I debated whether or not this counts as "Conservatism," but I think it's relevant, and we'll touch on it later, so I thought I'd throw this out there for a reaction. This is from
Alternet, a very "progressive" web presence.
"End the Fed" signs, and other Ron Paul-inspired sloganeering have been a staple of Occupy encampments from the birth of the movement. At many Occupy encampments, “End the Fed” signs are everywhere, and Paul supporters are becoming more and more vocal — using the language of the Occupy movement in service of their extremist anti-government agenda.
For the most part cooler (and more progressive) heads prevail, but to a certain extent in the movement, anger at Wall Street and its bankers is morphing into anger at the Federal Reserve and international “banksters” — a term long popular among libertarians, John Birchers and the armed right-wing Patriot Movement.
The Occupy movement’s evolving agenda is in danger of being sullied by association with Paul, whose position includes at its core a conspiracy theory involving the Federal Reserve — a decades-old right-wing bugaboo. On the web, a crucial battleground in the era of the online revolution, the Occupy Movement’s central critique of the obscene power of corporations is in danger of being slapped way off course.
So is OWS radically progressive or radically conservative? What about Ron Paul? What would a Traditional Conservative like Russell Kirk (the guy we discussed yesterday) say? At a minimum, this challenges our ideas about a continuum of politics from left to right, I should think.
I have never heard the words progressive and radically conservative used in the same sentence before; this certainly shakes me up and makes me think deeply. I'm not sure what it is about Ron Paul that brings people from all backgrounds together. I think Kirk would go two ways with the Federal Reserve. He would first say that it should remain because the primary purpose for the Federal Reserve System is to stabilize currencies. The key word here is "stabilize." However, I am certainly not an economist nor am I well studied about the Federal Reserve. Perhaps Kirk would say that the federal reserve should be ended because it gives power to a few through the means of centralizing the banking system.
ReplyDeleteI think that there is an interesting dilemma serving the political elite when the discuss the OWS movement. While on one hand, most have a legitimate argument that there is a progressive side to the issue, my eyes have recently been opened to the idea that this could be considered an inherently conservative issue as well. That brings me to an interesting solution to this problem, what if this is an anarchist agenda? Now this seems a bit radical on my part to suggest, but the overall theme of this movement is so sporadic and off-base with most ideological movements, I think an anarchist agenda wouldn't be too far off base. Considering most in the movement oppose the Federal Reserve and general capitalist ideals, I think a more appropriate label would be Anarchism because most call for the demolishment of these solid establishments which could result in no economic system what-so-ever.
ReplyDeleteBut as for the conservative idealist, Kirk, I believe he would wish to end the Federal Reserve as Kelsey stated above. I think he would wish to end the program because it does centralize the power to only a few. Necessarily, this may be a productive manner of providing information to the public, but at the same time, it allows for an enormous concentration of power in only a few individuals to control an entire economic market. In total, this would be the downfall of the public and could potentially result in an economic collapse or failure at the hands of the government.
I think that part of the problem Ron Paul has with the occupy movement is that the Republican party has demonized it. The Tea Party was great and sucessful in electing republicans in 2010. But the Occupy movement is closer to the democratic party than it is to the republican party. There are many people on the occupy movement that support Ron Paul but to use occupy camps as an image of your supporters does not fly in the republican party. Rick Santorum accused Mitt Romney of using occupy lanague when Mitt said he was concerned with the 90% of Americans in the middle class. Ron Paul made sure that all his volunteers in Iowa were clean shaven, covered their tattoos and piercings, and looked nice. He wants the votes from the occupy movement just not the image.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm not as well versed in the politics of Occupy Wall Street, or Ron Paul for that matter, I do believe that OWS remains primarily a progressive ideological force. That is not to say that OWS does not have conservative elements to it. On one hand they support more oversight of the banking industry as shown in the quote from this article that the "Occupy Movements central critique...is the obscene power of corporations", which I believe is at its heart a progressive ideal, but in regards to this article they do have certain beliefs that could lend itself to a conservative perspective. OWS must be careful not to drift its focus too far from its main goal into something that is primarily focused on destroying the fed. Obviously I am by no means a political scientist, but as a casual observer it seems to me that perhaps the ideas of progresives and conservatives are not mutually exclusive, that there are some areas of commonalities, although the reasons behind these commonalities can be varied and different.
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