I earlier proposed two key principles of the progressive agenda:
(P-1) That the interests of the many should not be sacrificed to sustaining and increasing the wealth and the power of the wealthy and powerful few.
(P-2) That unsound ideology, provincial prejudices, and antiquated religious doctrines should not be enshrined, encouraged, or used to guide public policy.
These principles, I claim (see link above for several examples), generate a goodly swath of other planks in the progressive platform. And I claim that the joint holding of these principles is clearly correct, by every factual standard and nearly every reasonable moral standard (i.e., any that doesn't take the holding of provincial prejudices, antiquated religious doctrines, and unsound ideologies to be virtues) .
I think that the basic agenda of the right wing (in particular, the American right wing) may similarly be defined by reference to these two principles---that is, by opposition to them.
Of course, supporters of the right-wing agenda don't usually present their agenda in these terms. But if you consider what those in power who are implementing the right-wing agenda are actually doing and proposing to do, this is what their agenda comes to, all the same.
Actually, the opposition to the above principles has a tiered structure. The primary and ultimate principle driving the right-wing agenda is to sustain and increase the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the many (perhaps, as it happens, as a necessary concomitant---we needn't suppose, I suppose, that the wealthy and powerful few take a special glee in the fact that their wealth and power is gained and sustained at others' expense).
As Benj and others have been pointing out for some time now, however, if the non-wealthy and non-powerful majority realized that this was the primary goal of the right-wing, they would stop voting for (in the U.S., in particular) Republicans. Hence it is that opposition to the second principle above becomes part and parcel of the right-wing agenda.*
This pairing of the pathologically greedy with the pathetically deluded isn't new or unique to the American right-wing, of course. The same thing can pretty much be found wherever there is some group in power who wants to screw over the many in service of the few, but who needs some popular support in order to do so. So, to recap, I claim that two key principles of the right-wing agenda are:
(R-1): That the wealth and the power of the wealthy and powerful few should be sustained and increased, even if this means (as it frequently does) sacrificing the interests of the many.
(R-2): That it is acceptable, and even encouraged, that (since the many are generally not on board with policies that explicitly involve sacrificing their interests in service of the goal expressed in R-1) various ideologies of unsound factual and theoretical basis be forwarded, and various provincial prejudices and antiquated religious doctrines be encouraged (by way of distraction) and enshrined (by way of "payback" for votes), as a basis for public policy.
Attention to (R-1) and (R-2) is useful, I think, not least because it provides a clear framework for analyzing and understanding various right-wing initiatives.
So, on to the (first of many, I'm sure) case in point, brought to you by Bob Herbert:
he White House seems to have slipped the bonds of simple denial and escaped into the disturbing realm of utter delusion. On Tuesday, there was President Bush hanging the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on George Tenet, the former C.I.A. director who slept through the run-up to Sept. 11 and then did the president and the nation the great disservice of declaring that it was a "slam-dunk" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
It was a fatal misjudgment.
Another Medal of Freedom was given to Paul Bremer III, the chief civilian administrator of the American occupation, who made the heavily criticized decision to disband the defeated Iraqi Army and presided over an ever-worsening security situation. Thousands upon thousands have died in this unnecessary and incompetently conducted war, yet here was the president handing out medals as if some kind of triumph had been achieved. [...]
By anyone's standards, terrible things are happening in Iraq, and no amount of self-congratulation in Washington can take the edge off the horror being endured by American troops or the unrelenting agony of the Iraqi people. The disconnect between the White House's fantasyland and the world of war in Iraq could hardly have been illustrated more starkly than by a pair of front-page articles in The New York Times on Dec. 10. The story at the top of the page carried the headline: "It's Inauguration Time Again, and Access Still Has Its Price - $250,000 Buys Lunch With President and More."
The headline on the story beneath it said: "Armor Scarce for Heavy Trucks Transporting U.S. Cargo in Iraq."
This administration has many things on its mind besides the welfare of overstretched, ill-equipped G.I.'s dodging bombers and snipers in Iraq. In addition to the inauguration, which will cost tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Bush is busy with his obsessive campaign against "junk and frivolous lawsuits," his effort to further lighten the tax load on the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations, and his campaign to cut the legs from under the proudest achievement of the New Deal, Social Security.
So much for America's wartime priorities.
Here we have some lovely examples of the right-wing endorsement of (R-1) and (R-2). (Of course we could go quite deep with this here... by noting, for example, that every supposed "justification" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been repeatedly falsified, leaving only the big oily golden elephant in the room as an explanation; but let's just focus on what's been happening lately.) So, here we go.
1. "By anyone's standards, terrible things are happening in Iraq". But Bush and his gang are congratulating themselves: keep on lying, keep on denying, and maybe people won't notice. Instance: R-2.
2. " The story at the top of the page carried the headline: "It's Inauguration Time Again, and Access Still Has Its Price - $250,000 buys Lunch With President and More". Instance: R-1.
3. " The headline on the story beneath it said: "Armor Scarce for Heavy Trucks Transporting U.S. Cargo in Iraq". Instance: R-1.
And the amazing quadruple-instancing:
4. "In addition to the inauguration, which will cost tens of millions of
dollars [instance: R-1], Mr. Bush is busy with his obsessive campaign against "junk and
frivolous lawsuits," [instance: R-2] his effort to further lighten the tax load on the
nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations [instance: R-1], and his campaign to
cut the legs from under the proudest achievement of the New Deal,
Social Security [instance: R-1 and instance: R-2]. Wow!
*Hence the continual barrage of unsound ideology (the neo-conservative agenda, the benefits of "free trade" capitalism, the trickle down theory, the Social Security "crisis") as cover for the implementation of public policies that sustain and increase the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful few at the expense of the many; and the encouragement of provincial prejudices (racism, homophobia, nationalist jingoism) and antiquated religious doctrines (creationism, the second coming, contemporary interpretations of what entities--stem cells, early fetuses---fall under the "sanctity of life" clause) and the promise that these prejudices and doctrines will (with varying degrees of explicitness) be used to guide public policy (e.g., tax cuts for the wealthy, NAFTA, GATT, the encouragement of outsourcing, the privatization of Social Security, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage, the Partial Birth Abortion Act and other moves towards overturning a woman's right to abortion, the creationist movement).
