Welcome to the New Bush Backlash Site. July, 2007 with latest additions at the bottom...
This re-do of the site is going to reflect the real backlash of the George W. Bush administration, and the last 6+ years of American degeneration. I am going to discuss what I believe is at not only the heart of this administration, but the heart (and pathology) of "conservatism" itself, what I call the Conservative Myth.
Chronic immaturity. Chronic and life sapping for those who have to put up with them...
There is much to do, and the site will be choppy and unfinished for awhile... stay tuned.
This year we thought we'd see the Democrats start to show a little courage. Sheesh.
The Justice scandal is showing us all the picture of Conservatism for what it really is... Infantism. It is infantism that I will be posting on over time, and the true underpinnings of the Republican party and Conservatism itself. Tom Tomorrow consistenly points out the infantism of the Republicans and Conservatives in his panels like the one above.
I will prove to all that that is what we are dealing with. You hear it all the time, people trying to label them as various things. The right tries to paint them as "grown-ups" and the left calls them according to their behavior, corrupt, nefarious, immoral, selfish, punitive, stingy, cowardly in the face of real challenges, power hungry, fascist, and a whole host of other things. I will attempt to give you a profile that will help you understand it all.
I will introduce the term infantists here. Out of that grows all the other things and perceptions people have of them, erroneous or not. I will also attempt to distinguish here between "infantism" and "infantilism" which has the extra "l" in it.
As I use the word, an infantist is a grown adult person who, for various reasons, prefers to respond to the world the way an immature child will. (In infantilism, the adult prefers to actually live as a baby, wearing diapers etc.) Infantist are simply not comfortable with real adult decisions and consequences, or adult choices. They react to the world by creating and maintaining a culture of Parent-Child structures and doctrines where growing up never becomes a demand on them. This inability (or aversion) to "growing up" is not a regression, it is more of a suspended state, an arrested development. In this Parent-Child model, both parent and child roles are expressions of the same pathology. I use the word infantist for lack of a better term, since the time of arrested development seems to be just past infanthood, and in the area of small child. Childish and childism don't quite do it.
Regrettably, infantism is also the model for fundamental or conservative religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Here the Parent-Child model has been in place for a long time, ascending to greater influence as populations grow more fearful.
Important note...
This premise operates with several assumptions. These are made by observations, that produced conclusions that have been tested over and over.
These are the main premises:
1) The REAL constituency of the Republican Party is the top 10% (a debateable percentage) of domestic and worldwide wealth holders and controllers. It is important to note that I include foreign entities as well. The Republican Party is the political arm of the centralized wealth here and abroad, and one need not look any farther than the influences of Rupert Murdoch and Sun Myung Moon on that party for proof. The interests of nation and democracy take second seat to the interests of the primary constituency. The Treasury of the United States is a vast trough, connected to a system that, when manipulated correctly, can yield great rewards for the constituents. The work that GETS DONE is the legislature that favors the interests of that primary constituency, that it be protected and flourish first and foremost. All other business is secondary or inessential or fluff. I would go so far as say there was a contempt for interests that come in conflict with the needs of the primary constituency.
2) The world view of the Primary Constituency of the Republican Party is easily confused with elitism, but is more accurately defined by the pathology of the Parent-Child Model. Parents rule, children obey. Good children are rewarded, bad children are punished. Parents are exempt from this oversight.
Daddy...
One reason the infantist Republicans love Ronald Reagan so much is that he epitomized the ideal of the Good Parent. All the Republican children were happy to have him as "Dad". He was patronizing to his political opponents, and although he was a poor example of a real parent, he a fantasy persona in mind that he sought to animate and had just enough acting skill to play it successfully. The simplest citizens all across the land fell for it hook line and sinker. He coaxed a lot of otherwise semi-sophistocated people right into their jammies and off to bed so the grown-ups could do grown-up things without lots of kids underfoot. While they were off in sugar plumb land he quietly did the business of the Primary Constituency of the Republican Party. He was rewarded with wealth, and he and his wife got to live like royalty.
To this day, no one wants to actually address the legacy of Ronald Reagan from an accomplishments perspective, or his affect on our Democracy, but rather his personal ramblings in his diary and the nonsense that children do to remember a parent well. Ironically, he was the "great communicator" but what he communicated is hard to articulate.
All of the rifts I see in the Republican Party are simply disagreements on how to hoodwink the populace into voting against their best interests, and putting Republicans in charge of their lives.
More to come...
A side note... I received this e-mail from Curt Smith
What Republican wrongdoing? The only wrongdoing I see is the failure to round up and ship to Gitmo, all terrorist sympathizers like yourself. A milquetoast response, would be to let people like yourself sit in a cell for ten years. A proper response...well did you ever see the pictures of the contractors hanging from a bridge in Fallujah?
Warmest regards,
Curt
This is a great example of someone not willing to grow up. Black and white viewpoint, false choices and assumptions, emotional responses based on those choices and assumptions. Apparently he has something in common with the individuals who hung the contractors from the bridge, a similar desire to lash out at what he doesn't understand. Sort of a knee-jerk e-mail. Curt is hungry for some punishment for his hurt feelings, and sees no culpability on his part, not even the possibility of it. However, I was touched by his salutation... almost neutralized the preceding hate.
I tried to respond to Curt's e-mail, but his e-mail blocked me. So he has hurled his feces from his Safe Place...
As many Americans do, I cringe to turn on the news these days mostly to NOT see what they are NOT telling us. Our little experiment with unbridled Republicanism has descended to our own little "Lord Of The Flies On The Potomac". I cannot wait till some grownups can get ahold of that mess.
One of the saddest things I have witnessed in my lifetime is the American Character in the time in this country since Sept. 11, 2001. We are broken children. Alot of that sadness comes from reading "conservative" blogs. It is just amazing. Adult children, fantastic thinking, hero worshipping (and if there is not a real one in sight, assign those characteristics to the closest one to have good perceived parent qualities) all looking for Mom or Dad or both.
One of the strangest things I have witnessed recently is the Republican titillation with Fred Thompson as a White Knight coming to save them from thier image of total collapse and failure with Bush. FRED THOMPSON? Jeezus... they are frightened! This is an interesting perspective on Thompson...
Nixon on Fred Thompson: “He’s Dumb as Hell”
However, like Reagan, Fred can act the part of the Patriarch. He does it on tv. Reagan is not the source of any of the success he is attributed by his acolytes, but his performance as an actor playing an inspirational Father is what his faithful cling to. There will always be tension as the forces that WANT it to be so collide with the record of truthful history... that which is supported by facts. One of the reasons Bush STILL refuses to release the Reagan papers is part of the Right Wing hope of keeping facts out of the discussion, and hopfully out of history.
We all need to remember, however, that even if George W. Bush is a total failure as Parent to the Right, he has been the most effective president of all time at securing the wishes of his constituency, which is actually not the "conservative" ideology. It is Moneymen.
Any idiot that can step back and view even a little of the Big Picture can see what that is. George is a wannabe Moneyman. That is pretty much it. They have called the shots, and they have all they could ever have dreamed of. War profiteering, deregulation, protection from any penalties, massive tax breaks or tax elimination, broken unions, dessicated middle class, record redistribution of wealth to a new and rabid wealthy class, a purchased media with complete control of the information to the 'consumer', the fascist dream state.
His cadre even fooled the peripheral support of the Right Wing. All you have to do as a Moneyman to sucessfully control the religious factions, is throw them a few bones in the Fearful Christian Wish List and viola! Shitloads of votes! A couple of Justices, a couple of regulations (what?) allowing tax dollars to be subverted to thier churches, some churchy talk in a few speeches with all the code words, and you own them. None of those things interfere with Moneymen. Moneymen dont need permission to get thier wives, mistresses, or daughters abortions. Money gets you anything you need, the law is easy to get around when you have means.
You see some rifts right now as the Moneyman philosophy and World View collides with the ideology of the "true conservative" because if Money is the top priority, the Constitution is clearly in the way... This reported (and verified) by many sources from 2005:
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don't give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
Well, not to many of us, including at least SOME conservatives... but to Moneymen, it could be a serious impediment to cash.
You make the most money when you need not regard Truth. The biggest fortunes in the world were all amassed by leaving some vital Truth out of the process. All fortunes are products of a contract... an agreement if you will, between the population and an individual or group of individuals, whereby money will flow from one to the other. Truth gives the advantage to the party giving up the money, the group investing in the wealthy class. Truth rarely helps the wealthy, as it would expose many things, such as the contempt they have for the gullability of the population to give money to them. (Bad Parent... feelings of such superiority are hallmarks of some pretty inbred impediments to growing up.) There is no need for the super rich. Never has been. The main goal of the super rich is to insulate themselves from the rest of us, and be elites. This is always best done by lying to us about their value, goals, morals, etc., but especially the process. If I tell you that my fruity cereal is good for you by celebrating and hyping some vitamin common to its ingredients (and voided by its other characteristics) you are less likely to give me four times its value per box than if I was truthful with you and told you that it was fairly nutrition free and its sugary composition would likely just make you feel good while you ate it and fatter if you continue to do so. This goes for wars, and Supreme Court Justices as well. It is all the same... Setting up a state where Moneymen rule the world for the forseeable future requires some serious blows to the content of the U.S. Constitution....
More poop from my little friend Curtis... again, he has blocked me so there is no dialogue. Just hurled feces. (I am guessing Curt is thirteen or so.)
Boo hoo, you have hurt my feelings. Because you cannot spell correctly the name of President Reagan. Just to prove again that all liberals are dumber than dirt. Before you hurl your own feces at me, why don't you instead put that feces to good use by cutting off your own head and shitting down your own throat. Vote Republican or die!
Warmest regards, Curt
Curt was right. I have no spell check with this cheap editor. I think I fixed them all... perhaps Curt will let me know...
I dont mean to single Curt out, his are just sort of entertaining. Curt is actually pretty typical of most the mail I get from the "right". Curt's grammar and spelling are actually better than most, though the content is at the same level.
*****
Added: September 9, 2007:
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS COUNTRY? WHY COULD ANYONE WHO THINKS, THINK THAT THE ANSWER TO ANY OF OUR PRESENT PROBLEMS WOULD BE TO THROW ANOTHER REPUBLICAN AT IT? OUR PROBLEMS ARE LARGELY REPUBLICAN CAUSED! THROW A DIFFERENT REPUBLICAN AT THEM? Hard to believe they are even getting press. I dont think I have seen anything more pathetic than the Republican "debates". They are all exposed for what they are right now, rich men who desperately want to stay at the trough... They will say ANYTHING, pander to ANYONE. Old "Mitt" the war monger... has 3 sons that could be serving in this war he so strongly supports... but noooo... Yellow Elephants. All of them. There should be NO SUCH THING as College Republicans. They should all be signing up for this Great Republican Cause in Iraq. Fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here.... isn't that what they say?
Here are some good articles on the pathology of the so-called "conservative". The whole series is good. My take, as I have stated, is that the psychological underpinnings of this are simply immaturity. Dangerous suspended development at the root, and everything after that is the bloom on the bush.
Cracks In The Wall, by Sara Robinson
Excerpt: "John Dean tells us that we are not likely to change the hearts of the authoritarian leaders. And their hardest-core followers may be lost causes, too: most of them grew up with that model, have lived their entire lives by it, and in many cases have been so damaged by it that getting them to accept any other way of viewing reality is likely to be futile."
*****
Added: September 11, 2007:
This pretty well sums up our Iraq fiasco. This is the part Gen. Petraeus WONT be talking about to Congress...
From Tim Eagan
Is General Petraeus not the lauded general the Fox News crowd wants you to believe? I have one thing to say about him... in my opinon he is the bottom of the heap.
He may be decorated, he may have a good education. You can take all that and shit it out door with what you do with yourself on any given day if your choices cause others to needlessly die. Apparently Petraeus has a reputation for rising in command not by achievements, but by pleasing his superiors with seemingly mindless agreement. His present boss, Admiral Fallon, is quoted as saying (to his face) that he is "An Ass-Kissing, Little Chickenshit... I Hate People Like That"
Petraeus' Iraq report (exquisitely mocked by Jon Stewart here on the Daily show on tuesday, September 11) was a restatement of George W. Bush's views from the past few months almost verbatim. (Jon compared statements with actual video...)
One thing to remember about Petraeus is that if he were the Great General that his admirers say he is, he would have been put in at the front end of this war. The seasoned brass in the U.S. Military have been chewed through for years now, given the impossible task of leading the Armed Forces into the Pandoras Box of the Bush Doctrine. Petraeus is there because all the GOOD generals have left in disgust, speaking out in the relative freedom of retirement against this worst Commander in Chief and his equally incompetent and ideologically poisoned civilian advisors. Petraeus rose in the vacuum created by that exodus. No self respecting General left would disgrace his soldiers in the field by insisting they stay there using the same "logic" crafted by a doughy uneducated infant named Karl Rove, and the equally infant (and I am convinced he is also sociopathic) adult child, George W. Bush. At this stage of the Bush Presidency, there are precious few who will voluntarily follow his lead, and Petraeus seems to do it with glee, finally himself, the Big Cheese.
You serve your country first, not a rogue President.
The other great video on episode of The Daily Show was this one, where, using his Eight Keys for Success, John Hodgman redefines failure in Iraq.
As time goes on, I will break this page into separate topical pages, such as "Free Market Infantism", "Religious Infantism", etc.
I welcome good reference material! If you have come across a good relevant article or excerpt or cartoon or anything, send me the link!
Since we have had "conservative" will imposed on us for nearly 8 years now with no discussion, no conservative will be included in the discussion here. You have had your say. This is for grownups.