out here on the fringes, saying stuff that comes more from inner fears and neuroses than reality.
It would be absolutely GREAT if it was that.
But it's not. Consider that since Obama's election in '08, when the NRA put out the 'word' that 'Obama's gonna take yur gunz,' sales of weapons have spiked in America. Who is buying them? Right wing militias. We now have a heavily armed, ignorant force of 'militias' that hates government with a passion. Remember the Tea Party guy with the sign that said, "Keep your government hands off my Social Security?" This is the level of ignorance we face because this group of people has in fact been propagandized by the corporatists, or capitalists, or economic royalty - whatever you want to call them - systematically since the Powell memo to the US Chamber of Commerce was issued in 1971, and that deterioration of our public culture accelerated when the Fairness Doctrine was allowed to die by Ronald Reagan in 1987. After this happened, we saw the dramatic build up of right-wing talk radio, syndicated shows and local ones, as well as Fox News.
The constant, blaring message of this right wing noise machine has been that government is bad, regulations are bad and the private sector is good. Fast forward from Reagan, who famously said, "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem!" to Grover Norquist, who says that we need to shrink government to the point where we can 'drown it in a bathtub.'
So, what is the motive of these corporate capitalists in so thoroughly changing the spirit of our nation from 'we help each other' to 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps.' Think about it. How many right-leaners or even independents say things like, "Well, if you have single payer healthcare, then you're giving a service away to someone who did not earn it!" or better yet, "If you pay the tuition of poor kids to college, it isn't fair because they didn't earn it and I had to pay for my kids."
Why this attitude? Because the neoliberal mantra is 'privatize, deregulate and gut social programs.'
The justification for this, of course, is that 'gummint' is BAD' and that the private sector can always do it better, faster and cheaper. This is why one of Trump's ideas is to develop a group of private for-profit prisons, or camps, that can hold detainees captured by ICE.
So you know, I'm really sorry to be right, here, but the fact is that divide and conquer has been a strategy used by the wealthy for centuries now - if they turn us against each other, then we won't notice that it is they who are picking our pockets.
The entire strategy behind 'trickle down,' and the 'privatize, deregulate and gut social programs' mantra is that they want to take our tax money that we pay in to our government, which by rights should be being used for programs that benefit us and make our lives better, and instead are routing that money, either through tax breaks or through government contracts to corporations. Basically, raping the treasury.
It is, after all, always all about money.
So, you know, if you want to try an refute me, go ahead. But don't simply say I'm tilting at windmills, because while true, those windmills are quite real, and someone (that would be US, the Democratic base) has to tilt at them.
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