The other day I was having a cup of coffee at a nearby Culvers Restaurant that happens to be located directly across the street from the headquarters of the John Birch Society. Looking at the modern facade, I was reminded of Claires book, Wrapped in the Flag in which she recounts her experiences as the daughter of a Bircher leader. The John Birch Society was the home of some of the most insane, most troubled, most paranoid right wingers in the country. They claimed just about everyone, including President Eisenhower and JK were communists. They hated Jews, Blacks and Unions. Not surprisingly Fred Koch (father to the Koch Bros) was a founding member. But what is compelling is that from Claires book you can easily derive that the JB Society is the forerunner of todays Tea Party . The same conspiratorial rhetoric and inflammatory radicalism, the same intense hatreds, and the same desire to destroy democracy and replace it with their brand of Americanism. Those rabid fascists who deluded themselves into thinking they were patriots duty bound to rescue the country by taking it back -- who saw conspiracy everywhere and asserted that at the root of all our problems were the Liberals, the Democrats, the Blacks, the Jews, the immigrants, we thought, had gone down in disgrace as had McCarthy or had been reduced to that group we called the lunatic fringe. Yesterday they wanted JFK arrested and tried for treason; today they want President Obama drummed out of office. The crazier their claims and paranoia ,and the bigger the lie - the greater the traction they get. Where once they claimed the government was conspiring to kill everyone by putting fluoride in the water so that the Democrats and Liberals could turn the country over to the Russians, they now assert Obama is trying to turn the country over to the Muslims or the Jews (depending on which of the crazies is on Fox) and using Ebola to do it. It just did not seem possible that this lunatic fringe would re-emerge or be taken seriously. But emerge they did, funded by the billions inherited by the Koch Bros and the millions donated by Christian conservatives. The Republican party bears no resemblance to the part of Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon, or Reagan. Today these men would be drummed out of the party, called unpatriotic or worse. The men of reason, the men who believed in a democratic America, the men and women who were conservative in their leanings but sane, have been forced out or into silence. The Republican Party of 2014 is the Nazi Party wrapped in the Flag and wears a cross instead of a swastika armband. The America they envision is not limited government but an eviscerated government. In the America of the Right, corporations can pollute and kill both the national environment and the nations people, with impunity. No agencies to protect the population , or to regulate them from destroying in the name of profit. The Republican vision is to decide who are real Americans and real Christians, and to disenfranchise every one else. The poor, union members, the elderly, the needy, the unemployed are their undesirables; they are what the Jews, Tradesmen, Gypsies, and sub humans were for the Nazis. Republican voters, like their post Weimar Germany counterparts, did not speak out with the enactment of the Nuremburg laws and neither have most Republicans at the enactment of laws designed to prevent fellow Americans from exercising their right to vote. Loyalty Oaths, laws against intermarriage, laws against gays, mass arrests, charges of sedition, treason or the outright disappearance of prominent citizens will become a reality. As will the end of all social programs not sanctioned as Christian. Social Security, Medical Assistance, Unemployment Insurance, Food Stamps --any and all social programs will be replaced by programs sanctioned by Churches. Tithing for these services will be mandatory under expanded faith initiatives. Federal funding to universities will end except to those Church Affiliated schools that conform to the most extreme fundamentalist doctrines. Catholic Universities will languish, as will all secular institutions of higher learning. History will be re-written and many books will be banned. Curriculums, especially science courses will be replaced by the pseudo-science of Creationists. The Middle Class will disappear as the regressive try to force us back to a society of haves and have- nots. The CDC, the FDA, the EPA, and the FAA will be privatized, leaving public safety, and regulation of the companies that disregard both for profit. For this new America, entertainment and culture is what the well healed sponsors say it is. News and information too will be censored; the internet monitored , and Values redefined to mean theocratic dogma. From Boardroom to Bedroom, they will fashion a nation where the emblem of irresponsibility Goldwater fought against, will fly. The same tactics, the same lies and rhetoric that put a small maniacal group into control of the Reichstag, now threatens to take control not of just one House of Congress but both, as well as the Supreme Court. After creating the worst economic disaster since the Depression they undermined every effort to put the nation back on its feet. They hate the man who stopped the country from going over a cliff; they hate and want to destroy the man who thwarted their plans to create and sustain the anxiety, misery, and uncertainty that comes with a Recession. Their chance to blame government, to destroy it so that their Corporations would be the only thing left standing died in 2012, but not their agenda. They will use anyone and anything: religion, health crises, economic crises, national security; anything issue or event they can politicize to capitalize, to fund raise, and to distract.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 15:25:53 +0000
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