Wednesday, October 25, 2017


October 25, 2017

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey


Who’s Afraid of those “Deplorables”? Why George W. Bush, Jeff Flake, John McCain, and Bob Corker—and Their Friends at National Review and in the Potomac “Swamp,” That’s Who!



Friends,

Republican Party infighting has dominated the news cycle recently. After two inflammatory speeches given, respectively, by former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain last week, yesterday the Mainstream Media [MSM] heralded additional comments by two US senators attacking President Trump. The special emphasis was quite noticeable in the extravagant coverage given by the MSM to these dust-ups, featuring US Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, and the apparent zeal demonstrated by NBC and other anti-Trump networks to secure quick appearances by them to spout their bile on “news” shows.  

But, despite the Media’s over-the-top eagerness to use those two retiring solons in an effort to demonstrate, once again, that President Trump is, “unfit for office,” a “loose cannon,” “mentally unstable,” or “incapable of leading the American nation,” in the end it is the two departing senators who have been effectively run out of office. It is Flake and Corker who now will leave Congress, tails drooping behind, bitter, not comprehending how their brand of arrogant and disdainful establishment “conservatism” has fallen so far and so flat—how their once-thought-unchallengeable control and power has been so diminished in the “age of Trump.”

Yesterday, as I caught bits and pieces of the highly-lauded attacks by these two establishment figures, and I placed them into context with speeches given last week by Senator John McCain and former President George W. Bush (speeches which, again I assert, could well have been written by the same speechwriter), I recalled that during the 2015-2016 presidential primary cycle GOP “establishment” candidates garnered a total of less than 20% of the total popular vote.  That is, the Jeb Bushes, Lindsey Grahams, Carly Fiorinas, John Kasichs, and Marco Rubios were not only soundly rejected by the grass roots, but humiliated, as was both the Republican Party establishment AND the “conservative movement,” ensconced in its highly-paid Washington DC think tanks, foundations, and chattering class print outlets (e.g, National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, etc.).

The massive reaction that Donald Trump incarnated was by no means recently kindled; it had been simmering and building for years among the grass roots. And what was even more galling—and assuredly one of the numerous straws that broke the proverbial camel’s back—was the utter disdain and even hatred exhibited by establishment “conservatives” and various Inside-the-Beltway Republicans toward the base. Promises that were made repeatedly, but almost never kept, came back to haunt those insiders. Policies that too often resembled those pushed by the Left and the Democrats appeared staples of Republican programs—were we not supposed to notice?

But it was not only the broken and unfulfilled promises and the wide acceptance of a Leftist agenda that caught our attention, but also the flippant insouciant attitude and the perceived sense of entitlement that punctuated along-the-Potomac GOPers and professional conservatives. Exclaimed our self-erected elites: how dare we unwashed peasants from Anniston, Alabama, or Macon, Georgia, or Big Rapids, Michigan—how dare we presume to know what was best for us? How dare we give our support to a brash and uncouth New Yorker who did not know how to “take orders” and “stay within the limits” as prescribed by the Deep State managers?

Perhaps you will recall throughout the course of 2015 and 2016 the unceasing series of assaults by the “conservative” elites and the “big boys” of the national GOP?  There were major articles in The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal and, above all, National Review—the supposed flag ship of the “conservative movement”—and elsewhere, vigorously attacking Donald Trump and his voting base.

Just consider the following articles, essays and editorials from “conservative media,” from the National Review:

The magazine featured an entire NR SYMPOSIUM  (January 21, 2016), entitled, “Conservatives against Trump” (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430126/donald-trump-conservatives-oppose-nomination) and specifically he was called a “menace” to the conservative movement (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430137/donald-trump-conservative-movement-menace)

A bit later, February 26, 2016, National Review offered: “Clinton would be better than Trump” (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/431962/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choose-wisely)

But such positions should not have surprised long-time observers of the leftward trajectory of such self-defined “conservative” publications. Indeed, just examining a few of NR’s more recent pronouncements on cultural and social issues should have prepared the grass roots for this “evolution” of the conservative elites:


National Review editor Rich Lowry defends Al Sharpton:  “…he occasionally will be right. The Trayvon Martin case appears to be one of those instances for Al Sharpton” [http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294226/al-sharpton-right-rich-lowry]

Or, this from a prominent former George Bush advisor:

“Karl Rove praises Eric Holder’s dealing with the Ferguson, MO, situation”: (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/08/24/karl_rove_praises_holder_for_ferguson_i_think_he_did_something_of_a_good_job.html)

The examples are countless.

But even more than supposed “policy issues,” the conservative establishment came out foursquare on a highly personal level (e.g. David French and Kevin Williamson in National Review, George Will, Bill Kristol in various venues, etc.) to echo, even more strongly, Hillary Clinton’s charge that anyone supporting Trump was in a “basket of deplorables,” and thus irremediable, and, thus, implicitly, a racist, white nationalist, bigot, probably an anti-semite, and much worse.

Who can forget the scathing, scornful and condescending views that National Review senior editor Kevin Williamson so self-righteously exhibited, when he wrote of the Trump voters and grass roots “deplorables”:

“Sympathy for ‘Middle America’ is based on a lie….The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die…They need real change, which means they need a U-Haul [to leave the American heartland, or the South, or wherever in fly-ever country they may live, and get themselves to the swanky, high-priced and sophisticated East or Left coasts!]  (quoted in Modern Age, Spring 2017, pp. 30-31)

This, then, was the narrative of the conservative establishment and much of the national, Washington-centered GOP leadership. And this is the background of the recent unhinged attacks by McCain, Bush, Flake and Corker. Oh, yes, they rubric their comments under the titles of, variously, “he’s unfit,” or “he’s a loose cannon,” or “he’s inconsistent.” But in the deepest bowels of their Deep State infected beings, they not only profoundly resent Donald Trump’s shocking victory last November, they are appalled by the revolution in the conservative heartland, among the grass roots, among those who at least have begun to see through the establishment (and Neoconservative) fakery and support for policies and positions that run counter to the interests of the hardworking coal miner in West Virginia undercut by Federal anti-coal policies, of the hard pressed small businessman in Pennsylvania whose taxes are sky high, of the plumber in North Carolina put out of business by illegal Mexican labor, and of the faithful traditional Christian baker in Indiana forced to kowtow to each new demand from the empowered gay lobby.

We have been waiting for years,  for decades, for relief, for legitimate opposition to the avalanche of Progressivist policies, policies that seem always to move forward, and about which, after adopted, conservative and GOP leaders just seem to sigh, and tell us that we best accept the latest barbarity as  here to stay.

Two articles, then, today that magnify and continue the examination of this process. The first is by Dr. Jack Kerwick. It is a sharp critique and analysis of not just the latest remarks of G. W. Bush, but of his disastrous career as the Pied Piper of pseudo-conservatism. The second picks up with short comments on the latest essay offered by the National Review, dripping with scorn for the South, Middle America, and the “Bible Belt”.

While the traditionalist, more nationalist and populist Right may not overturn the elites who still dominate the GOP and the “conservative movement,” the attacks by McCain and Bush, and the announced departures from the Senate by Flake and Corker, are significant signs—signs that for whatever negatives he may have brought to office, Donald Trump is having some effect and his—our—enemies have taken note. At the very least he has scared the Hell out of the powers-that-be…and that, surely, is a very good thing.

Dr. Boyd D. Cathey

Bush Lies—Again


https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/10/jack-kerwick/bush-lies-again/

By Jack Kerwick   October 25, 2017



The former President of the United States, George W. Bush, made quite a splash recently when he took swipes at President Donald J. Trump.

Some thoughts:

First, the consternation of Deplorables aside, for purposes of clarity, it is actually a very good thing that Bush delivered his speech.  To as great an extent as anyone, the former President signifies the Neoconservatism against which traditional conservative and Republican voters rebelled when they catapulted Trump to victory.

In other words, the symbolism involved in juxtaposing Bush with Trump couldn’t be richer inasmuch it symbolizes nothing more or less than the dramatic contrast between two ideal types: the GOP of yesteryear, a party run (and run into the ground) by neoconservatives, and the “populist,” more traditionally conservative GOP of the present and future.



To be clear, the contrast in question here is largely symbolic: Substantively speaking, Trump’s GOP has as yet shown few signs of having repented of its past ways (or of even having a pulse).  The neocons, on the other hand, are still very much alive.  Still, there can be no question that they have been humiliated and that Trump is looking to steer the party in a new direction.



Second, that Bush, who insisted upon being neither seen nor heard during the entirety of Barack Obama’s eight year tenure in the White House, should only now break his silence by criticizing Trump is a painful reminder of who he has always been. It isn’t just that Bush and Obama, like Democrats and Republicans generally, belong to one and the same Regime, a Government-Academic-Media-Entertainment (GAME) Complex that its agents want to protect from Trump and his army of Deplorables.  Obama, you see, had been widely hailed by the journalistic and political classes as “the first black POTUS.”  To criticize Obama, then, would have made Bush vulnerable to the charge of “racism,” a charge that the Bushes of our political universe fear more than anything.

After all, in spite of owning a presidency replete with truly epic disasters, the only regret that Bush ever expressed was that Kanye West, rapper and husband to Kim Kardashian, charged the 43rd President with being indifferent toward black people.



As for those thousands of American soldiers and nearly 500,000 or so Iraqis whose deaths Bush made possible by way of a war that he launched on false pretenses, they evidently do not register as high in importance with Bush as does Kanye West’s estimation of him.

Third, regarding Bush’s signature war, it must never be forgotten that the invasion of Iraq was justified on the basis of a fiction.  Nor is it honest to say, as the war’s apologists have repeatedly said, that everyone thought that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs):

(a)The intelligence had its share of critics from before the invasion, so it was not without its share of controversy.

(b)Even if there was unanimous agreement that Hussein had WMDs, that he posed an imminent threat against America, and/or that only a preemptive strike against Iraq would prevent him from eventually attacking us were certainly not propositions on which there was anything like a consensus.  In fact, the evidence didn’t support these assertions at all.

So, assuming for argument’s sake that the entire international intelligence community really did agree that Hussein had WMDs, it did not have evidence that the dictator planned on using them to launch an offensive attack against America.  That the Bush administration manipulated what (flawed) intelligence existed, rendering it more ominous than it was, is now clear.

Fourth, Bush lied. This last is a bitter pill to swallow for his legions of apologists in Big Conservative media in all of its forms, for they spent the better part of Bush’s presidency tirelessly defending him and his war. In exchange, several of Big Con’s celebrities received direct access to the President and his staff.  But in the meantime, thousands of American soldiers and tens and tens of thousands of Iraqis died.  Thousands of more Americans were maimed, both physically and psychologically, and their families made to endure pain the likes of which few of us are accustomed to experiencing.

While Bush and his propagandists in Big Conservatism were defending the war, Christian communities that had existed for nearly 2,000 years in Iraq were destroyed, their inhabitants made homeless, exposed in this predominately Islamic land to the homicidal hostility of the majority.  They were not alone as Yazidis too became subjected to horrendous persecution.

Untold numbers of children were among the dead in Iraq, it is true. An equally alarming number of children were maimed or dismembered, and approximately one million children were made orphans.



Fifth, in the face of the enormous death, pain, and misery that he made possible, Bush had the audacity to make jokes at a Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2005 over the fact that, his earlier assurances aside, no WMDs had been found.  And yet Trump is supposed to be the crude one?  In 2013, the now late Tomas Young, an Iraqi veteran who was dying at the time, made the point aptly: Bush, he said, was “callous.”  Indeed.



Finally, while Bush (along with those who continue to support him) implied in his speech that Trump is “bigoted,” “racist,” and a “white supremacist,” even the blindest of ideologues can see that it is Bush, not Trump, who is responsible for having brought about the destruction, maiming, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of mostly non-white peoples, people of color not just in Iraq, but in Afghanistan as well.

Had an alien from another planet descended upon Earth and observed Bush’s foreign policy in action, would he not determine that this powerful white man, the President of a predominately white country, the most powerful and affluent country on the planet, was a homicidal “white supremacist” after seeing him launch a non-defensive war on a small, poor, Third World country populated by non-whites?

G.W. Bush hasn’t an ounce of moral capital to criticize anyone, least of all Donald Trump, a President who, thus far, hasn’t acted remotely as reckless or immoral as he behaved for eight long years. The world, particularly the Middle East, is still suffering from his legacy.


Jack Kerwick [send him mail] received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.



Maybe NATIONAL REVIEW Just Doesn’t Like Red State Scotch-Irish?



James Fulford   October 24, 2017, 4:55 pm



VDARE Radio is up with “NATIONAL REVIEW Cucking Again On Immigration”–go here to read or listen, here to download the MP3. What struck me about it is the fact that NR has no problem insulting both rural Pennsylvanians and Alabamans by calling Lou Barletta “The Man from Alabama, PA” [National Review, September 18, 2017]



It reminded me of something David Brooks said years ago, when he made a quasi-anthropological study of Red America after the 2000 election.

Franklin County is Red America. It’s a rural county, about twenty-five miles west of Gettysburg, and it includes the towns of Waynesboro, Chambersburg, and Mercersburg. It was originally settled by the Scotch-Irish, and has plenty of Brethren and Mennonites along with a fast-growing population of evangelicals. The joke that Pennsylvanians tell about their state is that it has Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Franklin County is in the Alabama part. It strikes me as I drive there that even though I am going north across the Mason-Dixon line, I feel as if I were going south. The local culture owes more to Nashville, Houston, and Daytona than to Washington, Philadelphia, or New York. [One Nation, Slightly Divisible, December 2001]



You can see a rebuttal from Missouri farmer Blake Hurst here: The Plains vs. The Atlantic American Enterprise Online ,March 2002.



Rural Pennsylvania is not like Alabama for the simple reason that they don’t have blacks–in 2000, out of 3.5 million rural Pennsylvanians (as described by the Center For Rural PA) there were “157,200 residents, or 5 percent of the total population, who were non-white and/or Hispanic.” That’s because Pennsylvania didn’t, in the 18th or early 19th century, give in to the temptation of cheap labor.



That being said, why is National Review considering Alabama itself an acceptable target?



[Ah, but we know the answer!]

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