roundtable: The Politics of Destruction

roundtable: The Politics of Destruction

The Politics of Destruction

Vigdor Schreibman - FINS (fins@access.digex.net)
Fri, 30 Jun 1995 04:58:44 -0400 (EDT) 

Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 04:58:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
To: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins@access.digex.net>
Subject: The Politics of Destruction
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950630045322.10613B-100000@access1.digex.net>


----------------Original Message Posted in Multiple Lists-----------------
---------------Republication Authorized For Intact Message----------------
  
FINS: Communicating the Emerging Philosophy of The Information Age       
FEDERAL INFORMATION NEWS SYNDICATE                    
Vol III, Issue No. 13  (121 lines)                             July 3, 1995
    
     
                  READ THIS ISSUE OF FINS TO CONSIDER:      
                                                             
                *   Searching for a new core challenge for America  
                                          
                *   A "rendezvous with destiny" in doublespeak.

========================================================================= 
 
CLOSING THE "VALUES-GAP": 
Rep. Newt Gingrich: The Politics of Destruction
By Vigdor Schreibman

     During the past half-century or so, with other secondary adventures in
between, the core American mission has been first, to overcome Nazi Germany
and Imperial Japan, and second, to contain the Soviet Union.  With the
latter's collapse in 1991, the United States was left without a menacing
enemy, and also without a grand challenge around which to focus its primary
attention and resources.  Not for long.  On Jan 25, 1993, Rep. Newt Gingrich
(R-GA), began what he called an educational program (some say a set of
homilies) presented on the floor of the US House of Representatives, on the
subject of his grand design for "Renewing American Civilization."

     In this initiative we learn that following the presidential elections of
1992 (in which the White House was lost by Republicans), Rep. Gingrich
relates how he determined "after 2 1/2 months of thinking" (between election
day and the inauguration of President William Clinton), "that every American
has an obligation to be committed to a renewal of American civilization."  In
Franklin Roosevelt's words, Gingrich asserted, "our generation has a
'rendezvous with destiny' and we have to keep that rendezvous."

     Gingrich's ideas on renewing American civilization have five pillars:
First, quality as defined by Edwards Deming; second, technological
advancement; third, entrepreneurial free enterprise; fourth, the principles
of American civilization; fifth, psychological strength. Beyond those lofty
rhetorical goals, however, the "rendezvous with destiny" is based on the same
old self-interest that propelled the federal debt from $908.5 billion in 1980
to $4 trillion in 1992, with a worsening long-term outlook (OMB, 1995).

     The only concrete strategy offered for renewing American civilization is
Gingrich's theory that destruction of the old civilization is needed to make
room for the new.  Gingrich entirely disregards the excesses of materialism. 
The sole cause of decay, he argues, is from the bureaucracy and welfare
state, the elite cultural attitudes of the left and the counter-culture
opposed to technological advancement.  For Gingrich, those attributes of
decay must be destroyed, otherwise, American civilization faces "a long-term
tendency for people in fact to drift into barbarism and savagery."

     Once Republicans gained majority control of Congress after the 1994
Congressional elections, they commenced a concerted attack on the bureaucracy
and welfare state, the academic and cultural institutions managed by the
intellectual left and all opposition to technological advancement.  The
chosen instrument of destruction, described by Gingrich as a "subset of
economic growth," is a trillion dollar seven year cut in the budget together
with some $245 billion in tax incentives--as a first step.

     These allocations of federal resources would harshly punish vital public
welfare that is disregarded by the market system, and increase tax incentives
to benefit mainly the super rich who now claim an obscenely inequitable part
of the national income and wealth.  Charles Krauthammer explained in an op-ed
piece in The Washington Post, Dec. 2, 1994, "The beauty of these cuts is the
cultural side benefit that comes from strangling agencies that cannot--it has
by now been proven--be kept out of the hands of the academic left."

     A political movement is being launched on the Internet to support those
purposes.  Fund raising letters show plans to train, by April 1996, 200,000
committed citizen activists to "replac[e] the welfare state and reform[] our
government." At the same time, the Congress is dismantling common carrier
telecommunication services, community based commercial broadcasting, public
broadcasting free of advertising, and public information systems that are the
lifeblood of democracy.  The new Telecom Robber Barons are moving into place.

     House Democratic Whip David E. Bonior (D-MI), filed a formal complaint
against Gingrich, Mar 8, 1995, for the use of official resources of the House
of Representatives to promote his "Renewing American Civilization course,
charging that such conduct is a violation of House Ethics Rules.  "A wealth
of ethical concerns" about Gingrich's college courses were raised by critics
in an article in The New York Times, Feb 20, 1995. Similar doubts were
expressed earlier in an editorial in The Atlanta Constitution, Sept 5, 1993. 

     An inquiry sent out by FINS last week over the Net to key history
discussion groups and hundreds of institutions devoted to scholarship and
research, failed to find anyone who would take seriously the historical
perspective of Rep. Newt Gingrich. Scholars like Allan J. Lichtman, professor
of history at The American University, and Robert C. Perkins professor of
history at the University of South Carolina, told FINS they found Gingrich to
be an entertaining man with a narrow and erroneous view of American history.

     For example,  Lichtman observed that Gingrich managed to get through the
entire Civil War "without even mentioning slavery." Of the Declaration of
Independence, Gingrich claims it was about "the pursuit of property" not the
"pursuit of happiness."  Lichtman says, "Gingrich may be a hypocrite, but at
least he is an entertaining one."  Perkins explained that a narrow view of
history is the direction Gingrich "wants the United States to go," but he
added, "I am not satisfied, on the basis of the material he presents, that
his concept can be successful."

  Gary Nash, Co-chair of the National Center for History in the Schools,
a think tank at the University of California, told FINS in an email message 
that Gingrich's series on American history, "is a travesty: malformed,
laughably inaccurate, agitprop of the worst sort, something that any
freshman after one course in American history at a reputable university
would see through with not much trouble." Speaking of a "rendezvous with
destiny" like that--is doublespeak--not the words of Franklin Roosevelt. 

=========================================================================== 
BECOME A MEMBER OF FINS--COLLABORATE IN ADVANCING THE GENIUS OF CYBERSPACE 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
NEW Personal Subscription: $2.95 a year. Receive 24 issues of your own email
copy of Fins News Column, + Special Reports, + Fins Information Age Library.
Payment for subscription by check or money order. Include your email address.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal Information News Syndicate, Vigdor Schreibman, Editor & Publisher, 
18 - 9th Street NE #206, Washington, DC 20002-6042.  Copyright 1995 FINS. 
===========================================================================

[CNI Home Page]