The CIA Votes for Change
I attended the annual reunion of the 1980 Rome CIA Station last night. The group is in the sixty to seventy age range, mostly retirees with good pensions and health insurance, and a few are still working for CIA as contractors. It is 100% conservative with most voting Republican reflexively. Last year’s meeting was held just before election time. At the last reunion my wife and I were the only two attendees out of about twenty present who were not going to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. When my wife and I were preparing for last night we were somewhat apprehensive, fearing that the reunion would quickly turn into an anti-Obama rant. To our surprise, however, conversation soon turned to how the US economy is in far worse shape than any politician in Washington seems to understand. Most were in despair about the future of our country, noting that Congress is so hopelessly corrupted that only a clean sweeping out of all incumbents would accomplish anything. There was general agreement that the US has become an evil empire, fighting seemingly endless wars that serve no purpose. Several told horror stories about dealing with the health care industry, this in spite of the fact that they have good insurance, with everyone agreeing that major reform is required even if government health care would be an undesirable alternative. Surprisingly, there was not a whole lot of carping about Obama, with several noting that he had inherited a mess from GWB. Ron Paul’s name came up several times and two of the women present commented that what America needs is a new revolution headed by someone like him to restore the constitution.
It being the ROME station we also talked a lot about food and wine, the newly released digital DVD of I, Claudius, the pluses and minuses of HBO’s series Rome, Inspector Montalbano, and the state of the Catholic Church.
I would not want to read too much into alcohol fueled comments made on one evening by a group that is far from representative, but it occurs to me that there is something in the air. Can it be that the American people have finally had enough of politics as usual? It would be nice to think so and it would be nice to think that somehow someway someday it might be possible to plug into that sentiment to recreate a genuine conservative movement that is both answerable to the American people and reflective of the national interest.
Phil Giraldi wrote:
“It would be nice to think so and it would be nice to think that somehow someway someday it might be possible to plug into that sentiment to recreate a genuine conservative movement that is both answerable to the American people and reflective of the national interest.”
Yes it would indeed be nice to think so Mr Giraldi, but not in the foreseeable future I don’t think. Not for the first full fifth or quarter of this century at least.
Like it or not it now seems clear that we are indeed not only still essentially living in a system that accepts Mr. Bush’s same basic perspective, but will continue to do so for a good long time yet:
Globally pretentious, internationally adventuristic, lickspittle to Israel, unrestrained deficit spenders, free-traders to the point of being executioners of entire domestic industries, savior of the irresponsible if not criminal mega-corporations, welcomer of illegal immigrants … this was Bush’s path writ bright and plain. And it’s the same basic path being trod by Mr. Obama and the Democratic party.
Obama and the Dem’s health-care initiative you say? Right, the slight exception that only serves to illustrate the main truth, and in fact being only slight in light of Mr. Bush’s fine precedent with his insanely costly prescription medication program.
The global warming thing? But the Dems rejected Kyoto too, and Obama will return from Copenhagen having pledged nothing and cap and trade will go nowhere.
And the Republicans and talk-radio hysterics? As hypocritical as can be given their past support for the spending and prescription drug and other moves by Bush in the past, and so, predictably, reduced to merely squeaking that Obama isn’t Bush-like *enough* on foreign policy or in this small way or that….
The breadth and depth of Mr. Bush’s destructiveness has been so total one can hardly think of anything really new or different being done by Mr. Obama. Indeed he could well be Mr. Bush’s designated successor, now displaying just one or two of the small, inevitable differences of opinion they would have had in addition to a natural difference in tone. (And an unavoidable improvement in articulateness since it was impossible to get worse.)
This is Mr. Bush’s world still, and will be for a long time to come. Internationally, and financially (and what else is there really?), we are on a course stumbled out by a clown.
It’s not a situation of people giving up on “Politics as usual.” Politics as usual has simply played out, and most of us know that something must be done. And it all hinges on what is or is not done, and most critically, of the character of those who act. Personally, I see no easy landing.
“Can it be that the American people have finally had enough of politics as usual? It would be nice to think so and it would be nice to think that somehow someway someday it might be possible to plug into that sentiment to recreate a genuine conservative movement that is both answerable to the American people and reflective of the national interest.”
“It is 100% conservative with most voting Republican reflexively.”
What if, instead of everyone but you is “reflexive”, as you seem to think in that second paragraph…
What if, as in the first paragraph, many of us have been there for years, waiting for you to catch up? What if, you can’t judge us by what you haven’t yet understood?
What if, the snark you spew at things some of us hold as important, is keeping you from understanding?
So here is the classic dilemma: If we start a “third party”, we dilute the republicans, and the Obama-types win (and the war continues). If we join the lunitic fringe that surrounds people like Ron Paul, we end up saying stuff like, “We don’t know what the Tea Parties were about, but we invented them.”, and we alienate the “main stream conservative public”.
“…somehow someway someday it might be possible to plug into that sentiment…”
Go back through the TAC archives, and look for the “DECLARATION II – A New Declaration Of Independence”, and see if there’s not something there we can start with.
Talking about the ruin of one empire amidst the ruins of another.
Barney, if the ‘Obama-types’ had lost last year, how would the world be different today? McCain would have bailed out Wall Street just as Obama has, and he’d double down in Afghanistan just as Obama will. Chances of war with Iran would be higher, but still Obama might not disappoint in that regard either. The point is, the substantive similarities between the Obama-types, the McCain-types, the Bush-types, and on, and on, are much more pronounced than their differences. And people who can’t catch on to that fact are way behind the curve.
Isn’t it weird that such opposites as Bush and Obama would both push major socialistic healthcare advancements? Actually, the drug benefit sent a ton of money into the coffers of pharma – remember how the legislation prevented Medicare from negotiating drug prices? Kind of an odd concept in a free market economy. And Obama’s healthcare initiative will deliver, oh, 40 million or so new customers into the laps of the insurance companies – many of them the young healthy types that are pure profit.
What goes on in Washington is a symbiotic relationship between groups interested in getting a chunk of federal money and those who control the money. The lobbyists give money to congressfolk to help them get elected, and give them plush jobs when they leave office. And congress keeps cash flowing to the lobbies. Whether the Rs are on top as under W, or the Ds now, matters to Beltway insiders, but to others not at all.
“It would be nice to think so and it would be nice to think that somehow someway someday it might be possible to plug into that sentiment to recreate a genuine conservative movement that is both answerable to the American people and reflective of the national interest.”
Paleocons need to find a way to squelch jihadists and stabilize the Middle East without nation-building interventionism. That would be a crucial component in reviving this genuine movement.
“…noting that Congress is so hopelessly corrupted that only a clean sweeping out of all incumbents will accomplish anything.”
WHY NOT?
FLUSH the DC TOILET in 2010! Republicans and Democrats ARE but two wings of the Establishment Party. Whatever our principle objection to this Party is, NOTHING changes (for the better) until all incumbents are purged.
Some disclosure: I’ve recently “retired” after working 44 years in a succession of minimum wage jobs often alongside those who don’t bother to vote.
Most I’ve known will never vote FOR anything. They might vote AGAINST the Establishment Party. Granted most of these people should not be voting regularly. And they won’t.
However, if you are interested in firing the Second Shot Heard Round the World, November 2010 isn’t that far away.
mrmetrowest – you and I are usually on opposite political poles.
Today, I find not a single word you have said that I disagree with, and I hope that my comments above are consistant with that.
By pointing out the problem that a “vote for an independent” is usually also a “vote for democrats”, I had not intended to imply that people should abandon common sense and blindly vote a repub ticket. I was only pointing out some of the dilemma facing us “clean sweepers”.
But, also, this is where you and I probably diverge. I picture you approving TARP, the “stimulus” and the effort to enact “stimulus II”, Cap and Trade, and parts of the “healthcare plan”. But I would love for you to set me straight on that also.
Hi Barney
I most assuredly do not approve of the TARP. Those big banks, and AIG, should have been resolved in bankruptcy court. I don’t believe the result of this would have been famine and pestilence, as has been claimed. I don’t believe in Cap and Trade because I don’t think it will work. I think the stimulus probably has kept employment up somewhat, but treats a symptom and not the fundamental problems of the economy. Kept up over the long term, our trade and budget deficits will undermine our currency and ruin us.
I am a firm believer in a single payer health system. I don’t believe our economy is ever again likely to produce enough steady, quality employment for people to count on benefits as a by-product of employment. Our ‘insurance’ method is a positive hindrance to job creation and makes us less competitive globally. Our peer countries seem to have health care as good as ours at much less cost. Obama’s health reform leaves me mostly cold, but likely not for the same reasons as you.
Dr Ron Paul for Speaker of the House of the next Congress! The Universe and the American voting public gave us the mess in Washington (equally divided betw. the WH and Congress and what results as an activist SC). It was just a set up for the backlash that will toss (almost) every elected official out of office. What needs to be done? The folks who contribute to this magazine must work with the Tea Party patriots to defeat the leftist, neo-cons and RINO’s. Only a Congressional HoR’s lead by Dr Paul will end this spiral downward. End the spending. Eend the Fed. End the IRS. End these illegal and immoral wars! See that on the ground? It’s called a gauntlet – for a good reason – it ain’t gonna’ be easy.