Stop the destruction of the things we took for granted

[Armstead]

Just want to get this off my chest.

Being in my 50's, I've experienced the changes of the last 40 years, the good, bad and indifferent. Over those decades we moved forward in some ways, and backwards in others.

Although it wasn't a straight line, there were many advances and changes in the "conventional wisdom" for the better. On the positive side of the scale, attitudes about tolerance and civil rights and the environment and freedom of expression became mainstream.Among them the basic idea that blacks are entitled to the same rights and status as whites, that women are entitled to the same rights and status as males, the idea that homosexuals are as entitled to the same rights and status as straights, the idea that ethnic diversity is a positive thing....The idea that we have to be careful to protect the environment. The idea that we should allow expression that we don't agree with or find personally distasteful. ...The idea that religion and government should be kept separate, and that all spiritual positions should be protected and accepted.

In addition, there were also positive ingrained economic values that preceded that. The notion that wealth is acceptable, but excessive wealth at the expense of others is immoral. The idea that everyone deserved a fair days pay for a fair days work. The idea that maintaining and protecting and enlarging the middle class is a goal of the economy. The idea that the poor and otherwise disadvantaged deserved at least some protection and assistance to help them survive and hopefully advance.

Over the last 30 years, however, the conventional economic wisdom was turned on its head. In economic terms, we backslided. The middle class was convinced to eat itself to advance corporate interests. The poor were forgotten, or told it's their fault. Wealth was worshiped as the highest good.


That has been disheartening. But at least there was the compensation that we seemed to have progressed on other fronts. Environmentalism moved from being a fringe into the mainstream, and was accepted by conservatives as well as liberals. A person's color, gender and sexual orientation became less important in terms of rights, achievement and acceptance.


But over the last six years, we have even lost those advances. Now your version of environmental science depends on your political orientation. Corporate interests and conservative knuckleheads have successfully undermined acceptance of the basic tenants of environmentalism. Racial divisions are resurfacing -- and now blatant racism is directed at new groups. Homosexuality is once again controversial. We've gone backwards -- past debates over separation of church and state, and back to the days of the Scopes Monkey Trial. And now the bsic idea of freedom, privacy and liberty are threatened.

And economically, we continue on the backward course of the last 30 years, back to the Gilded Age of extreme wealth and widespread poverty. The Middle Class continues to willingly participate in its own destruction. Corporations have become nations unto themselves.

I refuse to believe that this undoing of everything that has been won or taken for granted is what the majority of Americans really want. I maintain a naive belief that it is being driven by the combination of a Corporate Oligarchy who has allied with a minority of conservative knuckleheads, and that the majority still believes in positive social values and economic justice. Even the large group who have moderate and/or conservative leanings support many of the basic values of liberals. But they have been bamboozled and have also been made to feel powerless.

If the liberal/progressive side of the spectrum, and the Democratic Party, want to both solidify the positive gains of the last 40 years -- AND restore the positive economic values that existed before the mid 1970's -- then we have to stand up for them. Enough of this accepting the unacceptable, ignoring the underlying unraveling of the middle class and allowing the right wing to take us back to the dark ages.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. What you said and more...

I used to be so proud of my country. We never were the first to throw a punch. Torture was beneath us.

I want my country back. I want that pride again.

[bryant69]

2. The Pendulum Swings

I don't want to argue complacency, but it strikes me that as far right as this country has swung, and as manifestly bad as things have been, we should be poised to swing back.

Of course there are lots of people, powerful people. who would rather not see it swing back.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[dysfunctional press]

5. not when one side grabs it and ties it off...

i used to be a believer in the swing of the social pendulum- but it just doesn't seem to move left any more.

[bryant69]

6. I presume that from the 1930s through the 1960s many conservatives

Felt it didn't seem to move right. They are lengthy swings.

[dysfunctional press]

8. what about eisenhower? the 50's weren't a bastion of liberalism...

remember mccarthy?
and at least during the 30's-60's, elections were legitimate, and the major media wasn't owned/controlled by one ideology.

[Toots]

7. Sometimes the clock gets stopped and the pendulum stands still

I keep hope but I am not convinced there will be any sort of swing back to sanity..:shrug: The country just seems to lurch further to the right every year.

[UTUSN]

3. Just in the past week Shrub decreed the overthrow of

the following things we took for granted in our lifetimes:

1- Cultural diversity.

2- No English-only.

3- Unmilitarized borders.

4- No fences.

5- No mass expulsions/herding/deportations of people.

6- No incumbrances on humanity's impulse to migrate.

On edit: 7- Not to mention, since when does a pResident DECREE big, far reaching shit by FIAT?



First a group is labeled "a problem". And we know that problems cry for "a solution." Then the solutions are either: Assimilation. or Expulsion. Then, can EXTERMINATION be far behind?

And to those who think Extermination is far fetched in America: 1) I'm sure Germans in the 1920s thought that, too. and 2) If the Minutemen really had the power and thought they could get away with it, don't you think they WOULD?

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I'm in my late 50's and agree. Unfortunately, I hold out little hope that

there will ever be a recovery. The corporatist/fascist wedding is almost complete and a large percentage of the American people have 'bought' into the mindless "consumerism/economic growth at all costs/leave businesses alone" makes America great crap. The whole national identity is based on militarism and shopping. Then add the 30+% who are awaiting the Rapture and I doubt that what we've lost can ever be restored (without a revolution and starting over).

[dysfunctional press]

9. i pretty much agree...

and have resigned myself to at least enjoying the show- i'm in my mid-40's, and doubt that i will ever see the 'promised land' that we were led to believe as children, that america could become.

[Armstead]

10. I'm a bit more optimistic than that

I'm not a Pollyanna, but I do still believe things can be turned around.

I remember in the 1980's and 90's how totally silent and complacent people were about the Corporate hijacking of America. The critics among progressives were ignored -- not even deminized. Just ignoired..

But today, more and more people are rejecting many aspects of the con job -- or at least questioning it. And the progressive/liberal moement is growing. Unfortunately, the Democratic Establishment is not among them -- but even their complacency is being sorely shaken by the growing demands for change.

And people have finally started to see through the veil of illusion that has been woven by the Shrub and the GOP, and they are rejecting them in growing numbers.

So I still hold on to hope. But I'm also pissed off and impatient at the polital leadership that is failing to recognize this shift, and who are still trying to cling to their old Corporate Centrist maxim of "See no evil....etc."