Neo-Confederates and the New Radical Center

No one disputes that we now have the neocons running the country - although there is some disagreement as to what they are. There has been an argumnet that they should really be called neoimperialists. Michael Lind wrote a book that essentially DeLay and Bush can to thought of as neo-Confederates. Link to interview.

Bush is heir to the Southern economic and political perspectives that were forged during the years of slave-powered cotton plantations (the ultimate in a low-wage economy). The book casts a wide net in exploring the implications of Bush's Southern style outlook, including his immersion in Armageddon theology.

BuzzFlash learned more about Bush's worldview in Lind's book, sub-titled "The Southern takeover of American Politics," than any book we have read in the last year.

Lind:

"The low-investment, low-wage, low-tax, low-regulation approach favored by Texan conservatives is suited to the interests of the resource-owning oligarchy in a region with an economy based on primary production -- cotton, cattle, oil."

"Texan modernists like Perot and LBJ puzzle both the left and the right. Their "Japanese" vision of government-business cooperation to promote the technological modernization of a rural society baffles the social-democratic left, which tends to favor activist government but distrusts business, and enrages the Jeffersonian right, which sees government as the enemy of business rather than its partner."

"In crony capitalism, by contrast, there is a single oligarchy, with different parts labeled "the private sector" and "the public sector." Crony capitalism tends to be found in formerly rural, semi-industrial societies like Indonesia, Mexico and Texas, where the native land-owning elite moves in to occupy new positions in government and the private sector. Crony capitalism is a greater threat than ordinary political corruption, because the line between the public and the private is faint or nonexistent."

"The Enron empire is a perfect example of crony capitalism, at its worst. Enron was as much a creation of Texas politics as it was a creator of Texas politicians like Bush. For their parts, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are not business executives, in the conventional sense. They are career politicians, whose business careers were arranged for them, and their fortunes bestowed on them, by their allies in the Texan crony capitalist oligarchy. Most of George W. Bush's personal wealth comes from a "gift" to him by his partners in the Texas Rangers investment group."

"White Southern men are much more likely than other American groups to support Bush's policy toward Iraq. This is nothing new; from the quasi-war with France in the 1790s until the present, white Southerners have been the most bellicose, and white New Englanders the least bellicose, groups in the population. The difference goes back to the fact that New England was settled by middle-class Puritans with a civilian ethic who disapproved of violence as a way of settling personal or international disputes, while the South was settled by English aristocratic "cavaliers" and their imitators along with Scots-Irish frontiersmen given to feuds, like Andrew Jackson and the Hatfields and McCoys."

"I must also say that George W. Bush's attempt to impersonate a rancher is as unconvincing as that of any frat boy from Dallas or Houston. My friends in Texas and I have been greatly amused to watch the president using his vacation time on his ranch to cut down cedar (technically, mountain juniper) trees with a chain-saw. Real Texan ranchers use bulldozers and chains to take down a lot of cedar trees at once -- and unless they're very poor indeed, they hire professionals to do this very nasty job."

Made In Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics - Currently $14.40 Hardback and $11.20 paperback at Amazon.

Radical Center

Michael Lind, Washington Editor for Harper's magazine, is a former neocon who veered away when his mentor William F. Buckley refused to speak out against the racism of the new Southern GOP. Like all neocons he seems committed to sweeping radical politics but now seems to be carving out a radical center. In fact, he co-authored Radical Center which is a good primer on some current proposals of technocrats who dislike both the two major parties. I disagree with most policies but have seen their appeal to many.

As another example, his Vietnam the Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict disagrees with both the right and left on Vietnam but sees it as a necessary part of the cold war lost by the US military not knowing how to pacify a country. I disagree with his first premise that America needed to spend 20,000 lives to "demonstrate its credibility" but agree with the second. An important lesson needed in Iraq is how to empower people and not enslave and occupy.

Amazon Books by Michael Lind