The GOP's "Deliberate" Search for an Enemy (to replace communism)

[BurtWorm]

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/29146


By Matthew Yglesias | bio

I've actually heard that Francis Fukuyama has said this before, but that information didn't come to me in reportable form. During a BloggingHeads.tv appearance with Robert Wright, Fukuyama says of Bill Kristol and his circle at The Weekly Standard that during the 1990s "There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn't do as well" when foreign policy wasn't on the issue agenda. The obvious candidates were either China or something relating to Islamic fundamentalism and, as Fukuyama notes, what they came up with was China. Then 9/11 changed things around, at least for a few years. I think this is very telling, and reveals a great deal about the mentality that's been guiding America's foreign policy during the Bush years.

[arcane1]

1. Eurasia/Eastasia vs Iraq/Iran

[JuniperLea]

4. The Orwellian Prophecies

are running amok, aren't they?

I was just thinking today about how on "those other sites" we at DU are commonly referred to as "commies".

[LSparkle]

2. Proof of what I've always thought: Rethugs HATE PEACE!

They need CONFLICT in order to scare people into voting for their fear-mongering, sabre-rattling, defense-heavy policies.

:grr:

[Ian David]

3. Why couldn't it have been Global Warming instead?

Or Lichtenstein.

We could kick Lichtenstein's ass any day of the week.

I know...

I nominate Moldavia as our new "Axis of Evil" target.

Principality of Moldavia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldavia

We can launch a war in October, and be done before the next election cycle.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. They remind me of

my MIL.

They have to have someone to hate. They are irrational and consumed by paranoia. The only way to stop them is to not respond to their fear-mongering. When they can't scare you any more, they lose their power.

[marmar]

6. I've always thought that...

Howard Zinn says it best:

"There is a precise division between who we bomb and who we don't bomb. The division has nothing to do with which countries may be harboring terrorists. The division has only to do with which countries we don't control yet. The countries that we control, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, can harbor as many terrorists as they want. We will look elsewhere."

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. I've said that for years - republicans HAVE to have an enemy.

And that something has to involve a foreign people - whether it's communists, terrorists, or what have you.

Republicans simply cannot exist without an enemy - they have no domestic policy to speak of, except war. They have no foreign policy to speak of, except war. They have to have an enemy to make the people afraid so that they can wage war, reduce liberties, engage in their psychotic economics, and maintain orwellian control of the people.

[DBoon]

8. or illegal immigrants

another search for an enemy