My good friend Dylan Hales at The Left Conservative has a great article called “Left Turn Ahead” in the new issue of The American Conservative that is now available online.
Dylan’s look at Leftist intellectuals William Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko is something I wish many of my progressive friends would read, particularly the goofball liberals (no offense Charleston City Paper ) who bizarrely endorsed, supported or voted for neocon warmonger Lindsey Graham during the election – a head-scratching act of misplaced faith for any Leftist, that is every bit as bad as voting for John McCain or George W. Bush.
Like the war in Iraq? Want war with Iran, Russia and Pakistan? Love the Patriot Act, the FISA bill, Real ID and other civil liberties infringements? Like torture and Gitmo? Like gutting America’s industrial base though NAFTA and CAFTA? Progressives vote Graham! At least he likes racial minorities who shouldn’t be in the country!
While I’m unlikely to win the battle above, Dylan takes the case against American imperialism posed by Leftists to a traditionalist Right-wing audience who may be open to the idea. Writes Hales:
“Conservatives have long taken for granted their place on the right of the political spectrum. But as the organized Right, in the form of the Republican Party, has hitched its wagon to big business and big government in the decades since World War II, some unconventional voices on the American Left have spoken up for the traditionally conservative causes of decentralism, prudent government, and foreign-policy restraint. This “left conservatism” owes its name to Norman Mailer, but it has deep roots in American history. And now that so much of the official Right has been co-opted by advocates of a materialistic consumer culture—to be maintained by a military empire—the time may be ripe for conservatives to look in a new direction.
They might begin by turning to William Appleman Williams and Gabriel Kolko. Williams, the pre-eminent historian of American diplomacy, served as ideological godfather to the New Left of the 1960s and ’70s while teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kolko, who was influenced by Williams, has long been an incisive critic of the Progressive Era and its relationship to the American empire. Both men spent their entire careers on the Left, yet their arguments more often parallel the small-town conservatism of the Old Right than the corporate ideology of conventional liberalism.”
One Comment
Jack:
The worst part of this problem is trying to convince “team sports” type conservatives who vote Republican because that’s the “team” they’ve picked.
Forget principles–it’s all about “rah-rah!” and “go, team, go!” Such truly “mind-numbed” robots and team fanatics will vote for Satan himself (or liberal McCain or liberal & traitor, Lindsey Graham) if he wins the party nomination. They’ll ignore all detractors and naysayers and blindly pull that straight ticket lever.
These are the same people who, if you ask them, will tell you:
1. We shouldn’t be policing the world like a mercenary army at the pay of the corporations.
2. We should be putting our troops on OUR OWN borders and protect them.
3. Instead of getting caught up in the false dilemmas of “how much?” we shouldn’t be bailing out corporations AT ALL based on the fact that such actions are clearly fascist in the traditions of Mussolini and Hitler (who also used a depression to take away citizens’ liberties).
Such an explosive acceleration of corporate welfare as this bailout will only serve to entrench politicians even deeper in D.C. with PAC money donations and other corruption.
There is a cognitive dissonance going on here with conservatives supporting anybody and everybody in the Republican Party regardless of the candidates’ records and politics. This HAS to be rectified in order for us to fix our country.
True Constitutionalism, which, if implemented would cure most of our ills, has massive appeal, if promoted effectively, to both so-called “liberals” and conservatives.
If, for example, we were to enforce the 9th and 10th Amendments as well as requiring Congress to declare war (not done since WWII) the states could take care of the social needs of their own citizens to the best of their abilities and we would not be engaging in wars based on the whims and manipulations of one man.
IMAGINE CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT!