The dumbing down of America is part of the downward spiral we've been in for decades, beginning with the rise of the Religious Right. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, and the entire Southern Baptist pantheon of religiots always played down to their parishioners, and to everyone else, for that matter. No politicians had the courage to stand up and say, no, the god-fearing, dumb-as-a-sixpack hick schtick doesn't represent the average American. Or at least it didn't then. Now? Yep.
Jimmy Carter was part of it, as was Bubba, W, and now President Obama says that he and Michelle like watching 'Duck Dynasty'. Really? Horseshit!
Joe Camo didn't just appear - he was created. He's a bespoke model special ordered from Winchester and delivered by Walmart, built so that his ass fits church pews across the republic. Religion can't have upward mobility unless it's wearing RealTree and holding a Budweiser, right up until JC steps out of his F-150 and into his megachurch. The "elite", as Sarah Putin-Palin refers to anyone with more than two firing synapses, can sort the wheat from the chaff, so the only way to deal with them is paint them as Satanists - or worse, Liberals - and then to marginalize them. Us. You, I, and those with whom we associate freely.
We're 'the enemy' because we won't buy what these idiots are selling - at Low Prices, Everyday!
I realize that it's a chicken-and-egg situation, and hell, I don't know which precipitated what, frankly. But I damned sure don't think that we'd have gone down this road if Richard Nixon and Ronnie RayGun hadn't needed a voting monobloc which was delivered by religion.
Raise the sights and shoot for Mars? If God had wanted us on Mars, he'd have put us there! Teach evolution in schools? If God had wanted us to evolve, he'd have made Charles Darwin Pope!
Preachers, pastors, and priests are all paid liars, so they're a natural fit for politics. What they needed was a quiet flock who wouldn't complain, would take their daily dose of dogshit and call it tasty, and who would pony up for both the collection plate and politicians.
Then along comes Fox News; a group of Libertarians dolled up in their expensive finery, elitists of the highest caliber, telling Joe Camo that we're the elitists, that we're the enemy - not political rivals, mind you, but the enemy - and that we're trying to take away their right to have no more rights. So, accustomed to sitting in a building at least once a week and being told what to think, they BELIEVE! They believe with their entire selves. No fiber of doubt among them, they believe!
"Look hyeah, Dollbaby Purty Mouf, they's a nuu show on Fawks 'bout some mountin' men what livin' like real men live. We gon' watch 'at!"
"But, DaddyHusbandBrother, yew sed I culd watch Hunny Buu Buu!"
"Shut yer mouf and git me a beer, bitch!"
Maybe I ought to use that hammer on myself afterall.
;)
Showing posts with label Carter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carter. Show all posts
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Response to Sanjay Sanghoee's blog on HuffPo
The current class war began January 20, 1981, the day that Ronald Reagan took office. He and Nancy made it a point to undo the populism that Jimmy Carter had brought to the White House, with Nancy infamously holding $5M cocktail parties while the country went through 3 separate recessions, all caused by what his former-opponent-cum-Vice-President George HW Bush had labeled 'Voodoo Economics' or what came to be known as 'Trickle-Down Economics'.
Reagan was a strong proponent of privatization and of limited government. You have to ask yourself why. Why do the wealthy want limited government? Is it just because they want lower taxes? No, that's not all. Limited government means limited power to oversee things like predatory lending, byzantine derivatives, shoddy work at top-tier prices, sub-standard materials in things like roads and bridges, and on and on. If they can get by on the cheap, they pocket the difference. If they can get by without that pesky guy from the Labor Bureau looking over their records, they can pay people whatever they want and pretend they only worked half as many hours, thereby pocketing the tax difference.
Take every "white collar" crime you've heard of from Martha Stewart's insider information to defense contractors underbidding and overcharging. Make 10,000 copies of each crime, then mix them all up and scatter them piecemeal all over your list of corporations. That's what privatization will lead to, but it will conveniently skip that annoying indictment and prosecution process and won't lead to jail, but to a new cabana in the USVI.
Privatization is the glue that binds class warfare as well as the engine that powers it. If the wealthy own it, the government can't very easily control it, and when they own every-damned-thing, the government will be a toothless tiger.
Remember what the poet John Donne said, and think about it in a privatization context: "If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were."
When we allow a single piece of public property that should remain in public holding to pass to privatization, America will be the less.
Reagan was a strong proponent of privatization and of limited government. You have to ask yourself why. Why do the wealthy want limited government? Is it just because they want lower taxes? No, that's not all. Limited government means limited power to oversee things like predatory lending, byzantine derivatives, shoddy work at top-tier prices, sub-standard materials in things like roads and bridges, and on and on. If they can get by on the cheap, they pocket the difference. If they can get by without that pesky guy from the Labor Bureau looking over their records, they can pay people whatever they want and pretend they only worked half as many hours, thereby pocketing the tax difference.
Take every "white collar" crime you've heard of from Martha Stewart's insider information to defense contractors underbidding and overcharging. Make 10,000 copies of each crime, then mix them all up and scatter them piecemeal all over your list of corporations. That's what privatization will lead to, but it will conveniently skip that annoying indictment and prosecution process and won't lead to jail, but to a new cabana in the USVI.
Privatization is the glue that binds class warfare as well as the engine that powers it. If the wealthy own it, the government can't very easily control it, and when they own every-damned-thing, the government will be a toothless tiger.
Remember what the poet John Donne said, and think about it in a privatization context: "If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were."
When we allow a single piece of public property that should remain in public holding to pass to privatization, America will be the less.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Our Republic Can't Stand Another Conservative President
The bulk of human progress has been made in times of liberal thought. Consider the past few centuries alone and you'll find the Age of Reason, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and more.
The President has clearly been saying in his campaign speechs that WE are the government and that WE are responsible for building our republic, not corporations, not even the small business down the street. The President has been elucidating the reality that a power greater than any company can wield, a benevolent power used to help build up our industries, our infrastructure, our educational system, and everything that it takes to create a society can be used for good, for the common weal, and to insure that we recover from the disastrous conservative policies that go back as far as Richard Nixon and continued unabated through the Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 presidencies. The only progress made in the past 20 years has been made in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
The two unimpeachable sources you should consult are the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. If you do so, you'll find that under Republican rule, our nation took a step backward educationally, financially, and scientifically while those same three metrics improved under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, even considering the conservative-created debacles that all three inherited.
The fact is that Republicans have set our republic back decades and it has taken Democrats to fix it.
The President has clearly been saying in his campaign speechs that WE are the government and that WE are responsible for building our republic, not corporations, not even the small business down the street. The President has been elucidating the reality that a power greater than any company can wield, a benevolent power used to help build up our industries, our infrastructure, our educational system, and everything that it takes to create a society can be used for good, for the common weal, and to insure that we recover from the disastrous conservative policies that go back as far as Richard Nixon and continued unabated through the Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 presidencies. The only progress made in the past 20 years has been made in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
The two unimpeachable sources you should consult are the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. If you do so, you'll find that under Republican rule, our nation took a step backward educationally, financially, and scientifically while those same three metrics improved under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, even considering the conservative-created debacles that all three inherited.
The fact is that Republicans have set our republic back decades and it has taken Democrats to fix it.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Romney should do his own research
Response to Daily Beast article at the link here.
The fact is that Carter's necessary austerity measures brought the nation out of the deep recession brought about by 12 years of Republican rule - Nixon and Ford. Reagan capitalized on Carter's successes and unlike former presidents, refused to acknowledge that those successes belonged to his predecessor. While that happens to a varying degree in every presidency, it has never happened as much as it did with Reagan. Carter's programs were still in effect and working as far along as Reagan's second term. Carter also got more productive legislation passed in his 4 years than Reagan did in 8. That was not due to Reagan's reticence in growing the government, it was due to his personal inability to lead legislators despite the fact that so many defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
The Reagan myth lives on, just as do the lies that Reagan's PR team created about Carter. Also, Carter served as a line officer in the US Navy serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, whereas Reagan served in the US Army's First Motion Picture Unit and never left the States during his service. Carter lead the US nuclear disaster team after Canada's Chalk River Laboratory's accident. Carter, along with other members of his team, spent time inside the highly radioactive reactor disassembling it for shutdown. Reagan had no such leadership time nor service involving potential personal injury.
For Romney to attempt to disabuse President Carter is further proof of his 1%-er, bullying, elitist behavior.
The fact is that Carter's necessary austerity measures brought the nation out of the deep recession brought about by 12 years of Republican rule - Nixon and Ford. Reagan capitalized on Carter's successes and unlike former presidents, refused to acknowledge that those successes belonged to his predecessor. While that happens to a varying degree in every presidency, it has never happened as much as it did with Reagan. Carter's programs were still in effect and working as far along as Reagan's second term. Carter also got more productive legislation passed in his 4 years than Reagan did in 8. That was not due to Reagan's reticence in growing the government, it was due to his personal inability to lead legislators despite the fact that so many defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
The Reagan myth lives on, just as do the lies that Reagan's PR team created about Carter. Also, Carter served as a line officer in the US Navy serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, whereas Reagan served in the US Army's First Motion Picture Unit and never left the States during his service. Carter lead the US nuclear disaster team after Canada's Chalk River Laboratory's accident. Carter, along with other members of his team, spent time inside the highly radioactive reactor disassembling it for shutdown. Reagan had no such leadership time nor service involving potential personal injury.
For Romney to attempt to disabuse President Carter is further proof of his 1%-er, bullying, elitist behavior.
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