Update To The Dem/Rep Duality, The Switch By: Mark W Adams

As if on cue, I no sooner posted my brief of Rosenberg's first four essays on the topic when he publishes the fifth, Liberals And Conservatives Switch Places--Sort Of (The Political Duality Of Rep and Dem, Pt 3b), wherein we delve into the magic of a promised utopia promised by the conservative movement as it breaks all ties with objective reality. Truth becomes fiction, war is peace, poverty is prosperity, the entire Orwellian dystopia embraced and repackaged for mass consumption.

Outrageous promises are made on a scale that rivals the fantasies of Communism's myth and disseminated with the Big Lie vigor of Nazi propaganda. No, they are not communists nor fascists, but their tactics resemble nothing else remotely similar in their enthusiasm -- using techniques to increase and maintain their domination of political and economic power that defy less inflammatory comparison.

Interestingly enough, racism disappeared overnight. Liberals actually were doing minorities a disservice by enabling legendary "welfare queens." By keeping them down by making them reliant on the system put in place to level the playing field and raise their opportunities, liberals were the "real" racists. Abortion became genocide, allowing conservatives to stake out a position as champions of the helpless. Vietnam was won until the dirty hippies, Congressional Democrats and complicit liberal media forced our defeat in this "noble crusade."

The arguments for such a magical politics cannot be made in the same mundane reality-based way that one argues for realist politics. One cannot discuss the Pentagon Papers, for example. One must talk about Rambo instead, with his poignant question, "This time, will they let us win?" One cannot study the sociology and economics of poverty. One must tell stories of non-existent "welfare queens." Nor can one realistically face the insanity of nuclear brinksmanship, and preparing to "win" a nuclear war. Instead, one must tell fairy tales about a Star Wars missile shield, like a giant Superdome protecting the entire country.

All these problems that conservatism could not face and solve were to some degree insoluble because the world is simply too complicated for its Level 3 solutions. It could neither grasp nor abide the Level 4 solutions of liberalism, but it could step in aggressively when liberalism faltered, either because a changing Level 4 world always throws up set-backs from time to time, or because the world was becoming even more complex-a post-modern Level 5 world. And when it stepped in because liberalism faltered, it stepped in with simplistic stories, about turning back to the good old days, and moving forward at the same time.

I was just beginning to study politics in earnest when this transformation took place. I was completely unequipped to appreciate the baffling political dynamics that brought Reagan to power since everything he stood for was completely at odds with what I was learning in college and law school about political science and policy analysis at the time. As I mastered the tools to describe a reality based world throughout the 80's, that reality had been turned on it's head.

1984 was more than just a book. The year Reagan was reelected in an unprecedented landslide marked the public's acceptance of the great bamboozelment that that is "voodoo economics" along with it's myth that cutting taxes will increase revenue when it actually created the largest deficits imaginable, that deregulation of the banking and energy industries would bring prosperity to all instead of the largest bankruptcies and bailouts in history, and that busting up the air-traffic controller's union would eventually lead to greater efficiency at airports and benefit air carriers when anyone who flies knows the torture of interminable delays and notes the precarious financial condition of the industry as they wonder if their flights will be canceled because the airline went bankrupt while they sat on the tarmac for hours.

Yes, the mythical reign of Saint Ronny Ray-gun, who brought down the Soviet Empire with a word, promised to erect a force-field to protect us from harm, pointed to the resilience of the stock market as indicating that everyone was prospering even if they had a negative net worth and couldn't afford a penny stock, and that they had defeated runaway inflation as long as you didn't look at those "deceptively" volatile prices for things everyone needs, like food, gas and electricity.

Liberals are now defenders of the status quo, promising progress in the future if we go back to the old ways, rejecting the neo-conservative magical thinking. Everywhere there is ample evidence of the utter failure of conservative rule -- decimation of the middle class, unconscionable income disparity, destruction of America's manufacturing base, world-wide rejection of America's historical role as a shining example for social justice, human rights and equal opportunity -- but so long as they control so much of our mass media and tell their stories in simplistic terms that ignore the complications of the actual global dynamics, extorting a reality biased media to present fact and fiction as equally legitimate lest they lose their credibility as fair and balanced reporters of the "truth," conservatives propagate enough confusion and distraction to prevent a consensus on just how to eradicate their poisonous hold on our public discourse.

It is too dangerous to simply expect conservatism to fail b the sheer wight of it's internal inconsistency and lies -- that reality will some day come crashing down on them. By inserting themselves into every institution, if they collapse, we all go down.

They must be removed, not simply allowed to fail in similar fashion as the Soviet Union. That would be catastrophic for us and the rest of the world. They must be removed and discredited, with a new and realistic world order taking their place. Even though the "make their own reality," that reality is nonetheless false and unless effectively repudiated, it's eventual self-destruction will destroy the very fabric of our democracy as it lashes out in it's final death throes.

As Ron Suskind's famous quotation reminds us, the Bush Administration, as the vanguard of this movement has nothing but contempt for "the reality-based community," which, in effect is to say, the entire tradition of the modern West with roots in the Italian Renaissance and even Roman law. 1215 and all that.

My level 5 awareness is not developed to the point where I can conceive what new systems will emerge from the transformation that inevitably must replace the current clash of ideologies. Actually I can envision several scenarios, most of which are too unpleasant to dwell on for too long. The reason for that is because I, like so many liberals, are conservative when it comes to preserving the institutions originally built by liberals and accepted by conservatives because they promoted stability and ensured opportunity across social, economic, racial, religious and gender lines.

Rosenberg promises even more on this (at least two more essays). He teases what's to come by pointing out that part of the Democrat's failure to keep the conservatives at bay is that we will not endanger the structure of government and social organization in order to defend it, a level 3 attitude actually. Movement conservatives have no such restraint, destroying the U.N. or Congress, politicizing the judiciary so it no longer is an institution that preserves fairness but reflects power, and eliminating the social safety net of the democratic welfare state all work towards the desired goal of destroying the enemy that built those institutions -- liberals.

They have become Darwinists, attempting to transform the world into a jungle where those with the most power thrive, feeding on lessor beings culled from the herd who would otherwise be a drag on their new world order.

I have to do what Rosenberg suggests, and let this sink in for a bit. But briefly, thinking out-of-the-box, I'll offer an attempt at some Level 5 perspective on where we go from here. From this point of view, institutions and the systems they protect are transformed. Ideology can evolve or even be sacrificed.

If we remain reality-based, it's counter-productive to fight to preserve institutions that have been so effectively compromised they no longer fulfill their designed purpose. The U.N. cannot prevent war, The Hague cannot touch the war criminals running our nation. By the simple expedient of refusing to recognize their legitimate role, those liberal institutions were thwarted. Any attempt by these bodies to challenge the leaders of the United States would only serve to highlight their impotence.

Congress will not use the power of the purse to stop the war nor impeach anyone in this lawless administration despite the fact that it's the only way -- within the current institutional framework -- to prevent the conservatives from acting as if those institutions are irrelevant. Which is not greatly different than if the institutions were destroyed by bring about a Constitutional crisis.

We can play "what it" here, assuming that sometime within the next several years the Democratic Party actually grows some balls. Maybe a Democratic Attorney General will round up the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rove, and reinvent Neuremberg. Don't hold your breath. Entrenched in the mindset of preserving their institutions, they will prefer to act as if holding these people accountable will do more harm than good, upsetting the renewed attempt to bring respect back to our Government. Just as the Administration hoped, as soon as Rove, Gonzales and Meirs were no longer in the White House, efforts to have them answer to Congress took a back seat to comity and an attempt at compromise and cooperation -- a pipe dream.

So who's reality based now? To a large degree, they made good on their threat and did indeed create a new reality -- one most liberals reject instinctively. I see both a long term and short term approach to dealing with this, getting us back to a future where institutions built on the ideals of Justinian's Rome, Magna Carta, and Jefferson's Declaration can flourish.

Long term solutions involve education. Having effectively undermined public education in America, and wholesale vivisection and scape-goatingof labor unions, including the N.E.A., means that new institutions must be found in the ruins to champion the liberal cause. For instance, along with countless religious schools in America getting a boost either from government vouchers or grants from the Faith-Based Initiatives, for-profit charter schools have popped up throughout the nation.

There's nothing that says charter schools cannot be started that teach classic liberal thought. There are charter schools dedicated to the arts, science and technology, even secular morality is offered by Heritage Academies, one of the country's largest for-profit educational corporations. The first bright guy (or gal) who can make a go at a school who's primary curriculum teaches Ghandi and M.L.K. (every day, not just in February), will mark a watershed in a generational struggle to reestablish democracy and social justice. Where are the magnate schools that emphasize sociology, pubic administration, and Keynesian economics? A place where Milton Friedman is as discredited as Marx or King George III.

I'm sure Rosenberg will have some other ideas up his sleeves. But in the mean time, we fight.

Short term battles not only involve supporting progressive voices in the Media like Air America, Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann, but shaping new institutions, like the netroots and progressive blogosphere. Recognizing that there is a central theme that all the disunited interest groups and coalitions that comprise the Democratic Party can all rise up to promote -- that this world is made up of people, it belongs to us, not merely the wealthy and well connected.

We're not going to take this any more.

Both my long and short term approaches center around the idea of education. Knowledge IS power. The Big Lie cannot stand against simple truth if enough people learn what really is going on. After all, it was a Republican that said, "You can't fool all the people, all the time."