This has probably been posted and reposted, but Krugman's summary of Kissinger's work on the workings of revolutionary power is worth reading again on a day when the Democrats have once more caved on a major issue. If we continue compromising and going along to get along and dreaming any day now magical changes in the status quo will somehow restore the FDR coalition leading to a happy ending to the current nightmare, we'll end up with absolutely nothing. Bush & Co are beating the crap out of us and moving to the center will encourage further beatings, not love and unity.
We have to learn how to fight effectively and we have to learn how to discipline Democrats who find it congenial to vote with Republicans at the expense of those they allegedly represent. I honestly don't see where we have much to lose by actually standing up for what we claim to believe. There's a huge base of poor and middle class voters out there just waiting to be organized in support of a just society, but they'll never be organized as long as we continue to put matters of comfort before matters of conscience.
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In fact, there's ample evidence that key elements of the coalition that now runs the country believe that some long-established American political and social institutions should not, in principle, exist....Consider, for example....New Deal programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance, Great Society programs like Medicare....Or consider foreign policy....separation of church and state....The goal would seem to be something like this: a country that basically has no social safety net at home, which relies mainly on military force to enforce its will abroad, in which schools don't teach evolution but do teach religion and — possibly — in which elections are only a formality....
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Back to Kissinger. His description of the baffled response of established powers in the face of a revolutionary challenge works equally well as an account of how the American political and media establishment has responded to the radicalism of the Bush administration over the past two years:...."they find it nearly impossible to take at face value the assertions of the revolutionary power that it means to smash the existing framework"....this passage sent chills down my spine....
There's a pattern...within the Bush administration....which should suggest that the administration itself has radical goals. But in each case the administration has reassured moderates by pretending otherwise — by offering rationales for its policy that don't seem all that radical. And in each case moderates have followed a strategy of appeasement....this is hard for journalists to deal with: they don't want to sound like crazy conspiracy theorists. But there's nothing crazy about ferreting out the real goals of the right wing; on the contrary, it's unrealistic to pretend that there isn't a sort of conspiracy here, albeit one whose organization and goals are pretty much out in the open....
Here's a bit more from Kissinger: "The distinguishing feature of a revolutionary power is not that it feels threatened...but that absolutely nothing can reassure it (Kissinger's emphasis). Only absolute security — the neutralization of the opponent — is considered a sufficient guarantee"....I don't know where the right's agenda stops, but I have learned never to assume that it can be appeased through limited concessions. Pundits who predict moderation on the part of the Bush administration, on any issue, have been consistently wrong....
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