Reading about "conservative" efforts to change history textbooks, one is reminded of many good quotes. George Orwell, once a hero of conservatives, said, "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past." Napoleon: "What is history but a fable agreed upon?" Or, more alarmingly, Hitler, who in one of his many formulations on the topic, said, "Give me the youth...let me control the textbooks, and I will control the state." On the other hand, I remember high school, and, although I loved history, my mind was consistently on only one thing, and the only historical reasoning involved was "today's miniskirt is even better than yesterday's!" A good and timeless quote, too.
The move in Texas, one of the largest buyers of textbooks and in theory influential nationally, is less about history than propaganda. Thus we get the failure of Jamestown as "socialism" long before such a political-economic formulation existed. As Dick Armey would have it, starvation in the colony was because of those hippy-dippy libs, rather than a variety of complex factors, including that the English noblemen in the party (the class equivalent to what Armey represents today) didn't want to work to grow food, thinking it beneath them. Similarly, Jefferson is to be erased because he advocated separation between church and state (as did virtually all the founders) — a messy inconvenience for those advocating theocracy. We know who they are. We know the power they lust after. This is one more path to it.
My bigger worry is summed up in the fuller quote from Alexander Pope: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring." We don't really teach history in most of our schools and haven't for decades, it being subsumed in "social studies," and now sidelined by teaching-to-the-test and indoctrinating young people to be good worker bees. This latter is alarmingly true even at universities, where students are funneled into business schools and vocational training, not the "universal education" including the humanities. And such necessary study for a self-governing society is virtually non-existent at the for-profit "universities" once called business colleges.
The situation is often not helped by the academic left, which has made much history writing and teaching dismal and ideological, or sidelined it entirely (When in reality, we should learn fully about Robert E. Lee and Sojourner Truth, the "great men" and the forgotten people. Western Civ and other civs, etc.). Worse still, we don't teach the love of history that makes it a lifelong pursuit, an ever evolving body of knowledge, an argument without end that encourages analytical thinking and citizens who can't be easily bamboozled. As Harry Truman said, "the only thing new in the world is the history you don't know." The study of history is the best antidote to propaganda and we don't do it. Millions sit narcoticized before the television (often Fox "News") or our electronic distractions.
Remember when conservatives were smart? I grew up on Firing Line, reading Bill Buckley's National Review, reveling in Allan Bloom's wonderful, if idiosyncratic, The Closing of the American Mind. I read Burke and Russell Kirk. Reagan, when we read his posthumously published writings, was a thinker, not just an actor. The conceit of this conservatism, and often it was real, was that it was grounded in open-minded learning and reasoning, not the dangerously fixed ideology of communism. Conservatism had nothing to fear from the open study of history (or science), for it would support steady, incremental progress while preserving the best of a civilization's custom and culture. Today's "conservatives" have closed the American mind and revel in their elite ignorance. (Can you imagine Buckley ever-so-politely flaying Sarah Palin on Firing Line?). Indeed, Whittaker Chambers' Witness, still essential and powerful reading, is about flight from the mindset today's "conservatives" would enforce.
It's all about power. Keep them stupid. Keep them distracted ("Look, over there, Tiger Woods!"). Channel their declining fortunes — caused by right-wing policies — and add in make-believe conspiracies... The white-right killings and threats keep mounting up. Meanwhile, the plutocrats stay in charge and tighten their grip. And as Germany showed in the 1930s, the aristocrats and industrialists were happy to make common cause with the little Bohemian corporal. Orwell said, "Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable..."
The American Right arrived at this juncture - really its high point - through a disciplined and thorough project where reality can be deemed anything ideologues want it to be. It's why arguing with these people can be so frustrating. There's no consistent basis to their assertions other than some ad hoc principles they pay homage to. Even here those principles can slip and slide in uneasy relationship to one another. Free markets rule! Except in Hollywood. Or when they somehow conflict with some corporatist agenda. Or when the buccaneer capitalist is a liberal like George Soros. If this movement were ideologically consistent, it would be laughed off the national stage.
What unites the motley crew of Movement Conservatives is belief itself. Some may be libertarians who see their beloved country straying from the homespun values of the Robber Baron era. Some may be Confederacy nostalgia buffs who pine for the plantation and whipping post. Some may be Christianists who tribalize around Jesus. Still, others are simply low-information white people who are easily manipulated by the innuendoes and conspiracy theorizing of Fox News.
The common thread here is belief and certitude. There are few if any shades of gray on the right. Pragmatism is a close cousin to socialism. Empiricism is akin to relativism. Complexity is toxic to patriotism and "family values"
I have no idea how this nation will be governed or cope with challenges as this right-wing project gains traction. Tom Friedman thinks if we had a Tea Party of the Center (aka, "whatever I'm thinking"), we could marshall populism for good causes. That will not happen because Perotism requires a billionaire with a folksy manner, not a mustachioed fantasist. Ultimately, there's no relief here except for this movement's full expression.
In all its incendiary glory.
Posted by: soleri | April 08, 2010 at 02:44 PM
Superb, Mr. Talton: one of your best essays in some time. So too was Soleri's excellent comment. I must say that, as important as your local (Phoenix, or Arizona) essays are, I have missed these broader observations. I've been out of town today and have little online time tonight -- but I may have more to add tomorrow. In the meantime, cheers!
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 08, 2010 at 07:39 PM
Soleri wrote:
"The American Right arrived at this juncture - really its high point - through a disciplined and thorough project where reality can be deemed anything ideologues want it to be."
Probably no accident: many of the founders and brightest stars of the neo-conservative movement were either former Bolshevists or the offspring of them (e.g., Irving Kristol, Albert Wohlstetter, Daniel Pipes via Richard Pipes, Richard Perle, Stephen Schwartz, and David Horowitz).
So, they simply went from being left-wing hardliners to being right-wing hardliners. Evidently there was something inherent to both movements which appealed to personality traits transcending the details of political dogma.
Soleri wrote:
"The common thread here is belief and certitude. There are few if any shades of gray on the right. Pragmatism is a close cousin to socialism. Empiricism is akin to relativism. Complexity is toxic to patriotism and "family values' ."
Author Craig Unger ("THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF BUSH: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future") writing in 2007, characterized this as "an insistent, uncompromising, hard-line Bolshevik style" of policy and politics, where disagreement is betrayal, and political struggles are always a matter of life and death, in which neoconservatives pride themselves on being skilled bureaucratic infighters and on trusting no one except a small cadre of like-minded believers.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=neoconinfluence&neoconinfluence_prominent_neoconservatives=neoconinfluence_irving_kristol
Insofar as the Tea Partiers (an incoherent rabble) pose a threat, it's their infiltration and organization by neoconservative ideologues which makes them potentially dangerous.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 09, 2010 at 12:25 PM
Yes, yes. Mr. Talton you have masterfully captured the features of the "dark ages" we have come to find ourselves. The commentors also add keen insights. But what are we who see this happening around us to do? Wander in little tribes in the abandoned forest like the book lovers of Farenheit 451? I would really like to know. I bounce from rage to despondency and feel supremely at a loss as to how we can find our way out of this horrible slide.
Posted by: J. Emery | April 09, 2010 at 07:19 PM
P.S. It may seem fanciful that the Tea Partiers could be organized by anyone, much less by neoconservatives, but there are several factors which make this more plausible, as well as concrete evidence that this is actually in the works.
First, the neo-cons share a strong antipathy to government as the provider of services and as the regulator of industry. It is only in their love of the national security state that they differ, and then only from the libertarian elements, whose committed and consciencious corps probably forms only a small minority of the Tea Party movement.
Note that the neo-cons are perfectly comfortable with co-optation, cynically manipulating the movement for their own purposes without revealing their full agenda up front. Also note that the need for strong domestic action against "socialists" justifies the neo-con recipe for authoritarianism; and many Tea Partiers would no doubt sanction political repression as a "temporary measure" to meet this "anti-American threat". And of course, being ignorant, "socialism" can be defined to them as anything from Teddy Roosevelt to Obama.
The religious right is already a base for Republicans, hence the God and Country emphasis over mere "patriotism". (Again, the percentage of atheist or agnostic libertarians among the TPs is probably low, likely even lower than in the general population.)
The immigration question is one which matters greatly to the TPs and not so much to neo-cons, who (as the agents of Big Business) are not averse to cheap labor; but the neo-cons are both cynical and skilled propagandists and are not above making the kinds of noises on the immigration issue which will rally the useful idiots.
And, truth be told, many of those who claim allegiance to or sympathy with the Tea Party movement are simply hypocrites. The ones who bray the loudest about "the will of the people" are often those who will thwart the genuine expression of that will by any means necessary.
Take the recent, high-profile case here in Arizona involving right-wing kook Sen. Carolyn Allen, R-Scottsdale. After the Kookocracy running the state legislature voted to cut 310,000 citizens from the rolls of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) and to eliminate the Kids Care program (thereby denying 47,000 children from low income families access to healthcare), the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association formed a committee to pay for continuation of the programs, by organizing a ballot proposal to be submitted to voters. The ballot proposal consisted of raising the marginal personal income tax on income above $150,000 (or $300,000 for couples filing jointly) by 1 percentage point, from the current 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent.
Note that this hospital coalition was not attempting to lobby legislators behind closed doors: it was trying to put a ballot proposal before the electorate, to be decided by "the will of the people" (or at least the voting portion).
The response of Sen. Allen, who chairs the state's Senate Health Committee, was to blackmail the balloteers with the threat of a punitive hospital "bed tax". The hospital group immediately dropped its ballot plans.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/04/08/20100408politics-healthcare0408.html
Note that the group did NOT attempt to define "rich" but simply specified the income levels to which the tax would apply. According to the Arizona Department of Revenue Annual Report for Fiscal 2009, such incomes fall within the top 5 to 10 percent of Arizona filers -- see Table 30 (third column) page 75:
http://www.azdor.gov/Portals/0/AnnualReports/FY09%20Annual%20Report_web.pdf
Now, it might be imagined that the most sacred dogma of the Kookocracy holds that "tax increase, bad; tax cut, good". In practice, not so much. Let's recap:
(1) The "will of the people" is good -- unless it involves a minor marginal tax increases on top earners for the purpose of promoting the common welfare -- in which case it's bad.
(2) Tax increases are bad -- unless they can be used to thwart, through bald political extortion, public ballot proposals.
Getting back to neo-con infiltration and manipulation of the Tea Party movement, the first requirement for making use of this movement is to organize it from above.
Of course, this will have to be accomplished by "non-organizational" methods, since the movement is supposedly spontaneous and "grassroots" -- akin to anarchism (but without the socialist overtones); but that is not so difficult since the movement desperately needs those with the material resources, organizational skills, contacts, energy, time, and personal committment to lead it -- provided of course that these "non-leader" leaders are at least nominally subordinate to the movement's core dogmas.
Interestingly enough, it has just been announced that the Tea Party is forming a national federation. The interview with activist Mark Skoda in the Los Angeles Times was short but sweet:
"Several major players in the conservative "tea party" movement announced on Thursday a new federation to help spread its message advocating smaller and more decentralized government.
"But don't call them organized.
"The National Tea Party Federation will issue news releases, respond to critics and help get the word out about tea party rallies and initiatives, organizers said. But they were careful to note it would not change the loose, grass-roots structure of the movement.
" "It's an evolution," said tea party activist Mark Skoda. "Not an organization. We're not co-opting a movement. We're not creating a new leadership structure." "
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/08/nation/la-na-tea-federation9-2010apr09
The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.
Whatever Mr. Skoda's credentials might be, I would expect neocon political operatives posing as Tea Party activists to come to the aid of the "Party" with cash, computers, well designed websites, newsletters, mailing lists, studies, polls, analyses, media organs, media presentations, and the concrete plans and tactics needed to realize the goals of the organizers. The rest of the movement -- disorganized, incompetent, but restless -- will eagerly recognize such "natural" volunteer leadership.
In short, the neo-cons will use their resources to co-opt genuine movement activists and (selected) leaders as appropriate, while binding them by a dependence on these resources which (once they enjoy) they will be loath to do without. The rest will follow naturally: the neo-cons will get their people appointed to important organizing committees.
Once there, the next order of business will be to split the movement to eliminate the minority of principled conscientious members and other troublesome individualists who threaten group solidarity and the project, including anti-militarists, secular humanists and open borders libertarians, while retaining those for whom one or more of the following issues is itself sufficient for loyalty:
(1) Gun-nut rights
(2) anti-tax sentiment
(3) anti-government services sentiment (except possibly the good "socialism" of Social Security and Medicare)
(4) anti-immigration fervor
(To be continued later as time permits. Next: the importance of a national media organ in organizing the Tea Partiers.)
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 10, 2010 at 02:32 PM
(cont.)
The first task in political activity is the organizing and unification of disparate but sufficiently overlapping elements, since political activity is collective, and a movement which pulls in twenty different directions at once goes nowhere fast.
The first step in this task is the creation of a national mass-media organ which can facilitate communications between activists, emphasize certain ideas by means of coherent, compelling (or at least speciously plausible), repetitious propaganda; an organ that not only gets the message out, but which inspires to action via agitation; an organ which seems to speak for a mass-movement even though mass-media organs are invariably controlled, not by the masses, but by a handful of editors and selected writers.
This creates a sense of group direction and solidarity while allowing the leaders to guide opinion and action by means of a sympathetic voice -- the latter is important in overcoming natural psychological barriers (suspicion, skepticism, and alienation).
Don't forget that Lenin built his whole concept of a Party around an underground newspaper, Iskra (The Spark), where the ideological mistakes of foes and friends alike would be scourged or gently corrected, respectively, and whose agents would serve as the "revolutionary vanguard".
The ex-Bolshevist origination of the neo-conservative movement's leadership suggests that the lessons were not lost and have been passed down, so despite the fact that the neo-cons are (in the main) not genuinely revolutionary, but reactionary, revisionist, and manipulative, a great deal of relevance remains when considering the "national federation" of Tea Party groups recently announced, along with the creation of a national mass-media organ to serve them.
Bertram Wolfe described Lenin's conception of his national underground newspaper, Iskra, this way, in his excellent book "Three Who Made A Revolution":
Iskra was "not to serve a party, but to create a party; to unite Russia's scattered, narrow-visioned, short-lived, local circles" into a coherent, organized, national political movement.
"Its little band of secret agents, who would smuggle it across frontiers, were to form a close-knit company of schooled conspirators. They would penetrate everywhere, gather news, spy out information, report on moods, carry commands, recruit the best...in every locality and bind them closer to the movement. They would acquire influence over...the whole [anti-Tsarist] opposition."
"Iskra would be the collective agitator and collective organizer; it would serve as an enormous bellows that would blow every spark...of popular indignation into a general conflagration. Its editors would be the ideological leaders of the future Party. Its agents would be the very framework of the Party, would, indeed, be that Party. . .
"Thus this group of Iskra editors, contributors, agents, and organizers would form the skeletal general staff and officers' corps which tomorrow would mobilize and lead mighty armies into battle, hold them back from premature conflict, teach them to lay efficient, relentless siege to the fortress of [government], and, at the right moment, go from siege to storm attack and victory."
The intended use of the Tea Party movement by neo-cons may be less grand and less literal than this, but in terms of political, if not revolutionary activity, the parallels are clear.
Furthermore, it isn't clear exactly what percentage of either neo-cons or Tea Partiers would be willing to take that extra step if the opportunity arose, of countenencing "temporary" authoritarianism to end and prevent the recurrence of the works of "socialists" (i.e., of modern liberal democracy), just as the Bolsheviks were willing to countenence a "temporary" "dictatorship of the proletariat" for the purpose of suppressing capitalist counter-revolution.
Power attracts those for whom power is its own end, and when speaking of neo-conservatives we must remember that this is the group responsible for every counter-democratic mischief in recent history, from Oliver North and Iran-Contra, to the fraudulent casus belli leading to the invasion of Iraq, to the secret powers granted to intelligence and military agencies after 9/11 by means of classified executive orders.
Indefinite detention without trial, torture, massive spying on Americans (an unconstitutional "vacuum" approach to collect as much information as possible and discard the irrelevant portions later -- maybe), and much else, can be laid directly at their doorstep. Are they really to be trusted?
And what of their stooges, those ignorant Tea Party sheep, full of revolutionary sentiment (in some cases rhetorical, in some cases fiercely literal)?
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 10, 2010 at 04:50 PM
It is a mistake to peg Senator Carolyn Allen as a right wing kook. A look at her voting record shows that she's pretty much a centrist and an adult amongst the wingnuts. Two years ago, she bulldogged the air quality bill through a quagmire of special interests. We should thank her and wish her well as she rolls out of office this term.
Posted by: Jim Hamblin | April 11, 2010 at 08:13 AM
Allen sponsored a 2007 "air-quality" bill that she described as a "shell" and then only because the federal government required the legislation by the end of that year otherwise Arizona would lose its share of federal highway dollars:
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/arizona-capitol-times/mi_8079/is_20100125/hate-bill-vote-aye-arizona/ai_n51712226/
As for the rest of her record, she may be a moderate compared to Russell Pearce but that isn't saying much. In addition to extorting hospital associations trying to put a voter initiative on the ballot, she supports, on principle:
State-funded vouchers for children to attend private and religious schools; "self-audit" legislation which allows polluters in industry to audit themselves for environmental compliance; and despite claiming support for Kids Care, opposes allowing voters to decide on a funding mechanism (i.e., the small income tax increase on high income earners proposed by the hospital association to pay for it).
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 11, 2010 at 12:46 PM
On Friday evening, I went to what was suppose to be a "constituent input meeting" with the self titled "Reagan Conservative," Trent Franks. As it was held at the Community Church of Joy, you might guess how it went. However, there were a few surprises amongst a couple of jaw dropping lies and oddly enough, a bit of hope.
I took a lot of notes and intend to write about it, at length, at some future point. The more I become politically aware, I have to wonder: have Conservatives always played to fear and ignorance? It would have been so easy to correct misinformation and calm hysteria, but of course that never happened. Needless to say my written question about Arizona's potential for leading the way in solar energy job creation never got asked.
Posted by: Joanna | April 11, 2010 at 03:58 PM
Looking forward to your write-up, Joanna.
"The more I become politically aware, I have to wonder: have Conservatives always played to fear and ignorance?"
If you define conservatism as resistance to change (whether before or after the fact), then by definition your position is reactive (hence the label "reactionary"), and your proposals are oppositional rather than constructive.
So, if you want to oppose, repeal or weaken regulation of industry, taxes, etc., then you have to find something wrong with what you're opposing. If your opposition is based on general principles and you're reacting reflexively, you might not have good arguments (even if they exist!).
Furthermore, you might do so in a way that is politically, rather than intellectually compelling, if your voter base is more easily motivated by hyperbole than by reasoning and good research.
"It would have been so easy to correct misinformation and calm hysteria, but of course that never happened."
I find that society has two very deep and persistent, and fundamental misconceptions, which are related in a way. One involves the purpose of business (as seen by businessmen); the other involves the purpose of politics (as seen by politicians).
The purpose of business is to maximize profits for shareholders. Period. This is something that businessmen understand very well but don't make a point of publicizing. The public continually expects moral behavior from them, or a sense of fairness, or social responsibility.
The purpose of politics is to get elected and stay elected. Instead of shareholders, politicians have to keep their campaign funding sources happy, as well as their broader public constituency. The public expects civic duty from them, but the truth is that most politicians regard themselves more like lawyers in a courtroom: their job is to make their partisan case as best as they can and let the jury (voters) decide.
One problem with the lawyer model of politics is that it presumes vigorous and dedicated debate by opposing parties. That was more likely to be true when nearly 40 percent of the workforce was unionized, in the 1950s, and the Democratic Party had a large funding source other than big business and the wealthy.
Since the early 1980s that figure has plummeted: now, only about 7 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized. That last time it was that low was in the early 1930s before the New Deal. (It's much larger in the public sector -- about 37 percent -- which is why conservatives now spend so much time attacking public unions under the guise of budgetary cost control.)
The Democratic Party has shifted to the right as a result, because they lack progressive funding sources.
Note that the Democrats controlled Congress from 1954 to 1980, when Reagan came into office and the Republicans got control of the Senate until 1986.
Reagan used his Executive powers to break the back of the unions, administratively gutting labor law, the National Labor Relations Board, and prosecutions of employers for violations, and the Republican held Senate prevented Congress from interfering with this legislatively.
Bush I continued the legacy, and by the time Clinton was elected the unions were already in terminal decline. Losing Congress to the Republicans again in 1994 after just two years of Clinton's presidency, and suffering through two terms of Bush II, didn't help either.
The Democrats either don't understand the dynamic or don't seem to care. They have a new sugar daddy and their last best chance -- card check (which incidentally has long been common in the public sector) -- to pick up a powerful source of progressive funding and increase it, is a low priority. Expect the slide to the right to continue.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 12, 2010 at 12:35 PM
P.S. To document my assertion that card check has already been a common method of forming public sector unions, here's a quote from "Public Employee Organizing and the Law" (Leibig and Kahn, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., 1987):
"[In states] where there is a collective bargaining law, employee organizations may come to be recognized without a full certification election either by voluntary recognition or by consent elections...
"Generally, voluntary recognition is available only after a satisfactory showing that the union is supported by a majority of employees (this is most commonly achieved by card check or dues deductions)..."
Of course, many unions created through card check go on to seek a certification election by petitioning the NLRB, since recognition by the latter confers additional rights and protections to the union and its members. This petition requires, not a majority, but only 30 percent return of authorization cards.
One might ask why public employee unions "only" organize 37 percent of the public sector workforce (equal to the all-time high private sector unionization rate in the 1950s); the answer is that state and local employees in the U.S. "have traditionally been excluded from the protection of national labor laws" and it has been left to the individual states whether to extend such rights.
(op. cit. Appendix E, AFL-CIO Public Sector Bargaining Law Report, "One Country, Two Different Worlds: How the Absence of Collective Bargaining Laws Limits Public Employee Bargaining Rights", Feb. 1987)
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | April 12, 2010 at 04:16 PM
Mr. Pulsifer, thank you for answering my questions. Depending on who you talk to, the definition of Conservative seems to change.
Mr. Talton, thank you for giving all of us a voice on your blog.
Posted by: Joanna | April 13, 2010 at 08:18 AM