Can Anyone Identify Republican values?
By
Jeanie Warner
Can
anyone actually identify Republican values/beliefs? The Republican
Party has "flip-flopped" on every one I can think of.
For example:
First I hear
that they are pro-life, yet they worship Arnold Swartzenegger and
Colin Powell, who are both pro-choice. And how are being pro death
penalty and pro war being pro-life?
"Family
values" is a buzzword with most right-wingers. Yet they dont
seem to support any of the issues that actually help families, like
equal education for all children, good job creation, universal health
care that families can rely upon or affirmative action programs
to help out kids who come from poor families. What do they want
to do for the children from poor families? They want to cut spending
on head start and after school programs. And where is the funding
for day care centers so that single mothers can afford to work?
They say they
are for cleaner air, but work to cut pollution control standards.
They say they care about the environment, but dont support
the worlds concern about global warming. They say they want
to preserve Americas heritage, but promote oil drilling in
our last pristine wilderness. They would permit logging in old growth
forests without environmental considerations. Where are the Republican
programs encouraging solar, wind or co-generation subsidies to help
America wean itself away from the oil addiction?
They say they
are for less government, yet the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton
was the smallest government in years and the size of the government
has exploded under George Bush.
They preach
fiscal responsibility yet it was a Democratic president (Clinton)
that balanced the budget and left the country with a surplus. Bush
has run the country on borrowed money leaving a record-breaking
national debt, which will be passed on to our kids and grandkids.
And how responsible is it to give huge tax cuts to the rich while
the debts are piling up?
Republicans
feel that campaign ads/contributions are a form of "free speech"
yet when the Dixie Chicks, Linda Ronstadt or anyone from Hollywood
comes out against Bush they are "unpatriotic" and should
keep their mouths shut. College professors, reporters or government
employees who speak out are in danger of losing their jobs.
This list could
go on and on but you get my point. I'm trying to understand them
but they just make it so hard...
The very meaning
of Republican has undergone a major change. When neo-conservatives
(imperialists at any cost) made a contract with right-wing religious
fanatics to take over the Grand Old Party, people who formerly were
fiscally conservative, laissez faire about foreign intervention
absent an attack and socially hands-off suddenly became big-deficit
military imperialists who believed American citizens should shut
up and let them handle it.
I almost feel
sorry for genuine conservative Republicans (if there are any left),
must see the present administration of neo-cons and religious fanatics
as dangerous to our country and to the rest of the world.
Though I don't
agree with their politics, I cannot fault a true conservative. The
Neo-Con, Radical Rightist, however, may claim to stand for limited
government, but, in truth, he just wants less of the government
that doesn't serve HIS needs (and wallet), especially regulatory
agencies that protect the environment, food, savings and health
of the People.
So how do you
convince the vast majority of people in this country, who are "middle
of the road" politically, that the Democratic Party is really
the fiscally responsible party that has a proven track record of
reducing the size of the government, improving the economy and making
American lives better?
A traditional
conservative Republican should, by all rights, have liked the way
Bill Clinton worked. Instead, people who call themselves Republicans
loathed him. A whole cottage industry of Clinton Haters
rose up in the 90s with magazines, books and radio talk
shows to deride him and his family daily, concentrating the publics
attention on the human frailties of the President, instead of his
policies of fiscal responsibility and building an economy that was
good for American families.
Thomas Frank,
author of Whats the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives
Won the Heart of America,writes, "This rightward movement
has largely been accomplished by working class voters whose lives
have been materially worsened by the conservative policies they
have supported." "Paradoxes abound," says Frank,
"on nearly any Main Street in middle America we see 'going
out of business' signs side by side with placards supporting George
W. Bush."
"Even
when they (the extreme rightists) lose they win," Frank argues,
as with the recent failure of the senate to pass the Federal Marriage
Amendment, "Failure on the cultural front serves to magnify
the outrage felt by conservative true believers," he observes.
"It mobilizes the base. Failure sharpens the distinctions between
conservatives and liberals. Failure allows for endless grandstanding
without any real-world consequences that might upset more moderate
Republicans or the party's all-important corporate wing. You might
even say that grand and garish defeat especially if accompanied
by the ridicule of the sophisticated is the culture warrior's
very object."
I should save
myself a headache. Ill probably never figure them out.
What I have
come up with so far is that there may be no REAL conservative Republicans
anymore. The GOP seems to have been taken over by fascist corporatists.
They appear have four issues: no more taxes for the rich, no more
regulation for businesses, getting rid of all those programs that
help the lazy poor and seeing how much of the world
they can control for power and profit.
Everything
else looks like window-dressing; distractions for the unwashed masses
that dont bother to compare the right wings words with
their deeds.
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