Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - American conservatives are preparing for an armed revolution

roachboy · 05-01-2009, 09:07 AM

i've said this before in various rephrased ways, trying to be nice, but since this is in paranoia...
actually, now that i think about it, the only reason it is here, apart from an editorial decision, is the verb "planning" which i think is wrong in any event.

the republicans decided it was in their interest to fabricate a coalition with a range of far-right across the 90s. the coalition was never really coherent internally, but it seems that alot of folk had enough fun bouncing to the collective first person pronoun tracks that limbaugh and other populist ideologues were spinning that it didn't really matter--so long as the coalition was in opposition. once george w bush--a kind of reactionary chauncey gardner--got fashioned as all things to all far right wingers and the power of this populist reactionary discourse became momentarily evident, i think the coalition--which was a pure product of oppositional thinking--reached it's high point. all the segments then expected to get paid. some did, some didn't--either way then 9/11/2001 happened and things like that didn't really matter so much as the bush people could then navigate around the incoherence of their own base by substituting another Enemy. and for a while, this fascism-lite that people like limbaugh were all about effectively merged with the paranoid discourse of the Terrorist and the long march through the fog of american fascism-lite began.

then the fucking up started. then things got worse and worse and the ideological space the right had fashioned for itself receded like a tide and the political reach of the conservative movement evaporated along with it and things just kept getting worse for them. the republican party, which benefitted from this populist nonsense even as to appeal to moderates there was some hand-waving in the direction of nose-holding, got sucked into the vortex of its own making, a straight result of the singular, almost awe-inspiring incompetence of the bush administration. and now there's nothing but wreckage left.

so whaddya gonna do?

faux news has a business model to protect and a demographic to maintain and the infrastructure that our boy karl rove once bragged about in terms not that unlike an earlier boast about a thousand year reich---all that's collapsed. so generating hysteria becomes a business decision. everything faux news has done follows in a straight line from that.

conservatives know that their own actions have fucked them over completely, but they aren't real good at accepting responsibility for things it seems, so there's all kinds of distancing devices you see floating about--bush was not a "real conservative" blah blah blah---but all that really does is generate a sense of even more wreckage because it runs a separation between themselves and the republican party (for example).

not adept at reflexivity and too embedded in this fucked up mix of evangelical language with reactionary politics, these folk are pissed.

not adept at reflexivity and too embedded in this fucked up mix of evangelical language with reactionary politics, it seems almost predictable that they would now, collectively--in the sense of maybe everywhere maybe nowhere--feel themselves under threat.

so they're suceptible to hysteria because it enables them to direct the consequences of the fact that the right had power onto imaginary external threats.

and this is a lynchpin of any fascisant ideology. everywhere an Enemy that sucks dry the petit bourgeois Victim. everywhere a threat. all the time.

so guns. why not? lots of them too.

you, Evil Other, will not fuck with my stuff.

but i don't see a movement in this--i see a structured reaction. behind it, there's a bunch of management strategies, all geared around trying to find ways to weather a massive, self-inflicted political defeat. which is WAY bigger than the fact that obama was elected president.

so what it looks to me is happening is the formation of a new variant of the american extreme right, the kind of petit bourgeois right that's linked to the post-reconstruction extreme right, that's been a constant in the jurassic park of reactionary politics that is the united states.

what's changed is that these folk cannot occupy a collective first-person space and imagine that it extends much of anywhere.

they don't know how to deal with this. so guns.

that's my cheerful little narrative.
hope you had fun with it.

05-01-2009, 09:07 AM	#9 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i've said this before in various rephrased ways, trying to be nice, but since this is in paranoia... actually, now that i think about it, the only reason it is here, apart from an editorial decision, is the verb "planning" which i think is wrong in any event. the republicans decided it was in their interest to fabricate a coalition with a range of far-right across the 90s. the coalition was never really coherent internally, but it seems that alot of folk had enough fun bouncing to the collective first person pronoun tracks that limbaugh and other populist ideologues were spinning that it didn't really matter--so long as the coalition was in opposition. once george w bush--a kind of reactionary chauncey gardner--got fashioned as all things to all far right wingers and the power of this populist reactionary discourse became momentarily evident, i think the coalition--which was a pure product of oppositional thinking--reached it's high point. all the segments then expected to get paid. some did, some didn't--either way then 9/11/2001 happened and things like that didn't really matter so much as the bush people could then navigate around the incoherence of their own base by substituting another Enemy. and for a while, this fascism-lite that people like limbaugh were all about effectively merged with the paranoid discourse of the Terrorist and the long march through the fog of american fascism-lite began. then the fucking up started. then things got worse and worse and the ideological space the right had fashioned for itself receded like a tide and the political reach of the conservative movement evaporated along with it and things just kept getting worse for them. the republican party, which benefitted from this populist nonsense even as to appeal to moderates there was some hand-waving in the direction of nose-holding, got sucked into the vortex of its own making, a straight result of the singular, almost awe-inspiring incompetence of the bush administration. and now there's nothing but wreckage left. so whaddya gonna do? faux news has a business model to protect and a demographic to maintain and the infrastructure that our boy karl rove once bragged about in terms not that unlike an earlier boast about a thousand year reich---all that's collapsed. so generating hysteria becomes a business decision. everything faux news has done follows in a straight line from that. conservatives know that their own actions have fucked them over completely, but they aren't real good at accepting responsibility for things it seems, so there's all kinds of distancing devices you see floating about--bush was not a "real conservative" blah blah blah---but all that really does is generate a sense of even more wreckage because it runs a separation between themselves and the republican party (for example). not adept at reflexivity and too embedded in this fucked up mix of evangelical language with reactionary politics, these folk are pissed. not adept at reflexivity and too embedded in this fucked up mix of evangelical language with reactionary politics, it seems almost predictable that they would now, collectively--in the sense of maybe everywhere maybe nowhere--feel themselves under threat. so they're suceptible to hysteria because it enables them to direct the consequences of the fact that the right had power onto imaginary external threats. and this is a lynchpin of any fascisant ideology. everywhere an Enemy that sucks dry the petit bourgeois Victim. everywhere a threat. all the time. so guns. why not? lots of them too. you, Evil Other, will not fuck with my stuff. but i don't see a movement in this--i see a structured reaction. behind it, there's a bunch of management strategies, all geared around trying to find ways to weather a massive, self-inflicted political defeat. which is WAY bigger than the fact that obama was elected president. so what it looks to me is happening is the formation of a new variant of the american extreme right, the kind of petit bourgeois right that's linked to the post-reconstruction extreme right, that's been a constant in the jurassic park of reactionary politics that is the united states. what's changed is that these folk cannot occupy a collective first-person space and imagine that it extends much of anywhere. they don't know how to deal with this. so guns. that's my cheerful little narrative. hope you had fun with it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite