Why does the right and much of the Republican party embrace progressive and/or revolutionary movements (in what is admittedly superficial and cynical ways) around the world so long as they are not US based.
Put another way, what explains the party's embrace of a particularly virulent form of fundamentalism in the "homeland" while it cheerleads anti-fundamentalist movements everywhere else?
Follow me over the fold for a quick discussion on how republicans/conservatives are steering their party full speed ahead towards yet another shoal of hypocrisy ...
Founded in 1854 as the party of free labor, free land, and free men Republicanism from its earliest days has consistently embodied a deep strain of religious fundamentalism in its DNA.
Whether it was righteous fervor of fiery gun toting abolitionists like John Brown or the anti-drinking activists of the temperance movement the party has embraced, at times easily at other times uncomfortably, religious fundamentalism alongside its support for business and (generally) smaller government.
Clearly, Republican support for overseas progressive reform movements (i.e. witness Iran) lies mostly in the fact that the fundamentalist regimes in question are Islamic, and that if and when a Christian fundamentalist regime (e.g. Franco's Spain from 1930's - 1970's) were to be challenged by a home grown reform movement the party and movement conservatives would embrace the regressive regime and label the reformers violent revolutionaries.
The modern Republican Party, so closely tied to the Christian Right over past 3 decades, has yet to be challenged in any substantive way by the MSM about the hypocrisy of catering to fundamentalism at home while challenging it at every turn overseas.
In this hypocrisy I see a political opportunity for progressives in the US.
The progressive blogosphere needs to frame the Iranian reform movement as a universal struggle against extremism and the religious fundamentalists who would deny full franchise for women and turn back the clock on the full range of progressive (post-enlightenment) freedoms.
Pointing this out early and often will help to clearly delineate the parties, and help us to call out regressive policies and actions by fundamentalist forces in the "homeland" and well as in Iran and theocratic regimes worldwide.