serious technical political question (poss. fao nabisco, tho anyone who knows can help)

it has been bugging me and i don't know where to look it up: i haf found many v.scary and bonkers sites in search, needless to say...

new answers!!

Here's what I've got:

Weyrich, 1999: "I no longer believe that there is a moral majority. I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values. . . And while I’m not suggesting that we all become Amish or move to Idaho, I do think that we have to look at what we can do to separate ourselves from this hostile culture. . . . We need some sort of quarantine. . . . We will be lucky if we escape with any remnants of the great Judeo-Christian civilization that we have known down through the ages. . . . [W]e need to drop out of this culture, and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives."

I.e., Weyrich actually recaptured the spirit of the original religious freaks and outcasts of this nation -- only it needed to be metaphorical and metaphysical, insofar as he didn't have a big continent and a boat and a pile of guns and smallpox-infected blankets to work with. It was quite an astounding change of direction, and obviously the Christian right buzzed like nuts over it. What's amazing is that it even as Weyrich recognized his positions as an minority aberration, he still rejected "PC" arguments for tolerance, inclusion, etc. in favor of this flight to a separate purity.

But then this was how Weyrich ended his statement: "I don't have all the answers or even all the questions. But I know that what we have been doing for thirty years hasn't worked, that while we have been fighting and winning in politics, our culture has decayed into something approaching barbarism. We need to take another tack, find a different strategy. If you agree, and are willing to help wrestle with what that strategy should be, let me know."

More a provocative proposition than a call to arms. Both Weyrich and Viguerie backed Steve Forbes in the 2000 primaries. Viguerie moved on to support Bush, particularly after the addition of Cheney, who he wrote "looks like 'them' (establishment Republicans) but he sounds like (and is) one of 'us' - a principled conservative." Weyrich also supported Bush, if not as strongly, and continues to do so: he and his associates have noted "how instinctively conservative [Bush] is on most issues and how loath he is to consult the polls before taking action," the latter portion of which is interesting in view of Weyrich's "Moral Minority" concept.

So maybe you're remembering the buzz over Weyrich's statement as an actual call for the Christian Right to go separatist (or more likely just third-party)? Which it certainly implied, and which backing Forbes in the primary seemed like a baby-step toward -- but which obviously hasn't genuinely happened, and if the Christian Right has any sense won't anytime soon.

Also Weyrich is on the board of the publicly-teetering-on-defunct Amtrak, and is thus sort of busy right now.

(http://www.uclick.com/feature/02/06/25/tt020625.gif)

yeah, that was it: thanx

Oh, and the great part: Weyrich himself coined the term "Moral Majority" and a lot of the underlying argument -- that American should be A Certain Way because that was the dominant mainstream belief of most God-fearing Americans, who shouldn't be forced to constantly accommodate the beliefs of aberrant minorities. His 1999 turn revealed that argument as the great smokescreen it always transparently was: the Christian Right believes America should be A Certain Way because (a) that's what the believe is right and what they will always believe is right, regardless of logic or demographics or anything else, and (b) part of "what they believe is right" is that everyone else has to believe the same thing.

Imagine that: Christian conservatives, despite their decades-long harping on "vocal minorities" and "special interests" like "the homosexual agenda" reducing us to "barbarism" -- as soon as it seems possible that they're the "vocal minority" their first impulse is to flee.

Oh, you're welcome. Sorry, whenever there's a question that involves research and quoting and heavily-biased summary I get all into it: it's like journalism for the lazy.

surely the lazy one here is me!!

the stuff on viguerie's site on corporate pop culture reads like negativland! they shd call it jesus jamming!!

I'm convinced Amtrak has been sabotaging its own business for at least a decade. There was a line I used to ride from Sacramento to the bay all the time; it was always PACKED with people, especially on weekends. Then they kept threatening to cancel the line unless more subsidy was promised (in my opinion, threating to cancel their most popular line for publicity and leverage purposes rather than any inherent unsustainability). Then they kept raising the price until it was well beyond reasonable for anyone to ride the damn thing. These Amtrak crises all sound like a load of bullshit to me, but nobody in the gov't seems to have the guts to call their bluff.

amtrak's problem is that something like 80% of their routes run half- filled or at least below break-even levels(portland to chicago runs every day and is always empty or nearly so). they only break even in the northeast, the complaint about subsidies is somewhat disingenuous though as most politicians have no qualm about subsidizing the federal highway system.

the term religious freaks is always apuzzle to me, is this all people who profess a belief in jesus? or only those who watch the 700 club? it is never easy to pin down such a descriptor.

maybe you shd go learn some history keith

How can anyone justify running a rail route that can't even break even, when a plane ride would probably cost less? Maybe amtrak should take a little inventory and learn the laws of supply and demand and reorganize their business so it makes money. Or otherwise go fuck themselves. At least people use the highways. Transportation money, if for anything, should be put towards developing high-speed rail, not for keeping an anachronism like Amtrak afloat. Maybe they should apply for an NEA grant, if they plan on running a rail system like a museum.

"it is never easy to pin down such a descriptor."

Um no, it's really EASY to pin them down.

I know zero abt transportation politics in the US, but one perfectly good reason for subsidising rail is that it may help keep bulk goods carriage OFF the roads, reducing traffic and wear to road surfaces (in other words, it's a valid cross subsidy: you stump up here to avoid paying more there in five years time). (Also economic "intangibles" like motor-exhaust pollution... though this somewhat depends on the rail system I suppose.)

Since the introduction of a super-botched, corrupt and idiotic version of free-market economics into the UK rail and road system has basically caused BOTH to degenerate vastly over the last ten years, this is a v.fraught topic in Britain. The situation in the US may not be similar: esp. if eg amtrak is mainly a people carrier.

Aren't the American skies full, planewise? I thought it had reached near-saturation.

The problem is that Amtrak is a passenger only service running on freight rail lines. We need a massive capital injection into revamping and reworking the rails to make them fast and efficient and therefore a viable choice.

Also, A) Amtrak's routes are indeed skewed but the big problem is service thru the midwest which is a vital public utility whether or not it makes a profit.

Also, the highways recieve MASSIVE subsidies compared to Amtrak and nobody expects them to make a profit. Also, the guy "fixing" Amtrak is one of the guys who "fixed" the NY subway system and I think that one of those former NY guys was also brought in to axe UK public transit do you SEE?

"Also, A)" is my favourite bit of that post, structure-wise. I will giggle myself into hell one day.

Forgetting you're writing a list halfway through: classic or dud?

I've read recently in two different places that Amtrak's most ridiculously money-losing long lines (e.g. Florida to L.A., which loses $350 per passenger) were maintained in part to keep Amtrak extant in as many different congressional districts as possible, shoring up their political support.

Yeah but cross-continental railway is good.

I'm not convinced cross-continental railroad is inherently good, Sterling. As it's now cheaper and far more time-efficient to fly over long distances, actual cross-continental travel is basically restricted to train enthusiasts, leisurely see-the-country vacationers (read: retirees), and people who are irrationally frightened of flight. That said, what I'd like to see is a network of regional lines like that of the east coast, only with enough connections at the edges that one could reasonably skip from one zone to another. This is basically what Amtrak has now, passenger-wise: it's just that the trains keep on going after everyone's gotten off.

"people who are irrationally frightened of flight" = they can walk the lunies (?)

Well we certainly don't need to subsidize a trans-continental rail system purely for them: they can drive or bicycle or go on horseback or basically just get over it. But like I said, I'm in favor of regional systems that would allow for cross-country travel -- I just don't think dedicated cross-country lines are very helpful.

(Possible trans-Atlantic worldview-difference here: Americans will happily drive across half the country at a time.)

so will Europeans though nabisco%%, because it only takes like an hour.

for them, I mean. This is actually a serious point: the physical hugeness of the U.S. means that many national tech innovations either languish, never catch on, or do so with such decrepit slowitude that they're superceded before they really arrive: cf. passenger rail, dollar coins, cellphones. There's just too much area to cover. I took a trip on Amtrak from Denver to the Pacific Northwest with my family once, and it was amazing. You don't travel along ROADS and it's a huge difference. No Mobil/McDonald's combos every 10 miles, no billboards; nuthin but the husks of long-abandoned depots and lay-up yards, long rolling heather berms, fishing spots, etc. It's great for vacations and this is how the system should be structured and marketed. Like nabisco%% says, the busy metroplex corridors can take care of themselves and probably ought to. States' rights!

See, that's the very problem with long-range rail travel, though: you can't push it as some sort of functional on-the-ground people- moving alternative to flight, because it is in fact a leisurely-paced special-getaway luxury item.