Impolite Conservatism

By Patrick Grimm

If you turn on your AM radio, you will get a mental picture as well as an audio earful of the haggard, tired face of American “conservatism” in all its mediocre malsplendor (which is a word I just coined, fusing together malformed and splendor). Everything related to the American brand of supposed cutting-edge “conservative” thought (or groupthink) is polite, archaically out-dated and washed-up. Rush Limbaugh, once the poster boy for a new style of radio, iconoclastic as it jeered liberal sacred cows, now seems recycled and a format out of steam and any fresh ideas. It’s just Republicans vs. Democrats in all its knee-jerk and unthinking staleness, rehashed again and again and again. What amazes me is that people still digest this drivel with a straight face almost as if they are actually digesting profundities rather than banalities, banalities that ceased to be relevant a long time ago.

The most unsettling aspect of “conservative” talk radio is the utterly polite nature of it. Not only are the pundits, Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly predictable, they are so boring and “paint-by-numbers” that you can anticipate their position on any given issue before the words even leave their mouths, spewing the public airwaves with silliness and anti-thought. What transpires on AM radio is not a real intellectual process, but a series of what I would deem “postures and gestures” signifying little or anything more than the host’s delight in hearing his own voice. It’s polite, polite, polite, which means that it’s vanilla, and a vanilla that has been sitting on the counter of Baskin-Robbins a few days before consumption.

What we need is a new conservative movement in this country, what I will christen an “impolite conservative movement” that is unafraid of defying convention and the big guns of both parties. In fact, the two-party system and their antiquated platforms would have to be discarded completely by this new “impolite conservatism” I am attempting to flesh out. What would be some of the public positions that would be seen as “impolite” by the Establishment? Allow me to list them.

Patrick Grimm’s Impolite Conservatism

1. Pro-European-American

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Ramos and Compean Update
Bush Pressured Prosecutor to Railroad Border Patrol Agents

By Charles Coughlin

Most Americans have probably never heard of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. We know that the federal government doesn’t give the Border Patrol what it needs. We know that the Feds failed to build the Border Fence, which Americans demanded and Congress approved before the 2006 election. We know that millions of illegals are allowed to run loose in our society with no real threat of deportation. But most of us didn’t know just how vicious our own government could be toward Border Patrol agents, who tried to enforce the law.

An article about the Ramos and Compean case notes “BE A BORDER Patrol agent: Do your job, go to prison. That’s how the job must look to agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. In February 2005, the agents tried to stop a van driven by drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila near the Mexico border. After a scuffle with Compean, Aldrete-Davila fled on foot. Ramos says he saw a gun — which the smuggler denies. Both agents fired at Aldrete-Davila, who fell, but continued his escape across the border. After he got away, Ramos and Compean filed a report on the 743 pounds of marijuana they found in the van, but not on the gunfire. As it turns out, Ramos had shot Aldrete-Davila in the butt. A Homeland Security agent heard about the episode, went to Mexico and offered Aldrete-Davila immunity, if he testified against Ramos and Compean. U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, a Bush appointee, prosecuted the agents…”

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A Reform to Restore the People’s Power

By Paul Craig Roberts

The American political system has failed. The fabled checks and balances of American politics were no match for a neoconservative administration with a secret agenda. The American people were deceived and tricked into supporting two invasions that are war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.

US aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians have radicalized Muslims throughout the world and swelled the ranks of insurgents. Despite the “surge” and an additional 30,000 US troops in Baghdad, the US is unable to protect its own embassy. On July 10, the fortified Green Zone, which contains the US and British embassies and the puppet Iraqi government, came under intense mortar and rocket attack. Within the protected Green Zone, 18 people were wounded and 3 were killed.

The US military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus said that the US is a decade away from victory in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus could have added another truth and acknowledged that the US military lacks sufficient fresh troops to remain in the conflict. Last year Colin Powell said the US Army is “about broken.” The US military is exhausted by the insurgencies and will be driven out if not withdrawn.

Gen. Petraeus assumed command in January. Six months later, Petraeus says “the question is how can we gradually reduce our forces so we reduce the strain on the army.”

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