The real war - on American democracy
By Thom Hartmann
In the midst of news of foreign wars, Americans are beginning to wake up to the real war being waged here at home. It is, however, a confused awakening.
For example, Americans wonder why the Bush administration seems so intent on crippling local, state, and federal governments by starving them of funds and creating huge federal debt that our children will have to repay.
Many think it's just to fund tax cuts and subsidies for the rich, that the multimillionaire CEOs who've taken over virtually all senior posts in the Bush administration are just pigs at the trough, and this is a spectacular but ordinary form of self-serving corruption.
It all seems so plausible, and there's even a grain of truth to it. But juicy deals for Bush administration insiders are just a by-product of the real and deeper war against democracy.
The neoconservatives are perfectly happy for us to think they're just opportunists skirting the edges of legality and morality, but this is far more dangerous than simple government corruption. Indeed, the neo-conservatives claim to be anti-government.
As a leading spokesman for the neo-con agenda, Grover Norquist, told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson in a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
Without a larger view, the issues of domestic spending, oil, neo-conservative power plays in both major parties, the loss of liberties, anti-government rhetoric, and war in the Middle East all seem like separate and unconnected events. They're not.
The "new conservatives" who've seized the Republican Party and, through the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) are nipping at the heels of the Democratic Party, are not our parents' conservatives.
Historic conservatives like Barry Goldwater, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower would be appalled.
