The Republican Erosion of America By Angel Of Mercy

[Demeter]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/24/101018/034



26/04/08 "Daily Kos" -- -- There is, it seems to me, an area in the political discussion which has been woefully ignored for much, much too long. Historical fact: Prior to the rise of the radical right some 30 years ago, America was the most innovative, most prosperous, most vital nation on the face of the Earth. And it wasn't just an obscenely rich fraction of one percent skewing the numbers, either...like it is today. Broad-based, bottom-up prosperity--in which liberal Democratic administrations specialize--really DID lift all boats. Lean in close and let me whisper to you an uncomfortable truth that the GOP will never dare mention...

Republicans are the rogues and rapscallions who took a hearty, robust economy that was the envy of the entire world and ran it into the ground. I'm not merely talking about the current fiscal catastrophe that is looming before us; no, I'm concerning myself here more with how we got this way, how the cheap-labor conservatives conspired, deliberately and with malice aforethought, to lay us low...for that is precisely what they did.

Follow me down and I'll show you how...
Did you know that ALL recessions since the 1930's, save one, have taken place under Republican presidents? True fact. The single exception occurred at the conclusion of World War II during the administration of Harry S. Truman and it was one predictable consequence of ending a war. It was also the shortest, as well as the shallowest. Contrast that with the fact that we are now enduring our SECOND recession due to the gross mismanagement of that congenital idiot and the band of thugs in his administration.

The irrepressible BartCop, whom I quite enjoy, is fond of saying "It's the Republicans' job to crash the economy so the super-rich can swoop in and buy companies and assets for pennies on the dollar."
...Need I remind you here about the Great Depression? That worldwide catastrophe was brought to your predecessors courtesy of the Republican Party. After Warren Gamaliel Harding was elected president in 1920...and died two years later, vice president Calvin Coolidge took over the Oval Office. He served out the remainder of Harding's term and was reelected in 1924, serving until he was replaced by yet another hardline GOoPer, Herbert Hoover, in January of 1929. One of the worst of the outrages perpetrated by "Silent Cal" was the transformation of the Federal Trade Commission, through his appointees, from an agency intended to regulate corporations into one dominated BY Big Business, FOR Big Business. Sound familiar?

Looking back on the so-called "Roaring Twenties," hindsight quickly reveals the abjectly corrosive nature of Republican ideology. Andrew W. Mellon--at that time one of the three wealthiest men in America!--was Harding's Secretary of the Treasury and Coolidge kept him on, a voracious fox charged with guarding the henhouse. Mellon's maniacal dedication to such hair-brained schemes as income tax cuts, inheritance tax cuts and an aggressively pro-business agenda coupled with utter disdain for fiscal caution, resulted in skyrocketing debt...and made the decade appear to "roar." It also served as camouflage for underlying economic weakness. Farmers were already in an economic depression at the time and it was a widening income disparity which ultimately caused the bottom to drop out of the Stock Market on "Black Tuesday," October 29, 1929. Bank deposits were withdrawn in a frenzy after that and something on the order of NINE THOUSAND banks failed between 1930 and 1932.

Your GOP at work!

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