Claire Conner's Blog - Posts Tagged "wrapped-in-the-flag"
History Repeats...and Repeats
I’m Claire Conner, author of Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right, coming July 2013 from Beacon Press. I’m thrilled you found your way to Goodreads to learn more about me and my story.
Just a few years ago, I thought the right wing in the United States was defeated, deflated and powerless. My parents were dead and I was sure their ideas were dead, too. I was 100% wrong. Today I hear my parents every time I turn on the news and every time I read a newspaper.
My father and mother live in the “stop socialized medicine” crowd that fights healthcare reform. I recognize them in right wing Republicans who yearn to dismantle civil rights protections.
I can hear them insist that the safety net makes people dependent and lazy. They speak through the pundits who decry the destruction of our constitution and the socialization of America. The branding of the president as an un-American socialist Marxist echoes their attacks on every Democratic president of our time.
I hear my parents' words in the mouths of politicians who dream of bringing organized labor to its knees and making it harder for people to vote.
All of these ideas are not new; I heard them for years. You see, my parents were two of the first members of the John Birch Society, the right-wing populist insurgency of the 1960s.
I’m not an historian or a political scientist. I’m not a politician or a think-tank analyst. I didn’t study extremism in school or write articles analyzing its root causes or sociological outcome
I know radical because my father was a radical. I know fanatic because my mother was a fanatic. I recognize true believers because my parents and their Birch allies were true believers.
My parents were determined, dedicated and very, very wrong and they seeded the rhetoric that’s poisoning American politics today.
If you dismiss the current Republican stampede to the right as harmless, this is a wake-up call.
Today's right wing agenda is a repeat of the old, right wing agenda of the 1960s. If we don't so "no" to these old, recycled ideas, we'll wake up in a new country--a country controlled by big-money corporate bosses, no-government libertarians, radical Christians and the John Birch Society.
Just a few years ago, I thought the right wing in the United States was defeated, deflated and powerless. My parents were dead and I was sure their ideas were dead, too. I was 100% wrong. Today I hear my parents every time I turn on the news and every time I read a newspaper.
My father and mother live in the “stop socialized medicine” crowd that fights healthcare reform. I recognize them in right wing Republicans who yearn to dismantle civil rights protections.
I can hear them insist that the safety net makes people dependent and lazy. They speak through the pundits who decry the destruction of our constitution and the socialization of America. The branding of the president as an un-American socialist Marxist echoes their attacks on every Democratic president of our time.
I hear my parents' words in the mouths of politicians who dream of bringing organized labor to its knees and making it harder for people to vote.
All of these ideas are not new; I heard them for years. You see, my parents were two of the first members of the John Birch Society, the right-wing populist insurgency of the 1960s.
I’m not an historian or a political scientist. I’m not a politician or a think-tank analyst. I didn’t study extremism in school or write articles analyzing its root causes or sociological outcome
I know radical because my father was a radical. I know fanatic because my mother was a fanatic. I recognize true believers because my parents and their Birch allies were true believers.
My parents were determined, dedicated and very, very wrong and they seeded the rhetoric that’s poisoning American politics today.
If you dismiss the current Republican stampede to the right as harmless, this is a wake-up call.
Today's right wing agenda is a repeat of the old, right wing agenda of the 1960s. If we don't so "no" to these old, recycled ideas, we'll wake up in a new country--a country controlled by big-money corporate bosses, no-government libertarians, radical Christians and the John Birch Society.
