Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
In a message dated 98-04-07 23:02:42 EDT, nathan newman writes: I'm less excited than interested in it as a piece of evidence on the conservative divisions that are growing and paralyzing much of the rightwing agenda. I also happen to think that Buchanan is one of the more honest conservatives, however lothesome his beliefs. He has become no less conservative, just evolved into a different species than the liberatarian globalists that came to dominate the Republicans under Reagan. I wonder how much of this latest version of Buchananism is related to the problems of Reaganism and/or thatcherism, and how much to the tremendous approval the Democrats have been receiving for an expanding economy. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
michael wrote: Pat Buchanan might not be a fascist, but I think that we have to give him credit for fashioning the language of hate that has become the mainstay of modern politics. He deserves to share that credit with Kevin Phillips, who has become something of a darling of the liberals these days. I believe that Phillips first came to national attention in Garry Wills' book, Nixon Agonistes, where he explained that the key to doing politics was understanding who hates whom. Phillips was the engineer of Nixon's southern stragegy, to which Gingrich The Contract With America are the heirs, even as Phillips now criticizes them. Thomas Byrne Edsall, reviewing Phillips' Politics of Rich and Poor, said that Phillips is like an architect who, having designed a house, hates it when he sees it built. Doug
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
MScoleman wrote: I also happen to think that Buchanan is one of the more honest conservatives, however lothesome his beliefs. He has become no less conservative, just evolved into a different species than the liberatarian globalists that came to dominate the Republicans under Reagan. Why honest? Why not ambitious? He is appealing to a crowd of social conservatives who have been hurt by right wing policies. B. can attack globalization and thereby reinforce distrust at home of blacks, asian, and any other possible scapegoat groups. He can win the support of industries that are hurt by trade (Milikin, the S. Carolina textile man) and thus have enough chips to earn a seat at the table of power. What exactly has Buchanan done do earn him a position as a national figure. Honest Pat? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
In a message dated 98-04-08 12:39:55 EDT, michael perelman writes: MScoleman [DID NOT WRITE THIS -- SOMEONE ELSE DID] wrote: I also happen to think that Buchanan is one of the more honest conservatives, however lothesome his beliefs. He has become no less conservative, just evolved into a different species than the liberatarian globalists that came to dominate the Republicans under Reagan. michael, you misquote me dreadfully! This was reprinted in my message as a quote from someone else -- i forget who. My comment to this was something like: I think the buchanan repudiation of thatcherism/reaganism has more to do with jumping on the bandwagon of credit being given the democrats for the current economic boom. I emphatically do NOT think buchanan is honest, and i think most conservatives are roughly the same -- appologists for the ruling class, spin doctors to keep the masses in line. maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
At 03:19 PM 4/7/98 -0700, Jim Devine wrote: valis writes: Get excited if you (pl.) must, but I wouldn't believe Buchanan if he stated the color of his eyes. This loathsome lizard, who has spent his entire life turning sentences around, is simply testing the fickle winds for another crack at the presidency, where he'd do...what? I don't think anyone on pen-l believes Buchanan. He's just picking up on something the left has said for a long time, i.e., that unbridled capitalism is bad for kinder-küche-kirche, the ideals of social conservatism. There, I've done something that I trashed Wojtek for doing awhile back, i.e., comparing a contemporary politician to the Nazis (with the KKK slogan). But in Buchanan's case, it sorta fits. His father was the type who had strong sympathies for the Nazis. This seems to have helped produce B's own fascoid politics, complete with a strong streak of opportunistic populism. Having touched the subject... let us not forget that the Nazis won popular support on their incredible political opportunism, telling every political interests group form landowners to workers exactly what they want to hear, promising security and prosperity to everyone. Interestingly, their Jew- and Bolshevik-bashing drivel took a back seat around 1930 when they were gaining power and support -- as they were preaching security and prosperity to the middle classes. Contradictions? Perhaps. But as the Nazis said it themselves, who is going to judge the victor - and his contradictions? So I would second valis -- that despicable troll must be up to something. Beware of crypto-fascists courting the working class. Regards, Wojtek
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
Nathan Newman exults: This column by Pat Buchanan is remarkable in its near-repudiation of his old boss, Ronald Reagan, arguing that economic conservatism is ultimately the enemy of the social conservatism that is Buchanan's true loyalty. (In this, he echoes scholar Daniel Bell's thesis on the cultural contradictions of capitalism.) Get excited if you (pl.) must, but I wouldn't believe Buchanan if he stated the color of his eyes. This loathsome lizard, who has spent his entire life turning sentences around, is simply testing the fickle winds for another crack at the presidency, where he'd do...what? valis
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
valis writes: Get excited if you (pl.) must, but I wouldn't believe Buchanan if he stated the color of his eyes. This loathsome lizard, who has spent his entire life turning sentences around, is simply testing the fickle winds for another crack at the presidency, where he'd do...what? I don't think anyone on pen-l believes Buchanan. He's just picking up on something the left has said for a long time, i.e., that unbridled capitalism is bad for kinder-küche-kirche, the ideals of social conservatism. There, I've done something that I trashed Wojtek for doing awhile back, i.e., comparing a contemporary politician to the Nazis (with the KKK slogan). But in Buchanan's case, it sorta fits. His father was the type who had strong sympathies for the Nazis. This seems to have helped produce B's own fascoid politics, complete with a strong streak of opportunistic populism. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
Nathan Newman exults: This column by Pat Buchanan is remarkable in its near-repudiation of his old boss, Ronald Reagan, arguing that economic conservatism is ultimately the enemy of the social conservatism that is Buchanan's true loyalty. (In this, he echoes scholar Daniel Bell's thesis on the cultural contradictions of capitalism.) valis then wrote: -Get excited if you (pl.) must, but I wouldn't believe Buchanan if he -stated the color of his eyes. This loathsome lizard, who has spent his -entire life turning sentences around, is simply testing the fickle winds -for another crack at the presidency, where he'd do...what? I'm less excited than interested in it as a piece of evidence on the conservative divisions that are growing and paralyzing much of the rightwing agenda. I also happen to think that Buchanan is one of the more honest conservatives, however lothesome his beliefs. He has become no less conservative, just evolved into a different species than the liberatarian globalists that came to dominate the Republicans under Reagan. An anti-globalist nationalist conservative was once not an oddity but the common species. Buchanan specifically hawks back to that xenophobic "America First" tradition of the 1930s. What is interesting is that the anti-communism that was used by William Buckley, Paul Weyrich and Reagan himself to bind together the disparate strands of conservatism into a united global conservative viewpoint has begun to come apart. Divisions over social issues, globalism, even being pro-corporate have reemerged. This doesn't mean the constituent parts will suddenly join the Left, but much of the membership will become more free-floating as the ideological unity of the Right weakens. That is the opportunity for the Left-- to challenge the xenophobia of Buchanan's followers and argue for a tolerant class-based view of the world. --nathan newman
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
Pat Buchanan might not be a fascist, but I think that we have to give him credit for fashioning the language of hate that has become the mainstay of modern politics. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
Just a question, how much credence are we going to give Reagan and Thatcher's tax cuts for economic growth? I see those tax cuts as fueling the speculative commercial real estate and residential building boom that both countries experienced, rather than any increases in real investment. Any thoughts? -- Sam Pooley
Re: Pat Buchanan attacks Reagan and Thatcher's legacy
At 02:05 PM 4/7/98 -0700, Pat Buchanan wrote: But unbridled capitalism is also an awesome destructive force. It makes men and women obsolete as rapidly as it does the products they produce and the plants that employ them. And the people made obsolete and insecure are workers, employees, "Reagan Democrats," rooted people, conservative people who want to live their lives and raise their families in the same neighborhoods they grew up in. What makes Buchanan a right-wing demagogue is not so much the fact that his chameleonic political career exposes him as a fraud, but the fact that the segment of the electorate he claims to be speaking for -- "rooted people ... who want to live their lives and raise their families in the same neighborhoods they grew up in" probably describes about 1/10 of the voting population, if not less. The U.S. has long been a society where not only work but family, leisure, neighborhood, and other facets of "everyday life" have been to greater and lesser degrees really subsumed by capital. Believe you me, in the 50's and 60's before deindustrialization Midwestern factory towns where all the guys drank shots or played softball after the shift and every household borrowed sugar from one another was the exception, not the rule. The liberal-left in the U.S. falls into this trap w/its sloppy and gratuitous use of the term "community." There are "communities" of e-mail chat groups and prime time t.v. viewers and Dallas Cowboy fans but there are not "communities" based on tight- knit, reciprocal structures of work, play, family, and so on, and their erosion (quite thankfully from a feminist perspective) did not begin just when GM laid off hundreds of thousands of line workers in 1991. I would reckon that most "working families" (another bogus "heartland" term), for good or for bad, would rather have horizontal mobility and increased wages for trips to Disneyland and Las Vegas and increased pensions for retirement in a leisuretown in Arizona or Florida rather than a return to some imagined past. John Gulick
