Critics express concern Perry is supporting groups that promote hate, seek a totalitarian theocracy to replace Constitutional system

There is dispute as to whether attendance at Gov. Perry’s prayer rally was 30,000, as organizers claim, or 15,000, as other news sources have estimated. Observers have expressed concern that the event featured radicals whose views oppose the constitutional order of the American political system, and who have called for the establishment of an absolutist theocratic regime.

The following report from Suite101 is indicative of the concerns being expressed by people across the political spectrum:

Possible 2012 GOP candidate Rick Perry was a hit with the 15,000 gathered for August 6, 2011 prayer meeting held in Houston.
Rick Perry, who is eyeing a run for the Presidency in 2012, may eventually have to distance himself from his more extremist Christian supporters. The trouble is that Perry needs the support of the American Family Association, which sponsored Perry’s allegedly non-political prayer meeting called The Response. An even more troubling possibility is that Perry may be in full agreement with their Reconstructionist plan to take down the Federal government and create a U.S. theocracy, under Biblical law.

Christian Extremists

The idea that Christians should physically overcome their enemies and rule in righteousness is not new in the United States, and the current thread of theocratic Christian Reconstructionists goes back at least to 1948. The movement has operated under various names such as the Latter Rain movement, Joel’s Army, the Manifest Sons of God, and now the Seven Mountain Mandate.

Conquer and Occupy Public Institutions

According to Chip Berlet, writing in the Huffington Post, “Christian Reconstructionism is a form of theocratic dominion theology…The core theme of dominion theology is that the Bible mandates Christians to take over and “occupy” secular institutions.” Dominionists and followers of the Seven Mountain Mandate came to public attention in 2005 when a video of Kenyan Pastor, Thomas Muthee anointing Sara Palin for leadership, was uploaded on Youtube.

One group participating, in particular, has been cited as an extremist organization, founded on the missionary promotion of intolerance and prejudice. According to People for the American Way, the so-called American Family Association has:

• held gays responsible for the Holocaust and likened them to domestic terrorists and Nazis who are intent on committing “virtual genocide” against the military, and asserts that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office”;
• said “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” by awarding it to a soldier who saved his fellow combatants rather than killing enemies;
• demanded all immigrants “convert to Christianity” and renounce their religions;
• asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims” and should be banned from building mosques and deported from the US, adding that Muslims are inherently stupid as a result of inbreeding;
• claimed African American women “rut like rabbits” due to welfare and that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from living in America because they didn’t convert to Christianity and were consequently cursed by God with alcoholism and poverty;
• said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”

The Dallas Morning News has reported that Perry’s affiliation with extremist organizations, and his radical policies, which have undermined overall economic progress for the population of his state, are driving Democratic party views that he is a deeply flawed candidate, too far out of the mainstream to be electable nationally. From today’s DMN:

As Rick Perry gears up for a presidential bid, Democrats also are making preparations — dusting off years of opposition research, sharpening attack points, designing anti-Perry websites and, for the most part, awaiting his entry with more eagerness than anxiety.

They’re not trying to tip the GOP primary. But in seeking to tar Perry as a flawed extremist, they want to ensure that as voters beyond Texas get to know him, he won’t be able to shake that image later.

“He has a pretty poor record as governor of Texas on a lot of measures — on wage growth, on job growth, on health care,” said Bill Burton, head of a new pro-Obama political action committee, Priorities USA, and until recently the deputy White House press secretary.

He called it “fairly amazing” that a quarter of Texas are uninsured, and that Perry wanted to opt out of Medicaid and “suggested secession as a remedy to the health care bill.”

The secessionist narrative is particularly disturbing to many in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Perry is seen as a wild-card that would not be likely to take responsible positions on the direction of national policy, and who might bring fringe ideas into the heart of the American government.

At a time of severe economic difficulty, there is concern Perry’s often rosy-eyed commitment to market-distorting deregulatory policies could deepen and prolong the years-long economic slowdown. His state has one of the nation’s most massive budget deficits, and no substantive plan to address it, other than cutting back on needed public services, and economists are now starting to look at whether the extreme positions and under-thought policy approaches might pervade his economic policy strategy.

The news today seems to indicate that while Rick Perry may have shored up a radical segment of the evangelical vote, he has succeeded in casting himself as an ally to extremists with little regard to the perils of programmatic intolerance and discrimination.

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who is reportedly contemplating a run for the presidency, will be attending an evangelical prayer service on Saturday, labeled “The Response”. Perry has been heavily criticized for his participation, both by critics who say the event violates his constitutional oath to treat all Texans equally and by groups like the Anti-Defamation League, which is concerned about the hate-based policies of some of the event’s backers.

According to CBS News:

A number of controversial groups and individuals are linked to the event, including the American Family Association, which is providing financial backing; AFA representatives have called for a ban on Muslim immigrants and for gay men and women to “be disqualified from public office.” Others tied to the event have called for the government to be placed under Christian control and suggested Oprah Winfrey is setting the stage for the antichrist.

Some have suggested the event could link Perry to the religious fringes in a way that could hurt him both in states like New Hampshire and with the full electorate if he wins the GOP nomination, and have speculated that Perry may thus play down his involvement in the event he initiated. But Bearse, the spokesman for The Response, said that is not the case.

One preacher expected to participate has said Hitler was “God’s hunter” and another has allegedly called for armed defense of the white race. Perry himself was the event’s originator, but during the past week, he and his spokespeople have been attempting to suggest he is not the lead supporter and may not even speak at the event.

There has been widespread criticism of Mr. Perry, suggesting he is both out of touch and perilously aligned with extremist organizations. There has been criticism that Perry, now seen as a viable Republican presidential primary candidate could stain the party with the taint of racial hate, ideological extremism, and fundamentalist zealotry.

UPDATE, Sun., August 7, 2011: There is dispute as to whether attendance at Gov. Perry’s prayer rally was 30,000, as organizers claim, or 15,000, as other news sources have estimated. Observers have expressed concern that the event featured radicals whose views oppose the constitutional order of the American political system, and who have called for the establishment of an absolutist theocratic regime.

The following report from Suite101 is particularly telling:

Possible 2012 GOP candidate Rick Perry was a hit with the 15,000 gathered for August 6, 2011 prayer meeting held in Houston.

Rick Perry, who is eyeing a run for the Presidency in 2012, may eventually have to distance himself from his more extremist Christian supporters. The trouble is that Perry needs the support of the American Family Association, which sponsored Perry’s allegedly non-political prayer meeting called The Response. An even more troubling possibility is that Perry may be in full agreement with their Reconstructionist plan to take down the Federal government and create a U.S. theocracy, under Biblical law.

Christian Extremists

The idea that Christians should physically overcome their enemies and rule in righteousness is not new in the United States, and the current thread of theocratic Christian Reconstructionists goes back at least to 1948. The movement has operated under various names such as the Latter Rain movement, Joel’s Army, the Manifest Sons of God, and now the Seven Mountain Mandate.

Conquer and Occupy Public Institutions

According to Chip Berlet, writing in the Huffington Post, “Christian Reconstructionism is a form of theocratic dominion theology…The core theme of dominion theology is that the Bible mandates Christians to take over and “occupy” secular institutions.” Dominionists and followers of the Seven Mountain Mandate came to public attention in 2005 when a video of Kenyan Pastor, Thomas Muthee anointing Sara Palin for leadership, was uploaded on Youtube.

One group participating, in particular, has been cited as an extremist organization, founded on the missionary promotion of intolerance and prejudice. According to People for the American Way, the so-called American Family Association has:

• held gays responsible for the Holocaust and likened them to domestic terrorists and Nazis who are intent on committing “virtual genocide” against the military, and asserts that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office”;
• said “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” by awarding it to a soldier who saved his fellow combatants rather than killing enemies;
• demanded all immigrants “convert to Christianity” and renounce their religions;
• asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims” and should be banned from building mosques and deported from the US, adding that Muslims are inherently stupid as a result of inbreeding;
• claimed African American women “rut like rabbits” due to welfare and that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from living in America because they didn’t convert to Christianity and were consequently cursed by God with alcoholism and poverty;
• said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”

The Dallas Morning News has reported that Perry’s affiliation with extremist organizations, and his radical policies, which have undermined overall economic progress for the population of his state, are driving Democratic party views that he is a deeply flawed candidate, too far out of the mainstream to be electable nationally. From today’s DMN:

As Rick Perry gears up for a presidential bid, Democrats also are making preparations — dusting off years of opposition research, sharpening attack points, designing anti-Perry websites and, for the most part, awaiting his entry with more eagerness than anxiety.

They’re not trying to tip the GOP primary. But in seeking to tar Perry as a flawed extremist, they want to ensure that as voters beyond Texas get to know him, he won’t be able to shake that image later.

“He has a pretty poor record as governor of Texas on a lot of measures — on wage growth, on job growth, on health care,” said Bill Burton, head of a new pro-Obama political action committee, Priorities USA, and until recently the deputy White House press secretary.

He called it “fairly amazing” that a quarter of Texas are uninsured, and that Perry wanted to opt out of Medicaid and “suggested secession as a remedy to the health care bill.”

The secessionist narrative is particularly disturbing to many in both the Republican and Democratic parties. Perry is seen as a wild-card that would not be likely to take responsible positions on the direction of national policy, and who might bring fringe ideas into the heart of the American government.

At a time of severe economic difficulty, there is concern Perry’s often rosy-eyed commitment to market-distorting deregulatory policies could deepen and prolong the years-long economic slowdown. His state has one of the nation’s most massive budget deficits, and no substantive plan to address it, other than cutting back on needed public services, and economists are now starting to look at whether the extreme positions and under-thought policy approaches might pervade his economic policy strategy.

The news today seems to indicate that while Rick Perry may have shored up a radical segment of the evangelical vote, he has succeeded in casting himself as an ally to extremists with little regard to the perils of programmatic intolerance and discrimination.

In a stunning move, the American Conservative Union (ACU), which runs the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), has barred one of its former sponsors, a conservative gay rights group called GOProud. The ban comes just as moderate Republicans are calling on the party to embrace same-sex marriage and gay rights, put the culture wars behind them, and focus on conservative principles more in line with Constitutional freedoms and market economics, as their platform.

The decision was announced in a letter from Gregg Keller, national executive director for the ACU, which read, in part:

The American Conservative Union is preparing to open registration and announce sponsorship opportunities for our Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2012. As a courtesy to your organization, a previous co-sponsor of CPAC, this letter serves to inform you GOProud will not be invited to participate in a formal role for CPAC events scheduled during the 2012 election cycle.

The decision is certain to draw a new rift in the conservative movement, as libertarian conservatives continue to pressure the Republican party to graduate into the present day, honor the personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution, and put an end to the culture wars. It may also split the Republican primary field, as many now believe it will not be possible to continue anti-gay politics as a platform issue, without forfeiting national elections.

The Democratic party may see an opportunity here, to intensify its pressure on the GOP, which is increasingly being seen by voters—according to recent polling—as a party unwilling to cooperate in constructive governing, riven by ideological radicalism, and determined to attack seniors, the underprivileged, immigrants and other minorities.

Former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani said, after his state legalized same-sex marriage, with Republican support, said it was time for the Republican party to support same-sex marriage and ev0lve. Pres. Obama, who has said his own views on the subject are “evolving”, has consistently supported gay rights and the move towards full equality in civil marriage. In July, the Pentagon ended its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, ending centuries of discrimination against homosexual soldiers.

Fred Karger, the only openly gay Republican candidate for president, has reported being barred from conferences and debates, and has written a scathing indictment of the ACU, for the Guardian newspaper. In his piece, Karger writes:

Alberto “Al” Cardenas, the new head of the American Conservative Union (ACU), has taken bigotry and hypocrisy to new heights. I believe I was a victim of his organisation’s prejudice earlier this year when I wanted to purchase a booth at their annual CPAC gathering in Washington, DC. My credit card information was taken last December, and I was told that I was in. Then, mysteriously, three weeks later, I was told by phone that they had “sold out”. Funny, others were purchasing booths right up until the conference began in mid February.

As the first openly gay candidate to run for president of either party, I have hit some bumps in the road, but I have to say that my treatment by the American Conservative Union was the most hurtful and hateful to date.

Now they have taken it up a notch: they have just announced that the gay conservative Republican group GOProud is not allowed a booth at next winter’s CPAC conference (pdf). Cardenas is not saying to GOProud that CPAC has “sold out”; he is saying, simply, STAY OUT!

CPAC is holding an event in Florida, on September 23, and Karger says he was not invited to attend. He will be asking all of the other Republican presidential candidates to boycott the event, so long as the ACU maintains its ban on his participation or on GOProud participating in next year’s conference.

Rick Santorum, onetime Republican senator from Pennsylvania, threw in his lot with Hosni Mubarak, criticizing Pres. Obama for siding “too soon” with the pro-democracy movement that was calling for the ouster of a brutal authoritarian dictator who ruled for three decades through a relentless campaign of abduction, torture and disappearances.

Santorum’s reflexive bid to appear “strong” by appealing to an ultra-rightwing passion for forceful leadership, resulting in his defamation of a president and a peaceful democracy movement of millions, is a reminder of the scandal that ensued when he attempted to warn young people about the dangers of gay marriage by telling two different groups of adolescents about his perception that there was a widespread “temptation” to engage in bestiality.

The ultra-conservative former senator has long been considered a fringe candidate, and this weekend’s commitment to the principle that US presidents should first side with dictators and only later think about the welfare of human beings or the sanctity of democratic process, shows his calamitous disregard for fundamental principles of public morality.

Can a politico, already as widely discredited as Rick Santorum, who marks a moment of unprecedented expansion of open democracy into the heart of the Arab world by attacking Pres. Obama for not defending the dictator, really win support among even the most hardline conservative voting base?

Conservatives in America need to start treating this issue seriously: when your leaders speak to you as if you cared nothing about democracy, as if you had no conscience, as if you were only given to aggression and bias, they do a disservice first of all to you, to the conservative cause, and to democracy as such.

Conservatives need to take seriously the responsibility, which we can never wriggle out of, even for one minute, to refuse to support political representatives whose positions amount to a fundamental rejection of the ideals of democracy. Where such ideas might be considered “merely” rhetorical, as with Santorum or Pawlenty at CPAC, any true conservative must treat their behavior as indicative of a degenerate lack of moral character, making them unfit to serve as leaders in a democratic society.

That kind of “purge” would be healthier for conservatism and for American democracy, than this ideologically driven obsession with “purity” on specific platform positions. A party that cannot accept diversity, but which lauds hardliners and extremists, is working to separate itself from the mainstream of American politics, and can expect the American people to reject its ballot options and its cause.

On a day of joy for the people of Egypt, Republican presidential hopeful, Gov. Tim Pawlenty shamed himself and his nation by criticizing Pres. Barack Obama for siding with Egypt’s pro-democracy movement, and suggested that from his point of view, the dictator Mubarak is “our friend”. He also said “with bullies, might makes right”, and suggested US foreign policy should degenerate into the adolescent dysfunction of the bullies.

Pawlenty’s remarks are shocking and ill-timed, to say the least, a recipe for generating worldwide chaos, if he were elected, at the worst. The suggestion that the United States is somehow ill-served by any foreign policy that does not include naked aggression and bully tactics, or that is so trite and unreasoned as to argue that tyrants always do what they are told by bigger bullies, is a betrayal of the very ideals of democracy and a commitment to the ideology of violence and hate.

What’s more, on this historic day, when the entire world is celebrating the single most visible and closely watched democratic revolution in history, inspired by ideals on which this nation itself was founded, Tim Pawlenty threw in his lot with the torturer, the murderer, the kleptocrat, Mubarak, suggesting the United States owed him more time, more trust, more support in his efforts to put down the peaceful democratic protest movement of so many courageous souls.

That Pawlenty is lost in the wilderness, intellectually, is obvious; that he is willing to abandon all moral sensibility to make unconscionable statements designed to do nothing but to smear the US president, apparently in the absence of any substantive ideas of his own, is evident; that his political future is in doubt is not so clear.

The Republican party is currently searching for a leader, and with no clear frontrunner in the popularity contest for likely 2012 nominee, and Pawlenty’s shameful departure from the logic and language of democracy, his praise for hardline militarism and a policy of naked aggression, is an attempt to play into the lust for “red meat” for hardline conservatives.

But the Republican party might do better, politically, to start taking seriously how dangerous such rhetoric is, and to cultivate a more serious, more respectful, more imaginative and diverse primary electoral base. The narrowness of that base will allow Pres. Obama to straddle the vast American political center, while working to move his progressive agenda forward.

Tim Pawlenty owes a high-profile, formal apology to the people of the United States and to the the people of Egypt. His flippant defamation of the US president and his alignment with the ousted dictator has no place in American political discourse and should be viewed by all morally or intellectually serious conservatives and all Republicans and an intolerable stain on their character. There is no justification for not immediately disavowing his remarks.

The new Republican plan to amend the Affordable Care Act to institute a form of “backdoor ban” on abortion procedures would give legal protection to doctors who let women die without needed treatment, and impose a severe tax on any business that seeks to provide full health coverage to its employees. The original language of the plan specified that only in cases of “forcible rape” would a woman be entitled to treatment where abortion might be the only way to save her life.

The widespread national outrage at the proposed legal language stemmed from the fact that the odd phrasing “forcible rape” implied that many women subjected to sexual violation might somehow be classified as something other than victims of rape, in order to serve the ideological agenda of a Republican fringe. Republican leaders apparently helped to negotiate a change in the language, but the fact remains: the proposal would allow doctors to violate federal laws requiring live-saving treatment, even if that criminal act were to lead to a woman’s death.

What’s more, the radical expansion of the power of government to prohibit a procedure the Supreme Court has long ago ruled cannot be prohibited, would result in the imposition of a stiff tax on any business that wants to provide complete health coverage to its female employees. They would be barred from accessing not only any plan paid for or subsidized with public funds, but any plan offered by any firm which provides such a policy to anyone else anywhere else.

This would price them out of the most affordable plans, have the effect of forcing millions of employers to choose between buying coverage that puts their female employees’ lives at risk, paying exorbitant prices for fully private coverage or refusing coverage, thereby derailing the entire nationwide effort to cover more people and get costs under control.

The generalized economic effect of that feature of the proposal would be to drive costs up for every person who buys insurance, no matter by what means, as still more people are pushed out of the private healthcare market. It would also, likely, result in the dramatic expansion of costs for government programs, further inflating budget deficits.

It would also subject both government agencies and any doctor or hospital involved in such a denial of treatment case to hugely expensive legal defense and in the case of doctors, malpractice insurance premium increases. The bill is, in short, a huge cash giveaway to for-profit insurers, with a provision written in that would threaten the lives of female patients.

Perhaps worse than all of this is the fact that the legislation would bring the logic of anti-abortion terrorists into the logic of federal law: the killing of abortion clinic workers and doctors in bombings and assassinations has repeatedly been justified by the notion that a higher cause is being served, when in fact the cause being served is the vanity and narcissism of the violent actor; according to this legislation, the personal vanity of individual physicians, unwilling to provide life-saving treatment required by law, and by their oath, would be held as more valuable than the lives of women in need of care.

Whether because, it would allow women to die, or allow doctors to knowingly violate the law in ways leading to patient death, or because it brings the logic of domestic terrorists into the legal infrastructure of our healthcare system, this proposal is a disgrace and a stain on the moral character of all who support it.

But fiscal conservatives also need to be aware that what is being proposed is a significant tax increase on small businesses, a new cost burden that will likely exacerbate the health insurance crisis and derail the cost-reducing provisions of the Affordable Care Act, raising costs for all Americans, impeding job creation and significantly increasing the federal budget deficit.

So, while this provision would 1) violate federal law, 2) encourage the violation of federal law by others, 3) contravene the Supreme Court’s ban on abortion bans as unconstitutional, 4) lead directly to patient death by denial of life-saving care, 5) impose a heavy tax on employers, 6) inflate costs for all Americans, 7) inflate the federal budget deficit, and force more people into the ranks of the uninsured or onto government programs, the Republican party sees fit to push it in furtherance of a radical partisan agenda.

They are playing “gotcha” politics in a way that directly threatens human life, encourages criminal behavior, and gives billions of dollars in undue profits to underperforming insurers. Whether the massive national outcry against this legislative atrocity is enough to disrupt the legislation will be a measure of how healthy our civic engagement really is.

Bashar al-Assad, who inherited the hardline regime that has ruled Syria for nearly four decades, and whose government imposed strict Internet controls after the beginning of the uprising in Egypt, has announced he will move to implement political reforms in his country. It is not clear how those reforms would affect his government’s control on power, or whether his office would be up for a national election, but the announcement is the latest sign of how pervasive an effect the Egyptian protest movement is having across the region.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

In a rare interview, Mr. Assad told The Wall Street Journal that the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen are ushering in a “new era” in the Middle East, and that Arab rulers would need to do more to accommodate their people’s rising political and economic aspirations.

“If you didn’t see the need of reform before what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, it’s too late to do any reform,” Mr. Assad said in Damascus, as Egyptian protesters swarmed the streets of Cairo pressing for the resignation of longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Assad is widely seen as a front-line nemesis for the US and its closest ally in the region, Israel, mostly because of his support for Palestinian resistance and for actions labeled as “terrorist” by most western powers. But some experts have long hoped for a more moderate and modernizing hand from Assad, who was not the engineer of the hardline policies of his government, but their heir.

The huge number of Iraqi refugees flooding into Syria since the 2003 invasion has put a strain on the government and the economy, and has opened up the possibility of more substantive dialogue on regional cooperation between Syria and the United States. That dialogue has not been developed very far, but the Obama administration is reported to have been working to persuade Assad to “unclench [his] fist”, to use a phrase from Pres. Obama’s inaugural address of January 2009.

With policy-makers in the White House reportedly working around the clock to help recalibrate US foreign policy to this “new era” that Assad, echoing Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed El Baradei, noted, there could be real opportunity to reform the intricate but strained Israeli-Palestinian peace process and to remake the dynamics of relationships across the region.

Assad was careful to say that “Syria is stable” and to attribute this stability to his government’s interest in aligning itself with the interests of the people: “Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue. When there is divergence…you will have this vacuum that creates disturbances.” It is not clear whether Syria is about to be the next scene of major demonstrations, but with major pro-democracy protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan, and demonstrations criticizing Islamist extremism or government abuses in Lebanon and Sudan, Assad’s pro-active maneuver makes sense.

It remains to be seen if any serious political reforms are implemented in Syria, or if Assad’s pledge is meant to put him rhetorically on the side of the people. While it controls political speech and allows little serious opposition, Syria’s government is not necessarily as unpopular as the Mubarak regime, and Assad might be trying to reinvent himself, as history sweeps the region.

More from Cafe Sentido:

• Students Stage Pro-democracy Demonstrations in Sudan
• Egypt Updates: ‘Basic Collapse of Law & Order’, Anger at Mubarak
• Egypt Update: Military Appears to Protect Demonstrators (video)
• Egypt Updates: Worldwide Protests Join Demonstrators’ Call for Mubarak to Go
• Egypt Updates: Uprising Intensifies, Mubarak to Dismiss Government
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread to Jordan
• Pro-democracy Protests Spread Across Arabic-speaking World
• Tens of Thousands Protest Authoritarian Rule in Egypt
• Tunisian Regime Toppled by Street Protests
• Internet Access Must Be a Human Right
• ‘A New Beginning’: Obama’s Cairo Speech (video + transcript)

Glenn Beck has once more taken extremist hate-speech to a new extreme, calling for the murder of liberals and progressives, whom he alleges are revolutionaries who are plotting an armed struggle to overthrow the United States government. It is the most unfounded and absurd of his conspiracy theories to date, and is clearly aimed at inciting a violent emotional reaction from people who are susceptible to the language of combat and armed intervention in the political realm.

MediaMatters has published a transcript of the program, which includes the following:

You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they’re revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

Here is my advice when you’re dealing with people who believe in something that strongly — you take them seriously. You listen to their words and you believe that they will follow up with what they say.

Glenn Beck’s extremist rhetoric has always been too extreme for television, too extreme for paid cable, too extreme for any society in which decent people seek to live free of the tyranny and oppression of small minds and evil ideas. But with his deliberate call for the violent assassination of liberals, be they politicians or civilians, he has crossed a line into the language of incitement to violence.

Given what we now know about how Glenn Beck’s violent and obsessive rants affect the minds of a small number of his viewers, we know that Mr. Beck has been made aware that his words are leading to actual plots and actual violent acts. More than once, his incitements have led to violent plots. FOX News has seen the same evidence.

It is time for the free and independent media in our free society to exercise their discretion and remove Glenn Beck from our media discourse. He should be investigated both for whether there has been a deliberate intent to instigate violent acts, and for ties to the Republican candidates whose cause he has sought to serve by calling for violence or intimidation of opponents and their supporters.

In October, MediaMatters published the following list of specific cases where Beck used radical distortions together with violent imagery, apparently to foment visceral hatred of liberal politicians and liberal voters:

Beck pours gasoline on “average American,” asks, “President Obama, why don’t you just set us on fire?” On his television show, Beck claimed to be imitating Obama while pouring liquid from a gasoline can — which he later stated was water — on an actor portraying the “average American.” Beck said during his demonstration: “President Obama, why don’t you just set us on fire? … We didn’t vote to lose the republic.” [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 4/9/09]

Quoting Jefferson, Beck warns about “rivers of blood.” On his Fox News show, Beck quoted a letter by Thomas Jefferson warning that ” ‘if they lose freedom’ — he’s speaking of us, future generations — ‘if they lose freedom, there will be rivers of blood.’ ” Beck continued in his own words, “Boy, I hope that’s not true, but I can tell you there will be rivers of blood if we don’t have values and principles.” [Glenn Beck, 5/14/10]

Ranting that gov’t under Nixon “wasn’t as corrupt as it is now,” Beck suggests Obama admin might kill “10 percent” of population. On his June 10 show, Beck warned that “anarchists, Marxists, communists, revolutionaries, Maoists” have to “eliminate 10 percent of the U.S. population” in order to “gain control.” They couldn’t achieve such a goal when Richard Nixon was president, Beck stated, because “the family was together” and the government under Nixon “wasn’t as corrupt as it is now.” Beck added: “Now they can. Now they can.”

Beck later played a clip of an FBI agent who infiltrated the Weather Underground and warned about extremists who want to kill people. Beck responded to the clip by stating: “These are the same people that are everywhere in our government and our education system. Please, please. Learn from history. Please.”

Beck portrays Obama, Democrats as vampires, suggests “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.” On his March 30, 2009, Fox News show, Beck aired a graphic portraying Obama and Democrats as vampires and said: “The government is full of vampires, and they are trying to suck the lifeblood out of the economy.” Beck then suggested “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.” Beck returned to that imagery on his January 19 radio show, warning listeners that progressives are “vampires” who now have a “taste of blood” and are “gonna start getting more and more violent.”

Beck talks about “put[ting] poison” in Pelosi’s wine. In 2009, Beck’s Fox News show featured a segment in which Beck said the following to a woman wearing a mask of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

BECK: So, Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to — you gonna drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you — I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.

I really just wanted to thank you for having me over here to wine country. You know, to be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or a longtime friend of yours, which I’m not.

By the way, I put poison in your — no, I — I look forward to all the policy discussions that we’re supposed to have — you know, on health care, energy reform, and the economy. [Glenn Beck, 8/6/09]

Beck: “Grab a torch.” Asserting that politicians are addicted to spending, Beck stated: “When do we ever run those who are bankrupting our country and literally stealing our children’s future out of town? Grab a torch.” [Glenn Beck, 1/6/10]

Beck suggests that progressives support “armed insurrection.” After President Obama signed health care reform legislation into law, Beck suggested that progressives support “armed insurrection” and asked, “Why would the president take up immigration right away, after he’s just punched you in the face with health care?” [Glenn Beck, 3/23/10]

Beck suggests Pelosi and Obama support “pick[ing] up a gun” to advance “revolution.” During the same edition of his Fox News show, Beck said that “violence is the wrong way to go,” but asked his viewers: “You’d pick up a gun? Have you ever thought of that?” He then pointed to several pictures, including images of Obama and Pelosi, and stated: “These people have. Because possibly, maybe the question should be asked, maybe they’re tired of evolution, and maybe they are waiting for revolution.” Beck also said: “Haven’t we just been spanked? Hasn’t most of the country — doesn’t most of the country feel like they’ve been spanked over health care? You bet. I do, you do. A lot of people do.” [Glenn Beck, 3/23/10]

Beck suggests Obama administration may kill him. Also on that same edition of his Fox News program, Beck said: “For those of you in the administration, who are coming after me … remember, you’ve broken three [of the 10 Commandments], let’s not make it four; thou shalt not kill.” [Glenn Beck, 3/23/10]

Beck: “The revolution of 1776 was a picnic compared to what the revolutionaries of today would like to do. … Usually, millions of people die.” On June 9, while discussing “radicals” in the country, Beck told his audience: “Here’s what you’ll learn. The revolution of 1776 was a picnic compared to what the revolutionaries of today would like to do. It’s not a lot of fun. Usually, millions of people die.”

After Williams’ arrest, Beck has continued to frequently use violent rhetoric on Fox News

Beck suggests progressive coalition will become violent and riot “a year from now.” On his Fox News program, while discussing how progressives are supposedly trying to “nudge” the United States towards “global governance,” Beck said that “violence is a part of the overall strategy.” While discussing a coalition of unions and progressive groups that are planning a march in Washington, D.C., Beck said that he believes the march will be “peaceful,” but suggested that “a year from now” there may be violence and riots “when the cuts take place.” Beck also proclaimed that the Democrats have been “infected with the tree of revolution” and “radicals” who are a “danger to our republic.” [Glenn Beck, 9/14/10]

Beck connects U.S. progressives to the Holocaust, says they “have not changed their viewpoint.” Beck announced that “if you don’t know your history, you are doomed to repeat it.” During the segment, Beck linked several U.S. progressives to eugenics and the Holocaust and proceeded to say that progressives “have not changed their viewpoint; they’ve only changed their language.” [Glenn Beck, 8/3/10]

Beck: After election, “our streets will not be peaceful” due to progressives “agitating.” Discussing the upcoming elections, Beck told his viewers “activists” “are about to go back to agitating, because once they lose control of the House, they have to.” After encouraging people to vote, Beck said that after the election, “our streets will not be peaceful. They will start protesting and agitating again.” [Glenn Beck, 9/30/10]

“Violence will come”: Beck also uses his radio program and other outlets to engage in violent fearmongering

Though Williams indicated he did not listen to Beck’s radio program, Beck frequently employs violent rhetoric during his radio program, often warning of eventual violence from “the left.”

Beck: “To the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter.” Telling his listeners that they “are going to learn so much on Friday,” Beck compared himself to “Israeli Nazi hunters” and commented: “I’m telling you, I’m going to find these big progressives and, to the day I die, I’m going to be a progressive hunter.” He added:

BECK: I’m going to find these people that have done this to our — you know, to our country, and expose them. I don’t care where — I don’t care if they’re in nursing homes. I’m going to expose what they have done and make sure that the people understand, because our Constitution, our republic — if it survives — it will only survive because the people are waking up and through the grace of God, because we are that close to losing our republic. [The Glenn Beck Program, 1/20/10]

Beck warns that “in the end, in revolutions, real dangerous killers show up when things start to fall apart.” Discussing how the government is “growing out of control,” Beck attacked former White House green jobs adviser Van Jones and “the government” for using “fear tactics.” Beck told listeners that he “told you this would happen” and added that “I told you just last week that I believe these are the most dangerous two years of our republic. Because in the end, in revolutions, the real dangerous killers show up when things start to fall apart. When the nudge moves to shove, and the shove doesn’t work, the killers show up. It happens every time. That’s why we must be united for peace, we must be united with love, we must be united with God.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/27/10]

Beck: “Violence will come. And violence will come from the left. Violence is part of the plan.” Beck warned listeners that “if you don’t think violence is coming, I’m going to share some audio of Frances Fox Piven that will boggle your mind.” Beck said that “they don’t mind violence. Violence will come. And violence will come from the left. Violence is part of the plan. Not mine, not yours.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/13/10]

Beck on progressives: When the “soft revolution” fails, they “just start shooting people.” Beck claimed that progressives are engaging in a “soft revolution” designed to silence voices like his. He added: “If somebody starts to turn on them, or they can’t get everyone to silence, that’s when the arrests come, or that’s when they start a hard revolution. That’s when they start just shooting people. I hope we don’t get to that point. I pray that we don’t get to that point, but I never thought this country would get to the point where we are today.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 5/27/10]

Beck warns of violence: “Trouble” by the “most violent” progressives “is coming.” Beck suggested that Obama would respond to potential GOP victories in November elections by “going right directly” to the “most progressive, most violent, the worst of the worst on the left and stir ‘em up. ‘Get out into the streets. Cause trouble.’ It’s what’s coming. It’s what’s coming.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/24/10]

Beck: “Violence is coming” and “the left will blame me.” Beck said that people need to “wake up” and see “what is coming,” which Beck described as “violence.” He added that “the left will blame me.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/2/10]

Beck: “God will wash this nation with blood if he has to, but he doesn’t have to.” Referencing Lincoln’s second inaugural address, Beck said that “God will wash this nation with blood if he has to, but he doesn’t have to.” Beck added that “we are passing all of the exits. Gang, there is one exit left. There is one exit left, and it is God. Everything that is coming our way is too big to handle on our own. If we do not put God at the center of our own personal lives and the center of our country, we will not survive. The country will be washed with blood and then someone will have to start over, and God only knows how long that takes.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/25/10]

Beck warns of “revolutionaries” who will “set our streets on fire.” Urging people to vote in the November elections, Beck said that “in the short term” this election is “going to make things worse” because “revolutionaries” are going to “rise up” and “set our streets on fire.” He added that “our future is at stake right now.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/16/10]

Beck: “The army … of the extreme left is gathering” and they are saying “cops are bad, kill the cops.” On his radio show, Beck discussed riots in Oakland, stating: “The army, if you will, of the extreme left is gathering, and they are coming to the conclusion of cops are bad, kill the cops, they’re the oppressors. It’s all the 1960s, you know, pig stuff. It’s the same stuff.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/12/10]

Beck: “This game is for keeps”; “[Y]ou can shoot me in the head … but there will be 10 others that line up.” Asking his audience to “pray for protection,” Beck claimed that “the most powerful people on the planet on the left” were “not going to go away easy” because “[t]his game is for keeps. This is who controls the United States of America and its destiny.” He asked his listeners to “please keep me in your prayers, keep my staff in your prayers, for safety, for wisdom,” adding, “Just pray for protection, please.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/8/09]

Later in the same program, Beck said:

BECK: You can try to put the lid on this group of people, but you will never silence us. You will never — you can shoot me in the head, you can shoot the next guy in the head, but there will be 10 others that line up. And it may not happen today, it may not happen next week, but freedom will be restored in this land. Period. And no matter what you want to call it, it is a totalitarian state that you’re headed towards. [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/8/09]

Beck speaks for one-third of the nation: “[Y]ou will have to shoot me in the forehead before you take away my gun” and “before I acquiesce and be silent.” Beck has warned “ACORN, GE, Obama, SEIU” that “you are awakening a sleeping giant, and I have nothing to do with it,” and that “America is waking up. You know the American Revolution took place with 12 percent of the population? Twelve. Are you telling me there is not 30 percent of this population that you will have to shoot me in the forehead before I let somebody into my house to tell me how to raise my children; you will have to shoot me in the forehead before you take away my gun; you will have to shoot me in the forehead before I acquiesce and be silent.” Beck further stated:

BECK: They cannot move on these things, because they are building a machine that will crush the entrepreneurial sprit and the freedom that our Founding Fathers designed. This machine, whatever it is they are building, will crush it. Do not let them build another piece.

So while I turn away, I want to make sure that I have at least 10 million eyes watching — watching every single move they are making.

[...]

We know why they’re doing what they’re doing. You need to do what you need to do, and as long as that is peaceful, we will save our country. [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/30/09]

Beck suggests Obama is “trying to destroy the country” and is pushing America toward civil war. While discussing the ongoing controversy over Arizona’s immigration law, Beck told his listeners that “we are being pushed” toward civil war and that Obama is “trying to destroy the country.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 5/19/10]

Beck: “There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America.” Beck has claimed that “there is a revolution, and they think they can get away with it quietly,” adding: “At this point, gang, I’m not sure, they may be able to because they are so far ahead of us. They know what they’re dealing against; most of America does not yet. Most of America doesn’t have a clue as to what’s going on. There is a coup going on. There is a stealing of America, and the way it is done, it has been done through the — the guise of an election, but they lied to us the entire time.” He also said, “And they’re gonna say, ‘we did it democratically,’ and they are going to grab power every way they can. And God help us in an emergency.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/31/09]

Beck: “[T]hat’s not begging for World War III; that’s called giving you the facts.” Referencing a speech he had given the previous weekend in Alaska, Beck discussed how he told the audience that “you are Fort Knox.” He explained that if the economy collapses, Alaskans must “grab your guns” because “the Russians, the Chinese — everyone is coming to Alaska, because that’s where the money is. Now, that’s not begging for World War III; that’s called giving you the facts. But see, there are those people that really want this to collapse, and they are planning on violence. They’re planning on it — we’ve already shown you. We’ve already seen it with SEIU. We’ve shown it to you over in Europe.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/13/10]

Beck says his audience contains “the leaders of tomorrow” who will save you from “camps, maybe literally.” Referencing an event he appeared at the previous weekend with Sarah Palin, Beck said that they have “30 million people in our footprint.” Beck explained that “this 10 percent is going to be the shelter for the other 90 percent.” He added: “This is the group, this 10 percent will be the ones that when all hell goes to handbasket, and everybody on the left and the right are yelling and arguing and trying to pull you into camps, maybe literally, pull you into camps. You’re gonna say ‘Don’t go, don’t go, everything’s fine. Don’t worry, we can take care of each other. We’ve got each other, we’re Americans, we’re better than this.’ ” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/13/10]

Beck: “They’re trying to beat it out of you slowly. Boil you, basically, like a frog.” After agreeing with a caller who suggested we should “collapse the Federal Reserve” and “build it back up,” Beck said that the government already “started planning for the next phase, and the next phase is a global governance sort of situation.” Discussing how people should prepare for a global collapse, Beck added that “people are not going to go peacefully into the night if it is a quick collapse.” Beck said that “the fear here is that they already have the structure to box you in. They don’t come with the jackbooted thugs on the first day. They come and take away your sugary sweets. They come and take away your right to go to the beach and dig in the sand. They come and they watch your credit cards. … They’re trying to beat it out of you slowly. Boil you, basically, like a frog. I think we win. I think we win if things remain stable, but a power grab is a possibility in this crazy upside-down America that we live in.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/21/10]

Beck: “I don’t know how much time each of us has. I don’t know how much time the country has.” Beck “beg[ged]” his listeners to “please give me the benefit of the doubt,” and said: “I’m begging you to get back down on your knees. I’m begging you to be the person that you were and you promised yourself you would be on September 11th and 12th. I’m begging you to get down on your knees. What is coming is not good. I don’t know how things end. I should rephrase that. I do know how things end. But I know how things end after a long struggle. I don’t know how that struggle is gonna work out. I don’t know how much time each of us has. I don’t know how much time the country has.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/25/10]

Beck: Obama administration is “poking” at “people who have a record of violence” and “stirring up trouble.” Discussing how Obama had criticized people on the left on the same day that cuts were announced to food stamp programs, Beck speculated that the administration was “poking” the left the same way that he “poked” the tea parties. He added that this “makes Barack Obama look like he’s more centrist. But also, you’re poking people who have a record of violence and taking to the streets and stirring up trouble. Hmm. I wonder if there’s anything there.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/11/10]

Beck invokes Holocaust while discussing soda machines: “First they came for the sugary beverages, and I said nothing.” Beck linked a report about city officials in Boston limiting the sale of sodas in city buildings to the Holocaust, saying “First they came for the sugary beverages, and I said nothing.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 9/21/10]

Beck’s advice to Liberty grads: “Shoot to kill.” During his May 15 commencement speech at Liberty University, Beck told graduates that they “have a responsibility” to speak out, or “blood … will be on our hands.” His advice for graduates (as well as his daughter) included “shoot to kill.”

Beck: “I fear a Reichstag moment, a — God forbid — another 9-11, something that will turn this machine on.” During an interview with Newsmax.com in which he discussed opposition to Obama’s Federal Communications Commission policies, Beck said: “I fear an event. I fear a Reichstag moment, a — God forbid — another 9-11, something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized and voices will be silenced. God help us all.” [Newsmax.com, 10/7/09]

Mixed message: Beck implores his audience to “reject violence”

Though Beck frequently employs overtly violent rhetoric, he regularly urges his audience to “reject violence.” As reported by John Hamilton, Williams said that “Beck would never say anything about a conspiracy, would never advocate violence. … But he’ll give you every ounce of evidence that you could possibly need.’

Beck warns his audience not to “pick up a gun” or “cause any violence.” Beck addressed his audience on his Fox News show, saying: “Let me tell you something right now. Let me make this very clear for anybody on the left, the right or the middle: If you pick up a gun, if you cause any violence, if you are engaged in a riot, let me promise you now, the republic will be over. Over. Because they need you to do that.” [Glenn Beck, 7/26/10]

Beck: “Reject violence every step of the way.” On his radio program, Beck told his listeners that they were “winning” against “a well-coordinated attack” and that their opponents “need you to become violent.” He continued:

BECK: The minute you become violent, which you’re not going to do — hear me clearly, for the record. Violence will destroy the republic. The person that picks up a gun, a bomb, anything, a knife, a rope, they will destroy the republic. Reject violence every step of the way. You make the first call to the police if you see anyone who you think is plotting, planning, thinking crazy thoughts. You turn them in to police immediately. You will destroy the republic if you do not. Now, could I be any clearer than that? Write it down in your diary because it will be erased in history. [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/26/10]

Beck: “We need to really view ourselves as non-armed, non-violent cells.” On the same broadcast of his radio show, Beck stated: “If they take me down, you have to be standing. And if they take you down, somebody else has to be standing. So we need to really view ourselves as non-armed, non-violent cells.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 7/26/10]

Beck: “The only weapon in our arsenal that we need is God.” Beck has suggested that the government is “poking and prodding” the “crazy teabaggers” in order to incite them to violence. “They need you to be violent,” he said. “They are begging for it. You are being set up. Do not give them what they want.” Then, referring to a report that some congressmen had received death threats after voting in favor of health care reform, Beck implored his viewers, “Do not become them. … It’s exactly what they want.” He concluded by saying that “the only weapon in our arsenal that we need is God.” [Glenn Beck, 3/24/10]

Beck: “You must always be a people of peace.” The same day on the radio, Beck cautioned his listeners: “Let me warn you now, in no uncertain terms. You must always be a people of peace. Always. Unless your life is being threatened. In no uncertain terms, you must always be a people of peace.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 3/24/10]

Beck: “How many times do I have to say ‘peaceful’?” In the middle of comparing himself to Martin Luther King Jr., Beck said to his radio listeners: “These are the times when you stand up — when you can stand up peacefully, because if you don’t stand up as you are losing those rights, as the government is growing in power, then, unfortunately, it becomes too late to stand up peacefully. How many times do I have to say ‘peaceful’?” [The Glenn Beck Program, 11/25/09]

Beck: Go to town hall meetings armed with something — “not with guns but with facts.” While suggesting that the Obama administration is trying to destroy him, Beck told his listeners that “there is evil at play” and warned that “unless you come to these town hall meetings armed with something, you’re too easily dismissed.” He later clarified: “By arming you every day, by arming you not with guns but with facts, and you walking into these places armed with facts, the biggest stick you can carry.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/24/09]

Beck: “It is not time to pick up guns” or “blow anything up.” Beck warned his radio audience that “the American way of life is being systematically dismantled and destroyed,” “the republic is in danger,” and “we are entering the most dangerous time in American history.” He then said, “My fellow American, it is not time to pick up guns. It is not time. It is not time to blow anything up.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/5/09]

Beck: “If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again.” Beck issued a “warning” to his television audience: “If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the republic.” He stated that “just one lunatic, like Timothy McVeigh, could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for” and instructed his audience that it was their “patriotic duty” to stop anyone they heard thinking about becoming violent. [Glenn Beck, 8/3/09]

The list is as astonishing as it is disturbing, especially when it so clearly illustrates that Beck appeared entirely unfazed by the fact that his words, specifically, had been the direct cause of an assassination plot involving workers for non-profit charitable organizations. That Beck has not ceased to use this incendiary —and flagrantly false— rhetoric would seem to indicate a total disregard for even the most basic ethical standards.

No decent American, no one who values our freedom for its potential to allow for the best expression of who Americans are as human individuals and as a community of moral citizens, can pretend, in the face of so much evidence, that there is any constructive role for Mr. Beck to play in our democracy.

He abuses the privilege of his media perch; he abuses the freedom given to media in our society, to degrade and debauch the minds of those who listen; he seems more interested in degrading and corroding the intellectual ability of his audience than he does in being part of anything even resembling a constructive and civil debate in the American public square; his presence on air defames and diminishes the entire media landscape.

The American people should take a stand, and stand with all those who love the true founding principles of this nation —freedom from lies, freedom from tyranny, freedom from the deranged manipulations of powerful figures intent on enriching themselves through lies— and band together, across the political spectrum to represent democracy, to demand a better media, and boycott FOX News and any media outlet that continues to permit Mr. Beck to air his vile and rancorous threats of violence.

There is no place in the media landscape for someone who uses his position to foment violent attacks, hatred and falsehood. Anyone with an ounce of common decency knows this.

China’s president Hu Jintao is visiting the United States and will be the focus of several state-level functions, including a full state dinner and a special luncheon hosted by the vice president, Joe Biden. In the face of US demands that China remove rate controls and allow its currency to appreciate, Pres. Hu has said the yuan should be thought of as the world’s currency standard, with other currencies priced against its value.

Is Pres. Hu so tone-deaf as to pave the way for a lavish state visit —where major issues of economics, security, human rights and more, will be discussed— with a call to sideline the United States’ dollar as the leading guide for international trade valuations? Or is this just an attempt to raise the stakes, put pressure on the US and bargain China’s way out of US pressure to let the yuan appreciate?

The US has been pressuring China to loosen its control of yuan valuations and allow the marketplace to drive the value of the yuan higher. The effect would be to reduce the US trade deficit with China, but China is resisting the move, because it could undermine Chinese exports and manufacturing, the main drivers of its economic boom. Hu may be raising the stakes of the debate deliberately, in order to persuade the US to accept something less.

Still, in the week preceding the visit, the yuan has appreciated, and is expected to continue, which may be, in part, a sign that China is responding to the pressure and/or interested in collaborating with its biggest trading partner. While some in the US have painted China as a liability to the US, owning too much debt and ready to “call it in”, others say the relationship is symbiotic, so much so that China cannot act in a way that would harm US buying power.

Even as GM is making major inroads in the Chinese auto market, Chinese firms are buying up American green energy businesses, ranging from manufacturing to wind farms and energy companies. In fact, while Pres. Obama’s Recovery Act will over its full life devote more funding to clean energy than all previous administrations combined —$80 billion—, China has become the global leader in funding, with $230 billion.

If Hu’s call for a global economy rooted in the value of the yuan is a diplomatic gambit, it is in keeping with China’s history of raising the stakes before asking allies and/or opponents to settle for less. The US has been known to do the same, and it can be expected the Obama administration was ready for such a maneuver, though perhaps as startled as anyone else by Hu’s aggressiveness on this point.

China has been hoping to bargain over another point, which is US praise for jailed Chinese democracy activist and 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo. Pres. Obama has been “forward leaning” —in the words of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs— in his support of Liu, adding that “he should be free, that he certainly should be free to go Oslo and accept his prize”.

Liu was not allowed to travel to Oslo, remains in jail, and even his wife has been subject to house arrest and prohibited from traveling to receive the award. Mr. Liu was one of the framers of the Charter ’08 reform program, a kind of pro-democracy constitution whose release was timed to coincide with the Beijing Olympic Games. China treats Liu and the Charter ’08 movement as guilty of sedition.

Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Clinton are both expected to press Hu and his diplomatic corps on the need to advance human rights in China, but both are also cited as indicating that they cannot let deep differences on those issues stall urgent negotiations on nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, or trade issues relating to China’s potential as a market for US goods.

There is much controversy over attempts to defend Henry Kissinger in the wake of revelations that he said the use of gas chambers to exterminate Jews was not “an American concern”. He was not just making a statement about past atrocities, and the ethical underpinnings of what should motivate diplomatic or military action; he was in fact suggesting to Pres. Nixon that if the Soviet Union, from which Jews were emigrating in large numbers, were to commence a new genocide, it would be of no concern to the US.

Specifically, Kissinger said “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” adding, incredibly: “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” The ideas behind this sentiment are so outrageous, on so many levels, I think it’s worth exploring why no one, anywhere, should just write them off as some kind of poor choice of words.

Henry Kissinger was advising the president of the United States at the time on matters of national security and crucial Cold War diplomacy. The very first suggestion that emerges from his remark is that it would literally be of no interest to the United States whether its arch rival were to carry out a mass killing of an ethnic group the United States had fought a very long and destructive war to save from such extermination, with that arch rival as its ally.

This is an outrageous oversimplification, of the kind that only bigots and executioners are capable, and a wholesale dismissal of the most basic moral values of any democratic society. One wonders what, if anything, Kissinger might think would be of significant enough outrage to concern the American security establishment. Is the distinction between “American” and “humanitarian” some kind of suggestion that the United States does not support humanitarian interests? It might be, given the record of one Henry Kissinger.

Christopher Hitchens has taken on Kissinger’s record at Slate.com, stating the problem as follows:

So our culture has once again suffered a degradation by the need to explain away the career of this disgusting individual. And what if we did, indeed, accept the invitation to “remember the context of his entire life”? Here’s what we would find: the secret and illegal bombing of Indochina, explicitly timed and prolonged to suit the career prospects of Nixon and Kissinger. The pair’s open support for the Pakistani army’s 1971 genocide in Bangladesh, of the architect of which, Gen. Yahya Khan, Kissinger was able to say: “Yahya hasn’t had so much fun since the last Hindu massacre.”

Once again, the inflammatory and ridiculous defense of such remarks tends to be that these were guys talking the way guys talk, with a dark humor about dark things and that their intense disapproval of those dark things doesn’t come through, because the audience is not nuanced enough to understand that these were great humanitarians. But… Secretary Kissinger distinguishes between “American concern” (his job) and “humanitarian concern” (apparently, the job of his critics).

Are we to believe that any sane person would want the American people to view the thought processes of such a disastrously misspoken individual as some sort of behind-the-scenes comedy routine necessary to framing an eloquent defense of the values of American democracy? Are we to believe that Kissinger is uniquely allowed to make jokes about genocide, because in 1938 the Kissinger family fled Nazi persecution to come to the United States?

These are open questions, and anyone serious about honoring the tragedy that occurred under the Nazis, or the grave humanitarian disasters of other genocides, in Bangladesh, in East Timor, in Bosnia, or Rwanda or the DR Congo, has to honestly treat them as such. It is baffling and disturbing that someone like Henry Kissinger would adopt a posture so flip and so callous toward the most evil of all possible crimes, and it cannot be of little psychological significance.

Hitchens goes on to detail Kissinger’s sordid past:

Kissinger’s long and warm personal relationship with the managers of other human abattoirs in Chile and Argentina, as well as his role in bringing them to power by the covert use of violence. The support and permission for the mass murder in East Timor, again personally guaranteed by Kissinger to his Indonesian clients. His public endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party’s sanguinary decision to clear Tiananmen Square in 1989. His advice to President Gerald Ford to refuse Alexander Solzhenitsyn an invitation to the White House (another favor, as with spitting on Soviet Jewry, to his friend Leonid Brezhnev). His decision to allow Saddam Hussein to slaughter the Kurds after promising them American support. His backing for a fascist coup in Cyprus in 1974 and then his defense of the brutal Turkish invasion of the island. His advice to the Israelis, at the beginning of the first intifada, to throw the press out of the West Bank and go for all-out repression. His view that ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia was something about which nothing could be done. Forget the criminal aspect here (or forget it if you can). All those policies were also political and diplomatic disasters.

In fact, for a diplomat, the number of very bloody atrocities for which he has expressed something like approval or indifference is shocking. He is not, we might remember, a diplomat brokering deals between medieval warlords; he is a diplomat working in the UN age, with the specific purpose of preventing atrocity and war. He is a diplomat who is supposed to have, as part of his pedigree of Holocaust escapee and American statesman, a profound interest in “humanitarian concern”, but who seems, consistently, to have none.

To offer a little context, for the sake of fairness: Henry Kissinger was doing very difficult work at one of the thorniest times in world history, when a wrong move could have, in theory, led to worldwide nuclear war. Some would say that any of the political leaders and diplomats who served at this time, on either side, served admirably, if only because that war never happened. But we know from incidents like the Cuban missile crisis that sometimes the only reason conflict is averted is because one or two top decision-makers steadfastly refuse to start a war.

Was the often brutal “realpolitik” of Henry Kissinger the only possible way to achieve détente with the Soviet Union? Maybe. Certainly, Kissinger and his defenders will always make this claim. Was the tacit approval of or even support for atrocities the only way light could prevail over total darkness in the conflict between liberty and totalitarianism? Again, Kissinger and his defenders will say yes, of course; that’s what he meant all along.

The truth is: there is no way for any serious diplomat or political leader, with an ounce of basic human decency, to approve of genocide, to turn a blind eye to cruel atrocities, or to support fascist paramilitaries and the slaughter of dissenters. Henry Kissinger has, at least by his words, done all of these things. Again, if we turn to Hitchens, the pull-no-punches analyst points out, “We possess a remarkably complete record of all this, in and out of office, most of it based solidly on U.S. government documents.”

Hitchens really is as unforgiving as he can be, probably because he feels there is a moral imperative to be this way with someone with Kissinger’s record, observing “how often the cables and minutes show him displaying a definite relish for the business of murder and dictatorship”. Is Henry Kissinger guilty of all these crimes, both of conscience and of actual participation? It seems history will eventually let slip the truth, in one or another cable or recording to emerge from the Classified: Top Secret vault of Cold War dealings, but for now, it remains a matter of conscience. How far can one man go and still hold a dignified place in public life?

It is instructive to note, as one often does with young children whose sense of moral convention is not yet fully formed, how Kissinger has said his feelings are hurt by the way his remarks are received, and not by the fact that he actually made these appalling statements. As if to say, I’m sorry you are distressed by my argument that the mass slaughter of innocents is not against our nation’s values, and that I said this in your name, he seems to argue that because he hit on the perfect excuse —”realpolitik”—, he had carte blanche to make that argument and that it amounts to honorable service.

I do not accept this. And I don’t think that anyone who cares about preventing genocide, rolling back the historical influence of prejudice and hatred, or reducing the power of fascists and hate-mongers, could accept it either. Where realpolitik serves to justify atrocities, it is not politics at all, but a way of giving cover to evil. Consider that whether Kissinger were a genius or not, the premise that adopting a posture of realpolitik allows him some sort of privileged view of world affairs already smacks of flippancy and moral bankruptcy: realism operates on the assumption that one can know all facts without error and accurately predict future outcomes.

Henry Kissinger is just as guilty as any other self-appointed “realist” of refusing to confess to his own intellectual limitations and boldly and unjustifiably making claims on future knowledge he cannot in fact have. This is the fallacy of realism, and the sinister deviation that underlies the kind of dismissal of genocide we have heard from Mr. Kissinger. The false pretense commonly referred to as realism allows people with sinister views to cloak those views in a veil of clarity.

But the truth is no less clouded for that charade. I propose we ask ourselves, seriously, and with the proper amount of human empathy: is Henry Kissinger’s problem a pathological absence of empathy of any kind, perhaps so extreme that he could fail to see how remarks such as these defame and threaten even his own relatives, his parents who rescued him from evil, and his own Earthly self? It must be within the realm of possibility, because so many far more absurd defenses have been put forward as to why we should accept his disgusting suggestion that genocide be of no concern to the United States.

There are a lot of things Henry Kissinger needs to apologize to the American people for, but for now, those of us who care what values our nation was built on, and what it is our loved ones fight for and defend, must tolerate a media climate where Henry Kissinger’s embrace of mass atrocity is written off as just a footnote to a crazy time. One wonders: will this man ever have the fortitude to stand in front of the American people, and the world, and apologize for the many ways in which he has defamed and degraded our “humanitarian concern” or condoned or supported acts of atrocity, in service to his pretense to “realism”?

UPDATE, 1 November 2010, 20:33 EST: In the interests of transparency, we will not modify the original content of the article below, but for the same reason, privileging transparency, we will correct the article to state that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has officially severed ties with the group Ban Amnesty Now (BAN), and his campaign has formally requested that the anti-immigrant group’s director Sean McCaffrey clarify that Sheriff Arpaio’s name be removed from any further literature on this subject.

It in fact appears that Mr. McCaffrey has been using Arpaio’s name without the sheriff’s permission to promote this campaign of unfounded allegations of immigrant voter fraud. Arpaio’s campaign’s letter of clarification, in which he severs all ties with BAN, says “The allegations in the email distributed earlier this week were baseless and reckless. It’s clear that McCaffrey is out there acting on his own and using Arpaio’s name and others’ to raise money. What exactly that money is being used for is a mystery.” It appears McCaffrey is the one who is attempting to whip anti-immigrant groups into action to block Latino voters at the polls on 2 November.

ORIGINAL TEXT: The anti-immigrant Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio has won notoriety across the world for his roundups of people he determines to be “likely illegal immigrants”, whom he then detains in tent camps in the desert heat, feeding them processed meats and keeping them in what many human rights groups have called subhuman conditions. Now, he says he will spearhead an effort to prevent Hispanic Americans from exercising their Constitutional right to vote.

Arpaio has written an open letter to supporters and to anti-immigrant groups urging them to unite in an effort to physically impede what he alleges is a wave of fraudulent voting by “illegals”. The allegation to which he is referring has been debunked by the Arizona secretary of state who says that no evidence whatsoever exists of any such plot, suggesting Arpaio’s motivation to spread the lie is motivated by an ethnic or partisan bias.

Arpaio appears to be deliberately seeking to create a movement made up of armed fanatics who plan to use the pretext of a false allegation about illegal aliens voting to use force to intimidate voters at the polls, based solely on their race or ethnicity. He misuses one of Thomas Jefferson’s greatest insights to promote his apparent preference for a racially more homogeneous America:

Thomas Jefferson reminds us “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” America needs us now, more than ever, to do our part, to stand up for our nation, to defend her against those who would sacrifice her for mere political partisanship.

It would seem that any rational person reading Arpaio’s words would conclude that it is the abuses of an authoritarian with a passion for overreaching like Sheriff Arpaio against which Thomas Jefferson would want the people to protect themselves. It is the abuses of office-holders like Arpaio, who seek to use their power and their influence to undermine the voting rights of potentially thousands of law-abiding Americans, due solely to their race and ethnicity, that threaten all of our fundamental rights.

His call to arms is frightening and is a disgrace to honorable law enforcement across the country. He irresponsibly promotes the absurd and unfounded lie, also espoused by Gov. Jan Brewer (of “papers please!” fame), that there is a conspiracy between the governments of Mexico and the United States to flood the southwest with illegal immigrants so Democrats can defeat Republicans.

The conspiracy theory is shocking and dangerous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is Brewer and Arpaio’s knowing kowtowing to armed militia groups who have preached a doctrine of racial supremacy and have refused to disavow armed rebellion. The conspiracy theory is a lie, which furthermore makes no sense to spread, given that illegal aliens cannot actually cast votes in American elections.

Beyond the irresponsible conspiracy theories and apparently racial focus of his plans, Arpaio is also being criticized for sending the email, because his office will have responsibility for many election-related issues. Among key law enforcement responsibilities on election day will be the work of protecting the civil rights of individuals who seek to vote, even as Sheriff Arpaio appears to be saying he intends to abridge those rights by direct physical action at the polls.

What’s more, his signing up for the Calderon conspiracy theory shows his clear bias against a Democratic victory at the polls. He has all but said he will use his office to promote the electoral interests of the Republican party, and he appears to be calling on friends and supporters to organize a militia-like voter intimidation effort.

Arpaio doesn’t make any clear statements about how exactly he would prevent “illegal alien voter fraud” or how he would want people to distinguish between Hispanic Americans who are citizens and have a right to vote in the United States and Hispanic Americans they should be able to judge have no right to vote. He only speaks of a “grassroots army of VOTER FRAUD PREVENTION VOLUNTEERS” that “will stand vigilant across the nation.”

Arpaio goes on to declare that this group of pro-Republican anti-immigrant activists “will be the first and strongest line of defense to ensure that only legal citizens vote on November 2nd”. Lydia Guzman, director of the nonprofit immigrant advocacy group Respect/Respeto, told TPMMuckraker that Arpaio “should not be the person to enforce or oversee the protection of the election because he’s the one who is going to be disenfranchising the electorate.”

Karl Rove is a professional liar who has made it his priority to worship at the feet of billionaire corporate interests and those among the wealthy who prefer to avoid doing their part to repay the society that made them wealthy. His modus operandi is: formulate a series of falsehoods which will be repeated by as many individuals, media outlets and sources of propaganda as possible, and support that campaign with money from anyone with enough vested interest that the money will not stop flowing.

Machiavelli is famous for having promoted the idea that the will of the people may be the true sovereign but that the would-be ruler can win ther affection through deceit and manipulation. It is widely believed he promoted this view only to save himself from either 1) execution or 2) being out of a job, when the prince he had worked for was replaced by a rival. Rove, of course, is in no such grave position, but has adopted the most cynical lessons of the Italian thinker as a guiding principle.

Lie to the people and serve the wealthy donors that want you to and you shall never be out of work — that, more or less, seems to demonstrate the arc of the political career at issue. And what is perhaps more shocking still is the degree to which the mainstream media seems to have gone to help Rove win legitimacy through yet more falsehoods, deliberately shaped and spread to make his efforts appear mainstream and worthy of respect, while smearing his opponents.

Now Karl Rove is directly involved in one of the most sinister plots to undermine the legitimacy of American elections, illegally coordinating unprecedented amounts of corporate money to replace the Republican party fundraising infrastructure with a shadowy network of untraceable donations, some of which may be flowing from foreign corporations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which poses as non-partisan and as a representative of all American businesses, has reportedly been taking money from foreign corporations either to directly fund or to supplement spending that goes to political campaign ads.

The infamous Citizens United ruling, in which a pro-Republican corporate front group won the right for corporate interests to spend unlimited sums of money to influence voters’ views during an election cycle, explicitly bars any coordination with political campaigns. And now Rove, along with former RNC chair Ed Gillespie and other top Republican operatives, are coordinating a massive secret corporate political fund through a fake “education” group called Crossroads GPS, which so explicitly advertises its role as a pro-Republican group, it promises donors unlimited spending power to elect Republicans and works to “avoid overlap” with other spending.

Crossroads GPS is clearly coordinating its efforts with political campaigns of individual candidates, the Republican party and other groups, and it is keeping a large portion of its donor list secret. Now, in the wake of the Chamber of Commerce scandal, involving the deliberate use of foreign funds to help fund attack ads against Democratic candidates, Rove’s group is under pressure to publish its full donor list, including amounts given, so future donors, public authorities and voters at large, can assess just whose interest the group seeks to serve.

And while he and Crossroads GPS refuse to release that information to the public, Rove is now turning to lies to smear his critics, because that is who he is and what he does. Karl Rove is a professional liar who has made it his priority to worship at the feet of billionaire corporate interests and those among the wealthy who prefer to avoid doing their part to repay the society that made them wealthy. His work is designed to undermine the intellectual freedom of voters and to manipulate the entire electoral process.

Now, he is doing so with less accountability than ever, specifically to serve ultra-wealthy corporate interests who apparently share his disdain for public accountability. While two years of major reform, in an effort to bring about a “new era of responsibility” in business and in government, has won Pres. Obama political enemies from the corporate elite who fear, more than anything, a level playing field where even the most powerful are accountable before the law, Rove and his cohorts would seek to elect candidates who have promised to do the bidding of those interests, and they’re using secret funds to outspend the truthtellers and buy your vote with lies.

The American right has been relentless in its assault on the character, talents and leadership qualities of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter since the Republican campaign against him in the 1980 presidential election cycle. Their attacks have rested on the assertion that his altruistic politics, his emphasis on responsible governance, and his wariness of handing public services to private profit-makers, were a general failure of leadership. In fact, their attacks on Carter are rooted in a rhetorical sympathy for the fundamentalist clerics who took power in Iran.

During the years 1978 and 1979, Iran —one of the world’s major oil producers— was convulsed by a political crisis of surprising speed and mind-bending complexity. A decades-long dictatorship, considered benevolent by western powers largely because of the dynamics of Cold War politics, had persecuted ordinary Iranians and sown anger and unrest that bubbled up in a popular revolution. But not unlike the Russian revolution of 1917 or the French Revolution of 1789, totalitarian elements soon took control of the popular movement.

The Grand Ayatollah Syed Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini marshaled the popular sentiment against the dictatorship of the Shah to win support for an Islamic Republic, which —though its constitution provides for democratic protections including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to protest and to govern the government by popular elections— he molded into a theocratic state with power so centralized it amounted to a dictatorship by clerics.

The result was what is widely known as the “Second Oil Shock” of the 1970s, which pushed oil and transport costs far higher and hampered economic growth in oil-intensive industrialized nations, like the United States. Pres. Carter had no control over this, and could not rely on the cooperation of oil giants to lessen the political blow Khomeini’s revolution caused to western powers. It was not a failure of leadership by Carter but a failure of collaborative entrepreneurship (responsible “corporate citizenship” would be another way to say it) that led to the United States’ economic woes of those years.

As if to cover up the fact that the economic fallout was a direct result of decades’ worth of anti-democracy, pro-oil policy, nakedly promoted by Republican presidents (Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford) and aided along by Democratic presidents (Kennedy, Johnson), the Republican campaign for Ronald Reagan’s election focused on Carter as the sole pivot on which the nation’s economic fates would turn. It was a lie, and economists and politicians knew it was, but Carter was forced to respond to the campaign tactic with more campaign tactics, and the media validated the fallacy by trying to assess his likelihood of success.

Carter failed to overcome the rhetorical machinery of the Republican campaign against him, but many independent analysts believe he would have been likely to win in 1980 had not Ted Kennedy’s primary campaign so undermined his status as Democratic party leader. Whatever the political consequences of the campaign, an honest look at the 1978-1980 period has to consider that the campaign against Carter was Machiavellian and in many ways anti-American.

It allowed people who called themselves “conservatives” to attack the president of the United States as if he were a sworn enemy of democracy in the midst of a global Cold War against ideological Communist totalitarianism. Not only did Carter’s opponents on the Republican side not support the commander-in-chief, they sought to bury the true record of economic data linking the nation’s crisis to oil-trade fallout from Khomeini’s revolution and so sought to exonerate Khomeini and the oil industry while blaming the leader of the free world for their bad-faith actions.

Can we assume the neo-conservative ascendancy was rooted in some sort of inborn respect for popular and faith-based movements like Khomeini’s? Obviously not. We must, then, consider that the shrewd political bargain, which was also a karmic bargain, made by the Republicans, the neo-conservatives and the Christian right, as they aligned in a coordinated effort to assassinate the character of the sitting president had to include a willingness to elevate or insulate Khomeini against western detractors and allegations of creeping totalitarianism.

Conspiracy theorists will immediately take such analysis to mean there was a deliberate attempt to use the situation to sidle up to Khomeini in hopes of winning favor for the oil giants, or at the very least to allow for this in hopes the new theocratic state might somehow turn out to be another “benevolent dictatorship” happy to do business with the oil giants and help secure western power.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Khomeini benefited both domestically and internationally by the Republican attack on Carter; it legitimized his seizure of power, both by way of allowing him to disassociate himself from Iran’s oil interest and align himself with the need to combat a brutal police state notorious for midnight disappearances, torture and persecution of even moderate critics.

There was a fundamentally dishonest debate taking place in American political circles, as the Republican party sought to legitimate the “voodoo economics” —as George H.W. Bush called it— of candidate Ronald Reagan by slandering the economic policies of the sitting president. That fundamentally dishonest debate, the flawed premise and the obscuring of key economic truths, helped distort the international political debate, giving rhetorical cover to Khomeini’s radical co-opting of the pro-democracy Iranian people’s movement.

Now, thirty years on, the legacy of that period continues to be obscured by nakedly false rhetoric from politicians who still seek to legitimate the fictional universe of Reaganomics, which though it caused three recessions in 9 years they persist in claiming is an ingenious strategy for economic growth.

The rhetorical logic of raw deception and extremist fear-mongering is so mutually useful to the anti-Carter voodoo economists and the clerical regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, that it is ultimately undeniable that there was a mutually beneficial spiral of attack and elevation, by which the two fundamentalist forces built their own power-base while unfairly defaming opponents within their own domestic political system.

As the dawn of the 21st century turns to morning, and the “war on terror” has become a global quest for security of established political systems against destabilization, the safety of citizens and the sanctity of democracy depend equally on our having a public sphere that is capable of telling the truth. Politicians who argue that the truth cannot be told because there will be consequences are moral cowards who are openly willing to violate their oath to serve the Constitution and the people of the United States.

Pres. Obama has been brutally slandered for trying to be forthright about the crises the nation is facing, and Republican candidates like Pat Toomey —widely seen as a fundamentalist of the pseudo-Christian voodoo economist band— are making the absurd allegation that he laid plans for economic hardship and that other Democrats “voted for all of it”, as if to wipe away the revolting legacy of the Bush years. Astonishingly, from the moment of Obama’s inauguration, the Republican party openly declared its intention to lie, cheat and steal its way to victory in the 2010 elections.

The rule would be: whatever Obama favors, we must oppose, not just as bad policy but as a fundamental betrayal of all that is American. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have devoted their political legacies to this cause, openly embracing extremist rhetoric and talking about the enemy here at home, stoking inter-ethnic paranoia and working to cast the most popular elected official in US history (Obama received nearly 70 million votes, far more than any candidate for any office in US history) as a crouching tiger waiting to devour anything Americans hold dear.

This kind of rhetoric is the same sort that elevated Khomeini, so he and his revolution could be seen as a credible alternative to competing ideologies of the Cold War superpowers. Fundamentalist Islam became a global alternative and spread to nations with no sound reason to embrace extremism. Khomeini was made wealthy by the oil-centric economics of the voodoo gang, and his platform for propagandizing whole populations that might otherwise have favored American democratic aims was vastly expanded.

Words have consequences, and politicians have to be responsible for the words they choose. But media also have to consider more intelligently the weight of the words chosen by politicians. Bill Clinton’s “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” ultimately carries far less historical weight than his “building a bridge to the 21st century”, and Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” was ultimately more significant than anyone imagined because the guru himself fell prey to that temptation of financial ideologues, when he supported radical measures that would gut the regulatory infrastructure of American finance and enable predatory lending to spin out of control.

Politicians given to extremism are not serious about leadership; they are serious about propaganda, and their closest allies in the political realm are their fellow extremists: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney needed Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and so they systematically elevated them, granting them powers they could never have by virtue of their insane bloodlust. The Reagan team and its vilification of Jimmy Carter, for having the weakness of character to actually attempt the right course of action, did the same with Khomeini, Qadhafi and even Saddam Hussein.

The emotional insecurity of this tendency is a whole other can of worms that would be worth exploring at length elsewhere, but deserves at least brief mention here: for self-defined “strongmen” of international political rhetoric, especially those given to the blind-faith needed for avid support of the voodoo economist mindset, the depth of emotional insecurity required to so relentlessly elevate radical dictators and plutocrats is harrowing to contemplate. There is at once a total faith in the right and the inevitability of American power and a total terror at the notion that any opposing forces might exist on the margins of international politics.

Those diplomats and intelligence officers who understood that marginalizing and containing works better than direct confrontation, fear-mongering and the elevation of the critic, worked diligently during the last several decades to prevent the voodoo mindset from infesting American politics from top to bottom, but the struggle continues. There are saboteurs who wish to turn the adversarial democracy of the American Constitution into a bloodsport where anyone’s opponent becomes an enemy of the state: that kind of extremism portends the dissolution of real democracy in America, and every red-blooded conservative should join with every blue-ocean progressive in marginalizing those elements in our political sphere.

• With some editorial collaboration from J.E. Robertson

John Boehner says the United States should not have any qualities or any conditions of life that might serve as “an incentive for illegal immigrants to come here”. He was commenting specifically on the question of whether the Constitution should grant citizenship to anyone born in the United States, but his reaction suggests that anything of any kind which might be considered a point of attraction for anyone from another country should not be tolerated.

We should not have political freedom or civil liberties, because that might serve as “an incentive” for people to come and “take advantage of” our society. We should not have economic prosperity or a dynamic private sector, because that might serve as “an incentive” for “illegals” to cross the border and try to become part of our economic fabric. We should not enjoy any rights or privileges that any other nation does not, because they might serve as “an incentive” for outsiders to seek to become Americans.

The logic of Mr. Boehner’s rhetoric borders on the absurd. What should the United States do in order to dissuade emigrés from other nations from seeking a better life in the United States? End the nation’s culture of generalized opportunity? Undermine the qualities that make the United States a great and enviable society? For Boehner, as for Lindsay Graham, we should strip all Americans of one of the most fundamental rights: to be born to citizenship.

How did Mr. Boehner become a citizen of the United States? He was born here. There was no paperwork involved, other than the report of his live birth in an American hospital. This is how I became a citizen and how most of the 310 million people who are citizens of the United States became citizens. Our Constitution establishes that this is a fundamental right, and now Boehner, Graham and others are, shockingly, talking about stripping our children and grandchildren of that right.

Mr. Boehner was caught today making a series of borderline absurd statements and was unable to explain his theories or plans in terms that would seem valid according to any form of common sense. He refused to acknowledge that tax cuts do not pay for themselves, but also refused to deny it. He alleged that measures that have created or saved millions of jobs were “job-killing” and then proposed that programs designed to motivate job creation should be ended, while claiming he seeks to create jobs.

Boehner’s struggle was clearly part of the Republican paradox: the party that drove the greatest expansion of government spending in the history of the United States, from 2000 through 2006, while undermining the national economy, says it wants to return to the policies of those years to cut spending and spur economic growth. Not one aspect of the Republican agenda for 2010 is supported by evidence of any kind: Boehner, Pence and others, are every day seeking to make a reasoned defense of mystical claims.

Fox News has adopted an all-campaign, all-the-time approach, in which it hires Republican politicians to pose as “reporters” and “anchors” and pushes mystical assumptions about market philosophy that have nothing to do with markets and everything to do with making it easy for those on top to stay there. Fox is steeped in a battle with its own intellectual values, fighting to portray itself as populist, while pushing the most elite-inducing economic philosophies and arguing consistently against actions that would defend ordinary people against unaccountable power.

In fact, a close analysis of the Fox News philosophy on economics shows an illogical —and thinly veiled— split between rabid populism and rapacious laissez-faire capitalism. Listen to any five-minute stretch of commentary of Fox News, and you are likely to hear —by likely, we could fairly estimate 95% probability or higher— a defense of unethical, perhaps even illegal behavior from major corporations, like today’s argument that BP should not face prosecution, even if it violated criminal law, a pitch for the Republican party, and a defamation of the Democratic party or public servants in general.

It is also likely you’ll hear Fox News employees —a more appropriate term than reporters— pushing unfounded mystical assertions about the private enterprise being in all cases “more efficient” than public servants. In fact, this morning, one could hear such absurd assertions as: “private employees are twice as efficient as government workers”, with the explanation that to “incentivize” private business, the money paid to private business should be vastly increased —a bribe? or can private enterprise not raise private capital?—, while government should have its funding slashed—because apparently, government workers become more efficient when punished.

In debate about financial regulatory reform, Fox elevates corporate-paid pundits who literally scream at other panelists, making the argument that there is a distinction between “regulation” and “legislation”. The argument is that regulation is punitive and costs businesses —all businesses, no matter what industry, by osmosis— so dearly they will never again be able to “create jobs”, while legislation is just a rule, which it will apparently cost zero money to follow.

Such intellectually bankrupt nonsense is the foundation of the Fox News economic philosophy: give all money to private corporations —the bigger the better— and the United States will have an infinitely prosperous future, but give even two cents to the government and all will be lost and the economy will unravel. Nevermind the need for national defense, healthcare for the elderly or for poor children and veterans, or for a functioning national government.

There are no numbers used to support any of these claims. There is no evidence laid out to make the argument that rogue financial practices did not cause the economic crisis. There is no evidence laid out to support false, inflammatory allegations made against devoted public servants, institutions that are committed to serving the public interest or citizens movements. There is just a consistent drumbeat of pro-corporate propaganda, without evidentiary foundation and without a single concrete explanation of where “job creation”, the supposed reason for this uniform allegiance would actually come from.

Meanwhile, Fox takes a decisively populist approach to as many topics as possible, deliberately seeking to paint Democrats as power-hungry, incompetent tyrants seeking to take away individual freedoms and undermine core American values. Again, no evidence is ever used to support this theory, while events which clearly illustrate a systematic foundational Democratic commitment to core American values and to the grassroots, to real people in their daily lives, are ignored.

Conspiracy theorists argue that organizations like Fox News are engaged in a deliberate plot to promote politicians and policies that benefit the wealthy and yet win the support of the very working poor that are most disadvantaged by those policies. But there is good reason to support the analysis that this logically incoherent philosophical split is in fact common and has genuine psychological markers that can be traced, and Fox has simply populated its team with like-minded people, who avidly promote the people and policies they prefer.

The tendency to use rhetoric that is wholly philosophical —markets are “efficient”; private enterprise is better at “creating jobs”— with zero need for evidence of any kind is commonplace, and tends to match up with a particular approach to policy and economics which finds that the comfort of the simple, universal, irrefutable philosophy is more important than actually dealing with the complex problems that face real people. It is even more necessary, from this point of view, to refuse to get “bogged down” by facts, because in a deep, biological sense, it is uncomfortable to recognize all the areas in which such mystical policy assumptions in fact fail, and produce negative outcomes.

This same bio-philosophical crisis, this need to not face the failings of an unfounded philosophy of universal good from one’s own preferences, means there is constant temptation to claim self-reliance as a core personal virtue. Of course, it is logically incoherent to demand that all other people everywhere recognize that one’s economic philosophy, which one wishes to impose on all people everywhere, so they can all collaborate in the elaboration of one’s vision, is in fact “self-reliant”.

But once one has put forth the philosophy that all private enterprise is by nature more genuine, more efficient, more virtuous, than any government initiative, supporting this claim with the radical assertion that no regulation is good regulation, one must shore up one’s own spiritual life by asserting the absolute power of one’s self-reliance in the face of relentless, rapacious competition. That attraction to self-reliance lends itself to assertions of populism: moral outrage at government spending, government social policy or elite celebrities with political views.

But those assertions of populist thinking come from individuals who aggressively push for expanded funding of the Pentagon, while arguing for a freer executive hand, less oversight, near total unaccountability of private business before the law, and the flagrant elevation of celebrities who share their chosen political views.

Fox News cannot relentlessly promote the economic elite, the wealthiest of the wealthy, and their right to earn money simply as a function of having money, or to avoid paying taxes regardless of whether the result is “job creation” or not, while then arguing that somehow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac —whose specific economic function is to defend the borrowing ability of ordinary citizens— are dangerous elites, while major banks are just the proverbial Everyman.

They cannot argue that they are for “small government”, then argue for expansion of state secrecy, executive impunity and preemptive wars. They cannot argue that they are against abusive elites and bank bailouts, then argue that too-big-to-fail banks should not be regulated and should be propped up with exorbitant tax breaks aimed at indirect job-creation. They cannot argue they are for job creation, when they oppose the government programs that achieve the most long-term expansion of job markets.

They cannot argue they favor Main Street, USA, over the distant and powerful if they are in fact acting as a mouthpiece for the powers that be and opposing needed reforms that defend household wealth, community-level economic resilience and the individual citizen’s right to access medical treatment or buy a home. They cannot, but they do. There is an amoral disregard for the real-world fallout from such confused reporting of non-fact and mystical assumption.

Is there a way to persuade those who appear on Fox News to be more wholesome, more forthright, more deeply thought, more responsible, in their commentary and their reporting? That depends on whether Fox News is really a shared-opinion club posing as a news organization or a political action committee posing as a news organization. The hope, I think, of most Americans, even intellectually honest regular viewers of Fox News, is that the network will transcend its propensity for flagrant bias and unreasoned propaganda, as individuals working for the network itself diversify in their views and/or grow as individuals.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine, is known for being a moderate, a pragmatist, and often the key to determining what gets done in a hotly divided partisan environment. She has consistently sought to take responsible positions on environmental policy, but has supported her party in many key votes. Now, she is pledging to push for a broader coalition of support for a scaled-back climate bill. Her approach is being called “utility-only”, focusing carbon emissions capping on power generation utilities, something supporters say will make the pending legislation more viable economically and administratively.

Her office released the following statement, on 29 June 2010, after a bipartisan Senate meeting with Pres. Obama to discuss pending climate legislation:

“As I have long advocated, working toward energy independence is an imperative for our economic and national security.  Which is why today I urged the President to seize control of our own energy destiny and, for the first time, establish clearly defined national timetables for clean energy production, benchmarks for oil consumption reduction, and goals for game-changing research – which no other president has ever done, to ensure we actually attain that independence.  Central to this is moving forward with an aggressive energy bill that reorients our nation toward renewable and energy efficiency. This cannot be underestimated in literally transforming our energy supply and yielding tremendous environmental and economic benefits.  Just last year, the U.S. was a global leader in wind with 10,000 Megawatts of facilities constructed at 39 percent growth – and yet, we are in danger of losing that competitive and technological edge to China which grew its wind capacity by 100 percent last year.

“And that is why I have co-authored legislation sponsored by Senator Klobuchar that would establish a strong Renewable Energy Standard of 25 percent by 2025 and worked on the Home Star proposal with Senators Bingaman and Warner, which would provide energy efficiency rebates and long-term tax credits to build an entirely new industry in performance-based efficiency.  While there is consensus among us on energy, on the complex and difficult question of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, there is no consensus at this time. From my perspective, I’ve long asserted that placing a price on carbon will send the appropriate signals to entrepreneurs that would unleash the innovation to position America as a global clean energy industry leader.  However, today we are in different and perilous economic times with last week’s new jobless claims actually increasing by 12,000, to a total of 472,000 Americans, and the full impact of the BP spill is yet unknown.  So it’s essential that we carefully weigh the costs of action versus inaction to avoid unintended consequences that cost us jobs, as well as the distributional effects of any policy we apply and how we mitigate and equalize those effects.”

“At the same time simply we cannot afford economy-wide approaches to carbon reduction that could cost consumers another 18 cents per gallon of gasoline in this struggling economy or subject our manufacturing sector to unnecessary regulations when they’ve already reduced their emissions by five percent below 1990 levels.  And yet, we also recognize the threat of blanket and ad hoc EPA regulations that would threaten at least 1,600 major employers should we fail to act. Which is why I believe that one possibility is to more narrowly target a carbon pricing program through a uniform nationwide system solely on the power sector which is the sector with the most to lose from the EPA regulations and it’s also the sector in which businesses actually make decisions today based on prices 20 to 30 years in the future.

“The bottom line is that this should be an era of practicality given our economic situation – and whatever Congress pursues should be viewed through that prism, to develop legislation that is pragmatic, reduces uncertainty, and creates business opportunities for a carbon-free economy of the future, without further harming our economy of today.”

Senator Snowe has been a longtime advocate for advancing policies to combat global warming, with her record beginning as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives when she cosponsored the Global Warming Prevention Act more than 20 years ago.  In 2007, Senators Snowe and Feinstein spearheaded the Ten-in-Ten fuel economy standards, landmark legislation to increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which is the single most effective US law that has addressed climate change.  The regulations based on Senator Snowe’s law were finalized this spring and will eliminate a metric Gigaton of CO2 emissions by saving 1.8 billion barrels of oil.  This Congress, Senator Snowe co-hosted the “U.S. Climate Action: A Global Economic Perspective” symposium on Capitol Hill with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, as well as the leaders in the business community to discuss the formulation of U.S. policy on climate change.

Snowe clearly seeks a pragmatic approach, and wants to rescue future generations from the potentially grave side-effects of political intransigence and the refusal to accept universally defined scientific findings on carbon-induced climate destabilization. Her task, of course, is complex, because many in her party are sensitive to the concerns of coal-heavy states, where fears about energy prices are closely linked to the sometimes narrow business plan of coal interests.

Technological innovation and efficiency standards could afford a way to persuade skeptics about the economic viability and civilizational imperatives of carbon emissions reduction. A coalition of northeastern states has already begun implementing emissions reduction schemes for power utilities, and this could serve as a model for national policy, without requiring a massive new bureaucracy or complex trading market.

The humanitarian aid vessel known as the Rachel Corrie —named for the American activist killed when she refused to move from an attempt to block the Israeli military (IDF) from a bulldozing operation— is now en route to Gaza, and will likely face the Israeli military blockade, which seeks to maintain an absolute embargo on any cargo and any persons entering Gaza except by way of the IDF. Israel has said it will not “seek confrontation”, but it will “defend Israeli citizens threatened by this terror from the sea”.

Derek Graham, director of the humanitarian aid group Free Gaza, says he has instructed all aboard the Rachel Corrie to gather at midships, if boarded, to sit down on the deck with palms facing up to show they carry no offensive weapons, in order to demonstrate that the aid group has no intention of clashing with IDF personnel, but rather comes in peace to deliver aid to the people of Gaza.

As information emerges from the survivors of the shootings on the Mavi Marmara, it appears their reason for seizing weapons from the commandos that boarded the ship was due to the weapons having already been discharged and their desire to waste the ammunition to prevent any further shooting. A spokesperson for the IDF, while defending the raid, limited her accusation to saying the aid workers sought to “empty the magazines”, apparently part of this effort to prevent further killings.

It remains unclear when the shooting began and who was responsible. In an interview with CNN International, a spokesperson for the IDF said its soldiers sought to “politely” request a meeting with the ship’s captain, while Hala Gorani, CNN’s reporter, suggested the pre-dawn helicopter raid, illegally conducted in international waters, could not be reasonably described as “polite”. The interview revealed a number of inconsistencies in the IDF account of events: namely the inability to state that IDF personnel began firing only in response to a legitimate threat to their lives.

Pressure is mounting for a full investigation of what transpired and whether there had been orders, and if so from whom, to open fire on the ship. There has been pressure to launch an international criminal investigation into involvement by specific officials of the Israeli government, possibly in ordering the shooting, regardless of any substantive threat to Israel.

The PR campaign, by which the Netanyahu government has sought to classify the humanitarian aid vessels as “terror from the sea”, seems to be faltering, winning support only among the most radical pro-Netanyahu supporters. Mr. Netanyahu has been personally named in a lawsuit charging Israeli officials with the murder of at least one of those killed on the Mavi Marmara.

The Arab League has called for global condemnation of the incident. Turkey is contemplating legislative proposals that might sever all commercial and diplomatic relations with Israel until top officials are brought to justice for the killings. And western allies have been critical of the Netanyahu administration’s apparent attempts to “spin” the story to suit their political needs and are calling for a more thorough accounting of events.

The Rachel Corrie poses a clear political challenge to the legitimacy of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blanket blockade of Gaza and his broader security policy. There is now strong international pressure on Netanyahu to stand down and allow the aid vessel to dock, in the interests of delivering humanitarian aid to needy Gazans. The UN reports that IDF aid deliveries amount to only about 25% of the actual need of those living in the besieged territory.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been known as “hawkish” on security. He has long been a staunch defender of Israel’s right to use force to defend its interests, even preemptively. He defended and justified the two aggressive, and ultimately counterproductive, aggressive campaigns waged by his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, first against largely civilian areas in Lebanon, then against largely civilian areas in Gaza. He is unapologetic about his desire to secure control of the occupied Palestinian territories.

For all of these reasons, by the logic of Israeli politics, Netanyahu has long been considered a force to be reckoned with and highly credible on security policy. But his radicalism is now showing itself to be a potential danger to both his political agenda and to the safety and security of the Israeli state. His unilateralist approach to security and his stated demand for an absolute embargo on any aid to Gaza not delivered by the Israeli military have led to the killing of unarmed aid workers trying to bring food, medicine and building materials into Gaza.

The vessel attacked in the commando-style raid was Turkish, and had been given a heroic celebratory send-off as it left port to bring humanitarian aid to the civilians suffering both the Hamas regime and the Israeli siege shutting off the Gaza Strip from the outside world. Turkey has issued a statement saying “This bloody massacre will be remembered as a dark stain in the history of humanity”.

The Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, said during a visit to Chile that “This action, totally contrary to the principles of international law, is inhumane state terrorism. Nobody should think we will keep quiet in the face of this”. There are now calls for an international resolution condemning Israel’s actions, and some inside Israel have suggested the deaths were entirely attributable to Netanyahu’s blinkered extremism, that perhaps he is unfit to preside over so urgent a security situation as that faced by Israel.

This is no small development: Israel’s closest and most trusted ally in the Muslim world is Turkey, a NATO member state and close US ally. The outrage over the commando raid, which killed 9 humanitarian activists, is deep and spreading across Turkey, and Erdogan is likely right to warn it will not soon be forgotten. The immense emotional trauma the assault has inflicted on Turkish consciousness far outstrips any security advantage Israel could have gained from the raid, or from Netanyahu’s demand that no aid workers be allowed to deliver aid.

It is that problem that is increasingly worrying to moderates in Israel and to those security-minded pragmatists for whom ideology is not a priority: is Netanyahu too wedded to a radical security policy that values the use of force above the ultimate security gains that might be won? Is his political philosophy too extreme to guide a democratic state through the complex perils faced by the state of Israel?

In fact, the radicalism of Netanyahu and other Likud leaders is part of what drove former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, architect of the settlement strategy and nationalist who some blame for provoking the second Intifada, with an armed visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to order the closure and evacuation of some settlements and the formation of a centrist “national interest” party called Kadima. And it is Olmert’s reflexive radicalism that some blame for Kadima’s diminishing electoral returns, and Netanyahu’s rise.

But now it is Netanyahu’s government, and the increasingly aggressive and increasingly isolated security policy infrastructure he presides over cannot rightfully be blamed on foreign forces or on pressure from the Obama administration, which has continued Clinton and Bush’s demands for a negotiated two-state solution. It is Benjamin Netanyahu who has pushed for this radicalization, and it is that radicalism that has led to increased pressure from friends abroad.

Now, it is that radicalism that has led to more unnecessary deaths of unarmed innocents and the deterioration of relations with a major ally in the region. For the Prime Minister of a friendly nation to refer to this action as “state terrorism” is a severe deterioration in Israel’s standing in the international community and a meaningful sign of growing weakness on the security front. Netanyahu is failing to protect the people of Israel, and moderates in Kadima, Labor, and across Israel, must produce a better plan and find a way to moderate his extremist policies.

Netanyahu also made headlines around the world today by rejecting a UN resolution calling for Israel to put its nuclear facilities under a UN monitoring regime. He cited Iran’s intransigence and its periodic refusal to allow oversight of secret research facilities. But some supporters of Israel’s security-first foreign policy say Netanyahu’s reasoning is deeply misguided and legitimizes the worst elements of Iran’s nuclear pursuits, an error in diplomatic process that could put Israel in greater danger over time.

Netanyahu has also showed signs of severe hubris, arguing that commandos involved in the raid “acted in self defense”, even as video has spread across the internet showing black-clad heavily armed commandos rappelling down from military helicopters and attacking civilians on board the aid vessel, with some already injured strewn about the ship’s deck. Worse still for the prime minister’s PR campaign, the AFP is reporting:

Activists from the Free Gaza movement on board the Mavi Marmara charged that Israeli troops “fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep.”

But Israeli military officials and commandos involved in the operation said they had only responded with force after being attacked with knives, clubs and even live fire.

The conflicting stories include claims the civilians on board the Mavi Marmara “snatched” weapons from the hands of the commandos, and the very real problem that while Netanyahu defends the soldiers’ right to self defense, there is no law dictating that civilians have no right to defend against an unannounced military assault from the air. Netanyahu’s government put these commandos in that situation, with no clear legal foundation and no clear security objective.

The government has been citing widespread public support for its operation, but it has also instituted a military blackout of reporting on the event, with no reporters allowed access to the activists detained in the process of the raid. At least one Israeli human rights organization has issued a request for information, and there are accusations the government is trying to manipulate the information available to the public inside Israel by restricting international media access.

In that environment, with information and access to information so limited, it is difficult to confirm the government’s account of activists using small arms to attack the commandos. The AFP also reports:

Navy chief Admiral Eliezer Marom said the live fire had been limited to the Mavi Marmara and that the toll could have been “far worse” had his troops not “acted with extreme restraint” in a very dangerous situation.

The injured passengers had been transferred to four Israeli hospitals, and the six boats had been towed to Ashdod port.

The bloody raid has prompted a chorus of furious condemnation from around the world, particularly in Turkey where thousands took to the streets to protest the assault, and Ankara promptly recalled its ambassador to Israel.

Netanyahu could be accused of obsessively staring into his own belly-button, or rather obsessing about his ideological views, instead of actually contemplating and promoting Israel’s real security interests. If Turkey not only recalls its envoy to Israel but hardens its stance against Netanyahu’s government on a broader basis, Netanyahu’s leadership on security will have been a confirmed failure, and Israel’s security in the region damaged in a serious way.

The prime minister has also canceled his trip to Washington, where he was expected to meet with Pres. Obama to mutually affirm the strength of the US-Israel alliance. But this is now the third consecutive severe diplomatic error committed by Netanyahu’s government in connection with a US diplomatic visit. The last was when an announcement to expand settlement construction coincided with the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden, essentially making any constructive diplomatic negotiation impossible.

These massive failures of diplomatic discipline are suggestive of a kind of incompetence that could undermine not just Netanyahu’s own stated policy goals, but the long-term interests of the Israeli state and the Israeli people in general. That this opinion is not as widely expressed inside Israel is evidence of the climate of fear Netanyahu has sought to create to prop up his government despite its dangerous departure from pragmatic international negotiating. Mr. Netanyahu needs to start taking responsibility for his failings, or he may be remembered for harming, rather than helping, the nation by his service.

Let down your guard for five seconds, and you will likely find some emanation of the pseudo-conservative hostility market explaining that Pres. Obama is deliberately plotting the destruction of the United States of America, that his administration is lazy and incompetent, and that terrorists are about to seize control of the homeland. Those propagandists, who expect you will not notice their absurd claims are in fact lies, are the ones who are, very deliberately, trying to ruin America.

This claim may need some explaining, so I’ll do my best to reason this out, in case anyone out there finds it a shocking thought. First of all, it’s worth noting that true conservative Americans have about as much in common with these cheats as they do with aardvarks. Then, we have to point out that the “conservatives” are heirs to the British “tories”, the relentless defenders of the old regime, the stately decorum of the monarchy, and centralized church diktat… oh, and enemies of the American Revolution.

Wikipedia explains that “The Tory ethos can be summed up with the phrase, God, King and Country“. If we translate that to modern American conservatism, it might sound more like God, Country and One-party-rule… and anyone who disagrees is evil. This sounds radical, I know, but I think any thinking person who is honest knows this portrait is not far from the true spirit of the vitriolic, unreasoned aggressions being pushed by what calls itself “the conservative movement”.

Anti-tax radical Grover Norquist said in 2004 he was part of a “secret plan to seize power”. He also infamously said he wanted to “drown [the American government] in a bathtub“. The Karl Rove / Tom DeLay axis was known for expressing with outrageous hubris that they sought to establish a “permanent Republican majority” in both houses of Congress.

The wild-eyed language of violence and hostility for government agencies, public services, the legal foundations of consumer protections, labor protections, Constitutional protections, civil liberties and even against the basic worth of human beings who do not espouse their radical political philosophy, are all common among the so-called “conservative” media. Their disdain for American principles of government, American government and the majority of the American people is extreme, and undisguised.

But they call themselves patriots, so they must be. We are expected to believe that though virtually every other word out of their mouths are lies, we should trust them on that one, and by extension, out of fear of being considered unlike them and therefore unpatriotic, we should capitulate, abandon our own principles, and just cede the political ground to them and their cronies.

Again, this sounds radical, but I am just stating what any sensible person observes when tuning in to the self-described “conservative” media environment: hatred for government programs, hatred for equality before the law, hatred for foreigners, hatred for minorities, hatred for people who are unfortunate enough to require public assistance.

That fundamental undercurrent of intolerance and contempt is portrayed as “honest”, “forthright”, folksy, and middle of the road, when it is really just like any other hard core of radical extremism. Even the stars and supporters of the pseudo-conservative media machine try to defend themselves against the charge of being radical extremist by suggesting there is an element of “entertainment” in what they do.

It is not entertainment. It is propaganda. It is a deviant assault on common decency. It is an attempt to vilify the leadership of anyone who falls outside a specific established circle of tory-style power seekers, people defending a feudal order, an aristocratic right to accumulate power and influence to the detriment of the average citizen, family, or community.

Barack Obama is one of those people. He is vilified by this anti-humanist echo-chamber, because he works, because he sees, because he is actually trying to do what our Constitution requires a president to do: represent the will of the governed, ensure the laws are followed, and rein in abuses that undermine the freedoms individual citizens are supposed to enjoy.

Remember, our nation was founded in an atmosphere that held up liberty as the highest of virtues. Today’s pseudo-conservatives like to talk about how they prize liberty above all else. But what they mean is they prize their own freedom to do as they please without a government of, by and for, ordinary people interfering with their whims and appetites.

They would not want  you to hear this in their message, but this is what they are saying, every chance they get, almost as if they can’t help announcing it, so proud are they of their aims. Our nation was founded on the ideal of liberty, which according to the political philosophy of the times, means equality of each before the law (it would take some time before that phrase was actually entered into the Constitution, by amendment), and yet we are asked to believe it is evil to be “liberal”.

Pseudo-conservatives want you to believe that “liberal” means “unwise”, “thoughtless”, “irresponsible”. It does not mean this, any more than “conservative” means “hates pleasure”. It is the pseudo-conservatives, who protest most of all about their fear of moral “relativism”, who are promoting relativist views: “liberal” can mean anything they want it to mean; what liberals actually mean by it is irrelevant.

That is relativism; that is spin; that is poison for fair-minded public discourse. It’s a brainwashing technique. It’s a strategy meant to make people angry about the very ideas they would most benefit from, a strategy that makes sense for Tory monarchists trying to promote their goals in a democratic society, where Tory values are anathema to the revolutionary culture.

Liberal means connected to liberation, freedom, in favor of a process of expanding freedom and working against the encroaching interests of accumulated power and tyranny. The word is virtually synonymous with the foundation of the Republic, the revolutionary spirit. “Give me liberty or give me death!” and “Don’t tread on me!” were not conservative ideas. They were liberal. We are a free country, a liberal country.

But beyond the verbal distortion of the pseudo-conservative echo-chamber, there is the rank hypocrisy, the corruption, the lust for power and the open assaults on the Constitutional order. There are the ties between pseudo-conservative PACs and the worst offenders in Washington corruption in recent memory. There are cult-like organizations that front as “churches”, preach the pursuit of power as a spiritual virtue and move illicit funds to influence members of Congress. Or so the allegations read.

Does it matter that Grover Norquist’s organization was linked to not only Jack Abramoff, but to his money? That allegations of corruption were never fully investigated? Does this in any way affect the validity of the ideas being promoted by the we are moral you are degenerate crowd? No. Because there is no moral principle in what they are pushing, only an us-versus-them bait and switch, a vicious obsession with character assassination, a perverse lust for power gained in ways that erode democracy.

I don’t think we need to understand the psychology of this in order to know that it’s wrong. I don’t think we need to ask ourselves if we can forgive the wrongdoers or reconcile with them. I don’t think we need to examine whether common sense is enough to understand that bipartisan does not mean only one party’s radicals have good ideas. I think we need to own up, stand tall, and speak truth.

Hate is not acceptable. Systematic marginalization of minorities and other groups is not acceptable. The radical pseudo-conservative hatred for immigrants is not acceptable. The use of language that calls for violence against the president is not acceptable. The relentless fabrication of charges of a “liberal” quest to destroy the country is not acceptable.

That whole program is nothing but the aggressive allegiance to a politics of raw power that defends a concentrated elite and openly and deliberately attacks the people as a whole, their interests and the interests of future generations. Again, the agents of that attack take pains to say at every turn this is not what they are doing; they say the speak for the little guy, but then they speak against him.

Don’t we all already know this in our hearts? Is there anyone out there who really believes that multi-millionaire pseudo-conservative shock-jocks like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity are speaking for the little guy? They are not. They revile every government program that benefits the little guy, or the average American household; they revile spending on public education, or using government money to make sure poor children can be treated and hospitals can stay open.

They revile the notion that people working 40 to 80 hours a week at low-paying jobs, hard-working middle-class families, should not have to pay a higher percentage of their gross income in taxes than millionaires like themselves. They revile the concept of economic fairness, of true competition in the marketplace (favoring the freedom of big businesses to run roughshod over the small or local is NOT favoring a free market of competitive productive enterprises).

But we are asked to not only tolerate their relentless misuse of broadcast airtime to spread lies and innuendo, to distract Americans from the truths of the political sphere, to cause the people to mistrust the most reliable public servants, to use disinformation as a bludgeon with which to whip up a fever of public protest against the very programs that will most likely protect the freedom and prosperity of individual Americans.

“Liberal” Americans don’t need to search their souls on this question, because they know they stand for freedom from oppression and discrimination, for a society free of hate and violence, for a democratic order founded on the rule of law, and the right of every man, woman and child, to cultivate their own abilities and gain by their merit, not by handouts.

It is the pseudo-conservative political propaganda machine that seeks a perversion of those democratic ideals, that wants ordinary people to believe that 0% tax rates for multinational conglomerates is somehow “fair”, that the wealthiest paying 1/3 as much of their income, by percentage, as the average family is “balanced”, that the concentration of power in one ideologically “pure” party is preferable to the contest of ideas that allows citizens to choose their nation’s future course.

It is conservatives of all kinds who must look inward, challenge their own sense of connection to the media that seek to aggrandize them, but really degrade them and their principles, and decide: do you want to be part of something that has as its central aim the undermining of responsible civic discourse and citizen engagement, or do you want to play a productive role in shaping a future in which your children and your children’s children can live in peace and freedom, in a nation that respects their rights and in which public servants are there to serve?

After two weeks of intense and sometimes bitter negotiations, US president Barack Obama arrived in Copenhagen to marshal all his diplomatic skills in brokering the beginnings of a viable framework for global carbon emissions reductions. Late Friday, it was announced that five nations —the United States, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa— had carved out a deal that would, for the first time, bring all the world’s major economies into the same camp on efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations had failed to produce a climate pact that would establish binding international law on emissions reductions, so the five-nation deal can only be a beginning. Pres. Obama himself, addressing the press, said “This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough”, but he also heralded the agreement as “meaningful”. While the agreement contains no legally binding measures, it sets the world on a course where the leading emitters of carbon dioxide —China and the United States— agree they must take steps to reduce emissions far enough that global average temperatures will not rise more than 2ºC above pre-industrial levels.

The rest of the world now needs to support the measure, and there has been stiff opposition. Sudan, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, nearly brought the talks to collapse, during a heated negotiating session overnight, as they denounced the accord as everything from a violation of the UN’s principle of unanimity to a neo-imperialist conspiracy. The government of the Maldives, however, a nation faced with extinction beneath rising seas, urged all nations to support the accord.

China’s Communist leadership and the United States’ Republican party should both be happy with the final language, which takes into account concerns about the possible erosion of national sovereignty under enforceable emissions reductions protocols. But there is clearly some outrage at the degree to which China’s refusal to allow for international transparency or legal enforceability undermined the potential for a binding Copenhagen protocol on steep emissions reductions.

The Copenhagen Accord will allow, in the short term, for individual nations to craft entirely unique strategies for meeting unspecified emissions reduction targets. The US plans to cut emissions by 20% by the year 2020 and by 83% by the year 2050, while Russia plans a 40% increase in its energy efficiency, an effort to modernize its infrastructure and also reduce overall carbon dioxide output. China has not specified an emissions-cutting target and it is feared the world’s leading emitter of CO2 will ramp up its emissions as new coal-fired plants come online, before enacting any tough emissions cutting measures.

The accord will also set a deadline for the end of January 2010 —just over a month from now— for nations to submit voluntary emissions cutting guidelines, while an alternate text also sets an end of December 2010 deadline for nations to report back on progress made in implementing specific emissions cutting strategies. EU nations expressed concern that the accord does not include language regarding a binding global target of 50% cuts in carbon emissions by the year 2050.

National Public Radio (NPR) is now reporting:

Following an all-night session, negotiators from 193 countries reached consensus on supporting a deal brokered yesterday by President Obama and leaders from China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The five-party agreement — three pages of broad brushstrokes — was criticized by the industrialized nations of Europe and bitterly denounced by some developing nations of Africa and Asia. Still, the gathered world leaders reluctantly agreed to continue the global effort to limit the effects of human-caused carbon emissions on the world’s climate.

Key components of the core five-nation deal call for keeping temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050; creating a $100 billion per year fund by 2020 to help poor nations deal with the effects of climate change; and establishing some means of verifying if nations are doing their part to hold down carbon emissions.

Despite pointed criticisms of the deal, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said all nations agreed to the non-binding accord. The government of the Philippines spoke out in support of the deal, though it noted criticism of the deal for being too weak on concrete steps to limit overall greenhouse gas emissions. The Philippines is among the island nations seeking a binding legal framework that will force the world’s leading polluters, China, the United States, and other industrialized nations, to sharply reduce overall emissions in the near term.

Pres. Macapagal Arroyo noted in her address that “The average world per capita CO2 equivalent emission is 6 tons and must be brought down to 3 tons to stabilize at 450 ppm in 2050. The Philippines is already doing better than that. Our emissions are only 1.6 tons per capita and we are committed to further deviate from our business-as-usual growth path.” She also noted that the Philippines is officially recognized as one of the 12 most vulnerable nations facing severe impact from climate destabilization.

Big business interests have come out in fierce opposition to the proposed EPA regulation of emissions that contribute to the greenhouse effect, and the fundamental destabilization of global climate patterns. The opponents of new regulatory measures allege such regulation would unduly hamper the ability of businesses responsible for the emissions to profit from their existing business model. Supporters of heavy investment in carbon-based industries are, without any pretense otherwise, seeking a free pass on harm to human health.

The logic of the EPA’s finding that carbon and other greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health is not ideological, is not meant to unlevel the marketplace or punish innocents. It is rooted in science that the US Supreme Court has accepted as definitive proof of a direct link between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the destabilization of climate systems and the threat that destabilization poses to human health and the long-term wellbeing of society.

The position of some in industry and in the investment markets —that there should be no regulation and that the threat of economic collapse should be used to scare policy-makers (both at the EPA and in Congress) into refusing to follow the Supreme Court’s order that carbon and other greenhouse-effect-related emissions should be regulated as a threat to human health— is nothing more than a deliberate attempt to avoid taking responsibility for activities that are harmful to human health.

There are very real costs associated with the activity that produces high amounts of the affected GHG. Those costs have been met, up till now, by consumers and by society broadly —the government and other interests in the private sector who have to deal with the impact of GHGs on the climate—, while the principal emitters of GHG have not incurred any direct additional cost in association with producing the emissions that are affecting the rest of society. Regulation simply means the harmful activity must be scaled back, so that the risk of harm to society is minimized; it is not a direct tax or fine for emission.

The arguments made by these interests have come together in what is being called the “climate change skeptic” viewpoint. They appear to believe they can avoid taking responsibility for the harm caused by their actions by arguing in the mainstream press that the entire interdisciplinary field of climate research is engaged in an elaborate hoax, with the sole purpose of causing harm to their businesses. Some of these interests are now spending huge amounts of money, through front groups and “astroturf” scientific panels, to persuade legislators that climate change is not proven science.

This has been a long-running quest, over multiple decades, to smear and discredit the thousands of scientists whose work informs the global consensus on climate destabilization. The skeptics’ arguments are, however, falling short of the mark. This publication reported in June of this year that:

What no climate change skeptics seem able to do is demonstrate with scientific evidence that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by human industry is somehow of no importance. That is in part because all the scientific data relevant to that question indicates that in fact, human industry since the 18th century has emitted ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (and other ‘greenhouse effect’ inducing gases), and that the amount is now so substantial that the ecology and the climate of the entire planet are changing as a result.

The argument that regulating carbon emissions is “dangerous” because it would “bankrupt” the United States or “would inflict GDP losses of $9.4 trillion” is based on a number of inherently flawed assumptions. The most prominent is that inaction on climate destabilization is justified by the money we can make in the meantime. Evidence suggests otherwise, and the losses already being felt around the world from climate-related phenomena, including crop failures and drought, are 1) already intolerable and 2) not included in the calculations of such skeptics.

The next flawed assumption, also prominent in all such references to “GDP losses” is that GDP is an adequate measure of the wealth of a society. GDP measures only the exchange of currency for goods and services. It does not provide vital information like the actual quality of life of the average individual (which cannot be derived by dividing GDP by population) and the value of service provide by nature for which no currency is exchanged, but whose value may far exceed anything produced by human industry.

For instance: what would it cost to not only produce rainfall across the entire planet, but also direct the atmosphere to maintain basic rhythms and function on its own, without constant planning and upkeep? As it turns out, we don’t have enough GWP (gross world product) to cover the costs. What about surface temperature? Stopping the advance of deserts? Guaranteeing the biodiversity needed to derive noticeable benefit from harvesting “miracle” cures from evolving plant and animal species and their peculiar qualities?

The real shape of the climate “debate” right now is not about whether “elite” scientists accept “dissenting” views. Those alternative opinions on the founding hypotheses of climate destabilization science were discredited in the 1990s, when most of the world was not paying attention. Despite the massive amounts of hard empirical evidence produced during the 2000s, the climate skeptics are still making the same arguments, in hopes of preventing the entire international community from taking any action to prevent further harm to humanity.

Business interests insist that the “marketplace” will be harmed. This is a disingenuous argument. The marketplace does not determine whether or not GHG are dangerous. If, in fact, they are dangerous, then it is understandable that players in the marketplace who depend on producing GHG in order to make money will be concerned their revenue streams might be hampered by limiting GHG emissions. But to make the argument that caps are bad for business is to admit that the first part of the argument, whether or not GHG are harmful, has already gone against you.

And it has. The US Supreme Court, the Congress, the White House and the EPA, all already accept that the science has been proven, and the law of the land is that regulation —to protect innocent human life and the stability of civilization itself— must follow. So, what are the laws of the marketplace? Well, adapt or perish. That’s what the biggest players always like to argue: don’t regulate us, don’t force us to compete with small players, force the small players to adapt, innovate, or perish.

That GHG emitting businesses have, until now, enjoyed a fabled and privileged position, able to make massive profits with little acknowledgement of the global harm caused by the very activity they are engaged in, is prologue, and it was a privilege. That now, markets where that failure to observe the complex reality of GHG and their effects was the rule are being “corrected” by new regulatory measures simply means that businesses reliant on burning carbon-based fuels need to adapt.

If they are deserving of the immense rewards of the marketplace, the windfall revenues that come year after year with burning carbon-based fuels and emitting GHG, then they will be able to demonstrate their unique value by innovating, getting better, adapting to the new market environment. It is not the responsibility of the billions of people who may suffer serious harm from their activities to help them do business in the manner they feel is easiest. They should become competitive and learn to operate without harming humanity at large.

I think this is an interesting question. Can we expect China’s cooperation? It’s clear that China has shifted its energy policy somewhat, to take account for the potential long-term strategic economic benefit of being a major source for green energy technology, know-how and to use green energy to fill out the nation’s energy supply and possibly permit exportation of energy or fuels.

Whether that means China is on board for steep emissions cuts is another question. I think China will hedge against any effort by major industrial democracies to slow their own emissions cuts. Beijing clearly wants permission to emit more than it does now, at least for a time, and to reduce its emissions from a peak level well above current levels. Western powers may have to agree to something along those lines to win real substantive and reliable cooperation from China on emissions cuts, over time.

The question is: how long do we have, and are we politically willing or able to go for the still more severe emissions cuts we will need, to offset such a scenario?

• Follow this discussion on The Hot Spring Network

A coalition of nationally visible Republicans have chosen to abandon their own party and back a Conservative party candidate in a special election in upstate New York. The split reveals a growing tension between Republicans concerned about regaining power and those whose mission is to impose a hardline conservative agenda on the nation. These two groups are now engaged in an increasingly hostile struggle for the soul of the Republican party.

The band of conservative Republican “rogues” —which includes Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachman— has put its weight behind 3rd party challenger Doug Hoffman, citing his more conservative stance on certain issues. They reject the Republican party’s nominee Dierdre Scozzafava, saying her pro-choice position on abortion and her support for gay marriage rights make her indistinguishable from her Democratic opponent.

This is, of course, not strictly true: Scozzafava is a New York Republican, and Palin, Thompson, and Santorum —each of whom would be far from a presidential primary favorite in their own state— want to impose a radical form of what they call “conservative values” on the voters of New York. Michelle Bachman is simply notorious for her inability to deal in facts —she claimed on the floor of the House of Representatives, for instance, that Pres. Obama was planning to confine American children to concentration camps for socialist “reeducation”.

Scozzafava, however, has the backing of the Republican party, is running only four percentage points behind her Democratic rival, and is being endorsed by the likes of Newt Gingrich, hardly a dyed in the wool liberal or appeaser of Democrats. Steve Forbes, also uniquely talented at losing presidential primaries, has also come out in favor of Hoffman, citing his “small government, tax-cutting” policy preferences.

We know Forbes has a radical next-to-zero government agenda and wants to sharply reduce the tax burden in the wealthy, something really not of mainstream appeal in these times of radical financial malfeasance and economic hardship. And Dick Armey, well, he could be blamed for thinking Texas and New York are or should ever be similar electoral ground. Are New Yorkers supposed to take their cues from a Texan hardliner?

The Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, is a lawyer in Plattsburgh and a retired Air Force captain. A recent poll showed him garnering 33% of voters’ support, while Scozzafava is at 29% and Conservative party candidate Hoffman trails at 23%. John McHugh, the Congressman whose seat was left vacant when he became secretary of the Army, is a Republican, which explains why the combined support for Scozzafava and Hoffman outstrips that enjoyed by Owens, but the result of the party split might be that a Democrat takes the seat.

This appears to be of little concern to the coalition of hardline self-described “conservatives”, who claim their support for Hoffman is a matter of principle and of core “Republican values”. The Republican party, apparently, is not fit to assess or to support its own core values, and the Palin-Bachman-Santorum wing of the party is apparently convinced the party cannot be trusted anymore to represent their brand of conservatism.

This heralds the most visible electoral split to date in the Republican party, hampered by years of failing fortunes, the perception of widespread corruption among the leadership, indifference to the plight of average Americans, and confusion over whether to be more moderate to recapture the political center held by Obama and the Democrats or more conservative, in an effort to show they can be more conservative.

Political watchers have for years speculated that a split between more conservative and more moderate Republicans was in the offing, and raised questions about whether such a split could hasten the demise of a party whose ideas are out of step with the problems of this historical moment. For instance: could the conservative “values-based” wing of the party splinter off to form an expanded Conservative party or a “Christian Republican” bloc?

Could the moderates co-opt some Democratic issues in an effort to be the new Republicans, as Clinton led the new Democrats and Tony Blair new Labour in the UK? More importantly, will the splintering of one of the two major parties open the terrain for the rise of a third party? Obviously, the Palin-Bachman-Santorum gang wants to see a strengthened Conservative party, possibly a new home for their own questionable political futures, but what about a third party with broader appeal on economic issues?

This publication recently surveyed the problem in a lengthy piece analyzing both the Republican party’s problem with increasingly intolerant rhetoric, in some cases bordering on language of incitement to violence, and a split in priorities and principles which could lead to the rise of a third party, perhaps a Green-Libertarian coalition.

The Green-Lib coalition, writes J.E. Robertson, would emerge to fill the center-left gap left open if the Democratic party really establishes itself as the party of the center, because the Democratic party is the party defending the system it has built, in essence a kind of conservative option among mainstream parties. The Republican party appears headed for the far right fringe, as moderates find it increasingly difficult to win national support or local primaries.

With Owens leading in the upstate New York polling, the Republican split could mean the Democrats pick up yet another seat, expanding their massive majority in the House by one more vote. While the rogues are treating the New York special election as if it were the moment to make a stand on “core values”, they are also treating it like a throw-away election, assuming a loss will not hurt the party.

But if the loss comes because Hoffman spoils the race for Scozzafava, and the establishment Republicans see the rogues’ interference as an affront to the party and an assault on their political agenda, there will be a backlash. Campaign aides to Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid have already said a Palin presidential bid would be “catastrophic” and an electoral “disaster” for the party, a sign of long-term decline.

This aggressive attack on the party’s electoral chances in a district it would be expected to retake will give fodder to critics inside and outside the Republican party who say extreme conservatives cannot be trusted to represent the party nationally or to help in the practical work of winning elections and/or governing. Conservatism as painted by Palin, Bachman and Santorum will be seen as just another ideological hard-core, unfit for the demands of effective public service, and the party will see its moderate/hardliner rift widened.

We are watching the national media backslide into the irresponsible primordial ooze of the “culture wars”, where the false caricatures of “family values conservatives” and ”promiscuous progressives” (read ‘progressive’ into sexuality, social policy and spending) are pitted against each other in a nostalgic bid to recapture the oversimplified false stereotypes of the 1960s hotbed moment.

Much of this obsession with false exaggerations, which paints all Americans as one or another monolithic stereotype, persists because it is convenient for the less imaginative elements of the conservative movement, which wants to paint all opposition to its ideas as inherently irresponsible. But we have to start to be honest about what it means to be conservative, and rightly recognize when that term is used as a euphemism for narrow-mindedness.

I am a behaviorally conservative, deeply principled liberal. I don’t sleep around, not because I couldn’t, but because I like to feel close to people I’m intimate with, and that takes time. I don’t do drugs, not because I think it’s an anti-Christian sin, but because I feel it’s just a little too reckless and maybe selfish as well, and I don’t want to be that. It’s my choice.

But I am avowedly liberal: I want government to protect the defenseless and keep big business at bay; I think war is a last resort. And a bad option at that. I think we have to be as serious about finding ways to make peace even when we recognize that the use of force is necessary to put a stop to a radically unjust situation.

I don’t believe in “socialism”, in that I don’t think every problem is best solved by uniform national government intervention or transfer-of-wealth spending. I like to think I can take care of myself. But I am too well-informed and too serious about social justice to think that such solutions have no place in making a democratic society more democratic.

If you want to know what it sounds like to hear a level-headed person who thinks in 21st-century terms of social justice and responsibility, you can call me, or any number of my friends. I happen to know and trust a wonderful circle of people who are committed to knowing what happens in the world, to thinking seriously about how to fix intractable problems, and make sure their nation is “on the right side of history”, the side that fosters wellbeing and serves humanity.

What seems to be desperately lacking in the pseudo-debate about “culture wars” is any serious discussion of what effect any specific policy positions —what sometimes amount to naked and even baseless opinions— will have on the lived experience of human beings already suffering and in need. The media need to move away from such distracted reporting and focus on those issues that actually determine whether human needs and the expectations of basic freedoms are met.

The conservative movement has long sought to paint the “liberal” as “anti-American”, disparaging of our system of government and of our influence abroad, but I vehemently contest this critique as baseless. Liberals want more democracy, not less; we want American ideals to be not only respected but realized; we want American influence abroad to help improve the human condition globally.

The history of American advancement of social justice, equal rights, democratic process and the rule of law, is a history of principled liberal progress, putting aside the tired arguments of “traditional” inadequacy in terms of human interest and social justice, and forging a path toward a better future in which human beings generally live better lives and enjoy more freedom.

So what is driving the “conservative” movement’s obsession with painting all rivals as anti-American, socialist, sexually promiscuous and friends to dangerous criminals? I think it’s partly genuine ignorance about the real nature of the liberal American’s social conscience, and partly a desperate attempt to cover up what are really entrenched and outdated “preferences” that run against the grain of social progress and democratic fairness.

Conservatism is not an ideology; it does not have specific policy goals; it is not pro-American or anti-American. Conservatism is just an attitude: one is conservative when one prefers to work within the system, to build coalitions and to achieve consensus, to not take great leaps without significant support from the governed, or when one prefers to lead a life that is not defined by naked ambition or by a lust for the spotlight.

That doesn’t mean liberals want something reckless  or outlandish or imposed from the top down. Not at all. It just means that liberals and traditionalists can be conservative in character, without agreeing on specific policy goals. It also means that hippies can be “conservative” people and Republicans can be liberal Republicans.

And the current leadership of the Republican party seems to not understand this in the least. They have freed themselves of the binding virtues of a conservative demeanor —not nakedly ambitious, preferring incremental change with widespread support, working within the system— and adopting a posture of astonishingly persistent hubris: defaming the elected leadership of government, openly lying about Democratic policies, seeking massive radical changes to the structure of government, with or without the consent of the governed.

The result is we spend more time arguing about who said what or whether it’s fair or unfair than we do assessing the genuine facts of policy proposals or what the evidence —real, existing, scientifically acquired evidence— suggests the effects of such policies would be for the lived condition of real human beings across our society or beyond.

I am a behaviorally conservative, deeply principled liberal, who wants significant change in order to foster social justice in our society, and the lies conservatives tell about me and people like me are unconscionable and unfair. Those lies, and the “culture war” agenda, are distorting our media environment and robbing us of the right to have a genuine democratic process of debate, reform and humane, rational problem solving.