Quantcast
Channel: continent.Ron Paul
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

Update on the Race: Rick Santorum A Trotsky?

0
0

Two things come to mind in the Republican Primary season as they stumble over who will lead the party against the current president. I write this now given that reports of the Michigan race, supposed Romney territory, is looking like a Santorum upset which may lead to a very unusual open primary.
 
1. The unusual length of deciding a leader for the 2012 race indicates that the party has fractured since the 2010 emergence of the anarcho-capitalist Tea Party. It seems like the American war against ‘terrorism’ has pushed back against capitalism gone wild and its reactionary posture.
 
2. The remaining candidates represent four corners of the party’s interlocutors that seem increasingly irreconcilable. In this fracture the party’s contemporary trajectory is characterized by each remaining candidate. The problem is the candidates seem to miss the point—today rationalism is required, at least history tells us that.
 

...a softer, gentler mode of transport?



Ron Paul: Paul represents the ‘big tent’ mentality of an era that is over or an idea to be won in the near future: specifically mid-twentieth century libertarianism that has it’s foot back to Benjamin Tucker one-hundred years before he. That is returning albeit with nuances related to changes in ‘the political’, namely technology and its claim on political organization (of which Paul raised 4.5 million in January—quite remarkable). The return of libertarianism does not demonstrate a reactionary right-romanticism, but a consistent revolutionary element as the thinking of rights supposing order of technology and wrongly attributed to big government—this paradox will not end anytime soon as technology increases a whole new form of rational governance. In the past 20 years, one might say Paulian libertarianism was more thread to typical utopian movements and radical adherents—changes in the political and the exhaustion of war have made his prescriptions tenable for many but these are profanities republicans in general cannot bear.
 
Rick Santorum: (First of all Santorum raised just as much money as Ron Paul has of late.) Interestingly enough, Santorum carries with his politics the residue of American Trotskyists—hence the “Cold Warrior” mentality behind his dated neo-conservatism. Whether he knows it or not (and do not underestimate the man’s intellect) the neo-conservative vision he espouses in a wrong-headed foreign policy vision against Iran is tethered to the “militant liberalism” that emerged in the mid-twentieth century. He also espouses that President Obama operates by a different theological vision—I do not take the bait that this means he is a secret muslim, nor does Santorum admit to that but you cannot discount the slyness lurking, rather, that Obama puts the earth above man and that speaks to the disconnectedness of Santorum…in his words:
 
“I just said that when you have a world view that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources, because we’re going to harm the Earth by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven.” “The politicization of the whole global warming debate, I mean, this is just all an attempt to centralize power and to give more power to the government.”
 
In an age of eco pragmatism, headed by the likes of Steward Brand, once romaticizer of the whole earth now given way to biotechnological necessity (with some explanation for the contingent problems I won’t iterate here) we can see where rationality lies, and it’s not with Santorum, who exudes the antique ideological character of the last century. The earth is always beyond us Ricky.
 
Mittens: Well, Romney has failed to cross-over as a likable human, and he may have never cheated on his wife, but he showed indifference to his dog in like 1983…and, well, he’s a wealthy man. Most people do not understand Romney’s treatment of his dog, but I would argue a lot of people didn’t in the 1980’s. The over-humanization of dogs is bizzare—who knows if the dog was really upset about riding on the roof? Dogs eat feces and rocks, they roll around in dead fish and deer poop…At any rate, he cheated on his dog, but this is comic relief for a wooden dork who cannot beat Obama. Romney smacks of the east coast, blue blood of the Bushes—I just don’t see him making the case for an age of executive (and primarily meaningless) politics. The manager in chief seems insulting, we already have a version of this in the current president who is also in touch with contemporary visions: behaviorist economics, successful foreign policy, plenty of money, and leading on the technological edge of organizing a national campaign. Romney’s conservative problem doesnot have the cross-over appeal as say Ron Paul.
 
Newt Gingrich: Here is the verdict on Newt, Herman Cain endorsed him—now they can go have shots at the local bar. And the would-be phoenix has proven what he was characterized as: erratic and not presidential. Plus he’s out of money. The blatant hypocrisy of adultery looks more like the sympathetic ploys of televangelism. Once you are out of the primary and on the debate stage, this won’t fly, and people won’t be wowed by a man who knows history and believes he can debate. It was, after all, Romney who set Gingrich down a few levels in the South Carolina / Florida debate flurry.
 
So, what? Is Obama just that good? As we have heard the economy is coming back slowly. True, the fact machines are coloring in the numbers with emotive bellowing, but in many instances the Keynesian compromise had enough kick to prove that war economies and war mentalities eventually call for rational behavior. It is analogous to the mid 1930’s appeal of Stalin to the rest of the world, in particular the west. That version of communism (and the turning of backs in regards to purges) was appealing because it had shed its reactionary face and emerged as calm and rational, management of processes—there was a need for governance. No longer was it about chaos or overthrowing aristocracy or tyranny, it was the return of the promises of the Enlightenment. In this vector, between emotion and analogy the sentimentality of revolution is the Tea Party’s liability, and the rational function of the analogue is on the OWS side. Should we see a parallel, it is certainly in the current administration’s rationalism and in some sense humanistic concern. That is where republican’s need to compete, and where they cannot—they are too busy trying to purge their own defunct party and are oblivious to the rationalization of the polis through technological governance.

Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 8

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images