WILL BANNING GARLIC AND SMASHING STATUES SAVE AMERICA?

   Yesterday, in the Youtube newsfeed there was a story that didn't appear in the Corporate Media. Senator Bernie Sanders was holding a Senate hearing addressing the national problem with obesity and its related burden on the healthcare system. It interested me not because Sanders had any great solutions, but because somebody in the Senate actually brought the subject up at all. Our side could learn something from this: maybe the reason that Conservatives get wiped out in one election after another isn't because the Left has better ideas or better salesmanship. The Left wins because they are only ones talking about issues that are important to anybody. 

   That's not to say that the Republicans weren't immediately on the job, addressing problems with our food supply. Bush Machine apparatchik Florida Senator Rick Scott of the Senate Committee for Homeland Security is demanding that the US ban garlic imported from China. Scott claims, based on who-knows-what information, that Chinese agricultural practices---especially related to garlic growing---are unsanitary and represent a threat to national security. 

   

    In fairness, our Postmodern Culture does share a lot of similarities with those of vampires---soulless, parasitic, predatory: and vampires, at least in the movies, do project a superficial charm belying their dangerous natures. It might make sense from that standpoint to ban garlic. What doesn't seem to make sense is appropriating $885 billion to subsidize Domestic Espionage, the Military-Industrial Complex, and propping up the Neo-Nazi Regime in Ukraine while doing nothing to address the drought conditions in California farms where most American garlic is produced; but given Senator Scott's ties to defense and security contractors, I suppose it isn't surprising. Besides, billionaire NGOs can always buy up the distressed farmlands at bargain prices; that's just the Free Market in action and it's all the farmers' fault for living in a Blue State anyway.

    Meanwhile, in the very Red State of Iowa, a Satanic Cult put up a Christmas Display in the State Capitol. This so triggered Churchian Right activist Michael Cassidy that he went berserk and attacked the statue with an axe, cutting off its head. While Satanic images certainly don't belong in the Capitol, one would think that with GOP control of the governorship and legislature a less drastic (not to mention more legal) means of removing it were available. It wasn't that long ago that the Whacko Left went on a rampage destroying and beheading statues, and Conservatives condemned that; but these days it's only wrong when the Left does it. 

   Over the last three decades, there has been a school of thought on the Right that the traditional Conservative policy of taking the Moral High Ground, appealing to peoples' better natures, and winning by having better ideas was unrealistic and a formula for losing. This in spite of the previous three decades when Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan won elections in landslides with such losing strategies and pundits like William F. Buckley and Pat Buchanan were the leaders in Conservative opinion because of their unrealistic approach. 

   Contrary to what most pundits and influencers on the so-called 'Conservative' seem to believe, the antidote to Left-Wing Extremism is not Right-Wing Extremism. That was one of the greatest historical lessons that came out of World War II. It's true that Fascism did save some countries from Bolshevism, but it would be hard to argue that it was much of an improvement. The simple reason for the Left's popular appeal is not that people like their ideals so much as that they fear the Extreme Left less than they fear the Extreme Right. Conservatives used to win elections because they offered a rational approach against an extremist one and held to their core values and ideals.

   Unless Conservatives go back to their core values and start standing on them---as well as renouncing the extremism done in their name---they will continue to lose. If, for example, the Iowa Legislature had made a case---which shouldn't have been especially difficult---for removing the Satanic display, most would probably have seen that as a positive thing. Running screaming though the State Capitol with axe and attacking a statue is hardly an image with which any right-thinking person wants to identify. 

   Likewise, when Senator Sanders proposes things like Sugar Taxes and Warning Labels to combat obesity, a Conservative could have countered by pointing out that ending Regulatory Capture and enforcing the existing laws on unsafe food products might be a better long-term solution. Banning imported garlic just makes us look stupid, not to mention incredibly paranoid.