The dangers of cold war mentality and counter-culture mentality.


Sometimes, mentalities or mindsets survive long after the realities
that created/shaped them have passed. So, Jews have preserved a chosen-
people and one-truth-for-all mentality even after they'd become part
of the pluralistic modern world order. And, Chinese still have this
middle-kingdom mentality. And, Chrisitans still have a victim-
mentality--even long after they became lords of the world.  Even as
the content of this mentality changes, the nature stays the same.  So,
even as modern Jews rejected religious chosen-people-ism and embraced
social universalism, their secular ideology--communism--retained many
Jewish traits. There was the idea of one-and-only-truth for all
mankind. There was the idea of history having chosen a select group of
men--radical intellectuals--to carry out its grand purpose. And, even
as the Chinese no longer believe China is the center of the world,
they are still animated by a great deal of pride and chauvanism. Same
could be said of Russia. Whether Tsarist, communist, or Putin-ist,
there has always been a sense of Great Russian Chauvanism.  So, mental
structures can remain the same even if the content changes.

Liberals say that conservatives are still trapped in a us-vs-them Cold
War mentality; even after the Cold War ended, the mentality has
survived. Conservatives had become so used to justifying and defining
their role in history in terms of our-nation-and-our-values vs the
'evil empire' that they supposedly were panicstricken when the Cold
War ended. They lost their great moral cause, their  justification to
hold onto power. They were the victims of their own success. So,
liberals have argued that conservatives have been trying to revive the
Cold War scenario at every turn. So, we've had the war against Hussein
in the Gulf War, the scare-mongering about the rise of China, the War
on Terror, alarms about New Russia under evil Putin, and etc.  It's as
though conservatives would have no justification for their power
otherwise. Conservatives must create and believe in a scenario where
US faces some great mortal threat around the world. Some observers
consider neocons to share this mentality though others say the neocon
mentality has roots in radical leftism. Some argue that neocon-ism is
Trotskyist permanent revolutionism reconfigured into conservative
rhetoric. Others say it's just a variation of Zionism duping Americans
that enemies of Israel are enemies of the US.

Though the liberal charge is simplistic, there's probably some truth
to it(though it must be said that liberals too have practiced us-vs-
them when it suited their purposes. Jews--mostly liberal--insisted
that Nazi Germany posed a threat to UK and US when that wasn't
necessarily the case--initially anyway. Whether one praises or
condemns Churchill's decision to fight Germany, UK could have made
peace with Germany. Had that been the case, a war between US and
Germany would have been remote. That Hitler was evil and that
Churchill was heroic are true enough; but it must be said the Anglo-
German war was started by the Brits and Americans. Brits declared war
on Germany which wanted no war with Britain; once the Anglo-German war
was on, US defacto joined on the British side even before formal
declaration of war by Hitler.  And, if Nazi Germany had won WWII and
if the world had been divided between Nazi dominated Europe and
democratic US with lone democratic ally UK, liberals would have been
the main proponents for a Cold War with the evil Nazi Empire while
some fellow traveling conservatives might have called for peaceful co-
existence with the Nazi Empire.)

Whatever the case, there has been a Cold War mentality among
conservatives. Its most pitiful example was the long-forgotten Firing
Line debate between Buckley/Perle/Gingrich/Haig and McGovern/Schroeder/
Hart/Solarz(and moderated by Ben Kingsley) in 1988 or 1989.  You
almost get the sense that the Buckley side hoped that the Cold War
hadn't ended. We sense 'what now?' panic among conservatives. It's
almost like trying to help the opponent back on his feet after he's
been knocked out. Soviet Union lost the Cold War, and conservatives
lost their Hot Cause. This was one time when McGovern was totally
right and Buckley totally wrong. And, when there was coup in Russia in
1991, people like Buchanan were beating the war drums again and
saying, 'we told you so'... only to see the coup crumble within days.
The Cold War is over. And, we should not hype every new conflict in
the world as the new Cold War or the new conflict between Good vs
Evil. This isn't to say Osama Bin Laden isn't evil; he's as evil,
perhaps more evil than Hitler and Stalin. If Osama had nukes, who
knows what might happen. But, the ragtag terrorists in the Middle East
are not the Soviet or Nazi military. They may pose a great challenge
in years to come, but we have to see them for what they are; we
mustn't promote the new conflict as World War IV. Also, if you keep
crying wolf, people don't pay attention when really urgent.  On the
other hand, laxity leads to something like 9/11, which, in retrospect,
could have been averted if we had been more alert.

If conservatives are still infected with Cold War ideology, liberals
are trapped in what might be called a Counter-Culture mentality.
Liberals had the moral upperhand in the 50s and early 60s when they
fought for civil rights and other causes for social equality.
Liberalism came to define itself by standing up for the working class,
powerless, downtrodden, the poor, and such. Its Golden Era lasted from
the 30s to the early 60s. During the Great Depression, many Americans
were in bad shape. Liberalism sided with the masses of workers--
generally white--and promoted their interests against those of the
rich and affluent. Democratic Party won the loyalty of white working
class voters for  several generations as a result. Even after that
hurdle, liberalism still had important battles to win.  US until the
early 60s was a nation where whites were more equal than non-whites--
and where men were more equal than women. So, liberalism spearheaded
the movement to win full equality for minorities and women. But,
liberalism became a victim of its own successes. Without social wrongs
or 'evils' to overcome, it lost its justification, its reason for
being. This led to an existential crisis for liberalism--just as
conservatives faced the same problem with the fall of communism. In a
world without racial discrimination, religious bigotry, prudish
censorship, and sexual inequality, what was the urgent purpose of
liberalism? (Liberals felt like the samurai class once Japan had been
unified. Made extinct by their own successes. )
By the mid 60s, it was obvious that the basic goals of liberalism had
triumphed. So, what else was there to accomplish? This is where
liberalism embarked on two different paths. One degenerated into
radicalism. It just flat out said no amount of reform or social
progress is enough since the System itself is oppressive. One response
to the System was to use bombs and guns to destroy it--as the Weather
Underground, Black Panthers, and other lunatics tried to do. The other
response was to drop out, tune in, and turn on: use drugs, live on a
commune, practice free love, listen to psychedelic music, and watch
'Easy Rider'. Whether black power or flower power, it totally rejected
the System. In time, this lunacy could only self-destruct or burn out.
Most of these lunatics ended up in jail, ended up dead, or grew up and
re-joined society. Some even became conservatives.
But, another group of liberals decided to create ever new existential
crises--usually domestic but sometimes international--to keep the
counter-culture torch lit.   So, we went from fighting 'racism' to the
war on poverty--as though economic conditions can be changed, like
laws, by people marching in the street. Or, the new enemy was
'structural racism' or 'subconscious racism' which called for
'affirmative action'. Or, there were ever new variations on 'racism'.
In the 90s, 'environmental racism' was fashionable... until a
University of Chicago study debunked it totally. Or, we had the
hysteria that 1/4 of college coeds are raped!!! (Such figure was
arrived at by including sexual activity that wasn't rape.)   If Cold
War mentality was rooted in fear, Counter Culture mentality was rooted
in guilt. Cold War mentality said, "the enemy is the Other and we
gotta unite to kick his butt". Counter culture mentality said, "the
enemy is us and we should get together to bash our own heads."  Both
were costly as hell, whether as guns to fight the enemy or as butter
to fatten the asses of welfare mamas.

Now, conservatism and liberalism both have much to offer without the
Big Enemy or Big Hurdle, but the perceived existence of such
dramatizes their causes. It's one thing to say, 'our country must be
powerful'. It's quite another--more effective--to say, 'our country is
facing a mortal threat'.  It's one thing to say, 'our society has many
challenges'. It's quite another to say--more rightous--to say, 'our
society is still fundamentally social unjust.'   So, whether it's
'foreign threat' or 'social injustice', it makes both parties feel
very crucial and indispensable.

Though the target of Cold War mentality is the Foreign Threat, it
gives conservatives a great opportunity to attack liberals at home.
Liberals can be charged with being soft on communism or terrorism.
(One could argue that the war on Crime--black or drug-related--also
has elements of Cold War-ism. This is because there are two Americas
divided by race, and working class white America has been raped,
attacked, and murdered by the physically stronger and more aggressive
black America. Privileged liberals, in their safe enclaves, have
dismissed the problem of the white working class. Conservatives have
used this fear for political gain but have also been careful to avoid
the accusation of 'racism' but not always.)  Conservatives can point
to the fact that there had been many liberal fellow-travelers in the
1940s, an advantage that was permanently lost due to Joe Mccarthy and
the clever liberal exploitation of his abuses. Anyway, conservatives
have been quick to point out that liberals are weak on foreign
policy.  Sometimes, this is unwarranted, sometimes it hits the mark.
Moveon.org's attack on General Petraeus and Michael Moore films are
odious. But, some could argue that such are examples of leftism, not
liberalism. But, some liberals have always had a soft spot for the
left.   Liberals love Howard Zinn the leftist. Zinn the leftist loves
far-leftist Bob Avakian, a Stalinst-Maoist nut.  I'm not sure if Obama
is a liberal or a leftist, but what was he doing with the likes of
Bill Ayers, who as recently as 2002, stepped on the American flag?

Though the target of Counter Culture mentality is the Domestic
Injustice, it gives liberals a great opportunity to attack
conservatives on foreign issues as well. Conservatives can be charged
with greedy capitalism and neo-imperialism. Liberals can say the
global climate is on the verge of collapse because of greedy
corporations and piggish materialistic Americans--generally
conservatives(though liberals eat just as much and use just as much
energy.)  We are shown pictures of starving African babies, those
infected with malaria or HIV. And, we are told that people suffer,
starve, and die because we are greedy, we consume too much, and so on.
So, the reason why there are poor people in America is because the
Rich don't pay their fair share(never mind that the lower income
earners and the poor pay NO Share at all.). The reason why there are
poor people in the world is because Americans--under the influence of
conservatism and capitalism--don't share with the poor around the
world. So, Roger Ebert says a nation as rich as the US must offer free
healthcare to all. The idiot lead singer of Cold Play says it's evil
for Americans to have it so good while Africans are starving. (It
never occurs to Ebert that US is rich because it doesn't offer free
stuff to every moron. It never occurs to Cold Play dork that if poor
China and Vietnam can make economic progress, there's no reason why
Africans couldn't do it either.)

In any case, both Cold War mentality and Counter-Culture mentality
demonstrate the lingering power of mentalities. Part of it's
subconscious.  A people who've grown to think in a certain way for a
long time become trapped within its paradigmatic strictures. But, it
can also be conscious and calculating; it can be an effective--at
times even devious--way to unite people by stoking fear/pride or
influence people by promising guilt/redemption.  Playing on fear/pride
tends to be conservative whereas playing on guilt/redemption tends to
be liberal. To be sure, they often overlap. Conservatives do play on
guilt/redemption, and liberals resort to fear and pride(at least among
the so-called people-of-color, which suggests that only affluent
whites are genuinely liberal whereas non-whites in the Democratic
Party are allied with liberalism for their own tribal interests.)
Conservatives can argue that national pride leads to redemption--
Americans must love their country to live up to the true promises of
America. And, liberals can argue that national guilt is something to
be proud of; indeed, many white liberals wave the banner of guilt to
feel morally superior to white conservatives; of course, these
affluent liberals tend to be far removed from the frontlines of social
problems stemming from black crime and illegal immigration. Those who
eat cake can afford to promote bread-n-circuses.

It could be argued that the liberal counter-culture mentality has
roots in Judeo-Christianity but is cloaked in secular paganism. In
contrast, the conservative cold war mentality has roots in tribal
paganism but is cloaked in Judeo-Christianism. Notice that liberals
tend be secular and irreligious but call for a truer implementation of
Christian utopianism; liberals want to blur national and racial lines
and promote egalitarianism.  In contrast, notice that conservatives
tend to be religious and moralistic in their professed values but
their core passions revolve around nationhood and tribal
traditionalism. Pat Buchanan is the most obvious example of this.
Buchanan warns us against Cold War mentality but merely practices
another variation.  During the official Cold War, Buchanan supported
the West ideologically against the Communist East. But, after the fall
of communism, Buchanan's Cold War mentality is essentially Christo-
racial. He stresses we-white-christian folks--in America and Russia--
should unite forces against non-whites and liberal Jews. So, Buchanan
sees the continuation of the Cold War in the form of the so-called
Culture War in the United States.

Both the Cold War mentality and Culture War mentality is defensive
against the leftist--and even liberal--idea of historical
inevitability guided by moral imperatives. The Left didn't regard
communism as aggressive or war-mongering but as only natural. The Left
saw the world as oppressive and exploitative, and so it was only
natural that people wanted to be liberated. From the leftist
viewpoint, communism wasn't so much waging war as spreading justice;
the real war was the result of oppressors and exploiters resisting the
natural march of human progress.
The Left feels the same way about the 'Culture War'.  They don't see
it as a war at all. They feel they are only serving history and
progressive values of tolerance, equality, and justice by trying to
promote their 'values' in our culture while snuffing out the values of
'reaction'. According to the Left, if there is a Culture War, it's
because conservatives stand in the way of this 'natural' progression
of history. By doing so, conservatives have turned it into a 'war'.
Leftists see the world in the way they saw Guatemala in the 1950s and
Chile in the 1970s. Supposedly, the will of the people naturally chose
Arbenz and Allende. They were not out to wage war or use violence.
They were merely the agents of progressive history. But, both
Guatemala and Chile became war zones because the evil right stood in
the way of natural progress, used violence, and triggered off a great
conflict.
It should be obvious to all that the Left is morally arrogant,
pompous, and dogmatic enough to think it has the monopoly on
historical truth and inevitability. This goes back to Jesus and was
carried forth by Marx.
Of course, the right's view of history is different. For them,
communism was a war waged on the world by the Left, not a natural
progression of history. Not everything about communism  was bad or
wrong, but it destroyed freedom, individual rights, private property,
tradition, and culture. Arbenz and Allende were not peace-loving
agents of history but wolf-in-sheep's clothing whose grand design was
to set up communist states and spread their influence all over Latin
America.  As for PC(political correctness) and MC(multiculturalism),
they are not the natural progression of history but radical assaults
on the most basic principles of our society--such as freedom of
speech, right to enforce immigration laws, and the concept of the True
Family without which civilization cannot thrive. But, it must be said
that at its extreme, the right too can be blind in their self-
righteousness. We see some of this in the American Right's reaction to
the Russian invasion of Georgia. Though Russians are bullies,
Georgians have been little bullies. So, it was a case of Big Bully
attacking Little Bully. But, many conservatives have reduced the
complexity of what happened to Big Bad Russia on the rise again; they
are entirely wrong, we are entirely right.

It remains to be seen whether Counter Culture mentality and Cold War
mentality will continue to define the outlooks and habits of the two
main political groups in US. Surely, liberals must realize at some
point that US has become a free and just nation, and that many of our
problems stem from misuse of freedom and rights than from lack of
freedom and rights. It was one thing in the past to argue that the
System dominated by the white man was keeping the black man down. But,
we can't treat today's black problems the same way. Blacks and
liberals can march and agitate all they want. The main problems among
blacks stem from wild and crazy misuse of freedom and rights among
blacks. They are problems of freedom, not unfreedom. (Similarly, the
problems after the liberation of Iraq were the products of freedom, no
longer tyranny.  Many Iraqis freely chose to commit acts of terror and
attack other Iraqis. So, more 'democracy' could not solve the problem
but only more law and order.)
And, it must be said that the Cold War mentality is no longer useful.
There are many threats to the US around the world, but they cannot be
compared to the Cold War between the West and the East of the 20th
century. US and USSR could only be enemies, however they tried to co-
exist. They were both too powerful and too diametrically opposed in
ideology and ambition. But, that can't be said of most problem nations
today. China and Russia may be problematic, but they are fundamental
threats to America and American influence. They can be or are
formidable competitors in the economic and political sphere, but they
are nations that US can and must co-exist with. Some nations or
forces--Iran, North Korea, and Muslim radicals--are the polar
opposites of the US in every way but not worthy enemies in a new Cold
War. The threats they pose should not be dismissed, but they are not
mortal threats to the US--unless, of course, Muslim radicals gain
nuclear material, which is unlikely anytime soon.
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