What does it take to be a member of today's 'right wing'?

I ask that after reading the blurb from RightNetwork.com.

In the eight page of their 'lookbook', is the statement that you will find "Everything right, at the click of a remote". A line up that "focuses on entertainment with Pro-America, Pro-Business, Pro-Military sensibilities — compelling content that inspires action, invites a response, and influences the national conversation."

I can buy the 'Pro-America' bit. Heck, if you don't believe in the potential of this country to do good and to dig ourselves out of the hole we are in then you just don't deserve to live here. Americans are a resilient lot and we have the habit of springing back from adversity and regaining what we lost, and more. You can't hold America down. But there has to be limits to this 'Pro-America' feeling. It can't celebrate America because we slaughter innocent civilians and invade other countries at a whim. It can't celebrate the idea that more of our citizens are living below the poverty line than nearly any other 'developed' country. Not everything that our country does is worthy of such slavish praise.

I can also buy the 'Pro-Business' bit too. We NEED to support our industry. We need to 'Buy Local' whenever possible. We really need to support those that toil to produce the products that we purchase. Well, for a while now, that has meant buying products made by other people in other countries at huge corporate super-stores where the money just goes into their pockets and a pittance goes to the poor workers. Under the guise of 'free-trade', our manufacturing industry has literally run away from our shores. Whole plants have been moved to Mexico and Korea and China. In some stores it's hard to find anything of substance that is not made somewhere else outside of this country. And 'business' is finding other hell-hole countries that they can exploit cheap labor. Heck, Vietnam? My running shoes, my MX jersey, and even some of my underwear is made in Vietnam now. I seriously doubt that the people that constructed my underwear have the funds to wear a pair that they sewed! I wonder if they even get a break during their tortuous work day. Do they work 12-hours a day doing nothing but sewing the waistbands on my underwear and go home hungry, cold, and indebted to their employer. I have a t-shirt from a rock concert that was made in Bangladesh of all places. Do they ever even heard the group whose t-shirt they just made?

And another thing, why is 'Pro-Business' always interpreted as being 'Anti-regulation'? I get that some regulations are a pain in the ass. But I think that driving the speed limit on a deserted road is stupid too, but the laws are there to protect me from hurting others. Business has to learn that the regulations against dumping chemicals in rivers and streams is there for their benefit too. Clean air is a right, not a privilege. Given all of the credible research into our planet's complex climate, isn't it just common sense to use restraint when dealing with it? I mean, what if the scientists are right and we are at risk of killing our planet? If they are right, which I think they are, we are nearing the point where the effects are going to be harder to ignore. At some point, the whole climate of this planet could change and we will have succeeded in making the Earth, our only home, inhospitable. And look at the lack of regulation in California as an example. PG&E knew that pipeline wasn't safe however even after requesting $5 million dollars to repair/replace it, they wasted three years and now a bunch of homes and a handfull of people because no regulator made them address the issue that the state gave them money to correct.

I can buy the 'Pro-Military' bit too, but too often the military is used by rich and powerful men to settle pissing contests. Think about the Vietnam war. It started with a trumped up 'attack' on August 4th, 1964. There had been a prior attack on August 2nd of that year, and it had sparked aggression towards the Communist country. The 'attack' on the 4th was much later found out to be a fabrication when the NSA documents of that time were finally declassified. It was this second 'attack' that drove the congress of that time to pass a resolution (the 'Gulf of Tonkin Resolution' which passed August 7th) that allowed then president Lyndon Johnson to insert the American military into the skirmish. The result of that lie was that the war stretched on for 19 years and 190 days. Over 58,000 US Military members were killed in that war. Many were never recovered. The effects of the war are still evident in many areas of the country. Some of the 'spoils of war' are the long lasting effects of a contaminant of a defoliant that was sprayed on many areas of the country in the hope that removing the jungles would make the war easier to fight, and potentially win. The effects of the dioxin known as TCDD have lasted well after the war has ended. The poisoning of our own troops was just the start of the horrendous conduct of the 'military industrial complex' that ran the war. Even decades after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the effects of the radiation are still measurable and some evidence exists to suggest that the genetic damage continues to this day.

In the current war in Iraq, the amount of depleted Uranium munitions that were used have left massive areas of that country radiological 'hot spots' and have needlessly exposed their citizenry and our own soldiers to its toxic effects.

I guess that I can't be a 'card carrying member of the right' because, while I agree with their basic tenants as laid down in 'their networks' announcement, I also realize that I can't dismiss my obligation as a citizen of this country to call the leaders and the individual parts of our governmental structure to account for their reckless attitude toward the country that I hold above all others. The country that gave the world Rock and Roll, and The Blues. That birthed Elvis and BB King and the transistor and the Internet. I can't slavishly support things that are in the end focused on the worst that we have to offer.

We do have a lot to be proud of. But being the worlds only surviving superpower, we also have an equally massive responsibility to wield that power with restraint and to respect not only other nations but the environment that we all depend on for our very lives.