It goes without saying, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, that things are, in general, hunky-dory. Such, at least, is the baseline which—though unspoken—serves as the foundation of our national news, as it is presented by the preeminent purveyors of that particular product.
Against that static and unchanging background, over time, a succession of events occur. To euphemize a vulgar old expression, “Stuff happens.”
These events need to be observed, assessed, and calmly described by properly trained people if we are to fulfill our roles as decent, responsible human beings living, whether we like it or not, in a representative democracy.
To sum up, here is the official line: there is constant cause for concern, but never a need to panic.
Panic would be bad for business—and the news business is, most decidedly, a business.
As it happens this newspaper is not bound by that vision. What we see is something completely different.
Over recent decades we have seen a succession of alleged improvements…this improvement, that improvement, just one damned improvement after another. Brilliant new improvements have sprung up like poisonous mushrooms after a toxic downpour.
With a few notable exceptions—laser printers and page layout software, primarily—these improvements have been catastrophes. Airline deregulation. Banking deregulation. Tax cuts to stimulate the economy. For-profit healthcare. Privatizing education. Whatever is going on at the U.S. Postal Service.
Now our bright, fresh-faced younger generation has a choice. Which will it be? A lifetime of marginal employment, or a lifetime in hock for your education?
Meanwhile, even older generations can now extend their usefullness. Thanks to one of the two remaining social welfare programs which have yet to be cancelled, pharmaceutical companies have turned Gramps and Granny into profit centers. Start with a little government-funded research, tweak it into some marginally-useful treatment, offer it to an audience aware of its actuarial odds, and send the staggering bill to Uncle Sam.
So now here we are, with sixty percent of the public living from paycheck to paycheck, one accident or illness away from bankruptcy, homelessness, and death in the great outdoors.
Short of an outright return to medieval serfdom, there could be no better way to ensure a compliant workforce—which may have been the plan all along.
To better understand how we got into this fine mess, let’s set the Wayback Machine for 1964—the year the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater for President.
The party’s National Convention was held that year in a vast arena improbably named The Cow Palace. Technically located in Daly City, California, it is generally considered to be in San Francisco—aka Baghdad by the Bay, home base of the arch-fiend Nancy Pelosi. These small apparent contradictions will grow over time, like a small bank deposit burgeoning thanks to the miracle of compound interest.
The most popular book amid that particular audience was undoubtedly John A. Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason. The book “argued that America was losing the cold war because it was being betrayed by its elites, who were pro-communist,” according to Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is, itself, “a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers…through open collaboration,” it might as well be considered a direct outgrowth of the global Marxist/Leninist conspiracy.
Historian Rick Perlstein has painstakingly documented in four brilliant books how today’s so-called conservatism went on to triumph after Goldwater’s crushing defeat. Again, the contradictions….
Goldwater’s campaign got as far as he did thanks to the direct mail fundraising of Richard Viguerie, who learned his craft working for televangelist Billy James Hargis—whose ministry petered out following allegations of sexual impropriety. Viguerie, now 89, was a true pioneer among political operatives. “The Funding Father” charges no fees up front. He’ll just take a hefty percentage and retain his client’s donor databases, for future use as he sees fit.
Sixteen years after Goldwater failed, Ronald Reagan succeeded. Among those deserving credit—or blame—were Viguerie and the late Paul Weyrich, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation. Weyrich’s right-hand man was Laszlo Pasztor, described by Commiepedia as “a former leader of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party in Hungary, which had collaborated with Hitler’s Third Reich. After two years in prison for Arrow Cross shenanigans, Pasztor immigrated to the United States, “where he was instrumental in establishing the ethnic-outreach arm of the Republican National Committee.”
Less well-known but increasingly influential on the right is a curious individual named William S. Lind. A former defense staffer for Ohio Senator Robert Taft, Jr., Lind proudly professes to be a pro-Hohenzollern monarchist. He is credited, if that’s the right term, with inventing the concept of 4th generation war. Its essense is conveyed in a 2001 document commissioned by Weyrich and Lind: “Our strategy will be to bleed this corrupt culture dry…. Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them….”
Perhaps this explains why Confederate flags were being brandished by goons in the Capitol building. Further study will be necessary, of course. And no doubt it will be forthcoming.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, we now understand, will be making available to Tucker Carlson some 14,000 hours of video footage of the January 6th attempt to overthrow the government. Carlson, court transcripts have recently show, gleefully lies to his Fox News viewers if it’s in his economic interest to do so. But don’t you dare call any of this treason.