: The First Conservative : The New Yorker »
Posted By Radiofreeeuropa 3 months, 1 week ago in Political OpinionHow Peter Viereck inspired-and lost-a movement.
LIFE AND LETTERS about conservative Peter Viereck. In the winter of 1940, 23-year-old Harvard graduate Peter Viereck wrote a 5,000-word conservative manifesto The Atlantic Monthly. Conservatism as a formal political doctrine didn't exist in America in 1940. Viereck's essay called for a “new conservatism” to combat totalitarianism…
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Radiofreeeuropa
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months, 1 week ago
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American conservatism is an oddity...at least what we've come to observe of it. It has little or nothing to do with Burke. In fact today there is no intellectual component whatsoever to it.
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Viereck appears to be a moderate, and one literally rooted in observation of reality which contrasts starkly with both the ideologues of neoconservative corporate imperialists and the far right lunatics who are certainly the loudest noise in American politics.
This article sheds some light on an all but forgotten American realist who in today's political climate, would be branded a leftist. That seems to be how far the extremist rightwingers have tilted the gauge. As moderates are painted as extreme leftists over and over, the public at large, through sheer fatigue has accepted this to be so. -
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months, 1 week ago
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A complex thoughtful man, who to my mind, can't be imagined doing anything but walking out in utter disgust on any of the modern republican politicians. (Though my eyebrows raised in regards to his Father's embracing of Hitler).
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I know for instance, Boehner just gave a speech in which he claimed Americans completely reject a government run medical plan. Really? Has he seen any polls? Now numerous organizations such as Credo Mobile have collected signatures and delivered them directly to his office.
I signed one that had over 20,000 signatures. Yet he claimed he had not heard from a single person who supported a government run program. (Of course ironically he is on one, as are the rest of his Senate buddies, and has not offered to give it up...not even in the name of political expediency).
For a political philosophy allegedly grounded in truth and reality as a way of fending off totalitarianism, as this article suggested, how do we rationalize the science denial, 5,000 year old earth believing, irrational conspiracy mongering, and general reality denial of today's conservative?
Where did this movement stray so far off course?-
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Progressive3 months, 1 week ago
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"Where did this movement stray so far off course?"
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FTA:
Conservatives, he wrote in 1955, are “trying to overthrow an old ruling class and replace it from below by a new ruling class. . . . The new would-be rulers include unmellowed plebeian Western wealth”—here he singled out Texan oil money—“and their enormous GULLIBLE MASS-BASE." [emphasis mine]
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cowboygrandpa3 months, 1 week ago
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FTA:
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"Conservatives, he wrote in 1955, are “trying to overthrow an old ruling class and replace it from below by a new ruling class. . . . The new would-be rulers include unmellowed plebeian Western wealth”—here he singled out Texan oil money—“and their enormous gullible mass-base.”
In 1962, he published an attack on conservatives in The New Republic, titled “The New Conservatism: One of Its Founders Asks What Went Wrong,” in which he depicted a movement infiltrated by religious fundamentalists, paranoid patriotic groups, and big-business leaders, united in their loathing for the cosmopolitan élites on the nation’s coasts. “American history is based on the resemblance between moderate liberalism and moderate conservatism,” he wrote, and this tradition, which had saved the United States from Europe’s violent fate, conservatives now threatened to destroy. Viereck’s vision strikingly resembles the description of the contemporary Republican Party in last year’s best-selling book by Thomas Frank, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” He anticipated the radicalism of the George W. Bush Presidency before Bush had graduated from college. But by then Viereck was regarded by many conservatives as an apostate.
Viereck is now eighty-nine years old and living in retirement in South Hadley, Massachusetts. To say that he has been forgotten by conservatives is not quite right; he has practically been erased from the picture, like an early Bolshevik fallen out of favor. But in conservatism’s rise to power he foresaw its corruption by extremists, and his break with the movement may ultimately be more significant than his role in its creation."
Yep !!!! That just about sums it up !!!
From Nixon, Reagan to Bush II we have had demagogues, not true conservatives. Nixon was a money loving, paranoid, communist behind door, delusional anti American freedom, door opener for China. Reagan just kept opening the door wider, sending work and technology overseas where, the haters of America still hungered for her demise, what better way than to destroy her base of freedom, the ability to out produce and therefore, render other nations as less of a threat world wide. Everyone cheers his having the Berlin wall torn dowwn. But nobody remembers that walls were to keep people out as well as keep them in. The Bush pair. There is not enough space to fill what the destructive duo has done to America. Suffice it to say Grandpa Prescott Bush, would be proud of the way they have turned this country into a bed of Fascists, neocons claiming to be freedom lovers.
Yes we have a lot of "conservatives" who would have sided with Englands King George during the Revoulution. To preserve the way things were.-
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Progressive3 months, 1 week ago
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"Everyone cheers his having the Berlin wall torn down. But nobody remembers that walls were to keep people out as well as keep them in."
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With all due respect, I don't recall ever hearing of anyone being shot trying to get over that wall to East Berlin.
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cowboygrandpa3 months, 1 week ago
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FTA:
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"Conservatives, he wrote in 1955, are “trying to overthrow an old ruling class and replace it from below by a new ruling class. . . . The new would-be rulers include unmellowed plebeian Western wealth”—here he singled out Texan oil money—“and their enormous gullible mass-base.”
In 1962, he published an attack on conservatives in The New Republic, titled “The New Conservatism: One of Its Founders Asks What Went Wrong,” in which he depicted a movement infiltrated by religious fundamentalists, paranoid patriotic groups, and big-business leaders, united in their loathing for the cosmopolitan élites on the nation’s coasts. “American history is based on the resemblance between moderate liberalism and moderate conservatism,” he wrote, and this tradition, which had saved the United States from Europe’s violent fate, conservatives now threatened to destroy. Viereck’s vision strikingly resembles the description of the contemporary Republican Party in last year’s best-selling book by Thomas Frank, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” He anticipated the radicalism of the George W. Bush Presidency before Bush had graduated from college. But by then Viereck was regarded by many conservatives as an apostate.
Viereck is now eighty-nine years old and living in retirement in South Hadley, Massachusetts. To say that he has been forgotten by conservatives is not quite right; he has practically been erased from the picture, like an early Bolshevik fallen out of favor. But in conservatism’s rise to power he foresaw its corruption by extremists, and his break with the movement may ultimately be more significant than his role in its creation."
Yep !!!! That just about sums it up !!!
From Nixon, Reagan to Bush II we have had demagogues, not true conservatives. Nixon was a money loving, paranoid, communist behind door, delusional anti American freedom, door opener for China. Reagan just kept opening the door wider, sending work and technology overseas where, the haters of America still hungered for her demise, what better way than to destroy her base of freedom, the ability to out produce and therefore, render other nations as less of a threat world wide. Everyone cheers his having the Berlin wall torn dowwn. But nobody remembers that walls were to keep people out as well as keep them in. The Bush pair. There is not enough space to fill what the destructive duo has done to America. Suffice it to say Grandpa Prescott Bush, would be proud of the way they have turned this country into a bed of Fascists, neocons claiming to be freedom lovers.
Yes we have a lot of "conservatives" who would have sided with Englands King George during the Revoulution. To preserve the way things were. -
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FairNBalanced3 months, 1 week ago
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Meanwhile, public opinion on a variety of specific issues shifted rightward in 2009, Gallup says. More American adults hold conservative views than did in 2008, saying they see too much government regulation of business, want less influence by labor unions, favor laws that are less strict on the sale of fire arms, desire less immigration, consider themselves pro-life, and believe reports of global warming are exaggerated.
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cowboygrandpa3 months, 1 week ago
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So speaketh the faux new's believers.
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As I said we have neocons spewing forth their corrupted views. Proudly claiming the ownerhip, to the destruction of America.
Step right up folks. Come see the unmitigated charlatans of the neocon joke.
It talks, it walks, it says unbelieveable things. Wwhat a puppet showw !!!
You say there are many, ah they have hidden the strings well. Gush Limpaw, Shrill O'Riled, Twiddle Beck, and Twiddle Chainey.... Many players all puppets. hahahahahahahahaaaaa !!!!
Thanks for the propaganda speech FNB. Wwhich Faux news program was this spun from. -
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FairNBalanced3 months, 1 week ago
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"if the Democratic Party can hold together its majorities in both houses of Congress, it would be assured of passing healthcare legislation."
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That is beginning to look like a mighty big IF. This coming Tuesday will no doubt be a test to that fact. Next Tuesday, I believe you will begin to see the shift that the people have taken since voting for and believing in Obama. Improving America's healthcare is important. Wrecking it by including a government option clearly is not.
Next Tuesday will be a chance for the people that were ignored at the town halls and tea parties time to voice an opinion. -
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Bkumm3 months, 1 week ago
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I believe in a moderate agenda that leans socially liberal and fiscally conservative. The United States has long suffered from a duality of consciousness that has on one side a totalitarian, religious and self-interested agenda and another that has a anarchist, anti-establishment and human agenda. Most of our political and social problems have stemmed from efforts to try and reconcile these two irreconcilable perspectives. If we are to move forward as a nation, we must conceive an identity that allows one or the other of these two sides to take complete control.
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I know where I stand. I have strong suspicions that most people don't. -
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CRYMTYPHON3 months, 1 week ago
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Modern conservatism is a story conservatives
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tell themselves. It is an apocalyptic tale
of white hats against orcs ,
the endless quest to reach Reagan's Shining City on the Hill.
There is no point in intellectual
analysis unless if furthers the plot.
Our conservatives are only annoyed by serious people like Powell or Specter.
Burke would have been invisible to them.
Thus, Palin quits her elected position to join
the ranks of Rush, O'reilly, Coulter, Beck, and the
other talk-entertainers who narrate the episodes.
And the fact that modern american conservatism
is a story , is why there is no possible bipartisanship.
As Cheney once said, "We don't negotiate with evil; we
destroy it."
To achieve a goal at the cost of violating the
story, would outrage the audience.-
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Radiofreeeuropa3 months, 1 week ago
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Astute, concise and true!
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There is no doubt in my mind even Noam Chomsky (http://books.google.com/books?id=7idg2XjTVroC=PP1... could sit down and through reasonable discourse find ways forward with the likes of Peter Viereck.
Instead we have this outrageously baneful menace to reason, shouting and carrying on like babies, demanding policies that are so ludicrous, wicked, and laughable that any middle ground becomes an armed camp for far right extremeness. What is called "liberal" "leftist" and "socialism" by these folks would have been simply centrist and moderate a generation or 2 ago. -
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hyperbola3 months, 1 week ago
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RayGun's "Shining City on the Hill"???? American "exceptionalism" and the "Jerusalem" religious component thereof is centuries old already. Has been used to "excuse" many of our most heinous crimes against humanity. Over a century ago it was the "cover" for killing hundreds of thousands of catholic Filipinos to bring them "civilization".
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Unfortunately the "liberals" are as fond of this murderous delusion as the right-wingers.
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