Rush knows the absolute devotion and blind loyalty of the dittoheads is what keeps him at the top of the reactionary talk radio dog pile. And at the moment, I think he must sense he can’t afford to get too far out in front in the selling of Church Lady.
Back to Main
October 5, 2005
WB: Rush Job
Comments
The Claude Rains Gambling Awareness Award goes to the Daily Kos community who are just shocked, shocked to discover that Bush is plottong to use the Military to keep order in the US.
What, Bush, a fascist, I can hardly believe it.
When I say “Bush” I of course do not mean the lame sock puppet cum dumb ass who presently occupies the office, but the ones working behind the scenes to ensure the continuity of their power.
Harriet Miers will do just fine; another cog in the machine.
For them there are no disaster, only opportunities.
Posted by: Lupin | Oct 5 2005 6:38 utc | 1
This is something for Billmon to chew on.
There is no ‘New Deal’ in today’s America – Financial Times
By Anatol Lieven
October 5 2005
The next few months in the US may indicate the answer to a central question of American life today: whether the present system is capable of serious reform. If the recent combination of natural and man-made disasters does not stimulate debate on such reform, then the future looks bleak indeed.
The issue is not whether such reform can take place quickly, but whether American society is capable of talking seriously about it. The actual implementation of radical change, in the US or elsewhere, does not occur without a crisis. At present, such a crisis is being prevented by the willingness of China and Japan to buy US debt, sustain US consumer spending on their exports and allow the Bush administration to go on cutting taxes. But this situation is fragile. By radically increasing the US budget deficit and emphasising the future costs of global warming, hurricanes Katrina and Rita have underlined that fragility and helped to draw the contours of future crises.
The last existential crisis of the US political and economic system was the Great Depression from 1929. That crisis was overcome thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. But the intellectual underpinnings of the New Deal had been developed by progressive thinkers in America over the previous 40 years. In Germany or France today, serious reform at present may be politically unfeasible – but at least the issues have been debated and solutions will be at hand if circumstances change. In the US, by contrast, serious reformist thinking is largely absent not only from the political parties but also from the mainstream media and most think-tanks. Of course, it exists, but mostly in politically powerless journals and institutes, not places that really help form elite opinion and state policies. The parties are paralysed by the influence of powerful groups devoted to defending the status quo. The media and think-tanks are also largely disabled by their links to political and economic interests. In the wake of Katrina, the mainstream US media won praise for finally daring to criticise the Bush administration. But there is little sign of their readiness to analyse deep flaws in the US system. The exceptions are race and poverty, issues raised so glaringly by Katrina that only a totalitarian system could avoid mentioning them.
Among the fundamental issues absent from public discussion is the political patronage system, in the areas of jobs and financial allocations. Strong criticism has been directed at the Bush administration, quite rightly, for its appointment of unqualified political cronies to senior posts. What no one asks is why the US, alone among developed countries, has such an extensive system of political appointments to vital and highly technical government jobs. Such questions would be considered to reflect lack of patriotism. More importantly, the political parties cannot raise this issue as they are both dependent on patronage to raise funds and gain support. The think-tanks cannot discuss it because too many of their members dream of becoming assistant deputy something or other after the next elections. But at least the media should be able to talk about this.
Similarly, both Congress and the Democratic politicians of Louisiana have been criticised, quite rightly, for senators’ colossal diversion of scarce federal funds to pork-barrel projects in their states – something that contributed directly to the disaster in New Orleans. But no one asks why the US system allows opportunities for pork-barrel politics on this scale.
US inability to compare itself to other countries also applies to discussion of global warming and energy conservation. After Katrina, these issues cannot be ignored. But the US public cannot be told how isolated internationally America is on this question. Media discussion too often takes the form of a rigged debate in which scientific evidence for global warming is set against scientific opponents of this thesis – despite the fact there is broad international support for the first position while the second is held essentially by isolated individuals.
If a crisis on the scale of 1929-32 strikes the US now, the country would not find an FDR with a New Deal programme to run against the Republican’s Herbert Hoover. It would have a timid, ineffective Hoover for the Democrats running against a Republican Calvin Coolidge, a hidebound defender of the worst aspects of the existing system. If that had been the choice in 1932, the very foundations of the American state would have been in peril.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism
Posted by: David Seaton | Oct 5 2005 7:09 utc | 3
“(I generally pay about as much attention to his rants as I do to the demented yapping of the little dog that lives next door.)”
As an owner of a demented yapping little dog, I apologize on behalf of all next door neighbors who have to listen to one. I wish I could shut my little guy up, but his Napoleonic spirit is just too relentless.
Posted by: steve expat | Oct 5 2005 7:26 utc | 4
what’s the difference between rush limbaugh and the hindenburg?
one’s a fat nazi gas bag and the other is a dirigible.
garry trudeau wrote that many years ago.
Posted by: mc | Oct 5 2005 9:01 utc | 5
Plausably, the same fog in Iraq also infiltrates the domestic front. In W world all systems are go, in spite of the cloud of fragmentary jetsam filliing the air at party headquarters. Who knows who will still be standing when the air finally clears, (W)hat now in his bunker mumbling and bumbling orders over the phone to divisions long since deserted and gone home to wander the landscape wondering “honey, wheres my dinner……honey?”
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 5 2005 10:05 utc | 6
Rush would rate a Bush shit sandwhich a B+, if he thought his audience would buy it. He knows his job is to sell the Republican special of the day, and nothing more, and he never has had a problem with that before. That he’s gagging a bit now shows that his audience isn’t ready to bite. The Right’s reflexive trust, not to say worship, of Bushco is dead. They’re coming around to the idea that he’s not really one of them. Did you ever think you would have seen that from the Kool Aid crowd? It’s interesting and hopefully significant moment – Kansas actually saying “What’s the matter with us?”
I read a post from some wingnut blog last night – forget exactly where I saw it – but the poster said, in essence, that he was a staunch Bush foot soldier in Ohio, that he never gave a crap about the tax cuts or the war – but he cared about the Supreme Court and “life”, and Bush was letting him down on the only thing he really cared about. Rush’s job is to bring these people along, and he’s actually not sure he can do it. Hmmm….
As for how progressives should react to Miers, it’s interesting. The thing I like best about her is that she’s 60 years old. We could get a 45-year-old Luttig or Owens served up next if she’s rejected. Even if she would create equally bad jurisprudence as these others – not a bad bet, although not a sure thing – actuarially she’ll probably be doing it for far fewer years than a number of others Bush could have picked. It’s tempting to let her pass for that reason alone. Playing out the filibuster thread, I fear, will show just how badly the Democrats have positioned themselves to take advantage of the Republicans’ implosion. There’s a lot of work to be done before November 2006.
Posted by: NickM | Oct 5 2005 10:09 utc | 7
@ steve expat: “As an owner of a demented yapping little dog, I apologize on behalf of all next door neighbors who have to listen to one. I wish I could shut my little guy up, but his Napoleonic spirit is just too relentless.”
Not to worry. It’s the demented yapping little dogs that keep the burglars at bay. =)
Posted by: beq | Oct 5 2005 12:41 utc | 8
Bernard Kerik is a philandering criminal and yet still makes the rounds of MSM news shows expounding on security issues. Rush is a confirmed drug addict and prescription/doctor shopper on a grand criminal scale. Bill Bennett squanders away millions gambling and preaches personal virtues while openly musing about aborting an entire generation of blacks. David Dreier is gay and votes for anti-gay laws. This is a party that has America convinced they are the moral ones, the law abiding, virtuous levee holding out the heathen, depraved, liberal waters. Why anyone listens to what they have to say is beyond me. Conservatives really are the easiest of marks where intellect and critical thinking are required.
Posted by: steve duncan | Oct 5 2005 13:07 utc | 9
This is something for Billmon to chew on.
There is no ‘New Deal’ in today’s America – Financial Times
I’m reading his book now, I’ll probably post something on it when I’m done.
I can’t quarrel with his overall diagnosis — I’ve been talking about the same things for the past two-and-a-half years. But I would take issue with one line:
If a crisis on the scale of 1929-32 strikes the US now, the country would not find an FDR with a New Deal programme to run against the Republican’s Herbert Hoover.
The fact is that the country didn’t find an FDR ready with a New Deal program when the Great Depression hit — he and his brain trust basically made it up on the fly. Roosevelt’s initial policy was, of all things, to try to balance the budget (Rubinomics has deep roots in the Democratic Party) It was only after it became obvious that that wasn’t working that the New Dealers started groping towards a Keynesian reflation program.
My point is that it’s not surprising the system isn’t addressing the “big issues” — the system NEVER addresses the big issues, until there’s a crisis. The real question is whether it still has the flexibility and dynamism to change quickly after the crisis hits. But the aftermath of 9/11 suggests the news is bad on that front, too. The habits of empire (create your own reality, ignore anything that doesn’t fit in that reality and rely on size, power and inertia to carry you through) are too deeply engrained now.
Did you ever think you would have seen that from the Kool Aid crowd? It’s interesting and hopefully significant moment – Kansas actually saying “What’s the matter with us?”
No, they’re saying: “What’s the matter with Bush?” Which is a moment I’ve both been waiting for and kind of dreading for a whle now. These people aren’t going to move to the left just because their idol has been revealed as just another GOP corporate whore.
There’s a big, amorphous movement out there — the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more” movement. It’s always been there, but since 9/11 the more ideologically conservative elements in it have been lined up behind Bush. Now they’re falling out. If the shit hits the fan — the kind of shit Anatol Lieven was talking about in that FT piece — the pieces are all going to be in place for the rise of an angry, right-leaning populist third party — like Perot’s Reform Party, but with much higher wing nut content.
That could be good — if it splits the Republican base and allows the Dems to win with a plurality, as in ’92. But an angry, right-wing protest party that’s big enough to play the role of spoiler (even if it’s not big enough to win power directly) can be a dangerous thing in a bourgeoise democracy. Just ask the Germans.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 5 2005 13:11 utc | 10
Perhaps Rush has been encouraged to rethink his support of Miers with the warning that his drug conviction in FL might start moving at the pace of every other drug conviction in the state, as opposed to the snail’s pace it’s been taking? And maybe, too, said drug conviction would include the dealing conviction that the sheer amounts Rush was using would normally require.
I’m just saying, BushCo gains obedience as often by threats as it does by real loyalty.
Posted by: emptywheel | Oct 5 2005 13:41 utc | 11
I liked that FT aricle. The near future is shitstorm. After that, do we get the jackbooted thugs or FDR?
Crossroad time.
I can’t guess, but to dismiss a new modernized American version of fascism as a possibility is dangerous.
I’ve been writing about this for a while, too. (Not alone I rush to add.)
The really big issue isn’t Miers or even Iraq – it’s what happens after the fall.
As Bob Heinlein wrote, “If this goes on…”
Posted by: Lupin | Oct 5 2005 13:58 utc | 12
All that party apparatus that Rush so perfectly represents isn’t there to support a populist right-wing party. It’s there to drum up popular support for a corporatist right-wing party. If the Republicans start to split, that machine starts to break down. And in the end, business will control. If the loonies get their lederhosen in a knot about it, that’s fine, there’s always another party across town that knows the business of America is business, not fetuses.
The German analogy only goes so far. Germany in the early 1930’s not only had a right-wing protest party, it also had a powerful if splintered left that was an actual, credible threat to the business elite and bourgoise (who must have still had fresh memories of the Bavarian Socialist Republic in 1932). Business had real incentive to side with right-wing lunatics. There’s nothing like that dynamic today. Business would probably be happier with DLC types who prized competent management of government than it would be with a bunch of Roy Mooreist fetal falangists.
Posted by: NickM | Oct 5 2005 14:03 utc | 13
Great Depression… was overcome thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Not true. FDR lenthened and deepened the Great Depression by shutting banks, seizing control of farms and factories, creating regulatory agencies with vast powers and no sensible purpose except the manufacture of slogans and window stickers.
I accept Billmon’s analysis that reflation was a policy that “worked” in terms of Wall Street and State Street, but it did not create wealth.
Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Oct 5 2005 14:17 utc | 14
Business would probably be happier with DLC types who prized competent management of government than it would be with a bunch of Roy Mooreist fetal falangists.
They might — IF the DLC types actually had enough popular support to consistently win elections. But never underestimate the Republican loyalties of the corporate new class. It’s practically genetic. (Also, you’d also be surprised how many of them are fetal falangists themselves.)
Unless the Democtratic Party is willing to embrace supply-side lunacy (these guys are downright irrational when it comes to their top marginal tax rate) and ditch any remaining ties to the unions, they’ll stay in GOP tent. And if the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more” movement really takes off, they’ll do what they have to do to buy it off, up to and including putting Roy Moore in the White House. Not because they’re scared of the liberals (although they despise them and would love to crush them completely) but because they WILL be scared of what a populist third party run my social conservatives might turn into if they don’t have influence within it.
Different incentive; similar result.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 5 2005 14:31 utc | 15
Not true. FDR lenthened and deepened the Great Depression by shutting banks, seizing control of farms and factories, creating regulatory agencies with vast powers and no sensible purpose except the manufacture of slogans and window stickers.
It’s a complicated story — the New Deal went through several phases. Suffice it to say I don’t think Wolf really knows what he’s talking about — although he is right about one thing: The New Deal didn’t end the depression; World War II did.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 5 2005 14:34 utc | 16
“And if the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more” movement really takes off, they’ll do what they have to do to buy it off, up to and including putting Roy Moore in the White House.”
Interesting thought that I had never considered and new thing to worry about, as well – a Twofer!
Posted by: NickM | Oct 5 2005 14:35 utc | 17
“Sunrise at Campobello” and “Warm Springs” may well be liberal wet dreams but FDR did face his affliction, overcome denial and worked to help others. None of which is true of George W Bush. Instead, the Bush administration is composed of radicals wedded to their revolutionary view of the world. The existential crisis that is coming will all be the worse due to their beliefs and incompetence and the failure of the Media and the Democrats to heed the Warning Signs.
Posted by: Jim S | Oct 5 2005 15:50 utc | 18
Ross, don’t get your hopes up. The Dems will surely find a way to fumble the ball. In a pinch Bush can always persuade Joe Lieberman to make the Sunday morning rounds bleating his “Can’t we all just get along?” tripe.
Posted by: steve duncan | Oct 5 2005 16:48 utc | 20
Great FT piece. My head is just spinning around with the implications. What if…?
What if the US didn’t just hand out key government posts to pompous idiots in return for election cash?
What if all the money the government collects wasn’t just corruptly squandered in pork projects in return for election cash?
What if government policy were informed by the global scientific community instead of corporate PR departments in return for election cash?
Hard to imagine…
Posted by: PeeDee | Oct 5 2005 21:41 utc | 21
@Billmon
Okay, duly chastised, and I’ll agree that the New Deal is a complicated history of crises, not just failure of FDR’s first term improvizations. I personally think Social Security was never intended to become a broad middle class pension with Medicare benefits.
In any case, I wanted to mention this link for the record On Liberal Democracy. Perhaps we are not far apart conceptually, if the end of law is fairness.
I’m not asking anyone to agree with me. Just speaking up once in a while to remind the world that I read Billmon daily for clarity and breadth of perspective.
Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Oct 5 2005 23:07 utc | 22
well, Studs Terkel said the Wallace was really the guy behind the New Deal, and he was booted out for Truman cause Wallace was too liberal.
Can anyone doubt that the G.I. Bill, a massive redistribution of wealth, had positive effects on the American economy?
oh, silly me. I forgot the American dogma…it’s unfair to tax people who have done nothing to earn inherited wealth except to be born to some stupid fucker…like Bush, for instance…and we all know how inspiring he is… not to mention Paris Hilton. And Michael Jackson is a good argument that too much money makes you soul sick…or at least difigures your face and makes people wonder why you have little kids sleeping with you…
I happen to disagree with that FT article, because I think Howard Dean gets it…and this, of course, is why he was hounded off the national stage.
Well, if things get really bad, we can always eat the rich.
Posted by: fauxreal | Oct 6 2005 0:43 utc | 23
“But an angry, right-wing protest party that’s big enough to play the role of spoiler (even if it’s not big enough to win power directly) can be a dangerous thing in a bourgeoise democracy. Just ask the Germans.”
That’s what I’ve been expecting since April 2004, when catastrophic defeat in Iraq became a certainty.
It’s not going to be peace love dove when the collapse comes.
Posted by: ab | Oct 6 2005 0:50 utc | 24
& that collapse will come – you can bank on it
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 6 2005 0:53 utc | 25
FDR lenthened and deepened the Great Depression
When I see arguments of this sort, I am always put in mind of the rather novel argument by Ben Stein, to the effect that the Great Depression was caused by the New Deal.
Posted by: marquer | Oct 6 2005 1:18 utc | 26