Rockefeller Republicans
Is the Republican establishment losing it?
Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s?
Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of Tea Party Princess Christine O'Donnell, the answer is no.
This party is not ready to rule.
Consider. In its grand strategy to recapture a Senate that George W. Bush and Rove lost in 2006, the GOP Senate leadership endorsed all its own caucus members for re-election, if they chose to run, then picked out all its favorite candidates for the open and Democratic seats.
Conservatives and tea party activists, however, had other ideas. They began to pick their own candidates. And, again and again, the Senate's chosen were rejected in favor of tea party challengers who had the endorsement of Sarah Palin or South Carolina's Jim DeMint.
Arlen Specter was rejected by the Pennsylvania GOP and left the party. Rand Paul routed Sen. Mitch McConnell's man in Kentucky. Charlie Crist was challenged by Marco Rubio in Florida. Crist, too, departed. Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination in Utah. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to a little-known fellow named Joe Miller.
But Delaware was the stunner. Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor who had been winning elections for 40 years, was a certain victor in November.
Challenger O'Donnell, however, ended all that.
Yet, though her conservative credentials are far superior to those of Castle, O'Donnell was made the object of a wilding attack by National Review and The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, who lashed out at Palin and DeMint for "irresponsbility," and Rove, who on Sean Hannity's show went postal as soon as the returns came in.
Now, on paper, O'Donnell is a far tougher sell in Delaware than is Castle. But her defeat is not certain. Not in this volatile year.
And what is the justification for the savagery of the attacks on her, from her own?
What has this woman done? Did she vote for Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court like Lindsey Graham? Did she support the Obama stimulus like Olympia Snow and Susan Collins? What did she do to deserve the trashing?
The answer is not distant.
To the Republican establishment, tea party people are field hands. Their labors are to be recognized and rewarded, but they are to stay off the porch and not presume to sit at the master's table.
And what O'Donnell did, with her amazing victory, is to imperil that establishment's return to power. That is why these Republicans went ballistic.
O'Donnell's conservative convictions and Castle's social liberalism mean nothing to them.
They are about power and all that goes with it.
And that raises a question too long put off.
What is the Republican establishment going to do, what are the neoconservatives going to do, if returned to power?
Are not these the same people who assisted George W. Bush in stampeding the nation into an unnecessary war that got 4,400 Americans killed to strip Saddam Hussein of weapons he did not have?
Are these not the same people who misled or deceived us about Iraq's role in 9/11?
Are these Republican scribes and senators not the same folks who went all-out for NAFTA and GATT and the WTO and MFN and PNTR for China, those brilliant trade deals that gave us $5 trillion in trade deficits, wiped out 6 million manufacturing jobs and 50,000 factories in one decade, and put us into permanent debt to China?
Are these not some of the same folks who backed the Bush-McCain amnesty and did nothing for 20 years, as millions of illegals invaded America? Now that all America is on fire, they too want to "build the dang fence."
Are not the National Review and Weekly Standard scribblers and their neocon comrades of the mainstream media not now drumming up another war for Americans to fight, against Iran?
Are these not the same folks who went along with No Child Left Behind and the biggest run-up in social spending since Great Society days?
Beltway Republicans say they have learned their lesson. But the tea party folks and conservatives who vaulted O'Donnell to victory are saying: You had your chance. Now, move aside for new leaders.
Why is the tea party wrong—and the establishment right?
The first tea party rebellion was the Barry Goldwater movement. When it triumphed at the Cow Palace, Nelson Rockefeller denounced the movement as riddled with radicals, baited the Goldwater people at the convention and refused to endorse the nominee.
A decade later, Vice President Rockefeller got his payback, when conservatives demanded that President Ford drop him off the ticket as the price of renomination. Ford agreed.
In its contemptuous response to O'Donnell's victory, the GOP establishment of today looked like nothing so much as the Rockefeller Republican establishment of yesteryear. Its time is coming, too.
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This particular hewer of wood and drawer of water is not voting for any more liberals regardless of their overt party affiliation.
It's a shame that the Tea Party is not reviving that wonderful tradition of conservative Southern Democrats -- the boll weevil. Sam Francis, of blessed memory, thought that many on the left would unite with conservatives on issues like rampant development, and the tolerance of importing foreign criminals, who fulfill such important jobs as pushing dope, credit card fraud, selling sandwiches and driving taxicabs.
"To the Republican establishment, tea party people are field hands."
Pat,
Useful idiots is probably more accurate as to what they really think of them. But evidently these idiot, field hands have been listening to too much Country and Western music and have taken a liking to those lyrics, "Take this job and shove it,I ain't working here no more." You can't blame them of course, but then again, as you well know the establishment has two ways of dealing with these folks. One is the easy way, or as Tom Fleming put it, the understanding that "in politics an honest man is simply a neophyte too valueless to command a good price." The other is the hard way: Bring in some extra muscle, move in the big money, and let the calumny and character assasinations begin!!
As Bob Dole said in the smoke-filled backroom while you were on stage in New Hampshire,(telling your Brigades to not await orders from HQ, but ride hard and fast to the sound of the guns) "it looks like we will need to do it the hard way now!" And of course they spared nothing in getting Mr. Dole all the viagra his campaign needed on its wait to the GOP Chicken Ranch.
Borrowing from Richard Brautigan, "Palin drives on deep into Egypt."
It is fun to watch the boys like Tokyo Rove and Krautahmmer implode on TV. All over the conservative blogesphere people are finally seeing these people, in their true colors. Having all the hacks like Castle, Bennet, Crist, Spector, Gregg, Voinovich, and Murkowski go down in flames is very refreshing for me. The old guard really thought we would send them back to continue what they were doing during the last 20 years with the Bush's, Dole, and McCain. Whatever is coming, it at least will hopefully, be different. They can't throw out too many of them to please me.
I might just start watching TV again just to see these scum squirm and go ballistic in the face of their their own approaching irrelevance.
The republican party must die.
The real fun hasn't yet begun. Wait until it gets to the point that our Ceauşescus have to face the heckling crowd, and our Erich Honeckers see their entire socialist system collapse. We may be closer than we think.
Great article. The comments express my sentiments, but speaking of the Republican Party, I'd add that Rove, Cheney, Gingrich, McCain, Graham, and the rest of the Republican neocon shills are, in fact, war criminals in the strict sense of the word, responsible for crimes of Biblical proportions against their fellow man, such as incinerating villages, weddings, schools, and destroying sovereign nations to serve their true constituency, the Israeli Lobby.
Not only do we need to railroad them out of the Republican Party, we need to also press for their indictment under the Geneva Conventions. Their positions on domestic policy are of secondary importance when compared with the deaths of so many Americans and the bankrupting of our nation to serve Israel's interests. While there is now much blame on Muslim nations now, too, and the chain of causation becomes blurred with time, to claim the Muslim world is responsible for acts committed in response to Israeli/American attacks against them, embargoes resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children, etc., is also criminal. Worse, it shows the rank cowardice of America's leaders, who will take this country down rather than demand Israel and its fifth column running this nation from the shadows be exposed and run out of town.
The Republican Party is a despicable farce. Whatever bad happens to the insiders is long past due.
Is it realistic, though, to anticipate any real change while the empire yet stands?
It is probably too early to determine if this is the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. I'd like to hear what Clyde Wilson thinks is going on.
#5 John Marino "It is fun to watch the boys like Tokyo Rove ...implode on TV...."
This is too funny. TOKYO ROVE?? If it were not for the available humor in these charades (And folks like you to find it) it would not be worth the time it takes to frown upon it. Thanks so much for making us all laugh or at least smirk.
Great article. Short list of needs:
Abolish:
Israel (evil, all wars, 9/11, JFK, propaganda, intimidation, theft, occupation)—RECOUP FUNDS, FREEZE ASSETS
CIA (propaganda, evil, many wars, murders, 9/11, JFK)---RECOUP FUNDS
FBI (one or more divisions: 9/11, JFK, Flight 800)---an honest successor must be created.
Pentagon/Military Industrial Complex: (evil, wars, 9/11, propaganda)----RECOUP FUNDS
Federal Reserve Bank ----(RECOUP FUNDS FROM IT AND ITS OWNERS)
Economic:
Declare fraudulent derivatives (virtually all, if not all) void;
Liquidate Five Largest Banks and Goldman Sachs and recipients of Bailouts (which defrauded Americans)---RECOUP FUNDS ANDFREEZE ASSETS, including freezing of Rothschild’s assets pending all investigations of frauds and crimes
Implement Tax policies proposed by Paul Craig Roberts designed to reverse offshoring and outsourcing of American Jobs. (see recommendations in The Ecstasy of Empire: How close is America’s Demise? Without a Revolution, Americans Are History, August 16, 2010: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20650 )------Appoint Paul Craig Roberts as successor to Summers and William K. Black as successor to Geitner.
Personnel:
remove all neocons from government and quasi government employment, including all who were employed within the last 25 years, when push for control and advancement of interests of Israel was most fervent.
Legal:
Acknowledgement of lack of honest media
Restore a connection between profits and the welfare of the people.
Acknowledge lack of truth, justice, peace or accountability from government.
End the police state and all violations of original Constitution and Geneva Conventions.
Prosecutions:
War Crimes: GWB/Cheney and neocons in their administration and FREEZE ASSETS
Israel and its leaders; and FREEZE ASSETS
Media: complicity in crimes
Wall Street/financial crimes and frauds
Appoint independent Commissions:
9/11: Richard Gage, Webster Griffin Tarpley, David Ray Griffin and Steven Jones (with no neocons)
JFK Assassination Review (with no neocons)
Bailout/Shakedown Review for Prosecution of all Frauds and Crimes
Review of Evil and Injustice within FBI and Department of Justice
Review of Propaganda in media and education and in America
Review of the Frauds and Evils from creation of Israel, including the subversion of the government and media toward destruction of country, and the de facto coups inflicted on the country.
Great article. Short list of needs:
Abolish:
Israel (evil, all wars, 9/11, JFK, propaganda, intimidation, theft, occupation)—RECOUP FUNDS, FREEZE ASSETS
CIA (propaganda, evil, many wars, murders, 9/11, JFK)---RECOUP FUNDS
FBI (one or more divisions: 9/11, JFK, Flight 800)---an honest successor must be created.
Pentagon/Military Industrial Complex: (evil, wars, 9/11, propaganda)----RECOUP FUNDS
Federal Reserve Bank ----(RECOUP FUNDS FROM IT AND ITS OWNERS)
Economic:
Declare fraudulent derivatives (virtually all, if not all) void;
Liquidate Five Largest Banks and Goldman Sachs and recipients of Bailouts (which defrauded Americans)---RECOUP FUNDS ANDFREEZE ASSETS, including freezing of Rothschild’s assets pending all investigations of frauds and crimes
Implement Tax policies proposed by Paul Craig Roberts designed to reverse offshoring and outsourcing of American Jobs. (see recommendations in The Ecstasy of Empire: How close is America’s Demise? Without a Revolution, Americans Are History, August 16, 2010: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20650 )------Appoint Paul Craig Roberts as successor to Summers and William K. Black as successor to Geitner.
Personnel:
remove all neocons from government and quasi government employment, including all who were employed within the last 25 years, when push for control and advancement of interests of Israel was most fervent.
Legal:
Acknowledgement of lack of honest media
Restore a connection between profits and the welfare of the people.
Acknowledge lack of truth, justice, peace or accountability from government.
End the police state and all violations of original Constitution and Geneva Conventions.
Prosecutions:
War Crimes: GWB/Cheney and neocons in their administration and FREEZE ASSETS
Israel and its leaders; and FREEZE ASSETS
Media: complicity in crimes
Wall Street/financial crimes and frauds
Appoint independent Commissions:
9/11: Richard Gage, Webster Griffin Tarpley, David Ray Griffin and Steven Jones (with no neocons)
JFK Assassination Review (with no neocons)
Bailout/Shakedown Review for Prosecution of all Frauds and Crimes
Review of Evil and Injustice within FBI and Department of Justice
Review of Propaganda in media and education and in America
Review of the Frauds and Evils from creation of Israel, including the subversion of the government and media toward destruction of country, and the de facto coups inflicted on the country.
True that the Republican leadership regards us as serfs and cannon fodder. But when were we EVER "recognised and rewarded"?
I agree with Dan at #8. I will believe that the Republican party is worth saving when congressmen began calling for George Bush and co. to be indicted as war criminals (and regular criminals as well).
No one should be surprised by Rove's and Dr. Evil Krauthammer's reaction to the Delaware upset.
They boast they are cut from the same cloth as the 1860 Republicans, elitists, power hungry,and war mongers.
I'm still suspicious of this so called Tea party because it is being hailed by the Neo-con radio demagogues as if it's their own.
The GOP cannot be changed in the long run. It will be the same party in 2060 as 1860 since it is financially controlled by Wall Street and the eastern establishment. Once the tea party has had its day and its elected officials decide to conform to power and money, it will be back to business as usual making sure the country (and World!) are safe for the rich and its oligopolies. The GOP is like a 100 year old lady......there is no way a makeover will make her Miss America. It is time to look for another alternative.............
I appreciate the spirit of your comments, but truth and justice for the masses is an easy goal for every revolution. Implicitly or otherwise, it was guaranteed in the American revolution. Were it not for a corrupt and dishonest media and a matching government with cowards as representatives, it would be true today.
Were it not for churches that are asleep and unaware that media and government are not functioning properly, it would be true today. In the judgment of many, pervasive posturing and corruption mandate replacement of all representatives, except for the Ron Pauls or Dennis Kucinichs, with avoidance of both political parties until a remarkable reform is confirmed. Washington stinks, and for many good reasons, not the least of which is that 1) neocons believe in lies to the masses and truth only to the elite, and 2) the fact that our largest expenditures are directed to those who make the largest contributions; and 3) the unmistakable impression that organized crime is ruling and looting the nation while destroying our freedoms and all hope for prosperity and attacking the world without just cause. To my knowledge the Republican party has never been blatantly criminal, but blatant criminal and fraudulent and immoral and fiscally irresponsible acts are what we face. Never has the statement of the late Robert Novak seemed more apropos, (even wildly understated): Always love your country, but never trust your government.
Eventually truth and justice as a reasonable expectation will be restored. That should be the goal of every good leader, journalist and citizen. I believe that the Republican party of yesterday was decidedly more responsible and accountable than most Republicans today who have succomb to money power, temptation and intimidation. Thanks for reading.
The voters, who care enough to register, had better vote for somebody other than the Stupid Party or the Evil Party at a better rate than 1% -- its margin of relevance during the Obama/Palin race of 2008.
I like the Tokyo Rove comment: excellent pun-use of history.
My comment is simple: nothing in Amerikwa, of importance, is as good today as it was-fifty years ago.
PJB asks:
". . . what are the neoconservatives going to do, if returned to power? . . . stampeding the nation into an unnecessary war . . .deceived us about Iraq’s role in 9/11?"
The gullibility of the American people, and "conservatives" in particular, is so depressing. With the Tea Party, Buchanan is no less gullible than the rest of them. Why doesn't he grasp that the Tea Party, in the voice of Sarah Palin, is the Empire's rulers, the neoconservatives, co-opting of the American people's disgust with the socialist and militarist (the final form of socialism) policies of the now fully existing global Empire. When the Empire came under threat in the form of growing war weariness, a Joan of Arc arose, in the form of Sarah Palin, to defend the Empire to her last breath (Kristol had the foresight to recognize both the need for a "Joan of Arc" and the person herself when he met, and then created the Zionist Palin).
Listen to the Tea Party, now that Sarah Palin has taken the air out of Ron Paul. They want to cut spending from the entire budget, except the Defense budget, so that more money remains available for the mopping up operations necessary to consolidate total control over the globe by the Empire. Listen to her worshipful statements about the military; imperial militarism is her God. Good Lord! Have people forgotten how Palin's ally, Michelle Bachman grabbed and held on to George W. Bush as he was leaving Congress in a worshipful embrace only a couple years ago!
PJB has flip-flopped in opposing the Empire when he fell in love with Sarah Palin. The Empire's tactics have shifted because of the declining American support for it and Sarah Palin stepped forward to be its new face in demanding even more, and to prevent any backsliding, of the American people. The excitement of Ron Paul led to its creation, so Bill Kristol masterminded its takeover in the creation of Sarah Palin. Anti-imperial conservatives
and Libertarians should be fighting tooth and nail against the Tea Party, in current form. Unfortunately, they have been deserters to the other side.
For anyone to accurately understand today's political situation and system, it is very instructive to read Hilaire Belloc's excellent book, "Charles II, the Last Rally". In it, he describes the origin of the present parliamentary political systems as Whig politics in which both political parties simple plunder the country using national borrowing and government spending on politically connected favorites. We are living under a Whig government as England did from William of Orange to the present.
@21 Mr Pappas
The media seem to have great difficulty with the "I want my country back" statement. Without skipping a beat they always go to Jim Crow and poll taxes, so the TEA (taxed enough already) Party can be labeled as dangerous racists.
But they never want to go back to pre-1965 immigration laws wherein we imported the best and brightest brains. Now we import lawn mowers and gan-bangers -- presumably to justify larger police forces. The media never want to go back to 1916 0r 1939 where we kept out military out of foreign entanglements. They never want to go back to the days of Calvin Coolidge during which the president could walk the safe streets of Washington DC without a praetorian guard. Coolidge also made the government smaller while improving the post office and road system. Something the Constitution spelled out.
The scribblers and hack who take their marching orders from the anonymous elite never clamor to go back on the gold standard. Maybe they should find out who we were instead of pushing the sheeple of Amerikwa into a soviet styled police state. Look for (FEMA) re-education camps within the next 15 years.
For many of us (millions of Americans), the key to preservation of the country is 9/11 truth, but the facts are not permitted to be posted on most sites, including this one. Thus, most readers here are not even aware of the truth. For even larger context, the major problem in America is not convincingly winning an argument with ease with the benefit of the overwhelming facts, it is dissemination of the message to the masses (when the message is incriminating to those who own or control media including the intelligence agencies that are their largest customer and funder of secret embedded agents and internet professional “posters”). All cover up roles re 9/11 may properly be viewed as criminal as the underlying acts. If that concept were applied to the institutions that prohibit presentation of the evidence or discussion of it, then hope for America would increase. The truth underlying 9/11 is much worse than “let it happen” and totally discredits neoconservatives---plus our media, plus our government with many key posts manned by neoconservatives. Truth derivative of it puts criminals and fraudsters in jail, undoes the empire and ends the wars (and their large measure of our fiscal irresponsibility), restores freedoms to Americans, injects truth in media (and likely creates new sources), undoes government funded propaganda, reverses fraudulent misappropriation of American funds (the other portion of our fiscal irresponsibilty), exposes false leaders and economists with destructive agendas (whose assets and windfall profits should be seized for creating mindless casino risk derivatives that cannot even be understood or described by auditors—thus purposefully destroying the financial system---not to mention mindlessly offshoring and outsourcing to guarantee fiscal devastation to most Americans), and exposes the true lack of competence and integrity in most representatives. Few criminal capers in history were as elaborate as 9/11; it was coup II and part of planned destruction of America. For those that dare look at the evidence, it is overwhelming.
Thanks for reading.
@25 and 26: When you speak of "the key to preserving the country," there is a problem: the common "tradition" that too many red state Americans rally around is the U.S. military. That was fading away somewhat in the 1990's as the "Greatest Generation" began retiring or dying off and the new commander-in-chief of the U.S. military was proving about as uninspiring as possible. Unfortunately, 9/11 gave new life for stupid ordinary people to embrace the idea that we were in a just war against Islamic aggressors and that our soldiers were gallant crusaders.
There is no hope for any "populist" movement to do any good so long as that mentality remains entrenched in the U.S. heartland, and it does, whatever Americans' superficial views on the last two major blunders may seem to indicate.
Thank you NGPM.
I believe your premise would be false if Americans knew that our neocons and Israel engineered and orchestrated 9/11 ; and the muslims were patsies. Millions of Americans know this, but it is made politically incorrect by the powerful people who are incriminated by the evidence and control our media.
For a two page version, go to a current article, The Twin Towers, Both Bite the Dust at http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61147.shtml.
And scroll down until to find my one and half page version of 9/11 under the comments (two of them). People really need maybe a 5 page version, but The facts are overwhelming (and grow with study). [I do not like the article especially, but it does point out the taboos and it is one of first to admit that mini nukes were possibly/probably used to turn WTC 1 and 2 into dust (but that was in addition to termite and nanothermite demolition explosives which was conclusive in dust but I do not recall it being mentioned). Available facts are much stronger than the article as my posted two notes allude.
Thanks for reading.
NGPM:
The subject is best introduced by scanning patriotsquestion911.com, and maybe appreciating the 1200 plus engineer architects who support aetruth.org. My favorite book was Webster Griffin Tarpley's 9/11 Synthethic Terrorism, free online in pdf at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2005/07/317436.pdf I liked it so much that I read its entire 400 pages with 48 hours, which is unusual speed for me.
FYI, a recent string that just ended on our neocons and Israel as perpetrators of 9/11 just ended with 390 comments. It was in reaction to an awful propaganda piece by Robert Parry, titled America's Decoupling from Reality, posted last Friday, Sept. 17, 2010. I believe the 9/11 truthers ably crushed the intelligence agency's professional posters. To find it, one would have to scroll down all views to bottom and puch "more views" and then find the article under Friday's date.
But such a string of posts is so inundated with junk that one must screen through it to find the informative ones. The string of posts are divided into three long sections, and I suspect that you would find most of the informative comments in the first section. FYI. Thanks for reading
NGPM:
Sorry, the Parry article with 390 comments is posted at http://www.commondreams.org (it is also posted as of same day at informationclearinghouse.info where 9/11 truthers also prevailed, but posts are conclusory and not informative for the most part).
Edmond @23 is dead on. The Tea Party is just another Neocon(GOP) group of useful idiots anymore. IN 2007 they got started by Ron Paul and his crowd, only to have them in 2009 to be coopted by the useless Palin and Beck. That Restore Honor rally in DC was just a deification of the military, even when it reality suicides, outright war crimes, drug abuse, etc are the only things that our men and women in uniform are experiencing in the "War on Terror". Now I guess Beck is quietly telling his viewers to cool it with the protests, signs, etc. What a 180 degree turn from his conspiracy theory days of not too long ago!!!!!