Right Wing Scams: 'Why Don't You Start Calling Me Gordon?'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

All but forgotten now, Enron --it's rise and calamitous fall --dominated front pages and sucked up airtime until knocked out of contention by 911. As I was reminded, it was the ghost of Gordon Gekko, brilliantly portrayed by Michael Douglas in 'Wall Street', who both presaged and haunted the fail of Enron and all those who served it or were temporarily enriched by its corporate shams and schemes.

As was the case in the 'Roaring Twenties', fortunes were lost in a heart beat, economic empires collapsed in the blink of an eye. Enron was one of them. Conveniently for the new Bush administration, indeed, the GOP itself a crime syndicate, corporate 'person-hood' benefited from a timely stay of execution -- 911.

Wall Street was one of Hollywood's more pertinent parables even if the name "Gekko" was a bit obvious. Real Gekkos (spelled Gecko) make fairly good pets --or so I am told! They eat roaches. And of late there are no shortage of roaches. The largest roach colonies are found in Washington D.C., Austin, TX, K-street or Wall Street --all sites of irradicable infestations. As we have seen, the GOP eats it own.

Opportunities for metaphor and analogy are endless and every comic needs a foil. Had there been no crooks or idiots, the careers of Voltaire and Mark Twain would have been much less brilliant. We owe a great debt to totalitarians, snobs, goppers, corporate crooks, Bush's surrogate torturers and would-be dictators. Where would Stephen Colbert be without them? Alas, the blog-o-sphere would be scrambling for material.

Enron was run by a gang that most certainly thought that, being "captains" of "industry", they could just pull out and disappear. I suppose every crook thinks that they will get away with it.

Enron will prove to be one of the most important episodes in the history of American business, and its story, from beginning to end, is inseparable from Ken Lay, its founder and long-time chairman. Thus, what people make of Enron—and what lessons they draw from it—will depend to a considerable degree on how they understand Lay.

As I’m sure you know, Enron has to date been blamed largely on free-market politicians, heartless corporate managers, and an egoistic chairman. In fact, as my book will show, Enron relied heavily on government favors, was run by postmodernist managers, and had as its chairman the kind of person Ayn Rand would have called “a second-hander.”
--On the Fall of Enron and Ken Lay: 'Philosophical Fraud' at an Errant Energy Company (and cap-and-trade, renewables forerunner), Robert Bradley Jr.

The US is, likewise, a financial shell. When GM, at last, is swallowed up by a foreign auto maker, what incentive will the new entity have to employ American workers when they can do just as well in Japan or Malaysia or China?

We have become a nation of consumers lent money by China so that we can buy goods manufactured in China. We are cattle, cows to be milked. When the teat runs dry we will be abandoned to third world status if we are not already.

In the meantime, the Bushies and other GOP Geckos will have run off with the last scraps of US wealth if they have not done so already. See the CIA's World Fact Book which lists the U.S. at the very bottom of the list with the world's largest negative Current Account Balance, formerly called the 'balance of trade deficit'. China tops the list with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance. Every banker can equate that with his own balance sheet and conclude that China, because of the policies of the GOP, now owns America if not the entire world.

The house of cards appears to have fallen --but not just yet! Like Ken Lay, Bush and his gang are most surely clinging to the belief that, unlike Lay, they will get away with it. Chances are good that Bush will live out the rest of his wasted life too stupid to regret a damn thing! It is this luxury, available only to the stupid, that I resent most!

Iraq was a big screw up. The invasion and theft of Iraqi oil was supposed to bail them out. Things have not quite worked out as planned. Then again, perhaps they have exceeded Bushco expectations. They are not yet jailed nor executed for capital war crimes (see: U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441).

Just as Hitler thought he had learned from Napoleon's mistakes, Bush most certainly thought he had learned from Hitler's.

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The Rising Cost of Idiocy

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The dumbing down of America began with Ronald Reagan who made idiots feel good about being idiots. Reagan proved that not only was intelligence not required to be President, it might even be a handicap.

Reagan proved that any politician ignoring the 'idiot' voting block [the GOP] imperils his/her political future. Thus, Sarah Palin, who became an expert on Russia by observing its coast line from across the Bering Strait, is assured a growing constituency: the legion of idiots! She is the poster bimbo of idiocy! Its champion!

'Dumbing down' implies that the US still has a way to go before bottoming out! But that observation smacks of intelligence and may safely be ignored. The real idiot i.e, a GOP idiot, does not know where the f_ck we are or how we got there and is not smart enough to care! The word 'idiot' summons up images of Ronald Reagan and, more recently, George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, Reagan had essential Presidential skills. He could read cue cards. Bush could not or did not read! Reagan taught the GOP that how you say something is much more important than what is said. Bush, by contrast, was challenged to speak. 

Reagan spouted racist crap about a welfare 'grandma' who drove a Cadillac. There was no such person. It was Reagan's kindly, grandfatherly head nod that sold it. Bush, by contrast, said: "Who cares what you think?"Had a smart person told that story, he would have been pilloried as a bald-faced liar. The story was untrue but Reagan's telling of it was not only tolerated by most of us but embraced by the increasingly stupid and psychotic GOP.  

Because of that and numerous other whoppers, the GOP was thus set free to roll out their every whopper. Reagan had taken the GOP into new and unexplored territory. Think of it: there was no whopper so outrageous, no lie so egregious, no bullshit theory so incredible that it could not be sold with help from a focus group, a head nod and a smarmy, 'grandfatherly' smile.  

Reagan's idiocy became an insurmountable political advantage, an advantage that would --one day --give us George W. Bush. Reagan was not evil, they said; he was just senile! Give him a break! With this bit of GOP-logic, we should all be thankful. We are --after all --still alive. The US survived eight years in a which a senile idiot might have plunged us into nuclear war. When he thought his microphone was off, he 'reported' that he had just ordered a nuclear strike on Russia. 

The US was as close to nuclear armageddon as during the Cuban missile crisis or the little publicized incident in which the Soviet Union mistook a research launch for a MIRV heading their way. Someone had forgotten to notify them. The hero was Yeltsin who wisely waited for confirmation before launching a counter-strike that would have obliterated the US. Indeed, there is a price to be paid for idiocy, and one day we will pay it.

Others have noticed what has been called the 'dumbing down' of America. Bill Maher decried the trend; blogger Tom Degan responded: 

"We weren't always like this. Inert. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and 11 months later seniors were receiving benefits. During World War II, virtually overnight FDR had auto companies making tanks and planes only. In one eight year period, America went from JFK's ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon, to actually landing a man on the moon."While I admire Bill Maher a great deal, I am forced to take issue here.

This pitiful America of which he speaks is very real - of that there can be little doubt to anyone who has bothered to pay attention. But like a lot of people on the Left (I am sorry to say) he totally ignores - whether by accident or design - the undeniable advantages of living in the America of the first decade of the twenty-first century.For example:I never finished High School. In fact I dropped out at the very beginning of my Junior year. In spite of this unfortunate fact, the I.Q. of my country has dropped to such a horrifying degree in the last thirty years, whenever I arrive at a gathering of, say, two or three-hundred people, I am reasonably confident that I am the smartest person in the room.Do you have any idea how utterly cool that is? Lighten up, Bill.

--Tom Degan, the Rant

The mass media must accept responsibility for often making idiocy cute, quaint, cool, or funny. Idiocy is none of those things. Idiocy is a clear and present danger. Idiots will impoverish us all if an idiot has not plunged us into a nuclear holocaust in the meantime.

Karl Marx applied Hegel's dialectic to economics and concluded that 'capitalism' would die of its own inconsistencies i.e, idiocies! Lately, it is only dyed-in-the-wool wingnuts who are blind to the inherent 'contradictions' that have now brought the world to the brink of yet another great depression.

Karl Marx was absolutely correct with regard to the class struggle which he believed followed inexorably from the division of the world into 'capital' vs 'labor'. Bush's America is the LAB study that proves Marx to have been absolutely correct on this point. Never has the the US been so divided. Just one percent of the US population owns more than about 95 percent of us combined. I have REAMS of official stats from the US Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Commerce Dept-BEA, and various think tanks and University Studies which PROVE --beyond any refutation --that following EVERY GOP tax cut, this increasingly tiny elite was enriched. If the trend continues, the ruling 1 percent will become just one half of one percent owning more than about 99 percent of the rest of the population. No nation can sustain that kind of inequality unless by the application of coercion and dictatorship incomprehensible to Americans.

Tax cuts for the wealthy --we are told --will stimulate investment and thus jobs. The official stats prove that that has never, EVER happened. Rather, windfall tax cuts wind up in offshore tax havens and other 'shelters' which HAVE NEVER INCREASED US jobs nor have they helped, in any way whatsoever, to diversify the US economy. 'Tax havens' --available only to the very, very privileged --are just one reason supply side or 'trickle down theory' has never worked and will never work. It was all a PR campaign, a focus group approved strategem --not a legitimate or valid economic theory. There is a name given the outflow of monies from an economy: contraction. Contraction of the money supply is not merely the cause of 'depression', it is the very definition of it.

The GOP rank and file told us that while US industries had all but vanished during the Reagan nightmare years, HI TECH and US expertise would save us. It didn't! IT is done in India and China. Steel is produced in Japan. Cars, it seems, are produced everywhere BUT in the US. The US boasts the world's largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance; China --the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance. Being at the bottom of that list tells me that if the US produces anything at all these days, the rest of the world does not buy it.  

China  literally 'owns' us. It is China primarily that props up the buck so that the impoverished US can buy Chinese made stuff at Wal-Mart. How smart is that? Was it intelligence that got us into this mess --or was it GOP idiocy? Don't answer; that is a rhetorical device!

Clearly, the Reaganite goppers --idiots to a person --lied to us and got away with it because we had become the bigger idiots for their cut backs in education, their domination of the mind-numbing media, the assaults made on logic and common sense. We are idiots for getting stuck with the tab run up by the idiots in power. Bottom line: idiocy is no longer an option. Get Smart!

Intrepid writer, communications expert and guest columnist Doug Drenkow observes:

As I read the -- surprised and surprising -- reactions to Pres. Obama's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, I am reminded of something that happened ten years or so ago, when my father was still alive. I was complaining about one thing or another that then-Pres. Clinton had done. Dad, who had first voted for FDR and had years later become very embittered by Pres. Nixon -- in other words, he had seen and lived through the best and worst that our nation had to offer -- told me something I'll never forget: "A leader can't control everything. He has to work with what he's got. So he can't make everything right overnight. And he'll make some mistakes, too; he's only human. But the thing to watch is the direction he's taking us. It might be slower than you'd like, but are things generally headed the right way or not? That's how you judge a leader."

By the way, that was part of my dad giving his approval of Pres. Clinton's actions, in general and in particular for his achieving the first growth in real (inflation-adjusted) wages for American working people in a great many years. In awarding the Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee cited Pres. Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Against the background noise of insane but persistent cries from the "birthers," Pres. Obama fulfilled his campaign pledge and spoke to the world's billion Muslims shortly after attaining office, to reassure them that -- despite what the bin Ladens (and some of the "crusaders" in our nation) say -- Americans want peace in the world, including with Islamic peoples. That was indeed "extraordinary." (Can one image Pres. Obama's predecessor making the same speech or impact?)

And yes, Pres. Obama has inherited wars in the heart of the Islamic world. But I believe he is doing everything humanly possible to not fight a "dumb war" -- as he said in his famous speech opposing intervention in Iraq -- while securing the safety of Americans, and others, in uniform and at home. He is drawing down our forces in Iraq, and even somewhat faster than had originally been thought possible, while trying to retain some sense of stability in the "Pottery Barn" we broke.

The strategy he is formulating for Afghanistan is admirably being based first and foremost upon helping everyday Afghan people stabilize their own economic and political situation (despite the apparent corruption of their leaders), which unavoidably requires security -- by our forces for now and by Afghan forces being trained -- as to protect otherwise defenseless humanitarian assistance. At the same time, American drones, special ops, and other forces are as surgically as possible disrupting and destroying al Qaeda command and control centers, leaders, and networks, now based primarily in Pakistan, which of course poses dicey problems and limitations of its own. There is no easy fix.

Whether or not we agree with his decisions, I think all of us should appreciate that Pres. Obama and his national security team, including Secretary of State Clinton, are doing their very best to be responsible, for all concerned. Remember, our allowing al Qaeda to have a safe haven previously cost us dearly, and led to the situations we are in now. Preventing further disaster prevents further war. Pres. Obama's efforts to curb nuclear proliferation are also being cited for his receiving the Peace Prize.

Every day the catastrophic potential of this threat becomes more real, as nuclear materials and technology are being disseminated and developed at an increasing rate, by nations and groups that openly and clandestinely threaten us and our allies. Pres. Obama's working with all parties -- including making agreements already with Russian Pres. Medvedev and holding the first (tentatively promising) talks between our nation and Iran in decades -- is a mark of good faith on the part of the American people in the world, after years of our -- disastrously -- "going it alone."

Pres. Obama is trying to regain -- re-earn -- for America the international good will that the previous administration squandered in the wake of 9/11. Pres. Obama has dispatched George Mitchell, who helped make the peace in Northern Ireland, to help make the peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, another conflict that has persisted stubbornly for decades, and that inflames and complicates all the other issues in the Middle and Near East. Like Al Gore (and unlike the previous administration), Pres. Obama has taken leadership and agreed to cooperation in alleviating global climate change, another problem too big for one nation to solve alone.

And finally, remember that Pres. Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen ... cooperation between peoples" does not just apply to international efforts. Like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pres. Obama I believe has won the Peace Prize for his leadership in helping make peace between people of different races -- and every other description -- here in our country, where such differences have long divided us and thus weakened us, socially, economically, and morally. America is more at peace with itself because of Pres. Obama's leadership -- and really, for what he represents to so many of us. The Peace Prize often helps give impetus to international movements that are gaining momentum, such as the fight against Global Warming. As Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said of Pres. Obama's award: "He got the prize because he has been able to change the international climate. ... Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too early? Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond -- all of us."

It is obvious that Pres. Obama represents a new face, ethnically and figuratively, of America -- the most powerful nation -- to the world: a vision of hope through working together with, not against, one another. And that indeed is the only road that leads to peace. Pres. Obama says he is "humbled" by the Prize; I am proud of the honor he has brought to America. And I'm sure my dad is smiling down on us all.

--Doug Drenkow, Communications Consultant, Columnist

In another time, before we were 'dumbed down', someone winning the Nobel Prize would be lauded for his/her achievement. Not so, today! Since 1980, the US has entered a world on the other side of the looking glass. Idiocy is preferred over intelligence; screw ups are 'cool' and real achievement just means you're a nerd.

We used to hear a lot about 'values' from the party that now flouts every 'value' worth having,  affirming or  nourishing. If the media --Fox and CNN particularly --seem shallow, obnoxious, stupid, it's because they are but mirrors held up to this cowardly retreat from excellence.

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Why the US 'Investor Class' are Blood Sucking Parasites!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The bailout of big banks and 'financial houses' is a deliberate fraud! So too, 'trickle down/supply side' economics. Even if 'tax windfalls', like those found in 'supply-side' economics, persuade manufacturers to produce more, where is the market for the overproduction? Lately, however, Fat Cats have figured out how to game the system: transfer the booty offshore! As a result, declines in GDP have become a defining characteristic of every GOP regime since those of Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes.

The current economic crisis has much in common with the US economy in the 1920s. The economy had been booming but by 1927 the nation had overproduced goods for which there was no market. No one should have been surprised that the overproduction led to a slowdown in both manufacturing and agriculture.

Overproduction results when there is no market for increased production. Among several reasons for 'declining markets' the most obvious is this: more and more have less and less to spend on new products or increased production. Failed economic ideology inevitably favors what is called 'economic stimuli', a more 'intellectualized' version of 'voodoo economics', otherwise called 'supply side economics' or, just as precisely 'trickle down' theory! It's all more accurately called 'bunkum', 'claptrap' or 'bullshit'! GOP/right wing economics fails to recognize the basic fact: increased production means absolutely nothing to those who have grown poorer. The fancy car in the showroom means nothing if I don't have a job or if my dollar has declined vis a vis the 'yuan' or the 'yen'.

Some recent history may illustrate the point: the Wall Street crash of 1929 was followed by a severe world wide depression acutely felt in the US, Germany, France, and to a lesser degree --Great Britain and Sweden. Nevertheless, unemployment was high in Sweden when that nation returned a Labor government committed to a program of public investment to address the high unemployment problem. It worked. By 1935 real output in Sweden was 7 percent above its 1929 level. Unemployment was reduced and the finance minister was said to have been happy to suffer another budget deficit to stimulate the economy.

Ronald Reagan's budget deficit did not have as happy a result. So --why did Keynesian economics work for Sweden in 1929-30 but not for Ronald Reagan more recently? The answer is simple: Sweden was then --as it is now --among the world's most egalitarian economies and because of that, a prosperous 'consumer' class proved to be the growing market that supports increased investment, increased production. By contrast, the US --among the very least egalitarian nations --inevitably slides into recession/depression whenever a GOP regime favors the increasingly few but richer elites!

Reagan's tax cut of 1982 benefited only the investor class! As a result markets and spending declined. It was a 'depression' of some two years. the worst since the 'Great Depression. It was characterized by decreases in consumer purchasing, declines in jobs, and the shrinking of the US GDP. Sound familiar?

The wrong people, an utterly worthless investor class, got the money!

While a true 'Keynesian' deficit might have stimulated growth, the GOP/Reagan deficit had the opposite effect.

The proof of my assertion is the public record. Reagan's tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by the nation's worst recession since the Great Depression. The economy contracted, people had less money to spend, many lost their jobs and homes and slept under bridges. Where had all that money gone? It would eventually find its way to China! It was Bush Sr, in cahoots with Nixon who set it all up. It was Bush Sr who cut the deals while feasting on 'dog lip' in the Forbidden City. Since then, most (if not all) US wealth has found its way to China.

Reagan's best critics were found inside his regime, primarily, budget director David Stockman who blamed a "noisy faction of Republicans" for Reagan's infamous tax cut and the debacle that followed. Reagan might have achieved the prosperity that Keynes had predicted. That might have happened had his policies rewarded the working and middle classes instead of the rich and idle elites. Fact is --Ronnie was owned! The government is owned! The MIC is owned! We are owned! We are slaves to a system that may be beyond our ability to reform short of revolution.

The Reagan-heads forgot that the wealth of a nation is the result of the 'work' that is done by its people --not the 'offshore investments' of an utterly worthless, idle leisure class.

Trickle-down (supply-side) transfers of monies to manufacturers that are over-produced is economic disaster. Similarly, transferring wealth to elites for whom additional consumer purchases are characterized by decreasing utility is foolhardy! Put another way --of what use is more 'spending money' to one who has 'everything'? And for that reason, why should a capitalist get a tax cut for producing product that cannot and will never be sold? The US investor class has solved that much of the problem by exporting manufacturing --our jobs --to China. If you don't believe me, just check out the CIA's own "World Fact Book" which lists the US at the very bottom with the world's largest negative Current Account Balance still often called the 'balance of trade' deficit. China sits atop the list with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance.

Because the very, very wealthy i.e, those benefiting from GOP tax cuts, most certainly do not increase purchases with tax cut windfalls, wealth does not 'trickle down'! It does not support increased domestic sales nor does it stimulate increased production and, thus, GDP. In fact, the record shows that instead of stimulating the economy by stimulating production, growth and sales, the very opposite invariably occurs.

This consistently results in a reduction of the money supply, most prominently:

1. lower wages ala Wal-Mart et al for those still fortunate enough to be employed;
2. declining purchases followed by declining GDP.

Why the US 'investor class' is an economic blood-sucking parasite!

The so-called 'Great Depression' was, in fact, a great contraction in which those who would have spent monies were deprived of the money to spend. A 'depression' is a self-reinforcing race to the bottom, a black-hole which feeds on itself.

During the Great Depression and, later, Ronald Reagan's 1980s depression of about two years, millions lost their jobs. In 1929, bankers and financiers continued to speculate on stocks, borrowing the money and buying stocks 'on margin'. More recently, 'short sellers' made fortunes on 911! What guilty 'insider knowledge' had they possessed? You can rest assured billions have already been transferred into offshore tax havens --wealth that is perhaps forever lost to the US economy.

Transfers of wealth to everywhere but America not only fail to stimulate the domestic economy, they bleed it! The wealth of a nation is not the money it prints, borrows or coins. The wealth of a nation is the productivity of its people and their industries. Both declined under Reagan and declined again under Bush and declined yet again under the other Bush! When another GOP 'Prez' assumes or steals the office, there will be yet another decline. That assumes, of course, that we survive the current crisis.

One wonders why Reagan didn't just cut out the middle man. A more equitable tax cut or better a more progressive tax might have put more spendable income directly into the hands of consumers. Spent money circulates and drives an economy. That consumers spend money seems to be a fact lost on the likes of Reagan, Bush, and the nation's rich and callous elites.

Surely, there were knowledgeable advisers in Reagan's regime who knew better. The tax cut, therefore, was entirely political, a pay off to the rich for their support, or more precisely, their investment! Nothing has changed in the GOP. The Bush administration made several such "payoffs" during his catastrophic and criminal regime.

The current collapse of the US is the end result of a trend begun with the passage of Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut for his rich, elite base. The year was 1982. Historians will write of that date that it was the beginning of the end of the American empire.

The Dangers of American Fascism

Following is a description of the American fascists who have looted the US and exploited the labors of those whose efforts alone create wealth.

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends. The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.

...

--Henry A. Wallace, The Danger of American Fascism, The New York Times, From Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

In this case, the "gods" of American fascism are greed and lies. While Democrats are flawed and often impotent, the GOP has ceased to be a political party! It is, rather, a crime syndicate, a dangerous, kooky cult of psychopaths and liars!

We're in the Money?

It was Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) who 'stole the show' when she sang "We're in the Money" in Gold Diggers of 1933. Goldiggers was a Warner Bros. musical choreographed by Busby Berkeley, starring Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Joan Blondell and, famously, Ginger Rogers.

An original stage production ran for 282 performances on Broadway in 1919 and 1920 featuring songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics). In 2003, Gold Diggers of 1933 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

"We're in the Money" is memorable not only for its energy but for a charming performance by Ginger Rogers, singing a verse in Pig Latin accompanied by scantily-clad showgirls dancing with giant coins.

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With Any Luck --the End of the GOP

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It may not be the Twilight of the Gods, but, with any luck, it could be a permanent brownout of the GOP --not a political party but a crime syndicate, an evil cult, a 'canker in the body politic'.

Even the New York Times concedes that election Day exit polls have sent shivers down the GOPs notochord. According to to the numbers, the GOP is literally 'withering away'.

More than six-in-ten Americans (62%) say they have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, compared with 40% who say they have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. The current Democratic favorability advantage is the largest measured in nearly two decades.

The widening gap is primarily a result of an increase in favorable views of the Democratic Party since the election, up from 57% in late According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News this month, only 21 percent of respondents said that they consider themselves Republicans. This was the lowest percentage for that response since The Times started asking the question in 1992. By comparison, nearly twice as many respondents said that they consider themselves Democrats.

--Pew Report

“We’re all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us, and we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one.”

--New York Times, Whither the Republicans?

Concurrently, Chris Bowers reports that the GOP has not 'blown it' due to mere mistakes. The GOP is headed for a crash not because it made mistakes but because of deliberate crimes and endemic arrogance.

• The invasion of Iraq was terrible policy to begin with, dreamt up by neo-con theorists in the Project for the New American Century in the late 1990's. It was always a bad idea to spontaneously invade and occupy a country that did not attack us and with a population that did not want us there. When has that ever ended well? That the policy was justified by intentionally misleading the country on WMD intelligence shows just how bad an idea it was from the start. There was no good reason to do it. Further, any mistakes that were made during the occupation, especially those by private contractors, would never receive serious oversight. The modern conservative movement has no intention of holding private companies accountable for anything. They certainly have no intention of holding their leaders, such as Rumsfeld and Rice, accountable for anything, since the only thing the conservative movement ever holds their leaders accountable for is being pro-choice. Iraq was always going to be a disaster, and the mistakes made would never be fixed. That is inherent to the Republican Party in the age of the conservative movement. It wasn't a "mistake."

• The attempt to privatize, and thus destroy, Social Security was run by Republicans and the conservative movement with as much political smarts as any other legislative campaign they have run since 1994. However, the difference was that Democrats and the progressive movement actually successfully fought back. This wasn't a Republican mistake--destroying Social Security has been a goal of the conservative movement for nearly fifty years. It is just what they do. Again, this was inherent to the Republican system of governance in the age of the conservative movement, but Democrats and the progressive movement just managed to throw a wrench into the machine with an effective defense.

• The Foley scandal is also the point of Republican governance in the era of the conservative movement. As brilliantly document in the 2005 book Off Center, in order to continue to govern with a radical agenda far out of line with the majority of the country, it has been necessary for conservative Republicans to operate on a powerful 50% + 1 strategy for many years. Republicans have consistently pulled power grabs in order to maintain their narrow majority through tactics such as mid-decade redistricting and voter suppression. Thus, it makes perfect sense that Republicans would cover up for a child predator as long as it meant they could keep another seat in Congress. Cover-ups in order to maintain power are inherent to the 50% + 1 strategy employed by the Republican Party in the era of the modern conservative movement. Again, this wasn't a mistake--that is just how they operate.

• When it comes to Katrina, in the era of the conservative movement, it is in no way surprising that incompetent cronies led ineffective disaster relief operations in areas where poor people and minorities live. The crony part is a gimme: people are rewarded in the modern conservative movement for supporting the movement, not for being good at their jobs, or even qualified for their jobs. It also is in no way surprising that a movement which proclaims its desire to "drown government in a bathtub" wasn't exactly well prepared to have a governmental organization respond to a disaster of this scale. And heck, since African-American in New Orleans are not exactly a demographic the movement sees as key to maintaining its 50% + 1 majority, there wasn't an immediately apparent political need to respond with utmost urgency. Maybe if New Orleans had several women in persistent vegetative states on life support, and each of them happened to have huge, conservative, white evangelical followings, then the Bush administration would have been better prepared to capably respond. But, since it wasn't key to their own base, it wasn't high on the list of priorities.
--Republicans Are Not Losing Because of "Mistakes"

I told you so!

The GOP is NOT a political party; it is a crime syndicate, a kooky cult! GOP policies are intended to enrich its base and they succeeded in doing that. As of this moment just one percent of the nation owns more than about 90 percent or more of the rest us combined.

The salaries of CEOs have risen exponentially since 1980, the year of Reagan's ascension if not his apotheosis. That economic polarization is by design, the result of favorable treatment given 'elites' at least since Ronald Reagan.

To understand the GOP, you must first understand that only the GOP base benefited from GOP tax cuts. Everyone else lost ground. GINI indices from the Bureau of Labor Stats, the Census Bureau and the US Commerce Dept-BEA prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. The process by which the GOP elite gains at everyone's else expense halted and reversed for a brief while under Bill Clinton only to resume with a vengence under the failed and criminal Presidency of George W. Bush.

The heads of America's 500 biggest companies received an aggregate 54% pay raise last year. As a group, their total compensation amounted to $5.1 billion, versus $3.3 billion in fiscal 2003.

We define total compensation as salary and bonus plus "other" compensation, which includes vested restricted stock grants and "stock gains," the value realized from exercising stock options during the just-concluded fiscal year.

For those companies in which the chief executive has been in office six years or longer, we looked at average six-year total compensation and compared this to long-term stock performance of industry peers as well as the overall stock market. We ranked 189 chief executives in our performance versus pay scorecard.

--Forbes

B.R. (before Reagan) anyone earning 100,000 dollars per year was earning real money. Today, 100,000 dollars could not make a down payment on even a modest River Oaks (Houston) mansion. CEO salaries in 1970 (including bonus packages) averaged $700,000 or about 25 times 'worker' salaries. By the year 2000, CEO salaries approached $2.2 million, some 90 times average worker salaries. [See:2004 study on CEO pay by Kevin J. Murphy and Jan Zabojnik].

Wealth Does Not Trickle Down

Don't believe the marlarky peddled by business publications that CEO pay increases the tax base! As long as there are 'tax dodges' the gulf between 'tax base' and 'revenues' will never close. If what the business publications say were true, why have trillions been exported to offshore tax dodges since the ascension of Ronnie Reagan? How does money that is squirreled away offshore increase 'tax bases'. Bluntly: CEOs salaries do not increase the tax base. They subvert it! The 'business' publications are lying. Wealth does not trickle down; it rushes upward and leaves behind an impoverished nation on the brink of another GOP 'great depression'.

The causes of depression now as then are greed and lies! Wealth did not trickle down then. It has not trickled down since Ronald Reagan began the trend with this improvident, 'supply side' tax cut of 1982 which his own Budget Director, David Stockman, called a 'trojan horse'.

A 'Trojan Horse' is a deadly virus that pretends to be something it is not. Disguised, it infiltrates the body politic, the body 'economic'. The GOP leadership and Ronald Reagan did not dare tell you the truth. They dared not tell you that the intended goal of the 'tax cuts' was to pay off the GOP 'base'. Seen in this way, it is fair to categorize GOP 'tax cuts' as payoffs or bribes.

GOP 'supply side' theories were to the economy as AIDS was to the populace: a deadly infestation -- 'canker on the body politic' --for which there has been no cure and little treatment since the ascension and, later, the apotheosis of the 'Great Communicator', Ronald Reagan, about whom GOPPERS still swoon: "he made us feel good about ourselves!" That was Reagan's 'gift'. Bush's gift to the rest of us was that he made even the GOP base feel like the slimy, reptilians that they really are.

Now, in anticipation of the much heard factoid: '...but the Democrats are just as bad!'

No! Democrats are NOT just as bad!

The following stats are just a sample of the numerous, seemingly endless instances in which the GOP has been dead wrong and the Democratic party has been absolutely correct. Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:

• Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
• When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
• Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!
• The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
• The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.
• Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector --some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
• Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.
• By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
• Put another way: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.

These are just a few that I had knocked out quickly in preparation for a previous article. With any real work, any one with a nodding acquaintance of economics can demolish the GOP. The GOP is a crime syndicate, specially a FRAUD foisted upon the American populace in order to enrich the increasingly tiny elite. That they have been highly successful is convincing evidence, perhaps absolute proof of the cult-like nature of this phony 'party'.

Addendum:

A statue of shoes, erected in honor of an Iraqi journalist who dared to express his outrage over Bush's capital crimes against the people of Iraq, has been ordered taken down. Let's protest this decision by sharing pictures of shoes on as many 'inter-tube' sites as will allow you to post them.

Additional resoruce:

• Republican Congress to Republican Governors: Drop Dead

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Milton Friedman's Role and His Influence on the Two Worst Regimes in US History

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As recently as 2005, Milton Friedman was still singing the praises of utterly failed economic policies that had been put to the test by Ronald Reagan and Bushes Sr and Jr. Friedman's policies have been found tragically lacking. Friedman is enamored with policies that bankrupted the nation, made terrorism worse, created the longest, deepest recession since the crash of 1929, exported jobs abroad and resulted in the destruction of the American labor movement and, as a result, the loss of employee rights. Because Ronald Reagan put into effect the lame-brained ideas of Milton Friedman, we live poised on the precipice of economic collapse at the end of the very worst Presidency in American history. [note: Friedman died in Nov. 2006.)]

When I met Milton Friedman in Houston, Ronald Reagan had not yet plunged the nation into a two year long depression. At the time, it was the worst depression since Herbert Hoover's Great Depression of the 1930s, the one that your parents, grand-parents or great grand parents have told you about.

Not surprisingly, Milton Friedman was singing the praises of GOP economics for which he must share responsibility, possibly blame. When I asked him about a pernicious trend that had started under Reagan, he was defensive. "Jobs are NOT exported", he said emphatically. He was wrong then and he is wrong now. In fact, it was during Ronald Reagan that jobs declined as US industry lost markets to Japan and China --Faustian bargains cut first on Nixon's behalf and later for Herr Reagan.

American industry is but a shadow of what it was under FDR and LBJ. GOP economics for whom Friedman was the guru, left American workers with increasingly limited prospects, declining standards of living, few opportunities and lower wages. I've cited the official numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Commerce- BEA, and the Census Bureau which prove conclusively that as a result of the GOPs anti-labor policies in terms of both jobs and tax cuts for the wealthy, the rich have gotten very, very rich and everyone else has gotten poorer. Today, about one percent of the US population owns more than the remaining 90 percent or more combined. Under Bush Jr an elite of only about one percent of the nation benefited from his tax cuts and his financially ruinous war of naked aggression against Iraq.

Bush has now resorted to Marxist economics and has proven Marx to have been absolutely correct. But the GOP --typically --has screwed that up as well. Marx said: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!" The GOP version goes like this: "We pull from out of your ass everything that you think you own; then we distribute it to those who did nothing to create it, did nothing to earn it, and do not deserve it!

If because of GOP transfers of unearned wealth to the increasingly tiny elite of about one percent of the population, labor is unproductive or impoverished the productivity of the nation will decline and ultimately collapse --especially if the poor can no longer afford decent housing or food because ELITES have bid up prices on commodities.

Given the 'socialist/Marxist' nature of the recent bailout benefiting only the GOP base of elites, it is clear that Karl Marx was right. Capitalism will collapse of its own inconsistencies, 'internal tensions which will lead to its destruction.' We have seen evidence of this in the recent bailout --a 'socialist measure' benefiting McCain's 'base' even as McCain was demonizing 'liberals', socialists, and other "Anti-Americans".

The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

One wonders if GOPPERS ever try to reconcile the irreconcilable inconsistencies that are literally shot through their thought processes.

Monopoly is a board game published by Parker Brothers, a subsidiary of Hasbro. Players compete to acquire wealth through stylized economic activity involving the buying, renting, and trading of properties using play money, as players take turns moving around the board according to the roll of the dice. The object of the game is to bankrupt the other players. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single entity.

--Monopoly

In Monopoly, one player wins who owns enough properties to bankrupt the other players. The same thing happens in nature when a PARASITE kills its host!

The Bush bailout of his robber baron buddies and former sponsors, is proof that Milton Friedman's naive, laissez-faire economics is pure and utter bullshit. There was a time when grown up folk who persisted in believing fairy tales were called nuts! Today --they are called elder statesmen and Friedman is considered a sage.

Here's Friedman from a Charlie Rose program of 2005. He's talking about how strong was the US Economy. It would appear that reality has caught up with him.

Some recent EC posts that Friedman would have done well to read:

• 'Corporate Prisons': the GOP's Formula for More Crime, Declining Education, and Slave Labor
• The GOP: Architects of Another 'Great Depression'
• GOP History: 100 Years of Crooks, Liars and Failures
• The 'Conspiracy of Rich Men' Who Pulled Off 911 and Other GOP Atrocities
• How the GOP Enriched the Rich and Made Everyone Else Poor!
• Workers, Unite! Demand that you be paid in Gold Bullion!
• The Biggest Heist in History
• GOP Economics: 'When a Parasite Kills Its Host'
• Recession/Depressions: How the GOP 'Soaks' the Poor and Middle Classes
• 'Great Depression' Lessons from 'It's a Wonderful Life'
• 'Greed is Good': The Death of an Economic Religion
• Bush sticks you with the bill
• The Big Bush 'Bail Out' Blackmail
• Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass
• Repeating Failed Strategies: the Triumph of Idiocy
• Reagan was no hero but he played one in a movie
• Bush Sr's Faustian Bargain with China or How US/China Trade Threatens to Wipe Out the US Middle Class

To sum up: Friedman has been wrong about the economy since 1980 when his 'God' --Ronald Reagan --assumed the role of "President". Ronald Reagan, the living embodiment of Friedman 'economics' hollowed out America's industrial base, plunged the nation into the worst depression since 1929, destroyed the labor movement, enriched ONLY the upper one percent of the nation, doubled the size of the federal bureaucracy and left to Bush Sr and, later Bill Clinton, the worst budget deficit in the nation's history, a situation that did not improve until Bill Clinton's second term. A lot of good it did. Bush II promptly out-performed Ronald Reagan's every instance of incompetence and deceit. Only Bush IIs deficits and debts outstrip those of Reagan who succeeded only in enriching his corporate and elite, privileged sponsors.

1. Recessions, though not caused by declining stock markets, are always accompanied and often predicted by a plunging stock market. Republicans sell out at the peak, taking their profits. Enough selling will trigger the plunge; less knowledgeable investors begin to follow suit from fear but too late. Last man out loses.
2. Having taken their profits on the upside, a depressed market is but an opportunity for the rich Republican to get back in at lower prices. Guess who sells at the lower price: the poor schmuck who is 180 degrees out of phase and can only dream of being a rich Republican. In reality, those he aspires to join are exploiting him.
3. Very knowledgeable investors make money "selling short", buying "put options". These investors get peak prices for stocks even as the price declines. Illegal insider information is executed with "calls" and "puts." The perpetrators of 911, for example, made millions, possibly billions, selling short the stocks of UA and AA. I defy anyone to come up with an 'innocent' explanation. The recipients of those profits had guilty foreknowledge of 911. The name 'Buzz' Krongard comes in connection with a known terrorist organization: the CIA.
   
   A planned financial meltdown might have presented the same opportunities. Historically, 'elites' have always emerged richer, stronger from recessions. On the other side of Ronald Reagan's recession of some two years, the rich had gotten richer while the middle class was all but wiped out. The ill-effects of that recession are still seen in the decline of middle class neighborhoods, the permanent loss of manufacturing base and the jobs it created .The profits and volume were most certainly outside norms, proof that those executing the options had precise foreknowledge of the attacks. Those making those profits had "guilty knowledge" of the attacks; they were at the very heart of a murderous conspiracy.
4. Unemployment always increases in a recession. At the end of a longer recession, companies have the luxury of hiring from a larger labor pool at lower wages and/or salaries. Some companies --citing hard times --may reduce benefits, cut vacation or sick time. Big business must hate good times; it is only during times of full employment that workers have any leverage at all. Offhand I can think of only two times in history that have come close: the Clinton years, and, interestingly, Europe after the Black Death. The labor supply had been depleted by plague. Employers were often forced to accede to worker demands for better conditions, money, a place to live! Serfs had been freed and it marked the beginning of the end for Feudalism and set the stage for 'corporate feudalism', an age in which we still labor and suffer.
5. Many businesses go belly-up during recessions. While lip service is given to 'free markets' and Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', die hard robber barons --in fact -- hate the 'free market'. They prefer 'monopoly' when they can create one and 'oligopoly' when they can't. Free competition among many sellers is the last thing they want. Recessions are welcomed. It's the 'cold douche', a ruthless flush, so beloved by Schumpeter and the robber barons of American capitalism.
6. Don't expect recessions to bring down prices. More often, higher prices are the light that is seen at the end of the long, dark tunnel. In other words, those businesses fortunate enough to survive a 'downturn' are in the enviable position of raising prices on the other side. Higher prices benefit businesses that manage, perhaps with government bailouts, to stay in business during a recession. So much for laissez-faire capitalism. The world is not so kind to everyone else, primarily smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, freelancers, and worker bees. Prices, we learned in Economics 101, are determined by supply and demand. If the demand is such that the market is quite willing to pay any price for it (prescription drugs, gasoline, certain rents) then demand is said to be inelastic. The world at the end of a recession is often inelastic and big and bigger businesses benefit.
7. Consumer demand is the arbiter of price only in markets characterized by diffuse competition. Recessions militate against a market of this sort, weeding out all but 'privileged' businesses, primarily those with juicy government contracts or GOP cronies in office. Only in the textbook model, is it assumed that the oligopolist's market demand curve becomes less elastic at prices below a certain point. In markets characterized by the continuing decline in the number of 'sellers', it is obvious that there are fewer motivations for oligopolists to reduce prices. In such a market, the oligopolist (an aspiring monopolist) makes more money selling fewer units at higher prices than could be earned selling more units at lower prices. How many people are out of a job makes no difference to the American right wing for whom Scrooge is their abiding inspiration.

Perhaps a quick review of Friedman's policies as they were, in fact, made policy under the dubious and failed regime of Ronald Reagan best remembered for his reprise of the Great Depression, castrating the American labor movement on behalf of his corporate robber baron sponsors, and a criminal/terrorist enterprise which, in fact, made terrorism worse under his administration as that of any other US administration since World War II. Ronald Reagan himself need not have worried about the opinion of Iran/Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh who believed Reagan guilty of conspiring to arm an avowed enemy of the US while funneling money to a right-wing terrorist organization.

To the spellbinder, everything becomes subordinated to their conviction that they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic. An ideology can emerge from such individuals that is certainly partly true, and the value of which is claimed to be superior to all other ideologies. They believe they will find many converts to their ideology and when they discover that this is not the case, they are shocked and fume with “paramoral indignation.” The attitude of most normal people to such spellbinders is generally critical, pained and disturbed.

The spellbinder places on a high moral plane anyone who succumbs to his influence, and he will shower such people with attention and property and perks of all kinds. Critics are met with “moral” outrage and it will be claimed by the spellbinder that the compliant minority is actually a majority.

Such activity is always characterized by the inability to foresee its final results, something obvious from the psychological point of view, because its substratum contains pathological phenomena, and both spellbinding and self-charming make it impossible to perceive reality accurately enough to foresee results logically.

In a healthy society, the activities of spellbinders meet with criticism effective enough to stifle them quickly. However, when they are preceded by conditions operating destructively on common sense and social order - such as social injustice, cultural backwardness, or intellectually limited rulers manifesting pathological traits - spellbinders activities have led entire societies into large-scale human tragedy.

Such an individual fishes an environment or society for people amenable to his influence, deepening their psychological weaknesses until they finally become a ponerogenic union.

-- The Role of the Psychopath in the Generation of Global Evil

Reagan apologists often attack Jimmy Carter because, like the predators they are, they smell weakness. It is a mistake. Critics are invariably wrong or lying about Carter. Carter, is in fact among the best Presidents in job creation and he is the only US President to have brokered a Middle East peace --the Camp David Accords. In the wake of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Carter acted quickly. He replaced Kissinger's incremental, shuttle diplomacy with a comprehensive, multilateral approach that included reconvening the 1973 Geneva Conference to include a Palestinian delegation. The GOP feared to duplicate that approach. It might have succeeded. Democrats, meanwhile, should stop running away from what it means to be a Democrat. Get a spine! Stand up and be counted! You have nothing to fear from a gang of lying perverts, discredited 'supply-siders', bigots and war mongers, in other words, the GOP.

Reagan’s election in November 1980 also was welcomed in other quarters. His victory set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter's human rights nagging, the region's anti-communist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.
The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes engaged in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns against leftist enemies.

In the late 1970s, when Carter's human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its "dirty war" -- tens of thousands of "disappearances," tortures and murders -- then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should "walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [Martin Edwin Andersen's Dossier Secreto.]

Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anti-communist action justified, no matter how brutal.
From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering -- an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political "disappearances" in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala.

The one consistent element in these slaughters was the overarching Cold War rationalization, emanating from Ronald Reagan's White House.

--Robert Parry, Obama's Dubious Praise for Reagan

Hoping to deflect attention from the new Augustus, Reagan worshipers claim that Carter was responsible for "horrible inflation" and 20% interest rates. So what? Interest rates would be expected to decline under Reagan's depression as interest rates, in fact, decline in every recession or depression.

During Reagan's depression, the GDP declined at a rate of 2.2 percent, quite possibly the biggest such decline since the Great Depression, most certainly it was the biggest decline in the more than twenty years between 1973 to the assumption of the White House by Bush. Millions lost jobs and homes.

In any case, it was the Federal Reserve Board that slashed interest rates and expanded the money supply, thus reducing prices. Ronald Reagan had nothing whatsoever to do with it! It was the Fed --not Reagan, not GOP give-aways to the MIC --who was responsible for the following but short-lived recovery.

Under Carter, people were at work and productive. They were buying homes --not leaving them under the threat of imminent foreclosure as many, perhaps, millions did under Reagan, as millions are doing now under the lame-duck cretin.

It was Reagan who destroyed the trade unions, exported jobs and technology, and plunged the nation into a depression of two years --the very worst since Herbert Hoover's Great Depression! It was Reagan and the endemically crooked, stupid GOP who fucked up America.

Before Reagan, America had a steel industry. After Reagan, it didn't. Before Reagan, America had a viable automotive industry. After Reagan, the US was buying its cars from Japan. Before Reagan, small retailers still existed and many thrived. After Reagan, small stores had all but disappeared, giving way to huge corporate chains, and, in time, WalMart --an economic Kudzu that ate the American economy.

Typically, Reagan would take credit for reforms begun under Carter. It was Carter who gave the rich a capital gains tax cut, even as he deregulated key industries like trucking and airlines. Carter also increased defense spending. I happen to think Carter ought not have done that! But, to his credit, he didn't muck it up nearly as much as did Reagan who sold his soul for the elite GOP base of robber barons and other vote buyers! The moral of the story is this: don't sell your soul to the GOP robber barons. They don't appreciate it and will support a card-carrying "seed pod" like Reagan or Bush anyway.

As bad as all that is, Reagan's lasting legacy is his worst and most dangerous. Reagan may have blown the world's last chance to achieve a non-nuclear peace.

Reagan is a study in complexity. He believed in balanced budgets but never submitted one; feared a nuclear apocalypse but built a huge stockpile of weapons; preached family values while presiding over a dysfunctional family.

--American Experience

The story is about the talks Reagan held with the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik. It was Gorbachev who first put total nuclear disarmament on the table. It was Ronald Reagan, indebted to his radical base, who blinked.

If, that is, the ensuing “Great Society,” to borrow a term from JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, were laid low by a nuclear attack on an American city (or seven, if al Qaeda had its way).

This is the territory into which Gorbachev launched his most daring raids. First, in 1985, he announced that the Soviet Union would no longer deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs) in Eastern Europe. Later that year, he proposed that both his country and the US slice their nuclear arsenals in half.

The next year, at the memorable Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev got Ronald Reagan to agree in principle to his plan for removal of all INFs from Europe, as well as to draw them down worldwide. Caught up in Gorbachev’s enthusiasm, Reagan expressed a willingness to join Russia in eliminating all nuclear weapons in 10 years.

In the end, though, Reagan clung to his blankie, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars). Gorbachev feared SDI would lead to nukes in space, not to mention leave the Soviet defense establishment with the impression he’d been played. Their dreams of saving the world came crashing back down to earth.

--It’s not a new JFK we need in Obama, but the next Gorbachev

A typical Republican, Reagan said many things and did the opposite. That's because every Republican has two stories to tell: one they tell to their base via "code words" like "family values"; the other, they tell to the world. This second category often consists of lies and pure BS. In this case, Reagan talked the talked --world peace, nuclear disarmament, etc. When Gorbachev raised the stakes and called the bluff --total nuclear disarmament --Reagan blinked! He suddenly recalled his base, the clique, the Military/Industrial complex, the moneyed class that "brung 'em"! Reagan was not, had never been his 'own man'.

Here is what Reagan himself said about the threat of nuclear war.

The Russians sometimes kept submarines off our East Coast with nuclear missiles that could turn the White House into a pile of radioactive rubble within six or eight minutes. Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radarscope and decide whether to unleash Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that? There were some people in the Pentagon who thought in terms of fighting and winning a nuclear war. To me it was simple common sense: A nuclear war couldn't be won by either side. It must never be fought. Advocates of the MAD policy believed it had served a purpose: The balance of terror it created had prevented nuclear war for decades. But as far as I was concerned, the MAD policy was madness.

--Ronald Reagan, The Official Site

So, if that's how Ronald Reagan really felt about nuclear madness, why did he blow what is perhaps our last chance at peace? The answer is simple. Reagan had made a Faustian bargain. He had never been free to follow his conscience. He had never been free to do what was right or best for the nation and the world.

Three myths about the cold war"

• 'We won the cold war'! In fact, the end of the 'Cold War' was negotiated.
• 'The Soviet Union collapsed because the US brought pressure to bear or because Unca Ronnie 'outspent' them.' In fact, the opposite is true as you will learn.
• 'Ronald Reagan defeated communism'. In fact, Ronald Reagan defeated America!

Let's set the record straight. Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with the fall of communism. A great statesman-- Mikhail Gorbachev --deserves the credit for withdrawing nuclear weapons from Eastern Europe which he did upon his own initiative. Gorbachev was the architect of Perestroika and, later, Glasnost. Reagan merely followed the leader.

As I have pointed out: Ronald Reagan Blew the World's Last Chance for Peace! It was Gorbachev --a real leader --who had put total nuclear disarmament on the table. It was an offer Reagan could not accept! Reagan had bosses who had already made him an offer he didn't refuse: the sale of his soul!

The real power base back home would have had Reagan's head. Reagan was a typical Republican, that is, he said many things and did the opposite. Every Republican has two stories to tell: one that he/she tells the base via "code words" like "family values" the other, he/she tells to the world. This second category is most often just lies and bullshit. In this case, Reagan had talked the talked --world peace, nuclear disarmament, etc.

As the figure-head for an entire class that had been enriched by 'cold war' military spending, Reagan could not negotiate with Gorbachev in 'good faith'. Today --the same folk have a vested interest in a destabilized middle east. Fortunes were made in Bush's attack and invasion of Iraq.
Why did he blow what is perhaps our last chance at peace?

Rank and file goppers will find reasons not to believe anything unflattering about Reagan but that's not the same thing as refuting anything that I have ever written in my admittedly Quixotic quest to set the record straight.

Reagan-heads have often tried to shout me down on these issues. But facts are facts and the fact is it was Ronald Reagan, indebted to GOP money interests back home, a tiny elite of just one percent of the total population, who blinked at Reykjavik and thus blew --perhaps forever --what might have been the world's last chance for a non-nuclear peace.

If, that is, the ensuing “Great Society,” to borrow a term from JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, were laid low by a nuclear attack on an American city (or seven, if al Qaeda had its way).

This is the territory into which Gorbachev launched his most daring raids. First, in 1985, he announced that the Soviet Union would no longer deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs in Eastern Europe. Later that year, he proposed that both his country and the US slice their nuclear arsenals in half.)

The next year, at the memorable Reykjavik summit, Gorbachev got Ronald Reagan to agree in principle to his plan for removal of all INFs from Europe, as well as to draw them down worldwide. Caught up in Gorbachev’s enthusiasm, Reagan expressed a willingness to join Russia in eliminating all nuclear weapons in 10 years.

In the end, though, Reagan clung to his blankie, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars.

Gorbachev feared SDI would lead to nukes in space, not to mention leave the Soviet defense establishment with the impression he’d been played. Their dreams of saving the world came crashing back down to earth.

--It’s not a new JFK we need in Obama, but the next Gorbachev

Recently, Mitt Romney built his failed campaign around two words: 'Ronald' and 'Reagan' just as Giuliani built his around 'nine' and 'eleven', as McCain built his platform around three words: 'stay', 'Iraq', 'surge'!

Morally bankrupt and out of ideas, the GOP has tried to make of Ronald Reagan a "savior". Failing live leadership, the GOP settled for myths and desperate hope for the "second-coming" of Ronald Reagan! It won't work. Reagan is still dead!

At another level, rank and file GOP understand that should a deified Reagan fall out of the Pantheon, the party itself is finished. Reagan was all they had left. In the blogosphere, Reagan defenders themselves are resurrected, more vehement and less rational than ever. To wit:

The lies of the left about Ronald Reagan stink up the blogosphere worse than a rest room at a Greyhound bus depot.

I leave it to Larry Craig to assess the stalls at Greyhound --a topic about which he may have considerable expertise and foot-tapping experience. Craig is but a specimen of GOP hypocrisy, lack of imagination, it's endemic inability to come up with anything other than stupid slogans on the one hand and lies, smears, propaganda, assassination on the other. It's their one-two punch! Various sexual perversions to include sado-masochism and homosexuality are just contrapuntal to the sellouts made to the Military/Industrial complex.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan confirms the assertion: the GOP is not a political party, its a criminal conspiracy, a kooky cult built up around Reagan types who encourage addled followers to 'feel good about being liars, psychopaths, and elite militarists.

In my book, Without Conscience, I argued that we live in a "camouflage society," a society in which some psychopathic traits- egocentricity, lack of concern for others, superficiality, style over substance, being "cool," manipulativeness, and so forth- increasingly are tolerated and even valued. With respect to the topic of this article, it is easy to see how both psychopaths and those with ASPD could blend in readily with groups holding antisocial or criminal values. It is more difficult to envisage how those with ASPD could hide out among more pro social segments of society. Yet psychopaths have little difficulty infiltrating the domains of business, politics, law enforcement, government, academia and other social structures. It is the egocentric, cold-blooded and remorseless psychopaths who blend into all aspects of society and have such devastating impacts on people around them who send chills down the spines of law enforcement officers.

--[Hare, Robert D., PhD., Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion, Psychiatric Times, February 1996: Vol. XIII Issue 2] The Role of the Psychopath in the Generation of Global Evil

Reagan was precisely what the GOP needed at the time. A former movie star, he was a practiced Spellbinder.

To the spellbinder, everything becomes subordinated to their conviction that they are exceptional, sometimes even messianic. An ideology can emerge from such individuals that is certainly partly true, and the value of which is claimed to be superior to all other ideologies. They believe they will find many converts to their ideology and when they discover that this is not the case, they are shocked and fume with “paramoral indignation.” The attitude of most normal people to such spellbinders is generally critical, pained and disturbed.The spellbinder places on a high moral plane anyone who succumbs to his influence, and he will shower such people with attention and property and perks of all kinds. Critics are met with “moral” outrage and it will be claimed by the spellbinder that the compliant minority is actually a majority.Such activity is always characterized by the inability to foresee its final results, something obvious from the psychological point of view, because its substratum contains pathological phenomena, and both spellbinding and self-charming make it impossible to perceive reality accurately enough to foresee results logically.In a healthy society, the activities of spellbinders meet with criticism effective enough to stifle them quickly. However, when they are preceded by conditions operating destructively on common sense and social order - such as social injustice, cultural backwardness, or intellectually limited rulers manifesting pathological traits - spellbinders activities have led entire societies into large-scale human tragedy.Such an individual fishes an environment or society for people amenable to his influence, deepening their psychological weaknesses until they finally become a ponerogenic union.

-- The Role of the Psychopath in the Generation of Global Evil

There is enough probable cause in the public record alone to indict the leadership of the GOP for violations of various US Criminal Codes having to do with "criminal conspiracy". Now we know why the GOP is eager to keep Reagan alive and disprove the existence of conspiracies. If conspiracies did not exist, Ronald Reagan himself need not have worried about the opinion of Iran/Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh who believed Reagan guilty of conspiring to arm an avowed enemy of the US while funneling money to a right-wing terrorist organization.

The underlying facts of Iran/contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.

What protection do the people of the United States have against such a concerted action by such powerful officers? The Constitution provides for congressional oversight and congressional control of appropriations, but if false information is given to Congress, these checks and balances are of lessened value.

--Lawrence Walsh, Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matter

As has been pointed out, Jimmy Carter is in fact among the best Presidents in job creation. The GOP attack Carter because they fear and resent his successes.

Reagan’s election in November 1980 also was welcomed in other quarters. His victory set off celebrations in the well-to-do communities of Central America. After four years of Jimmy Carter's human rights nagging, the region's anti-communist hard-liners were thrilled that they had someone in the White House who understood their problems.
The oligarchs and the generals had good reason for optimism. For years, Reagan had been a staunch defender of right-wing regimes engaged in bloody counterinsurgency campaigns against leftist enemies.

In the late 1970s, when Carter's human rights coordinator, Pat Derian, criticized the Argentine military for its "dirty war" -- tens of thousands of "disappearances," tortures and murders -- then-political commentator Reagan joshed that she should "walk a mile in the moccasins” of the Argentine generals before criticizing them. [Martin Edwin Andersen's Dossier Secreto.]

Despite his aw shucks style, Reagan found virtually every anti-communist action justified, no matter how brutal.

From his eight years in the White House, there is no historical indication that he was troubled by the bloodbath and even genocide that occurred in Central America during his presidency, while he was shipping hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the implicated forces.

The death toll was staggering -- an estimated 70,000 or more political killings in El Salvador, possibly 20,000 slain from the contra war in Nicaragua, about 200 political "disappearances" in Honduras and some 100,000 people eliminated during a resurgence of political violence in Guatemala.

The one consistent element in these slaughters was the over-arching Cold War rationalization, emanating from Ronald Reagan's White House.

--Robert Parry, Obama's Dubious Praise for Reagan

Hoping to deflect attention from the new Äugustus, Reagan worshipers claim that Carter was responsible for "horrible inflation" and 20% interest rates. So what? Interest rates would be expected to decline under Reagan's depression as interest rates, in fact, decline in every recession or depression.

During Reagan's depression, the GDP declined at a rate of 2.2 percent, quite possibly the biggest such decline since the Great Depression, most certainly it was the biggest decline in the more than twenty years between 1973 to the assumption of the White House by Bush. Millions lost jobs and homes. In any case, it was the Federal Reserve Board that slashed interest rates and expanded the money supply, thus reducing prices. Ronald Reagan had nothing whatsoever to do with it! It was the Fed --not Reagan --who was responsible for the following but short-lived recovery.

Under Carter, people were at work and productive. They were buying homes --not leaving them under the threat of imminent foreclosure as many, perhaps, millions are doing now. That was not the case under Reagan who destroyed the trade unions, exported jobs and technology, and plunged the nation into a depression of two years ---the very worst since Herbert Hoover's Great Depression!

Ronald Reagan justified disastrous economic policies with ideological nonsense called 'supply-side economics or, derisively, 'Trickle Down' theory might have worked in a completely "closed economy". But the US imports goods from abroad. 'Tax cuts' to non-productive, American elites who outsource [read: export] jobs abroad will only squirrel away a 'tax cuts' in a safe haven beyond the reach of the tax man. It is money that will never trickle down. It is monies lost forever to investment inside the United States. It is the mechanism by which the GOP has made of America a third world nation. It is the mechanism by which the axis of Reagan/Bush destroyed a once great nation!
The US, a net debtor nation, imports most of its automobiles, appliances, and electronic goods from abroad. No wealth trickles down. Items that had been the staple of the US economic engine had, at one time, provided jobs at home. That has not been the case since Ronald Reagan and the GOP feasted upon the rotting carcass that had been the source of US industrial might. Compounding the tragedy, Ronald Reagan slashed taxes for millionaires and billionaires and everyone else got poor.

"Globalization" amid Ronald Reagan's orgy of union-busting, offshore tax havens and outsourcing, must be blamed for the decline of US exports, the collapse of major US industries, the fact that the US is now a third world nation behind a mask of Hollywood and glitz. The US now pulls up the rear, behind China, Japan, Europe and much of the world. Everything from jeans to binoculars now come from China, IT is outsourced to India, and I see few Americans driving anything but Japanese cars.
Given this hole dug over more than twenty years, I am as outraged as I am unimpressed with the crumbs now thrown the rest of us by this profligate administration, this profligate, arrogant party.

Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate declined for the first time this decade, from 12.6 percent in 2005 to 12.3 percent in 2006. There were 36.5 million people in poverty in 2006, not statistically different from 2005. The number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 44.8 million (15.3 percent) in 2005 to 47 million (15.8 percent) in 2006. 

--US Census Bureau Release, AUG. 28, 2007

Capital "trickling up" to Bush's base is money lost to productive investment, lost to small business, lost to consumers who might have spent it in ways that would have created jobs here in the US.
Before Reagan, America had a steel industry. After Reagan, it didn't. Before Reagan, America had a viable automotive industry. After Reagan, the US was buying its cars from Japan. Before Reagan, small retailers still existed. After Reagan, small stores had all but disappeared, giving way to huge corporate chains, and, in time, WalMart --the economic Kudzu that ate America.

Typically, Reagan would take credit for reforms begun under Carter. It was Carter who gave the rich a capital gains tax cut, even as he deregulated key industries like trucking and airlines. Carter also increased defense spending. I happen to think Carter ought not have done that! But, to his credit, he didn't muck it up nearly as much as did Reagan who sold his soul for the elite GOP base of robber barons, war lords and buyers of crooked GOP politicians!

The era was largely characterized by the undue influence of corporate PACs which forced Congress to pass pro-business/anti-individual, anti-family legislation. Supply-siders believed it would trickle down. Like Bush's war on Iraq, it didn't work out as planned. The nation was plunged into the worst and longest (two years) depression since WWII.

The GOP was in need of another 'cold war' when Reagan tried to exploit several 'war' --a warn on porn (Ed Meese's favorite topic), a war on drugs, and, a war on terrorism which Reagan clearly lost. FBI stats prove beyond any reasonable doubt that 'terrorism' is always worse under GOP regimes and that is true because GOP policies create terrorism. The GOP cannot create success with its own policies and will, therefore, subvert the successes of other parties. The GOP can only run against 'commies', 'drugs', 'porn' or 'terrorism'. If it must, the GOP will inspire or support terrorism if there is no real terrorism to exploit. Facts are facts. Terrorism was three times worse under the regime of Ronald Reagan as that of Bill Clinton. There is a rational explanation for that the fact that terrorism is always worse under GOP regimes. That explanation is this: GOP policies cause and inspire terrorism if the GOP does not actively create and support it as it did in the Iran/Contra scandal.

Much is made of the demoralized military under Carter. What had they to be demoralized about? The military was no longer slogging through the swamps in Viet Nam and they had to yet to be sent to Lebanon by Ronald Reagan. The Pentagon brass should just get over it! The Pentagon Brass are created to serve the nation; the 'nation' is not created in order to servce the brass.

The 'Pentagon Brass' are not 'war heroes'. They don't put their lives on the front lines. They don't get shot it! They are glorified pencil pushers and bureaucrats. If they were disgruntled, it is no fault of the electorate. Fuck 'em! If they don't like their jobs, then let them find another line of work. Let them follow Herbert Hooover's advice; in other words, 'let them sell oranges from a pushcart!'

All in all, the enlisted person, under Carter, had it a helluva lot better than do soldiers under either Ronald Reagan who dispatched them to Lebanon to be blown up in a Marine Barracks or under Bush who mired and dehumanized them in Iraq. Has anyone bothered to check out the suicide rates of returning servicemen?

(CBS) Some of America's 25 million veterans face their biggest fight when they return home from the battlefield -- when they take on mental illness.

And, a CBS News analysis reveals they lose that battle, and take their own lives, at a clip described by various experts as "stunning" and "alarming," according to Chief Investigative Correspondent Armen Keteyian. One called it a "hidden epidemic."

He says no one had ever counted just how many suicides there are nationwide among those who had served in the military -- until now.

The five-month CBS News probe, based upon a detailed analysis of data obtained from death records from 2004 and 2005, found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 as non-vets.

A recent Veteran Affairs Department estimate says some 5,000 ex-servicemen and women will commit suicide this year, largely as a result of mental health issues, and Keteyian says, "Our numbers are much higher than that, overall."

--CBS News: Vets' Suicide Rate "Stunning"

Goppers have been known to opine: ...cleaning up after Carter's utter incompetence was messy. In fact, there was nothing to clean up. There was, in fact, nothing for Reagan to do but screw up and screw up he did! The nation would have been better off if Reagan has done absolutely nothing! See my article: Reagan was no hero but he played one in a movie.
That's because, under Reagan, the GOP became not merely a crime syndicate, it became a kooky cult.

The methods that cults use can be used by anyone in any group setting and can be thought of as a "Management system" or a technique of motivation. Thus there is a benefit to applying this knowledge in other areas.

ISOLATION

An obvious way a cult does this is through isolation from other social networks. The extreme of a cult does not have to be applied. If this is applied to a work setting then the stated rule is "This is work. Leave the other parts of life at the door." Likewise the person can go home and leave work at work. The result is a "work personality" and a "home personality".

ENLIST THEM IN A CAUSE

Nothing is quite so motivating than to be involved in a glorious cause. To do this make the success of the group linked to the individuals success. Make the cause lofty and ideal and progressive always on the wave of the future.

DESCRIBE FOR THEM THE QUALITIES OF A "GOOD SOLDIER"

Once you've enlisted them in a cause you can now tell them how best to serve the cause. By describing the qualities of "good soldier" you create an ideal of behavior. On the one hand it's important to point out qualities that they already have to affirm their part in the cause. But it's also important to describe qualities that they will have to work to develop. These qualities can be actual behaviors or they can values that you wish to impose on them. Either way you are holding them to an ideal and letting them know that they play a vital role in the cause.

DRILL THE "GOOD SOLDIER" INTO EXISTENCE (the Nazi/Gop way?) 

A cult may do this process with intense drills and exercises that emphasize the qualities and values of a good soldier. They will create scenarios and situations where these qualities can be tested and followed up with feedback and correction when needed. You can do this in a management setting much the same way. The goal is to make them WANT to bring on this new personality and do it without prompting. This is done mostly by creating a high standard and through a subtle application of rewards and punishment.

CREATE A GROUP MYTH

Nothing will solidify the new personality than getting a group of "good soldiers" together and having them work with some great purpose in mind. By getting your employee, staff, cult member involved in a group and putting them into action as a group you help create an "esprit de corp" that unifies them and helps solidify the newly created personality. Thus, find tasks that your group can do together. It could be a project, a field trip or anything where they have to work together as a group.

Every one of these tactics can be used and applied in your business and social settings.
If your response to this is to recoil at the idea of using cult strategies then stop it. These strategies are used all the time in many different setting and situations. A good manager is a person who would make a good cult leader if they choose to do it.

The benefits of this strategy include highly motivated people who support the team and, when needed, can put work on hold to develop a personal life.

--How cults create an artificial personality in their followers

If the policies worked, Reagan could take credit for them. If they didn't work, Reagan and the GOP noise machine always had Carter to blame! The GOP still bad-mouths Carter though there is not a Republican who can carry Carter's ...uh...water.

When I talk of tax cuts, I am reminded that every major tax cut in this century has strengthened the economy, generated renewed productivity and ended up yielding new revenues for the government by creating new investment, new jobs and more commerce among our people.

--Ronald Reagan, Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention

That's a famous Reagan half-truth. Keynesian, Democratic tax cuts, indeed, stimulate economies but only under Democratic regimes --not under GOP regimes. The reason: Democratic tax cuts are egalitarian, benefiting all income groups and classes. GOP tax cuts, by contrast, are deliberately inequitable, benefiting only rich cronies, the corporate establishment, the Military/Industrial complex and other corporate supporters of the GOP establishment. GOP tax cuts do not and have never 'trickled down'. GOP tax cuts are a payoff, just as were the no-bid contracts to Halliburton, Blackwater et al! I've got the stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and the BEA to prove it.

Despite his over-blown, high sounding rhetoric, Reagan's "trickle down" tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by a depression lasting some two years --the longest and deepest depression since Herbert Hoover's "Great Depression".

At the end of two years of hardship, Americans were no better off. The GDP growth rate of some three percent was no better at the end of those two years than it had been before the Reagan crash. Nothing had been gained for the suffering.

The Reagan years can be summed up briefly. He doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy and tripled the national deficit. The most pernicious effect of GOP economic policy is the effect of declining opportunity, a corollary of decline in wealth among all but the very rich.

It is merely rhetorical to ask: why does the GOP seem to repeat ad nauseam utterly failed strategies that have never been shown to work? Reagan's Budget Director, David Stockman called Reaganomics a 'Trojan Horse'. He understood that tax cuts were not intended to trickle down. That's just how they are sold. Rather --the tax cuts always do precisely what the GOP insiders know they will do: they enrich the GOP base! They are 'laundered' pay offs. Here is how someone who lived through the Reagan nightmare remembers it:

I was in the automotive field at the time, and dozens and dozens of established tool manufacturers, unionized shops, producing high quality tools, small companies with deep roots and real a commitment to the towns they were in all across the Midwest and the local communities, went out of business.

Why? Because with deregulation any hustler could get virtually unlimited financing and set up manufacturing plants overseas producing exact copies of American made tools and flood the US market with them with no fear of the Reagan administration enforcing any laws against them. It also became easier, and far less risky, to get financing to set up a thousand junky identical chain outlets than it did for small local businesses to get credit or tax relief - restaurants, auto parts stores, hardware stores, grocery stores, florists - thousands and thousands of small businesses chewed up and destroyed.

We have a younger generation of people who have no personal experience with so many things - local businesses and tight knit communities, affordable, convenient and efficient public transportation, wages that allowed one person in a household enough income to support the family, homes that were homes, not investments, easy access to public recreation, confidence in the safety of food and other consumer items, all regulated and inspected for the public welfare, freedom from the relentless intrusion of corporations into our lives, and on and on and on.

Or if we buy into the dishonest rationales and excuses and obfuscations that the Reagan administration used to disguise their agenda and to sell it to the public, we surrender any chance at real change, we bury the coffin forever into which the right wingers have put the left - and by extension, the majority of the American people, and we condemn ourselves to living in this ongoing nightmare of destruction and human suffering.Reagan destroyed the country, and if we try to gloss over that (which at the very least Obama's remarks have done.

It is not time to make nice with the Reagan legacy propagandists, even by implication or omission. It is time to relentlessly and fearlessly point out that the crisis the country is in is best described and analyzed as the chickens coming home to roost from the Reagan era.
It is time to fight. It is not time to heal or move on—no matter how attractive and appealing this may be—it is not time to paper over the profound divide in the country, it is not time to accommodate or apologize for.

--Found on the Democratic Underground

Let's take a look at the history before it gets re-written:

• Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
• When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
• Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!
• The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
• The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.
• Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
• Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, tripled the national debt and left huge deficits to his successor. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.
• By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
• Put another way: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II.

Everything posted above is based upon official, government stats from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CBO, and BEA among others. They are 'official' and irrefutable unless someone wants to make the outlandish case that the Federal Bureaucracy, the numerous agencies which keep these stats, is somehow biased. That argument is absurd in light of the fact that of those 20 years from the election of Ronald Reagan to the stolen election of 2000, Democrats had the Presidency in only eight of them.

Along the way, Reagan made up a whopper --his story about a Cadillac driving welfare gra'ma. The story reveals the real Reagan --Reagan the bald-faced liar! This bald-faced lie became his rationalization for cutting back social programs. Unca Ronnie most certainly knew it to be a bald-faced lie.

Then there was the attack and invasion of tiny Grenada. Does anyone remember how Grenada became an imminent threat to US security such that a war of aggression against it was necessitated or justified under international law?
Reagan must be remembered for:

1. having blown a chance for nuclear disarmament at Reykjavik
2. beginning a trend still underway but for a brief respite in Clinton's second term, that is, the rich get filthy rich exponentially while everyone else loses ground
3. making those who benefit from this rapacious policy 'feel good about themselves'
4. institutionalizing government corruption with Iran/Contra, the Savings and Loan Scandal, and a child prostitution ring that was literally run out of the White House
5. lying about a 'welfare grannie' whom Reagan claimed drove a Caddy! Bullshit
6. anemic job growth which --contrary to popular myth --trails that of Jimmy Carter
[Check BEA, Bureau of Labor Stats, and CB]
7. making terrorism worse, in fact, terrorism incidents were THREE TIMES more numerous under Reagan than any Demo president since WWII. [Source: FBI Stats, published, compiled and charted by the Brookings Inst.; See:Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes]
8. almost starting a nuclear war when he shot off his stupid mouth on an open microphone about radar detecting Russian ICBMs enroute to the US
The whole world heard him and, as I recall, the Soviets actually went on alert 9
9. conquering Grenada (to his credit Reagan did NOT wear an enhancing cod-piece and an ill-fitting jumpsuit)
10. Ronald Reagan ordered a US invasion of Lebanon in 1982 premised upon a "deceitful pretext", in other words, a bald-faced lie! The "pretext" was that the PLO, called a terrorist organization, had shot the Israeli ambassador to London. In fact, the shooter may never have been a PLO member. See: [Fading Illusions: D-Day and Reagan]
11. finishing off the last vestige of the labor movement depriving the voiceless of 'voice'
12. elevating style over substance and stupidity over intellect, an area he pioneered for the Bushmen to come
13. cutting funding for AIDS research in the hope that all 'immoral' AIDS sufferers would die off and thus 'cure' the disease
14. waging a war on 'porn' and losing to the un-reported glee of the jerkoffs and child prostitution rackets headquartered inside his White House, his administration
15. waging war on education by calling for an end to free tuition for state college and university students, demanding 20% across-the-board cuts in higher education funding,repeatedly slashing construction funds for state campuses, engineering the firing of Clark Kerr, the popular President of the University of California, declaring that the state "should not subsidize intellectual curiosity [the rationale: the GOP is safe when all of us are kept stupid, uneducated, or in the dark!]
16. waging war on the environment and winning!
17. waging the GOPs obligatory 'war on drugs' and losing!
18. selling out to the big corporations
19. presiding over the demise of the US Steel industry, car industry, electronics industry and almost every industry in which the US, at one time, led the world
20. last --but not least --presiding over the end of American empire by making of the US a net debtor nation which it has been ever since.

Only the GOP could have destroyed a nation so efficiently and have the nerve to tout it on TV ads! Bush Jr has finished the job begun by Reagan. See ya' in hell!

The government's own numbers prove conclusively that Reagan's tax cuts enrich his base and began a pernicious trend which continues to this day. The nation plunged into a depression of some two years, the longest and worst depression since Hoover's big one of the 1930s. Though he had promised to reduce the size of government, Reagan doubled the federal bureaucracy, doubled the debt, and tripled the deficit. He blazed a trail for Bush, the lesser and idiot!Reagan showed them how to destroy a nation.

Nations which tax the rich progressively are more egalitarian, more efficient, more productive and --it is proven in numerous studies --the people themselves are happier, more productive, and better educated. The opposite is true of America. More people are getting poorer; fewer are getting richer; an increasingly tiny percentage (one percent and shrinking) are getting exponentially richer. It is the end of the United States as a world power, indeed, as a viable nation!

GOP thinking is circular and symptomatic of psychosis. They disdain 'poor people' while deliberately creating conditions guaranteed to create more of them.

How an 'honest' general summed it all up:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows...

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill...

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations...

...a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends...

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it...

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed.

--Gen. Smedly Butler, War is a Racket!

An essential resource: This War was About So Much More

An addendum: 20 things you have to believe to be a Republican today

1. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.
2. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.
3. Government should relax regulation of Big Business and Big Money but crack down on individuals who use marijuana to relieve the pain of illness.
4. "Standing Tall for America" means firing your workers and moving their jobs to India.
5. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all humankind without regulation.
6. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
7. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
8. Group sex and drug use are degenerate sins unless you someday run for governor of California as a Republican.
9. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
10. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.
11. HMOs and insurance companies have the interest of the public at heart.
12. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
13. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
14. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
15. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war crime in which thousands were killed or murdered is a solid defense policy.
16. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
17. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's AWOL record, cocaine abuse, and queer exploits is none of our business.
18. You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have a right to adopt.
19. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the 1980s is irrelevant.
20. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist; but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

--20 things you have to believe to be a Republican today

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