With less than a month until the midterm elections, as my mailbox overflows with political propaganda, I feel the need for a rant. My thoughts these days are all over the place, and coherence is an unattainable goal, so I apologize for any rambling. There's no news here, and nothing most of you haven't already said, but if I didn't put some of this down in writing my brain might explode. Don't yell at me too much.
The fliers I've received in the mail from the NRCC attacking my Representative, Melissa Bean, have pissed me off. On every piece of mail, in big bold letters, the word LIBERAL precedes her name. For a moment, forget about the nonsense in the fliers. The accusations are misleading and untrue (and I'm not a huge Melissa Bean fan, so don't think I'm defending her simply because she's a Democrat). Focus instead on the attempts at demonizing her for being a LIBERAL.
There's more!!! Be afraid.
First, Melissa Bean is one of the more conservative Democrats in the House, which makes sense given she won a congressional district that had voted Republican the past 40 years. To call her 'too liberal for Illinois', a solidly blue state, is laughable. But what makes me angry is the use of the word liberal as a derogatory phrase in an attempt to vilify those who believe in equality of opportunity, who believe the federal government has an obligation to help foster equality of opportunity, and who believe in personal freedom (all three of which the modern conservative agenda attempts to limit).
The demonization of the word liberal testifies to the power of the conservative propaganda machine, but it also testifies to the conservative movement's blatant mockery of voter intelligence. Unfortunately, the Republican Party knows what it's doing, because many voters actually believe the nonsense. That's what makes the conservative movement so dangerous. Conservatives leaders of the Republican Party are experts at manipulating public opinion. They apparently can't govern well, but they have an uncanny ability to either convince people the facts are wrong or to hide the facts altogether, and while doing so they manage to vilify those who disagree with them, in this case liberals.
Perhaps that's why I seldom refer to myself as liberal. I do it from time to time to demonstrate my disdain for anyone who uses the term in a negative way (including some of my conservative friends), but more often I'll use the better term: Progressive...
Progress, by definition, is the antithesis of conservativism. Progress breaks down barriers. Progress looks beyond the status quo. Progress overcomes prejudices and seeks to better the lives of everyone. Conservativism, in its attempts to preserve the inequalities of the past and revisit social values long since abandoned, is in itself REGRESSIVE. And no matter how hard they try to spin it, the word 'Progressive' cannot be stigmatized in the same way 'Liberal' can, which makes it an even better tool to use against the conservative propaganda machine.
Thankfully, it would seem, the term we use to describe ourselves may not be important much longer. The conservative movement may be in the process of self destruction. And that self destruction is nothing more than the public's newfound understanding of conservativism's failures.
There's a reason the modern conservative movement is undergoing a significant shift toward authoritarianism (if you don't think it's happening, read John Dean's book, Conservatives Without Conscience, or Kevin Phillip's book, American Theocracy). Conservative policies do not benefit the vast majority of American citizens. Their policies benefit wealthy individuals and large corporations, and George W. Bush's failed presidency has made this quite apparent. Wages are stagnant. The income gap has widened to catastrophic levels. Poverty is on the rise. National debt has skyrocketed under an administration and a Congress who care nothing for fiscal responsibility. And the housing market is on the verge of implosion. Economists sometimes applaud the strength of the U.S. economy, but they also admit it's doing nothing to benefit citizens in the middle-to-bottom rungs of the economic ladder, whereas large corporations continue to receive enormous tax breaks and earn record profits. The public is learning, or should be learning, that the tyranny of unregulated Big Business is every bit as dangerous as the tyranny of totalitarianism, and the delusion that free markets will solve the world's economic problems is exactly that: a delusion, fabulous in theory, but infinitely more beneficial to the world's wealthiest individuals than to the ordinary laborers who make it possible.
The conservative agenda, with its disdain for social safety programs, equal opportunity, and public education, with its increased interest in invasive personal rights violations, has offered the general public a front row seat to witness the failure of conservative government in all its glory. The only way conservatives can counter the public's increasing perception of these failures is to strengthen the power of the executive to a point where the President is capable of ignoring public opinion and blatantly defying the media. They've succeeded in building a non-independent voting block in Congress that will enact any of the executive's whims, regardless of how anti-American or unconstitutional they might be. By definition, this is a shift to authoritarianism, and we would call it authoritarianism if we saw it in other countries. This being America doesn't change the definition, it simply implies you're an extremist nut for making the accusation (yet another victory for the conservative machine).
Thankfully, the public seems to be waking up to these attempts to undermine our system of government. They see the lies as lies. They understand that propaganda is propaganda. They realize in the past twelve years the conservatives controlling this country have done nothing for the average citizen except make his or her life more difficult while overtly championing an authoritarian streak of excessive nationalism with their attempts to pass Pledge Acts and Flag Burning amendments (not to mention their dangerous work on behalf of religion). Obviously, the agenda is to pander to America's patriotism and use such pandering as a shroud to disguise the detriment caused by their ultimate goals).
And yet the conservatives in power, instead of recognizing their failures and responding honestly to public perceptions, instead of admitting their goals without hiding behind barrels of unsubstantial fiction, seek to vilify all those people who understand their motivations, all those who fight for equal opportunity, for social security and welfare programs, for peace, for the separation of religion and government, for a strong defense that doesn't include illegal, unilateral war, for constitutional checks and balances, for the rights of a woman to make decisions regarding her own body, for the value of science over religion, and for improvement in the lives of all Americans and all people worldwide.
That makes me angry, and I'm tired of watching it. With hard work and a bit of luck, the conservative agenda will begin its rapid decline this November. If not, America is truly in danger. I'd say we ought to work hard to tie negative connotations to the word CONSERVATIVE, but it would seem the conservative movement is doing that itself. I guess we should at least thank them for doing our dirty work. Then again, dirty work is all they're good at. How else can people promoting such a devestating agenda attain and maintain power?
That's all for now. I don't care if it makes sense. I don't care if I offend anyone. I don't care if I'm wrong. I'm angry, and I'm tired of seeing all the lies and hate from those who earn political points for their so-called Values.
The end. Thanks for giving me a forum in which to vent and a forum in which to learn. I love this place. Now smile, and enjoy this fine autumn day. :)