive accounts of four of the leading representatives of the movement and, while he differs from them on many issues, his purpose is to provide a fair exposition of their thought. The book is a great achievement." by Jay Lovestone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 103 comments) on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:27:29 PM (0+)
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Reply: The faces of fascism
and many and since they all use the same premises with slightly different rationalizations, "I am anointed by God to lead you," I am smarter so I am anointed by Fate to lead you," I know what is best for you so I am gonna decide, understand???" All of these lines of 'reasoning' lead to the same place, serfdom, slavery, fascism, and on ad nauseum it really does not much matter. You can credit the Easter Bunny if you like. The Easter Bunny at least leaves some eggs (I like chocolate) and does not waste so many trees writing books explaining why anyone should take them seriously. Personally, I don't think Irving, his son, or any of their friends and associates should have been graduated from pre-school. They are all absurd. by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster (141 articles, 1 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 121 comments) on Sunday, Aug 19, 2007 at 10:40:41 PM (0+)
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