Checks and Balances and the “F-Word”
Is there enough going on to make you nervous yet? The Vice President of the United States was the keynote speaker at a conference where other speakers called for “a new McCarthyism” to bring “terror” to intellectuals, saying “let’s oppress them [liberals],” and “the entire Harvard faculty” are “traitors.” A Congressman said, “America’s Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd,” ? Then he said, “We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq.”
This is an excellent post from a blogger who is getting real concerned about the direction of the ruling class. There’s nothing here that is news to us in the ANSWER Coalition, because we’ve been saying this for years. Yes, there is a ruling class. Yes, they have shifted to the hard right. But no, the public has not shifted. The populace has turned against the war, favors gay unions, etc. etc,- hardly a sign that the country has moved sharply to the right. The neocons, extremist to the core, are trying to control the government, while their lumpen howl loudly in blogdom. But they do not speak for the country. They are not the majority.
Meanwhile, right-wing commentators talk about killing American journalists, their premier blogs talk about former president Carter as being on the side of the enemy and leftists have “seamlessly taken up the cause of Islamic fascism”. I have provided only a few examples.
When you hear threatening talk like this, in the company of the country’s leadership, you know that whatever comes next isn’t going to be pleasant. Things do not appear to be heading in a good direction at all. If you have been following this in the blogs, you know that more and more people are becomming concerned that the Right’s rhetoric is growing ever more violent and totalitarian. Serious people have started referring to the “f-word.” (See also here, here, here, here and many other places.)
The rhetoric of the Left is also heating up. “Two cultures clash.” The Left has already won the culture war. Now we need to win the political war. And it is a war.
I think we are entering a new phase of American history. These are not normal times, the pendulum is not swinging back, and historical trends of American politics no longer apply.
Get in the streets. Organize. Get loud. Take risks. Major change in this country always starts with people in the streets. Whether it was women’s sufferage, labor union, civil rights, or the Vietnam war, the dissent started in the streets, spread, and eventually was victorious. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.