Scuppered
The former actor campaigning for President said,
“The government is the problem.”
Who needs government? We need it, that’s who. In 1980, any damned fool could look around and see that nations with strong governments succeeded while those with weak governments failed. Yet most of the people believed the damned fool when he told them that government was the problem. There’s little reason to doubt that he believed it. Question is, who paid him enough?
When a nation turns one way when it should have turned the other, each day spent going the wrong direction doubles the error, doubles the cost, of the choice. In the 1960s and 70s, the understanding of what was happening escaped most everyone. Now, at anytime, is an elusive, hard to grasp, thing. Then, muddling on would have been better than trying to turn back, but it was backward we chose. Since 1980, we have not been able to bring the nation-ship about, to head her into the winds of change. Oh, a few attempts have been made, but, every time, some right winger gets the wheel and sets the ship’s course, again, on going back to those good old days.
In 1980, our CDC was the gold standard, the very best in the world. Our OSHA, EPA, FDA, Supreme Court, role in the United Nations, …, were the envy of the world. Grover said if they couldn’t wean it, then they should drown it; it being the government. These were all a part of the government, things that the people wanted, things that had been enacted into law. The people may have, but the General Electrics, Kochs, Armand Hammers, coal industry, …, didn’t. The Lockheeds, Boeings, and Douglases said the only good spending was defense spending. And so began the cutting of all budgets except defense, and the appointment of those opposed to the very ideas to head OSHA, EPA, FDA, … Yes, the court, too, began to get ideologues. Competency was only a requirement for business hirelings, ideologues were for government. One hundred banana republics can’t be wrong.
Who better to head Labor than a businessman, Interior than someone who doesn’t like the idea of the National Parks or Federal Lands? Someone who dislikes American Indians? Who better the head the EPA than Anne Gorsuch? What better than right-winger William Rehnquist for Chief Justice of The Supreme Court?
Most of the damage would come later, long after the damned fool had done his best. The Sacklers did it because they could; because the FDA had been weakened enough. Who needs government? The more than one-million Americans who might not have died from Opioid overdose had the FDA been there for them when it should have been.
What if the CDC had not been gutted and neutered before COVID 19 struck?
What if the IRS had not been gutted and neutered?
What if John Roberts, Sam Alito, and Clarence Thomas had never been appointed to the US Supreme Court?
Since 1980, how many workers have been injured or killed, on the job because of an understaffed, underfunded OSHA? How many kids have developed asthma because of inadequate enforcement of EPA standards? How many aquifers have been contaminated? How many of us have paid the price for this weakened government?
What if the Bush II and Trump tax cuts had never been enacted?
These people don’t work for us, for America. They work for them.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder: 10 Narcissistic Personality Disorder Symptoms (10faq.com)
“…Symptom #8: Manipulation
A narcissist will have little problem in manipulating peoples’ thoughts and emotions to suit their needs. They will gladly try and influence other peoples’ decisions and lives with the sole purpose of benefiting themselves. They will gladly use emotional blackmail to manipulate people into doing what they want…”
Ken,
This is a great post.
I was reading Clint Smith’s commentary in The Atlantic on “Why Confederate Lies Live on.” In my opinion, it is strikingly accurate as to then and I find some semblance in what is occurring today with Trump and in the past Reagan Of course Reagan had his Shining City on The Hill moment and we have trump who never lost the 2020 election. People believe this hog-wash.
“’I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I like it’—I kept coming back to Gramling’s words. That comment was revealing. Many places in the South claim to be the originator of Memorial Day, and the story is at least as much a matter of interpretation as of fact. According to the historian David Blight, the first Memorial Day ceremony was held in Charleston, South Carolina, in May 1865, when Black workmen, most of them formerly enslaved, buried and commemorated fallen Union soldiers.
Confederates had converted Charleston’s Washington Race Course and Jockey Club into an outdoor prison for captured Union soldiers. The conditions were so terrible that nearly 260 men died and were buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. After the Confederates retreated, Black men reburied the dead in proper graves and erected an archway bearing the words martyrs of the race course. An enormous parade was held on the track, with 3,000 Black children singing “John Brown’s Body,” the Union marching song. The first Memorial Day, as Blight describes it, received significant press coverage. But it faded from public consciousness after the defeat of Reconstruction.
It was then, in the late 1800s, that the myth of the Lost Cause began to take hold. The myth was an attempt to recast the Confederacy as something predicated on family and heritage rather than what it was: a traitorous effort to extend the bondage of millions of Black people. The myth asserts that the Civil War was fought by honorable men protecting their communities, and not about slavery at all.”
Republicans keep trying to recast the narrative and themselves as something they are not. The lies of Reagan and now trump take center stage in both enough so they will remove those amongst themselves who dare to oppose. The South will rise again and the part of trump and Reagan lives on.
Great commentary
Thanks, Ron
I’ve been watching quite a lot of ‘Eyes on the prize’, ‘Freedom riders’ stuff of late. Those were my Navy years, so much I missed so much.
In the one about Ross Barnett, MS and RFK, images of Ted Cruz and Josh Harley keeping flashing in my brain. The Big Lie stuff doesn’t go away.
Ken:
Welcome.
Which government? California, New York, Texas, Florida or the Swamp. The four of them seem to be in an infinite battle over who gets what tax base, and the battle seems to take some eight to ten years. Anyone notice that government cycles?