If You Read One Thing This Week...

... take the time to read this Kos Diary by Stirling Newbury.

In the diary, entitled "The Rise of Rove's Republic", Newbury attempts to tie together the threads of the current neo-conservative agenda, and in doing so, take a broad, historical perspective. He is trying to show us the forest for the trees, and knit together the various despicable policy moves of the right wing into a coherent picture of their strategy:

"The Bash part is the one that people who follow media consolidation and reporting failure, voting irregularities, the loss of civil rights, the "torturization" of the Justice Department, the demonization of gays, the freeping of the Democratic Party - or anyone else that stands in Bush's way - are following. Bash is the strategy of making discourse more vicious, more polarized and more partisan. It is also a key part of the popularity of Governor, now DNC Chair, Howard Dean. He was the first major politician to stand up on the Democratic side and state, bluntly and honestly, that the Bash strategy was working and that the Democratic Party could not simply act like an abused spouse. It is why he is now the most visible politician in the Democratic Party, because the Bash strategy is the most visible political effect. It alters every constitutional arrangement - from making impeachment in the eye of the beholder, to how budgets are passed."

[snip]

"The Break part is the part that riles the attention of people like Paul Krugman - it is the disintegration of the way of doing business of the old liberal order. Are you worried about the budget deficit? The disintegration of the dollar? The politicization of government agencies? The intelligent design movement? The bizarre economic projections used to rationalize tax breaks and social security abolition? Then congratulations, you are worried about how the Republicans are breaking the economy and the social order that keeps the economy running."

[snip]

"The key change in the economy that has pushed the rise of the Republican party since 1969 is a change of the money system away from being based on assets - which is under the control of the people in their day to day economic, community and social activity, a truly grass roots money system in that the basic supply of money is governed by the value that people create - to one being based on oil. Oil is not something that people can create. Nor does conservation at the grass roots level help - because someone else will simply use the oil or energy you save to compete against you. Oil comes from a few places, and the money system is then under control of those places. The President became, in effect, the minister of oil."

[snip]

"We must tell Americans that the Republicans are trying to create a top-down economy, and that the social security schemes that Bush is pushing are the crucial step. We must tell Americans that the nastiness and bashing come from the Republicans, and are the result of America not having a national project, a great vision to pursue. And we must tell Americans that history and circumstances have forced us to make great decisions which will determine the course of the next two generations, and that such moments are not to be backed into, nor decided by default."

Read the rest here. I would write more on it, but I'm still trying to digest all of this.