What ever happened to the right to dissent?

[multi]

While many of us have strong differences of opinion on any number of issues, and clearly the level of intensity has risen as the right-wing of this country has gotten more extreme and more entrenched, it is nonetheless a nation of ideas and differences of opinion that we honor and cherish. The freedom to speak, to debate, to disagree, to object, to challenge and to dissent are among this nation's finest traditions.

...More

[Nicobie]

I agree .

I do not agree with your cut&paste chit.

Can't U even rephrase IT?

[multi]

‘The Big Con’


By JONATHAN CHAIT


I have this problem. Whenever I try to explain what's happening in American politics-I mean, what's really happening-I wind up sounding a bit like an unhinged conspiracy theorist. But honestly, I'm not. My politics are actually quite moderate. (Most real lefties, in fact, think I'm a Washington establishment sellout.) So please give let me a chance to explain myself when I tell you the following: American politics has been hijacked by a tiny coterie of right-wing economic extremists, some of them ideological zealots, others merely greedy, a few of them possibly insane. (Stay with me.)

The scope of their triumph is breathtaking. Over the course of the last three decades, they have moved from the right-wing fringe to the commanding heights of the national agenda. Notions that would have been laughed at a generation ago-that cutting taxes for the very rich is the best response to any and every economic circumstance, or that it is perfectly appropriate to turn the most rapacious and self-interested elements of the business lobby into essentially an arm of the federal government-are now so pervasive, they barely attract any notice.

The result has been a slow-motion disaster. Income inequality has approached levels normally associated with Third World oligarchies, not healthy Western democracies. The federal government has grown so encrusted with business lobbyists that it can no longer meet the great public challenges of our time. Not even many conservative voters or intellectuals find the result congenial. Government is no smaller-it is simply more debt-ridden and more beholden to wealthy elites.

And yet the right-wing ascendancy has continued inexorably despite continual public repudiation. The 2006 elections were only the latest electoral setback. The right has suffered deeper setbacks before, and all of them have proven temporary. In 1982, after the country had entered the deepest recession since the 1930s, Republicans were slaughtered in the midterm congressional races, losing twenty-seven seats in the House of Representatives. Ronald Reagan, whose election two years earlier had seemed to augur a new conservative era, trailed his likely 1984 Democratic challengers by double digits in the polls and seemed destined to be a lame duck. "What we are witnessing this January," wrote the esteemed Washington Post reporter David Broder in the first month of 1983, "is not the midpoint in the Reagan presidency, but its phase-out. 'Reaganism,' it is becoming increasingly clear, was a one-year phenomenon." We know what happened the next year.

And the conservative revolution has had its obituary written many times since. In 1986, Republicans lost the Senate, and shortly thereafter Reagan saw his approval ratings sink as he became embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal. In 1992, Democrats won back the White House along with both chambers of Congress, and there was widespread talk of "a conservative crackup." It happened again after the public turned on the Republicans following their 1995 government shutdown, and once more after the public rebelled against the Clinton impeachment. By the late 1990s, the Republican revolution had again been written off.

And yet the Republican right keeps coming back, and back, and back. Their fortunes rise and then dip, but each peak is higher than the last peak, and each dip is higher than the last dip. Consider the present situation. Things have gone about as badly as they could have in George W. Bush's second term. A Republican administration started and lost a major war in Iraq; presided over an economy that has failed to deliver higher wages for most Americans; contributed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the near-wipeout of a major American city; launched a failed assault on Social Security, the most popular social program in the history of the United States; and saw its members suffer an almost unprecedented string of sexual and financial scandals. Still, Democrats find themselves holding only the slimmest of majorities in the House and Senate. Even if they hold their majorities in Congress and win the White House in 2008, the structural forces in Washington will make it nearly impossible to roll back any significant chunks of the Bush tax cuts, let alone take on crises like global warming or the forty-five million Americans lacking health insurance.
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[Mazer]

Nothing happened to the right to dissent. Yeah, the right wing has gotten more extreme, but so has the left wing. With both extremes getting more extreme all the time, all we're left with is dissent. Nobody can agree on anything anymore, and it's the fault of politicians from both sides.

What you're posting here, multi, are the words of someone who's framing the debate in such a way that it looks like his side is innocent and put upon. Democrats did the same thing when they tried to steal the 2000 election from Bush in Florida. Truth be told, neither side is innocent. Nobody can get political and stay clean at the same time, so you can't get away with blaming everything on the usual suspects. Right wingers in the US are easy prey for editorialists these days, not because they're the only guilty party, but because they've got something to lose.

[multi]

thanks for a decent reply Mazer... I mostly agree with you but things have got out of hand and it is clearly ruining your country, rotting democracy from the inside and turning it into some sort of fascist state ruled by religions and corporations .
ie. escalating police brutality , Justice department will not employ non-Christians.

The bloody Democrats won't help much ,just like the Labour party over here..but they are both heading for a big fall if they win their respective elections.

The conservative should be hoping they do win.. (I am seriously thinking of voting for the right , in hope that they don't !)
The economic and social mess they are about to inherit if they win should be the responsibility of the ones that caused it.

[Mazer]

I've said this before, multi: as the electors of our current government, every eligible voter deserved what they got, even those who abstained from voting. Democracy, for what it's worth in a republic such as this one, requires participation to work. But even those who did vote have become dissatisfied with the result, and that ought to tell you something. Party lines may not change all that often, but minds change all the time. A lot of people wanted war with Iraq, they all got what they wanted and then decided that they didn't want it anymore. Voters are incredibly fickle, and that is the very reason why democracy is not a viable form of government.

It is perfectly alright for people to change their minds because nobody is accountable for their desires, only their actions. The problem is that people want to believe that a vote is just an expression of one's desire and not an action, but it is.

In your pop culture version of American politics, some vast, faceless semi-corporate/pseudo-religious entity composed of thousands of greedy, villainous conspirators has usurped the sovereignty of the common people. A couple elements of that fiction are true in general, but the reality is much simpler: too many Americans have taken a pass on their responsibility and willingly given up their rights to the few people who are willing to exercise them. Those few who do participate do so because they have an agenda; they're the extremists we've been talking about and to them democracy is a weapon. So the spirit of democracy is alive and well in America, multi, and that's the problem.

If people are dissatisfied with the government they elected then they need to take responsibility for their choices, and every election day is a chance to set things right. I think Americans would be far more satisfied with the political process if they held themselves accountable for the current state of affairs. I think they'd be more hopeful, too.

[multi]

In your pop culture version of American politics, some vast, faceless semi-corporate/pseudo-religious entity composed of thousands of greedy, villainous conspirators has usurped the sovereignty of the common people.

Sort of close... but no cigar ..
That would be closer to my world view of the political moment... my view of the US is a little more complex than that.. not being a US citizen my version is going to be a view from a distance but so much that happens over there effects us here in Australia, culturally ,economically and politically in ways you would probably never see or ever hear about... but never you mind about that.

I am interested in what happens there for lots of reasons..

I doubt democracy is as safe as you imagine Mazer

Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, published research on fascism in which he examined the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each fascist State:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarceration of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military are glamorized.

5. Rampant sexism - The government of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are intertwined - Government in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation are often the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated, or are severely restricted.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassinations of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Many of my parents and grandparents generation fought and died to stop the very thing modern democracy is becoming.

[Mazer]

I haven't written that democracy is safe. In fact I was trying to say that democracy is now a festering wound on the republic. Is that not what you inferred from me?

[multi]

So the spirit of democracy is alive and well in America, multi, and that's the problem.

sorry .. yes I did get that, just it seems to look like it has become something else entirely..

many Americans have taken a pass on their responsibility and willingly given up their rights to the few people who are willing to exercise them.

it would also seem that many are loosing the ability to be able to vote through certain underhanded practices (voter caging) just for being poor, transient or off overseas fighting in the Iraq war.