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On Saturday, Representative Michele Bachmann gave a speech at the Iowa state capitol and lambasted judges whom she called "black-robed masters'' who allowed gay marriage in states like Iowa and Massachusetts. "I am so tired of the establishment telling us that they know best,'' the Minnesota Republican complained, "We know best.''Representative Bachmann concluded her remarks by urging the audience to join with her in a campaign "to take America back."
At a separate function at a Des Moines hotel on Saturday, other right-wing activists gathered for a Conservative Principles Conference that was organized by Rep. Stephen King (Rep., 5th Dist,, Iowa). Members of the audience were reported to have carried copies of the Constitution in their shirt pockets, and attached "Fair Tax''stickers to their shirts. In addressing the audience. Newt Gingrich tried to strike a resonant chord: "Some people may say we should stay away from values, stay away from social issues,'' but "I'm here to tell you, if we don't start with values, the rest of it doesn't matter.'' Gingrich was unapologetic about what he to thought should be the Republican agenda. If Republicans were able to retake, the White House, he argued, "We have an opportunity - for perhaps the first time in seventy years - to put in place a right-of-center government." :
Rep. Bachmann's comments about "knowing best" and "taking back America" echo similar comments previously made by Gingrich. Both have chosen to speak in a racist, anti-intellectual code that reinforces a right-wing Republican narrative which avers that liberals, intellectuals, elitists and the minorities to whom they pander have stolen America and placed it in the hands of a black, Kenyan-born president who is determined to remake American into a socialist tyranny. Gingrich, in particular, explicitly called for a return to a status quo ante the New Deal.
The prevailing wisdom of the era for which Bachmann and Gingrich express nostalgia was one that was dominated by the doctrines of classical liberalism and Social Darwinism. As such, it accepted as a given a worldview in which every person was held to be on his own. In the words of William Graham Sumner, "Man is born under the necessity of sustaining the existence he has received by an onerous struggle against nature, both to win what is essential to his life and to ward off what is prejudicial to it....For any real satisfaction, labor is necessary to fit the products of nature for human use. In this struggle every individual is under the pressure of the necessities for food, clothing, shelter, fuel....The relation, therefore, between each man's needs and each man's energy, or 'individualism,' is the first fact of human life."
Is this, in fact, the vision of the America for which Bachmann, Gingrich and the Republicans yearn? Do they really expect the electorate to endorse a return to a society dominated by the decisions of a few wealthy white men and their corporations in which the majority of the population knew their place, and where the economic divide between the few who were wealthy and the many who were struggling was as great at that which exists today, but without any safety-net at all - one in which those who us do not succeed by dint of our own efforts are left behind as "road kill"?
If only I could write so well.
Regrettably I am no longer able to dispute the notion the group now calling themselves "Republicans" are successfully convincing significant portions of this nation we must replace all notions of democracy with those of Christianity and capitalism. An idea devoid of understanding of the goals and motives of either.
Replace the word CEO with the word Cardinal.
Replace the word CIO with the word Bishop.
Their distaste and distrust of President Obama lies in the fact he is not the Pope they desire.
The "Republicans" inability to identify a single leader among themselves is due to the fact they see no need for one. Each one of them is pure of heart with goals and motives divinely inspired. In such a reality there is no need for a pragmatic, experienced, compassionate leader. Chaos is not a concern. Should it come they are the chosen ones. Each and every one of them.
It would seem that a man that represents the diversity of what is said be the American melting pot leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those who don't look like him, especially, if they have an affinity for the 'good ole days',when folks like him knew their place and did well to stay in it.
Those days, I pray to God, are gone forever. Meanwhile, the WASPMs,TEA party members and the like would do well to learn a lesson from history, because, in a few short years they will be in the minority and will have to learn to 'play well with others'. They will have to depend on the good Christian morals of those who would step forward and weild the Staff of State to the good or ill of all according to their own perspective with no wish to consult their former overlords and oppressors.
It will do us all good if we could look at eachother as coordinators of a better tomorrow in stead of fighting like two hungry dogs over one bone.