The Long March of Paul Craig Roberts

(9AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

He was 30 years ago one of the ideological firebrands of the Reagan Administration.  As its Assistant Treasury Secretary, was the actual author of the Reagan Administration’s centerpiece Kemp-Roth tax bill, and was also the author of the book The Supply-Side Revolution.  

But in a party that often gives them lip service and then the bus, he made the mistake of actually taking seriously his libertarian principles of civil liberties at home and anti-intervention abroad.  Thus in the Bush years he began to move away from the Republican Party leadership, including many of his former colleagues.

It is often the case that such prodigals return to their home base when their party is out of power, with the self-chosen mission of “restoring” it.  Not Roberts, however.  His critique has only intensified, and moved beyond a denunciation of individual politicians and policies to a harsh turn against conservativism politically and conservatives as a group.

In a new column up at antiwar.com, Roberts responds to today’s wave of FBI raids against antiwar activists, and passes up the chance for the partisan shot at Obama and Holder (which would have been well-deserved) to point the finger directly at the conservative movement, its leaders and base:

As this initial FBI foray is a softening up move to get the public accustomed to the idea that the real terrorists are their fellow citizens here at home, Kelly will get off this time.  But next time the FBI will find emails on his computer from a “terrorist group” set up by the CIA that will incriminate him. Under the practices put in place by the Bush and Obama regimes, and approved by corrupt federal judges, protesters who have been compromised by fake terrorist groups can be declared “enemy combatants” and sent off to Egypt, Poland, or some other corrupt American puppet state – Canada perhaps – to be tortured until confession is forthcoming that antiwar protesters and, indeed, every critic of the US government, are on Osama bin Laden’s payroll.

Almost every Republican and conservative and, indeed, the majority of Americans will fall for this, only to find, later, that it is subversive to complain that their Social Security was cut in the interest of the war against Iran or some other demonized entity, or that they couldn’t have a Medicare operation because the wars in Central Asia and South America required the money.

Americans are the most gullible people who ever existed. They tend to support the government instead of the Constitution,  and almost every Republican and conservative regards civil liberty as a coddling device that encourages criminals and terrorists.

http://original.antiwar.com/ro…

The Long March of Paul Craig Roberts continues.

In his conclusion, this once archetypal establishment figure takes on the heated tones of the edgier sections of the blogosphere:

As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”

This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.

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It appears the targets of the Holder Raids were primarily members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.  (I’m not sure which one, there are two of those these days.)

From Twin Cities Indymedia, nice discussion in the comments:

http://twincities.indymedia.or…