....It’s What Got Us into this Mess in the First Place.
You May Be Too Young to Remember, but when the anti-Conformist message of the Beatniks became the anti-War, anti-Establishment, free-love revolution of the 1960s, mainstream America freaked out.
Then, When Lyndon Johnson’s Efforts both to sustain the Vietnam War and to rid America of racism and poverty proved to be too much, the result was social mayhem coupled with economic mess. Johnson’s overreaching ambitions led to Richard Nixon’s cynicism, which led to oil shortages and inflation during the Jimmy Carter years.
The Result Was Outrage, festered by Nixon’s creation of a “Silent Majority” and the fear that the nation had gone off-track. The apex came when Iran held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, aiding the election of the next American president.
America Was Outraged—by the Hippies, by the Commies, by drug use and the sexual revolution, by OPEC and the hostage crisis in Iran. By the apparent failure of the Federal government to take constructive action on any one of these fronts.
In Stepped Ronald Reagan, famously putting forward a silly, defeatist assertion:
“Government Is Not the Solution to Our Problem; Government Is the Problem,” said President Ronald Reagan on the event of his first inauguration. And America believed it. We were outraged by the idea that government might possibly solve anything, beyond the necessities of defending our national borders.
And So Began America’s Twenty-Eight-Year Descent into the folly of deregulation. The result of which we see today.
The “Folly” Fulfilled in the American Taxpayer, unemployed and homeless. Woefully broke, his retirement savings decimated. Providing billions of non-existent dollars to A.I.G. for bankruptcy-inducing bonuses.
What Does America Say Now? That “government is not the solution to the problem”? Or that government just isn’t acting fast-enough to reverse the dismantling trend of almost three entire decades?
Or Merely That We Americans Are....
....Outraged?
If “Government Is not the Solution,” then what will get us out of this mess?
The Failure of American Government over twenty-eight years of the “Conservative Era” was not because government cannot work. It happened because we Americans believed the Conservative foolishness. We elected people who denied the possibilities of government. We permitted our elected officials not even to try. We elected to government, people who bragged —that they don't know how government works!
We Believed the Conservative Ideology—that shipping jobs overseas to Third World countries somehow would not lower our standard of living to that of India, China, and Taiwan. That a nation dependent on foreign oil would not also become dependent on foreign manufacturing and outsourced customer service.
We Believed the Conservative Ideology—that deregulating the greed of Wall Street banks, insurance companies, and investment houses would somehow put money into our pockets. Not just into the million-dollar salaries of CEOs, and the million-dollar bonuses of upper-level management.
We Believed the Conservative Ideology—that deregulating utilities and insurance companies, while putting constraints on the rights of Americans to sue negligent businesses or to declare bankruptcy when necessary, would somehow enhance “individual responsibility” and reduce the “moral hazard” that entitles everyday Americans to the kinds of benefits enjoyed at the top of America’s deregulated economy.
We Believed That If We Just Got Government Out of the Way, private industry would restore America to its former greatness.
Now, What Remains Is Outrage, and the Relentless Heckling of the Right—such as that of Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and talk-show host Rush Limbaugh of Excellence In Broadcasting, and Chairman Michael Steele of the Republican National Committee—voicing their messages of outrage, ever-hopeful that Americans may join in their outrage. And that the anti-ideological principles of sound government will fail.
Against the Fervent American Ideal of Progress, “Hope” and “Change,” we have the Republican determination for a return to the foolish ideological polices of the past twenty-eight years.
What We Have Is the Loud, Republican Remnants of an ideology too-stupid to believe.
And the Practiced Outrage of the American People, tired of being deceived.
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