Peggy Noonan Watch: Fractured Right

Sign #7,650,432 that the Republicans will probably loose this election: Peggy Noonan splits from the party line.

There has never been a second's debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.
Here is a fact of life that is also a fact of politics: You have to hold open the possibility of magic. People can come from nowhere, with modest backgrounds and short résumés, and yet be individuals of real gifts, gifts that had previously been unseen, that had been gleaming quietly under a bushel, and are suddenly revealed. Mrs. Palin came, essentially, from nowhere. But there was a man who came from nowhere, the seeming tool of a political machine, a tidy, narrow, unsophisticated senator appointed to high office and then thrust into power by a careless Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vanity told him he would live forever. And yet that limited little man was Harry S. Truman. Of the Marshall Plan, of containment. Little Harry was big. He had magic. You have to give people time to show what they have. Because maybe they have magic too.

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.
Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.
At any rate, come and get me, copper.

Of course, she is overly concerned with the "vulgarisation" of politics and seems to apply that brush to the Democrats as if they practice this stuff in equivalent measures, but I'll forgive her for that here.  A little honesty does a person good.

Puzzling Evidence

Mike Wallace wants my body.
Elvis meets Nixon.
Tri-lateral commision.
Suburban soul-sucking.

The greatest movie ever made:

Harvey's "History of Neoliberalism" Part II: Class Power Reborn

I continue here a summary of David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism.

For part I, click here.

To skip to part III: An Overview of A Brief History of Neoliberalism Part III

Class Power Reborn
The revival and strengthening of the upper class since Reagan and Thatcher is easily demonstrable by charting the trends of distribution of wealth, the tremendous rise in CEO compensation and the shape and size of tax laws over the last few decades. That rewarding the rich with even more power and wealth through the weakening of financial rules and tax responsibilities has become so commonplace is testament to the influence of neoliberalism on a global scale, but also as way of thinking that has invaded the public's self-image. Harvey thus relates that societies that seem to be acting with neoliberal “common sense” are not always acting for the common good. In fact, privatization on both a grand scale and at the molecular level of “personal responsibility” saps energy from the idea of common and communal good by lending credence to the idea that what is good for the individual must also be good for the community.

By capturing ideals of individual freedom and turning them against the interventionist and regulatory practices of the state, capitalist class interests could hope to protect and even restore their position...But it had to be backed up by a practical strategy that emphasized the liberty of consumer choice, not only with respect to particular products but also with respect to lifestyles, modes of expression, and a wide range of cultural practices. Neoliberalization required both politically and economically the construction of a neoliberal market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism and individual libertarianism. (42-43)

Of course, this individual libertarianism has created contradictions in neoliberalism itself as the very real breakdown of old social orders has also liberated marginalized groups (Gays and Lesbians for example). Not surprisingly, this has led to the desire of many on the Right to replace newly won personal freedoms with authoritarianism and populist “morality.”

“Left movements,” he writes, “failed to recognize or confront, let alone transcend, the inherent tension between the quest for individual freedoms and social justice” (43). On the right, however, there was both a conscious and subconscious awareness that, in the 1970's, the tectonic cultural shifts from the left and the rising power of the finance economy begun under Nixon could be absorbed through the prism of neoliberal philosophy and economics. Neoliberals saw, in the Left's “prescriptivism,” an opportunity to gain influence by promising liberation. They thus set out to take advantage of this situation through long-term planning and concerted effort. Harvey cites the growth and influence of organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, National Bureau of Economic Research and many other think tanks that quickly began to gain influence in Washington, in universities and in the press. Quoting Blyth, Harvey determines that by the end of the decade, “[b]usiness was learning to spend as a class” (44).

The multiple economic crises of the 1970's were, in fact, the result of capitalism being unable to provide markets for its surplus gains (there seemed to be nowhere to invest). The oil embargo of course played a role too. The U.S. agreed not to invade or harass Saudi Arabi following the OPEC rise in power provided that the Saudis would turn right back around and reinvest the petrodollars in Wall Street. The funneling of a huge amount of dollars into U.S. markets from Saudi Arabia following the oil crisis brought with it some problems. The U.S. economy was doing poorly and therefore not ripe for investment. What to do with the surplus—and surplus income always brings the danger of inflation or stagnation—became a major issue. The answer came, over the next few years, in the form of a reconstituting of international monetary policy in the World Bank and IMF. This process took several years and was the result of multiple processes and examples, and it essentially led to re-investment of the petrodollars in the form of loans to third-world nations, with Wall Street reaping enormous benefits as the middlemen. The monetary crises would also mean a great deal of restructuring at home, but in a very different form than had been practiced since the New Deal's keynsian social pact. This time the confluence of investment money would join with the allure of individualism preached by neoliberal institutions and politicians such as Reagan and Thatcher.

As stated above, the Left should be blamed for failing to counter-argue the neoliberal narrative and demonstrate the repercussions of the rise of a new class of wealthy elite. Harvey points out as well the flexibility of neoliberalism to insert itself into divergent political economic systems such as Britain and the U.S. Notions of class have always been fluid in the U.S., but in Britain they have long been associated with the aristocracy and aristocratic institutions. Thatcher's neoliberalism thus represented not a restoration of the old aristocracy, but the creation of a new one, of the London City-based financier, and in that sense did indeed liberalize England (if not Great Britain).

End of Part II.

An Overview of A Brief History of Neoliberalism Part I

An Overview of A Brief History of Neoliberalism Part III