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October 11, 2011
HARD RIGHT UTOPIA
By Anthony Barnes
It's time for a serious examination of just what kind of American society the hard right is looking for
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IF YOU LIVE THERE, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!
The Hard Right: "I'll take my Darwinism without the evolution, please.""When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, wherever the Hell that is." -- Ayn Rand, (1905-1982)
It's been said that doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is its twin brother. This seems particularly relevant these days since, although many hard right conservatives are likely to characterize their lifestyles as "faith" based, it seems doubtful that very many truly see themselves as "thy brother's keeper." In fact, it's probably safe to bet against the propspect of Jesus being the primary focal point of their inspiration. In seeking guidance, the odds are that many of these hard-right faith-shouters would be more likely to ask: What would Ayn Rand do?
That's certainly one way to answer questions that have arisen from some shamelessly callous audience behavior that has taken place during several of this year's Republican presidential debates. Judging from this behavior, it is quite likely that were she alive today to view the debates, Rand -- one of the conservative movement's patron saints -- could have indulged in several moments of personal vindication arising out of the ruthless homage paid to the traits of social Darwinism that underlie the Russian-born novelist/philosopher's fundamental rejection of "ethical altruism" -- philosopher lingo for something you or I'd probably call: concern for your fellow man.
Actually, it's quite easy to envision Rand -- whose erudite promotion of laissez-faire capitalism has made her the stalwart heroine to many of today's "free-market" conservatives -- being surrounded and high-fived by debate attendees and the candidates following each of a series of fiercely shallow responses to issues involving the humane treatment of fellow Americans. But for the moment, let's move away from Rand and further into the subject of the GOP presidential debates.
As many have predicted, they have turned out to be little more than a political dog and pony show presented for the purpose of providing regular opportunities for Republicans to grovel at the feet of America's narrowest, yet most hyper-energized and cringe-worthy voter base; the hard right, quasi-evangelical, Constitution-thumping Tea Party Patriots.
And indeed, without question, these debates have -- wittingly, or perhaps, dim-wittedly -- served as the stage for the flagrant unveiling of the Jerry Springer --type makeover undergone by the Republican Party since its aggressive takeover by hard right Tea Party groups. In the process they've providing further insight into some of the strange realities that are part of what the hard right considers its American nirvana.
It's almost never a good idea to generalize; therefore the focus is on the extreme right-wing segment of the GOP base -- henceforth identified as "Tea Party conservatives" -- that has made its presence known at the debates. It's a segment that, by its behavior during these events, has routinely conveyed a perspective about American society which seems to challenge human nature. Specifically, it is the obvious lack of concern displayed by Tea Party conservatives for the wellbeing of their fellow Americans that some might interpret as an abnormal , even un-American view of America's societal model; a view that seems to closely resemble what some might call social Darwinism.
Outside of the easily-anticipated roars of approval for any kind of harsh, anti-Obama, or anti-federal government rhetoric, also witnessed during these debates was the perhaps unexpected enthusiasm that marked the cheers for death; the graceless boos directed at active-duty members of our armed forces; the abject disdain for the American-born children of the undocumented; and the exuberant support for the idea of allowing sick Americans who are uninsured to simply die if unable to pay for their own healthcare.
Certainly for the non-Tea Party segment of the Republican base, the heartless dispassion that undermines the overt passion exhibited by the boorish insensitivity of their extreme right brethren, illustrates how completely the GOP model exploited by George W. Bush -- that of a party of compassionate conservatives -- has been turned on its head by the Tea Party conservatives now controlling the party. As a result, the debates have become a dire spectacle of mean-spirited one-up-man-ship leading some observers to question whether ours is an empire whose culture, at least politically, is in stark decline.
"I must say," stated MIT Professor Noam Chomsky in a recent interview published in Death and Taxes magazine, "that politics in this country now is in a state that I think has no analogue in American history and maybe nowhere in any parliamentary system. It's astonishing."
A "Turd" blossoms
As is generally the case, Chomsky is on to something. It's almost hard to believe that it's been less than a decade since Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry asked Republican John McCain to contemplate becoming his running mate. As partisan as the political climate was during that period -- the height of the Bush era -- American society apparently wasn't so deeply polarized that the thought of a candidate of either party proposing such collaboration could be judged as an act of political euthanasia. However, in today's political climate, one can only imagine the fallout that would ensue were President Obama to suggest, for example, that he's considering replacing Joe Biden with someone like Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown as his 2012 running mate.
Meanwhile, who might have predicted that even the GOP's perhaps most influential power-broker, Karl Rove, would, at this point, find himself in a weepy, "who the bleep did I marry?" sense of appall at the bottom-feeder status of so many of his party's not-ready-for-primetime presidential candidates? But it's for a good reason; outside of the country's shallow Tea Party base, the vast majority of the GOP presidential candidates are completely unelectable.
But certainly Rove understands that you reap what you sow, and right now, it is the likes of Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and a whole host of wacky others whom the GOP's Tea Party base has anointed as the future of the Party and America. And, despite all his bellyaching over the general wretchedness of the GOP's field of potential Obama opponents, Rove knows that it is old " turd blossom " himself, Karl Rove, who deserves a good bulk of the blame for his party's current status.
Even so, it seems that in this era of Obama -- particularly in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision -- the process of politics, Rovian or otherwise, has surpassed simple politics in general, in its contribution as a nurturing force in the ongoing devolution of American culture. But even prior to the Court's ruling -- which forever provides corporate right-wing activists like David and Charles Koch the cover necessary to legally fund a wide range of covert political activity -- the political process had become a virtual firewall that filters out many of those most fit for the job, thereby managing to reserve ground only for the loudest and strangest of bedfellows, instead of the brightest that America has to offer.
As a result mainstream American culture, both social and political, has basically been left to fend off assaults to its dignity from the likes of cultural grifters such as Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin; unctuous pseudo-theologians like Rick Perry or Mike Huckabee; illicitly opportunistic "defenders of the Constitution" such as Senators Jim DeMint and Rand Paul; educated-beyond-their-intelligence "thinkers" such as Newt Gingrich, Dinesh D'Souza and Bachmann; and irksome buffoons like Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, and Rush Limbaugh. Another result has been the obvious uptick in the degree of social and political polarization which seems to have resulted in the open displays of callous indifference toward fellow Americans witnessed during the debates.
The hate pot
So, how did we get there?
The view here is that it started at the top. For starters, one need look no further than Ronald Reagan; the GOP's sainted "Gipper" (who, by the politically fratricidal nature of today's Tea Party-inspired conservatives, would likely be attacked as a conservative wuss by Republicans of the Gingrich, Santorum or Bachmann ilk). Nevertheless, America's so-called "amiable dunce" was the figure in many ways largely responsible for helping remove the stigma connected to the open expression of prejudice; for elevating it from a subtle whisper between like-minded malcontents, to the blatant roar it has reached today.
Although the couriers of his legacy would never own up to it, Reagan's mendacity helped generate an atmosphere that emboldened certain elements of society into openly expressing attitudes of racism, sexism, and class-ism. It was their "Great Communicator" who meshed his considerable charisma and oratorical gifts with barely-coded rhetoric to graft and popularize demonstrably false bromides about Cadillac-owning "welfare queens" and such, thus assisting in the furtherance of the "us versus them" mind-set that's culminated in the "red state-blue-state" political dynamic. And he got himself elected -- twice -- in part, as a result of that strategy.
The GOP has since used cultural polarization as a formidable and decisive political weapon. It's been successfully employed to both attain and retain power up to and including that of the Commander in Chief. Bear in mind that in the early to mid-eighties, it was an admittedly scruples-challenged Lee Atwater , ace political tactician for Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush, who greatly honed the concept of cultural divisiveness as part of his general political strategy of negative campaigns. "Just keep stirring the pot," Atwater famously advised. "You never know what will come up."
The "pot" referenced by Atwater is likely the same one boasted about in Massachusetts just a few years prior when, in 1978, then-incumbent Governor Michael Dukakis, a liberal "technocrat," was defeated by Republican Edward J. King, a right-wing political neophyte. At the time, the newly-elected governor's campaign manager, Angelo V. Berlandi, provided the following explanation of how the arch-conservative King was able to pull off the stunning upset in the uber-liberal Bay State: "We put all the hate groups in a big pot and stirred"."
As it turned out, King served just one term as Dukakis re-gained that office in the very next election. Dukakis then ran -- while remaining governor -- for the presidency against George H.W. Bush in a campaign during which the Republican hate pot was used extensively to cook up a veritable feast of negative campaigning including the blatantly iniquitous "Willie Horton " political ad Atwater unleashed on Dukakis.
It was also during that campaign that Dukakis' prospects for election suffered what was considered a grave, self-inflicted wound resulting from his remarks during one of his debates with Bush. It occurred when the Dukakis gave what was considered the "wrong" response to a Bernard Shaw question designed to test the resolve of the Massachusetts governor's opposition to the death penalty. It was a hypothetical concoction by Shaw involving the rape and murder of Dukakis's wife. Shaw asked whether Dukakis would, under those circumstances, change his anti-death penalty position.
"No, Bernard," was Dukakis' response. "And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent and I think there are better and more useful ways to deal with violent crime."
Many felt that the Dukakis' presidential ambitions were at that moment vaporized due to what was widely criticized as a response completely devoid of human emotion. And though it did indeed have a devastatingly negative effect on his candidacy, it was primarily the barrage of negative campaigning culminating with the Horton spot -- which, for all intents and purposes was essentially a death penalty issue -- that was widely considered the key in turning public support toward Bush, Sr., who eventually came back from as many as 17-points behind in the polls to win.
"Pro-life" and death
And so again today, it is the death penalty which has joined an extraordinary carousel of peculiar factors in the upcoming presidential election. This time around it involves the unexpectedly spontaneous, near cult-like "cheer for death" -- showered upon evangelical front-artist and sometimes front-runner Rick Perry during an MSNBC-sponsored debate.
By now, it's been well-documented: Brian Williams made note of the fact that as Texas Governor, Perry has presided over a record number of executions. As he introduced the question, the audience at that point was, to quote an infamous bad guy: "so quiet you could hear a rat pissing on cotton in China." But once Williams delved into the actual number -- 234 at the time and counting -- the crowd erupted in raucous cheer.
Perhaps the underlying message of these proud, faith-based Tea Party conservatives is: "Pro life? You betcha! Right up until the moment you emerge from the womb."
But they also could have been simply affirming libertarian writer and Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams' observation that "nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge."
In any event, for many, that open display of cold-hearted insouciance over a life and death issue became sort of a watershed moment that finally forced some Americans to face up to questions that have been increasingly raised about just how far off the rail American culture has staggered. It became for many, the initiator of an effort to apply more focus on the new oddities that have and which continue to shape American society as a means of understanding the kind of culture that describes the Tea Party conservative's version of Amaurote , a place considered in folklore to be the "chief city of Utopia."
What could be gleaned, based on both audience reactions and the multitude of stupendously impractical policy proposals floated by most candidates -- for example, Bachmann's proposal to eliminate all taxes; or Perry's promise of "inconsequential government" -- was an illustration of a Tea Party conservative's version of the utopian city of Amaurote that seems strangely familiar.
From this vantage point, it seems an emotionally frigid, bleakly intolerant, morally ambivalent, and philosophically unbending, "Freedom is Slavery" and "War is Peace" kind of a province whose Orwellian walls are defended -- against a perpetual onslaught by invaders representing speaking truth to power -- by a brigade on whose flag is inscribed the motto: "Ignorance Is Strength." The kind of place where rancid tycoons like Rupert Murdoch , Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers are benefactors to the patriotic forces for all that is benevolent and good, while George Soros , Warren Buffet , and Bill Gates form a sort of philanthropic axis of evil who are far too dangerous to possess so much of what Tea Party conservatives consider history's greatest weapon of mass destruction -- hard, cold cash.
Meanwhile, the morbid implications of the "death cheer" seem indicative of a culture attractive to those with little stomach for humane compassion in judgment leading to a society in which human rights for corporations triumph over collective bargaining rights for humans, and where civil disobedience in protest against the federal government by one group of Americans is viewed as the righteous endeavor of authentic patriots, while the demands for a halt to the "Girls Gone Wild" mentality of Wall Street banksters by another group of Americans is the manifestation of a socialist-inspired movement of free-market enemies.
It's where the "lame-stream" media is viewed as this vast aggregator of unspeakable liberal agitprop and hatred for America, and where, outside of perhaps the 700 Club, Fox is the only news organization where unbiased, objective reporting can be found. It comes across as a place where it's "no child left a dime" when it comes to educating so-called "anchor babies" -- the American-born children of undocumented immigrants -- and where beneath the surface of the general scorn for demands that the rich accept a more equitable share of the burden of restoring the nation's economy lies sense of resentment toward the poor for possessing necessities like refrigerators and air-conditioners.
Because it considers most science to be illogical, it logically denies the legitimacy of evidence-based scientific concepts; particularly those which challenge both its "faith-based" and Tea Party conservative ideologies. Central among these denials are global warming and, of course, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Indeed where evolution is embraced, it's only in cases where that concept is defined as: the natural progression of corporations to the status of human beings. Ultimately, it seems society marked by a culture of " God, Gold, and Guns " where the concept of American exceptionalism is as benign as the underlying assertions expressed in coffee table magazines like "Garden and Gun" : in other words, simply the essential building blocks of its basic social fabric.
"Die quickly"
What seems most troubling about all this is that if Tea Party conservatives' prevailing goal is to develop a society characterized by "rugged individualism" and unfettered free market capitalism as an experiment in social Darwinism, for all intents and purposes, that experiment is succeeding based on the success Tea Party conservatives have had in forcing its agenda on Congress -- initially through endless filibustering, thus affirming Shakespeare's notion that: "sweet are the uses of adversity" -- and even more so since passage of health care reform. Case in point: the entirely synthetic debt ceiling "crisis." Through their efforts in Washington, it seems clear that the legislative path laid out by Tea Party conservatives and followed by its minions in Congress seems headed more towards a place of "natural selection " than "intelligent design ."
In fact, anyone promoting that assertion may have found further supporting evidence of the heartless character of the conservative litmus in the form of audience reaction at yet another Republican debate after CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Texas congressman Ron Paul how society should treat the uninsured who've taken ill, in particular, a patient who prior to illness, chose not to obtain health insurance.
"That's what freedom is all about: taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to take care of everybody ..." responded Paul, who is a medical doctor, as the remainder of the exchange became drowned out by applause.
"are you saying, Congressman," Blitzer asked, "that society should just let (sick, uninsured patients) die?"
But, before Paul could reply "no" (which he did), someone from within the debate audience yelled out "Yeah!"
More applause.
It's easy to interpret this reaction as an assertion that: "it is far more acceptable for the sick to die on their own than to potentially sustain their lives by forcing everyone else to accept any form of government intrusion in health care market."
But there's always, of course, the possibility of misinterpretation. It's just as likely that the audience had in mind, an idea floated by unsuccessful Nevada senate candidate Sue Lowden during her 2010 campaign. If you recall, Lowden, was the libertarian GOP candidate who advocated a return to the old-fashioned barter system between doctors and patients as a means of paying for healthcare; "chickens for checkups " is how it was described by critics.
Either way, it was another of those persistent "who gives a shyte" moments that gives weight to former Florida Democratic congressman Alan Grayson's claim during the debate over health care reform in 2009 that the GOP's version of such reform should be described as: "Die quickly !"
The chicken hawk's roar
Meanwhile, another episode -- noteworthy from the standpoint of the Tea Party conservatives' flag-waving inconsistency on the issue of "supporting our troops" -- included an encounter between Santorum and a gay soldier via video from Iraq during the Fox News/Google-sponsored debate.
"In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq," said the soldier, "I had to lie about who I was because I'm a gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job. My question is: under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress we've made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military."
At that point of the exchange, the audience -- abandoning the entire pretense that permeates Republican "concern" about "undermining the troops" or providing the enemy with "aid and comfort" -- unleashed an admonishing round of boos at the serviceman as if saying: "How dare you sully the uniform and good name of our U.S. military by defending this country while gay."
Santorum's initial response, however: "Any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military," may have prompted anyone listening to figure that Santorum either didn't hear or understand the question. In any event, he probably needed to stop.
Instead, to the increasing applause of the debate audience Santorum pulled what some might call a Joe Biden, following up with: "We need to give the military, which is all-volunteer, the ability to (carry out its mission) in a way that is most efficient in protecting our men and women in uniform. And I believe (eliminating Don't Ask; Don't Tell) undermines that ability."
Quite frankly, Santorum's non-sequitur of a rejoinder -- priggishly focused toward, of all people, an active duty soldier currently deployed a hot zone -- seems the nauseatingly deceitful roar of a chicken hawk. After all, it came from a guy whose campaign slogan states: " THE COURAGE TO FIGHT FOR AMERICA ," despite that same guy having never provided a single nanosecond of military service on behalf of his country. It's hard to get around the tacky absurdity of such a politician lecturing an active-duty soldier -- stationed in what Santorum has called "the central front in the war on terror" -- about respect for military service.
Meanwhile, considering the target of Santorum's reply -- a gay soldier -- that clumsy retort also came endowed with a disproportionate level of satiric irony to those familiar with the results of any Google search of the name Santorum:
"The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."
The "virtue" of selfishness
Thus, we now have the spectacle of some Americans raining boos down on active-duty U.S. military personnel; openly cheering for the deaths of other Americans; and calling for an "everyman to himself" approach to the public health, welfare, and education of other fellow Americans. From this vantage point, these attitudes seem to spell out a naked appeal for social Darwinism.
All hat and no cattle? Rand died dependent on Social Security and Medicare
Photo: Leonard McCombe/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
But there's a familiar piece of irony encased within the underlying aspects of social Darwinism that reverberates inside the extreme right's timorous cultural outlook, with again, much of it connected to Ayn Rand. Her persuasive condemnation of "ethical altruism" and her equally convincing arguments in favor of "the virtue of selfishness" offer concise, scholarly justification for the advocacy of cultural norms designed to forge a society in which only the strongest can survive -- in other words, textbook social Darwinism.
Since the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943, and her 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged, generations of so-called "anti-big-government-conservatives" have been enraptured by Rand's stringent expressions of laissez-faire capitalism . "Government "help'," she famously stated, "is just as disastrous as government persecution. The only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hand off."
It is such rhetoric that as drawn so many so-called "personal responsibility" Tea Party conservative types under Rand's spell. But the irony lies not in the fact that -- contrary to the assumptions of some conservatives -- social Darwinism as a concept, originated neither with their hero Rand, nor with its namesake, Charles Darwin . The incongruity stems from a narrative related to both Rand and the actual scholar who many credit for presenting the concept.
Note that Rand's base philosophy of "objectivism" relies on the embrace of what she terms "rational egoism," or, a coherent path of pure self-interest in which the moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness. Thus, in some ways it should come as no surprise that among the enraptured include " Path to Prosperity " federal budget proposal author, Tea Party fave, and former Oscar-Meyer " Wienermobile " driver, Wisconsin Republican congressman Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee.
"The reason I got involved in public service " if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand," stated Ryan in an article posted on AlterNet this past January.
But Ryan's inclusion among the smitten is obviously something no one should find surprising; after all, many of his hero's views are boilerplate Tea Party swagger: anti-federal government; an emphasis on states' rights; unregulated personal freedom; and a lean, if not emaciated federal government; concepts which appear to have inspired perhaps the most controversial feature of the Ryan budget plan -- its proposal to end Medicare by the year 2022.
But if you think eliminating Medicare is a proposal Rand would support were she alive today, you probably want to think again. In spite of her clamorous expressions of contempt for government entanglement in the lives and affairs of its citizens, Rand, writes Jim Magruder of the liberal website Policy Grinder.com , "was a fraud who died dependent on Social Security and Medicare."
Rand's descent from being one of the foremost apostles preaching disdain for government largess to recipient of government entitlements fosters images of those older Tea Party supporters who'd roll into anti-Obamacare rallies on government-subsidized powered wheelchairs -- Hoverounds -- to rail against federal government programs while simultaneously demanding that the government "keep its hands off my Medicare."
Meanwhile, regarding historian Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) -- the person many credit with bringing into a broader light, the socio-biological theories establishing the basis of social Darwinism pioneered by 19th century philosopher Herbert Spencer -- the narrative has a similar ironic twist. Hofstadter, a Columbia University professor, is author of Social Darwinism in American Thought , published in 1944, and considered the writing that delivered the concept into the public lexicon. But in addition to being a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and respected scholar, Hofstadter, during the 1930's, was also a member of the Young Communist League, and later, a full member of the U. S. Communist Party.
"My fundamental reason for joining (the Communist Party)," wrote Hofstadter in Social Darwinism, "is that I don't like capitalism, and want to get rid of it."
For those who recognize the hypocrisy which runs amok within the Tea Party conservative movement, it is neither surprising nor ironic to learn that two figures of significance to conservative dogma -- one central to it, and the other related in an indirect way -- are guilty of behavior that is either anti-conservative (accepting federal government "handouts"), or have expressed support for economic concepts (communism) that are completely contrary to Tea Party conservative philosophy. And since cognitive dissonance in ideology has long been an issue for the extreme right, reaching the conclusion that contradictions such as those involving conservative heroes like Rand (and presumably, Hofstadter) simply don't matter is something that comes quite easily.
"The Republicans," as observed Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) during an early October interview on MSNBC's Politics Nation , "are torn between their ideology and reality."
Indeed, they are Congressman Frank.
Welcome to Hard Right Utopia.
Anthony Barnes, of Boston, Massachusetts, is a left-handed leftist.
"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world." - Unknown Monk (1100 AD)