New Conservatives

New Conservatives and the Military
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of the most vital and most difficult tasks for New Conservatives will be developing a critical and constructive attitude towards the military.
Mainly, this means New Conservatives will have to learn to distinguish between our men and women in uniform, the brave young patriots putting their lives on the line in the field, and the bureaucracy in the giant building in Arlington, Virginia, known as the Pentagon. New Conservatives must learn that the bureaucrats in the Pentagon (no matter how many ribbons or stars they wear on their uniforms) don’t always work for the best interests of the troops on the front lines. Often the Pentagon Bureaucrats work only for their own interests and the interests of the bureaucracy they profit from.
New Conservatives must recognize that General Dwight D. Eisenhower was correct when he warned of the rise of a “military industrial complex” in his final speech as president. Ike wasn’t warning of a sinister conspiracy to murder JFK and invade Vietnam in this speech. No the old general was warning Americans that a vast politically powerful military bureaucracy had grown up on the banks of the Potomac and that a massive industry that profited from that bureaucracy had also arisen.
The purpose of military industrial bureaucrats in the Pentagon is not to make America’s military more effective but to get a larger and larger piece of the budget pie to pay for weapons systems and programs. These weapons systems and programs as our fighting men in Iraq have learned are often of little or no use in modern war. Instead they exist to keep tax dollars flowing to politically-connected defense contractors and the politicians and bureaucrats they are in bed with.
The officers who champion and green light weapons systems at the Pentagon often take high paying jobs at defense contractors when they retire from the service. By championing high tech weaponry, the officers are really ensuring their own comfortable retirements not strengthening our nation’s defenses.
We see the results of this in a military that maintains a massive surface navy of several hundred ships even though there is no potential enemy with a large surface navy. Many of the giant warships our navy deploys are little more than floating targets for terrorists and other enemies with missiles, planes, torpedo boats, heavy artillery, diesel submarines or suicide bombers. Yet we have to maintain these warships because the Navy bureaucracy and the giant corporations and politicians that profit from it require them.
Or in an Air Force that keeps fifty year old four engine bombers flying at a time when every other nation has scrapped its four engine bombers. Or an army that invests in giant tanks designed to fight the Red Army (which no longer exists) when soldiers lack such basic gear as battle armor and armored cars to ride around in. Or for that matter in the talk of strategic missile defense, something that hasn’t been perfected yet but Russian scientists have already figured out how to outwit.
Nor do the Pentagon bureaucrats really seem to care about the men and women in uniform. The pay for enlisted men and women, the backbone of our military is criminally low. The kind of basic training and equipment soldiers need for Modern War is often sorely lacking. Soldiers find themselves in the field with high tech gear but without basic equipment such as battle armor. The same bureaucrats constantly redeploy exhausted troops and refuse to stand up for soldiers falsely accused of perpetuating atrocities by the leftist media.
Nor does anybody at the Pentagon seem to be studying modern wars and how to fight and win them. Instead we have a military that still looks as if it is equipped to fight and win World War II which ended 60 years ago.
Conservatives have to take a long hard look at the Pentagon and realize that the Pentagon is big government and needs to be treated accordingly. We need to slash the budget for high tech weaponry and seriously consider drastically reducing both the Air Force and the Navy. At the same time we need to raise the pay of military personnel and concentrate on things like training, and infantry tactics.
More importantly we need a military that is designed to fight the kind of wars being waged in the world today, small, nasty, dirty and limited. We need soldiers prepared to deal with insurgents with homemade bombs and fifty year old rifles rather than high tech warriors trained to defeat Communism. Note to the Pentagon, the Cold War’s over, we won and the Communists are history.
So how do we start crafting a New Conservative agenda for the military? Well a good start would be to start listening to Conservative Critics of the military such as retired Marine Col. Bill Lind, one of the few people in Washington who understands Modern War and what it entails.
Another would be to remember that the backbone of our military is not a big building on the subway line in Arlington, Virginia, it’s the young men with the rifles and helmets on the actual battle field. Until Conservatives start putting their interests ahead of the bureaucrats in the Pentagon our military is going to be a very bad joke.

New Conservatives and the Media

New Conservatives and the Media
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of the biggest challenges facing the New Conservatism will be its relationship with the media. Basically New Conservatives will have to ask themselves: “how do we unplug ourselves from the media while still staying tuned into what the media is saying?”
The media is one of the biggest and best weapons liberals and leftists have and they use it very well. It enables them to control the discussion even when they have nothing to say and lets them force their agenda on the country. Particularly when they can drive their arguments with emotion and hysteria.
A prime example of this was the Department of Homeland Security, most conservatives resisted the call to create a massive new bureaucracy to protect the country from terrorism. Yet the Big Government crowd was able to foist another massive bureaucracy upon us, one that will surely invade our private lives time and time again with fear. They filled the TV screens and newspapers with stories about how unprepared America was and focused on the efforts of a few whiny self proclaimed Sept. 11 victims. Even the opposition of people like Rush Limbaugh wasn’t enough to stop the stampede to Homeland Security.
The saddest part of this is that the Department of Homeland Security is now an object of ridicule by the very same liberals who demanded we create it in the first place. Conservatives look like they’re the big government crowd wasting the taxpayers’ money and trampling the citizens’ rights.
The question conservatives have to ask themselves is how do we prevent the media from setting the political agenda? I suppose the best way would be for politicians to simply ignore the liberal media. For average people this is pretty easy but for active politicians it’ll be harder.
After all politicians crave attention, they wouldn’t be in politics if they didn’t. Senators and Congressmen want to appear on the talking head commentary shows and see their names in the big newspapers. They want to be on Nightline and Larry King and the Sunday Morning Shows.
The problem is that once conservatives whether they be public office holders or commentators go onto those shows they step into enemy territory. The media sets the agenda there and decides what gets said.
The Senator or Conservative commentator who appears on a network or cable talk show has to discuss what the host and producer want not what he wants. This way the media liberals effectively keep popular or potentially conservative issues like tax reform off of the airwaves. Take national sovereignty, America’s sovereignty our constitution and our very rights under threat from a variety of poorly written international treaties that would transfer authority to undemocratic international agencies. Yet you never hear this on national TV. Why? Because any conservative who wants to discuss the issue wouldn’t be allowed on air to talk about it. Instead the conservative congressman has to discuss the latest White House scandal even if the latest White House scandal was just manufactured by the writers in the network newsroom.
There are ways around this, radio talk show hosts like Mike Rosen at Denver’s KOA and the Internet do an effective job of getting these issues out but the audience they reach is limited. The same for conservative magazines and websites which for all their influence appear only to a small educated elite interested in such issues.
One suggestion would be for Republicans on Capitol Hill and across the nation to simply boycott the liberal media. Simply tell the network news producers discuss what we want or no Republicans will show up on your shows. This would be hard but if the liberals had only themselves to talk to they’d look ridiculous and after a few weeks cave in. Perhaps Republicans should tell ABC, we won’t appear on This Week until you either fire George Stephanopoulos (a paid political operative) or balance him out with an equally attractive and intelligent conservative co host.
Now what about average conservatives out in the heartland? Oddly enough it’s much easier for average people to unplug themselves from the Big Media than for professional politicians. Millions of people already have many of them by taking advantage of modern technology.
Vast numbers of people no longer watch network TV they watch cable, where they can choose networks that reflect their interests or values. Many families don’t even watch either cable or over the air TV, they rely on DVD players and VCRs which enable them to choose what entertainment their families watch.
The new media has also enabled many Americans to effectively boycott the liberal news media. Instead of watching the news or reading the newspaper or news magazines they can watch Fox News or turn to the Internet for news.
Conservatives have been very adept at utilizing the new media to spread their values and view points while liberals haven’t. Liberals now have to play catch up in New Media. Unfortunately, they’re catching on, leftists are now blogging at a rate that rivals conservatives, and liberals are beginning to utilize things like talk radio and the Internet in new ways. It was savvy use of the web that enabled Howard Dean and his leftist coalition to effectively take control of the Democratic Party.
So conservatives will have to retain their new media edge and be constantly on guard against leftist advances in New Media. There are a lot of smart people on the Left who’ve had years of experience manipulating the media and popular opinion, they have a lot of money behind them and many of them are dedicated to destroying our values.
Perhaps the conservative solution should be to unplug completely from old media and concentrate entirely upon New Media. Or more precisely to only deal with the media on their terms. That’ll be hard to do but if conservatives can pull it off they’ll have won the all important battle for popular opinion.

Conservatives and Big Government

Taking up Paul Weyrich’s challenge to create a New Conservatism (or as Paul calls it the Next Conservatism) for a New Century, I suppose the first thing we must do is diagnose what’s wrong with present-day Conservatism.
One of the worst features of Modern Conservatism is the extent to which conservatives have fallen in love with Big Government and worse even Big Bureaucracy. Sadly enough, many Conservatives have become almost indistinguishable from Liberals in their support for Big Government and efforts to expand its scope and power.
The Bush II Administration and the Republican Congress have presided over the biggest expansion of American government since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. In the past four and a half years of Republican dominance in Washington, we’ve seen the creation of a massive new Homeland Security bureaucracy and a Homeland Security Department, an unprecedented expansion in Federal authority over education (No Child Left Behind), a new prescription drug benefit to pay for Medicare, out of control federal spending, incredible growth in the deficit, a vast increase in federal law enforcement powers and a foreign policy based on military intervention and foreign aid. Sadly enough there seems to be no end in sight, Congress displays no fiscal restraint whatsoever and not a week goes bye in which the Bush Administration doesn’t seem to be suggesting an expensive new government program.
This situation is made worse by the Republicans’ inability to face fiscal and economic realities. Instead of cutting existing government to keep the budget in limits or creating new streams of revenue to pay for growth (such as a national sales tax). All the Republicans seem to do is keep spending and hope that future revenues will cover the costs. America faces a fiscal crisis that could rival the Great Depression if the deficit and budget aren’t brought under control.
The saddest part of this is that it didn’t have to happen, had Conservatives simply stuck to their beliefs and kept spending under control this fiscal crisis could have been prevented. Unfortunately Conservatives ignored their beliefs and listened to the liberal media, they adopted the liberal proposals for a Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration (even though there’s no evidence these things will keep us safe from terrorism). They enacted liberal proposals for school testing and a prescription drug benefit. Conservatives are so unsure of their beliefs they abandon them whenever the pressure increases.
The lack of faith in Conservatism is combined with a moronic faith in the power of Big Government on the part of many Conservatives. Take Homeland Security, the belief that a massive new bureaucracy can stop terrorism. Since terrorists are outlaws who use unconventional tactics and violate all the rules this seems to be a delusion. A far better strategy would be to set up small elite teams of law enforcement, intelligence and military personnel who would counter the terrorists with unconventional covert tactics. Unfortunately this wouldn’t cost much money and wouldn’t give Congress much pork to distribute to the voters so we get Homeland Security, a massive waste of money that tramples the rights of average citizens.
Or foreign policy, the 2001 war in Afghanistan proved that America could defeat its enemies abroad with clever covert operations, airpower and elite teams of special forces. In Afghanistan this worked great, yes Bin Laden got away but his power base was destroyed and his enemies the Taliban driven from power probably permanently. An effective if limited Afghan government with a military capable of defeating both the Taliban and Al Qaeda seems to be developing.
Unfortunately the Neoconservatives in the White House and their apologists in the media didn’t learn a thing from Afghanistan. When it came time to deal with Saddam Hussein, all they could think of was to mount a massive World War II style invasion of Iraq. Yes, we won easily, our forces annihilated a Third World Army equipped with 1950s weaponry. A victory that made us look like a cheap bully in the eyes of the world. Sadly enough, this invasion was carried out largely to prove the worth of Big Government’s massive military bureaucracy in the Pentagon rather than spread Democracy.
The invasion was followed by an extended occupation of Iraq that led to guerrilla warfare and the needless deaths of hundreds of American military personnel. The Big Government solution to Iraq was followed by more Big Government, massive foreign aid and the establishment of a massive American bureaucracy in Iraq. A bureaucracy that predictably has done a worse job of running Iraq than Saddam’s gangster regime, gangsters at least have to make money. Iraq’s economy is a mess, law and order are nonexistent, government no longer functions and oil production is lower than before the 2003 war.
Big Government has failed miserably in Iraq as any true conservative should have said it would. Instead of a limited military campaign to remove Saddam and replace him with a more reasonable Iraqi leadership. Say American special forces and air power backing a Kurdish Army in a campaign to over run Baghdad and overthrow Saddam. We have the worst American military and foreign policy debacle since Vietnam.
Closer to home we have other looming Big Government debacles. President Bush has entrusted NASA, which hasn’t made any major progress in space launch technology since the early 1980s, with developing a new initiative to return men to the Moon and explore Mars. The best NASA can come up with is to utilize adapted Saturn Five Rockets (a forty-year old technology) and Space Shuttle (a thirty-five year old technology) components. This at a time when Spaceship One, a privately built rocket was able to fly into space and return. I wonder in a few years will we see NASA wasting billions of tax dollars on giant rockets while millionaires are flying to the new lunar Club Med in their private space planes?
Or the response to Hurricane Katrina, we avoided a humanitarian disaster in Louisiana and Mississippi because churches, private charities and Big Business stepped in to help with all manner of aid. The Federal Emergency Management Agency couldn’t get aid to the victims while Wal-Mart, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and others were distributing supplies to the victims within hours of the hurricane. Their efforts combined with the military effectively aided the victims and prevented true catastrophe while Big Government’s emergency management efforts predictably failed miserably. Yet we now have demands for more money for Emergency Management and rebuilding efforts. The result of course will be more wasteful government spending on aid and relief efforts that won’t reach the victims.
Obviously this means that one of the basic tenets of the New Conservatism must be a renewed commitment to limited government. Government must be kept small and limited in scope and confined to those things it does best such as national defense and law enforcement. We need a renewed effort to reduce the power, size and scope of government.
Massive bureaucracies must be trimmed or eliminated and spending reduced. This means both liberal social programs and conservative sacred cows like the military. Do we really a massive surface Navy when no other power has a large Navy? What about the giant bureaucracy in the Pentagon does it really defend us from things like terrorism?
Limited government is something we need desperately unfortunately Conservatives seem to have forgotten that.

Weyerich

Mr. Weyrich Asks the Big Question
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of America’s most important conservative leaders, Paul Weyrich is asking an import question no thinking conservative can afford to ignore: Has American conservatism achieved victory by abandoning its basic values and truths?
In a series of articles entitled "The Next Conservatism" Weyrich looks into the state of modern America and the soul of conservatism and makes some troubling conclusions. He wonders if conservatives have destroyed the very things they love with some of their intellectual positions. In an essay on a "New Conservative Economics" Weyrich comes close to committing conservative heresy when he wonders is a system in which individually owned businesses can’t compete with a few giant chain stores really free enterprise? He also wonders why conservatives are mindlessly accepting mindless competition and endless economic progress? Weyrich asks why conservatives have welcomed and even supported the destruction of the traditional economy and with it the traditional communities upon which it is based in the name of economic progress?
The questions Weyrich asks expose what might be called the Dark Side of modern conservatism the economic policies promoted by conservatives destroy or at least undermine the things conservatives believe in. For example, so-called free trade agreements lead to the export of jobs which destroys traditional small town economies by destroying factories. Unrestricted immigration drives down wages and denies both immigrants and native born Americans the chance at the American Dream. Unregulated business leads to violent sexually charged entertainment that undermines the nation’s moral fiber.
Can conservatism survive if conservative economic policies uncontrolled federal spending, free trade and unrestricted immigration destroy the livelihoods and lifestyles of the people responsible for the Republican political victories? George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 because Rush Limaugh, Ronald Reagan, James Dobson and others won the ideological battle for the opinion of Main Street. That victory is now threatened by the economic policies Republicans seem to mindlessly embrace.
Rhetoric about the opportunities created by free enterprise only works if average people are in a position to take advantage of those opportunities. A factory worker who earns a good wage is receptive to messages about lower taxes, he sees a large percentage of his hard earned income taken by government. He’ll listen when a Republican talks about smaller government and lower taxes. A discount store employee whose wage is so low she can only feed her children with the help of food stamps won’t listen. She’ll probably want more government because she benefits from government.
The armies of low paid, poorly treated workers created by the so-called service economy are a leftist’s dream audience. They are poor, often helpless and dependant on government. They’ll listen to tired old leftist rhetoric about redistribution of wealth and the evils of business. They’ll listen to schemes to expand the welfare state and increase taxation. After all they have something to gain from expanded government, more welfare and little to loose their wages are so low their taxes are minimal.
The Conservative movement succeeded because there was an affluent and educated middle class that was receptive to the Conservative message. What happens when that middle class is gone replaced by low paid, service workers? Low paid workers who blame many of their troubles upon Republicans who promised them a vision of prosperity through free enterprise and gave them low pay and no benefits. Anybody remember the 1920s which led to the Depression, the New Deal, and decades of liberal Democratic dominance?
There are moral issues here, how can conservatives call themselves pro family when they mindlessly support policies such as free trade and unrestricted immigration that hurt families? What good are family values when parents have no time to spend with their children because both parents are working ten hours a day just to pay the mortgage? How can family life be maintained if both parents have to spend eight or nine hours a day working outside the home and two or three more hours commuting?
Weyrich is right to ask these questions. The question is will the conservative movement and its leadership listen? My guess is they’ll only listen when they start losing elections.

Weyerich

Mr. Weyrich Asks the Big Question
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of America’s most important conservative leaders, Paul Weyrich is asking an import question no thinking conservative can afford to ignore: Has American conservatism achieved victory by abandoning its basic values and truths?
In a series of articles entitled "The Next Conservatism" Weyrich looks into the state of modern America and the soul of conservatism and makes some troubling conclusions. He wonders if conservatives have destroyed the very things they love with some of their intellectual positions. In an essay on a "New Conservative Economics" Weyrich comes close to committing conservative heresy when he wonders is a system in which individually owned businesses can’t compete with a few giant chain stores really free enterprise? He also wonders why conservatives are mindlessly accepting mindless competition and endless economic progress? Weyrich asks why conservatives have welcomed and even supported the destruction of the traditional economy and with it the traditional communities upon which it is based in the name of economic progress?
The questions Weyrich asks expose what might be called the Dark Side of modern conservatism the economic policies promoted by conservatives destroy or at least undermine the things conservatives believe in. For example, so-called free trade agreements lead to the export of jobs which destroys traditional small town economies by destroying factories. Unrestricted immigration drives down wages and denies both immigrants and native born Americans the chance at the American Dream. Unregulated business leads to violent sexually charged entertainment that undermines the nation’s moral fiber.
Can conservatism survive if conservative economic policies uncontrolled federal spending, free trade and unrestricted immigration destroy the livelihoods and lifestyles of the people responsible for the Republican political victories? George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 because Rush Limaugh, Ronald Reagan, James Dobson and others won the ideological battle for the opinion of Main Street. That victory is now threatened by the economic policies Republicans seem to mindlessly embrace.
Rhetoric about the opportunities created by free enterprise only works if average people are in a position to take advantage of those opportunities. A factory worker who earns a good wage is receptive to messages about lower taxes, he sees a large percentage of his hard earned income taken by government. He’ll listen when a Republican talks about smaller government and lower taxes. A discount store employee whose wage is so low she can only feed her children with the help of food stamps won’t listen. She’ll probably want more government because she benefits from government.
The armies of low paid, poorly treated workers created by the so-called service economy are a leftist’s dream audience. They are poor, often helpless and dependant on government. They’ll listen to tired old leftist rhetoric about redistribution of wealth and the evils of business. They’ll listen to schemes to expand the welfare state and increase taxation. After all they have something to gain from expanded government, more welfare and little to loose their wages are so low their taxes are minimal.
The Conservative movement succeeded because there was an affluent and educated middle class that was receptive to the Conservative message. What happens when that middle class is gone replaced by low paid, service workers? Low paid workers who blame many of their troubles upon Republicans who promised them a vision of prosperity through free enterprise and gave them low pay and no benefits. Anybody remember the 1920s which led to the Depression, the New Deal, and decades of liberal Democratic dominance?
There are moral issues here, how can conservatives call themselves pro family when they mindlessly support policies such as free trade and unrestricted immigration that hurt families? What good are family values when parents have no time to spend with their children because both parents are working ten hours a day just to pay the mortgage? How can family life be maintained if both parents have to spend eight or nine hours a day working outside the home and two or three more hours commuting?
Weyrich is right to ask these questions. The question is will the conservative movement and its leadership listen? My guess is they’ll only listen when they start losing elections.

War on Terror, New Front, New Foes, New Tactics

Once again we Americans seem to be ignoring the biggest and most important story of our age the war on terror. In particular our media is ignoring the frightening new direction the Terror War is taking on the Russian Front.
Late last week the city of Nalchik in the Kabardin-Balkar Autonomious Republic near Russia's border with the Republic of Georgia was transformed into the Terror War's new front lines. A force of around 150 armed terrorists entered the city and proceeded to wreck havoc for several hours until troops could arrive and wipe them out.
There are several frightening aspects to this scenario, first it is an indication that Russia maybe loosing control of its border regions. The slaughter in Chechnya was bad enough but this is worse. If Russia looses control of Central Asia and the Caucacus we could see more Afghanistan style breeding grounds for terrorism. This is a truly frightening prospect because those regions contain lots of heavy industry and stockpiles of weaponry left over from the Soviet era. So the terrorists would have both existing weapons and the capacity to create more. There are also maybe nuclear materials, missile bases and even facilities to manufacture nuclear, biological or chemical weapons in those areas or worse existing stockpiles of such weapons terrorists could easily seize.
This nightmare is made worse by the fact that the terrorists weren't imported Chechyn or Al Qaeda fighters they were local tribesmen members of a would be called the Yurmak who are being financed by outside forces. The Kremlin keeps claiming it has destroyed the Yurmak but the Yurmak keeps popping up again. Sound familiar. So this could herald the beginning of a large scale war in the Caucuses and Central Asia that could draw in American forces. US forces are already operating in Georgia just across the border from Nal'Chick. Not to mention China which is already plagued by Islamic insurgents.
The tactics used by these terrorists should also raise concern instead of suicide bombing or bombing they displayed a potentially far more deadly and destructive tactic. They simply used military weaponry to wage war on unarmed civilians according to media accounts the terrorists simply walked around town with rifles and missile launchers shooting at people or holed up in buildings and started blasting away at the streets. Some of them threw satchel bombs at the local KGB headquarters they failed to get in but they did damage.
The scary thing about this scenario is that it would be one of the most effective methods of terror attack on America. What I like to call Invasion USA, after a disturbingly prophetic B Chuck Norris action picture of the mid 1980s. A group of terrorists finds a way to get to America maybe they come by ship or walk in from Mexico or buy some fake visas. They get here and rendezvouses.
Then instead of building bombs they arm themselves, perhaps with weapons from gun stores, weapons they brought, or weaponry looted from some National Guard arsenal. Then they choose some average American city, say Las Vegas, simply drive into town and start shooting everything and everybody in sight. Imagine the havoc they could wreck sitting in the back of a pick up driving up and down the streets blasting away at pedestrians and store fronts. Or walk into public buildings like casinos, churchs, schools and city hall and start shooting people inside.
The police would probably be helpless to deal with such a situation they're scattered all over town and not organized or armed for combat. Likewise with the National Guard it'd take hours to round them up and get them in the field.
That leaves the regular military, they're either deployed overseas or training at bases in remote rural areas. San Diego is the only American city I can think with large active military units stationed in town. Even when the Army or Marines came in it'd probably be by helicopter, choppers are vulnerable to small arms fire and surface to air missiles. So infantry men might have to land on the outskirts of town and fight their way in leaving civilians in the crossfire. This could result in high casualties because the troops wouldn't have armored vehicles to protect them. So it would probably take the military several hours to sufficient forces to a besieged city, giving the terrorists plenty of time to jump in the car and drive to the next town.
I wonder are our governments prepared for Invasion USA? Even though it's far more likely than a dirty bomb or a madman with a vial of germs. I imagine not.
So the Terror War has taken a disturbing new turn the question is are we ready to deal with it.

Infantile Morality

Infantile Morality and Philosophy
By Daniel G. Jennings
Ideas, as that old mantra of the right tells us, have consequences. With this in mind we have to ask ourselves what sort of philosophy and ideologies led to the debacles in Iraq and the Hurricane Katrina aftermath?
My guess is that it would be the infantile philosophy, morality, theology, politics , history and spirituality coming out of our churches, universities, news media, intellectual elite, political leadership, popular culture and literature. The lack of thought, study, common sense, intellectual rigor and a dedication to truth in many of these entities and the ideologies they produce has created a society that is unprepared philosophically, theologically, morally and spiritually to deal with the challenges presented by today’s world.
The basic gist of the infantile morality afflicting our culture is to reduce our complex world to a comic book struggle between good guys and bad guys. We saw a particularly egregious example of this in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina where politicians particularly on the Left immediately began to blame all the failures to respond the storm’s aftermath upon President Bush. Failures of the entire emergency response system and worse the atrocious behavior of some local and state officials were ignored. The only response to the Katrina disaster our so-called political opposition and its apologists in the media was a childish attempt to attack our President. A second term President who can’t run for reelection, a fact which makes the attacks pointless and silly.
The major promoter of this infantile morality which operates on the idea that all of our problems are caused by the evil actions of some bad person is the news media and the politicians who have been reduced to the role of media commentators. We can see examples of this everyday: the war in Iraq and the failure to win a quick victory, obviously the work of president. Corporate corruption scandals the work of those greedy executives. Changes in the economy that lead to job losses and increased poverty blame those horrible folks at Wal-Mart, rising oil prices it’s the work of big oil, a growing budget deficit blame President Bush, increasing immorality in our culture blame Hollywood or college professors.
This kind of thinking blocks discussion and discourse and stifles serious thinking and problem solving. It encourages an attitude of holier than though thinking in which those who practice it think they are right and anybody who opposes them is the enemy. A prime example of this kind of thinking is the so-called neoconservatives (who are neither new or conservative) who believe their strategy in Iraq and their all out war for democracy is America’s only recourse in the terror war. Anybody who questions their strategy is obviously a weak kneed appeaser. Another example of this is the self proclaimed peace movement which blames all the world’s problems on President Bush or the military and thinks its patent solution of no military American action will solve the world’s problems. Any suggestion that some military action might be necessary or that pulling troops out of Iraq will make things worse is dismissed as imperialism.
The media of course has encouraged both the peace movement and the neoconservatives. By covering every "peace protest" no matter how minuscule and making celebrities out of peace activists like Cindy Shehan the media has given a fringe movement with a naive and simplistic ideology an influence in our national debate it doesn’t warrant. By allowing neo conservative commentators virtually unlimited air time the media has made their pronouncements the official party line in the War on Terror.
The American people are told we have only two possible courses of action in Iraq a shameful retreat reminiscent of Vietnam or years of grueling war and casualties. Other alternatives such as creating a Shia puppet regime with a Shia Army to fight our battles in Iraq and a Kurdish client state to control the oil fields are ignored. The idea of using the Kurds tough fighters similar to the Gurkhas who did the British Empire’s dirty work for generations, as a sepoy army to control Iraq is also ignored, instead we are told the only alternatives are let Iraq become a blood bath or keep up the current pointless slaughter.
The reason these other alternatives are not considered is that there are no shades of gray in the thinking on the Iraq War. In the minds of both the neocon and the peace activist it has become a holy struggle only their world views are correct anything else is heresy. Sane thinking which would demand alternatives is not allowed in the building.
Caught in the middle of this circus of stupidity are the US troops in Iraq and the people of Iraq. American soldiers fight, kill and die for a democracy that will be a bad joke, while the Iraqi people already being slaughtered by terrorists face the prospect of civil war and genocide if the US leaves. A golden opportunity to bring stability and economic development to a corner of the Middle East has been lost.
Iraq is not the only venue in which we see this sorry infantile morality on display we see it everyday in our politics. Instead of trying to address our nations problems our politicians spend their days attacking and vilifying each other. To the extreme Republicans the Democrats are the bad guys and to the extreme Democrats the Republicans are the bad guys. Instead of civility and cooperation in Congress we have bitter personal attacks and arguments. Worst of all we have what is little more than character assassination and personal destruction aimed at the opponent.
The Republicans try to impeach Mr. Clinton for reasons that are laughable at best, the Democrats get a prosecutor to file fake charges against Mr. DeLay. Democrats embrace a third rate director who makes a propaganda film that smears the President, Republicans champion the cause of self proclaimed veterans attacking a candidate’s war record. The serious issues facing the country are completely ignored and average people disgusted by the sorry spectacle don’t even bother to vote.
The infantile good guys bad guys thinking can be seen in other parts of our society. On the university campuses we see professors such as Ward Churchill who try to blame all of the world’s evils on dead white males. Churchill’s idiotic cartoon reduces American history to a struggle between noble Indian and evil white man. Or worse self styled philosophers who blame the world’s problems upon America such as Noam Chomsky. Political correctness which tries to remove all the influence of those horrible dead white males from academia is a prime example of this thinking.
This thinking has even invaded the churches, the popular Left Behind Books reduce the Bible to a comic book in which good Christians battle evil minions of Satan such as the anti-Christ. Christ himself is presented as a sort of super hero who comes to save the world from itself. Other pastors such as James Kennedy try to blame the nation’s problems on Hollywood or groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. Instead of addressing the moral and spiritual sickness that infects our land the self proclaimed men of God demonize their fellow citizens. Others engage in what is little more than organized homophobia disguised as a battle for morality.
The so-called liberal churches aren’t much better than their brethren on the religious right, many of them have embraced the so-called peace movement which spends its time vilifying everyone in the Bush administration. The self proclaimed apostles of peace and champions of tolerance spend their time in childish name calling directing moronic charges at our national leaders. Sadly enough many of these people are to be found in the pulpits of churches that profess to be progressive and tolerant. Tolerance it seems only extends to those who share the ideology of the so called liberal clergy.
Present day political ideology which is childish and silly has replaced theology in many of the liberal churches. Much as ideology has replaced scholarship on the college campuses and ideology has replaced practical politics in our political arena.
Perhaps the saddest aspect of this situation is the way in which those who focus upon the imaginary evil of their fellow citizens seem to ignore real evil. The peace movement which accuses President Bush of being a terrorist has no comment about the barbaric atrocities the terrorists commit against the Iraqi people and American troops on a daily basis. Self proclaimed human rights activists rant and rave about the imagined abuse of prisoners at American hands while ignoring systematic murder being used as a political tool by the Iraqi insurgents many of whom commit their murders for the TV camera. Neo conservatives occasionally mention these atrocities but only as political commentary.
The obvious breakdown in morality and society that followed the Hurricanes has also been ignored. The looting and animalistic behavior of a minority in New Orleans is part of this, an even worse sign is the blind hysteria that preceded both hurricanes. Millions of people fled motivated by what seems like mindless hysteria a sure sign of a lack of faith or belief. Hysteria of course can lead to all manner of evil and immoral behavior.
Obviously a simplistic philosophy in which our fellow citizens are branded as bad guys because they don’t share our political beliefs can’t help us in such situations. Only a true faith based upon genuine morality and theology, combined with a realistic evaluation of the real world situation can lead to practical and moral solutions to our world’s problems. Unfortunately our leaders don’t seem to be capable of this, as the catastrophe on the Gulf Coast and the looming catastrophe in Iraq prove.