Fully agree with this proposition, which I believe is evident when one takes a deeper look at Biden, and Goldwater. Goldwater I “know,” having gone through his Archives going back to his youth, as he assiduously saved most correspondence. To include with his fellow Senators Democrat Scoop Jackson whom he influenced, and and . Biden demonstrates his being an “acolyte” to Goldwater’s “Militarist Ideology” through his acts regarding Russia and China, and “internal security” through “Cognitive Operations” (see yesterday’s email). Making obvious that Goldwater “successfully” mentored Biden while Biden served under him in the SSCI. And put aside the misleading “liberal” label automatically affixed to Democrats solely due to domestic economics programs, serving to distract from seeing a shared bi-partisan “National Security Ideology,” fully formulated and “popularized” by National Review magazine in its ideological “origin” (though not solely; Rand Corporation was set up for the same purpose). And as Biden was obviously “mentored” by Goldwater, so was one-time Southern Democrat,“Super Hawk” Republican Strom Thurmond:
As I’ve pointed out ad nauseam (intended as context for those who haven’t seen the “previous chapters” in my draft of the “Origins of American Fascism”), and its underlying “political theory” of the “Ideology of the Offensive.” As it was the “essence" of the WW II fascist regimes as well, with Conservative “theorists” of NR drawing from the exact same political theorists as had the fascist Regimes. That is, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Bodin, Botero, with the Roman Empire in mind as a model to be aspired to. To include the militaristic/expansionist Empire of the Roman Republic. Just like the course we’re well on our way on here in the USA, even as we “keep our Republic.” With us already in the “Abyss” Neitzshe warned of: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” But look to Guantanamo, the Black Sites, and U.S. Wars of Aggression, and tell me we haven’t become the monsters Nietzsche warned of!
Look around; we’re already in the “abyss." As is so much of the world, feeling the overflow effects of our “fight with monsters,” our “Perpetual War” as DOD boasts of, as we continue to fall ever-further into the abyss over these last 25+ years since “peace” tried to break out in 1991. Which our militarists/fascists wanted nothing to do with. And only our beloved Oligarchs are “feeling no pain” now, in their bringing war and mass surveillance to the world, as the Carl Schmitt acolyte Peter Thiel carries out his “Revisionist Doctrine” (see “Origins of Israeli Fascism) of remaking the “Right” into an even more militarily aggressive Movement than the Original as another, later, "New Right,” with its/his Imperialist Plan, but with China as Target # 1. Differing only by degree from rival US faction’s Imperialist Plans, as have unfolded over the last 31 years. With nuclear war the indicator that our “fall” into the abyss is complete, a very real possibility today.
Not to flatter myself, but I addressed two “Conservative’s” political theory in a Master’s thesis (as attached, with the quote below from pp. 28-29), Clinton Rossiter and Carl J. Friedrich (both of whom were denounced by Willmoore Kendall as too “liberal” :-):
"Friedrich was in a quandary during the Cold War with his authoritarian beliefs as a member of a liberal democracy, unlike Machiavelli, for whom the problem of reason of state did not exist in its typical form, because, for Machiavelli, “the necessity of acting in accordance with the state’s requirement” needed no justification.[1] Whereas it did in a liberal democracy, similar to Botero’s situation, as Friedrich explained: For those “who later in the century came to expound the doctrine of the reason of state, more especially Giovanni Botero, who is credited with inventing the term, the problem presented itself how such conduct as would rationally be required for the survival and security of the state might be ‘justified’ within the context of Christian morality.”[2] Reason of state as defined by Botero was “the knowledge of the means which are suited to found a state, to maintain it and enlarge it,” which had to be fitted in by Botero into value system of Christian morals.[3]
Friedrich then explains in more detail what he means by “reason of state,” and consequently, security. He explains, we must:
take Althusius’ doctrine of reason of state very seriously, for in his frame of reference, which is the constitutionally organized political community, reason of state presents problems which do not exist for Machiavelli or even Bodin.” Only “those political theorists who subject government and politics to law . . . who put justice ahead of or at least on a level with peace and order are confronted with the problem of reason of state in its most perplexing form. For if the constitutional order’s survival is threatened by an enemy who does not acknowledge the validity of this law and moral order, what is the defender of the constitutional order permitted to do? How far may he go in in violating the norms which he is supposedly bound to respect? This is not merely or simply the question of moral conduct of the individual involved in the situation; it may well raise the issue with reference to the conduct of the constitutionally organized community itself.[4]
"Ronald Reagan was a hardliner in name and reputation, but proved more flexible in dealing with the Soviet Union than Joe Biden has proved in dealing with Russia.
"In his reckless provocation of Russia, Joe Biden has proven to be more Barry Goldwater than Ronald Reagan.
"Goldwater told crowds in 1964 that the United States should not be afraid of taking on the USSR in Eastern Europe and lobbing a few missiles at the Soviets."
"Joe Biden, whom Seymour Hersh reports ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, channels the soul of reactionary Republican Barry Goldwater GOP Presidential standard-bearer circa 1964."
President Biden boarding Marine One helicopter (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
Barry Goldwater is considered the father of the modern conservative movement. Goldwater won the 1964 Republican Presidential nomination despite being opposed by the GOP Establishment, including former President Dwight Eisenhower.
Goldwater’s main opponent for the nomination was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican in the days when the Grand Old Party still had liberals. (Liberal Republicans included President Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. Senator Robert La Follotte of Wisconsin and former California Governor Earl Warren, the 1948 GOP Vice Presidential nominee who was serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1964.)
LBJ TV Ad Evoking Threat of Nuclear War Should Barry Goldwater be Elected President
In the November election, the incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson easily defeated Senator Goldwater in one of the biggest landslides in history. With 61.1% of the popular vote, LBJ won 44 states and the District of Columbia, good for 484 votes in the Electoral College.
Along with his native home state of Arizona, Goldwater — who had voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — won five states in the deep South, racking up 52 EC votes with his 38.5% share of the popular vote.
Sixteen years after his crushing defeat, one of his political acolytes, Ronald Reagan was elected President, an outcome the mainstream press of 1980 did not anticipate.
Though originally registered as a Democrat and active as a liberal, Reagan shifted parties in 1962. He endorsed Goldwater for President and gave a speech that was televised as a campaign ad in October 1964.
EXTREMISM & NUCLEAR BRINKSMANSHIP
The biggest issue during the 1964 Republican presidential nomination season was whether Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater would trigger a nuclear holocaust if elected President of the United States.
It was the main issue in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary that Goldwater lost to a write-in candidate who not only did not campaign, but was not even in the United States; it was the main issue during the subsequent primaries; and it was the main issue during the GOP convention held in San Francisco and during the general election overwhelmingly won by incumbent president Lyndon Johnson in November.
In his acceptance speech, Goldwater told the Republican delegates, “I would remind you, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” and was interrupted by great applause. Goldwater said “Thank you” to the crowd twice, before finishing with, “and let me remind you also, that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
An arch-conservative, Goldwater was seen by contemporaries as being unafraid to ally himself with the reactionary right. Many liberal and moderate Republicans criticized the Senator from Arizona during the ’64 campaign for refusing to repudiate nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union and talking about challenging the Soviets in Eastern Europe.
During the 1980 presidential debate, Jimmy Carter attempted to portray Ronald Reagan as a Goldwateresque/Doctor Strangelover of nuclear war.
Gen. Buck Turgidson was based on Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay the head of the Strategic Air Command
“Inflation, unemployment, the cities — all very important issues. But they pale into insignificance, in the life and duties of a president, when compared to the control of nuclear weapons.”
Carter went on to say, “I had a discussion with my daughter Amy the other day, before I came here to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry.”
Carter’s obviously scripted observation was out of place in a question about economic policy. He tried to paint Reagan as a threat to nuclear arms control, but Reagan came off as the more aggressive and assured candidate, which many people likely thought was a prerequisite to be a successful commander in chief.
Carter’s public perception for effectiveness as a chief executive suffered from the year-long(+) debacle of the Iranian hostage crisis. Reagan was elected President, an outcome the mainstream press of 1980 did not entertain until after the TV debate, a tie when Carter still lead Reagan in most polls.
Ronald Reagan was a hardliner in name and reputation, but proved more flexible in dealing with the Soviet Union than Joe Biden has proved in dealing with Russia.
In his reckless provocation of Russia, Joe Biden has proven to be more Barry Goldwater than Ronald Reagan.
Goldwater told crowds in 1964 that the United States should not be afraid of taking on the USSR in Eastern Europe and lobbing a few missiles at the Soviets.
Joe Biden, whom Seymour Hersh reports ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, channels the soul of reactionary Republican Barry Goldwater GOP Presidential standard-bearer circa 1964.
Reporter Seymour Hersh on “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”