If it feels like everything is crumbling all around you, it’s not your imagination. It’s the result of a snowball that has grown into an unstoppable avalanche, the 70 year assault on the New Deal and, yes, it is unstoppable. Get used to that ugly reality. Though the Republicans had made a few missteps shortly after the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, the magic formula for undoing the entire New Deal slowly emerged by the 1960′s as William Buckley and his ilk came onto the scene and intellectualized the conservative Republican agenda. The growth of think-tanks (AEI, which had its roots in the mid-1940s; Cato Institute; the Heritage Foundation, etc.) altered the way we see the world, changing the agenda and demonizing everything that had to do with the New Deal. We see the result of that now. Unions, which gave us 8-hour work days, pensions, vacations, are evil. (How many of you who just read the previous sentence thought to yourselves, “But what about the bad things the unions have done?” If that’s what you thought then you have succumbed to the conservative agenda.) Government programs, no matter how successful, are evil. Public education? Evil. Publicly-regulated utilities? Evil. Environmental regulation? Evil. The list goes on. The Reagan presidency helped to solidify the growing assault on all things related to the New Deal and added a new twist to it all. If you do something illegal, all you need do is claim you are doing it for the good of the country. Ollie North was the model for this type of patriotic propaganda. When Gingrich came to town in 1994 with his Contract for America, despite his ethical lapses, he helped set the mold for our current adversial-type government. By the time Bush came into office, the conservative Republican agenda had been pretty well solidified from the ground up: conservative judges on many levels up to the Supreme Court; conservative “grass roots” organization; laws to prevent voter fraud that are really mean to prevent voting; conservative politicians from the smallest level up to governors, congressional representatives and senators; mass media (cable; print; radio). The list goes on and on and on. Almost everywhere you turn, in almost every aspect of our social and political life, the Republican agenda has become the norm. So what can be done to reverse this?
Nothing. You can’t reverse it. You need to learn to live with it. It took 70 years to get here and it may take almost as long to undo the damage. But let’s be realistic. Do we really have the stamina, as a society, to undo all the damage? The answer is obvious. The only thing you can do is tend to your own garden, doing the best you can for you and your children. But remember that your life, the things you have earned through decades of work, can be taken away from you at any time using any pretense necessary. Your pension plans have already been taken away. Your home values have already been taken away. Your jobs have already been shipped overseas. It is only a matter of time when they take your measly Social Security and any medical insurance you may have.
Feeling all gloomy and helpless? Well, then do something. Turn off your television. Invite a few neighbors over for coffee and talk about anything: how to help each others business or job prospects; how you might be able to barter skills (you paint my house and I’ll do your plumbing) or, simply vent about the current situation. A little commiseration can go a long way. Who knows? You may hit upon an idea that helps to turn things around. Sounds unlikely. I know. But remember: everything you see around you was, at some time, only an idea in somebody’s head.
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The following is from 1989!
Lyrics:
This is no time for celebration
This is no time for shaking heads
This is no time for backslapping
This is no time for marching bands
This is no time for optimism
This is no time for endless thought
This is no time for my country right or wrong
Remember what that brought
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time for congratulations
This is no time to turn your back
This is no time for circumlocution
This is no time for learned speech
This is no time to count your blessings
This is no time for private gain
This is no time to put up or shut up
It won’t no time to come back this way again
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time to swallow anger
This is no time to ignore hate
This is no time to be acting frivolous
Because the time is getting late
This is no time for private vendettas
This is no time to not know who you are
Self knowledge is a dangerous thing
The freedom of who you are
This is no time to ignore warnings
This is no time to clear the plate
Let’s not be sorry after the fact
And let the past become out fate
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time to turn away and drink
Or smoke some vials of crack
This is a time to gather force
And take dead aim and attack
This is no time for celebration
This is no time for saluting flags
This is no time for inner searchings
The future is at hand
This is no time for phony rhetoric
This is no time for political speech
This is a time for action
Because the future’s within reach
This is the time
This is the time
This is the time
Because there is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
I’ll take what you said even further jeff, in that the Heritage Foundation doesnt just want to roll back New Deal reforms. They want to go all the way back to laws and regs that Theodore Roosevelt put in place as president, the labor laws, the anti-trust laws, the conservation laws, all of them with targets on them placed there by individuals who obviously long for a return of the days of the robber barons. I realize this is a somewhat archaic term but it is no less applicable here, given the disposition of some of these people who have absolutely no problem whatsoever in spending MILLIONS of dollars on the propoganda machine that attempts to bombard us in the form of “public service messages” by superpac funded “grassroots” organizations, the carnival barkerturned local, state or federal “public servant” and lets not forget the network that would have made Dr. Josef Goebbels envious, FoxNews. Gloomy times, sure. But lets not forget one thing, we are the 99%, theres more of us motherfuckers out there than them……….thats all for now……
We’re in complete agreement on all counts. My concern is that the 99%ters won’t have the staying power necessary to effect real change.