RSS Feed MenuPerhaps – as some critics of this series have argued – I am too complacent in the face of an unprecedented attack on American liberties. To quote one passionate writer, and who has sold many more books than I ever have or likely ever will:
Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini’s march on Rome or Hitler’s roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.
Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.
It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as W.H. Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere – while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: “dogs go on with their doggy life … How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster.”
As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded.
Those are the words of Naomi Wolf, published in 2007, explaining how George W. Bush was leading the United States to fascism in the name of fighting terror. Very lightly edited, they could be heard on many talk radio stations today. Back in 2007, most conservatives regarded such talk as hysterical and absurd – and rightly so. Here’s Rush Limbaugh’s response to a similar statement by Wolf in 2008:
This is Naomi Wolf literally rendered insane and ready for the man in the little white coat to come drag her away in the little yellow bus to the Menninger Clinic.
Now some conservatives seem to have decided: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Look: I worry too about Obama’s spending, debt, and regulation. The risk is real that this administration will halt and even reverse the three decade trend to a more open, dynamic, and free economy. Conservatives will need all their courage, faith, and perseverance to resist and prevail against this aggressive administration.
It might be argued that anger and fear are just what is needed to rev up the troops. Yet doesn’t the record show that conservatives have done better for themselves and the country when they offered optimism and confidence? Despair is a poor motivator; invective a sad substitute for inspiration.
Not so long ago, it was liberals who fretted that the sinister authoritarian personality of their fellow Americans would crush constitutional freedoms. It was conservatives who expressed a generous trust in the goodness of the American nation. As Ronald Reagan asked in his first inaugural address: “How can we love our country and not love our countrymen?” You will know that the conservative comeback has begun when conservatives talk like that again.
This is part four in a series. Read the other articles in the series here.
Cforchange // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Blame it all on high fructose corn syrup. We’re all plush fat but miserable.
Reporting here from the real Ron Paul turf, no one is starving but …. When an industry vanishes, pride and purpose vanish too – yes again Barker, the crack and heroin appear on a large scale.
Part time Walmart clerks let you know about the list of degrees they hold and banter about their home in “Agony County” when it’s really Allegheny County. No one is starving but despair is rampant. Many escaped the mill society. They did as they were told – educated themselves. But not enough to go around eventually means job losses again in the next big “recommended” industry.
A clear lacking purpose also contributes most significantly to a failing education system. It’s extremely difficult to teach a meaningful liberal arts type agenda but necessary because specifics are obsolete. The working middle class no longer has defined work. As I’ve said before – it’s Seinfield time, days devoted to vague nothingness. But there’s nothing funny about a desparate middle class.
If only those G20 protester’s would give the world a current history lesson. However, it appears they stricly are in it for the confrontation not enlightenment. They should march the Mon Valley show the world places like Braddock, Mckeesport and Clairton. These are places that once had pride, hope and a middle class, now have few clues as to anyway up. This is all 30 years in the making. Cleveland and Buffalo have followed the same footprint. Then there’s the tweener places like Erie and Jamestown NY all caught in the wave down. New to the game, are places like Rochester NY – you know high tech in the 80’s, outsourced in Y2K. The new millenia, that fabled time when Pennsylvania House became China House… Oh Ethan Allen, Ethan Tsang. Ok I’ll stop. I think I’ve had this rant before, if so – sorry.
From many standpoints, how can we tolerate this demise that will reach nearly coast to coast if Detroit goes to sleep. Somethings got to change…
Oneon1isto // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Bill: I don’t think I’d ever doubt that you’ve failed to read my entire post.
You mention Great Britain and her ups and downs. I’d say Britain’s doing pretty fine on her own merits today. I’m surprised, actually, that you use GB as an example. After imperialism, after the periods you mention, WWI and WWII, after everything the country has been through–they’re doing pretty well today. There are fears on our side of Wall Street losing business to the Footsie. That’s decline?
It sounds like the ebb and flow of power and prosperity and our rank in the world bothers you. That being on top is all that matters. I’d argue it matters the least to the people of a country, as long as her borders remain secure, her people unmolested and relatively free.
Are we moving towards dissolution? To revolution? To a collapse of the middle class and rampant corporate oligarchy? I’m not a futurist, so I don’t purport to have any answers. Perhaps my emphasis on change rather than decline is just the optimist in me.
ottovbvs // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm
barker13 // Jul 29, 2009 at 3:54 pm
“Great Britain 1913 vs. Great Britain 1919… Great Britain 1948…??? (We’re talking 35 years.) (And I’d say the Brits really lost the underpinnings of what the “Great” in Great Britain meant in the four short years of WW-1.)”
…………You seem to know as much about geopolitics as you do about economics Barking…….Why not read some Owen Mackinder or Paul Kennedy and then you might learn the difference between a small offshore island with a relatively small p0pulation, a massive dependence on global trade and financial intermediation, a declining industrial base, and a huge global empire to run and protect, which was the situation of Great Britain in 1913; and the fourth largest country in the world, with the third largest population, and about 20% of its GDP……..There isn’t the remotest similarity between the situation of Britain before the first world war and the US today………This is not to say that the US isn’t likely to see some relative decline over the next 50 years but it will be relative only and fairly modest in scope
MFarmer // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:26 pm
“……….ahhh elective dictatorships…….funny how we only hear about these from conservatives when liberals are in power………total silence when conservatives are in power”
Once again, I’m not a conservative, and I have been saying this for at least 20 years.
ottovbvs // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:41 pm
MFarmer // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:26 pm
” Once again, I’m not a conservative, and I have been saying this for at least 20 years”
………..I did take a look at your blog……….pardon me for saying so but if it looks like a duck etc
Bulldoglover100 // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:43 pm
You have GOT to be kidding me! Just because some dill weed writes books you think they have point when they make BASELESS accusations?? Really? The nut hobber Ann Coulter writes books and so does the new comic sentaor the Dems have in the Senate! ANYONE can write a book, look at the deal they shelled out to that idiot Palin!
Where was this “writer” when Bush sold us out to Medicaid??? Where was he when it was time to call Cheney on the carpet for a war we had no business fighting? When was he when Bush Senior appointed Sotomayor for the first time???? and backed her this time??? Oh that’s right the UNPATROTIC “writer” only wants to throw lies out there when it’s a Democrat calling the shots!
We ALL have the right to stand up for what we believe in but when the ONLY arugment some dill weed can come up with are lies? They, regardless of how many books they “write”, don’t derserve anyone’s time or respect.
I am tired of their whining and their apparent single cell genetic pool they crawled out of! They are killing my party!
barker13 // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Re: Oneon1isto // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:11 pm –
“I’d say Britain’s doing pretty fine on her own merits today.”
And I wouldn’t. (*SHRUG*)
“There are fears on our side of Wall Street losing business to the Footsie. That’s decline?”
Actually it’s duel decline. Ours obviously in the sense we can’t even keep on top at paper pushing, but also it point’s to Great Britain’s decline in the sense that great powers do more than simply serve as middlemen for the transmission of bits and bites. (*SHRUG*)
“It sounds like the ebb and flow of power and prosperity…”
Again. As with your use of the word “change,” your use of the term “ebb and flow of power and prosperity” seems but a smokescreen to hide behind as opposed to recognizing what should be easily recognized as decline.
But, hey… if you think that Great Britain 2009 is at or near the top of her game as a great power (or even just as a nation in and of itself and its people) compared to the Empire where the sun never set of yesteryear… well… then there’s no need to continue since we’re obviously not speaking the same language.
(*SHRUG*)
Hey… don’t get me wrong… I’m not tuning you out or “taking my ball and going home.” I enjoy chatting with you. All I’m saying is that your use of language – redefining the word “decline” for example – makes this exchange one neither of us can “win.”
It’s funny you brought up the “market” example. Let me hang a point on that.
Say markets shoot up. We’re talking 500… 600… 700 points. (The Dow.) Now… let’s say the analysts “explain” this huge “success” as being based upon events such as tens of thousands of jobs being eliminated here in the states so that the parent companies and of course investors can “profit” by switching manufacturing operations to Mexico and China. Say another bit of “good” news which spurred the market close way up was oil futures soaring…
Sorry. What I see in examples like these are short term “corporate” gains which are transitory and in the long haul harmful to America and Americans.
Do you recall the movie “Wall Street.” Remember “Greed Is Good.” Well… I believe this is true – to a point! But beyond a certain point… no. Not good. Bad. Very, very bad.
Strength isn’t total self-sufficiency nor full employment. Again… in the real world we tend to want to shy away from “all or nothing.” But relative self-sufficiency… relatively high MEANINGFUL and productive (in actual goods, not simply services and especially not mainly in “clearing house” “take a cut off the top” services) is to be pursued and if the pursuit is failing… that’s bad.
We’re losing market share (and technological dominance) in industry after industry – furniture manufacturing to aerospace. China is building airliners now… “ours” (as “partners” today), “theirs” tomorrow.
Even farming… (*HEADACHE*) Do a bit of research on agricultural trends – land under cultivation, productivity, the decline in family farming which is being addressed only imperfectly via giant agribusiness. Not good, Oneon.
Anyway… perhaps Frum will start two new threads and keep them up on the front page: One thread for the spreading of the gospel of American decline; the other dedicated to boundless optimism?
(*WINK*)
BILL
ottovbvs // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Cforchange // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:11 pm
“From many standpoints, how can we tolerate this demise that will reach nearly coast to coast if Detroit goes to sleep. Somethings got to change…”
………Unfortunately, a lot of these buffoons who whine about deindustrialization were quite happy to see the auto industry go down……see there jobs don’t count because these guys are in unions………I agree with a lot of your commentary about places like Braddock and Buffalo………the US has major structural problems relating to its competitiveness but they are not going to get solved without govt intervention……cue the right wing ranters ……..as if there wasn’t govt intervention involved in getting foreign auto makers to set up in some states……but that’s ok because that’s good govt intervention no matter how generous the terms (and they were generous believe me)
Oneon1isto // Jul 29, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Bill: Naw I’m good with one thread. That’s all I can handle.
Look, circling back around to my original statement, I’m not trying to dispute that we’ve got problems. By using change rather than decline I’m not trying to obfuscate the subject, or even remove discussion. We’re talking in light of Frum’s post here. It’s not that we don’t have problems, its that we’ve mentally succumbed to an inevitability of decline, pace Rome. It’s that, in the face of insane gains over the last two centuries and with 60 years of American dominance, we’re simply afraid of transition. Of having to “take our place” in the global market that we created.
And you continue to roll out problems. I feel like I could replace much of your doom and gloom gospel with sentiments from other points in history. We’ve been here before, the end of the world moment where all that we hold near and dear falls away into oblivion. We lost the textile industry! Great Depression! Savings and Loan! What about the autos? Will anyone ever, God help us, believe in our financial institutions again!?
It’s not boundless optimism to point towards what we have accomplished, and to see that Britain has survived much worse and remained intact. I certainly would not want to harken back to their imperial heyday (whatever their power or naval superiority), and nor would most British. I definitely wouldn’t harken back to the sixties because I think we’ve come so far since then on numerous issues.
At the heart of the pessimism is, I think, this feeling that America might have to “take our place”. That we can’t be number one in all things, that we might have to give way to competition and competitive advantage on a global scale. Maybe it’s un-American, but this reality doesn’t frighten, nor concern me.
I dunno, you’re probably right in calling me boundlessly optimistic. But then, I like competition. I thrive off being given a problem. I want us to have problems, because that means there’s work to be done, shit to fix and do. Have you ever climbed to the top of a mountain? I mean a really big mountain? 14,000+. It’s quite boring at the top. After 15 minutes of enjoying the view, you just head back down. But man the climb up…it’s good stuff.
Right Wing Nut House » FRUM IS BEING TOO KIND // Jul 29, 2009 at 6:05 pm
[...] rantings of some talk radio personalities and conservative bloggers “whining,” as David Frum does in a series of now 4 articles on conservative despair, is being generous. These overwrought [...]
barker13 // Jul 29, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Re: Oneon1isto // Jul 29, 2009 at 6:03 pm –
“We’re talking in light of Frum’s post here.”
AAHHH…. here’s part of the problem! YOU may have been talking in light of Frum’s post; I wasn’t.
(*LAUGHING*)
No… seriously… I wasn’t. Hell, I haven’t thought of Frum’s post since my original post – #1 on the thread.
No… this whole conversation (from my perspective) comes out of my response/comment to MFarmer’s post of Jul 29, 2009 at 9:56 am.
(*GRIN*)
(BTW, I’m just noticing CfC has a post up on this thread too; this site is weird, sometimes there “seems” to be a delay with the “refreshing” and adding of new posts.) (*SHRUG*)
Anyway… back to you, Oneon… (Re: Oneon1isto // Jul 29, 2009 at 6:03 pm)
“…we’re simply afraid of transition.”
Not me; I’m afraid of decline. (*SHRUG*) (This is why I keep stressing the word “DECLINE.”) (*GRIN*)
“We’ve been here before…”
No. No we haven’t. The America of any past snapshot in history is THAT America – not this America.
Listen. Again. I can go back to periods of Roman “decline” (based upon snapshots of history) where it was feared all was lost and yet Rome sprang back and grew larger and stronger. But by the third century AD the writing was on the wall.
Oneon. There’s a tipping point. (Or rather a host of tipping points.) Hindsight is of course 20/20, but I pride myself on having pretty good foresight.
“Will anyone ever, God help us, believe in our financial institutions again!?”
No. Not in the same way. The dollar will never again be the world’s sole “reserve currency” in the sense it once was. I’d be surprised if by the end of next year we haven’t lost our AAA credit rating. Oneon… the debt is the debt… the numbers are the numbers… the trends are the trends… and the UNFUNDED LIABILITIES of the future are there for the world to see.
“It’s not boundless optimism to point towards what we have accomplished…”
No. But it is pointing back. (*SMILE*) I’m aware of what was. I’m aware of what is. And I’m telling you where I think we’re headed and why I think we’re headed there.
“At the heart of the pessimism is…”
(*SIGH*) At the heart of MY pessimism, Oneon, is a great deal of knowledge and a fair amount of analytical expertise.
“I dunno, you’re probably right in calling me boundlessly optimistic.”
Hey… it’s not an insult; remember, I hope to hell I’m wrong and you’re right. (*SMILE*)
“I like competition.”
I like winning. (*WINK*)
“Have you ever climbed to the top of a mountain?”
Does a rental car count…? (*GRIN*) (Pike’s Peak.)
I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. Close enough…? (*SMILE*)
Anyway… again… thanks for the chat.
BILL
barker13 // Jul 29, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Re: Cforchange // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:11 pm –
“…pride and purpose vanish….despair is rampant…..places like Braddock, Mckeesport and Clairton. These are places that once had pride, hope and a middle class, now have few clues as to anyway up. This is all 30 years in the making. Cleveland and Buffalo have followed the same footprint. Then there’s the tweener places like Erie and Jamestown NY all caught in the wave down. New to the game, are places like Rochester NY – you know high tech in the 80’s, outsourced in Y2K. The new millenia, that fabled time when Pennsylvania House became China House… Oh Ethan Allen, Ethan Tsang. Ok I’ll stop. I think I’ve had this rant before, if so – sorry.”
Don’t be sorry, CfC; and for God’s sake… DON’T STOP…!!! People need to HEAR this.
“From many standpoints, how can we tolerate this demise that will reach nearly coast to coast if Detroit goes to sleep. Somethings got to change…”
I fear a future where when finally someone or something (a strong man… the military…) TRIES to change things (by force) it’ll be too late.
God bless America.
BILL
MFarmer // Jul 29, 2009 at 7:55 pm
“………..I did take a look at your blog……….pardon me for saying so but if it looks like a duck etc”
You obviously didn’t read closely — pardon me for saying so but if you read with prejudice, you find what you’re looking for.
GT // Jul 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm
The *real* *patriotic* Conservatives path to victory and a New Majority:
Step #1) Say the names Reagan and Palin.
Step #2) Repeat step #1 until you are tired or people walk away from you.
Step #3) If you confront doubters or electoral defeat, refer to Step#1.
dragonlady // Jul 29, 2009 at 8:46 pm
From Frum: Despair is a poor motivator; invective a sad substitute for inspiration. Okay, I agree with him politically on that. But radio talk show hosts are not the same as political candidates. I think the audience will respond to cognet arguments and optimism accordingly, and it will be reflected in their ratings. As crazy as Limbaugh drives Frum, if he ever bothered to listen to his radio show, it is not filled with doom and gloom.
ottovbvs // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:16 pm
gt // Jul 29, 2009 at 8:11 pm
……..Go knock yourself out
ottovbvs // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:17 pm
barker13 // Jul 29, 2009 at 7:26 pm
“At the heart of MY pessimism, Oneon, is a great deal of knowledge and a fair amount of analytical expertise.”
……….And modest too!
Cforchange // Jul 30, 2009 at 10:13 am
Ok Barker how about Bausch & Wang and China Standard.
sinz54 // Jul 31, 2009 at 9:04 am
MFarmer sez: “it’s amazing people aren’t in the streets.”
In the streets over what???
Health insurance reform?
A rising deficit?
Sure, those are problems; and I disagree with the way the Dems are handling these issues. But to claim that those are enough to cause some kind of revolution is absurd.
Were Americans in the streets during WW2 when 100,000 innocent Japanese-Americans were rounded up and put in detention camps, even though no charges were brought against them? (Do you know that even J. Edgar Hoover protested that action?)
Today, there are no detention camps. Nor is there anything comparable to the Boston Massacre of 1770, or the Kent State shootings of 1970, in which peaceful protesters were fired upon. The closest things we have to imprisonment without trial are the PATRIOT Act and Camp X-Ray at Gitmo, which are supported by most conservatives.
So far at least, Obama has brought liberal change, but not radical change (disappointing some of his most left-wing supporters). America has never had a laissez-faire economy. It’s had a mixed economy since its inception. True, the statist part of America’s economy grew enormously during the 20th century. Compared with the changes wrought in the 20th century (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Income Tax, the New Deal, the Great Society, the Reagan Revolution), the Obama Administration appears to be just an extension of those.
This conservative hysteria about “fascism” is just unsupportable. It is certainly true that the Fascist societies of Germany and Italy were heavily regulated mixed economies. But the converse is not true–having a regulated mixed economy doesn’t mean that the society is Fascist in other ways (abrogation of rights, one-party rule, Maximum Leader at the top).
I remember what this hysteria was really all about. Back in October 2008 or thereabouts, when Obama seemed on the way to election victory, the National Review editorialized sadly that Obama was “poised to deliver the greatest blow to conservatism in a generation.” And the hysteria set in.
Obama is not directly threatening America. He’s directly challenging the philosophical underpinnings of conservatism–and conservatives fear he’s just articulate enough to make his case stick with the American people. And that’s what is driving them batty.
My advice to those conservatives is: Stop worrying. If conservative principles are still valid, then it doesn’t matter how articulate Obama is. The negative public reaction to Obama’s kneejerk liberalism in the Gates case, and to ObamaCare, shows that the public, despite America’s problems, is nowhere near as far to the left as Obama and his supporters are.