A U.S. political party by John Kusumi
(centrist)
Friday, November 5, 2010
The Republican party in the U.S. exists in three incarnations concurrently.
First is the Republican party of rhetoric. They have a story line that was well articulated by Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, and later by Ronald Reagan, who won the White House in 1980.
The rhetoric is meaningless. They say what they say, and that covers a lot of issues, but the rhetoric is a cover story. Read on.
Second is the Republican party as it existed prior, and apart from, neo-conservatives. Neo-conservatives are professional trouble-makers, who came to the fore under Ronald Reagan. They didn't run the whole Reagan administration -- they were assigned specifically to run U.S. policy in Central America.
With that introduction, the third incarnation of the Republican party is that which includes neo-conservatives.
Central America was the source of most of Ronald Reagan's controversies, which means that the neo-conservatives were indeed on the job as professional trouble-makers. In El Salvador, they bombed 250,000 peasants into oblivion, and in Nicaragua, they ran an illegal war against that government. Famously, they had the Iran-Contra scandal.
The Republican party with and without neo-conservatives is basically the Republican party with and without trouble.
Let's think about Republicans on a good day, when they are not in trouble. That's the second incarnation, or what Americans used to think of as normal.
While the Republicans may have an honorable history that was given to it by Abe Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Barry Goldwater, all of that has passed into legend and lore.
In normal, contemporary American politics, the Republicans are a thinly-veiled, poorly disguised single-issue party. At daybreak, mid-day, and at the end of day, Republicans want tax cuts, tax cuts, and tax cuts, respectively.
That's all they're about. The tax cuts are what they're after, and the rest can be seen through as bluster and hot air. They want their tax cuts, damn it, and to knock off the other party is the necessary means to their necessary end.
Republicans have been known to deride Democrats as "tax and spend" liberals, but when in office, the Republicans are "borrow and spend" conservatives. All that borrowing is why America has large federal budget deficits, and a huge national debt. The deficits and the debt exist largely because Republicans put them there.
The third incarnation of the Republican party is when they are conflated with neo-conservatives. In the 1980s, the scandals of neo-conservatives were limited to the realm of U.S. policy in Central America. But, in the 2000s, neo-conservatives had effectively taken over the Republican party, and they were the entire Bush administration.
Hence, trouble in Central America seems quaint, because trouble came to New York, and to the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania, and Afghanistan, and Iraq, and to New Orleans, and to the U.S. economy.
Well, trouble is to be expected when a powerful faction is, as noted above, professional trouble-makers.
When Republicans are in their "normal" incarnation, they want tax cuts. When Republicans are in their "neo" incarnation, then they are no longer single-issue. As neo-Republicans, they also want to run a huge war machine, with active wars that vastly inflate the profits of their security-contractor buddies. The active wars make foreigners fear American empire, and make trouble for the "enemies" of Israel.
Neo-conservatives must be thought of as neo-Americans. Beginning with the United Nations charter, every tenet of international law has been disregarded by this faction, as they have proceeded to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity that are explicitly illegal by laws both domestic and foreign. Neo-conservatives tend to be, or to protect, war criminals. Many belong at the Hague, or otherwise answering to bodies such as the International Criminal Court.
Ultimately, the neo-conservative faction in the United States needs to become as discredited as the Nazi party is in Germany. Under neo-conservatives, America has become an ugly distortion of itself. We should not afford the time, and we cannot afford the treasure, to continue funding their lawless romp through the halls of power.
They very prefix "neo" should be a tip off that warns us: Here comes an excuse for a bastardization. The prefix "neo" heralds the arrival of a salesman, who would like to offer us a "new and improved" formulation. New wine in an old bottle. The Republican party got hijacked.
Republicans always offer tax cuts, and they sometimes offer trouble of the most deadly variety -- that should be prosecuted. Neo-Republicans are dangerous, but they will always smile if you talk about tax cuts.
And the Tea Partiers? They will end up as a separate party of their own.. With the possible exception of lip service, I don't see establishment Republicans at all likely to go changing to accomodate and embrace the true goals of the Tea Party movement.
And that's all you need to know about the Republican party.
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The views expressed
in this article are those of John Kusumi only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
John Kusumi is solely responsible for the contents
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