The Solution Was Liberalism

“[T]he solution was liberalism: it had rescued the nation from the mindless boom-and-bust cycle of laissez-faire; it had defeated fascism; and it was then, in 1965, delivering one of the greatest periods of prosperity in history. In that year, American GNP grew by 6.5 percent—in these glory days of the billionaire it barely gets over 2 percent—in line with the official, stated goal of American economic policy: “a growing abundance, widely shared.” Taxes were high, and the richest man in the world was the oil baron J. Paul Getty, worth between two and four billion dollars and fond of grousing about how tough it was to be rich in an era when even the middle-class man had access to what had once been the exclusive privileges of great wealth.”

Thomas Frank

The Wrecking Crew:How Conservatives Rule

Monday Musings: January 18, 2010

This morning, I happened to replay the interview between Bill Moyers and Thomas Frank - author of “What’s the Matter With Kansas” and “The Wrecking Crew”. If you haven’t read these two books, then you may not have a firm grasp of the current sociopolitical landscape and how it has been taken over by the so-called ‘conservative’ right - the election of Obama notwithstanding.

It was even more disturbing than when I first saw it. Frank is right that Americans have become part and parcel in a culture with an attention span shorter than a gerbil. The media is a black hole. Todays’ ‘big story’ can be forgotten in the blink of an eye. I don’t exactly blame the media for this. They’re chasing dollars. But what is the excuse for the American public? Or our legislators?

This is most apparent in the current round of Obama bashing from both left and right.

How soon they all forget who and what caused all this. And, the mainstream media lets the bashers get away with it. So does the Democratic Party.

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'What's the Matter With Kansas" movie trailer

I so hope to see this… since I have cousins in Parsons, Kansas who’ve been ranching and farming right there in the same place for nearly a century. They don’t dare talk politics to any of their friends and neighbors anymore. It’s just that bad, turning lifelong friends and family against each other over ideology.

Why 'The Wrecking Crew' is a must read

From ‘heckuva job Brownie’and Alberto Gonzales to why your city council and mine just never seems to work, I’ve been puzzled at the almost intentional ineptitude that seemed to characterize all levels of governance in this country during the Bush II years. It didn’t seem possible that government could become that incompetent in just eight years.The problem lay in trying to figure this out without a historical context, which is next to impossible.

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The 'Wrecking Crew' that nearly took down America

What is maven reading now?

“The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule” by Thomas Frank, and she’s absolutely loving it. The time just flies by on the treadmill, reading this engaging, yet important book. I enjoy books written by journalists, since they’re so readable ( Hemingway was first a reporter) and this one is.

Frank completely, and with dark humor, dissects the so-called conservative revolution so that we can finally see it for the completly cynical sham that it is, and better understand why it’s currently in a death spiral.

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