This started off as a simple short comment, and drifted into a review of the growth of the right-wing political infection of America since Nixon. It's really just a collection of my thoughts that have been set off by this post and thread. But it's 5:50 am and I've been up since 10:00 am yesterday, so I'm not sure if it's creativity, analysis or insanity. Or a little of all three.

Anyway, it starts with the corruption of the Warren G. Harding administration. Dick Day has superbly covered the attack on the Veterans. Almost everything that matters in the last century really goes directly back to the Great War and its aftermath, since WW I changed the nature of both Western Civilization and of the World so very much.

We are still living with those changes, as the invasion of the strange and awkward British-created amalgam we still call Iraq, the Middle East in general, the USSR and its still unsettled aftermath, Communist China, modern India and Africa and the end of all the Empires except those of Russia and China all demonstrate. Oh, and add to that the fact that modern Mexico is still a direct outgrowth of the the Revolution of 1910 - 1920. But let's look at modern political America now.

The Teapot Dome scandal during the Warren G. Harding administration had financial corruption similar to that of the Bush administration, but not, as far as I know, the efforts to create a tyrannical government in the way that Cheney/Addington/Yoo/Gonzales implemented. Nor was there the level of political activity by fundamentalists that we have seen since the Reagan administration saw the alliance between the fundamentalists of the Christian Coalition and the John Birchers/Wall Street free marketers/Post Nixonites/Libertarians. Nor do I think the military were as lionized during the post WW I period as they have been since the Reagan administration. Instead the atmosphere was much more anti-war back in the Warren Harding period.

Consider the recent Wall Street Journal that stated that one-third of all wages paid went to executives, and the fact that (as you mentioned) the rule of law is no longer applied to the wealthy, powerful and to top government officials, and America is in one Mell of a Hess right now.

I think that America has just been through a very scary three, perhaps four decades. Whether it is over yet, I don't know. There are a lot of people who don't want it to be. Wingnuts, secessionists, anti-abortion extremists, Sarah Palinists and other Evangelicals, Free Market crackpots, ideological descendants of John Birchers, and NeoCons abound. Here in Texas Governor Rick Perry is running for reelection again in 2010 by picking up the crackpot rhetoric from Ron Paul. Ron Paul represented the extremist right-wing of the Republican Party, and that's where Perry is currently mining for votes. (That's for the Republican primary in which not many of the growing number of voting Texas Hispanics will vote. He'll have to shift if he wins the primary, which seems likely.)

Fortunately I think that those people generally have proven pretty conclusively to a majority of American voters outside the South and Texas that they are incompetent at effectively running a government. The Republican leadership in Congress is depending on the failure of Obama to deal with the economic crisis, which is why they also have to defeat him on health care reform. If Obama wins either of those bets, the national Republican party is doomed and the semi-rational leaders know it. Their only possible bet is pure obstructionism.

Have I left out any significant groups of right-wing whackos? Those are the players. So what are the social forces that are driving them? They have rather diverse demands, so it took some special circumstances for them to go into the alliance they have had since the Reagan administration.

In looking at that collection of misfits, I think it was primarily a reaction to the Civil Rights movement (Nixon's Southern Strategy), then to the anti-Vietnam war protesters, and to the social changes brought about by the birth control pill that caused them to ally with each other during the Cold War. Now that the Cold War is clearly over and the nation has adapted to the civil rights movement (as well as adding women's rights and GLBT rights)and birth control has become just part of the normal landscape, a lot of what held that alliance together has died away. The evangelicals were a relatively late addition to that mix, but they were the key to electing Bush in 2000. Now they, too, are becoming less of a political force in much of the US. That was Rove's great contribution. (Sadly it has not yet died away here in Texas where the christianists still dominate our State politics.)

The shift of the media from news to entertainment and to political propaganda has been very noticeable, but I think it was more of a secondary result of other basic political, technological and economic changes. Those media changes should be pretty close to the nadir of their descent. That's just my current guess, though. I'll be looking for indicators of a change in trends. Fox and the right-wing propagandist radio shock-jocks will be the last to change. But didn't I hear that Clear Channel Radio was looking at bankruptcy?

With luck the elections of 2006 and 2008 may represent the beginnings of the reversal of all the negative trends. But if they do, the situation is still in flux and could be reversed if the economy does a big second dip. The passage of the health care reform will also be a strong impetus towards an improved American political climate, since it will actually show a lot of Americans that the government can actually do something positive for Americans and doesn't entirely belong to the wealthy conservative oligarchs. The media is (as usual) missing the real story on what the Democratic health care reform will mean. I think Dr. Michael Porter (Harvard) understands how it really will lower runaway medical costs, but the mechanisms are not something that the CBO can measure. (I've blogged about his Here. Dr. Porter lays it out rather clearly in the video and I summarized a lot of what he had to say before the video. Then I added my opinion after. Just as Detroit could not predict the actual cost of installing safety devices in autos, the CBO can't evaluate the real savings of universal health care with a revised form of measurement of medical outcomes.)

And if you have gotten this far you are a glutton for punishment. This really is the "interesting times" of the old Chinese curse, and we really are living through them. Welcome to the time between the dynasties. Thanks to all of you for this excellent article and outstanding thread of comments. I love the insights you guys are throwing out.

Jason, thank you for adding to the commentary. I had to digest your comment.

Hopefully, and the sanest conclusion here, is that there are training exercises going on every day. Within our boundaries.

I see a big difference in sending the Army/Air Force into a suburb of Buffalo, NY. THIS IS NUTS.

It never took place. Thank the Good Lord (And I mean that sincerely)

Hey Gregor. It's actually from after his election win in 2000. In the clip he calls it his one-finger 'victory sign'. That's what victory meant to him - 'fuck y'all'.

First saw it in the news overseas. Never got much play in the States, it seems. I mean, who wants to see their president give them the finger? And what responsible media outlet would let people see what their new president thinks of them...?

Unless they honestly examine this and decide they are going to commit to getting the basics of having a substantially honest government, none of what we are fighting for will ever happen. It is a factually dishonest statement from our lawmakers when they say all the money currently being heaped on their political campaigns doesn't have an influence. It is absurd for them to take that position and is a huge insult to every citizen of this country. This is particularly true when you examine all the polling that says a significant majority of voters want this but so many of our legislators are hedging on their support. This is in your face dishonesty all the way. And the money argument is bullshit when you contrast the healthcare issue with the money they poured into the banking system along with the additional dollars that are potentially committed.

I came across a quote this morning that I found very helpful. In terms of where I'm at and in terms of what needs to "ground" our discussions of politics. I won't go into the roundabout way I ran across the quote:

To withstand the winds of tyranny, justice needs deep roots and a rich soil in which to sink them.

This refers to more than the Constitution. It refers to ethics and personal depth as well as philosophical/spiritual depth.

It was related to a discussion of suffering and the search to comprehend and bear suffering, the search for justice in the face of suffering. Your blog bears on this. And it's helped me understand where I'm at currently. Since I was writing so much that bore on torture and injustice and suffering - and that ultimately leads to a need to focus on that deeper grounding. So that's where I am. And it's the right place for me at the moment. (Maybe in some way my own inner work here benefits the whole.)

Ok, back to the current reading I'm doing - seeking the depths. Very helpful sometimes to gain an insight like the one I learned today!

Peace be with you, buddy! :-)

Things sure were different back then Dick. Even Gerry Ford, as a law student at Yale was a dirty hippie isolationist, as was Lucky Lindbergh who even accepted a medal from Hitler, as were the majority of Americans in the late 30s and early 40s.

If Wilson hadn't suffered a debilitating stroke after WW1 we would have had much greater influence over the writing of the Treaty of Versailles and the carving up of the world. Henry Cabot Lodge the Republican leader of the imperialist faction of the Senate successfully kept us out of the League of Nations after Wilson's stroke, even though it was the US president's idea.

Wankers like him, who along with the British and Franch advocated for the harsh penalties that bankrupted Germany after the war guaranteed that animosities would only grow. He objected to the League of Nations because it would require all members to reject aggression and he didn't want anything to hamstring our own empire building. That and it was his arch enemy Wilson's idea and had to opposed on those political grounds alone. He really needed something for the Republicans to run on in 1920. It worked.