In addition, it has spawned a culture ridden with public relations fabulists and media-savvy confidence artists who tell us that the taste of corporate ass-suck is the ambrosia of the gods. The locked-down, stultifying mindset and ideological barbarianism of present day conservatism is directly linked to the steep decline of the quality of life in the United States.
The recent revelations regarding the "I'm-not-gay-I-simply-engage-in-same-sex-encounters-in-puplic-restrooms" wing of the Republican Party are instructive in understanding the rightist's worldview and its effect on our times. Covert sex in a public bathroom stall is an apt metaphor for how contemporary conservatism limits and restricts the possibilities of human life. In the same way that a closet-case gay conservative stunts the possibilities of his love life, the conservative mindset limits the scope of a culture's possibilities. Accordingly, economic life must be ruled by ruthless, unregulated competition, and the nation's meaning can only be found in war. Hence, under the Bush Junta, we are told, as far as international relations go, that the nation has few options other than its present policy of predatory capitalism and "wide-stance" militarism.
Regarding perma-fools such as these, Ernest Becker wrote: "Once you base your whole life striving on a desperate lie, and try to implement that lie, you instrument your own undoing." Accordingly, the republic is dead; it's ghost howls online only in pixelated protests such as this one. This grim reality will remain, until we rise up and repudiate the false narratives that have created and continue to comprise these tragic times.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at philangie2000@yahoo.com.
Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com Visit Phil's Website
I have found enough so-called ideological purity to go around among both left and right. In any dialogue between the two protagonists, left v right, one finds formulaic pap on both sides. Both (master) debaters appear glazed eyed and mouth the same one sided platitudes and neither actually listens to the other, merely awaiting the chance to jump in.....
Nobody is right when everybody is wrong.....
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 8:55:01 AM
Modern conservatism is beyond wrong: It is flat-out toxic.
Have you not left the house since Nixon resigned? It would explain your use of tired Rock & Roll cliches in your comment. That CSN&Y quote only sounds deep to first time pot smokers.
by
Phil Rockstroh (26 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 9:11:55 AM
You write a cheesy piece claiming that right wingers are incapable of dialogue but those who share your own beliefs are solons of wisdom and political purity. Then, when confronted by a dissenting opinion noting that left and right tend towards the same inabilities you immediately take umbrage and prove my point.
What a maroon!
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 7:37:41 AM
Sadly, as your somewhat less than cogent comments suggest, you mistake merely being an annoying pest with being an individual positing an intelligent or even interesting point of view.
by
Phil Rockstroh (26 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments)
on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 2:43:52 PM
Thanks for your article. The "moonbats" are primarily name-callers who cannot respond point-by-point to a rational argument. The issue is there are quite a few of them in our society and, as blind followers of the government, they are the seedcorn of a totalitarian state. Rather than denounce them, it behooves humanists to show them how their support for the Bush Administration has done them dreadful injury--- economic reversals, unfair tax burdens, absence of equal educational opportunities, loss of jobs to overseas exploiters, the killing of their children, etc.
Sherwood Ross
by
Sherwood Ross (186 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 123 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 11:28:17 AM
This definition of a moonbat (from the introduction to the article) needs to dive bomb, zoom, swoop and flit through comments on progressive Websites. “{Conservatives} begin hallucinating a creature, only known to exist in the rightwing bestiary, known as a "moonbat" -- a mythological beast that, ironically, seems to appear when a conservative is confronted with reality.”
by
Christie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 143 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 2:43:16 PM
When engaged in a dialog with many conservatives, the question becomes: Are their reactions and responses evoked therein simply borne of plain ignorance, willful ignorance, or outright lying? Or are their responses the result of a group hallucination? All progressives have experienced the following nonsensical encounter of the conservative kind. Present a reasoned argument to a conservative -- and, all at once, completely ignoring the tenet, tone and thrust of the point, they begin hallucinating a creature, only known to exist in the rightwing bestiary, known as a "moonbat" -- a mythological beast that, ironically, seems to appear when a conservative is confronted with reality.
A rather strange way to protest what you see as the right calling you names, don't you think?
by
Dana Pico (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 174 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 7:26:43 PM
Fighting back is a strange responce for far too many liberals who would be advised to cease mooning over their "fair-mindedness" and learn to counterpunch.
Did you happen to notice what took place in The Senate, today?
Wake up and smell the jackboot.
by
Phil Rockstroh (26 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 7:47:38 PM
. . . in which we can find liberal commentary which simply dismisses conservative arguments out of hand, as crazy, stupid or bigoted, and perhaps you see that as combative, but I have to ask: do you think that such persuades anybody who isn't already on your side?
As a fairly hard-right conservative, I think that my friends on the left are wrong about most things, but my thinking that they are wrong does not mean that I believe they must be evil, insane or stupid; it simply means that I think they are wrong.
by
Dana Pico (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 174 comments)
on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at 8:08:48 PM
This author is trapped in his own distorted vision, is guilty of exactly what he claims the right to be, and blunders on unaware of his own ridiculous position. In a nutshell we find the reason that compromise and honest dialogue is impossible in todays political climate.
You are far, far to the right of my own positions on most things yet we find common ground here and perhaps could elsewhere as well. The author conflates conservatism with neoconservatism without a clue as to the nuanced differences, but then Ive read his stuff before and clueless is his watchword. I find true conservatism to be an honest political stance and also see merit in some of its tenets. But then honesty is also a missing ingredient these days, like in your recent defense of the Presidency in another thread here.....(here we go again, huh?!) :-)
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 7:45:31 AM
Your every post, article included, is a veritable paeon to your own blindness. In screed after hyperbolic screed you claim that the right is exactly what you are, unbeknownst however to yourself. There are no black and whites, especially in politics, only shades of grey, like it or rail against it.
The vast majority of this nation is smack dab in the middle, most , unfortunately, do not engage in politics at all, leaving that to their elected officials. Many of them dont even vote. The only way to accomplish anything is via compromise and dialogue. The only way. You choose to act like a foolish child, believing in a Darth Vader and a Luke Skywalker approach to politics that I find unbelievably immature and unproductive.
That you rant against the right, using the same tactics that you so vehemently object to in them, is more than a bit silly. That you fail to see objectively that most elected officials care not one whit for you and me, that both sides, both parties, are guilty, not just the side you do not support.
There is no merit to your argument and there is no path to success in following your sophomoric rants.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 9:50:22 AM
If I live in my own little world, why do you keep obsessively visiting it?
You remind me of person who was not invited to a party, but who, none the less, shows up at the event, bitterly telling all concerned that he came simply to say that he didn't want to be invited to this stupid party, anyway.
ardee D., I think you're a bit obsessed here: You should really try to get out of the house more often.
by
Phil Rockstroh (26 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 42 comments)
on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 12:19:41 PM
you silly little twit. Have you absolutely no value whatever? Or any intellect, insight or shame? You are simply a childish little fool. I do not reply for your benefit but for those who read your screed and might consider it to have any merit whatsoever.
Both sides, once again as you appear to ride the little yellow school bus, have their flaws, foibles and truths. Both sides are as guilty of hyperbole and distortion, complicity and stupidity. To write crap that villifies one and ignores the flaws of the other contributes only more confusion, delays the solutions from coming to fruition and encourages mouth breathing morons to continue to fail to think things through.
The only purpose you article serves is to see your own name in print and get a woody..congrats you are a part of the problem.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 8:26:41 PM
AH! The Gila Monster, last-worder, wolf-pack, stalkers, have you by the Achilles-heel. Shake them loose.
Their frail motivation? Envious ragging, jeremiad, comic-book, idiosyncratic, confrontationalismatic, revisionist, imprecise, Beavor Cleaver surrealists, of 1950's-never has beenisms, psycho-babbling, with undertones of abysmal, subjacent-tones.
I've witnessed them stalk, bite, and clench-mouthed, hang-on until sundown-these pernicious, indocile, lastworders, who because they have nary a polyandrium task, they thus, must needs the denouement, nag word. I'm surprised your head has not been cursed with the Wikepediac gods. Say something scientific and watch Wicki-URL pop.
The uncongenial suffrage from reading comprehension lag-remorse, impoetic gaggle-flake, and lexicon-envy, is wreaking great havoc, impelling and converting, self-congratulatory, hysteria into wide-broadcast, for all academics to watch their all too publicly, embarrassing, self-conflagration.
by
Agatha Payne (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 50 comments)
on Friday, September 21, 2007 at 2:13:33 PM
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