The wrecking crew that has been trying to dismantle the New Deal and other progressive policies and programs since 1980 hasn’t finished rolling back the clock to Dickensian times.
The Tea Party battle cry, “We want our country back!” is a shrill indication that the various mobs are composed of no one who has ever studied American history.
Only in fairy tale world can a nation cut taxes, increase spending, engage in two foreign wars, and expect to see a stable economy that benefits all citizens. Only in that same world does cutting taxes for the very wealthy have any positive impact upon the average citizen.
The propagandists who write fairy tale speeches and advertisements for the Tea Party mobs and the GOP have what is apparently an incredibly easy job. They have only to convince the voter base that further enriching the economic elite will then enrich the working citizens. In a more literate and better educated nation the immediate response to such claims would be utter disbelief, well grounded in history. But American schools don’t teach history very well to begin with; and the theocrats that make up many local school boards are doing all that they can to adulter and even delete history that doesn’t stem from the WASP religious literature. So the average right wing voter is all too willing to accept the view of history handed to him or her by the GOP propaganda machine. With no real education in economics, the definitions of socialism, fascism, communism, and other forms of economic government are easily twisted and re-written in the minds of the voter base. With the rise of pseudo-populism grounded in a strong anti-intellectualism, the lack of intellectual ability in candidates for office becomes no problem for the GOP/TP base. As in fairy tale world, the prom queen/beauty pageant princess and the athlete are considered more worthy of election than are the people who studied and attended schools for knowledge rather than for self-esteem transfusions and socialization.
The lies that emerge daily from the Limbaugh-Beck-Palin-Bachman axis are prime examples of how willing they GOP/TP base is to have someone do the hard work of thinking for them. The generation the “greatest generation” understood that only financial regulation and controls would prevent the Great Depression recurring. They saw the families who survived the depression only because of public works and other infrastructure programs funded by the New Deal. They understand the benefits of Social Security and Medicare; and they recall how adamantly the GOP fought each of these things that helped the American workers become the American middle class. They valued education, were willing and able to place nation and fellow citizens above their own persons.
Their children, who should have known better, fell for a fairy tale spun by the GOP, Saint Ronald. With his ascension to the throne, the vandals were suddenly once again allowed into the palace, into the treasury, and into the halls of power. They began undoing all of the New Deal that they could reach, began looting all that they could. As in all fairy tales, evil and ignorance are easily able to reach the throne but damned near impossible to remove from it. The fault lies in the vandals, the greedy, the Reagan spawn; and in those of us who should have seen the processes that led to the Great Depression being unleashed and unbound by Congress that saw no personal harm in selling out to the corporations that pay them to vote against the best interests of the nation and the citizens.
Unlike fairy tale world, there will be no easy return to what this nation once was and can be again. With a voter base that is keyed to instant gratification, and lacks the intellectual skills to see through the theocrats’ lies, it will be a long time, and a hard one, before we are the shining example of liberty that we think we are.
Can’t Keep a Bad Idea Down
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 26, 2010
I confess, I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates, mostly Republicans, leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess. Am I hearing right?
Let’s have more tax cuts, unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while we’re still fighting two wars — because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small. Let’s immediately cut government spending, instead of phasing cuts in gradually, while we’re still mired in a recession — because that worked so well in the Great Depression. Let’s roll back financial regulation — because we’ve learned from experience that Wall Street can police itself and average Americans will never have to bail it out.
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/opinion/27friedman.html
When Tea Party wants to go back, where is it to?
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
“The New Deal order produced the only three decades in American history -- the '50s, '60s and '70s -- when economic security and opportunity were widely shared. It was the only period in the American chronicle when unions were big and powerful enough to ensure that corporate revenue actually trickled down to workers. It marked the only time in American history when, courtesy originally of the GI Bill, the number of Americans going to college surged. It was the only time when taxes on the rich were really significantly higher than taxes on the rest of us. It was the only time that the minimum wage kept pace (almost) with the cost of living. And it was the only time when most Americans felt confident enough about their economic prospects, and those of their nation, to support the taxes that built the postwar American infrastructure.
Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, though, America's claim to being a land of opportunity has become a sick joke. Unions have dwindled; colleges have become unaffordable; manufacturing has gone abroad; taxes on the rich have plummeted; our infrastructure has decayed.
But the country the right wants to return to isn't the America that the Greatest Generation built. Judging by the statements of many of the Republican and Tea Party-backed candidates on next Tuesday's ballots, it's the America that antedates the New Deal -- a land without Social Security, unions or the minimum wage. It's the land that the Greatest Generation gladly left behind when they voted for and built the New Deal order. All of us should want our country back, but that country should be the more prosperous and economically egalitarian nation that flourished at the time when America was not only the world's greatest power, but also a beacon to the world. “
meyersonh@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/26/AR2010102605216.html
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