Tag: Political Thought

Reclaiming Conservative Foreign Policy

In these days when anyone writes something from a non-Right perspective they are being politically correct…..the fairly new buzzword for anyone that does not hold their point of view…….basically it is said before anyone responds in the hope of shutting down the conversation so they do not have to think of a reply.

You want politically correct?  People that call themselves conservative these days…..when they are actually a neo-liberal….. I know they are afraid of any title where the word “liberal” appears but sorry…..the truth hurts!

Today’s “conservative” foreign policy is anything BUT conservative.  Recently in the American Conservative they had an article that sort of makes my point…….an interesting read and should be a required reading for anyone that claims the title of conservative.  (Most would not know a true conservative even it walked up and bit them in the ass)…….

The rise of Donald Trump has led to predictions that the neoconservative dominance of Republican foreign policy is about to end, whether or not Trump wins. The Donald has challenged the perpetual military interventionism aspect of neocon-think without doing any damage to his campaign and, in the process, he has certainly noticed who the most strident voices being raised against him are.

Admittedly the prospect of a world blissfully free of neocons is appealing, but some observers have noted how the neoconservatives are chameleon like, blending in with whoever is controlling the levers of power and capable of moving from their original home in the Democratic Party over to the GOP—and then back again to the Democrats whenever it seems tactically advisable. Their eradication is far from a sure thing and one expects to see the neocon stalwarts Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan at the top of any Hillary Clinton administration.

Source: Reclaiming Conservative Foreign Policy | The American Conservative

It is election time……maybe it is time for conservatives to remove their heads from their anal cavity.

Just a thought!

The Discomfort of Thoughtful Politics

I remember the days of JFK….I was too young to vote but I listened to his words they made my think about a better future….they were inspirational.  I was too young to vote but my interests in politics was starting to lead me to my later station in life.

Too many people these days refuse to have a conversation….they have formulated a scenario in their minds and they will not look to see if they are accurate or not…..as long as it confirms their beliefs and prejudices then it MUST be true.

I read an article that covers the subject of political thought…..a pretty good piece of writing…..

Quote of the Week:  Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. -John F. Kennedy

The next time you hear an opponent – even one with the obvious logical and factual flaws of Trump – argue their side, check your own motivations to dismiss them, and your own factual basis.  And the next time you hear someone on your side present their stump speech, check your motivations to agree, and the factual basis of your own argument.  Then re-check them.  Then do it again.  Think about why your politics are “better” than those of someone else; and think about why your opponents may also have a legitimate viewpoint worthy of consideration.

Source: The Discomfort of Thoughtful Politics – Spark!

I miss the days when we could have a conversation on different subjects…..today it is just regurgitation of what we want the world to be…..where everyone is wrong (insults included) if they do not agree…..

That is sad and a bit pathetic.

Identity Politics–Democracy’s Foe?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Theory

This country, the good old US of A, is suffering badly from partisan politics….it had its beginnings in the impeachment process of Bill Clinton…..everyone that had a mouth, voiced his/her opinion….can you imagine how worse it would be today with all the 24 hour news cycle millionaires looking for a story?  Not one of the networks is concerned with truth and fairness, only the ratings and how it effects their bottom line.    We think politics is a circus now……it would be far worse.

For a decade now people have been playing in “identity politics”…….but what is identity politics?

Cressida Heyes writing for Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy…..

“Identity politics” has come to signify a wide range of political activity and theorizing founded in the shared experiences of injustice of members of certain social groups. Rather than organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos, or party affiliation, identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized within its larger context. Members of that constituency assert or reclaim ways of understanding their distinctiveness that challenge dominant oppressive characterizations, with the goal of greater self-determination.

The scope of political movements that may be described as identity politics is broad: the examples used in the philosophical literature are predominantly of struggles within western capitalist democracies, but indigenous rights movements worldwide, nationalist projects, or demands for regional self-determination use similar arguments. Predictably, there is no straightforward criterion that makes a political struggle into an example of “identity politics;” rather, the term signifies a loose collection of political projects, each undertaken by representatives of a collective with a distinctively different social location that has hitherto been neglected, erased, or suppressed. It is beyond the scope of this essay to offer historical or sociological surveys of the many different social movements that might be described as identity politics, although some references to this literature are provided in the bibliography; instead the focus here is to provide an overview of the philosophical issues in the expansive literature in political theory.

For decades now the term has been the rallying call of so many groups…..whether it is gun rights, women rights, abortion, religion, etc…….these groups try to make politics about one thing and one thing only…..a single issue.  It is good for activists but bad for a political system that prides itself on political inclusiveness.

Identity politics is NO longer some obscure offshoot of philosophy…..but rather has become mainstream.

An identity is established in relation to a series of differences that have become socially recognized. These differences are essential to its being. If they did not coexist as differences, it would not exist in its distinctness and solidity. Entrenched in this indispensable relation is a second set of tendencies, themselves in need of exploration, to conceal established identities into fixed forms, thought and lived as if their structure expressed the true order of things. When these pressures prevail, the maintenance of one identity (or field of identities) involves the conversion of some differences into otherness, into evil, or one of its numerous surrogates. Identity requires differences in order to be, and it converts difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty. (Connolly 2002, 64)

Look at Mitt Romney….he has NO specifics other than Obama sucks…..according to polls he is running almost neck and neck with Obama……those who will vote for him will be voting because they do not LIKE Obama….not Mitt’s wealth of solid solutions for our problems……..

Identity politics is here to stay…….like it or not…….single issues will rule the political landscape for the foreseeable future…..before we can return to the business of a country that is by the people, for the people and of the people!

On The Social Contract

College of Political Knowledge

Note:  This post was to be posted yesterday, 08Feb12, and I chose the wrong draft….NEVER post before caffeine!

During the campaigns on the GOP side we keep hearing about  “smaller government” and so far I have NOT heard a good definition of what they mean….other than less spending and tax cuts for the wealthy…..is that all there is to the smaller government concept?  Maybe they are still grasping at the disproved “trickle down” concept.

To explain maybe we should start with the “social contract”…….answers.com

Simply,  it is an agreement or covenant by which men are said to have abandoned the “state of nature” to form the society in which they now live. The theory of such a contract, first formulated by the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, assumes that men at first lived in a state of anarchy in which there was no society, no government, and no organized coercion of the individual by the group. Hobbes maintained that by the social contract men had surrendered their natural liberties in order to enjoy the order and safety of the organized state. Locke made the social contract the basis of his advocacy of popular sovereignty, the idea that the monarch or government must reflect the will of the people. Like Locke, the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, found the general will a means of establishing reciprocal rights and duties, privileges, and responsibilities as a basis of the state. Similar ideas were used as a justification for both the American and the French revolutions in the 18th cent. Thomas Jefferson held that the preservation of certain natural rights was an essential part of the social contract, and that “consent of the governed” was fundamental to any exercise of governmental power.

While some say that it is an antiquated theory for today’s political world.  I disagree…..we pay taxes which is our cost for the protection of the state….from crime, enemies and the preservation of the idea of equality.  The state protects us and in doing so we have certain obligations to that state….some of these obligations are voting, taxes…….

When conservs say they are for a smaller government, what do they mean?  Libertarians think the only thing government should be involved in is the defense from the boogey man, but what the the Tea Party……..they think that a large government is unconstitutional….but few can elucidate why…….and then there is the GOP which basically is a small government party, but never seem to reduce the size of government when in power.  Small government conservatives seem to be all talk with absolutely NO action once they are at the rudder of the ship of state.

So far it appears to be a slogan to win elections and that is as far as it goes…..and it seems that small government means benefits for the wealthy and the wealthy only…….all this means that a vast majority are the ones that the social contract is paid for and a very minor amount of people are allowed to participate on the benefits of the social contract…..and this brings a new economic dynamic……plutonomy!

A Working Class Warrior

fightconservatives.com/Inside-the-Boo…

When I saw my title I immediately thought of the John Lennon song, “Working Class Hero”…not one of his most famous songs but, in my opinion, it was his best!

I see my friend and loyal reader over at Spinny Liberal (my blogroll will get you her site…visit often) beat me to the punch or maybe it is just great minds think alike….

Years ago when I was much younger I was asked to participate in a scholars conference on the campus of the Univ. of Louisville….I was asked because I had lectured on the shortcomings in the theory of non-violent action….I was not a big hit because most of the academics that were there were big admirers of Gandhi, King, et al….and thought that they had changed the world….my point was that these people set stuff into motion but it was the people that actually made their goals happen…I take nothing away from those that I criticized…… very brave and influential people…..anyway I was asked simply because even though I was educated I worked at blue collar jobs and the panel wanted a different perspective and I was introduced as a “blue collar intellectual”…at first I was uneasy with that title but as the conference moved along I became rather fond of it……I really got a hateful reception when I accused my fellow panel members of neglect…..I said that NO change will come from the bottom up because the academics and intellectuals talk to each other and not the people….they spend their time writing and talking with colleagues, using terminology that the average person has No idea what they are talking about….and because of that disconnect the average person basically ignores them as much as possible…..and that most people do not walking around with a Thesaurus in their pockets……..as you can see….I was not that popular of a speaker (but I got over it)……and after years and years of research and activism….not much has changed….the people still do not understand much of what the so-called intellectuals have to say…..Intellectuals and academics seem to lack passion, they have plenty to say in their writings, but they lack the fire of passion for what they say or write….and there is the major disconnect they have with the people they try to influence……

I tell this tale because of a recent test I took I found on a site listed on my blogroll, Plutocrap (go to right of site click on the site and visit) and after it was tallied up I was a “Working Class Warrior” and I guess that pretty much goes with the title I got decades ago….You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.  (So says the quiz at the top of the post)…..

I have almost always called myself a “radical progressive”…..by the classical definition of both, not some PC terminology…….radical meaning….political orientation of those who favor revolutionary change in government and society and progressive meaning……political orientation of those who favor progress toward better conditions in government and society….and the word revolutionary does NOT imply armed conflict, just a new way of thinking and acting….

There is NOTHING progressive about the current administration of Obama and at best…. it is a bit liberal….but in rhetoric only…..the change you voted for is NOT gonna happen…..

If you would like to see what your title would be if you would like one (and we all like an ego boost every now and then)…..take the test at the top of the page and see what type of progressive or liberal or whatever you would like to call yourself….it is a short and easy test and will take not much more than 5 minutes to take…try it, you will like it!

Which Way Do You Swing?

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Theory

Gotcha!  No, this is not some post on being sexual….one way or the other…..it is about political theory…..as any political philosopher would do….ask you questions and have you answer and then learn about one’s self……

Are you a conservative or a liberal?  You may take a political aptitude tests that tells you if you lean left or right….but are you a conserv?  Or maybe a liberal?  Could a Marxist slip in there?  I will not give you the answer but ask some questions and see where the answers lead….

Do you believe in……?

Privatization of public services

Deregulation of the economy

A more liberal trade and industrial policy

Massive tax cuts

Monetarist policies to check inflation, even at the chance of high unemployment

Strict controls of organized labor

reduction of social spending

down sizing government

expansion of international markets

remove controls of world financial flows

Are you on board with any of these proposals?

Please all my readers give me their thoughts  on this…..I will explain in the comment section after I have heard from you guys…..thanx for playing along….I appreciate it…..

If I Only Had A Brain!

Remember those immortal words from the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz?  I have questioned the mental capabilities of conservs as well as libs….after watching these people over the years I see a disconnect on the way people process information……my analysis was NOT anything scientific, just observations for the last 40 years…….I could not explain why Libs seem to be more analytical and conserv seem to be more prone to letting slogans explain their thinking…….for many years I had been unkind to my conserv friends….and now I know why I was so confused……thanx to CBS News…..

Are political leanings hard-wired into the brain? That’s the suggestion of a new study that reveals striking anatomical differences between the brains of liberals and those of conservatives.  The brains of people who call themselves liberals tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes than the brains of people on the opposite side of the political spectrum, the study showed.  The anterior cingulate cortex is a collar-shaped region around the corpus collosum, a structure that relays signals between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

What about conservatives? Their brains brains tend to have larger amygdalas.   The amygdala is an almond-shaped structure located deep within the brain.

Based upon what brain scientists know about the function of the two brain regions, researchers believe the structural differences support the notion that liberals are better equipped to make sense of conflicting information while conservatives are better able to recognize a threat.  For the study, published in the April 7 issue of the journal Current Biology, 90 healthy young people underwent MRI scans and completed questionnaires designed to determine their political leanings on a five-point scale – from very liberal to very conservative.

That explains it!……They cannot help themselves….it is biological!

The G.O.P.–A Closer Look

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Philosophy/Political Theory

For some time now I have been thinking about the direction of the GOP……it is NOT the same party that I recall from the 60 and 70’s…there has been a change in thought, not necessarily course, but in the approach of those members of the party……

With passing year there seems to be something very familiar about their way of governance and for years I have not been able to put my finger on it…though I have had some bad thoughts about the party….I have tried to put that out of my mind and concentrate on the direction of an American political party…..

In the last twenty or so years here are some of the directions that I have seen…..Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a  national ideology that demonizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; the massive and regular use of hate, fear, racial and religious prejudice, the Big Lie technique, mob psychology  to achieve political and economic ends; and total corporate determination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.

Then there is the social issues…..abortion, food consumption, personal choices…they have this preoccupation of the decline of society through the policies of anyone other than the party…..and an almost social Darwinism when they vilify Hispanics and Muslims…….a social interventionism when they insert the state into decisions made by individuals as with abortion and the other things I mentioned earlier…….

Some minors cases of the party in power, usually the GOP, in states that have had textbooks re-printed to reflect a more revisionist view of history than there actually is…..Texas comes to mind, when they wanted to re-write history about the founding of this country…..

The economic policies are hard for me to grasp…..they seem to be corporatist in nature…where as everything depends on the corporations being healthy and prosperous….a good tag line but they are that now and it does NOT translate into prosperity for the working majority….it is not laissez-faire and it is not state capitalism…it is that third way that has not seem to work in the past…..but they try it every time they are in the majority…..they promise jobs…that are NOT being delivered and yet they work on every issue but the economy…..

Since the GOP has, more or less, embraced much of the Tea Party rhetoric it is becoming more authoritarian and look for purity in their positions….they seem to vilify professors, intellectuals and organizers as somehow anti-American, they seem to insinuate that these people are useless and dangerous to the American way of politics…..

The GOP is still the party of old white guys….the TP members that have won seats in the most recent election are trying to change that assessment…the problems are that the TP has embraced the past and the ideas of old white guys…….as an example……the GOP has a problem with technology…they still have not learned that whatever they say will be instantaneously posted on line….and it will be hard to push back from any dumb statement made when their faces and words are used against them……

In the last election they pushed just how ineffective Obama has been in creating jobs….they won a crushing victory with the promise of jobs and since taking office everything but jobs have been their priority and now the American people are seeing them for what they are……liars…

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds just 43% of Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling the economy. However 46% say they trust Obama on the issue as compared to 34% who trust Republicans.

“What’s more, by a 9-point margin Americans now see Obama as better able to handle the deficit than GOP lawmakers in Congress. That represents an 11-point drop for the GOP since December — a period when Republicans have made cutting federal spending a centerpiece of their agenda.”

Let me see……ID enemies and scapegoats, supremacy of the military, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined, corporate power is protected, labor power is suppressed, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, obsession with crime and punishment, rampant cronyism and corruption…..all that sounds so damn familiar…..I know I should know this….but I cannot put my finger on it……(thinking….thinking)

Wake up and smell the distrust…..2012 is lurking and if they stay on this tact they could well lose their majority…..a recent poll that only 26% of those polled think Congress is doing a good job….and the results slide everyday that they do NOT focus on jobs……

I apologize to my conservative friends and readers…..but I watch and read a lot of news and politics and this is what I see happening on the Right, if you will…..and I do not think that the Party, as it is now, has the best interests of the country at heart but instead follows the money…..the BIG money!