Submitted by mark karlin on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 3:47am. EditorBlog
There once was a somewhat principled -- even if selfish and objectionable -- movement in America called Conservatism. But that is no more: as much a victim of the public relations named "Reagan Revolution" as America's middle and working class and the once robust economy of the United States.
The modern "conservative" movement is nothing more than a massively funded and highly effective communications strategy to shift America into an oligarchy that functions for the super wealthy through tax cuts and for corporations through the elimination of safety regulations for the public good and the privatization of government for the common good.
That's not conservatism; that's highway robbery. It's a crime.
All this came about through the organized strategy and financing of wealthy financiers and corporations to build a network of think tanks, media-owned outlets, reporters toting the oligarchy line on the "benefits" of unrestrained "free trade," public relations initiatives, and front organizations to move America from an evolutionary society relying on the strength of innovation and a dynamic educated middle class to a relatively static society in which those at the top are in a members-only club growing obese with wealth while kicking others down from the ladder to the top and demanding tithes from them.
The most vital cudgel used to achieve this economic and social imbalance that stultifies the American nation and is immoral to its founding principles is the notion of "centrism." It is beat into us by Republican and Democratic politicians (Rahm Emanuel and the WH being current exemplars), the corporate mainstream media, and, of course, the relentlessly effective GOP echo chamber.
What is "centrism" other than an artificial metaphor, given that America is confronting so many issues and that the vast majority of society wants to move forward, not backward. What most Americans want is not static "centrism," but movement forward. That is the conundrum that corporate journalism, subject to the goals of its owners can't explain: how a society that allegedly is "conservative" is fed up with the gridlock in Washington that won't produce change.
After, so called "Conservatism" is the opposite of progress. It is moving backwards instead of forwards. The world, however, doesn't stop -- and the immoral assertion of "centrism" as the trope that politicians use to stifle America's advancement is allowing other nations like China, India and a United Europe to soon catapult past us.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/editorblog/303Amen.