Posted on 05/20/2006 8:09:53 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
The Democratic party fought the war within, and the marxists won. There are only a handful of social welfare/pro-Americans left--Lieberman, Ed Koch, and Zell Miller are the only ones that come to mind. The rest have gone the way of the dinosaur. There is no Sam Nunn wing of the party anymore, nor could one be resurrected, because the core beliefs of the party would not permit it. A Democrat that spouted the belief in American power to effect pro-American policies in the War on Terror would just be lying to the nation. The party would bring the boys home pronto, and it would be another Vietnam 1975 moment.
Now, if you can find a group of anti-Muslim christians to bomb from above until they submit to UN peacekeepers, the Dems would be all over it. Maybe the Poles this time.
Or to look at things more positively, one generation's winners may actually fix some real problems, so the next generation is more confident to try new things, even if they aren't likely to work out. It's all part of the duality of the universe.
Beinart has a point about the value of "Cold War" liberalism. If you have two parties that alternate in power, it won't do to have one of them so pacifist or opposed to the national interest that they're a danger to the rest of the country.
Cold war liberals came up with some good ideas -- even some essential ones -- and they gave an attractive shine abroad to American policies. Truman pretty much set down the policies that we'd follow for the next forty years (with deviations and waverings along the way. And say what you will about JFK, he did make the US more popular abroad.
So there certainly was something to Cold War liberalism, but it looks a lot like they were the B-team. They weren't usually the ones who did the heavy lifting, carried through, and cleaned up the messes along the way. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan followed through on the policies that Truman outlined, without falling into the traps that Johnson and Carter did.
One real problem is the arrogance of Schlesinger and his kind. Whether they were New Dealers or One Worlders in the 40s or Stevensonians in the 50s or enthusiasts for Kennedy and the New Frontier in the 60s, supporters and architects of Vietnam or increasingly radicalized opponents of that war, hawks in youth, or doves as time went on, there was a real snobbery and condecension among that class or caste or set.
And they didn't always show the kind of consistency and dedication necessary to get things done. That is a fault of intellectuals -- they get carried away by an idea and lose interest a little later. Sometimes they even develop an enthusiasm for the opposite notion, if it looks new and sexy enough.
Although the neocons were fierce enemies of Schlesinger's sort in the 1970s and 1980s they are also heirs to Cold War liberalism and to its elitism and indifference to the the concerns of those outside the ruling circles. In general, the "workhorses" of diplomacy are to be prefered to Kennedyesque "showhorses" who don't have the resolve or stamina to see their policies through to a successful conclusion.
So, sure, one cheer for Cold War liberalism and maybe even for Peter Beinart now, but not the full three cheers. That would encourage people who are already too hungry for power too much.
I hope he helps diminish the worst leftist/collectivists from the Democrat party.
The old republican party, was all about big govt. But during the progressive era, the Rockefeller/Morgan interests backed ALL the canidates. IE, of three Warburg brothers, one backed Wilson, one backed TR, and one backed Taft. Paul Warburg of the Morgan interests is who wrote the Fed'l Reserve Act in total secrecy at Jekyll Island.
Today Morgan/Chase supports leftist whack-org ACORN, one of the worst, right up there with La Raza, Moveon and Codepink. Of course they coerced many banks to grant them support via the egregious Community Reinvestment Act as their lever.
Bottomline is that progressives from BOTH parties sold America out to special interests, primarily the largest NE banking concerns, substantial co-ownerships & controls of which rested in the Int'l Banking House of Rothschild of which the Warburgs were married into and also controlled by.
By the century's turn, progressives had already been trading with all the largest European and especially German corps like IG Farben, taking stock interests in each other, partnerships etc. even thru the 30's.
Std Oil sold Hitler oil before and during the war. America's wealthiest elites cared not for ideology except to the extent with which it could gird and enhance their power and wealth, as they envied the euro-dictors for acheiving.
And thus these interests put in politicians sympathetic to their gaining from Govt subsidies, barriers to competitive entry via regulations, tarrifs and price controls - all to the detriment of taxpayers.
The map of Europe would have looked much different had Wallace been in charge at the end of the war. We came within a whisker of disaster and yet many Amercians scarcely know who Wallace was. It is surprising that the liberals now like to be called Progressives, because the Progressive Party was riddled with Communists. In fact the Communist Party endorsed Wallace when he ran for President as the nominee of the Progressive Party.
The CPUSA also endorsed Kucinich in the Rat primary, and ipso facto any Rat as opposed to W.
If the Rats had NOT traded in Jefferson for Marx I'd be one.
And as far as I can tell now, the GOP has quit on it's promises to follow the RWR & Gingrich drive to relimit the beast. Spector, Collins, Graham, DeWine - I mean WTF is the GOP shooting itself in the foot for?
The GOP was supposed to take this across the board majority win for the first time in FORTY years and roll back ALL the progressive era slings and arrows that wounded our constitution and brought us fully into the welfare-warfare state that transfers more wealth to political, banking and industrial elites than the poor their guise promised.
http://www.congressionalprogressivecaucus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=28
George Will produced an excellent body of work, and some of the most delightful wordsmithing, for decades. But lately, I agree, he just seems to be mailing it in.
What was called a liberal then is not the same as now. Back then, thirty to forty years ago, everyone shared the same social culture and Dems were as big of anti-communists as Republicans. Truman sent troops to Korea to contain the communist invasion of the south. It was Kennedy and Johnson who set up Vietnam. Kennedy was responsible for the Bay of Pigs. Most pols on either side of the political border supported them. Now the ultra left has taken over the Donkey Party. Now Dems and lefties seriously think that Bush is a bigger evil than Castro or Islamo-fascists. Unbelievable.
Ever hear of the Progressive Caucus? Know what "progressive" means in todays political terminology? There are fifty plus members of the Progressive Caucus in the house. Every one is a Dem save for Bernie Sanders of Vermont who admits to being a socialist. What conclusions can we draw from that?
Seriously no pol, save Sanders and he's from Vermont, will admit to being a socialist. But where do you think the words "redistribution" and "wealth or income gap" come from? They do it on the sly.
Always post facts and tear away the veil of mythography from the eyes of the ill informed.
I agree with you that Will has produced great material and analysis over the years. For the past 5 years or so, he has gotten increasingly mainstream in his analysis, sounding like all the other beltway pundits, only snootier. I guess what got me about this piece is his failure to opine that Beinart is an idiot and flat wrong. I've seen Beinart on the cable shout shows; he IS an idiot. It is fine to produce a piece on what the so called intellectuals on the left are thinking, but don't leave it sitting out there like a hanging curve without swatting it over the fence. Will's tone in this op-ed is like he kinda agrees.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
My point (and that of the author under discussion) isn't so much focused on JFK as on the fact that modern "progressives" are far less willing to see the USA as a force for good in the world than many earlier "liberals."
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