Gimme more of that pro-appeasement triumverate

OK, so I had to look up the word  "triumverate" but nevertheless, it's a great title (but not of my origin)

So I watched a PBS a show called "TURMOIL AND TRIUMPH: THE GEORGE SHULTZ YEARS" which was actually pretty good.  Regan was President during my non-attention years.  I didn't like him, but did not really know why.  Most likely It was because he was a Republican, but some of it had to do with this conservative nonsense that was starting to swell.

I don't know what exactly bothers me so much with the term "conservative".  I think a lot has to do with the attitude of those who wrap themselves in it.  Also, I think there are more than two types of view points out there which is how people who subscribe to this dogma seem to believe.  But mostly it is the fervent adherence to a view of the world that is misguided, narrow-minded, and in most cases wrong.  Still they hold to their rhetoric unwilling to see the world for what it really is.

Regan is given a lot of credit for ending the cold war with the Soviets.  I was told, and believed, that he did this by outspending them on a military buildup.  This is somewhat true, but I heard recently, and this PBS show has now confirmed, that the end of the Cold War had more to do with Mikhail Gorbachev and George Shultz then the gipper himself.  Make no mistake that Regan's ability to trust Gorbachev and listen to his "triumverate" was key to the success.

So the question I have is "are we better off now because of what Regan did with the Soviets? 

I went searching for the George Will comment that was made on the show and in my search I found this on another blog called fabiusmaximus:

 On 8 December 1987, at Reagan’s third summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, they signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (Wikipedia).  This marked the beginning of the end to the cold war, a major step to lifting the threat of global annihilation that had existed for 3 decades.   How did conservatives react to this bold step by their leader?

Excerpt from “The Treaty: Another Sellout”, Howard Phillips (Chairman of The Conservative Caucus; see his bio at Wikipedia), op-ed in the New York Times, 11 December 1987:  America has never been in more danger than now, during the final 13 months of the Reagan administration.  Although neither Ronald Reagan nor George Bush could have come to power without strong conservative support, conservative influence is absent from the top decision-making councils of the executive branch, and conservative policies have been comprehensively abandoned.  President Reagan is little more than the speech reader-in-chief for the pro-appeasement triumverate of Howard Baker, George Shultz and Frank Carlucci.

The center of the administration’s policy is the president’s unfounded assertion that Mikhail S. Gorbachev is “a new kind of Soviet leader” who no longer seeks world conquests. The summit meetings and so-called arms-control treaties are a cover for the treasonous greed of those who manipulate the administration.

And from another.........

Excerpt from George Will’s 1988 book The New Season: “Historians may conclude that it was during this administration that the United States conclusively lost the Cold War.”

So they were wrong, Regan was right to trust Gorbachev.  That's why this conservative nonsense is so wrong.  It leaves no room for anything other than a strict concurrence of ideology, dogma, and orthodoxy to one - and only one - view of the world.

If you tell me we are not better off because of what these men did, then I have a wall I'd like to show you, but i can't, cause it's no longer there.

Newt Gingrich, Liz Cheney, and Saul Alinsky

Why does it all seem so....so formulaic? Like it's scripted, right down to the pause waiting for the applause. Then it hit me, they are playing from Alinsky's text "Rules for Radicals."

1. Ridicule is the most potent weapon
2. A good tactic is one your people enjoy
3. Keep the pressure on
4. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself
5. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure on the opposition
6. If you push a negative hard enough it will break through into its counter-side
7. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative
8. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Wow, 8 out of 13 that I can easily see. Now these tactics aren't what you call playing nice. They are not designed to be, they are about winning, and in the process of trying to win you destroy.

Those that now control the right have found these tactics to suit their needs, just like they found torture to help them accomplish their goals. In the process something is lost and that is discourse and debate.

The right seeks to control the lives of over 300 million people, control them by putting in place what they think is the standard that we should all live by. Now there is nothing fundamentally wrong with pushing forward an agenda you think works or works better than what is taking place. But that is not what is being pushed. Instead we get the poisoning of the waters and the demonization of a party and its supporters. Let's look at what was said recently by Newt Gingrich and Liz Cheney:

• most radical administration in American history
• secular socialist machine
• founded on freedom, not serfdom.
• founded on the work ethic, not the redistribution ethic
• founded on defending America, not hiring lawyers for terrorists
• put down America and diminish our achievements
• dishonors this nation and the brave men and women who have fought and died for our freedom

If the right has a better plan, lets see some action - not rhetoric. From my point of view, you had four years under Clinton and eight years under Bush to fix health care and put forth the ideas expressed in the "step-by-step, common-sense approach to health care reform."

Those that control the right say they have a better way but all they fixate on is poison and rhetoric. We have serious problems that are fixable but can only be fixed if all sides are considered and the best approach is hammered out through compromise. But compromise is such an ugly word to conservatives - it's seen as weak and capitulating. However that's what governing is all about.

But governing is not what is sought, it's power and when you have power you needn't compromise. You can have your cake and eat it too. All that matters is obtaining and keeping the power regardless of how it's obtained or who you destroy in the process.

A word of warning though: Be careful when you demonize, because some of us hold our truths to be self evident and don't take too kindly to being tagged as something we are not. I'll debate my views with anyone - but you had better be able to tell me why I am wrong and/or why your way is better. If it's six of one or half dozen of another - then you got nothing more substantive then me.

Compromise and governing - now there's a radical approach!