Chrysalis

This article and many like it fail to account for the huge role the media plays in all this. Take the media in Gaza, for example, proceeding as it does with its unrelenting drumbeat vilifying the Jews and wanting them driven into the sea. (And it's not just Jews. The same hatred is propagated against Christians, Hindus or anyone not actively promoting genocide.)

Children are taught from the moment they can understand anything at all that Jews and those who support them are the scourge of the earth. No other view is tolerated within the community riddled with spies ever ready to inform, intimidate and threaten. How is it possible under such circumstances for ‘moderate’ views to emerge? Just yesterday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that Egypt, nor any other Arab country, would ever accept Israel as a (Jewish) state. Given such sentiments, oft repeated throughout the Arab world, how can there be any talk of peace? If peace at any cost were the goal, would it not require Israel to put its head quietly on the chopping block and welcome the blade?

Do we now curse any glimmer of rational thinking as well? Do we curse the Israelis for wanting to survive? Should we not bless the candle that refuses to go out even during the ragged sirocco of unmitigated animus focused upon it?

It’s virtually the same here in the U.S. Only here the (seemingly) dominant ideology is liberalism. Liberalism first and foremost declares its hatred of Republicans. The drumbeat in the mass media against Republicans has been absolutely relentless. Conservatives, who can effectively articulate the principles of Conservatism, have been especially and specifically targeted. Media is not alone. Academe and Hollywood also have effectively used their big megaphones to wage war on conservatives. So maligned have they become, few dare to speak out openly. And yet, mass media outlets are hurting financially which suggests that liberalism in America is a tyranny by the few.

Do we now curse Republicans which, though effectively powerless, nevertheless (potentially) remain a repository of options and alternatives?

That is why John Batchelor's attacks on the Republican Party sound disingenuous. Republicans have not lost their clout for being too conservative. They’ve lost it for not being conservative enough. It’s the Democrat majority that is hollow. They survive by spin, intimidation and threat. (In America they don’t cut your throat (yet); they give you a hi-tech lynching in the media instead.) This is not a position of strength. As time goes by, the political sands will shift – and shift decisively.

There is much to suggest that the political winds have shifted already. Only the elites who talk only among themselves, ensconced in their utopian fantasy bubbles, haven’t noticed yet. They think it’s still pre-TARP; pre-9/11; pre-Columbus. No one will be more surprised than Katie by the tsunami of rejection the next polls are likely to demonstrate. The poison the Dems have allowed to seep into the fabric of their party will eat them alive. As there are only two viable parties in this country, Republicans cannot help but benefit. That doesn’t sound like a party that’s dying to me. Sounds more like a chrysalis. If even a shred of credibility re our electoral system remains, Republicans will be in like flint no matter what Democrats, Repubicans (sic) or the press try to spin.