�Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is
true that most stupid people are conservative.� --John Stuart
Mill
Many years ago, during the 1970s if memory serves,
neoconservative Irving Kristol, echoing John Stuart Mill, called his conservative party, the Republican
Party, �the
stupid party.�
Kristol was referring to the Republicans� inability to
compete on the policy front. Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan led the Republicans
out of the wilderness, but now Republicans have reverted to the stupid party,
or more precisely the moronic party.
Take a minute to examine the presidential campaign
propaganda that Republicans send around the Internet, and you will see what I
mean. For example, recently while Obama was traveling abroad, showing himself
to the remnant of our allies, Republican political operatives blitzed the
Internet with the suggestion that Obama might not be an American citizen. Doubt
was cast on either of his parents being American citizens. The message went on
to suggest that Obama refused to produce his birth certificate. All the while,
Obama was traveling abroad on a US passport, a document that cannot be obtained
without a US birth certificate.
Considering that the Republican candidate, John McCain, was
born in the Panama
Canal Zone, only the GOP would be dumb enough to make an issue over whether
the Democrats� candidate was born in one of the 50 states.
The innuendo and negativism with which the Republicans are
conducting their presidential campaign are unprecedented. There is no sign of
issues in McCain�s
Karl Rovian campaign. Issues have been superseded by hate, lies, and war.
Republicans stand for war without end, a police state to
make us �safe,� and �energy independence,� which means drilling for oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Preserve and offshore of Florida�s Gulf Coast beaches.
What Republicans really mean by �energy independence�
is prevailing over environmentalists. Republicans lump environmentalists in the
same category with abortionists, gays, feminists, food stamp recipients, trade
unionists and terrorists. To a Republican, saving America means prevailing over
these people.
The notion that Americans can achieve energy independence by
drilling offshore wells and in the Arctic is absurd. A number of experts have
pointed out that the best data do not support any such possibility.
For example, Robert
Kaufman at Boston University, citing US government data, reports
that the US might have 40 billion barrels of oil in undeveloped reserves which
are not off limits. Another 19 billion might be in off limit offshore sites and
in the Arctic National Wildlife preserve.
All of this oil cannot be brought up at once, and apparently
none before 2017. Bringing it all into production would, experts think,
increase US oil production by 1-4 percent. In other words, nothing. Currently
the US uses 21 million barrels a day, and the entire world uses 86 million
barrels a day. At best, the Arctic Wildlife Refuge could by 2017 produce 1
million barrels a day, about one-twentieth of current US use and one-eighty-sixth
of current world use.
This is not energy independence, and it would have no
material effect on price. Indeed, the offshoring by US corporations of US jobs
has a much greater effect on the dollar price of oil by inflating the US trade
deficit and driving down the exchange value of the US dollar. But, of course,
here we are talking about facts, and facts are of no interest to Republicans.
Republicans are interested in prevailing over the �bad guys.� The fact that the bad guys are Bush, Cheney,
Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Billy Kristol, and other such is beyond the
Republicans� imagination. Bad guys are �towel heads�
with beards and robes and are �over there� where they must be
killed before the come �over here.� The extent of the
Republican intellect boils down to �over here� vs. �over there.�
The other great bugaboo of Republicans is �the liberal media.� Fox �News�
has Republicans convinced that �the liberal media� is
endangering America by siding with terrorists.
Clearly, Republicans never look at �the liberal media.� It was Judith Miller at the �liberal� New York Times who served up as fact all
the neocon disinformation about Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass
destruction and al Qaeda connections. Without the New York Times leading the
way, the neocons could never have pulled off their illegal invasions.
On July 18, 2008, the New York Times allowed the
Israeli Benny Morris to spew lies about Iran that he used to justify an attack
on that country, possibly even involving nuclear weapons. This is the same New
York Times that the idiot conservatives believe is part of �the liberal media.�
It was ABC News that served
up the neocon disinformation that the anthrax had been traced to Saddam
Hussein.
And, today, August 9, 2008, as I write, it is the �liberal� Washington Post that has written an
editorial urging the US to go to war with Russia.
With its editorial, �Stopping
Russia: the US and its allies must unite against Moscow�s war on Georgia,�
the Washington Post has established a world record for the maximum
number of lies in the minimum number of words.
Except for the Washington Post, the entire world knows that Georgia (the birthplace of Joseph
Stalin, not Georgia, USA) initiated the aggression that killed Russian
peacekeepers and hundreds of civilians in South Ossetia -- peacekeepers who
were there with the blessing of Georgia and international agreements.
The true facts are available all over the world press. But
the �liberal� Washington Post
serves up the lie that Russia has attacked Georgia and conceivably plans to conquer
all of Georgia. �This is a grave challenge to the United
States and Europe,� thunders the Bush Regime�s mouthpiece, aka, �the liberal media.�
Thirsting for blood, the �liberal media�
declares, �The United States and its NATO allies must
together impose a price on Russia.�
Here we see the combination of idiocy and delusion in one
sentence. The United States has proved that it is incapable of occupying Iraq,
much less Afghanistan. Russia has a large trade surplus. America�s NATO allies
are dependent on Russian natural gas. Yet the �liberal�
Washington Post wants a bankrupt US and �its NATO allies,�
who are dependent on Russian energy, �to impose a price on Russia�
for defending its peacekeepers!
Seldom has the world seen such total insanity as the neoconservative
Washington Post, a propaganda
sheet as far from �liberal media� as it is
possible to be.
Georgia was part of Old Russia and the Soviet Union for two
centuries. After Soviet communism collapsed, the US taxpayer funded
neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy broke every agreement that
President Reagan had made with Gorbachev and began using US taxpayers� money to
rig and purchase elections in former constituent parts of the Russian/Soviet
empire.
The Endowment for Democracy purchased Georgia as a US
colony. The affront to Russia was extreme, but at the time Russia was weak.
Oligarchs with outside money had grabbed control over Russian resources, and
Russia was in dire straits and could not resist American imperialism.
Putin corrected the situation for Russia.
Now, using American weapons, Georgia for reasons yet to be
revealed has violated its own agreement with Russia and attacked South Ossetia,
killing in the process Russian peacekeepers. Vladimir Vasilyev, chairman of the
Russian State Duma Committee for Security
told the press, �The things that were happening in Kosovo, the
things that were happening in Iraq -- we are now following the same path. The
further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia
would never be able to do all this without America.�
Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no
war between Russia and its former constituent part.
Without America there would be no war in Afghanistan. No war
in Iraq.
Without America there would not be 1.2 million dead Iraqis
and 4 million displaced Iraqis. We have no idea of the toll on Afghan
civilians, although women and children appear to be the prime targets of the
US/NATO forces that are �bringing peace and freedom to Afghanistan.�
Recently, US Secretary of State Condi Rice said that the US
government could not prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel is an
independent country, said the American Secretary of State. What an extraordinary
lie.
Israel cannot exist without American weapons and money. Israel
cannot attack Iran without overflying Iraq, which the US Air Force can easily
prevent. It is clear as day that the Bush Regime has given the green light to
Israel to attack Iran so that the Bush Regime can rush to �Israel�s defense.�
Meanwhile the �liberal� media is urging the US
to get involved in a war between Russia and Georgia. The insanity will lead to
the unleashing of nuclear weapons.
Paul
Craig Roberts [email
him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President
Reagan�s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has
held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University,
and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was
awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the
author of Supply-Side
Revolution : An Insider�s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation
and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown:
Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M.
Stratton of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for
Peter Brimelow�s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent
epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.