Tag: Ideology

Who Killed Political Thought?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Philosophy/Political Theory/Ideology

Back at the end of the Ice Age, when I was in college I studied political philosophy and ideology….they were not the same course…it was separate studies….that has vanished in today’s political world.  There is NO longer political thought or philosophy only a political ideology…..again, in my day….not the same thing.

Political philosophy was such writers and thinkers like Burke, Machiavelli, Mill, Paine, Ricardo, Aquinas, et al…….today ideology is dictated by such organizations as Heritage, Family (whatever), Demos, strategists and campaign managers…..there is NO deep thinking anymore….just shallow nondescript issues….petty thoughts for petty minds…….

Political philosophers looked at the state, the nation, rights and duties and obligations of those that chose to participate……..Great works like Leviathan, Common Sense, The Social Contract and Natural Rights Of Man….great thinkers from the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries…….ideas that shaped all of mankind….and then the pea brains started speaking, from the 20th and into the 21st century….no real political thought just a montage of slogans, one liners and sound bites…that is the “great” thinking of today.

After the French Revolution, Antoine Destutt de Tracy created a branch of study concerned with ideas……and it became ideology….he wanted to establish ideals of thought and action based on an empirically verifiable basis where both criticism of ideas and a science of ideas could see the light of day.

A helluva idea!  Taking the formation of ideas, mostly political, and turning it into a science.  And for about a hundred years it was so……the formation of ideas that could be verified and debated….but then something went horribly wrong.

The 1912 presidential election still had some political philosophy or an ideology….but it was on the wane……but not before some strong, valid points were made by TR and his Bull Moose Party……..to include…………..True to Roosevelt’s progressive beliefs, the platform of the party called for major reforms including women’s suffrage, social welfare assistance for women and children, farm relief, revisions in banking, health insurance in industries, and worker’s compensation. The party also wanted an easier method to amend the constitution.

By the last of the 20th century……ideology was being re-defined as slogans, insults and one liners…..it became more about elected a certain strain of individual and not about ideas to make the country a better place…….the big thinkers of this period were Newt, the Speaker of the House and here is his big political thought……

………In 1995, Gingrich, then speaker of the House, wrote a memo for GOPAC, which trains Republican candidates, citing language as “a key mechanism of control used by a majority party.” In his inimitable, insufferable fashion, he went on to say that his videotaped GOPAC courses had elicited a “plaintive plea: ‘I wish I could speak like Newt.’

“That takes years of practice. But we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases,”..

He went on to give those Republicans who wanted to “speak like Newt” a list of “contrasting words” that he urged them to use in their campaigns: “These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party.”

The list included several words and phrases that are by now routinely batted about in the course of public commentary about the opposing party, usually by Republicans against Democrats..: “betray,” “bizarre,” “cheat,” “corrupt,” “destroy,” “endanger,” “greed,” “hypocrisy,” “ideological,” “incompetent,” “liberal,” “lie,” “machine,” “mandate,” “pathetic,” “radical,” “sick,” “taxes,” “traitors,” “unionized,” “waste” and “welfare.” There were many more listed.

Newt’s influence is still being felt and used…..and America is NO better off!

And the Dems were no better………Bill Clinton and his cronies at the Democratic Leadership Council were the “big” thinkers on the Left…..they were the ones that made globalization, outsourcing and financial manipulations possible……with all their free trade agreements that did little for the middle class to their repeal of Glass-Steagall which made the 2008 collapse possible…….theirs was not about the country either….it was about the creation of wealth not the governing of the country and its people……

The DLC has not going away….it’s influence is still a hard part of any Democratic platform…..and America and its people, the majority, are NO better off!

Political thought was dying slowly but by 1995 the pace quickened and as it is today….true political thought is dead!  Now all we have is regurgitation of insulst, slogans and one liners….true thought of how to make the country a better place is over….for the last 20 years the whole process of electing a president is pathetic and a joke.

America will return when real political thinkers gain the upper hand but until then we will be governed by amateurs and posers!

GOP Repeats The Mistakes Of The Left

Professor’s Classroom

Subject:  Political History/Political Science

In case anyone is confused….I have been an activist for over 40+ years and yes I was a Leftist radical in the 60’s……so I did a lot of studying of the history of the Left so I could better try to work magic in political history……well….I tried and it was disastrous….back in the day all the Left did was fight each other on who had the proper ideology….Socialists fought Communist…..Trotskyists fought Stalinists…..Maoists fought Leninists…..Anarchists fought everybody…..there in fighting made the whole movement ineffective in American politics…..

In the early days of the 20th century, shortly after the Russian Revolution, all Leftists parties, most notably the socialists, tried to get the endorsement for Lenin and the Russian Communist Party ….lots of back and forth…lots of lies about the other parties….lots of intrigue until in was given to the Communist Party-USA……..and then the jealousy and games began in earnest…..

Ideology was the battlefield…..which party or organization had the most accurate ideology on the Left…..all this fighting and bickering continued for decades….in the 50’s and 60’s purges were the rule…if people did not hold the proper ideology then they were purged from the party….there was NO compromise….either you believed the ideology of the party blindly or you were purged…..once again…..all this purity BS totally marginalized the Left in American politics…..

Why do I bring up all this “ancient” history?

Excellent question…….it looks like that the GOP may be entering into the pitfalls that the Left suffered from back in the day.  In the last election cycle…..it had begun….the purity thing…….that is if you do not hold the “proper” ideology then the far right will do everything to undermine the moderates and liberals in the Party.

Look at NY-23….the moderate candidate had to bow out because the far right did not like her stands and put up a guy they approved of….even though he could not vote in the district he was running for….he did not know the issues of the district….his ONLY qualification was that he held the “proper” ideology.

And then there is Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida who is running for the Senate and he is a Repub, but the far right endorses Rubio, once again, he has the “proper” ideology.

He should be — he’s no Republican: “This election will be a litmus test to define the will power of party leaders to return to our values,” says Armando Valladores in The Miami Herald. Charlie Crist “hoodwinked” conservatives by raising taxes after promising they would “drop like a rock,” and he trampled conservative values by appointing a pro-abortion justice to the state Supreme Court over a “more-qualified” conservative. “No Republican should vote for Crist.”
“Crist doesn’t deserve GOP support”

These are just a few of the purity issue that I see ….and it looks like it is far from over…..the far right is trying to purge ALL moderates and liberals from the Party.

The far right seems to have NO tolerance for dissenting view within the Party and is trying desperately to purge all who do not have the “proper” ideology.  But the important question is:  can they, the far right, do enough damage to the GOP to make it possible for a successful third party?

Obama’s No Ideology

The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism — virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.

Meanwhile, the end of ideology among policymakers is about as imminent as the end of history.

But — in sync with the ideology of no ideology — deference to corporate power isn’t ideological. And belief in the U.S. government’s prerogative to use military force anywhere in the world is a matter of credibility, not ideology.

Along the way, the ideology of no ideology can corral even normally incisive commentators. So, over the weekend, as news broke about the nominations of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers to top economic posts, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote an article praising “the members of Obama’s new economic team.” Reich declared: “All are pragmatists. Some media have dubbed them ‘centrists’ or ‘center-right,’ but in truth they’re remarkably free of ideological preconception. … They are not visionaries but we don’t need visionaries when the economic perils are clear and immediate. We need competence. Obama could not appoint a more competent group.”

As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. “Geithner and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management,” economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, “but we better hope they don’t manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia, Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was done. Then they attached damaging conditions” to the aid.

After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like any other ideology that’s apt to be much better at promoting itself than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And Judge Judy’s injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: “Don’t pee on me and tell me it’s raining.”

From an article written by Norman Solomon.