Where IS the outrage?

Bob Herbert’s column “Winning the Class War” in Saturday’s New York Times about the race to the top—of money, not academic excellence—hit on a popular theme these days; the relentless consolidation of our nation’s wealth at the top 1 percent of the richest Americans.

This is another area in which I’m truly conservative. I truly don't think that is an American or democratic value.

U.S. laws , unfortunately for a good 90-plus percent of the rest of us, are increasingly liberal and generous in enabling the rich to pile it up to the detriment to those not in their rarified bracket.

Herbert focuses on how that negatively impacts the nation, including even the wealthy elitists themselves.

A telling paragraph in Herbert’s column says, “Recessions are for the little people, not for the corporate chiefs and the titans of Wall Street who are at the heart of the American aristocracy. They have waged economic warfare against everybody else and are winning big time.”

But, he points out, history—including our own—is replete with the rich in such aristocratic societies ending up being the losers. (Although we haven't had a U.S. version, yet, the French Revolution comes to mind.)

More telling than anything in Herbert’s column, though, is this comment posted by Times reader JLT of Palo Alto, California, (which, for anyone who might not know, is an exclusive enclave where the wealthy can live untouched, unaffected and uncontaminated by the hoi polloi):

“What we need is even more inequality,” wrote JLT, “so that people are motivated to study hard, work hard, and be successful. Bob Herbert wants a society in nobody is rich and everyone is equally poor.”

Perhaps I didn’t read into that comment what JLT might have intended—like hidden meaning, sarcasm or irony—but I detected no tongue in cheek in it.

So, 90-plus percenters, our problem is that we just haven’t studied or worked hard enough to keep from getting laid off, losing our pensions and savings or facing foreclosure on our houses.

I can’t help but wonder, though, what JLT’s story is. Who paid for his/her college education (assuming he has one)? Mom and dad? Athletic or government-funded scholarships? State taxpayers via a state university? Legacy admission? And who gave him/her a hand up in her/his career/life?

I truly believe former First Lady, now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right in her book, “It Takes a Village.” No one ever does it alone.

Herbert’s column and JLT’s comment reminds me of an acquaintance who is about my (advanced) age and decries having to pay taxes, “big” government, the U.S. as “nanny” state, and so much more that echoes libertarianism, yet he, himself, has been cared for in total and benefitted from government in so many ways his entire life. (I’ll go into detail about him in a future post.)

A friend, referring to the increasingly wild gush of lucre into coffers of the already obscenely wealthy, recently asked where the outrage in this country is.

The answer is long and complex, but it wasn’t the TPers, despite all of their vitriol and recent political clout. No, if the real 90-plus percenters haven’t been completely overdosed into celebrity, shopping and other such vapid trivialities apathy, my guess is, the real outrage is yet to come.

I'm on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jerrianneh

I'm Truly Conservative

But I very liberally wish everyone a great Thanksgiving and happiness with all we have to be thankful for.

Liberal Conservatives

A friend replied to my “Epiphany” post of a few days ago, agreeing with my view of Las Vegas.

‘It makes me shudder,” she wrote. “Everything I want to avoid.”

Although she has self-identified as a lifelong liberal, after reading my blog, she’s beginning to understands that, like me, she might also be truly conservative in many respects, such as family and (truly conservative) family values.

“Family is where love and charity grow,” she said. “Family is at the very core of our society and needs to be strong, supportive and connected. Family does not have to be husband, wife and children, of course. It can be any close-knit group or even couple.” 

I stumped her, though, in asserting that in many way, people who embrace today’s concept of conservative (not!) ideology and label.

“Can you explain more?” she asked.

Sure.

In many areas, people who are called conservatives these days advocate the liberal application or use of a number of methods, tactics, policies, practices and options, which illustrates just how topsy-turvy, even meaningless, the terms have become. Here are some examples:

• The death penalty.  So-called conservatives are generally in favor of imposing the death penalty for certain types of crimes and even expanding it to include even more categories. That seems like a pretty liberal stance. E.g., the liberal application/use of the death penalty versus the rare and conservative use of imposing the death penalty.

• Military intervention.  Today’s conservatives are far more likely to support military attack and/or invasion and maintaining a military presence in foreign affairs, as opposed to those considered liberal in today’s parlance who favor the very conservative use of military force, only in the most dire circumstances in defense of our country and not pre-emptively. Just today a nouveau conservative commented on a Facebook status update I posted about a blog post titled “The Shock Doctrine Push To Gut Social Security And Middle Class,” comparing it to the run-up to Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “The"run up" to the war was as popular 8 years ago as Obama was 3 years ago,” he wrote. Perhaps with his crowd, but it sure wasn’t with mine and millions like us.

• Religious beliefs and practices. Modern-day conservatives—particularly those who profess to be Christian and even more particularly the more ostentatiously Christian—are not the least bit conservative about imposing their religion onto others, into political discourse and into public/policy. They have nery liberal views of how much their religion can be inserted into and influence government, the First Amendment to the Constitution not withstanding.

 Those are just a few areas. More later.

Revolution

Recently defeated South Carolina Republican Representative Bob Inglis was interviewed a couple of days ago on National Public Radio in a piece headlined, “Republican Swamped By The GOP Wave.”

http://www.npr.org/2010/11/20/131474413/exiting-inglis-laments-conservatism-s-derailment

Contributing to Inglis’s electoral defeat was what has become the right-wing political career-ending position of daring to say he “believes in” climate change (apparently, although not said, as having some degree of human cause).

As an aside, use of the term “believe in” in this and similar contexts, sends my eyebrows skyward, as if one would “believe in” climate change as though it were some kind of religious ideology or deity.

Despite Congressman Inglis’s 93% conservative” voting record (yet not “conservative” enough for today’s South Carolina voters), I agreed with much of what he said on NPR.

He lamented the disappearance of the Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt, whose platform as both a Republican and a Progressive of the Bull Moose Party, was conservation. I think that must have been the Republican Party of my parents, or at least my father, who thought the best light switch was one in the "off" position.

That concept of conservatism has been flipped on its head as today’s conservative archetype, instead of being frugal and thrifty, comprises the bigger-is-better, consume-and-throw-away crowd.

New York Times right-of-center columnist David Brooks snarked about the nation’s capital being awash last month with famously high-gas-mileage Priuses—Brooks’s stereotypical vehicle of Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating, tree-hugging liberals—during The Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity.

So are “conservatives’” ideal vehicles gas-guzzling, super-sized SUVs and trucks? I think driving high-gas-mileage cars, eating healthfully and caring about trees are truly conservative virtues.

Also in the NPR segment, Inglis, in discussing the Tea Party, harked back to the French Revolution in which a populist movement turned the streets of Paris and other parts of France into rivers of blood—quite literally—with the wholesale purging of the nobility and privileged classes. (Inglis didn’t mention the rest of that story, in which the insurrection split into factions, attempted counter-revolution and countless pay-back executions (better hang tight to your heads, latter-day Robespierres), followed by the Reign of Terror years, which eventually produced Napoleon.)

Inglis’s reference to the French Revolution resonated with me as that bloody era in which innocents were indiscriminately killed off along with aristocrats and royalty has and continues to come to mind amidst the Tea Party rage that has morphed into elected officials with questionable qualifications and what might turn out to be anything but populist agendas.

Another nail in Inglis’s political coffin was veering off the conservative page by decrying faux assertions about President Obama religious faith, birth certificate and being a socialist/communist/fascist and the vicious attempt to destroy reputations and institutions.

I agree with the soon-to-be former congressman on that, too.

I'm on Twitter @jerrianneh

An Epiphany

The epiphany that I’m truly conservative occurred a little over a month ago while I was emailing with a friend. I had just returned from a Society of Professional Journalists convention in Las Vegas. My friend asked how my trip was and said that she had never been there, but thought it might be a fun place to visit.

It is, I replied, one of my least favorite places in the world (OK, of the places in the world that I’ve been). I had lived there for a couple of years in the ‘80s while working at a Las Vegas newspaper and have been back a few times since – on business. It doesn’t offer anything that I consider fun. So far as I’m concerned Vegas was bad enough twenty-five years ago and has only gotten worse since. So I unloaded on my friend.

“It is so fake and artificial and ultra-promotional of everything I dislike –gambling, smoke-filled hotels (altho they've made some strides to clean that up), drinking, prostitution, girlie shows, total debasement of women. Everything to obscene excess. You can't walk anywhere w/o guys shoving girlie cards in people's faces – a dozen or more of these guys every block wearing "Girls! Girls! Girls! Direct to you!" t-shirts. I'm way too conservative for all of that. I'm also way too jaded, cynical and judgmental about, not only the scene and the tourists who revel in it, but the hypocrisy of the über-religious and pious residents who are supported directly and indirectly by that Caligula-esque-fueled economy. But don’t get me started!”

The shocker was when I wrote, “I’m way too conservative for all of that.” It just flowed from my fingertips into the keyboard and onto my computer screen without any conscious thought from me. I sat and stared at what was staring back at me. Did I just write that? Surely I couldn’t mean it. But it had erupted so spontaneously. When my friend reads it, I thought, she will either snort with disbelief or think I've tipped off my trolley. I’m pretty sure she votes Republican, but have never talked politics with her because I value our friendship above trying to make political points or win any political debates.

That's when the epiphany hit.

It’s true, I realized. I am conservative in so many ways. Certainly in the ways that repulse me about Las Vegas. I don’t gamble and never have, despite living in places like Vegas where gambling is so ubiquitous. The spirits, wine and beer industry would go out of business if everyone drank as little as I do. I dress rather modestly and cringe at all the cleavage spilling out of the TV and off of movie screens. I feel relentless outrage over the double-standard, denigration, subjugation, misogyny, repression and belittling of females in today’s society and culture. (Some might consider that a “liberal” viewpoint, but it’s not. Those who engage in such behavior are very liberally discriminating against women and girls and doing so is certainly not a truly conservative value.)

Although I followed my Eisenhower-Republican parents’ political persuasion for the first decade or so after I married and got out into the world, with the passage of time, being a conservative has been increasingly antithetical to how I view myself politically.

On occasion, with the ongoing political polarization in this country, I have protested that some of the positions and ideology being espoused by political conservatives is anything but conservative in the pure sense of the word. But I had never incorporated that idea into my own identity.

But the more I thought about my reply to my friend’s email, the more I realized that I, in truth, am conservative and those who identify as political conservatives are, in reality, pretty liberal in many respects.

I’m on Twitter @jerrianneh

The Nazi Party's Left Wing

This seems rather strange to me. Fox News head Roger Ailes has called National Public Radio executives moderates or perhaps even centrists. How so? He said in an interview with Web-based "The Daily Beast" that NPR execs are "the left wing of Nazism."

Given that Nazis and Nazism is a form of fascism and the political far-right, wouldn't the left wing of Nazism be to the left of the far right, so that it would be toward the middle, politically?

Could it be that Ailes didn't really mean what he said?

Since he issued an apology a few hours later, apparently he didn't.

I'm on Twitter @jerrianneh

What is a Word

Conservative: Definition

1. Preserving.
2. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

3. Traditional or restrained in style: a conservative dark suit.

4. Moderate; cautious: a conservative estimate.

Am I a conservative? No. But I am conservative, and pretty much always have been. But my views don't match today's use of that word. That's because it has been appropriated by adherents of an ideology that is anything but. So I'm reclaiming it as my own because I Truly Am Conservative. Here's why:

• The death penalty should be imposed conservatively, if at all.
• Military force should be used only in the most dire circumstances in defense of our country and not pre-emptively.
• Religion is personal, no ostentatious displays, piety or imposition of one’s belief on others needed.
• Others' sexual activities and practices are their own business–I keep mine to myself, don't impose my views or beliefs on others and appreciate it when others do the same.
• Marriage for me is one person for life, but what others do is their business.
• As a fiscal conservative, I try live within my means, save and invest as much as possible, but have borrowed at times when I thought it necessary, such as when buying a house or car.
• As an ecological conservative, I try to conserve resources and re-use/recycle–well, OK, liberally. 

This blog will highlight a truly conservative view of social, political, financial and other aspects of daily life and discourse in this country and perhaps, at times, others.

If you would like to share yours, please keep it civil and courteous. Thanks.

You can also follow me on Twitter @jerrianneh