Prometheus 6   

Thinking about this mess we're all going to be in

The right wing of politics in this country has held together remarkably well. From the early 90s until today they�ve shown a remarkable cohesion. They�ve been brutally effective. I�ve been thinking about how they�ve pulled together and why they�ve stayed together.

A big part of their cohesion is having the same goal. This may not be obvious because the right wing has as many factions as the left wing. Each faction has its goals, which differ of course. They wouldn�t be factions if they agreed that totally. For example, social conservatives have different goals than fiscal conservatives, both of which differ from the goals of religious conservatives. Liberals manage to annoy all of them, though. Social conservatives don�t like the cultural changes that would come about when everyone�s rights are truly, equally respected and supported. Fiscal conservative don�t like giving up the money needed to support the government mechanisms to protect everyone�s rights. They may not be against those rights per se, they just don�t want to pay for them, especially if they can actually afford to do so. Religious conservatives don�t like the acceptance of all spiritual traditions that the left champions.

What these factions agree on is, moving the left out of the way is the first step in getting what they want. And the really sad thing is that the left is the inheritor of the values of the Enlightenment, without which most of the right�s foot soldiers would be serfs and peons, literally living the live of the slaves that enabled their culture to advance to this degree.

Up until this point, the major tactics of the right have been those of destroyers. Point out the problems as justification to tearing out the mechanism they claim created them. Destroying is much easier than building, and Bush and crew are about to re-re-rediscover in Iraq. But success is heady, success at building or mangling. And since the Bush regime came into power they�ve been using another very effective tactic. Throwing everything at the wall all at once. The cohesion they�ve displayed makes each item something that must be responded to and more than likely something will get by. This further disrupts the state of affairs, and that disruption will be taken as proof that what is left is still �causing problems� that must be addressed by further dismantling the ineffective framework they attack.

Public schooling is a perfect example of what I�m talking about. The every suggestion right puts forward on public schooling, though their rhetoric is constructed to claim otherwise, has a destructive effect on public schools and their ability to do their job.

Another example is the presidential election of 2000, specifically the recount issue in Florida. Liberals wanted to eliminate the uncertainty in the count. Conservatives bashed the method to used in recounting. Their goal was to demonstrate a recount could not be accurate rather than to get an accurate count.

As I said, destroying is easy. And the right has destroyed enough that they feel they can start getting what they�ve been after.

But can they? It depends on what faction you are. The fiscal conservatives have the best shot at it. They basically have all the money and in Capitalism, the primary religion of the USofA that means a hell of a lot.

Everyone else�especially the foot soldier�is in for a nasty surprise, I think.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/13/2003 10:20:28 PM |