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Title: Pat Buchanan's make-believe America
Source:
Lew Rockwell
URL Source: http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/011270.html#more
Published: Sep 3, 2006
Author: Ryan W. McMaken
Post Date: 2006-09-04 21:41:25 by Burkeman1
Keywords: None
Views: 710
Comments: 66
I have never believed (and I still don't) all the claims made against Pat Buchanan (by people like William F. Buckley) alleging that he is some kind of anti-Semite or racist, but I have always been alarmed by his inability (shared by most conservatives) to recognize the incompatibility between his quasi libertarian side and his raging nationalist side. Some recent comments that a friend pointed out from this interview were particularly worth second guessing: What do we have in common that makes us fellow Americans? Is it simply citizenship? Or is it blood, soil, history and heroes? Blood and soil? Uh, there is one word to describe this line: creepy. What's next, a speech on how we're "one people, one fatherland", etc.? And then, there's this line: The country I grew up in was culturally united, even if it was racially divided. We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians. We were one nationality. Only an upper middle-class Anglo (Irish are now honorary Anglos) could actually believe this. The same faith? Um, isn't Buchanan ostensibly Catholic? How can he say this with a straight face? Does he honestly think that back in the good ol' days that Baptists and Catholics all thought they all had the "same faith?" There is significant evidence to the contrary. However, if he is claiming that all Christians are pretty much the same in terms of cultural unity, then the new immigrants shouldn't pose a problem as only a tiny minority of them are non-Christians. Hispanics are virtually all either Catholics or Evangelicals. The Asians that move here are largely Catholics or Presbyterians or Evangelicals. Practicing Muslims and Buddhists make up approx. 1% of the population combined. Mr. Buchanan should do some more homework on the religion issue.
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#1. To: All (#0)
The 1950's, as close to a totalitarian decade as this country has come, is what some "conservatives" hark back to and what they mean by the "good old days". The above passage by Pat is what they think existed at that time. It was then, and is now- a lie. That American never existed- except on TV. The first TV decade- tighly controlled by three networks all presenting a stultifying image of American conformity- Anglo, protestant, homogenized- is what Pat dreams of.
Many of us have learned that a lot of things we thought we so never were.
Are you talking about Patrick J. Buchanan, Phd?
Well, let's not forget that the 50's caused the 60's. That psychological oppression led to a widespread cultural rebellion. Maybe some of those "conservatives" are hoping that, with modern social technology, it won't work out that way again.
If the 50s caused the 60s (I agree), what will this repressive decade bring?
You can see that in the rebellion and excess of the 1960s. People just got fed up with the control and hypocracy.
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I am considering becoming a beatnik of the 21st century. Going to grow my beard back, lay in a big supply of cheap wine and get some young long haired girl to look after me. Maybe learn to paint dumb pictures or soemthing like that to pass the time.
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The 1950's are the golden age as far as Beltway "conservatives" are concerned. A huge DC government and enormous military- price controls- corporate/DC cronyism- fixed "free markets"- and a controlled medium presenting uniformity of thought and opinion.
Taking a wild guess: the 10's ? I think I see a pattern emerging here....
Point me to the commune, Moonbeam.
I've been thinking that if I can't leave the country, and if I don't end up in jail over taxes, I'd like to move to Folly Beach and become a senior pothead surfer dude. It could be a decent life.
Do you have a pair of regulation sunglasses and sandals?
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Not much. The 1960's quickly veered off into sexual and drug induced hedonism. "Conservatives" today embrace much of the 1960's excess culture as evidenced by Limbaugh- indeed- while on the one hand they denounce some of the more bizarre fringeness of the sexual "liberation" they also praise it and embrace it as "cool" conservatives. In the otherwise excellant movie "V"- they showed a government repressing "Gays" and enforcing a kinda surface morality. That isn't going to happen. We will have a government that looks much like the one in "V" but one that embraces "gays" and indeed- will actively undermine families while praising them.
who would have ever thought we'd have to think like this at this point in our lives?
Perhaps Pat is not articulating his thoughts to full advantage. To my mind Pat may be using a platform for his argument that consists of two things. One...He is old enough to remember from experience and from discussion with prior generations what this country was like with a small government, a government that was still the servant of the people, not their master. Two... I recall knowledge of this country passed down to me from family members born before the Civil War. There was no despair concerning this country. There were tales of hard times, of having an opportunity to succeed, always stories of one country, one people. At Appomattox, CSA General Longstreet, made the statement, "We have lost, that flag is now my flag". That, after a failed Civil War. It was a "one people" then and lasted for nearly hundred years.
The Beautiful Beatnik by Joe Bowler 1960
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Maybe I'm not so aptly named afterall.
Either commune me, or shoot me...
BANG.
The destruction of the western world's production capability left the US as the world's only producer. The 50's were good times, economic wise, for the Joe-6-Pack blue collar worker. Cheap houses, cheap cars, cheap food, and plenty of jobs. Now that was a sizzling economy...which none of will ever see again in our lifetimes. The 50's were America's peak. Even then you could see the cracks forming. After that is was a downhill slide as FEDGOV consolidated power, killed of the last of states rights, and fiddled with the money supply to allow for endless warfare. America has become what caused it's creation. Another bloated nation-state with a complex and all powerful national government that grants privlages to its subjects if it's in a good mood and enough laws on the books it gives the books their own gravational field; plus it likes to dabble in Empire building every now and then. As a friend who grew up in the 1960's had a teacher tell him: "You know all the rights we teach you about? They don't apply to people like you."
"The more I see of life, the less I fear death" - Me.
wow, the MB's are looking and sounding damn good still.
Now that was a sizzling economy...which none of will ever see again in our lifetimes. The 50's were America's peak. Even then you could see the cracks forming. After that is was a downhill slide as FEDGOV consolidated power, killed of the last of states rights, and fiddled with the money supply to allow for endless warfare. Excellent assessment.
hehehehehe.....(did I get a blind fold and a cigarette?)
Not bad for post 60 years. What a unique band.
We still had tariffs on everything so almost everything was made locally. I was just listening to a program on this. Some of the tariffs were 95%. The highest we have now are 7&. The only imports were high end European goods and really low end stuff from Japan. "Made in Japan" was a slur that meant cheap junk. I think a lot of the world's economy hadn't yet recovered from the war and there wasn't a lot of competition in things like automobiles.
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1864 baseball with Conan O'Brien http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7486119555302295313&sourceid=zeitgeist
"If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country." - Daniel Ellsberg Author, Pentagon Papers One People? Well I have a distinctly different experience. I live in a city that was intensly tribal with resentful Irish who decidely did not ever feel like "One People". This was a city with a Cardinal who forbade Catholics from entering a protestant house of worship and that set up the most extensive parochail school system in the country precisely to avoid protestant dominated public schools. For years- mayoral races in Boston were dominated by who could beat the yankee brahmins over the head the most. This was a country in which Woodrow Wilson once denounced "hyphenated" Americans like Irish and Germans as "traitors" and ran hate filled campaigns with rhetoric barely better than the Klan's. The 1950's is a decade that erased the "ethnic" from the public consciousness as much as possible- or presented them as "assimiliated" protestant clones. Some see, the subsequent "forced busing" years of the late 60's and 70's as a disguised Anglo assault on "ethnic" white and catholic America- an attempt to destroy their neighborhoods and sense of community and unity and spread them out into homegenized "suburbs". "One People?" A fiction.
That and one last word of contrition. I did it for your own good as I could not envision you in a commune.
So when did they stop calling little radios made with transistors "Transistor Radios"?
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who would have ever thought we'd have to think like this at this point in our lives? No foolin'. Hey, RR, hope your tax problems do not seem hopeless. I recently beat them on over $8k they said I owed. They just disappeared after I sent in some special paperwork.
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." Richard M. Nixon
Great post.
76?
Do I hear a fat lady singing?
I realize I’m probably a committee of one, but I’d argue the legacy of the 60s includes the fall of communism. Despite every effort, the decadence of the West crept past the Iron Curtin and inculcated the Stalinist robots, beginning with our age contemporaries. Vodka rather than pot was their drug of choice and rather than tune out, they slept in.
If the 60s was a cultural revolution, what should we expect 40 years later after the worst repression since King George III? Here's a hint... We need more rope! ;0)
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." Richard M. Nixon
I would rephrase that thusly... "The 1950s is a decade that accentuated ethnicity into the public consciousness." The 1960s of JFK, Camelot, drugs, diversity etc has factionalized this country into its present state.
Orange Julius is the correct answer.
I saw that in the Eastern Europeans in the early 1980s. They were about 15 years behind the times. Basically a bunch of hippies who thought their authoritarian leaders were full of bullshit. They wanted to party like the peeople did in the west.
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Yep, I remember vividly the black market for Jeans and Beatle records in the USSR. I knew the red menace was over once Rubber Soul took hold. So much for the bullshit Reagan legacy, it was Lennon and Jagger that killed the beast :)
Yes, rope and a field of sturdy trees.
I think you just committed a hate crime.
"If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country." - Daniel Ellsberg Author, Pentagon Papers When Krushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, it opened the door for truth to creep in and thus the destruction of the Soviet system.
"Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past." Richard M. Nixon
Comments (42 - 66) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThe country I grew up in was culturally united, even if it was racially divided. We spoke the same language, had the same faith, laughed at the same comedians. We were one nationality.
#2. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
That America never existed- except on TV. The first TV decade- tighly controlled by three networks all presenting a stultifying image of American conformity-
#3. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
... a stultifying image of American conformity- Anglo, protestant, homogenized- is what Pat dreams of.
#4. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
The 1950's, as close to a totalitarian decade as this country has come, is what some "conservatives" hark back to and what they mean by the "good old days".
#5. To: Rabble Rouser (#4)
#6. To: Burkeman1 (#1)
The 1950's, as close to a totalitarian decade as this country has come
#7. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
...what will this repressive decade bring?
#8. To: christine (#2)
#9. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
what will this repressive decade bring?
#10. To: ... (#7)
#11. To: ... (#7)
I am considering becoming a beatnik of the 21st century.
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#10)
#13. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
what will this repressive decade bring?
#14. To: Rabble Rouser, ..., Jethro Tull, Burkeman1 (#11)
I've been thinking that if I can't leave the country, and if I don't end up in jail over taxes,
#15. To: christine (#2)
Many of us have learned that a lot of things we thought so, never were.
#16. To: Jethro Tull (#10)
#17. To: Burkeman1, christine (#1)
#18. To: ..., dakmar, robin, all (#12)
#19. To: Jethro Tull (#18)
Either commune me, or shoot me...
#20. To: Burkeman1 (#8)
The 1950's are the golden age as far as Beltway "conservatives" are concerned.
#21. To: Jethro Tull (#18)
#22. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#20)
The destruction of the western world's production capability left the US as the world's only producer. The 50's were good times, economic wise, for the Joe-6-Pack blue collar worker. Cheap houses, cheap cars, cheap food, and plenty of jobs.
#23. To: Cynicom (#19)
BANG.
#24. To: christine (#21)
#25. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#20)
#26. To: Cynicom (#15)
#27. To: Cynicom (#15)
#28. To: Jethro Tull (#23)
(did I get a blind fold and a cigarette?)
#29. To: Jethro Tull (#24)
(Edited)
#30. To: christine, Rabble Rouser (#14)
and if I don't end up in jail over taxes,
#31. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#20)
#32. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
If the 50s caused the 60s (I agree), what will this repressive decade bring?
#33. To: Burkeman1, Cyni, all (#13)
The 1960's quickly veered off into sexual and drug induced hedonism
#34. To: Jethro Tull (#5)
If the 50s caused the 60s (I agree), what will this repressive decade bring?
#35. To: Burkeman1 (#27)
The 1950's is a decade that erased the "ethnic" from the public consciousness as much as possible- or presented them as "assimiliated" protestant clones.
#36. To: Critter (#32)
#37. To: Jethro Tull (#33)
I realize I’m probably a committee of one, but I’d argue the legacy of the 60s includes the fall of communism.
#38. To: ... (#37)
#39. To: BTP Holdings (#34)
#40. To: Jethro Tull (#36)
Orange Julius is the correct answer.
#41. To: Jethro Tull (#33)
I realize I’m probably a committee of one, but I’d argue the legacy of the 60s includes the fall of communism.
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